Personal

11 Year Anniversary

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Our Wedding Cake Topper

Flowers, check. Wedding anniversary gift, check. Baby sitter and fancy dinner reservations, well that is Tuesday but check. Still on some level it has not set in that I am married to such an amazing women for what according to the calendar is now 11 years.

Side note Grogu got onto our mantel and knocked over the glass dome that was protecting the cake topper. M’s head is not sepeat4ed from the dolls body. Sadly this is the only good photo we have of that awsome wedding cake topper that M had made via Etsy.

Goodbye Twitter and More…

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It would be easy for me to say I’m leaving Twitter because of the new owner. The reality is that is just background noise and just nonsensical to me. I have talked about leaving social media for a while. I’ve deleted my Facebook account and recreated it at least once. A few years ago I wrote how I didn’t really post on Twitter. I previously used Twitter to get real time information during a few weather related incidents. And also during a bomb scare in Times Square. That at the time had some value to me and was why partly why I kept it. The other reason i kept Twitter around was I would automatically send blog post links to Twitter when I posted on WordPress. The intention was to radiate to friends when i posted.

In recent years I have not used Twitter for any real time searches for anything. I could do searches like that without an account anyway. I simply get no value out of the service. The shenanigans going with the platform now might have reminded me of that fact.

The final trigger was that when I looked at the analytics on my blog for all the referrals I get to my blog from Twitter I noticed that this year I got a whopping 13. That number throws out any notion that keeping Twitter is helping to direct friends and family to my blog posts. With that revelation on top of generally not getting any joy or value out of the service it made no sense to keep it.

It is not just Twitter that i have closed accounts for. I previously wrote about using Redding for several sub reddits that were useful to me. Compared to Twitter I did find value in Reddit. Then I read you could run or use a front end to Reddit that does not require you to logon to their website. That way i can read (its all i do) sub-reddits without an account anonymously. Having an account was just a way for Reddit to collect data on me. Now i use my own URL to query the groups i want to search Reddit with and the site has no analytics on me.

The same thing I do with Reddit i do a similar thing with YouTube. No Google account tracking for me thank you.

Both the Reddit & YouTube front ends i use are my own instances i have on a VPS. I have a new one for Twitter also however i do not know if i will use it as much as i do with the Reddit and YouTube ones.

Public Service Announcement

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What I have to say is not new. I learned it from my dad. He was a strong believer in clarifying this misconception. It came up recently when the girls, my mom and I were at a chocolate factory tour in Germany on half term Break.

This is very important so i will only go over it once. White Chocolate is not Chocolate.

Enjoy your holidays…

This is How I Work Now a Days

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While we get Grogu accustomed to his new surroundings we have been restricting him to the guest room where my office is at in the hallway on our first floor of the house. That means at least for now I have a little friend hanging out with me pretty much the entire workday.

That means there is a new variable or two in my work schedule. How do I leave to go drop the girls off at school we are generally giving him breakfast. For at least three days this week when I got back to my desk and started working Kroger would climb up my leg and sit on my shoulder or neck. On Tuesday he did this for a good 45 minutes to an hour. I had to use my iPad because I was hunched over and didn’t want to disturb him. Other days he has just hung out upon my shoulder for 10 or 15 minutes.

Next up in Grogu’s schedule is two sit on my lap. Again he varies from a few minutes to over an hour doing that. Onto occasions I have photos of him falling asleep.

Then he will play with a toy or two. From there he will go lie around in his little cat cave we have now in the Guest Room.

Next is lunch for him and I. After that it’s pretty much a repeat of the morning for him.

Having Tea 36 Floors Up

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During our last minute staycation/local holiday in October I needed to find things to do with the girls. With the help of the American Express Concierge I was able to get last minute reservations for Hight Tea at Ting in the Shard. I wanted something nice, yet obviously kid friendly. Everything I tried to find was booked. That is what I get for trying to plan a holiday during half term on the Monday of the break. I really had no option on doing that so I needed some help. I thought to try American Express and they gave us two options. It was Ting, or a place we had gone to already when my mum was visiting. Since Ting was on the list of top kid friendly tea lists I had seen I was eager to try it.

