Bryan Robb

Category: Notes

  • Finished reading: [Sapiens](https://micro.blog/books/9780062316103) by Yuval Noah Harari 📚

  • Looking at open enrollment options and comparing insurance costs between my employer (government) and my wife’s (health care). Her premium for dental through the same provider is 8 times as expensive. This system is stupid.

  • Of all the scientific and technological advancements made in my lifetime, not one is more important than the Squatty Potty.

  • As much as I loathe DT and Musk, I unfollow people who body shame them. Don’t care if it’s punching up, that’s some right wing stuff I just don’t tolerate in my feeds.

  • More sunbreaks. ☀️

    A suburban neighborhood is shown with autumn foliage, wet roads, and partly cloudy skies.

  • My mother-in-law officially retired, so we’ve been getting a little relief with the kids lately. Last night we got out in Northwest PDX. I won a pretty decent gift card to Ringside a while back and we had to use it. Nice place, but not our normal thing. We would never spend that kind of money on streak had we not had the gift card. Spent some time shopping and had drinks beforehand. We had a lot of fun. NW is a beautiful area. I feel very fortunate.

  • Finished reading: [Mermin Vol. 1](https://micro.blog/books/9781620103098) by Joey Weiser 📚. We enjoyed this one, looking forward to book two.

  • We may or may not have put up the Christmas tree today. 🌲

  • I wonder who they voted for.

    > [Demonstrators with Nazi flags appear at ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ performance](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/11/11/demonstrators-nazi-flags-appear-at-diary-of-anne-frank-performance-howell-michigan-american-legion/76194690007/)

  • Went on a date with my wife, found a Lego brick in my pocket.

  • Bridge City. Gloom rolled in, but we’re dry at the moment. Photos from the passenger seat.

    A view of a cityscape seen from a highway, featuring tall buildings and a cloudy sky.A calm river is lined with houses and trees under an overcast sky, with dock structures visible in the foreground.

  • Quoting scripture in response to conservative Christians voting for Trump isn’t hypocritical if you’re not a Christian. You don’t need to be Christian to recognize when they’re not living by their own tenets, just as you don’t need to be an engineer to drive a car.

  • Always a strange day for me between being my brother’s birthday and also the day my wife and I went on our first date, 9 years ago now. No lack of fodder for reflection. I like this photo of her smiling big with her eyes, taken in the foyer of my first apartment in Portland. Love her.

  • Thinking about my brother Brad, who would’ve been 42 today. Love you, buddy.

  • Went to a musical at Mountainside High School tonight and then had some food and drinks with friends at Cooper Mountain Ale Works in Sherwood, OR. Not the best food, but it was nice to see people and feel part of a community.

  • There’s a development forum I frequent that still uses vBulletin version 3.8.7. That’s software that came out in 2010. The owner refuses to upgrade and the users won’t migrate because of their post counts. Is there a way I can throw a browser based CSS skin on it for a mobile style view?

  • What’s that you say? You’ve never heard a Twin Reverb cranked to 10, in person? Yeah, me neither…until the Tone Master version, which allows you to attenuate down to 1 watt and play at bedroom levels while still getting that natural breakup sound. My medicine this weekend.

  • How are you taking care of yourself this weekend?

  • A Trumper resorted to criticizing my “combover” instead of my ideas yesterday. I’m still kind of smiling about it.

  • Probably crazy, but I’ve always wanted to take Amtrak down the west coast in one of those sleeper cabins.

  • Currently reading: [The Unbearable Lightness of Being](https://micro.blog/books/9780063290648) by Milan Kundera 📚

  • I’m losing followers on other platforms because of my opinions about the election. But what bothers me more is how silent so many people are being about this. People who didn’t vote for him but appear as if nothing happened. The mass silence among people I respect is fucking me up.

  • I think I’ve gained back all the weight I lost just since Halloween. It’s been a helluva time these last 8 days.

  • I was recognized as an Italian citizen, coincidentally, on Election Day 2020. We stuck around, but hell if we aren’t thinking about an extended sabbatical now.

  • Dog Zoey, who just turned 8, makes me laugh with her morning routine. She usually sleeps downstairs on the couch, but when my raucous children wake up and stampede downstairs, she heads upstairs and lays in my bed to avoid the chaos of mornings.