Daily - 2025-12-03

Previously…

Yesterday recap

So, missed yesterday. I had every intention to write my daily notes, but next thing I knew it was 2PM. Oh well, here’s two days of notes.

Monday morning I had blood drawn for tests. These were requested after my visit a couple/few weeks ago, but the lab was closed because the single phlebotomist was on vacation. I finally got my visit in and of course the office found a way to fuck that up, too. I show up and they start acting like I had never been there before, don’t have labs waiting, and that I don’t have insurance. After ten minutes of telling them they’re dumb they finally figured it out.

I spent the rest of the morning working at my desk. I edited our family photo from Thankgiving and go that sent out to some folks. We even got the pug in this one. I then moved on to looking at Firefox containers.

When I used to work an office job I found a lot of use out of containers, especially when I was freelancing. Nowadays, I can’t be bothered. I looked at some setups and how to organize my open tabs, but I am “allergic” to tabs. My opinion is if I have 5 or more tabs open I have to stop and organize them. I know some folks have dozens or even hundreds of open tabs at a time. Not me.

I keep my tabs limited, my downloads folder empty, and my email at inbox zero. I absolutely hate clutter. Something to read later? Bookmark it, put in task list, close. Cool resource? Bookmark, tag, download page and archive in GTD notes folder. Long read? Bookmark, tag, convert to reader version, download, put in folder in Nextcloud, put on task list to read. Researching? Write notes, put URL in note, close. Only open tabs are Phanpy for Mastodon and FreshRSS.

So, decided against putting any effort into containers for now.

In the evening we watched WWE Monday Night Raw. While everyone was distracted I flipped the breaker for upstairs and replaced the outlet in my sons room. I dragged my feet on getting this done, even though it only takes like 10 minutes. Took me longer to collect my tools than it did to pull the outlet, snip the wires, and connect the new outlet. Nothing visibly wrong with the outlet when I pulled it, but it is definitely this one that is causing the breaker to trip. Hopefully this fixes the issue.

Gorls bedtime routine and then we finished Die Hard 2.

We also found out our last job is delayed. The house we are working at also has a contractor installing gutters and new drain lines. We pulled off the site to let them finish up and, of course, that contractor can’t get their shit together. They aren’t going to be done until the end of this week, so that means we are off until Monday. I’ll take the extended vacation and a reminder we are one of the good contractors who is organized and gets our shit done on time and on budget.

On to Tuesday.

I spent all morning and into the afternoon completely distracted by random tech projects. First up was my monthly backups. This is a more complicated process than it needs to be because I have so many offline drives that I want data on. I have multiple drives in various builds that stay off and I refresh the data as part of my monthly backups. I keep saying I need to simplify this and then never do. Some day.

Then moved onto updates. Updated homelab server, VMs, and NAS, plus all the containers running in various places. Super smooth, no problems. Debian + Docker has been awesome for me.

Next up was a couple small updates to the new HTPC. I added an ssh-server and enabled remote desktop so I can manage it away from the TV. I then installed Proton VPN and got logged in, just in case 😉. Last, I needed to do some Kodi updates as some addons were failing. Looking at the logs it was SSL errors, so needed to update certificates on the host. I don’t know why this suddenly came up and Kodi documentation and forums are not helpful. Honestly, the Kodi forums are awful with toxic folks and a huge turn off to using Kodi. But, there’s no real competition for HTPC interfaces.

I decided I’m not getting a new phone this year. Posted a little about it on Mastodon.Instead I’m going to replace my battery, case, and put a new screen protector on. I’ve done this before with the S10e and my son has the same phone, so I’m going to do the same with his. In total its about $80 for everything, which I can handle at the moment.

Last, I worked on testing Steam Remote Play Together. I knew this feature existed, but I don’t know why it took until now to see that the gorls could use it. Our Steam library has a lot of titles that are couch co-op, but their desk layout makes that difficult. Using Remote Play Together they can sit at their own desks, but still play co-op. It worked great! I played a match of WWE 2k25 with older gorl and then a half hour or so of Goat Simulator with littlest gorl.

This was a reminder to learn your tools, not always look for new. I needed to spend more time with Steam and learn all the ways I can use it, which will save us from buying multiple copies of games. Next up is in-home streaming. I think the gorls will have some usecases for this around the house.

Dinner, gorls bed time, and the wife and I watched Violent Night.

How are you feeling today?

Can’t mistake-y if not awake-y.

Gratitude

Always grateful when backups and updates go smoothly. The homelab saves us a ton of money. By my estimate, about $500 a year.

Todo

Chores

• Since I’m home being lazy I’m trying to do extra chores around the house so wife can relax more. I’ve been studying her schedule so I can get to some chores before she does.
• Some biz licensing stuff I need to handle for EOY paperwork.

Fun

• 🤷‍

Projects

I’ve had little success over the years with Steam in-home streaming. But, I want to take another stab at it for the gorls. Yes, they have their own desks. But, as they get older, they want to spend more time doing things privately. In-home streaming would enable them to go into their room for a gaming session. But, my expectations are low for Steam streaming. The same for Sunshine/Moonlight. I’ve tried multiple times and the results are meh. I might try Parsec since they have Win11 desktops.

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