Week 30 felt like it went by way too fast. My kids' last week of Summer, as they go back to school tomorrow. All four of us went to the Atlanta United Leagues' Cup game Friday night, which they lost on Penalty Kicks. While it was a good time because all four of us were there, it's been a rough season to be an Atlanta United fan. After seven years, since their first season, of having season tickets, I think I might be canceling for next season, because they raised the price again. We haven't been having as much fun at the games as we used to. I'm still waffling though.

This week's media consumption has been Olympics, Olympics, Olympics. I really enjoyed watching the Opening Ceremony live, and am really glad I have nothing to do with LA 2028 because that thing would be a hard act to follow. There are currently three TV's in our house streaming different sports. I am, of course, watching the surfing from Tahiti, which is once of the coolest venues on our tour. My older son has been fencing for years, and this is one of the very few opportunities to watch that sport at its highest level. The whole family has been watching those events.

Watching the USA basketball teams is, for me, just so much fun. I'm excited for another week of this. The huge smile on Kevin Durant's face during their game against Serbia brought a smile to mine, too.

I really enjoyed this Atlanta Michelin Eats Video from a YouTuber who I wasn't previously familiar with, Mike Chen. A few of my favorite spots were featured in this video, like Fred's Meat & Bread, Arepa Mia and Food Terminal. It still had some that I haven't tried, and those have been added to me to do list. There's something fun about watching travel and food videos about the town you live in.

I finished four books this week.

After really enjoying my read of Moonbound last week, I managed to find Sourdough by Robin Sloan on Libby and it was available! This one was a quick read, delightful as well, and I will read his other book as soon as the queue comes up. This book made me want colder weather so I could enjoy a nice bowl of soup and a piece of sourdough.

I continue to plow through all of Erik Larson's books, this week it was The Demon of Unrest. This one is mostly about the start of the Civil War and Fort Sumnter. It provides a real lot of details about the transition from the Buchanan administration to the Lincoln administration and the origins of secession. It's not one I would recommend unless you are really interested in that amount of information on that topic, but I really got a lot out of it.

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang had been on my Libby queue for a really long time, I think since last Summer. This book about a chef working for a billionaire in a timeline where planet's food supply has been disrupted is well crafted and worth your time, especially if you're really into food. It actually paired well in a weird way with Sourdough above, without any intention to pair them on my part.

Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Niobe Inazō reads like a guide to the chivalric traditions of Japan. I mainly read this looking for parallels to Stoic thought, and they were there. It is a very old book, and felt old.

I've been meaning for a few weeks to find one of these entries to talk about the pair of Ray-Ban | Meta Glasses that I bought and have been using. First, I don't particularly trust Facebook/Meta, and I have turned off anything even remotely creepy with these. No location services especially. I mainly use them when I go for walks, which have been much more frequent since my surgery in May. For this purpose, these things are an amazing combination of sunglasses/headphones/camera. The pictures they take are actually pretty good, the headphones are serviceable. I'm getting a fair amount of use from them. Again, not wearing these anywhere where taking pictures would be creepy.

My job is very time zone intensive, we run events in many parts of the world. We also have regional offices in various locations, and my team is largely remote and scattered throughout the globe.

On my Mac, I utilize Clocker to keep track of the time across all these places. It runs as a menu bar item, is highly configurable (You can see my setup) and can also live in its own window on my desktop. In addition to the display of the various times, you're able to see your next meeting or two.

Highly recommend this software if you manage a lot of time zones.

After using the same desk since 1998, I picked up a Jarvis desk from Fully and finally got to set it up over the weekend. It took a few hours to get my home office ready for another desk, and to get my computers and wiring broken down. It took another few hours to assemble the new desk, re-run the cabling to be standing desk compatible, and then to set my gear back up.

I am still waiting for some lighting strips to come in, and I need to spend some more time on cable management, but today is my first day at the new setup, and I can already tell that it's going to be much better for me overall.

It’s an adjustable height desk, but I think I will primarily use it as a “sit at” desk. I just figured that it would make sense to get it and set it up in case I did want to try out that standing desk life. I wanted something that was a little wider to better accommodate my Mac on one side/PC on the other setup, and having monitor arms installed in the grommets has freed up a lot of desk space.