Barry Frost

Barry Frost -

Week 182 - Celebrate - 2025-02-17T17:37:54Z

• So much birthday-celebrating this week.
• First, C had his early birthday party at DJ's Jungle, starting with soft play, then party food, Happy Birthdays, and finally, laser tag in the dark on the soft play equipment. The last 15 minutes the parents were also given laser guns for an (outnumbered) parents vs kids match. The grown-ups lost. The most fun I've had at a children's party.
• On Valentine's Day we joined Andy and Emma at The Lamb & Flag for drinks on the way to Wyndham's Theatre for Inside No.9 Stage/Fright. Reece and Steve were excellent, as was guest star Phil Daniels who was kidnapped by mistake. There were a few moments that made you jump along with clever writing and comedy. It was so good. I'm very pleased to have booked our tickets a while back.
• Thought: I must have seen more Phil Daniels live cameos than any other celebrity. I've seen him several times with Blur doing his Parklife bit and then this week in the first half of the play. He seems to be enjoying life. Sitting in our row in the audience for the second half he was cackling away.
• The day after was C's birthday so L quickly put up decorations and arranged his presents when we got back. He's still obsessed with Harry Potter and Lego which made present-buying straightforward. He went to bed very happy and exhausted after a trip to the cinema and McDonalds.
• Thanks to L's parents staying another night to babysit we went out to celebrate her own birthday early. We ate dinner at a busy Cowshed in nearby Tewinbury.
• I got her jumpers, books, framed photos of the boys and a big print to go on our bedroom wall. Art is so subjective so I asked her for a few choices from a selection so it was a semi-surprise. I even hung it on the wall.
• We finished things off with a Sunday roast at The Lytton Arms and then a family walk I'd found around Old Knebworth. She then spent a happy evening on her phone with a glass of Prosecco pretending to watch TV.

Week 181 - Eggs - 2025-02-09T20:31:14Z

• I caught the early train into London on Wednesday for a breakfast meet-up. Joel had kindly invited a group of people he's coached to Dishoom in King's Cross for networking and spicy eggs. It's reassuring to talk to peers, swap war stories and remember everyone has similar challenges in their jobs.
• The early start wasn't actually too bad: I caught one of the recently-rescheduled non-stop trains from Welwyn North at 8am and was at the restaurant just half an hour later. London's not so far away when the fast trains run.
• H's Lions narrowly won their under-9s football match 1-0 against St Albans with a very late winner. I may have had a little jump in the air in celebration.
• Saturday brought a rarity: both boys were at play dates at the same time which meant pub time! We had two lovely hours in The Goat before picking up a Thai takeaway on the way home to watch Children of Men.
• I did some Sunday hacking, adding support to Micropublish for IndieAuth Server Metadata. I just about remembered enough Ruby to write the code and tests. It felt good to build again.

No title - 2025-02-09T14:42:03Z

I've released a new minor version of #micropublish that supports the new2022 IndieAuth spec change to support Server Metadata for endpoint discovery as an alternative to the existing (legacy) headers/body methods.

Week 180 - Substance - 2025-02-03T16:31:59Z

• I watched a few films and plenty of TV this dark, wintry week.
• For some reason I hadn't seen Dead Man's Shoes, despite reading glowing reviews and listening to a podcast where Paddy Considine talks at length about it. L was at her circuits class on Tuesday and the kids were in bed so I took the opportunity. What a masterpiece. It's bleak, chilling and very violent but utterly gripping.
• Another film on my watch list was The Substance. I knew less about this one, just that it was crazy. I really wasn't prepared. We watched it together on Saturday evening and both turned to each other wide-eyed. From the A-list nudity to the gore and the insane ending... Wow. It's lived with me ever since.
• Everyone's watching Severance, right? I really can't half-watch it while scrolling on my phone. My full attention is needed. And then after I dive into Reddit to catch up on the fan theories.
• My two sons and I had a boys' gaming afternoon on Sunday while their mother was out shopping. I hooked up the Switch to the big living room TV for three-player games of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Mario Bros Wonder. For the first time we could race competitively against each other. I won the Grand Prix but then they ganged up on me to win the Battle Mode games. It really won't be long before they thrash me every time.
• Talking of thrashings, we all enjoyed Arsenal 5-1 Man City for some well-earned payback.

