rcntly 07

I enjoy reading monthly updates from people I follow (via RSS), they’re always so interesting. So I figured I’d try writing my own. It’ll be good to 1) get me into a regular writing cadence (I want to write more, here and elsewhere, this year), and 2) maybe someone will find mine interesting (jk I don’t think people read this blog). Anyways, let’s give this a try!

general

Last month was a month of biking, and now July has been dealing with the aftermath. For the first time ever, I picked up some tendinitis in my right knee - almost certainly from the increase in biking I’ve been putting in. I’ve spent a good portion of the month trying to rest and recover it, and it’s mostly healed. I haven’t completely cut out biking, but trying to not overdo it. Looking forward to being back at 100%.

The Canadian wildfires smoke made it’s way down to Chicago this month. For a couple of days, the air quality was terrible. One day had the worst air quality recorded in Chicago ever¹. Things are better now, but I don’t think the fires are under control so I expect we’ll have patches of bad air again when the winds decide to blow it down to us.

using

Speaking of bikes, I upgraded the handle bars on my commuter to some Velo Orange Granola bars. They’re a delight - the backsweep is much appreciated and they look dope. Purchased at Comrade, installed by me. I haven’t gotten to use them nearly as much due to the aforementioned tendinitis and wildfires :’(.

July was also a big month for me and linux, too. My dev box has been running Fedora Linux since the beginning of December 2025. Fedora releases a new version every 6 months, so it was time to do my first upgrade. It was (un-?)surprisingly painfree! I didn’t really expect to run into any issues, but with a system upgrade there’s always a chance[^ubuntu]. A few small things surfaced over the next week, but small stuff where a package was removed or renamed and I just needed to re-install it. Small stuff.

I also installed Fedora on my old 2015 Macbook Pro. It had been sitting around unused, out of security updates for years, and wanted to try linux out on it for a while (like, I think I was putting this off for about a year). So I finally did it! And it was also a really smooth process. I haven’t tried bluetooth, but wifi works, sleep works, I think the camera works. I haven’t really put it through it’s paces, and I don’t expect too much out of an 11 year old laptop. But still, there’s a better chance I do something with it now than before.

I think long term computing goal is to have a fairly beefy linux desktop rig for computation/compilation, and a small lightweight laptop for out and about that is mostly a device to shell into the desktop for work. Hopefully I can make that a reality, but we’ll see how this hardware crunch plays out.

reading

https://www.owenmcgrann.com/p/the-dead-economy-theory this was a really really good read, though also a bit depressing. Times are weird.

I finally got around to reading The Devil in the Dark Water by Stuart Turton. It was pretty good, though I agree with Kat the ending fell a bit flat.

I also just finished The Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr for book club. Not for me, let’s leave it at that.

watching

July has been a great month for live sport! Between the World Cup (congrats, Spain!) and the Tour de France (congrats, Pogi!) there’s always been something exciting on. Though, honestly, I’m a bit glad they’re both over. Three weeks of le Tour + over a month of football was a lot - and I was getting a bit burned out near the end. Glad for the short break till club season starts back up.

We finished Patience, and quite enjoyed it. Good show, and I still really want to move to York.

We’re working through Harry Wild and just started Ellis too. Harry Wild is alright, and it feels like they’re hitting all the classic murder mystery tropes this season (death at a theatre production, private (public?) school, etc). We’re one episode into Ellis but all sign point to good so far.

We’re on to the current series (21) of Taskmaster, and once we’re done with that we’ll be all caught up. It’s been nice to have that for some really good laughs.

listening

Not sure if there’s been much of a theme or focus this month. Bit of this, bit of that. Been listening to the new Boards of Canada release (never listened to them before, but digging it now). Otherwise, the usual suspects: Deafheaven, Godspeed, Dry Cleaning, Slow Crush.

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