Craft By Zen

Now

Things that I am thinking about now. Sporatic updates about life, things I'm thinking about and exploring.

2024-07-23

šŸ“ Location: San Jose, CA

Itā€™s been a season since the last now post. Besides getting married, Iā€™ve also went on a honeymoon, got COVID, and now re-settling back into my normal routine. This website got changed quite a bit again where the home page is now a feed. Iā€™m still thinking through what I want it to ultimately look like, and you may see more changes soon.

Walking away from the altar
Walking away from the altar

The week notes have been keeping me fresh with new ideas of what will be in store for the future.

Much of my time has been dedicated to playing Baldurā€™s Gate 3 with my wife. We havenā€™t played a lot of D&D, so thereā€™s been a learning curve to the possibilities with this game. The world building is very rich.

Poster for Baldur's Gate 3
Poster for Baldur's Gate 3

Iā€™ve been meaning to write in Camp NaNoWriMo, but itā€™s been hard with the little downtime that I appear to have. If I review my week notes, it looks like AI, obituaries, productivity tools, and tech have really taken my attention. Iā€™ve been meaning to cut out the dopamine-filled addictions like social media doomscrolling and replacing it with reading. It always feels like an assault on my senses, especially with the current political upheavals the US has been facing.

2024-04-04

šŸ“ Location: San Jose, CA

Iā€™ve slowed down on the website updates and have focused more on projects and writing. I think thereā€™s always a balance to strike with what more I could do versus what really matters.

We have a little over a month until the wedding. The final details are being looked at. When people tell me wedding planning is no joke, I can echo that sentiment.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Promo
Brooklyn Nine-Nine Promo

We bought the Brooklyn Nine-Nine boxset and have been watching through the series. Netflix has the first four seasons, but there wasnā€™t enough closure for the remaining seasons, and iTunes or Apple TV had a sale, so weā€™ve been putting that in the background while we work on the wedding. Itā€™s nice to have something grounding.

As for books, Iā€™ve been wondering if I should read ā€œThe Power Brokerā€ by Robert Caro. Itā€™s a monster of a book about Robert Moses. I was listening to 99% Invisibleā€™s mini-series about the book, and it sounds intense.

Iā€™ve been slowly making my way through Cal Newportā€™s new book, ā€œSlow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnoutā€ as well as Emily Nagoskiā€™s new book, ā€œCome Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connectionsā€.

My partner is starting to use Capacities, and I set up an account to also try it out in tandem. Thereā€™s a lot of good ideas in that app, but Iā€™m not sure Iā€™m going to covert from Obsidian. Iā€™m used to my tool, and Iā€™m probably going to stick with it for now.

2024-02-20

šŸ“ Location: San Jose, CA

I have been making major website updates, and Iā€™ve written about a few of them, including curations, classifieds, and my migration over to buttondown. Iā€™m both scared and excited to write again on a monthly basis, or at least thatā€™s the cadence I want to build. For more about website updates, Iā€™ll do another post soon. Iā€™ll leave now for whatā€™s actually happening with me.

Since the last update, Iā€™ve bought my suit for my upcoming wedding.

Iā€™m still reading How Infrastructure Works by Deb Chachra, although itā€™s taken a back seat to The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels. Itā€™s one of those canā€™t put down books for me.

Since the last post, Iā€™ve also watched The Curse and Poor Things. Like my anti-library, there needs to be a section for books.

There has been a Reduction in Force (RIF) at my current company again, and while prospects for the future are high amongst the upper staff, it does breed some not-so-great sentiment around the mind and the office. Iā€™m not in full panic and find a new job mode. But I do feel saddened for the people who have been let go.

I have an undisclosed project that Iā€™m working on the side, but I donā€™t want to reveal any details until itā€™s final. I have a problem with talking too much, and not working on that project.

As for the things that have been interesting me as of late, Iā€™ve been using Perplexity AI for about half of my searching needs, and itā€™s been extremely helpful for the research type tasks Iā€™ve been investigating.

Ta ta for now! šŸŽ©

2024-01-10

šŸ“ Location: San Jose, CA

Iā€™ve talked extensively about my dadā€™s health issues at length, so I thought it might be worth talking about other things that Iā€™ve been currently doing. Itā€™s a new year, and Iā€™m prepping more writing for 2024, including a first entry elaborating my yearly theme, the ā€œYear of Renewalā€.

Iā€™m getting married this May! Most of my time is spent planning until then. Otherwise, Iā€™m chugging away working at Clear Labs, taking care of little Yuzu, and finding any free time to have dates with my fiancĆ©e.

Little tired Yuzu sleeping on pillow

Little tired Yuzu sleeping on pillow

Reading

Iā€™m currently reading ā€œHow Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our Worldā€ by Deb Chachra. I absolutely loved her newsletter.

On that note, the next book after I finish that book is ā€œDust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particlesā€ by Jay Owens.

Website updates

At some point, I plan on making a ā€œcurationā€ section, that will supercede my ā€œLindy Libraryā€ and maybe collapse my books and films section. Undecided how it will look. I absolutely love going to the library or bookstore and seeing blurbs of small reviews, and I thought it would be lovely to show collections of found items the same way.

Also, you may see more tiny projects on the website, much like my JSON editor of last year. Iā€™m loving Make Real, so I might use that as a good prototyping tool.

Watching

Iā€™ve gotten some kudos from multiple people about my media logs. Iā€™m continuing to log my media for 2024, hopefully more comprehensive than last year. There are still some movies Iā€™ve watched that I have to parse from my fiancĆ©eā€™s watch history.

I have a bunch of new releases in my queue, including The Curse, Poor Things, The Boy and the Heron, Afire, and Anatomy of a Fall.

Miscellany

Iā€™ve been playing with the Anbernic RG35XX Plus, and I absolutely love it. Iā€™ve been able to play games I havenā€™t gotten the chance to, including ā€œA Link to the Pastā€, ā€œFinal Fantasy IIā€, and many others. The emulation and controls are absolutely everything I wanted, and more.

Happy 2024!

2023-07-27

šŸ“ Location: Hayward, CA

Every weekend, Iā€™ve been slowly moving to San Jose, so I havenā€™t been able to spend enough time with my hobbies and side projects. This website has seen a down tick in content, and Iā€™m looking forward to writing more in the near future. Certainly post-move.

To spend the in-between time not thinking about code, Iā€™ve been playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. We recently finished Cult of the Lamb, and it felt pretty special.

I went to the Figma conference last week at San Francisco Moscone Center, and it was a packed event. Iā€™m excited to dive deep into more UX work.

2023-05-30

šŸ“ Location: Hayward, CA

Finishing up the book, Laws of UX. Itā€™s a great primer on the topic and Iā€™m looking forward to sharing it with my team. Also reading ā€œSaving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clockā€ by Jenny Oā€™Dell.

Slowly moving to San Jose, California. The apartment has been finalized, and we have two months to move in. Also, planning my wedding for May 2024.

Deployed and continually making improvements to this website. Iā€™m using Astro.js and re-learning Svelte along the way.

Iā€™m nearly done with playing through Hogwarts Legacy.