As High Tea’s go it was OK. The girls liked the iced tea starter that they make smoke with dry ice. The sandwiches and scones were good. Things broke down at desert. Ting had a special “pink” themed tea. The girls were intrigued and excited until desert arrived. It was all pink. That meant lots of strawberry and other pinkish jam based deserts. One of the girls liked some of it and the other did not like much. I was not interested in any of it.

The view was spectacular. We got a seat right at the window. Would I do Tea again here? Maybe. Curious on if a regular Tea would be better than the themed one. The view alone give it decent rating. Overall I would say Tea was above average.

We Are Inching Closer to Following Football

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I think the whole family is slowly getting into football. The girls convinced me to stay up a bit beyond their bedtime to watch the beginning of the game. I did however they really did not get to watch much. Their interest was good.

I can see some aspects of the game that keeps things interesting. Even after the girls are in bed now I have the game on the BBC! We will know I am hooked when I purchase team swag. I haven’t, yet…

The Short and Sweet Story of Frosting Delivery

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The big argument in the Weinstein household tonight centred around frosting. There are those that believe that cake is a delivery mechanism for frosting. Then there are those that believe is not.

No matter how good the cake is it is obvious that all cake is the delivery mechanism for frosting. How in 2021 is this still a thing?

The Story Of Me Getting Off My Bum For a While

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Prior to covering and working from home all the time I was semi-active. If I went to the office the amount of walking between the home, the train, the office and back again (along with lunch or whatever else i did) was close to my exercise and move goals on my Apple Watch. I went to Sainsbury’s something on the way home I would go over my goal with room to spare. That’s not to say I was extremely active. I would force myself to get up and walk around at the office when my watch beeped at me that it was time to stand up. Even then I knew I needed to do more.

Then the lockdown happened in March and I worked from home. Things deteriorated from there. I bought a bike in April hoping that I would use it to ride around. I did for a while however not every day. I have loved riding bikes since I was a kid and I still do. What I keep remembering is when I try it is not something for me that I will do everyday. I am glad I got the bike however it is not my daily exercise.

Over the summer and early fall I cannot recall. I decided that I would go for coffee every day since that would force a walk. I was actually pretty good at doing that for most day is however not all. It would give me a lot of the exercise I needed. It just wasn’t enough. I tried to walk more however I had an issue with walking that i wont go into detail on.

I needed something more and I knew it. My sister and one of my good friends said I should buy a Peleton Bike or Treadmill. When I stopped laughing I realised they were serious. My sister and my brother in law swear by the Peloton. M and my experience with exercise equipment is they take up a lot of space. We had one in our apartment in New York and I don’t know how many times are used it but it was probably less than two dozen in the 4. Years we owned it. We were lucky that the local fire department needed one and they came and took away for us and were happy to do it. Fight story they offered to bring the kids out to the fire truck some of them climb around as a thanks. They showed up with a pickup in the firetruck am at the lights wire on the street and my girls were petrified and did. To go anywhere near it. I thought it was cool though.

Besides the space a bike or treadmill takes up I am not for a $2000 or more so piece of equipment and $35 a month in subscriptions for the service. I never went to a gym other than the one in my building because I didn’t want to pay money for a plan that I would not use.

When Apple announced Apple One and Fitness+ I thought it sounds interesting and moved on to other news. When it launched in early December there were many reviews on some of the tech sites I read. So I read one review. That I read a few more. If the service came out a year before I would have totally ignored it. It is launched at probably the perfect time for me. I need something easy. I needed something with a low barrier to entry. I didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of money per month. Fitness+ offered all of that from me. Sidenote nice a low barrier for entry I am talking about me personally. I already an Apple Watch. I already own an Apple TV and iPad. That means I can do the workouts with nothing more than the service. With homepods in the house instead of echoes (i will likely write about that in another post) we switched from spotify to Apple music family plan. With our iCloud plan getting the Apple one bundle with fitness+ was cheaper and i got even more stuff I will write about later.

