Family

We drove up to Chicago to see family for five days. It’s a 7.25-hour drive if not stopping were an option, but we usually have to stop at least two or three times to re-fuel, eat, and have a few bathroom breaks. Both of my kids are pro-travelers. Give them an iPad with an offline cache of their favorite Disney and Netflix movies and series, plus some snacks, and they are good to go for 8 to 16 hours. On our last trip back from Omaha, they complained that it was too short because we didn’t stop on our 2.5-hour drive back.

We take turns driving, and through the magic of tethering, I’m surprised that I can comfortably use my laptop from the car for half the trip.

Seeing family was good. There are five kids, ranging from two to nine, but this year everyone is out of diapers, everyone can communicate their needs, and everyone plays together nicely.

We decided to avoid dinner prep drama for Thanksgiving and go out for Mexican food and margaritas. This was an excellent idea. The staff was super friendly, the food was excellent, the margaritas were the right amount of salty and sweet, and everyone got to pick something they enjoyed. There was no food prep or cleanup stress. Overall, our bill for 10 people plus a very generous tip, even after a service fee, was much less than it costs to try to feed 10 people a traditional spread.

Work

It was a short, two-day workweek for me. I helped a client with an inventory project running a week or two behind on their side. The timing wasn’t great because it all landed on my lap the day before I was heading out of town, and it took a few days to run. I hate k8s even more than before.

My main client is missing a tool or two to nail the pulse. I have thought about this because everything takes less time to complete but more time to work on the problem, so things are stretched out. The holiday break was the mental reset I needed to know how to manage this for the next month until our winter break.

Community Work

I skipped all Office Hours this week, but it was a busier few days for my DSF CoC WG card. We reset/rebooted the WG a month ago and have more members and communication. It’s taking more time to reset and settle into a healthy normal.

Side projects

Side Quests

Calendar Agent

I spent some free time over the break working on an app that lets ChatGPT control my work calendar. I got the basics up quickly, and my Calendar Agent (Bot?) can look at what’s scheduled on my calendar and create new events for me. The hardest part was navigating Google permissions (I hate them) so that I could access my calendar through Python. Once I got that setup, I used Claude Projects to help me write most of the code.

I ran into an issue with tool calling because I wanted to let the Agent query the time for a day before creating the event. I shifted this logic into my create event function as a fix and realized I was way overthinking it. Now, I have an interesting agent. Still, I have yet to figure out how to run it outside my terminal, which isn’t helpful.

Entertainment

I mostly watched football and basketball this week, but I started a few shows from jefftriplett.com/now/

New gear

Since it was Black Friday, I did some shopping, but not as much as in previous years. I noticed Mastodon vibes are anti-Black Friday, whereas Blue Sky and X are more about saving money and getting a deal. More of my friends shared deals over Slack and Discord than in previous years.

I picked up a five-pack of 32 GB microSD drives for my NanoKVMs, which I hope will be delivered next week. I also bought the family an Air Fryer convection oven combo unit, which may replace our old toaster and be helpful.

Next week

We get to start our LEGO Advent Calendars. I started this tradition with my son when he was two or three. My daughter will be three in a few weeks, so she is now old enough to join in the tradition, too. She requested the Disney Princess calendar, and my son has the Star Wars set. We skipped the traditional set because one can only have so many Santa Clauses.