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We visited some of my in-laws last week as part of a larger reunion. One couple flew in from overseas to join us. We are very close to this particular couple, and it was very difficult to say goodbye when the time came for us to leave. The wife recommended that we all join a family group chat to stay in touch, which I would love to do; my only problem is that the chat service she wants to use is WhatsApp. I have strong feelings about WhatsApp and have deliberately never made an account there, especially since I already have a Facebook account and already talk to family on there. Now I'm at a crossroads: should I compromise on extra family time for the sake of privacy principles, or should I compromise on privacy principles for the sake of extra family time?
My first independent site on the small Web was served via Gopher. While I moved to Gemini fairly quickly and have made this my home ever since, I still have a (shell of a) Gopher server. Recently I've found myself browsing Gopher just as much as I do Gemini. Maybe it's worth it to mirror more of my Gemini content there.
I created an account on James Tomasino's Cosmic Voyage many months ago as part of an effort to get back into creative writing. I came up with a fictional universe in which I could set a series of vignettes, but I never actually wrote any stories within that framework. This week I finally put together a very short first story and posted it online. It's already inspired a few other ideas for me.
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Photo of the week (week 27):
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Ferrets usually sleep 15 to 18 hours per day. Our cage has several hammocks that the ferrets, Mocha and Chai, can sleep in. Sometimes they sleep separately, and sometimes they curl up together. On this particular afternoon, Mocha and Chai slept in the same hammock.
Photo of the week (week 28):
(PNG, 450x600, 131 KiB)
I enjoy playing StepManiaX, an arcade game inspired by DanceDance Revolution and Pump It Up. The timing windows in SMX are much tighter than in other games, and I struggle to achieve good scores and avoid missing notes. This week I managed to get a full combo on a 21-rated chart.
Photo of the week (week 29):
(PNG, 450x600, 154 KiB)
Our garden continues to grow and thrive, though it's growing a little more slowly than we expected. While watering our bush pickle cucumbers one evening, I was struck by how massive some of the fruits were. I'm used to seeing pickles about the size of a pencil bag, but these are much larger: one looks more like a squash than a cucumber.
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[Last updated: 2025-01-27]
