David Dykstal

Where Have I Been

Following after @manton, @maique, and others. Reminds me a bit of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFRpa81MUAY.

Countries Lived

  • United States

Countries Visited (in order)

  • Canada
  • Cayman Islands
  • Jamaica
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Netherlands
  • Belgium
  • Mexico
  • Germany
  • Czech Republic
  • Portugal
  • UK (Scotland, Northern Ireland)
  • Ireland

Next Countries (sort of in order)

  • Italy
  • Hungary
  • Austria
  • Poland
  • Spain
  • Morocco
  • Greece
  • Norway
  • Finland
  • Iceland
  • Denmark
  • UK (England)
  • France
  • Fiji
  • New Zealand
  • Australia
  • Argentina
  • Chile

States Lived (3)

  • Michigan - 12 years
  • Wisconsin - 11 years
  • Minnesota - 46 years

States Visited (40)

  • Several weeks (8)
    • Arizona
    • California
    • Colorado
    • Florida
    • New Hampshire
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • Washington
  • A few days (25)
    • Alabama
    • Alaska
    • Arkansas
    • Connecticut
    • Georgia
    • Illinois
    • Iowa
    • Kansas
    • Kentucky
    • Louisiana
    • Massachusetts
    • Mississippi
    • Missouri
    • Nebraska
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • Oklahoma
    • Pennsylvania
    • South Carolina
    • South Dakota
    • Tennessee
    • Texas
    • Virginia
    • Washington DC (not a state)
    • Wyoming
  • Overnight (4)
    • Indiana
    • Maine
    • Ohio
    • West Virginia
  • Transited by train (3)
    • Idaho
    • Montana
    • North Dakota

States missed (8)

  • Delaware
  • Hawaii
  • Maryland
  • Nevada
  • Oregon
  • Rhode Island
  • Utah
  • Vermont

Canadian provinces

  • Quebec
  • New Brunswick
  • Prince Edward Island
  • Ontario
  • Manitoba
  • Saskatchewan
  • Alberta
  • British Columbia

I’m finding that I’m using the BBEdit scratchpad and Tot for almost all my #plaintext composition. BBEdit is the second program I install after 1Password on a new Mac.

New tries in the past 24 hours: Ivory for macOS (good so far), Kagi search trial (not sure yet, seems good), latest Quicken for Windows on my dad’s laptop (a vast improvement over Quicken 2015 that my dad was using), back to TunnelBear from ClearVPN, and there are probably more I don’t remember.

What goes? A lot of books donated to our public library. Extra furniture. All the CDs donated as well. Maple and walnut boards I’ve been saving. Woodworking tools. Snowblowers. Lawnmowers. Bicycles. The list is huge. Some sold mostly given away.

Moving soon. Downsizing from 2300 to 1600 sq ft. Good thing I never bought that 3D printer.

Grandiflora trillium

Finally getting around to getting and setting up Yubikeys. Fun times!

Ann and I saw Hamlet at the Guthrie Theater yesterday. Excellent!

This week I’m playing with the Zola static site generator. Maybe a new toy will get me blogging more often? That’s probably wishful thinking, but even if it doesn’t I’ll be brushing up on rudimentary CSS.

The creators of Smalltalk: Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Adele Goldberg, et. al. have my admiration. Simple, elegant, and useful in its time. I go to the Squeak implementation every so often and sigh.

I’ve never played a Mario game in my life but somehow this just seems right. It’s-a-me, Mario’s shoe: Red Wing makes boots inspired by video game character Mario - MPR News

How did I not find out about Standard ebooks until a week ago? I’ll be reading forever.

Why is it that the days you feel too tired to journal are the days when everything happens?

There is no one true app for handling notes

I’m trying to limit the number of apps I have bits and pieces of knowledge stored in, but there is no one true app. Some notes require diagrams, some require tables, some require databases that can be analyzed for patterns. Well-organized folders and tags help with the multiplicity of formats. I’m moving to plain text when its the right medium, but sometimes it is not.

For example, I had a scheme for moving all of my OmniFocus items that were not immediate to TaskPaper format and managing that separately, but found as I started moving stuff that I really like having all the project tasks in one spot. These were already arranged in a somewhat P.A.R.A. format (mostly the P.A. part). Between that and #obsidian (work) and #bear (personal for now), plus some well-organized folders for other artifacts, I should be able have a workable #pkm scheme.

It’s going to take some time and discipline.

At DeBine brewery in Palm Harbor next to the Pinellas Trail. Informal survey seems to be Half e-bike to regular bike. E-bikes have exploded in popularity over the past two years.

Attempting to wrest control of my OmniFocus database from the clutches of entropy.

Dad had a TAVR surgery yesterday. Looks like it went well. This means he’ll still beat me at golf.

My dad is 95. He still beats me in golf. Yes, he’s that good and I’m that bad.

Found Pins for Pinboard. That should help a bit. I’ve been looking for a better way to get stuff into pinboard. This seems to be it. This should pair nicely with Omnivore.

Pinboard or Raindrop? Decided to stay with Pinboard for now, but it desperately needs some housecleaning.

Map of King Crimson Trace in Tarpon Springs, FL

Now using Omnivore to collect long form posts that need some time to digest. Such as this one: On ChatGPT – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.

Ripping through the feeds this morning. Followed a bunch of folks on Mastodon last night. Unfollowed some of them this morning. Just managing the firehose.

Lattés from 9th Bar coffee in Palm Harbor. Pretty dang good and a much shorter line than the Starbucks down the block.

Still on the road. Central Illinois is flatter than North Dakota.