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I’ve finally found a social reader that’s reasonably accessible and which I like, so now I’m in the midst of transferring all my RSS feeds over to Aperture in earnest. Organizing them is proving a bit of a challenge, but this is also an opportunity to clean things up a bit and decide what I want to continue reading and what I’m happy to discard. For me, RSS as opposed to social media is a much more digestable approach, or at least an approach that assists me in stopping to think about and ponder the things I read, when they require thinking and pondering. Organizing feeds into categories is a great way, for me, to put things like news or politics or whatever into a separate place where I can visit when I want to and then jump out again when it starts to feel like too many people are peeing in the pool.

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I got an incredibly late start this morning, which is no surprise because I didn’t fall asleep until close th 3AM. I blew through the fourth Virgil Flowers book last night, and holy hell that was some twisted shit. I won’t give the book away for anyone who wants to read the series, but let’s just say I was very, very satisfied when all the villains were gotten rid of or otherwise taken care of. I spent the better part of Saturday sitting on a deck drinking, listening to music, and enjoying the company of friends. I’ve spent the rest of the intervening time between then and today working and reading Virgil Flowers books. At this rate I’ll be done with the series by the beginning of May, if it takes that long. After finishing what’s there I’ll start the Prey Series by the same author I think, because I’ll need to wait until the next book in the Foowers series comes out, and that won’t be until October. The Hockey play-offs start tonight, and my teams are (I think) all playing, so I’ll spend the evening listening to the games. I’ve taken a break from Apple Watch challenges for the moment. I was really, really tired after the last round, so I’ve taken the last week off, and will get things rolling again with regard to exercising starting on Sunday I think.

921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801

57 °F Partly Cloudy

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The president of the United States manages to accuse American Jews of being foreigners and of dual loyalty at the same time. This brings to mind a certain verse:

And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and separate among the peoples throughout all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws differ from [those of] every people, and they do not keep the king’s laws; it is [therefore] of no use for the king to let them be. (Esther 3:8).

Unfortunately, we know where this all too often ends. But don’t worry Mr. President, when the bigotry is inevitably stirred up, (as it always is after you drag out anti-semitic tropes when they suit your agenda), you’ll have plenty of supporters who will be all too willing to sweep this under the rug, as they always have. And if the stirred-up bigotry results in enough deaths, you’ll find an opportunity for another political photo opp, and probably a token to serve to cover your ass.

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The advantage to documenting evereything I’m reading on my own websites is that I can find things later. I suppose that’s the same advantage to bookmarking things. Oh, and also the sharing with others. I started rereading the first Virgil Flowers book and this time, I’m paying attention. I didn’t want to put it down last night but eventually I had to go to sleep so I could get up this morning. I can’t wait to pick it up again though. I still need to pull my data out of Goodreads and into my website, and I still need to import my Facebook archive and finish documenting some other processes as tutorials.

160 Stuart St, State College, PA 16801

34 °F Light Drizzle

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Dear Nginx, at least this particular installation. I really fucking hate you right now. I suppose it’s not your fault, because if I had a bunch of time to dig through your conf files with a fine-toothed comb to determine all your particular configurations, I wouldn’t be dealing with this shit. But I don’t, and so I am manually checking and then resetting permissions for a fuckton of directories and files. Dear sysadmins: Please, for the love of God, if you aren’t going to be managing a server forever, or if you know you’re going to hand it off to someone else, leave an easily-findable file somewhere with a map of the server setup, so that the web developers who come after you who also end up having to manage the server while on a time crunch can quickly get up and running.

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I managed to get in 30 minutes on the bike today. It looks like I will actually make my 600 points, and will be on track for my challenges this week. I am definitely looking forward to my planned break from challenges though. Also, the Minnesota Twins apparently think they are playing a football game instead of a baseball game, because they are beating the ever living crap out of Indians like it’s going out of style. Oh well, better luck next time, Indians.

921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801(1086ft)

37 °F Mostly Cloudy and Windy

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Just a quick test after re-entering my information for my website into Icro’s WordPress posting set up. For some reason, posting to WordPress stopped working, and I’m trying to troubleshoot what the problem is. In other news, I managed to complete 30 minutes on the bike, and will likely make my 600 points for today.

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Just a quick test. I attempted to publish a post using my phone on Friday, but apparently it did not publish. There was some router configuration going on at the time, so it’s very possible but it did not post because I was writing it at the same time the configuration was happening. Better luck this time, I suppose.

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Yesterday I really struggled to both achieve my exercise goals and earn the six hundred points for my Apple Watch competitions. Today I am struggling with these as well. I have been under the weather this weekend plus going balls to the wall for the last sixteen days at least so after these competitions are over on Wednesday I am going to work just hard enough to close all the rings on my watch and that’s it for at least a week. It was 69 degrees here yesterday and I had all the windows open and it was great. Today it’s 39F and it’s supposed to drop from there so for today only the kitchen window is open.

