Bryan Robb

Category: Notes

  • Remembering a time in my 20s and early 30s when all I wanted was an out from where I was living in the Midwest. It felt like a prison.

    It you’re in a similar situation, don’t give up hope. There’s someplace out there for you.

  • The job hopping in the tech space is so much different than government. As someone who has sat on many hiring panels, if I were to receive a resume with 10 jobs in as many years, that person is not even getting an interview.

  • Not sure why it bothers me so much that Las Vegas will get true HSR before the Northwest or Midwest, but it does.

  • I moved away from Lansing about 10 years ago. Lived there for almost a decade. I didn’t live there when developers tore down this block on Michigan Ave, but I still can’t believe they took out an entire historic, fine grained commercial block.

    [maps.app.goo.gl/T85Ea1yXJ…](https://maps.app.goo.gl/T85Ea1yXJkVW6q619?g_st=ic)

  • My public university degrees (in-state undergrad and grad) cost $106k in tuition, not including community college costs or interest (2010). Thank god for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. Hopefully it survives.

  • Made the mistake of getting back on Facebook right before the election. Just deactivated again, but seriously considering permanent deletion. What I always miss most are the groups. There are some great communities on there, I hate to admit.

  • I posted yesterday about needing more indoor play places for kids with adult amenities more like an airport lounge. Biggest concern to me would be sight lines. How would Foucault feel if we used the panopticon as a model? 😉

    A large, circular prison interior with multiple cells and a central watchtower from which a beam of light projects.

  • The Achilles Heel of the YIMBY movement is the common thought that this isn’t built because it’s illegal. It’s legal in enough places to know that developers don’t build much of this. People have so much faith in the landlord and investment class. Such weird bed fellows for the movement.

  • Having one of those weekends with the kids where I’m ready to go back to work. I think we all need a vacation.

  • Making my homemade mac and cheese tonight. Feeling like I need some comfort food. Might not fill the void, but it will get me through!

  • We need indoor play places for kids where the parent areas are more like airport lounges. When we’re going through long stretches of bad weather, these places are lifesavers for people with young kids, but I think there’s an untapped opportunity here to provide better amenities for parents.

  • Went looking for a binaural sleep frequencies app and ended up self-administering EMDR. Have you tried turning your trauma off and back on again?

  • Currently: Old Fashioneds and a pretty competitive game of Rummikub while the kids watch a Christmas movie.

  • So many worries about the Fed’s direction in the coming years—beyond the usual. Transit funding, affordable housing, education… it all feels so precarious right now. Trying to stay optimistic, but it’s tough not to feel the weight of it.

  • Nearing my mid 40s and the font sizes are definitely getting bigger.

  • As a staunch urbanist, I love the idea of the 15-minute city, but that lifestyle seems out of touch from most people’s reality. Allowing nearby amenities is easy from a land use perspective, but work, school choice, and childcare are other matters entirely. How do advocates reconcile the problem of most working households needing to commute to wherever they can find work, or needing to drive their children to consolidated schools outside their neighborhood? This is our traffic problem.

  • Finished reading: [Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder: A Graphic Novel (Dog Man )](https://micro.blog/books/9781338896442) by Dav Pilkey 📚

    I probably enjoyed this one as much as my son (5), particularly the parts about A.I. I also love how he named a robot character in this series “80-HD”.

  • Jake Paul / Mike Tyson in the context of our societal collapse: bread and circuses.

  • Portlanders notoriously don’t shovel their sidewalks when it snows here. I’ve heard the argument that it’s pointless to buy a snow shovel when it only snows a couple times per year and melts fairly quickly. But guess what snow shovels are also great for? Soggy leaves on concrete! 🍁

  • I avoided this fallen can of soda water all week knowing full well that it would be there for me when I ran out of them on Friday. Here we are.

  • I decided to stop complaining about having so few friends as a middle-aged man and committed to a goal of one social meetup event per week. This week was trivia, next week is a writer’s group. With enough meds, I might even work up the courage to do an open mic night, but probably not.

  • A pair of quotes that gave me pause today:

    >The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

    — Pablo Picasso

    >There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretend order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.

    — Jane Jacobs

  • My wife scheduling that JC Penney photo shoot the minute I break down and trim my Movember mustache.

  • Currently reading: [The Death and Life of Great American Cities](https://micro.blog/books/9780679644330) by Jane Jacobs 📚

    Haven’t read this since grad school and have been meaning to revisit it. Oregon chapter of the American Planning Association book club pick for January. Figured I’d get a head start.

  • Book search down again for Epilogue on Micro.blog. [@help](https://micro.blog/help)