Quite possibly the best two words you can put together. We went on a family holiday to LegoLand Denmark for the boys birthday in 2024. Such a great place and needless to say everyone got the Lego bug when we got home, but it was me who really wanted the lego trains. Unsurprisingly, there are whole communities dedicated to it, and I was soon learning about the various vintages and designs of lego trains over the years.
This one was circa February 2019. I do like the idea and style of split keyboards, this wasn’t my first split but maybe my first built split. I enjoyed building it, but with a split board that was also ortholinear, and thumbs keys, I didn’t really enjoy using it. Unless I’m using it all the time (which I wasn’t as I spent 8 hours a day at work on a regular keyboard) then I’d never get used to it.
I don’t have lots of clothes, but many of them are old and bought when money was tighter. As such I think they’re a little bit tired and maybe could look a little smarter. I like the idea of looking good, in a male fashion sense, but I don’t really have any interest in going out and picking clothes and making a style. I’d rather someone go buy me a new wardrobe with some nice interchangable outfits - timeless classics that look nice but I can wear for the next 10 years and not be concerned.
I guess no-one is going to do that except me.
If I had a MacBook would I write in our family DayOne journal more?
I have some draft posts from about three blogging platforms ago. Not sure when I’ll ever finish them, they’re quite long posts, and I still feel like I have lots more to put into them. Maybe I break it up into smaller ones? I don’t know. One of them is about all the mechanical keyboards I’ve owned or built over the years (haven’t actually made one in about 3 years now). This is probably prime for one post per keyboard and a new category, then I can just chip away at it when I come across pictures or remember an old one.
Watches. Smart watches in particular. I really like my Garmin Epix when going on hikes for the maps and tracking my route. But I’d like to wear a normal watch most of the time, but feel bad about not wearing my Garmin.
For a while I liked the sleep tracking stuff but tbh I don’t need it and for me it’s as simple as “go to bed at 10 - feel fine”; “go to bed late - feel bad”. I do track myself cycling to work but I’m not sure why. My cycle to work is a commute, it’s boring but nice to do some exercise before I get into the office. I think I keep tracking it so I can get badges and points on Garmin connect. š
I should just wear it for my hikes and then enjoy other watches. No one cares about my Connect level, so why should I.
Plus now I won’t feel bad about buying a new watch š
Not sure about this featured post/intro bit at the top of the page. Also seems you can get micro.blog in a twist if you make posts and edit their dates. My admin page shows one post but the web shows two. Anyway, a lot of time faffing with a tiny item.
Swapped around DNS, so now micro.blog is my main blog on fondoftea.com. The tiddlywiki I was using is now on wiki.alexjj.com and the previous tiddlywiki (that wasn’t really updated) is idling on github somewhere. Plan is to use this site for all content, and try and make use of categories better.
Quite like this theme, just going to play with some of the settings to see what I like, and maybe make a few pages. Debating if I add in older posts or just leave it. Would like to import my read book list so I can use the nice icons from the shelves.
I’m on the micro.one subscription, which mostly means I can’t edit the theme as much as a regular subscriber. So far I think that’s okay, as luckily there are a nice selection of quality themes and I still get to do custom CSS.
I thought about importing all my read books into the book shelves, so I get a nice grid of book covers for the ones I’ve read. But it’s a lot of work and I quite like my existing book list by year that I’ve been maintaining since 2015.
Another SOTA activation, this time North of Inverness on the two Wyvis summits
I’ve still got about 9 months left on our EV hire, but today I started having a look at what cars are out there. The Renault 5 looks nice! š
Had a great time last week on a summits on the air (SOTA) activation with a good friend. We did Ben Wyvis and Little Wyvis - a Scottish Munro and Corbett respectively. š»
I’ve recently started geocaching. This is certainly not a new thing, the site is celebrating its 25th year! I do remember looking at it years ago but I think at the time I would’ve needed to buy a GPS device. Although that doesn’t seem quite right as my phone would’ve had GPS. Anyway, I didn’t sign up and I’ve only been doing it a week or so. It’s fun and I’ve found some places locally I never knew of.
