2025-12-23
[mode: drift]
Last Day Sounds
End-of-year quiet at the office — just a few people left. Someone played guitar down the hall. We went out for burritos at lunch. The building felt like it was exhaling.
End-of-year quiet at the office — just a few people left. Someone played guitar down the hall. We went out for burritos at lunch. The building felt like it was exhaling.
A year-in-review rendered as a desk scene. Printer running, coffee cooling, bread proofing, drives stacked. Surprisingly accurate.
A difficult day. Breakfast made by my aunt before the drive. Long conversations. Hard decisions. Sometimes all you can do is accept that things are changing and keep yourself fed.
Went to a small wine and cheese gathering. Good food, easy conversation. I sat across from a professor who lives in Portland and we talked about rain, pace, and what daily life there actually feels like. One thing that stuck: Portland really is a maker city — outward, not upward; slow, methodical, and quiet.
New filament arrived today. Cleaned the printer, moved it into better light, tracked down the power cable, and brought it back online. Ran a small calibration print to confirm motion, heat, and flow. Simple, but important.
Kayaked Silver Springs today with a small group from the college. Clear water, long quiet stretches, and good conversation on the drive down. Ordered filament tonight — ready to start iterating again.
Quiet day at the office. Lunch with a coworker. Evening walk. Spent the rest of the night laying out gear and prepping the kayak for tomorrow. Not polished — just ready.
Long day at work. A holiday parade passed the building in the morning. In the evening, I went to the Gainesville Hackerspace for the first time in years. I talked through a microcontroller project I've been developing and was invited to present it next month.
Quiet day. Campus deserted. The town feels quieter.
Built a simple camera extension for an upcoming kayaking trip. Tested clamps, poles, and reach until it felt right. Sometimes the work is just finding the simplest version that holds.
Walked to a coffee shop without a laptop and sat for a while. Later: Target for a few house things, yard cleanup, painted the exposed columns, set up the Christmas tree. A day of putting space back together and being part of the room.
Graduation crowds filled the campus today — loud, temporary, celebratory. I threaded through on my way out, back to quieter work.
Worked through a simple photoresistor circuit in the morning. Lunch with coworkers at the dining center. Walked the neighborhood in the evening and watched planes cross a clear sky.
Brought holiday cookies to the break room and most of them disappeared by afternoon. Finished a big site migration, took a short walk at lunch, and kept the evening simple: dishes, a cleaned bedroom, and a quiet reset.
An evening of cookies and conversation. New faces, easy laughter, and a little warmth on a cold weeknight.
A campus walk with a colleague. A surprise gift card on my desk. A kayak invite confirmed. Even this stickered flyer — small signs that the day wasn't lived indoors.
Rainy Sunday. Further organized the guest room as a studio. Began clearing long-term storage. Swapped switches and cleaned cables. Small repairs moving things forward.