Week 179 - Loaf - 2025-01-26T17:35:17Z

• It's been a very quiet week, Monday especially so with my US colleagues off work. Of course there was a change in president over there. I'm trying to avoid doomscrolling but it's inevitable we will feel the effects here and in Europe.
• We spent a lot of time ferrying the boys around various clubs and activities. I took C to his first football training session at nearby Knebworth where he was happy to find three other boys from his school. He did well in the freezing cold. I then watched his big brother's team win 5-2 in Welwyn before taking C for an indoor rugby session on Sunday morning.
• I've been baking more overnight bread in my new bread-maker. Coming downstairs to the smell of warm bread is an excellent start to the day. It's really quick and gratifying. I need to be a bit more adventurous, though. So far I've not deviated from white/brown loaves with poppy and sunflower seeds. Maybe I could try banana bread?
• This week I had my last leadership coaching session with Joel Chippindale. He's an excellent coach and I've benefited from his expert guidance and reassurance over the last year. If you're thinking about similar coaching (do it!) I'd strongly recommend Joel.
• The Fantasy Premier League rivalry is growing in our home. I introduced it and must take some of the blame. H is outraged that both his mother and his little brother are beating him. It's even reached a point that when the latest scores are being read out on TV everyone is calculating what it means for each other's teams. I'm still top of all my leagues (for now).
• I've been playing with Cloudflare Pages and Astro's Server-Side Rendering (SSR). It all fits together very smoothly. It might even be a solid choice for a new website. Hmm.
• We finished watching the latest series of The Traitors. It's been one of the few things we've watched recently in realtime (apart from sport) and has been a guilty nightly pleasure. It's all nonsense of course, but very watchable. I'm sad it's over but I won't miss the participants' habit of referring to each other as yourself, e.g. "I've voted for yourself, Joe". Why?!

Week 178 - Maximum - 2025-01-20T15:42:24Z

• I finally felt better after post-Christmas stomach cramps. I had the same pains a year ago so there's a pattern: I wouldn't say I feasted like Henry VIII over the festive period but my body says I should take it a bit easier this December.
• I visited the office for the first time this year. It was a long day of meetings so I had to drive home in the dark and was reminded why I hate doing so. My cross-country route takes me down unlit roads where oncoming headlights from SUVs constantly dazzle me. It's exhausting concentrating so hard for so long. Bring on Summer.
• I've finished reading The Wall this week. It's just my kind of near-future dystopian novel. There's a clear message about climate change and the guilt of the older generations that has stayed in my thoughts. And it's a very readable, unique story. Recommended.
• Saturday I had another day out at Ally Pally, this time for my annual trip to the first of the Masters snooker semi-finals. We watched eventual winner Shaun Murphy cruise past Mark Allen, including Shaun's 147 break (you can just about see us in the crowd at the 3-minute mark before he pots the final black). There was a debate on the greatest individual feat in sport but the 147 must be close. We're booked again for next January.
• Unsurprisingly I'm drawn back into the latest series of the Traitors. The Faithful are so frustrating which of course makes great TV. Also gripping us: The Day of the Jackal. It's a little long but very watchable.

Week 177 - Freezing - 2025-01-13T20:30:32Z

• Back to work. I'd had almost three weeks off for Christmas, and felt a few night-before nerves similar to the ends of school holidays years ago. And after lots of lovely lie-ins my first day back started with an 8am global kick-off call, mercifully a cameras-off broadcast.
• As one of the inevitable tasks after being acquired we're being moved across to our new owner's IT systems. From the warm embrace of Google Workspace with Zoom to the icy slap of Microsoft 365 😭. I'd forgotten how utterly terrible the Microsoft ecosystem is.
• It's been freezing cold. Everyone has the sniffles it seems, including Stewart Lee who cancelled his comedy gig at Leicester Square Theatre on Friday night. Andy and I had tickets which were refunded rather than rearranged. The whole run is sold out so no Stew for us.
• Before Christmas my car windscreen was chipped. I did the sensible thing and got Autoglass to fill the chip with resin but it then developed into a full crack and so the whole windscreen needed to be replaced. So this Saturday I spent five tedious hours sitting in Autoglass Luton's waiting room while they installed and calibrated the many sensors and the camera. Cars are far too complex these days.
• At least I had the Arsenal v Man United FA Cup tie to save the week, right? Nope. H joined me at The Emirates to watch Arsenal lose in the third round for the second year running. It was 5-3 on penalties to United after extra time. At least there were no tears from H this time, just disappointment at losing after sitting in the cold for two hours. And he learned a few new words from frustrated Gooners leaving the stadium which I hastily encouraged him to ignore.
• 2025, please do better.