Last night I finished the final book in the series…at about 2am! It’s a fantasy series set in a medieval style world with magic and dragons written by Robin Hobb (a pen name of Margaret Ogden). It consists of 16 books in five trilogies (one is a trilogy in four parts (tetralogy ?)), and has in the region of 4 million words. It’s like Game of Thrones, except it’s not brutal and miserable!
Introduction Scotland’s government has decided that from next year (from a tax perspective) they’ll be adding another tax band to Scotland. A 45 per cent income tax band for earnings between Ā£75,000 and Ā£125,140. Plus fiddling with the ranges and percentages of the other bands. So from the 6th April 2024 these will be the rates: Bands Band name Rate Ā£12,571 - Ā£14,876 Starter 19% Ā£14,877 - Ā£26,561 Basic 20% Ā£26,562 - Ā£43,662 Intermediate 21% Ā£43,663 - Ā£74,999 Higher 42% Ā£75,000 - Ā£125,140 Advanced 45% Above Ā£125,140 Top 48% The current ones are:
Here we are, the evening of the last day of the year (at least when I started writing this, took me a few more days to finish!) and I wonder what did happen? I also wonder what will come next year? This time last year I did make a list in dynalist of what I wanted to do in 2023, and I thought I should probably look back on it before I (blindly) make 2024’s list.
There’s a website, onetypedpage.com, which is just that. Each day people submit a photo of their typed page and it gets hosted on this blog. I’ve known about it for a long time but only recently started going back to it. There appears to be some comments about moderation and conflict, but as far as I ever saw it was a quiet enjoyable site to read through with a cup of tea.
Seen a few posts recently with people listing their subs. Thought I’d join in. I really don’t like subscriptions, and would much rather pay once and be done with it. Once you join and commit, they have you, it can be hard to leave. The upside is that if you don’t like it, it’s minimal expense to stop. Photoshop used to be hundreds of pounds but now it’s just ten. Of course in those days, 30 day demos or similar were common.
I have to admit my previous one has become overwhelmed with things that there is no longer anywhere to write. It is now home to radio books and magazines, a few other books I keep meaning to read, a Hobonichi I’ve yet to write in, and more. I keep meaning to tidy it up. We recently inherited a nice bureau from my wife’s grandparents, and her mum kindly brought it up to our house.
I’ve decided to setup a dedicated blog for amateur radio. You can find it at gm5alx.uk. Hoping to actually write more on it…š
Several years ago, when we were living in California, I started thinking about getting my amateur radio licence. I don’t remember why I started on this, but it seemed like something I’d enjoy and be interested in. I didn’t end up doing anything, as you had to sit exams at test centres and it wasn’t convenient. I soon forgot about it and did nothing more. Last summer, the same thoughts occurred to me again, not sure why, but I started looking into radio.
Book cases, book shelves, whatever you call them, I am drawn towards them. It is always interesting to see what people put on theirs. Both the books and also the trinkets or sundries. It’s such a big collection of stories, both contained within the book but of the person that owns them. What is the journey that this book has come along to get to this shelf? What did the reader think when they got the book, when (if) they read it?
I’ve been meaning to write this up for the last 14 months! I also took a lot more photos for this post but I don’t seem to be able to find any…š¤· A while back, in 2021, I was making a wiki note on large format cameras, specifically 4x5 cameras. Jack noticed this and asked me if I would be interested in his B&J Press camera. Very generous of him! Postage to the UK wasn’t the cheapest, but it was still far cheaper than trying to find anything here.
Annual recaps seem to be the trend in social media and apps. It’s quite interesting actually. Reddit did one, which told me the scary number of hours I’ve spent on the app. Including spending 25 hours on /r/leica š¤« Steam now do one and shows me how much time I spend on games. I knew I didn’t play that much but I was surprised by how little I did actually play!