Weekly update, September 21, 2020

Welcome back!

Howdy internet friend, and welcome back to my blog! In this weekly update I’m going to share my usual personal, professional, people to follow, and Black Lives Matter sections, but I am also going to add a brief political rant section this week as well. I like to make it easy for you to decide what you want to read and what you want to skip, dear reader, so just use those big headings to check out what you like. Two quick notes this week. First, I am proud to announce that this post marks twenty four posts in a row, which comes to six months by my calculations. This was a difficult milestone to accomplish but I am glad to have achieved it! There were a few weeks that were close, but for the most part getting a routine in place has been helpful in maintaining the streak. Second, this post won’t be as long as other weekly updates. Most sections will be short and I don’t have a great ending - it just kinda ends. So now that you know what to expect, and without any further adieu, let’s GET ON WITH IT

Black Lives Matter!

Like last week, I do not have anything specific to say regardling Black Lives Matter. It is still very important and even things like 200,000 people dying from COVID-19 and the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg should not take attention away from the pressing issues that Black Lives Matter are all about. Like last week, I will encourage you to go out and do your own research on the subject and do your best to actively fight racism through your actions and deeds. There isn’t much more I have to say on this subject this week, outside it is still important!

Brief political rant

I mentioned this on Twitter over the weekend, but I think it is totally unacceptable that the Republicans and Donald Trump are trying to nominate a new Supreme Court Justice.

Merrick Garland.

These are the only two words that need to be said on the subject, and the only name that needs to be mentioned, but I will add more anyway because it is crucially important. If it is not acceptable for Obama to nominate a Justice eight months before an election, it is not acceptable for Donald to nominate anyone 43 days before an election. That’s their logic, but this convoluted argument about it being different because the President and the Senate are both Republican is just the worst of bad faith arguments. Neither of these offices have earned any respect, or deference. I have no forgotten their shenanigans and Mitch McConnell bragging about working with the White House during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. It is so truly shocking and offensive that I am not going to take up any more space on this post entertaining the notion that they might nominate someone to the Supreme Court. Truly it is so reprehensible and offensive that I am not writing any more on the subject, for now, and I hope that I do not have to spill any more digital ink on this subject now or ever again.

Personal

Last week I was very glad to have managed to finish some big writing projects. I’ve got a really long essay to edit and will post later this week - by far the longest post on this blog and one of the longest and most detailed writing projects of my life, and without doubt one of the most important. I’ve also got a masive announcement that I will make at the same time as releasing this long essay, indeed one precipitated the necessity of writing the other. I also spent time in the wood shop (aka my garage) and I’ve made substantial progress on building my mallet. I’m learning more and more, as well as growing stronger and more knowledgeable about how to properly use and sharpen my tools. I am really looking forward to upgrading my sharpening set from sandpaper to a wet sharpening system, because sandpaper isn’t doing that great a job anymore.

As I mentioned in the long woodworking essay and on Twitter, I failed the AWS Security Specialist exam last week. Rather than getting burned for longer than one day, I’ve got a plan in place to pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and then take and pass the AWS SysOps Administrator exams before trying the security specialist again. It also turned out that I was much closer to passing the exam than I first thought, and given it is in the category of hardest tests offered by AWS, I am not too bummed. I will tell you this, dear reader, that I framed my failure letter and hung it above the door of my office to use as motivation. It’s been working so far.

Otherwise over the weekend I spent time with my boy doing electronics projects and learning about the history of video games. My wife and I watched Office Space together, which was awesome! It really captures what life in an office is like, and so many great quotes! To be clear I am nott rying to say that I currently work in an office environment like the film, but I think everyone who has worked in a professional capacity has, at one time or another in their career, been at a place like Initech. I love the feature on YouTube that allows you to rent a movie for around four bucks and you have it for 48 hours. It’s a brilliant idea and it makes it so easy to rent movies it is almost a no-brainer.

Professional

I accidentally mentioned my AWS training plan above, and that’s really all I have to share about professionally last week until my big announcement later in the week.

People to follow

As I do every week, here are some tech and non-tech people you might consider following on Twitter.

Martin Luther King III - The son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bernice King - The daughter of Dr. King

@cetolyne - great friend, awesome programmer, super helpful!

@blenster - cool maker, very positive, well worth a follow!

@GWeessies - very smart person doing interesting research!

Marley - first place champ! Marley is one of the best on Twitter!

Null Coder - another awesome person to keep an eye on!

@EvilMog - creator of the DC MUD and an interesting person to follow.

That’s it for this week, internet friend! I realize this was a bit of a sprawling and rambling weekly update, but that’s because I’ve got more stuff coming later in the week. I hate to be crypting but, you know, here we are! Also, you know, sorry about the “not really having an ending” thing. I tried to come up with something between when I wrote it at the top and now, but I came up with nothing. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this post, I really appreciate it!

Click here for the previous post, and click here for the next post. Finally, I hope you have a very nice day and a most excellent week.