Week 176 - Fire - 2025-01-05T21:46:26Z

• We made it out for New Year's Eve - to Jenny and Ian's in the village for drinks and lots of party food. Our boys are still a bit too young to stay up late so we were all home and happily tucked up in bed by 11pm. Fireworks briefly woke me up at midnight before I rolled over and went back to sleep. Happy new year!
• Leaving the house for the first time after a gentle New Year's Day on the sofa we had a Thursday stomp around a very muddy Sherrardspark Wood. We wiped the worst of the mud off our trousers before a pub lunch.
• Our lazy week highlight was Saturday's trip into London for a Great Fire of London family walking tour. C had recently been learning about the fire at school and was excited to see the Monument, Pudding Lane et al. The temperature had dropped to sub-zero so the London Museum guide did her best to keep us moving around and engaged.
• We warmed up at Wagamama overlooking the Tower of London and then visited Aguamiel near Covent Garden for churros dipped in chocolate that we demolished in seconds. The boys are getting better at travelling around on the Underground but their road awareness could do with some work.
• I've started reading Atomic Habits. It's solid, logical stuff so far. I was thinking about goals for 2025 but I like the focus on habits and small improvements instead.
• The Christmas decorations are all down now. One more day of holidays for us all before school and work restarts.

Week 175 - Christmas - 2024-12-30T22:26:35Z

• As is now traditional, I marked the start of Christmas festivities by picking up the meat order from our village butchers. H walked down with me to struggle home with the food: turkey, gammon, pigs-in-blankets, bacon, chipolatas, sausage-meat, and a big box of vegetables.
• I voluntarily and happily did the cooking. I made a sticky, glazed ham for Christmas Eve (with lots of leftovers), the turkey-and-trimmings on the day itself and then a turkey, bacon and leek pie on Boxing Day. It's tiring but rewarding when it all turns out pretty well.
• The boys loved their presents. Their mother did an excellent job in choosing, as always. I assembled H's Rebounder and won our hit-the-target game (just), while C built his model Titanic - with lots of help. I've also been reading C my present contribution of Nelson, Hero of the Seas: we're both excited to learn about Nelson's naval victories at bedtime. I'm employing my best dramatic Dominic Sandbrook voice to keep him hooked.
• Wallace and Gromit were back to their best, I thought, in Vengeance Most Fowl.
• L gave me a bread maker - I'd heavily hinted I wanted one. I also received a starter box of flours, oils, seeds and yeast. So I guess I'm now one of those bread wankers. It's fun experimenting with the recipes and waking up to nice bread. The machine can add seeds and nuts from a little tray so I'm trying pumpkin and sunflower seeds.
• L's parents stayed with us this year, kept the boys entertained throughout and said positive things about my cooking. And then we visited my parents in Essex on Saturday and saw my sister and her children. A busy week so it's been nice to slow down for a few days after.
• Right, time to do my bread prep.

Week 174 - Church - 2024-12-23T11:51:22Z

• I finished work before Christmas a little earlier than previous years because of a few extra holiday days I needed to take off work. Rather than lose them I've spent three relaxing days to myself before the boys finished school.
• It also meant I could browse my way around a half-empty John Lewis to finish my in-person Christmas shopping. Just me and the old folk. I'm done 🎉
• It was youngest son C's turn for his school nativity play, this time at the village church. They combined years two and six: the older children singing in a choir and doing readings, the younger ones dressed up as Mary, Joseph, et al. C was an excellent third innkeeper who offered his stable. A few too many songs, lessons and prayers for this atheist, but I suppose I was sitting in a church at Christmastime.
• More in line with my idea of seasonal festivities was drinks with friends' families on Friday evening at Simon's. Our children are all getting bigger and staying up later, although the late finish meant ours were very tired the next morning. A quiet day on the sofa watching films and football was the answer.

