kcowgill

[kcowgill]

Their “going away” picture :(

Good news/bad news: the family is taking a trip to Italy! We decided to take advantage of our being away AND the dogs needing to be taken care of to get them all through a “board and train” program, similar to what Apollo did as “puppy day camp” a year ago.

But the minimum program is two weeks and we needed to drop them off on a day our favorite trainer is there, which was today. It could’ve been a little later in the week but I wasn’t certain of our travel dates ~6 months ago when I made the reservations.

Anyhow they’ve been gone only a couple of hours and our house is so. empty. without them.

[kcowgill]

I just fired someone from my team. HR joined the call (because of course it was over zoom), later told me I “did great”.

Ugh. This is not a skill I want to cultivate.

[kcowgill]

Little late on the weekly recap, oops!

So over the weekend we were supposed to go to a fundraising event for my daughter’s school. We bought tickets, so technically we still contributed. The trouble was, neither of us really wanted to go ESPECIALLY after finding out the dress code was semi-formal. Sure, the last time we went that’s how we dressed even though the observed dress code (since none existed) was apparently pretty casual.

So instead we went to a nearby Korean/Japanese barbecue where we got to grill the meats at our table. We splurged a bit on our dinner making sure we got some A5 Wagyu pictured above. Before we left though, we thought it was super cute how Apollo was laying a paw in Riley in their “bunk beds”.

As hinted at before, my progress running/exercise wise came to a grinding halt. Why? No good darn reason. But at least my diet’s keeping my trending weight going in the right direction.

I tell you what though, I’m happy to be looking at this graph because even if I temporarily feel bad about a slight increase, I can still see the trend and by golly that’s good enough for me!

[kcowgill]

I’m convinced there’s no better way to derail your week than to post about your success.

Please enjoy this picture of Apollo while I get this thing back on the tracks.

[kcowgill]

The tens digit is the same today, but as anticipated the ones digit has increased.

This is OK!

I just need to force myself to get my run in today - I didn’t do it yesterday because I had zero motivation to do ANYTHING - I even phoned it in at work. Dinner? Door dash.

The one accomplishment? I downloaded a fitness app I signed up for over spring break and it had me do a fitness test: how long can I hold a plank, and how many pushups can I do?

Well OK I did something else; I made a new version of the sheath. I also learned a tiny bit of leather tooling. Behold my handiwork:

I originally wanted something fancier on it, but couldn’t find anything that would be within my novice capabilities, so I just hit it with a stamp.

[kcowgill]

Weekly recap!

So I ran 3x last week. A few times fewer than I had targeted (which was: every day) but since I’m kind of pushing the mileage aggressively (for where I am in regards to running currently) I think I’m OK with some rest days. FOR NOW.

My weight continues to drop. Today’s reading might be a bit light but I’ll take it. I’m also taking it because it takes me under one of those x0 ranges, i.e. the middle number (the tens) has decreased to the next range.

NSV: I’m about to run out of belt holes on the belt I bought over Thanksgiving. I hadn’t run out of larger holes on my old belt, it was just getting old. I was pretty dismayed at the measurement reading on the new one (holy crap is my waist really that measurement? (spoiler alert: it wasn’t (at least I don’t think) - but belts made of thicker material/leather tend to get their sizes a bit funny)). Anyhow I’ve decided I want to learn enough leathercrafting to make my next belt before I run out of holes on my current belt. To that end, here’s my first completed project; a sheath for my leathercraft knife:

Yes, I pounded the rivet too much. Yes, the strap doesn’t actually block the knife from coming out of the sheath; I should’ve angled it toward the center. And also yes, it’s a bit small and the stitching is bunched up at the bottom. And there are some other steps I’d change the order on which I completed them. I also need to figure out how I’m going to finish the leather.

I might do a re-do. I bought a few pounds of scrap to teach myself and there’s plenty left over.

Non-fitness-related victory: I have a small number of C-level execs at my company think of me when they encounter problems that are admittedly in the domain of the team I lead, but we’re not a small company and that level of recognition feels nice. I had one reach out to me late last week and it made me feel good so I made a mental note to post that.