921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801

39 °F Mostly Cloudy

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Guess who starved their Apple Watch to death during a workout today? That’s right kids, me! So I had to charge it in order to get my last couple of stands and my last two workouts in in order to achieve my 600 points for my Apple Watch competitions. I had most of it knocked out by 10 o’clock this morning though. I will probably do the same thing again tomorrow.

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If you’re waiting to add accessibility to your projects until your clients ask and pay for it, please rethink your strategy. Accessibility is not a feature. It is not a nice to have. It’s harder to do when you bolt it on after the fact instead of building it in at the start, and the only thing you’re doing with this approach is creating more work for yourself, more hardship for your clients, and a shitty experience for people with disabilities. Please do not do this. Add as much aas you can by stealth if you have to. If your client asks you for some functionality, build the accessibility in without their permission if necessary. If the eclient balks at accessibility, (this does happen), walk away. I’m telling you to do that because I’ve done it myself. I promise you that if they’re balking at accessibility there’s a pretty safe bet they’ll balk at other best practices too, and then blame you when things go south because best practice corners were cut.

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This week I learned that, in order to receive credit for excercise minutes when you engage in an indoor walk, you first have to calibrate your Apple Watch using the Outdoor Walk workout while outside with good GPS reception. I have not done this, so the Apple Watch did not give me credit for the fifteen thousand steps I took on Tuesday, nor the thirty-minute indoor walk I did yesterday. I am participating in three challenges this week, so this matters a great deal. To make up for this, I spent forty-six minutes on the bike yesterday and today. Denise has joined the fray, and now has an Apple Watch, and she is one of my coompetitors this week. I plan to go out at some point to calibrate the watch, but I was still pretty pissed when I realized I wasn’t getting exercise minutes credit. I’ve already done my workout for today, so all I have to do is concentrate on filling up the move ring. Right now though I’m contemplating lunch.

167 Stuart St, State College, PA 16801

48 °F Clear

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I am so glad to be done working for today. Today was as crazy as Mondays usually are, except towards the end of the day things got very crazy very fast. I ended up multitasking during my last meeting, and we all know how dangerous multitasking can be. For now though, it’s time to think about dinner.

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I’ve achieved my maximum six hundred points for today, which means I’m tied in one Apple Watch challenge and kicking ass in the other. All my rings were closed by 1600, and I’ve just finished work for the week. Consequently it is time to do some serious resting and relaxing. I’ve been invited to socialize over the weekend and there is going to be good food and alcohol involved. I am looking forward to this. Shabbat shalom (a peaceful Sabbath) everyone, and I’ll see you on the other side.

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I am participating in two Apple Watch challenges this week and I am determined to win them both. I’ve started spending some time on one of those indoor bikes with the handle bars that move your arms as well as your legs. I started Sunday and if I keep it going until Sunday I’ll have my first perfect exercise week, plus moving and standing perfection. admittedly yesterday was pretty hard, but I got on the bike this morning before work instead of after work, and that seems to have gone much better.

903 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801

36 °F Cloudy

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I’ve made a point of staying out of all political discussions as of late, but I’m looking at Twitter and seeing reports of someone who despises Trump as much as, (or more than), I do going out of their way to approach Eric Bolling at a Trump hotel to throw his son’s death by overdose in his face. I don’t care how you feel about any politician, right or left. Throwing the death of a child in their parent’s face, simply because you don’t like who they voted for or who they’re associated with is inexcusably way over the line. I haven’t scrolled much yet, but I’m sure there are people minimizing this and making excuses for it. There are no excuses which would make this acceptable, and if you’re minimizing it, you need to take a break from social media, or politics, or both, because that’s pretty damn low.

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I would like to wish everyone who is celebrating a joyous and happy Purim. For those of you who aren’t celebrating, and don’t know what Purim is, it’s the Jewish holiday commemorating the salvation of the Jews in Persia from the annihilation planned for them by Haman, the advisor to King Ahasuerus, all of which is recounted in the biblical book of Esther. The day is marked by festive meals among family and friends, gift-giving, (customarily gifts of sweets), drinking, jokes and satire, and costumes. I’m not dressing up or anything this year, but I did get some hamantashen (three-cornered pastries with filling, usually fruit) and some rugelach (crescent-shaped pastries wrapped around a filling). The hamantashen are raspberry, which is not my favorite flavor, but these are surprisingly good. The rugelach are cinnamon and sugar. These were both made locally so they are very fresh and thus as moist as they should be. Very tasty.

921 S Pugh St, State College, PA 16801

39 °F Fog/Mist

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Dear people of the internets: I would just like to announce that I put a serious dent in a huge veggie tray because veggie trays rule. Also, everyone should take the opportunity to go outside or hug the ones you love or do something to take care of yourselves because these things rule too.