Weekly Notes 34/2024

I have almost recovered. There is a bit of a dry cough, but manageable. Anju and Uma are still on their way. Both still have a bad cold. I have not been attending yoga classes for the last two weeks, primarily because of a cough and cold. I should be regular again.

• I added a 1 TB NVME SSD cache to my Synology this week. That should reduce the spinning of regular hard disks for frequently used data. It should also speed up the apps I have installed on Synology. I also added a third HD of 4 TB size, which leaves only one bay empty. Maybe next year, I can add the fourth and final HD.
• Appa is here. We fixed things at home. Appa and I have been fixing things around the house since I was a teenager. It's a shared hobby we enjoy, whether the task is big or small. The biggest project we tackled was plumbing an entire under-construction house when I was in high school. The regular plumber didn't show up, but the plastering needed to start, and someone had to lay pipes inside the wall before that. We took a couple of days off—me from school, him from work and we got it done. That's when I learned to thread GI pipes and plumbing. It also gave me the confidence to tackle any task, even if I had to start from scratch. I realized that when needed, I can learn, do, and complete the task.
• Appa, Uma, and I took morning walks together. Both of them are up and ready for a walk with lots of enthusiasm. However tired you are, it makes you get up and join them for the walk. Conversations during these walks are fun, too.
• I was trying to buy gifts for my younger cousins to celebrate the beginning of their work life. I went old-style here, and I got gold jewelry for them. Even if it's small, it retains its value compared to electronics, and they can sell it at any point. I must say it's much easier to buy jewelry for women than for men. Most men's jewelry is terrible and not meant to be worn by regular folks.
• I spoke about my projects and the process I follow to a small group at Quicksand as part of their Process in Practice series. It was fun.
• We watched Thagallan. I liked it.  
• I have collected quotes and book annotations from various places ( books, ebooks, websites, podcasts, etc). I have started to bring them all together into a database. I am using Quotation JSON format from Schema.org. For example, this quote links to the book and the book to the author. The idea is that, at some point, I can do more than just display quotes if they are organized well and in a database.
• I have closed my pending tasks at work and at home this week. It's been a very productive week.
• I may not be in Bengaluru for IndiaFoss2024; I will miss it.