Week 173 - Rainbows - 2024-12-16T12:58:59Z

• Our gas boiler had its annual service but also needed a new expansion tank and sensor. That'll be £770, please. Ugh.
• I'm deliberately avoiding devices at bedtime. It's probably sensible for my brain health. Instead I've been reading Project Hail Mary and have enjoyed being absorbed in a novel again. The protagonist is a scientist in space, there's an alien, the Earth is in peril - just my cup of tea. Recommended.
• Work's UK Christmas party was on Thursday at Swynford Manor, near to our Cambridge office. It was fun. I dressed up in Black Tie, met remote colleagues for the first time and had a few drinks. Staying overnight at the venue and taking the day off the next day meant I could get up late, have a Full English breakfast and then smugly drive home hangover-free.
• H's school nativity play was Lights, Camel, Action 2! which is loosely based on Strictly Come Dancing. My parents came along to watch. He was a dancing shepherd doing the conga.
• I then spent Saturday in London, first at Arsenal v Everton at The Emirates. I had failed to get tickets in the ballot but that gave me access to the Ticket Exchange and, after many page refreshes, I secured a seat in the Clock End. However, it was a frustrating 0-0. The twenty-something guy next to me was quite annoyed by that and made sure those around him knew. 🤷 These things bother me less these days.
• The football didn't ruin my day. I met up with Andy at Brixton Brewery (who had also watched a 0-0 at Bromley) for a few of their session beers in the tap room under one of the station arches.
• And then we went around the corner for Shed Seven at Brixton Academy. The Sheds are having a late career renaissance. They had two number-one albums this year and packed out the Academy with (mostly) 40-somethings having a nostalgic, lusty singalong to Chasing Rainbows and their other nineties hits. I don't get to many gigs these days but I've never heard it so loud in there.
• Just two working days left before my extended Christmas break!

Week 172 - Wind - 2024-12-08T19:59:29Z

• H has been accepted into the advanced group of his Players Academy football training sessions on Monday nights. We're very proud but we're trying not to put any pressure on him about where it might lead. Just remember to buy a big house and a massive yacht for Daddy, please.
• I had a couple of trips to the dentist this week for a check-up and hygienist session. They continue to be happy with my teeth although I was again nagged to use interdental brushes. I never hear about them accept when I visit. Are they some sort of dental scam?
• Work is simultaneously winding down for Christmas and gearing up for a big start to 2025.
• It's been a stormy week. L had arranged a night out at Adam Kay's show at Alexandra Palace on Saturday. We made it to the theatre just in time despite cancelled trains and strong winds blowing us around as we climbed to the top of the hill. It was worth it for Adam's clever songs and filthy diary entries from his days as a doctor, all with a Christmas theme.
• I've had more time to play with GenAI tools for coding and I'm a true believer. I've now subscribed to Windsurf which I find truly magical. I sit with a silly grin on my face while prompting it to write code and refactor whole codebases in a fraction of the time it would take me. It soon corrects its few mistakes when I point them out and doesn't get irritated.
• We're not even halfway through the Premier League season and yet every dropped point by Arsenal feels painful. 1-1 with Fulham. At least I'm still top of all of my Fantasy leagues.

Week 171 - Advent - 2024-12-01T21:03:52Z

• The Christmas tree is up and decorated. I'm not sure why but L relented and allowed us to use multi-coloured tinsel this year. Much more festive in my opinion, even if it's not as classy.
• My job in the decoration process is to get Alexa to play the right Christmas tunes and to make the mulled wine. We had a bottle of pre-made from last year to which I added orange slices. Lovely.
• L surprised me with an advent calendar. I can never remember if we buy one for each other but I didn't have one for her. I had to pop to the Costcutter in the village and buy the last calendar they stocked: one with a Paw Patrol theme. Redeemed just in time.
• Continuing with the Christmas theme, I've even been shopping (online) for presents. I decided to take advantage of the Black Friday offers and buy things early. I'm not finished but I've made a solid start.
• I've been enjoying The Rest Is History podcasts on my commute to work and walks around the village, in particular the Nelson, French Revolution and Roman Conquest episodes. Tom and Dominic are so engaging. It feels like you're part of their conversation.
• I've continued experimenting with Generative AI coding tools. I walked through the GitHub Copilot tutorials and then kept tinkering. It's no substitute for knowing the fundamentals: I had to point out a couple of mistakes it had made which it then cheerfully corrected. I guess I also need more practice. I'm going to give new entrant Windsurf a try.

