Updated

Now

Posts pending:

Working through improvements to the site functionality and my custom theme. I added reading time estimates and an archive list earlier in the year. I sent a pull request with the feature to the readingtime plugin to show reading time estimates as a range (e.g., "5–7 minutes"). I added comments using Isso and the Grav JSComments plugin—but traffic has been very light so far— and an archive for previous versions of this now page, which is available in the sidebar.

Personal

Summer is up. The days are longer and the weather warmer. I've been seeing more movies in the theater, including a showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey that I'm extremely glad to have had the opportunity to see on the big screen. I got my second shot of vaccine and am ready to get back to hosting parties. The local trails are pretty much back to normal after the winter apocalypse.

Georgetown Lake

I started vision therapy earlier in the year for refractive amblyopia. My hope is to improve some chronic issues I've had like depth perception and object tracking inconsistency. I posted a second update on progress in March. I recently had my initially follow-up exam with the doctor and I am apparently right on the expected track for improvement. Notable changes are in eye vergence and right-eye suppression.

I went carnivore in October 2018 as an intervention for chronic health issues. So far, for me, it's the best nutrition approach I've yet tried. It was a logical next step after restricted AIP wasn't as successful for me anymore. My staples are grass-fed beef products and pasture-raised eggs. I've been experimenting a bit with raw honey again, which has largely gone OK.

Reading

Started Ward, the sequel to Worm, which is somehow longer than the first book. Having a very hard time getting into this one. It's not bad, but it's different enough from the first that it's taking a lot of energy to get into it.

I'm reading The Tragedy of American Compassion, which argues that government-sponsored welfare programs have toxic incentives, neglect individual needs, and crowd out private charity that would be more effective in helping improve life for the poor. It develops its thesis through a historical overview of charity and giving in the US.

I've been working my way through The Daily Stoic for the past year. I have not kept a regularly page-a-day schedule very well, and the content itself is pretty shallow, but it's been helpful as a motivational philosophical text.

Recently completed

Work

I work remotely in the contact center of a major national boating retailer as the Manager, CX and Workforce Analytics. My work primarily involves reporting automation (mostly Python) and data wrangling, forecasting contact demand, workforce planning, managing the Customer Care Operations team, and IT administration. I'm automating everything I can along the way.

I recently took on a significant portion of work from our departing Workforce Analyst: a mess of Excel spaghetti, EoLed ODBC connections, MS Access programs, undocumented Python scripts, and Alteryx flows. The hand-off was frustrating and so is the work. I'm hoping to eliminate, streamline, and automate as much of it as I can until they can rehire the role.