New Beginning with Home Note

I jumped into Nick Milo’s Ideaverse and got a new look with my primary Obsidian vault as well as a new Home Note for my daily flow. The most significant result is that I’ve reduced scrolling into the land of trolls and I’ve increased the depth of my reading.

148 mile ebike

An ebike with range as good as a small EV: www.youtube.com/watch

More homework with Obsidian Hub

Finally clearing my desk so I can finish 23 Obsidian Hub lessons with Nick Milo.

Officially Recovered from Jet Lag

I consult my Whoop app to see how my body is doing. Nine days ago, coughing and wheezing, I returned back to Ireland from Portlandia. According to the medical grade fitness tracker on my wrist, I am fully recovered. You can find my meandering audio log snippets as ‘Topgold Audio Clips’ …

Back when I cut code daily

Thirty years ago, I was a simple code cutter. I had a fat HTML encyclopedia and new clients every month, some who would pay more than 500 Irish pounds for each web page. I had a poster like the image at the top of this post. Life was simple in the days before Wordpress.Today I watch programmers with …

Back to Audio Journaling

I first started making regular blog posts in 1996, toggling between Live Journal and Radio Userland. There is a real joy when you can create and share from a mobile phone. In the late 90s I used a Nokia Communicator. Today I have a much smaller Samsung Galaxy that also serves as a lighrweight audio …

Jamelle Bouie breaks down the sickness affecting American democracy. “You need look only at the last 25 years of American political life to see that this country is unwilling, and thus unable, to hold its political elites responsible for anything, from illegal wars to fraud and other forms of …

Introducing Irish-born son to a Full American Breakfast

Sharpen those Soft Skills #protip

I have been listening to Alastair McDermott for decades. He spotlightd the need for soft skills in our tech world. Alastair spent a lot of 2025 explaining that Al will eliminate jobs. Alastair also shared his ideas for how people can stay relevant and resilient with Al. It means honing critical …

Family Travel Rules with BA

While flying for more than 12 hours today, I realise I should take advantage of special access with British Airways–not because I feel entitled but because some of those privileges would smooth out the check-in sequence for the family. Dylan (14) and I sailed through baggage drop and passport …

Sighting Loadsa UA Reg Numbers in Kerry

This past month I worked with a Ukrainian couple who live with their twin daughters in Clonmel. He is a carpenter. She is a trainer. I am glad I met them. A report in November 2025 from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed 119,043 personal public service (PPS) numbers have been …

Best Christmas Gift We Heard

I believe the best multi-generational Christmas gift in our home wasn’t the drum kit Dylan (14) received. It was the midnight blue Roberts Radio that aRuth got. That’s because I saw the eyes of my octagenarian in-laws light up when they saw and heard its multi-room sound and as they …

Holiday Warmth and Christmas Chatter

Like every Christmas, we have more noise and more warmth than on a typical December day. This Christmas we have the grandparents staying over for two nights. That’s disconcerting for one of our cats (Luna in the photo) who cannot claim the chairs she uses as her beds throughout the day.

Fractured Family at Christmas. Again.

I am lucky to have family and in-laws around me today for a shared meal. Thirty years ago, when I was new to Ireland, I felt I was intruding when at Christmas dinner wuith people I just met that year. Back then, Amazon was just a place for books and I didn’t send books to family in America. I …

Christmas Eve Sitting Room

It’s Christmas Eve in our Irish home and by looking at snaps I shot in our sitting room I realise we never stop renovating. We finished installing a new fireplace (the original one had a broken fire brick in the chimney). We had a broken pipe that leaked through the floor above and marked the …

When Visual Data Tells the Story

I never had long showers when I was young. Perhaps I should invoke a time restriction on my teens because when they’re showering for more than 15 minutes their electricity usage causes noticeable spikes, as in the black bar displayed in this power usage screenshot.

60 Minutes CECOT Story

Thanking my Canadian friends for sharing the 60 Minutes CECOT story that Bari Weiss spiked. Bari Weiss did what she was hired to do. She redlined a story that was critical of Kristi Noem and the Trump administration.

I use a Whoop Fitness Band and wonder if its assessment of my sleeping patterns truly correlates to aging. I feel refreshed after 5.6 hours of sleep. Whoop wants me to get 8 hours of good sleep. Doing that is challenging for me.

Trump Seeking Respect

We’re making a field trip to Portland Oregon to welcome 2026. We’ll be trying to figure out why Americans don’t appreciate Trump for his Greatness. There seems to be a total lack of appreciation for all the Executive Orders that make America Great Again and we think the sentiment …

The Parrot's Tale

I discovered Punya Mishra’s blog after hearing him share his expertise with educators in Valencia, Spain, in early 2025. Punya shares a story that goes back to 1918 in a short fable that Tagore wrote called “The Parrot’s Tale”.

My job today is to clean out the fireplace. Thankful it isn’t raining.

Compressing while Decompressing #RUNEUAI

I am using Christmas Break to decompress from my routine while using AI tools inside both Obsidian and Notion to compress info I produced since I retired. It’s not difficult to find people who disagree with my use of AI in the knowledge vaults I maintain. Some of my critics use SharePoint …

Link List

www.youtube.com/@CBCNews www.youtube.com/@HT-Physi… www.youtube.com/@Washingt… www.youtube.com/@VICENews www.youtube.com/@ABCNews www.youtube.com/@NBCNews www.youtube.com/@9to5Goog…

Showing my love for H5P.com #DEC25

The schedule above confirms I will be showing a live demo of H5P Group AS’s smart import during the Digital Education Conference in Waterford Ireland on 9 December 2025 at 10am in room F06. I’m borrowing a workflow Frances ODonnell shared with me, culminating in a chase towards a prize …

My Three AI Takeaways from 2025 #RUNEUAI

I’ve tagged this post with #RUNEUAI because the biggest things I’ve learned about AI came directly from the 15 weeks I worked with 18 students and two instructors during my last teaching semester at university level. That collaboration opened a portal of discovery and sharing that was a …