Young Hands Club

Monday

JWRD: training prep – 2h
JWRD: training session – 1.6h
JWRD: chat – 1.1h
JWRD: misc – 2.6h (some further chat, rereading old notes, futzing with webcam drivers in search of a white balance knob, some unspecific pondering)
YH: chat – 0.8h
Reading some old Trilema and TMSR logs – 2.2h

Last week I had failed to deploy a VPS for training, finding my provider had completely broken their web login form (almost as if they heard me!) So instead I built a Gales VM on a local system and set up port forwarding through the home router.

Tuesday

JWRD: training homework prep – 3.9h
YH: weekly plan drafting – 0.8h
YH: chat – 1.7h
Medical: reading fine print and starting on plan application – 1.3h
Reading on US politics – 0.8h

I found our early assigned readings were in a worse state than I’d remembered, having tried to save time by grabbing some existing university materials online.

Wednesday (5/27)

JWRD: training material cleanup – 0.8h
JWRD: reading, chat, accounting – 1.3h
YH – 0.8h
Junto – 2.6h

One of those “neither proper work nor proper break” days I guess.

Thursday (5/28)

JWRD: chat – 0.8h
JWRD: misc – 0.5h
JWRD: training material cleanup – 3.1h
YH – 1.65h

I found myself deep in a mess of sloppily coded inherited HTML that I simply had to get in order before getting to a full run-through and revision of the text and exercises.

Friday (5/29)

JWRD: training material cleanup – 7.2h

Saturday (5/30)

JWRD: training material cleanup – 5.7h
JWRD: website setup – 0.6h
Reading news on US protests and riots – 1.4h
Reading and pondering on DNS and alternatives – 3h

Overall: I got the material for the present JWRD client to where it had to be for now, though there’s more to come. I didn’t manage to write for the JWRD landing page or my blog, or to send off the questions that came up on the health plan application.

1. Review Robinson’s proposal for insurance company IT report: done.

1.3h.

2. Review 3 health insurance options: 2h.

Missed this; I will do it first thing on Monday.

3. Possible Junto Wednesday: 2h.

2.8h (Zoom worked fairly well, except of course for the traditional drinks and dinner afterward).

4. Help with summer cottage opening Thursday.

8.7h (including travel + breaks as I didn’t track in detail). We put up fences to protect four favored oak and maple saplings from getting munched, turned on the water, tested plumbing and appliances, installed porch screens, and identified a decaying structural beam that will likely need a contractor to deal with.

5. VPS setup for JWRD training: 2h.

I had put this off till Sunday, at which point it turned out to be not yet burning.

It irritates me that I’m still leaning so much on cloud hosting. I might do something about it once living arrangements stabilize.

6. PuTTY setup and docs for JWRD training: 3h.

I determined this won’t be needed this time around.

7. Zoom purchase for JWRD training: done.

.8h, involving the predictable web and credit card awfulness.

8. Mining meetup.com: 4h.

Missed.

9. Young Hands chat, reading, comments: 6h.

4.5h.

10. #therealbitcoin background reading and engagement: 6h. My objective is to collaborate with the old crew if they’re indeed working now to foster a constructive environment and do useful things, or else to have a sound reason why not.

9h log reading + 1.2h chat, through which I found sound reasons enough for me.

11. Blog: 8h.

Missed again.

12. Unexpected.

.6h – found and fixed a treport bug (bare “print;” in awk prints $0 rather than an empty line).

1.2h – fixed a bug hit by Robinson in a TRB block feeder script I wrote a while back. I told him I’d blog the script so he could ask publicly with something to reference, but I failed to do so, making for some later glaring at the growing pile. Therefore I’ll get to it ASAP and include the bug thread so he gets the credit due.

7h – other JWRD related reading and chat. (This should move to expected.)

13. Review: 2h.

3.3h and late.

14. Plan: 1h.

Somehow last week’s late plan, or thinking about planning the plan or whatever I was doing, clocked at 4.5h, split between two days. Seems symptomatic of being generally not that sprightly or focused these couple weeks.

Time permitting:
15. Continue TRB study.
16. Continue work on human-sized differential backup tool.

Didn’t get to these.

Total 44.9h.

This plan is pretty overloaded for what’s left of the week, and I haven’t managed to figure out what to cut or what’s likely to fall off anyway, but I need to put something out at least and get it moving again.

1. Review Robinson’s proposal for insurance company IT report: done.
2. Review 3 health insurance options: 2h.
3. Possible Junto Wednesday: 2h.
4. Help with summer cottage opening Thursday.
5. VPS setup for JWRD training: 2h.
6. PuTTY setup and docs for JWRD training: 3h.
7. Zoom purchase for JWRD training: done.
8. Mining meetup.com: 4h.
9. Young Hands chat, reading, comments: 6h.
10. #therealbitcoin background reading and engagement: 6h. My objective is to collaborate with the old crew if they’re indeed working now to foster a constructive environment and do useful things, or else to have a sound reason why not.
11. Blog: 8h.
12. Unexpected.
13. Review: 2h.
14. Plan: 1h.

Time permitting:
15. Continue TRB study.
16. Continue work on human-sized differential backup tool.

1. Blog: gscm, gbw, router setup, bitcoind notes, differential backups, moar outdoorsy photos, maybe something on the local covid politics… 8h.

None.

2. JWRD: remote training setup, landing page, prospective client conversations, other: 8h.

8.6h, of which 5.2h Zoom futzing and .9h phone call with VT prospect. No progress on landing page or training VPS.

3. JWRD: prep and delivery of a first remote training session for Panama student, with reciprocal management instruction: 4h.

3.6h. This got off to a rough start but worked out alright. In the management session, major topics were status of current leads, sales projections, and ideas for expanding the prospect list.

4. Continue TRB/BDB/Boost study: 6h.

None.

5. Personal administration such as insurance and some accounting catchup: 2h.

Nothing on the above, though 2.6h on some web archiving and backups.

6. Young Hands chat, reading, comments: 6h.

5.9h marked as YH and 3.4h as some mix of YH, JWRD chat and old log reading.

7. Unexpected: 6h.

2h – regrind of MP-WP patches plus signing, press test, and blog update.

4.8h – added multi-level aggregation to my time reporting tool “treport”. As this was the last missing piece, I tidied up a bit, wrote usage comments and an install script, and issued a genesis for upcoming release.

2.8h – failed testing of browser-based alt-Zoom favored by some in the Junto group, and emails defending my choice. I had some fun with these and figure I should blog them.

.8h – browsing local classifieds.

4h on Sunday – poking “meetup.com” as a promising target for mining local contacts, as public meeting spots are still pretty restricted.

Subtotal: 14.4h.

8. Weekly review: 2h at 16:30 UTC (12:30 local) Friday.

2.4h; missed target and deadline.

9. Next week’s plan: 1h.

Missed and will have to do later Monday.

Total is 37.5h on (non-household) work. On top of that is 9.3h assorted reading and 4.9h “planning”/pondering/spinning/general misery. Sleep was a bit irregular.

I tried to take the “priorities first and foremost” to heart, but as they stalled they dragged other things I meant to do down with them. I did less than usual with checking in on the plan and adjusting.

Not to pin it all on Robinson, and I find I’m reluctant to say it, but it can’t be avoided saying that his continued half-responsiveness was frustrating and demotivating. At least it’s clear that I’ll need to cut back on expectations, and take on more responsibility for outreach: do or die. I’ll see how that goes and where we stand by the end of the month to decide what next.