[kcowgill]

Apollo (top) and Riley (bottom) on their “bunk beds” watching TV together.

[kcowgill]

Last week’s recap!

I went into the office Monday and Wednesday. It seems like the train is only on time if I’m running late and have to literally run to catch it. When I arrive with plenty of time to saunter up onto the train platform, the train is guaranteed to be at least 8 minutes late. I’m CERTAIN my arrival time is the causative factor.

Had something at work blow up a couple mornings in a row. It’s a product we’re actively replacing, so there were lots of jokes about me lighting the thing on fire to send it on its way out the door.

Got out of my workout routine - wasn’t feeling great Monday, forgot my gym clothes bag on Wednesday. I decided a little later in the week to start “greasing the groove”: every once in a while, walk past the workout room and do a chin-up, some squats, some pushups. So once (yeah, yeah) on Thursday, 2-3 times on Friday (at which point I also threw in some crunches and 55lb kettlebell swings.

I finally finished a home server cluster I started a few weeks ago - I have 6 OrangePi boards stacked in some cases I 3d printed and started installing software. Lots of fun wasting time over the weekend forcing myself to learn.

Got called on Saturday for something else blowing up. It seems someone on another team made some changes the night before, and my team wasn’t on the list of folks to ensure their stuff is back up and running afterwards.

Capped off the weekend by making Char Siu. I was originally going to make Char Siu Bao (gluten free) but ran out of time. The pork I did make was pretty good, though starting with pork shoulder was a miss - not as much fat rendered down during cooking as I’d hope so it didn’t have a great texture.

Finally, the first image. I’m continuing to lose weight slowly (there’s only a few pounds between the highest and lowest weigh-ins). Obviously it’s mostly diet since I can’t get my rear in gear with regards to exercise. But today marks the start of a brand new week!

[kcowgill]

My son sent me a pic he got of Boomer and Riley in the tub, Apollo just hanging out before getting in his own tub.

Oh and then this last one was just last night. This is a pretty regular occurrence, he just sprawls out limbs going every which way. And sometimes has his tongue blepping out.

[kcowgill]

lol

Hocrap, switching meds knocked me on my tuchus. I had to call off of work a few days. And was grouchy and irritable for a few days after that.

And THEN...

So the kids’ spring break was this past week. My wife’s been itching to get out. Since my son’s a freshman in high school she realized we’ll only have a few more opportunities for taking little vacations. So off we went!

We took a mini road trip to Louisville, Kentucky. Why? Why not! It was a few hours drive, and we’ve gone there before but only briefly, so we wanted to enjoy it a bit more. With our dogs.

We drove down on Wednesday. Packed light - only two large dog crates and barely enough clothing to last (AirBnB had laundry, so...) Everything fit on top of my car in my rooftop “car bag” (IDK what else to call it). Big dogs in the rear cargo area with a couple of cushy beds, Riley in the backseat with the kids.

Get down there, unpack, order some food for pickup, but it was dark and where we were staying had some severe weather damage - street lights out, stoplights completely nonfunctional, etc. So getting to pick up the food in the dark was not fun.

Next day we hit up the Louisville Slugger museum for the factory tour, and went to a place for lunch called Mussels and Burgers. I went in thinking I’d get a burger, but wound up with a plate of mussels. The whole rest of the day I could only smell the distinctive smell of the baseball bat factory (like burned wood? Unsure) and could only hear Men at Work’s “Down Under”* song running through my head.

The next day we realized Louisville is only a couple hours from Cincinnati, so why not pop by and visit my dad and stepmom? So we did! With the dogs.

We found a dog park with SO MUCH ROOM TO RUN. And they did! With a new friend “Daisy”, a tiny little 11 month old french pug? The bad news? Dog park was MUDDY. So we tried to figure out how to clean up three muddy dogs on Good Friday. Finally found a tractor supply store with DIY dog wash stations, so off we went! Riley went straight up into the tub, Apollo wanted nothing to do with it. Boomer eventually got into the tub with Riley, and somehow my wife wrangled Apollo into the other tub. I washed Riley who was easy - short hair, less mud, smaller surface area, more compliant. My wife washed Apollo, and started drying him before I figured out how to turn on the hose, but as she was drying him realized his butt was still muddy. Anyhow we both finally finished, got the dogs mostly dried, paid, and went to my dad’s place to hangout in their apartment building lobby which (as we’d already determined) the dogs could also hang out in. And ordered pizza for takeout.

