Weekly Notes 05/2025

I am back in Bengaluru. I took Saturday early morning Shatabdi. All of us went to pick up Pathu from Stay. She did do a bit of drama once she was back at home. Who wouldn't? :)

• I met friends on Sunday and also had our regular coffee at Kara. I tried one of their new ice creams. It was not bad at all.
• Uma has a bad cold. So, she is a bit irritable this week. She also doesn't like the fact that she doesn't get to go to school.
• We renewed both of our car insurances. So we have had Kia for two years and have done around 14 thousand kilometers, mostly on highways, with zero issues.
• I combined my three favorite tools - Zim Wiki, OpenWebUI, and Ollama- so I could ask questions about my notes.
• I am a hoarder both in my digital and physical life. I see usefulness in everything. It's been helpful so many times and also is a bane. I have been looking for a digital scrapbook and an organizer. It used to be a combination of delicious, flickr, and Pinboard once upon a time. Recently, I came across a self-hostable app aptly named Hoarder. It's a web app that also has Android/iOS apps. I will install it and try it. In the meantime, I found Area.na/thejesh-gn, a service run by a small group. It has all the features I want. They have some brilliant users and produce amazing content on and about the web. I have been using their free tier for a while and upgraded to the pro version this week. I will write more once I settle down on my workflow.
• I renewed my lol subscription just to support them. I will find a use for it or gift it to someone else. I like the community there.
• Subscribed to long-time reader and writer of weekly notes - Mihir. For some reason, I missed subscribing and mentioning his blog here. He works in education, which is an area of interest to me. This week, I caught up with him (open office hours?). It's also good to see you got to catch up with other weekly noters, Mihir.
• I will be in Kumbh (I just reached Varanasi) next week. This visit will be my third Kumbh and my second full Kumbh. I think Kumbh Mela is more in the news this time than twelve years ago when I went the first time. I am not a religious person. So, As usual, the idea is to watch people, especially those working at Kumba Mela. If all goes well, I will have enough pictures for "People At Work - ಕಾಯಕವೇ ಕೈಲಾಸ" at the end of the trip. ಕಾಯಕವೇ ಕೈಲಾಸ (Kāyakavē kailāsa) translates to "Work is Worship" and literally translates to "Work itself is heaven." I coincidently stumbled upon an album called Kayakave Kailasa | Bhakti Republic OST by M.D. Pallavi and Bruce Lee Mani, on Soundcloud. You will love it if you like Vachanas.
• I noticed that both Shoffr and Uber in Bengaluru have cabs with Pets. They cost extra, but you can book them for pets.
• I will be in Mumbai for two days in the second week of February. Let me know if you want coffee; I can't guarantee, but I will try.