Week 170 - Eating - 2024-11-24T20:44:26Z

• It was my birthday this week. I don't always take time off work to celebrate, but with a few holiday days left in the bank I decided to make the most of it with a longer weekend.
• After dropping the boys at school, L and I first took the train into King's Cross for some shopping and lunch. I bought new trainers (very "6 music dad") and a blazer from Uniqlo, then I had a Negroni and some tasty gnocchi at Vermuteria in Coal Drops Yard.
• Back home we'd booked a babysitter so we could visit the Cowshed for dinner at nearby Tewinbury. After another Negroni, goat's cheese and lamb, I was very happily full.
• The next day I met up with ex-colleagues and friends for lunch at Smith's in Paddington to eat steak and drink a bit too much wine as usual. I may be risking gout this week but getting old(er) isn't so bad.
• Storm Bert has been battering the country and was a good excuse to spend a quiet weekend sheltering indoors, watching football and relaxing.
• X/Twitter is over for me after 18 years. I've been busy following people on Bluesky and unfollowing them on X, ending any reason to go back and check my X feed. It's noticeable how over the last couple of weeks so many people have created accounts and quit X. Although I prefer Mastodon (and the Fediverse in principle) I'm spending my time on Bluesky because that's where the people I follow are posting.

Week 169 - Electronic - 2024-11-17T19:28:44Z

• I had another brief, last-minute trip to Munich this week. I flew out on Thursday afternoon and was back home late on Friday.
• This time it was for a visit to Electronica where Altium was exhibiting, but also to spend time with a couple of senior leaders (including my boss) who were over from San Diego. It was worth going: it was the longest we'd spent together for a while, plus a face-to-face opportunity to kick off a new project.
• The show was in Messe München, an enormous exhibition centre outside the city. I did my best to cover the thousands of stands and chat to people in the industry. In our fairly niche world it's fun stumbling upon people who actually know and use our software.
• Back home I was up and out to take H to his under-9s football match. He scored their first goal of a thumping 5-0 win, ending a run of frustrating losses. A positive result makes a cold morning on the sidelines much more bearable!
• I pulled on my own boots on Sunday for a kickaround with him while his brother had mini rugby. I won 4-2 in nutmegs. I then had three very muddy pairs to clean.
• I've renewed our broadband with TalkTalk for another two years. Even though the customer service is terrible, the renewal price was fine and I just couldn't face the hassle of switching away.
• We now have FC25 on the Switch - this year paid for by H's pocket money that he had been saving up. We've all been playing the new "Rush" 5-a-side mode. It's more like basketball than football: end-to-end, lots of scoring and with five players. The boys love it but I'm not a fan, most probably because I keep losing.

Week 168 - Night - 2024-11-10T21:59:23Z

• Two actual nights out with my wife this week!
• The first was to see The Bluetones in Hitchin on Thursday. It was our fourth time seeing them together. Our first was a very early date years ago at The Forum in London, the most recent was a lovely acoustic set in the same venue. Thursday's gig was to play the new EP and plenty of old stuff. They were excellent. Mark Morriss still sparkles in between songs.
• Saturday was at the local tennis club's annual quiz night. Our team of nine improved one place on last year's fifth finish, most probably because there were no anagrams. I answered a few tricky questions and even participated in the physical activity round. A few too many impossible tennis questions though.
• We needed a babysitter. Our previous one had gone off to university so we asked our neighbours' teenage son. He seemed happy enough to earn a few quid while watching Netflix for a few hours.
• I'm making progress with my ActivityPub server. I've cracked using HTTP Message Signatures to accept a follow request. I was stuck on mismatched digests for a fair while, but after five minutes with ChatGPT it spotted and fixed my mistake. AI is unsurprisingly better at writing code than me.

Week 167 - Magic - 2024-11-04T17:56:26Z

• I had a couple more nights by myself this week while the rest were still away. I cooked myself an amazing ribeye steak (and filled downstairs with smoke), cooked (too much) curry and watched AI/sci-fi films. Nice to recharge my introvert batteries for a bit, but I was happy when the family hurricane returned.
• The boys (and L) were home in time to trick-or-treat our way around the village for Halloween. I'm not sure if our children are any more road-safe when running between homes, but at least our village neighbours were still happy to fill up their buckets with sweets.
• Five years this week since moving up to Hertfordshire from Surrey.
• I took C to Lego club on Saturday at the library. This week's theme was Bonfire Night. Although he understood about Guy Fawkes and fireworks, he had firmly decided he wanted to build a fire-breathing dragon. His creation, technically on-theme, was therefore a big red dragon that spat out piles of fire to set Lego men on fire 🔥
• My parents then drove over to take the boys to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford. The boys have both enjoyed the books and seen the age-appropriate parts of the films, but it was C that dressed up in his Potter shirt and hooded wizard's cape and was bouncing off the walls with excitement. A big hit.
• We blitzed through season two of the excellent Diplomat. Even better than the first.
• During the quieter moments this week I've resurrected my ActivityPub server project and have been happily hacking away. I'm focusing on the server-to-server parts first, but I plan to implement a Mastodon-compatible API. There's a lot of Bluesky buzz about right now, but building for ActivityPub seems a lot more accessible.