Few hours back to Louisville in time to turn in for the night, wake up SUPER early to drive back to Chicago to get my son to his friends noon birthday party (oy!) and I slept the rest of the day because I hardly slept at all the night before.

And all I have to show for all of this are these few lousy pictures.

My wife & kids got more pictures so as soon as I can grab those I’ll post them here for y’all.

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* Why? Because I also got mussels when we went to Brussels a few years back, and as we all know Brussels and mussels is a double whammy for this lyric:

Buying bread from a man in Brussels He was six-foot-four and full of muscle

[kcowgill]

Inspired by a post from @fatmaninalittlesuit​ a week or so ago, I set out to search for and find an electronic planning/tracking system. I think I found one.

It’s called “Trello” and is available on the web as well as an iPhone app, so score!

It’s a super basic (but expandable) system, with columns set up for “To do”, “In progress”, and “Done”, and you move your cards (tasks) from column to column*. So those are the default columns. You can add your own! So I did. I’ve got “Backlog”, “This week”, “In progress”, “Waiting on”, and “Done”. I’m treating “This week” as an “on deck” column, but I even have that separated into “Today”, “Tomorrow”, and “This week”.

And it’s even more expandable! You can add dependencies/blockers. So for example, suppose I have a card that says “install violin pickup”. I obviously can’t do that until I buy (and receive!) a violin pickup. It just so happens I also want to install a pickup in my mandolin, so I found a two-pack of pickups that I can install. The dependency graph looks like this:

(Trailing after installing the violin pickup is to re-string it. No sense in doing that before I install the pickup!)

And it’s even more expandable! I setup a few cards to be “habit trackers”. For each day I accomplish something that’s a habit I want to track, I can check off the date on a calendar! So I’ve got trackers for: movement, playing music, not drinking, and keeping to a good sleep hygiene practice. And of course, a habit tracker for checking in on my trello “project”. That’s been the easiest one by far to keep going :)

You can see I started on the 19th.

So anyhow. Just thought I’d share that I’m trying to stay on track, and how I’m going about it.

[kcowgill]

“I promise I’ll be good, honest! I swear!”

Lol.

So I got sidetracked, believe it or not. I had a 1x1 with one of my newer employees and somehow the subject came up of Raspberry Pi computers, and I mentioned I had wanted to build a multi-pi cluster at some point and I noticed availability started picking up again, and he happened to mention he’s had a friend who 3d printed their own Pi cases, and, and ...

So I lost a few days searching for, giving up on, then learning how to CAD up my own 3d drawing to then print. Then buying a Pi, putting it together, makig sure it worked, flash an SD card boot it up, only to find that I couldn’t supply enough power via the intended method and oh crap now I have to buy a different model and what on earth am I going to do with this one?

Ah well.

To make up for it, please enjoy this picture. 

This was last weekend (9 days ago). Boomer's actual littermate brother (who lives with another family a few streets away) came for a visit with his "sister from another mister" in the glory that is my backyard mud pit. (thanks, dogs!) So from left to right, Apollo, Boomer (laying in mud), Riley (wisely staying OUT of the mud), Nellie (Olliver's sister), and Olliver (Boomer's brother). Related: this thing works GREAT!

[kcowgill]

Weekly recap (even though the week isn’t over (yet!)):

Weighed myself 3 times. Good trend continues. I won’t be upset if there appears to be backward progress tomorrow, that tends to happen on the weekends and it’s OK.

I ran once (twice if you count Sunday, but I don’t) - but the weekend isn’t over yet!

I lifted once. And it was squats, so killed my legs. In a good way! And I even ran the day after. Gently :D

My sleep was awful. My meds are changing around a bit and that’s where I’m putting the blame. I’m going to adjust my melatonin “plan” to try to accommodate. Minor NSV, I spelled “accommodate” correctly on the first try just then. For some reason spellcheck always catches me on that one.

