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Starting to write
A couple of weeks ago I decided to start journaling. The “old fashioned way”: using pen and paper. I started writing in a simple cheap notebook, starting each day on a new page. It’s not easy to find the time every day, and it is definitely not easy to write something meaningful every day. Since January 1 I started writing in a Moleskine Daily Planner. I am of course not using it as a planner, but since you already have one page a day (with the date already written on top), I thought it would make it easier to just start writing every day.
Now why did I start journaling? I came across a post on the Asian Efficiency site (no idea how I got there btw) which describes it perfectly: I have what they call a “leaky” brain (bad memory). I have great trouble remembering facts from my past. Writing them down will help me in having a record of what happened on some specific day. Writing them down by hand also helps to remember them better, since I have to work my brain to write it down in a few words (writing “digitally” always ends up in far to many words). I am trying to journal digitally using Day One too for the more fleeting moments (see an earlier post). The Asian Efficiency post also has some templates on what to write. I still have to work those in to my ritual, but habits take time. I’ll get there.
One thing about the Moleskine: the pen I’m using (a Parker rollerball) is not the right pen for sure. The ink bleeds through to the other side of the paper. I will have to invest some time in finding a good pen!
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Journaling
I’ve been the “lucky” owner of the iOS version of the DayOne app (it was free one day so I downloaded it ;) ). I am not however the lucky owner of an iPhone. I do have an iPad, but I hardly use it (I always have my Macbook Pro nearby). DayOne is an great app to use, and I’ve been looking for a way to use my Android phone to generate DayOne entries for the moments I do not have my Macbook Pro nearby. I think I have finally found one.
I initially tried using a journaling app for my Android phone which was able to export to DayOne. Exporting took some steps however, it was too involving, having to navigate to the correct folder exactly. I went on a search and found a blog entry on Poor Signal.
It involves a number of tools:
- DayOne tools (download link);
- IFTTT ;
- Hazel;
- Dropbox;
and what I have added for my Android phone:
I created a recipe in Do Note to create a file in a Dropbox folder called DayOneInbox. I also created a recipe in Do Camera to create an image file in this same Dropbox folder.
Hazel then comes in to play, using a couple of bash script to create DayOne entries with the DayOne CLI tools (one script for text entries, one for images) (see the Poor Signal blog).
One drawback: you cannot create mixed entries with text and an image with the Do Note or Do Camera apps.
I’m also investigating analog journaling (I already started writing in a simple notebook a month ago). I got a Moleskine Daily planner for my birthday that I’m eager to start using. I think a mix of analog and digital journaling should be possible, where the analog part would be the more thought out “musings” and the digital part would be used for the more “fleeting” moments. I’ll see how it goes!
Denali
We’ve had to say goodbye to an old friend almost two years ago. It is not easy!
Denali from FELT SOUL MEDIA on Vimeo.
Time
Very nicely done timelapse of Hong Kong bouncing between day and night.
Time from PowerUpTimelapse on Vimeo.
Moving to Jekyll
Octopress is great, but since Octopress 2 is deprecated (that is, there is no more development taking place) and Octopress 3 is not yet ready in my eyes, I decided to move to ‘plain’ Jekyll. I started from the Hyde ‘theme’ and adapted from there. All posts are here, Google Analytics and Disqus comments are working, only some minor display issues need to be fixed.
Happy so far!
Fallstreak hole
While I’ve seen ice crystals in the sky before this takes it to another level: a fallstreak hole from Victoria, Aus:
From Wikipedia
Such holes are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice nucleation (see supercooled water). When ice crystals do form it will set off a domino effect, due to the Bergeron process, causing the water droplets around the crystals to evaporate: this leaves a large, often circular, hole in the cloud.
Via Kottke.
Changing colors
I’m working on the looks of the blog. Since I’m new to SASS it’s a lot of trial and error. I don’t like overly dark, so I’m changing a lot to a white background. This has some side effects I need to iron out, but I’ll get there. I have not figured out how to change the layout yet, so this will be my challenge for the time to come.