Week 166 - Trophy - 2024-10-28T19:03:50Z

• It was H's ninth birthday this week. He's now at an age where he no longer wants toys. Instead he received a football kit (Arsenal away with Havertz/29 on the back), football boots (Adidas Predators to match his kit), football books, football games, etc. He did also get The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom which I'm waiting patiently to play.
• For his party we took him and a group of his friends to Ninja Warrior in Watford. We fuelled up the boys beforehand at a nearby McDonalds, but each emerged exhausted and drenched in sweat after two hours of happy bouncing, swinging, sliding and climbing.
• On Saturday I met up with some old colleagues in Reading for our (very late) FPL league post-season drinks and lunch. This was especially notable because I was the 2023-24 champion and needed to be awarded my trophy. James had 3D-printed this very nice imitation Premier League Man Of The Match cylinder which I promptly left behind at Nando's. Luckily it was still on the table where I'd left it. It's now safely home where it will surely stay when I win again this season (hashtag bantz).
• The rest of my family are currently staying with my in-laws in Wiltshire for the first few days of the boys' school half-term while I'm working. This does however mean I have evenings of things L doesn't particularly like: sci-fi films, curry/steak and red wine. It's a bit too quiet but I'm making the most of it.

Week 165 - Hike - 2024-10-20T19:56:16Z

• This week I flew to Munich for just 24 hours to visit a customer for a workshop. It was a pretty short and expensive but worthwhile trip. I think our hosts appreciated the effort of us flying in people from Poland, the US and the UK (me) to spend time together.
• Sitting in a meeting room of mostly Germans, I could observe their enthusiasm for lüften, the art of ventilating rooms by opening all the windows, despite the crisp outside temperatures. It helped with the stuffiness and kept everyone alert. They might be onto something.
• Most of the attendees were PC users and I noted that almost everyone brought along a wireless mouse connected with a USB dongle. I'm so used to software engineers with MacBooks; are PC laptop trackpads terrible or are Mac users just more willing to adapt?
• Back home I was volunteered to join C on his Beavers hike through the muddy countryside. It took our team (six Beavers and a leader) over three hours to walk the 12km to our finishing point, following challenges and eating our snacks. All of us made it to the end, despite one boy's blister and lots of zigzagging.
• For the rest of the weekend we were firmly in parent taxi mode. I took C to his rugby taggers and his brother to his football match, while their mother took H to two tiring birthday parties. Time for a quiet Sunday evening on the sofa.

Week 164 - Nuclear - 2024-10-14T14:57:06Z

• My cold from last weekend kept me off work this Monday. I was still foggy the next morning so didn't risk the drive up to our office in Cambridge in the rain. I've been mostly cooped up indoors 😔
• I rewatched Threads this week - the film about a fictional nuclear attack was shown again on BBC Four to mark the 40th anniversary of its first broadcast. It's still as shocking and grimly fascinating as ever. The first part (pre-bombs) is set in 1980s Britain when I would have been about six years old, so it's also a nostalgic reminder of childhood memories, although thankfully I wasn't blown up in a nuclear war. Part documentary, part drama, the tension brilliantly grows alongside the ordinary lives storyline. And then ecomes the bleak horror.
• In cheerier news I bought an Apple Studio Display for my office, replacing my old Dell 4K monitor. The 2x scaling (vs 1.5x with the Dell) is so much sharper and the integrated camera and speakers are excellent. I'm perfectly happy with the camera quality - it's only used for Zoom calls after all.
• The Dell monitor has now found its way to the Family Room, connected to a keyboard and trackpad. It's a cozy alternative base to plug in my laptop in the evening and do some hacking, or for L to use (and charge) her laptop via one USB-C cable.
• We've been playing games of Uno as a family. The boys love it, although struggle with holding their cards in their hands so spread them out on the floor. I stoically refuse to peek and yet have won the most games.
• By popular request, I cooked a roast chicken and trimmings on Sunday. "The best lunch ever," according to C, although that may have been because of the salted caramel ice cream after.