Adrian’s Microblog

Although I can find his writing style somewhat overwrought, this December 23 opinion column by Armstrong Williams in The Baltimore Sun held some interesting observations about where we stand in America now:

“People get up, commute, grind through work, juggle kids and side hustles, scroll in bed until their eyes burn, then do it again tomorrow. They are surviving, but they are not living. …

“So what do we do? First, we need leaders willing to tell the truth about the cost-of-living crisis and the debt trap. …

“Second, we have to rebuild community on purpose. Policy can help … but it cannot substitute for the choice to be rooted.

“Third, we must treat the mental health crisis as both a medical and a moral challenge. Therapy and medication can be lifesaving, but they cannot manufacture purpose. People need responsibilities that matter, relationships that endure, and a vision of life that goes beyond consumption and self-expression. Politics can make it easier or hard to build that kind of life, but it cannot replace the hard work of commitment, forgiveness, and self-discipline.

“Finally, we have to stop sprinting away from God and then wondering why everything feels empty. The American experiment was never meant to function on material prosperity alone. It assumed a people who believed they were accountable to something higher than their appetites and their politics. …

And the conclusion:

RIght now, too many Americans are white-knuckling their way through each month — nervous, numb, and spiritually adrift. Changing course will require more than a new policy or president. It will require rebuilding the financial, social, and spiritual foundations that make real life possible …”

My Christmas haul this year 🙂

• La Columbe Brazil Nossa Mesa

• Diana Krall vinyl album, The Girl Next Door

• “On Speaking Well” by Peggy Noonan

• “1929” by Andrew Ross Sorkin … (not to be confused with, and of no relation to, Aaron Sorkin)

Heard the author, Andrew Ross Sorkin, talking about his new book, 1929, on Fresh Air today – Sounds like a fascinating read (and not-so-surreptitiously suggested to the Mrs. as a Christmas present idea). ;)

We’re in the Advent season, which can be a mix-up of emotions since there’s excitement over the approaching Christmas celebration, but the primary thrust of Advent is really about a steady preparing of oneself to be in the right space for the day.

It’s hard not to put the cart before the horse. :)

This reflection by Fr. Mike Schmitz and Bishop Robert Barron is one of the strongest I’ve seen to make sense of the tension, and an encouragement to watch as part of your preparations. :)

Interesting task/ project statuses referenced in Jason Fried’s launch of Fizzy, a streamlined Kanban task/ project manager:

1. Not now
2. Maybe?
3. Investigating
4. In progress
5. On-hold
6. QA to confirm fixed
7. Done

That so many of the statuses are dedicated to states before the “work” even “begins” hadn’t really occurred to me, but seems to make so much sense – A lot of energy is really about which particular tasks to put energy to now: There always seems to be no shortage of tasks to take attention, but where do each of them stand relative to one another, and which one should actually come to the head of line right now, could probably be said to be ‘half the battle’.

So Task/ Project statuses should reflect this –

• The: (a) I’ve got a great idea but I clearly know it’s not something for the immediate present;

• The (b) This probably has legs, but not convinced it should supplant what else is going on right now?;

• The (c) Let’s confirm there’s really something here before we roll-up our sleeves to work on it;

• The (d) Okay, we’re working on it now and let’s get ‘er done;

• The (e) We shipped something but 9 times out of 10 there’s at least some tweaks that need to be made before it can be left less attended; and

• The (f) Okay, this is done, we can remove it from our frontal lobe for now

That was cathartic even to type, and giving yourself the permissions enabled by each of these levels helps to further de-stress and support forward progress without fighting against your own psychology about what exactly your level of attention/ commitment is to a particular idea/ task/ project.

Phew.

How to make your own compressible gauge pins for platen letterpress printing:

Gonna have to circle back to this YouTube music playlist.

When the crew of Carol Burnett Show hit it, they hit it good – Herewith, a bank teller trainee (a.k.a., a bank robbery gone wrong) …

Welp folks, that’s a wrap on the 2025 baseball season for the O’s. ⚾️

A lot of hope at the beginning of the season, then things kept getting worse and worse with injuries and losses, then finally brightening a little after the All Star break, but not quite what it could be and not enough time to dig out of the hole.

