Educator, Thinker, Consultant
This week was minimalism. I took a couple of pictures early in the week when we got some snow. I’m glad I did as the best picture that I got this week was one of those.
I did take some other pictures, a couple of them I like, but they didn’t meet the criteria as well. The other ones that I took were on a very overcast day. I like the way that they turned out, they just didn’t meet the challenge for this week.
Whew! I’m behind again. A busy couple of weeks.
School was canceled due to snow, ice, and trees being down. We kept our power but had a good bit of ice. I ran the snowblower on Saturday to get everything cleared out. However, the snow turned to ice/rain/snow/sleet mix. Sunday morning I felt more like I was running a Zamboni than a snowblower. Fortunately, my neighbor plowed the end of the driveway for me.
The roads were good. Our town and the neighboring ones were good at staying on top of plowing the roads. Thus, grocery shopping was completed.
I used the day of working from home to get some work done.
I also spent a little bit of time working on programming the Pimaroni Keybow 2024. It’s a neat little device, but I don’t have tons of Python experience, so it’s proving, well, frustrating. I can get the basic programming to work, i.e. the keys enter numbers or letters and light up when depressed. However, I’m struggling with advanced coding to get a key to open a webpage. I don’t seem to be the only one as I’ve seen several posts asking the same question but no one posts the actual answer. Occasionally, they will say, ah, I got it. However, they don’t post the actual “it”.
So, I’ll keep on working on this as I get time. If you know CircuitPY and would like to shoot me some code on assigning a key to a website, gosh, I’d be appreciative.
I’ve completed our taxes, which seems like it is harder than it should be. I’m no billionaire, so I pay taxes. Plus, I get to file in multiple states.
Sometimes in my job, I have to tell people “no”. Sometimes, I have to tell people that they can’t use a “thing” that they like to use. I heard another Tech Director express this as sometimes my job is to “make people sad”. I laughed. That’s a great way of expressing this. It was also nice to hear that others have to do this as well.
This was part of the Cyber Storm event that I took part in. Cyber Storm is a preparation exercise to help schools prepare for cyber intrusions, network issues, cyber incidents, and more. The training was great. It was nice to know that others are dealing with some of the same issues.
I also shared a note about Otter.AI. Otter AI is a Zoom plug-in that records everything that is said and provides a transcript. It is especially popular for some Special Needs parents. Their pitch is that you never need to take notes. Think about this though. They are recording everything that is said during a meeting for a special needs situation. Think about the potentially private, personal information shared during those meetings.
Not my favorite job, but once again this weekend I caulked. The thing is that the caulk removal and cleaning is a ton of work. The actual caulking is pretty quick. Nice clean caulk is now in place though.
I scrolled through the 52Frames Photo Challenge. I tried to “like” a variety of photos (that I actually liked). My idea was to give some positive feedback. I know that I enjoy getting a notification that someone liked one of my photos, so I thought that I’d share that love a little bit.
I’ve continued to submit pictures to 52Frames. I’m enjoying the process and the satisfaction of meeting the submission guidelines. I’m generally posting those separately, so I won’t repeat them here.
I did read Oh William! by Elizabeth Stroud. I enjoyed it very much. I document my books read under the Hobbies tab. I probably should redo that as it is currently an HTML table.
This week’s Photo Challenge is Symmetrical Composition. It was a nice exercise to look for symmetry around me. Thus, I enjoyed this challenge. I took a few “backup” pictures with my phone during the week.
However, I visited the park across from the State House (capital building of Maine). I went there as I noticed the nice symmetry of the trees lining the path.
What struck me was the benches. I get a sense of longing, of waiting from the benches.
My second choice was a similar picture of a couple walking. This one ALMOST did it for me.
I think that if the dog wasn’t in the picture blocking the bench, it may have been the choice. I like the balance of the couple walking, both with black coats and jeans. Interestingly to me, the focus of the picture is completely different.
Did I make the correct choice?
I’ve previously posted about a volunteer form that I created. Apparently, there was an issue with the form, so I had to take a look.
Basically, there is a form that collects volunteers and the days that they will be volunteering. This all goes into a spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet is set up to allow for a printable sheet by each day. The day is picked in a cell that uses Data Validation. Previously, I had the data validation pulling from a range of dates. However, this meant that the dates weren’t in any real order. So, I thought about it and added a column to pull all of the dates from the range into a single column. This was done via the UNIQUE and FLATTEN commands. Thus,
=UNIQUE(FLATTEN(VDates))
was entered. This is great as it identifies UNIQUE dates, thus no duplicates, and FLATTENS the various cells into one column. (The range of cells has been named “VDates” via the Data | Named ranges menu selection. Thus M2:W is named “VDates”).
This is great, except that the dates are not SORTed. So, in the next column, I simply created a formula to sort them (
=SORT(Y2:Y,1,FALSE)).
The formula reaches into the previous column (Y), is only going to create 1 column, and FALSE is for is_ascending – i.e. this will be in reverse chronological order).
Now, the Date cell uses Data Validation that pulls from that one column. Everything is fixed and running fine.
Click to add tags…
We enjoyed the wonderful Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit live in concert this week. He is always good. If you get a chance, go see him.
The opener wasn’t our favorite. The concert did start on time, though the wait between the opener finishing and Jason Isbell starting was a little longer than I thought.
We ended up at CBG for dinner before the concert. It’s a nice little “dive bar”. I had a smash burger that was very satisfying.
Rm and I watched the rebooted Sam Spade. We enjoyed most of the show except for the ending. The show seemed to be more reflective of old-time shows. Clive Owen is wonderful. The whole show is beautifully filmed.
Ah, but the ending. Lots can be forgiven in a show. But the ending of this one was inexcusable.
Sometimes the very best dinners are at home. We had some wonderful steaks, with roasted potatoes, and carrots.
Plus, we hadn’t had martini’s in a while, so….
Perfect pairing.
I have kept my 52Frames streak alive. This week was on intentional camera movement (ICM). Although this isn’t my usual photography jam, I did enjoy the process and learning with this one. I want to experiment a little bit more in the future.
Also had the opportunity to help my daughter switch out a faucet. Having the right tools can be crucial. Sometimes, it is helpful if something is installed badly. In this case, the sink wasn’t actually attached to anything (other than pipes), so we were able to flip it over and get everything accomplished.
I finished reading The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow. The book is very much in line with Cory’s thoughts and focus of late. This is the second book in a series on Martin Hench, Forensic Accountant. It has a different style and feel than the first Martin Hench book (Red Team Blues). I enjoyed both books.
I also wrote up a quick post about Blogrolls. I based this off of a post by Ben Werd. As a follow-up, I heard from the outstanding Alan Levine.
The wonderful Ben Werd has a nice write-up (*first seen on a Mastodon post*) on why he doesn’t have a blogroll. He makes some great points.
Everyone should decide on an individual basis what is right for their particular wants/needs/thoughts etc. Ben does have a really neat Sources Page that serves the same purpose as a Blog Roll for him. I agree that the Sources Page is pretty neat, but it is different to me.
Selfishly, I wish that Ben would have a blogroll. I would love to see who highlights. However, this is really Ben’s choice, not mine. I wouldn’t expect him to mark everyone.
I do like blogrolls. They are an additional way to discover neat people and blogs. Most of my discovery right now is through Mastodon. With the movement back to self-hosted content, blogrolls could be valuable.
I don’t have a blogroll. Maybe I should create one. I’ll be thinking on it. In the meantime, go read the write up.
Troy Patterson
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