It was a slow start to the day. The bed was warm, and I didn’t want to leave. So, I just laid in bed reading. I finally got up to start work by going into the home office. Once up I was finally going. I did all my chores and work.  Another typical Thursday.

Tonight’s dinner was Ribs and baked potatoes. It came out really good. I had to pull some food away from the kids, so we had a plate for my wife to have something for dinner when she arrived from work later tonight.

I did some more creative thinking for some topics for articles and podcasts. I am thinking of breaking the podcasts into three parts. Local activities in Seattle, Camping/Hiking, and Exploring Washington State.

Or I could just author an article and then discuss it on the podcast. It’s still up in the air.

It rained most of the day and I wasn’t able to go outside and get out of the house except to drop/pick up the kids from school.

The minivan studio is setup pretty well. I do most of my writing or finishing work from there when picking up the kids. So, adding a recorder wasn’t that much work.

🌧️ 48°F – 36°F 🙂 | Seattle 

I woke up this morning full of energy. I arrived at work 20 minutes early and started to planning topics to write about on the site.

 A new tool from Microsoft called Loop was released today for beta testing. It looks very useful, and I will see if it will help with my job and personal projects.

Another tool I use is textExpander. I took their offer to be a beta tester for their Android app. I am excited because this will allow me to do more writing with just a foldable keyboard and my Surface Duo 2 phone or tablet. Great for when I go solo camping and want to write without carrying a laptop.

I use textExpander at work mostly. It saves a lot of time on my responses to clients. It’s a lot of the same thing so I just make snip-it and a abbreviation for it. When typing I just type the corresponding abbreviation and fill the snip-it info instantly. Highly recommended for repetitive work.

At home I just relaxed and watched some TV and read up on some new devices the company is releasing.

I went to bed at my normal time to get a good night’s sleep.

🌫️☀️ 61°F – 37°F 🙂 | Seattle 

Work went well. Still writing a training manual. The weather cleared up at the end of my shift.  There is a corner office that has been vacant for over 2 years, I’m thinking of moving in and claiming Squatter’s Rights. It’s a nice office, much better than the cube I am in. You can see the sun rise over the Cascade’s. I might make this to my personal breakroom if they say no.

On the trip to and from work, I tested a new mic mount in the car. It’s small and simple, just a visor clip with a magnet on it. I attached a metal plate with two-sided tape and it just attached to the mount. I like it and the mike is much closer to my mouth then when it was on the dash. No more talking loud when recording.

When I arrived home, I had little time to myself. Just a lot of cooking and cleaning. Before bed I played Pokémon with my son. We are still on the learning stages to play it. It’s funny that I use to work for the company that use to produce the game in the early 2000s. I had access to cases of cards and opted to give them away to a school my mother in-law worked at instead of playing the game myself. I had no interest in games at the time. Now with children, I find it very enjoyable.

☀️ 54°F – 39°F 🥱 | Seattle 

Up at 6 am to start this sunny day off right. Ate a light breakfast and headed out to pick some items at Costco. Once back home, I attached the bike rack to the car and loaded up all the bikes to head to Enatai Bach Park to start a trip on the I-90 trail heading towards the city. We road partially across I-90 bridge westerly bound. Once we got to Mercer Island the trail was detoured onto a busy road that we didn’t feel comfortable with the kids to be on. So we turned back around and headed home. On the way back I ordered pizza, so that it would be delivered home about the same time we arrived. It was perfect timing; the pizza was delivered 1 minute after we got there.

After eating, I watched Gravity Falls with the kids and took a nap with a cat on my lap. 

Before sunset, I prepped the fire pit for tonight’s fire. Tonight, we have roasted marshmallows!

Once the kids went inside to go to bed, I stayed up watching the fire go down and the stars go across the sky. I’m reading Tales of the South Pacific. A book I have been reading on and off for a few years. I just need to finish it. I enjoy reading it, but I get seduced by technical training manuals and start reading those instead. I attempted to cheat by watching Rogers & Hammerstein South Pacific, but I can’t get over the no picture (blank screen) intro (just instrumental soundtrack) and some very distracting colour filters they used. It pulls me away from the story and I can’t stop thinking if it is a sinking issue or tv problem. I just lose focus away from the movie and try to figure out the meaning of the colour changes in the scene. What does it mean? I just can’t finish watching it and I love watching Rogers & Hammerstein movies. The Sound of Music is on my Top 10 list of favourite movies.

Progress Report: Since I have made the decision to take a picture of the day, I have been getting outside more as intended. I will be pushing myself to take more pictures like I used to. I do go out on hikes and camping trips, I just stopped taking a picture or two of the trips. Since the days are getting warmer and have a minivan, I will be taking more trips.

☀️ 62°F – 43°F 🙂 | Seattle 

Gorgeous day in the PNW. Sadly, I spent most of the day indoors working. I started my online journal up again, but this time including a picture from the day.  Hopefully, it will push me to go outside and do more.

☀️ 40°F – 38°F 🙂 | Seattle 

Getting used to the time change. I do like having more daylight hours when I am awake, especially in the summer. Not sure what I will do this weekend, I might just stay home and work on my bike. I want to take it out on the trail after work.

🌦️ 50°F – 40°F 🙂 | Seattle 

My plans to start the month strong were hampered by illness. We are all better now except for me. But with a good rest tonight I should be good to go for tomorrow.

I tested the satellite test yesterday and it worked, it is messy, and I have only 160-character limit per message. If I use this in the field, I will need to get creative because of the limitation.

This is going to be a short article so I may get some rest.

Not sure if I will bring back my short daily journal log as I did before.