I still enjoyed the second half of the season as there were some fun games to watch played.

Hoping that 2026 holds solid, consistent performance, and that management puts together the right mix to place us in playoff contention next year.

And to keep the momentum going in post season, rooting for the Jays to win the Fall Classic!

UPDATE: Here’s a neat 2025 regular season recap from the folks at MLB:

Bookmarking here to watch later –

Finland President Alexander Stubb addresses United Nations on 24 Sep 2025, describing the evolving new world order and prescriptions for paths forward on various fronts.

Billy Joel sings a love song to The Grouch –

Helps us all love the grouches in our lives a little bit better. :)

As always, appreciate Kirby Ferguson’s take on things –

Here he provides some insightful & helpful insight into AI’s impact on the world of art and creativity, titled “AI Is Remixing Everything We’ve Ever Made. Here’s What That Means.”

Highly recommend checking it out:

Follow-up to my follow-up post about using iA Writer cross-platform between iOS and Windows:

• The Dropbox file sync issue stemming from iOS Files app design complications was making that file solution untenable.

• So ended up installing iCloud for Windows and shifting iA Writer files into that, and file sync has been working seamlessly thus far.

• A little disappointed that 3rd-party tools wouldn’t do the job (i.e., here in the age of the ubiquitous ‘cloud’ we still deal with OS issues), but I gotta move on to get done what needs to get done.

• I did opt to only turn on the iCloud files module (and not photos, calendar, passwords, etc.) to keep things limited. Interestingly, while Dropbox had added feature of choosing which file folders sync vs. not, iCloud only provided option to sync all files (which suboptimal imo).

Anywho, fwiw to you, kind reader, out there on the interwebs …🙂.

Gotta say, liked the O’s 4th of July hat this year ⚾️

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.

Salvor Hardin, character in the Isaac Asimov book, Foundation

Still life in these O’s! 😀⚾️

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a cornerstone of American culture for three generations, announced Friday it would take steps toward its own closure after being defunded by Congress — marking the end of a nearly six-decade era in which it fueled the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and even emergency alerts.

From today’s Baltimore Sun. Seems like the marking of an era. (link)

Now for yet another Markdown ‘cheat sheet’ – This one in video form from the folks at iAWriter:

New ones to me that I may start trying to use more regularly:

• Headers using the # sign

• Checkbox list using

• Highlighted text using double =

• Inline or reference footnotes with ^

Sad to see these guys go 🥃 ⚾️ O’s

Follow-up post: I did end up purchasing iAWriter for Windows and attempting to work cross-platform with my already-purchased iOS version on my iPhone and iPad.

Related observations so far:

• The Windows version isn’t nearly as sleek in appearance as the iOS version, but perhaps that’s to be expected.

• And it is oddly a somewhat different user experience on a desktop Windows versus mobile Apple, despite essentially the same basic feature set.

• Which brings me to some feature differences: You can publish to Micro.blog from the iOS app, but not from the Windows version. So I can compose from my Windows desktop, then need to toggle over to my iPhone if I want to ‘seamlessly’ push to Micro.blog.

• Which also brings me to iOS syncing snags I’m running into. As I’ve discovered, these aren’t iAWriter driven, but iOS driven. Apparently the iOS file system has complications such that other file sources (like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.) aren’t seamlessly updating. I configured iAWriter to use my existing free Dropbox account, and when writing on Windows it syncs fine to Dropbox, but then it isn’t automatically sync’ing the next step to my iOS device. If I open the iOS Files app and go the Dropbox folder and jigger a bit, I can force a sync eventually, but it’s frustrating and distracting from what I’m trying to do.

• Apparently iCloud works better since it’s Apple’s own (and one wonders if that’s part of the intent), so while I was hesitant to install iCloud for Windows, I may go that route if it’s gonna save me constant headache.

• Lastly, I’ve also migrated even further into Markdown as a default format for me (rather than TXT), or at least I’m gonna try to see how it goes.

That’s it for now!