What else?

Wednesday there was an issue with one of my team’s services at 7:30am. My guy who was “on call” acknowledged the issue in 5 minutes, and by 9 minutes after was working with another team who could help with an issue. It’s important to note that our published “support hours” are from 8am-6pm central time.

A couple hours later my boss suggests via DM that the issue “fell through the cracks”. I found myself not agreeing with him. It turned into a heated (for me) DM conversation about boundaries and expectations. I escalated our conversation to the other team leads that report to him. Diplomatically, to be sure.

End result: we did everything not only well but a bit above and beyond. My boss was unfairly applying the standards to which he might hold himself, to my team. His expectations needed adjusting, and I believe he has.

What’s scheduled for today and next week?

I’d like to get in a few more runs. With some regularity! Starting today!

I’d like to lift at least a couple times. Next up are deadlifts and TBH I’m not looking forward to them :D

I got a fancy interval timer clock. I want to do at least one non-running interval cardio session at some point. But what? Choices are: punching bag, kettlebells... well maybe that’s about it.

[kcowgill]

Hello!

I promise I’ll try to check in more regularly. My life is in a crazy spiral. Mostly good! But also preventing me from spending enough time on ME.

So I need to stop that.

I’ve had some fits and starts of getting back into exercising.

I’ve for sure been cleaning up my eating. And drinking.

And even with a “bad” couple of weeks, I didn’t lose too much ground and am overall on a good trend.

So I’m checking in here, hoping to add some accountability.

So!

Wish me luck! Or don’t! But for sure hassle me if it’s been too long between posts ;)

[kcowgill]

We’ve been trying to get out more as a family on the weekends. 2 weeks ago, bowling. Last weekend, “Play and Spin”, arcade + laser tag + go carts + rock climbing + VR gaming. We did some video games and a few spins around the go cart track. Here’s my kids getting ready for go carts by playing this racing game where the whole seat moves.

[kcowgill]

Play tested!

So I put a shim in the neck pocket to adjust the neck angle and also put the back spring into “arrow” formation to get a little more tension to balance out the 7 strings. I had to adjust a bunch of things to accommodate, went through a light setup, and played it for a bit.

It’s pretty good! Only a few things on the list for when I’m ready to change the strings, because honestly for right now it’s good enough and I just want to enjoy it. So this all that I’d do next time I pull it apart, aside from buying another set of strings:

Tighten springs/get 4 new springs

Re-balance bridge

Re-route (trim?) wiring for better pick-guard fit

Re-seat pick-guard

Use fret erasers

Reduce neck relief

Check fret level 

~2th-7th fret, B A E D G B E strings buzz

~10th-12th fret, B E A string buzz

SLIGHTLY widen neck pocket, treble side.

Set pickup height

Reduce neck shim, too steep

Likely have to lower bridge

Throw some poly on the headstock

Reshape headstock

[kcowgill]

I finished putting together my first kit guitar. It’s the one in front. It’s not actually an Ibanez, technically it’s a counterfeit (but if you know anything about guitars it’s pretty clear it’s “fake”). That’s not why I put the sticker on the headstock, to fool people. Just to make myself feel better about it.

I still need to tweak a few things. The neck’s at the wrong angle. It was right when I first assembled it pre-sanding and pre-finishing, so I must have sanded off too much of something somewhere, or not enough from elsewhere.

As is, it’s playable, but that’s not good enough. So I took it apart and am going to remove more material, or maybe just add a shim.

I was pleasantly surprised when I soldered up the remaining connections (feed a ground wire from the front cavity to the back to ground the tremolo, and feeding the wires through the hole for the output jack, and wiring that up) that I managed to wire everything correctly!

I’m not going to judge the sound yet (but first indications are it’s good enough) or the final playability (I have to get those strings closer to the neck) or even how well it stays in tune (as I’ve yet to stretch the strings and lock down the nut), but I’m pretty happy with it, despite all the disappointment through a lot of the process. Let’s just say I learned some lessons and some things to avoid in the future.

#guitarblr #guitar kit