Saturday, 14th February, 2026

Discourses has a new free tier where you can spin up a forum and use for free up to the limits. I made one…because…I dunno. Although there’s a lot of config and I’m not that interested so maybe I’ll come back to it another day.

Thought it might be useful as a lazy-mode journal/scrapbook. Think it has 5GB of storage, so should be plenty for images as it compresses things anyway.

Really I don’t have time for another hobby/project and if I did get a Land Rover and it broke down then most likely I’d take it somewhere and pay for it. Uh I dunno. Maybe I should find something to distract me.

One of the niggles with a Land Rover is that we don’t really have a nice place for it to live. Sure it can sit on the drive but the drive is only two cars wide and so we’d have to stack them up. That’s fine but I can see it being annoying at times. Maybe I should set myself the goal of organising the garage such that I could keep it in there. Probably help with it not rusting! Be nice to have an organised garage with tool racks and worktops for stuff. Although my concern is that there are too many things to fit in the garage. Felt bad enough when I was trying to setup the rowing machine (that 1 million metres goal has long gone). Probably just better storage is needed, although 6 bikes makes things difficult.

Or I should put some effort into my home ham radio setup. Actually put up some decent antenna, get an aerial man to put one on the chimney. That kind of stuff.

Friday, 13th February, 2026

Sent the old snow shoes back, bought a bigger size. Except my model was then out of stock so I had to buy the top spec one. Ah well.

Should arrive Monday, and more snow is forecast next week, so hopefully get an outing with them.

Was looking at Land Rover Defenders again. I could just buy one. Seems excessive but fun. I do worry I over optimise everything. Do nothing now, to save money, to do things later. That’s a slight exaggeration but I do always think “I’ll do that when the kids leave home” or “once I’m retired”. Why not now? Future me will be old and boring.

This is probably just my brain justifying buying things.

Soon enough we’ll have a teenager in the house…

Thursday, 12th February, 2026

Guess what? I still can’t decide about the snow shoes. I emailed to start a return and the store then sent a big email about choosing snow shoes size. Which is a lot of what I’d read previously. He was stating the same things that led me to go for the smaller size, but the instructions on the shoes implied my body+kit weight should go for the larger size. So fuck knows.

Wednesday, 11th February, 2026

The problem with researching stuff on the Internet if you get 10 amazing reviews and then 10 terrible reviews. I was all set about buying that buffalo mountain shirt that my friend recommended and watched a few videos and it looked great but then started reading some other reviews and it seemed to be less great. It wasn’t as if anyone was exaggerating or lying just I think it comes down to whatever suits them and whatever activities they do and that’s hard to know for what I want.

It’s also pretty expensive and I have clothing already. I don’t know if they ever do sales but maybe I’ll just keep an eye out.

So I looked at Land Rover Defenders. I like the 90 county models, with the old inward facing bench seats in the back. What I’d use it for, I don’t know. Learning “cars”, which would be good to do. It would be fun…is that allowed? Or does everything have to be optimised…

The Reddit time limit on my phone does work. I can easily bypass it or add more time - perhaps some settings to limit that - but it just acts as a nice trigger to go “this is a waste of time, go do something” vs. just sitting there for two hours until I need the toilet.

I was worried I’d cocked up at work on Monday and was wondering if anyone would notice, and why my excuses would be, but then I realised I was mistaken and things weren’t as bad. No doubt a lesson there.

Maybe I’ll get the 2.3GHz transverter instead of the mountain shirt…

But also less things.

For about three years I’ve been saying I should do a monthly write up of our expenses. Just to put a bit of context behind the table of numbers. Still yet to do it. I used to do it in my dokuwiki which was my “whole life” website back in 2017 or something. Even made a template to use each month. I should recreate it. But I won’t.

Reminds me that I made a backup of that dokuwiki somewhere. I wonder if I still have it or if it’s in some random github repo.

Logged into my public services vps and went to update the docker containers but docker compose wasn’t recognised as a command…so not sure what that’s about. I think the only docker thing running is linkding.

Think I need to yolo more and research less. My snow shoes arrived and immediately I regretted not getting the larger size (which is what I started with based). Back they go!

Tuesday, 10th February, 2026

Think I’ve become addicted to buying mountain wear. Been looking at Buffalo mountain shirts. Winter shirts that you just wear on their own. The guy I go out with a lot has one and was wearing it in the snow and gales these past weeks, even said one hill he was too hot in it!