With my new trial Fitness+ and a yoga mat I borrowed from one of the girls I was doing a work out in the home office or living room. The girls even joined in with me. I have been doing yoga every day of my holiday. I am hoping this is a habit I will adopt. And setting aside 30 minutes a day and I can do the work out literally feet from my desk. The beginner courses are perfect for me. For the first week I did the 10 and 20 minute beginner course. Then I would do a 10 minute wind down that was really a lot of stretching that I needed anyway. I have since moved on to 20 and 30 minute regular yoga classes. with a 5 or 10 minute wind down of stretching. I am now looking at doing a 20 minute and then a 10 minute yoga course in a row to get my 30 minutes of exercise a day. I am finding the 30 minute courses are a little too fast for me. 10 and 20 minute courses seem a bit more geared to beginners or at least slower paced.

M is even getting in on the action. Since i got the Apple One bundle she can use it too. I have been trying to get her to use my Series III Apple Watch I had spare since I upgraded to a series 5. It wasn’t worth selling so I kept it and was just using it at night. She wanted something for when she did bike rides. she never took it then. With me trying this she seemed eager to give it a go. At the moment we were competing in a seven day activity challenge. It is too close to call so I will not trash talk.

I am hoping this is not one of those things that in a few months I will look back and go yeah that was something I did. I am hoping that the habit will take it has such a low barrier to start doing every day.

The Story of Me Buying a Bike

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I originally started writing this in May or June 2020. I have been pretty slow getting things published.

Even before the Corona Virus lockdown I thought about getting out with the girls on bikes. It wasn’t until last Summer 2019 that both of them were able to bike ride. They could not get very far on their scooters even though they both scooted for years. With biking skills I figured by this summer they would be strong enough bikers that we could at least travel locally around with them. Then the virus happened and we got locked in.

When I commuted to work my walking to and from the train, and walking to and from getting lunch was typically just enough to get my entire activity requirement for the day. At least according to my Apple Watch. When I worked from home prior to lockdown i would need to take a walk to the store or something to get most if not all of my activities requirements. Even before lockdown I figured one way to keep active when working from home would be to get a bike and use it as my daily exercise.

One of my friends at work told me about a bike purchasing scheme the company had so you could get tax relief on a bike if you wanted to bike to work. My luck the scheme closed at the beginning of the tax year on April 1. I was looking to buy something in the middle of April. I had to figure out plan b. I did some research online for a decent all around “hybrid” / street bike. I figured out what brands the local shop sold and found what would work for me online. I then went to the local bike shop on the Saturday before Easter. The bike I wanted was exactly what the guy at the bike shop suggested. I wanted a simple Giant Escape. I was half convinced before going to the shop to get the Giant Escape Disc. It is basically the bike I wanted with slightly more expensive Disk Breaks. The guy at the store told me the same reasons I told myself why I wanted to spend the £50 or so more on the better breaks. More bad timing the bike i wanted in my size was not available in the store. If I had stopped by the day before I would’ve been able to buy it since he had one in stock that he had already sold. Funny enough I did go to the store on Good Friday however it looks like they were closed. I figured since it was Good Friday they were. It turns out he had the shutters down but was open. I was lucky in the sense that he could still order the model and size I wanted online and have it shipped. Apparently several other models and sizes were no longer available since they were having trouble getting shipments from Taiwan.

The bike was supposed to arrive a week later however it took about two before it showed up. It was ready on Friday afternoon so I biked it home to give it a quick test drive. I hadn’t owned a bike in years. The Trek I had when I lived in Manhattan and Long Island city was long stolen from the bike rack in the long-island city apartment.

What could be considered even more bad luck was in mid-May due to the coronavirus lockdown my company announced they were re-opening up the cycle to work purchasing scheme that I originally could not use. Apparently due to the lockdown and concerns about commuting when the lockdown lifted there was lots of inquiries about it. Even though I bought something already I am still tempted to purchase a Bromley folding bike the of the scheme. With a folding bike I could go places with it and then fold it up and take it inside with me where as the bike I have i cannot. The bike I have I would never really lock it up and leave it anywhere. In all honesty I am not sure if I would actually use the folding bike the way i describe. The idea of it does sound very promising though. The other advantage to the folding bike is I could keep it in my home office versus having to keep the regular bike in the shed in the back garden. It’s a minor nuisance have to get it to get through the house and outside. The main reason I want a folding bike is I just want it. I know myself well enough to know that all the other reasons are pretty much rationalizing that. I’m trying to see how much I use what I have before I decide to get something better.

I knew I missed biking. I didn’t realize how much until I actually had one was able to go exploring the neighborhood. That though is maybe another story.