Cycles: 20250120-20250126
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Webmentions: 1
Cycles: my new, no-pressure weeknotes. So much good stuff packed into seven days. Best week ever!
Natural cycles
Section titled Natural cyclesWet. Windy. What more is there to say? I always imagine this time of year to be crisp and crunchy under foot. The reality is much more gloopy.
Gardening
Section titled GardeningOrganic
Section titled OrganicAs the rain and wind is rearranging my garden, I don’t really seem the need to. Though I have a nagging feeling I should be busy. My future self is probably trying to save the annual disappointment of starting too late.
Inside is a different story though. I bottled up my genmaicha (brown rice green tea) and black tea kombucha. I’d planned to use lychee for the second ferment but had to settle with raspberry and strawberry. The next batch is going through its first ferment and I’m particularly interested in the lion’s mane infused tea I’ve used this time.
A couple of people have shown some interest in buying some booch and kimchi. I’ve had some ideas for creating some labels and branding. In the weeks it takes to ferment I should have time to put something together.
Digital
Section titled DigitalThe two-week January sumo tournament wrapped up on Sunday. I’ve caught a few of the highlights in the week but I made a point of watching the action unfold live from Friday when things really heat up. It was a nail-biting final which went down to a three-person playoff. Every basho (tournament), I sign up for Sumo Kaboom bingo and try to follow along. I’ve recently recreated my sumo bingo card on my website. The markup and data structure is continuously changing so it comes as no surprise that I’ve broken previous versions. It’s very manual and prone to human error, so I’m curious about finding or creating my own source of result data. Between now and the next basho, I’m going to see if I can write a Python web scraper to create a Json file, unless there is one that exists already.
Work cycles
Section titled Work cyclesI started off my week with Brian Suda. I met Brian back almost a decade ago volunteering at the dConstruct conference in Brighton where he gave me a prototype of the LatLon Island notebooks that were soon to be launched on Kickstarter. I’ve kept in touch with him over the years, reading his most excellent newsletters and testing his various micro-projects; stickers, business cards, and innovative iOS apps. They’ve brought the same kind of excitement and intrigue as a “floppy disk stuck to the front of 90s computer magazines” as I explained on the call. We chatted about the design process, the importance of; starting, small, prototyping and testing, conference curation, the braggoscope thermal printers, paper-based pocket games, and sumo. It was a great reminder to find time to catch up with the people who inspire your thinking and good eggs of this world.
Our chat was very useful for warming up my vocal chords. After saying goodbye to Brian, I was scheduled to have my final thirty minute conversation that could lead to a completely new beginning for me. Fast forward to Friday afternoon when the phone call I was expecting gave me some incredibly exciting news. Bottles were opened, steak and chips were consumed, 90s anime was watched. I can’t wait to make the official announcement. SQWEEE!!!
I attended two brilliant webinars this week; Tom Kerwin’s Multiverse Mapping, Jeff Gothelf Joshua Seiden and Jim Kalbach pairing OKRs with JTBD. They were both brilliant and have stayed with me all week.
I spent most of Thursday with the lovely folks at Peoples Park for Nature to workshop the strategy for 2025-2026. It was a fantastic day, expertly facilitated by James and Dylan, with the rest of the team giving excellent input. We also had nature in the room twoo 🦉. I really appreciated how Dylan pushed us to discuss and agree on the difficult decisions. It really helped to fuel the momentum going forward.
(Bi)cycles
Section titled (Bi)cyclesThe weather has been hideous this week so my bike has been mostly neglected. A very small window of sunshine and stillness on Saturday meant I could go for an equally small cycle, repeating the same route I took last week. I’m getting rather bored of the weather now. I’m craving those warm, long evenings that seem to go on forever.
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