I also want a very lightweight and packable wind/rain shell. I have a good one but it’s not very packable. I can roll it up and put it in my bag but it’s still bulky. I started looking for one and the “best one” seems to be the jacket my friend also has 😅 feels funny to have exactly the same things as he does, but there must be 1000s of people with it. It comes in different colours so that’ll help.

People have bought me various hiking socks but I really want some “darn tough” ones as everyone recommends them. I only really need two or maybe three pairs max anyway. Probably one pair would be fine as I usually only go out once a week.

I haven’t branched into camping yet but thinking this year I might try and do some remote summits that require camping.

I repaired the radio I sold and was damaged in transit. The new parts arrived very quickly from the manufacturer. Unsoldering one of the encoders was a bit tricky but fine in the end. I just can’t quite get the VFO knob to sit and turn nicely. I think it maybe got bent slightly so it’s not perfectly round anymore. I might see how much one is from Yaesu but don’t really want to buy more. I’ve already listed it on eBay, this time with 25 photos and a video of the knob turning so no one can question it. The handheld sold too, which is nice. Pays for that mountain shirt 🦬

I can’t be bothered doing any blog stuff right now.

I don’t know if my screen time limit on Reddit is working. It’s not popped up but maybe I’ve not been on it that much. Have to give it a test…⏳

Monday, 9th February, 2026

Various (follow the links) people are doing no screen time (or minimal). My evening reddit browsing is annoying me. There’s not even anything interesting to read. I did try having a book on my phone to read but I don’t like it and it’s too easy to change. We use screentime settings for eldest, perhaps I need to set it for myself.

My last week’s average was 4hr 48minutes, 33 hours 40 minutes total. That seems like a lot…4 hours 12 minutes was Reddit. Oh I see it also includes 3:41 of Google Maps, when I’m using my phone to navigate in the car. Not sure that really counts. However, safari is 8:13. What I don’t quite get is that I don’t have the reddit app - I deleted it the last time I tried to cut down my usage - and just use it via Safari. So why does Reddit show as a separate item and no other website does? Maybe it’s the most visited? I’ve set a 15 minute limit on Reddit. Let’s see if/how that works.

Everything else is signal, whatsapp, ham radio apps (Discourse forum, logging apps, mapping apps), various email clients, Pikmin Bloom and YouTube (although I mostly watch YouTube on the computer).

Pure blog is interesting. Debating if I’m going to try it but I want to fiddle with too many things and whilst it’s nice, I don’t see why a static gen CMS is not sufficient? In a roundabout way it makes me want to use dokuwiki for everything (it’ll be that php on plain files vibe). Like how I now want to keep an eye on screentime, and I do that by make a note myself each week about it and then commenting on it.

Saturday, 7th February, 2026

I finally paid for 1 year of mailbox.org. Wanting to send an email with the address I moved to it was the final push it needed! Although I looked at how many emails I send and it’s been about 12 this year. I guess I mostly just receive email and so does it then matter what my domain is? (Because I’m still stuck on that). I should just find the cheapest “normal” tld and go with it. I like .net. Maybe I’ll look up some random words and see what I can find. I have my radio domain for when I want to email with my radio hat on. Which are most of my sent emails.

I miss my old iPad Air and Smart Keyboard. I still have them but they don’t work. iPad won’t turn on - perhaps some high current power supply could revive it but the screen is all smashed and the keyboard didn’t work last time I tried. Thought about buying another but second hand. But I really don’t want to buy more screens. Perhaps I should find a good Bluetooth keyboard to use with my phone? I want it for writing here and DayOne etc. I’ve got used to the screen keyboard but it can be tiring. I also like writing this on the sofa, and not on the computer. Feel more relaxed and there are less distractions.

The boys have been playing Roblox. Not sure if it’s a good idea or not. I mostly think it’s fine as I used to play computer games and know what it’s like to be really into a game. Plus they play with their friends at school. It always sucked if you were the kid who couldn’t join in. All the chat and social stuff is turned off and it can only be turned on with age verification…which even if they did, they wouldn’t be allowed it anyway. I’m sure things will get harder.

Neighbour got their new Range Rover on lease (I assume as they get a new one every 3 years). I don’t know how you could justify spending that much money on a car. But people can do what they like and who am I to say anything. No doubt they would balk if they knew how much my ham radio kit was. Or that I just bought some snow shoes for £230! 😅

Which will mean it’ll be mild and all the snow will melt.

I like this guy’s website.