It has been four weeks since I’ve added an entry into this space. I was very busy last few weeks hence I couldn’t find anytime to sit, retrospect and write something.
What have I been up-to last week?
Soon after lifting the VIC to NSW border restrictions, I decided to visit my family and fiance in Melbourne. I spent three weeks there with family and loved ones. It felt really good to spend time with family. Because of the lockdown, I couldn’t spend time with any of them for last 8 months and I was looking forward to this break.
Eventhough I call it a break, it wasn’t actually a break because I was working from home almost everyday. I could have taken leaves, but my family had work and therefore I decided to work as well. However, that actually is one of the positives that came out of this virus.
I drove 4332 km last three weeks and that’s the first time I’ve driven so many miles in a really short time. I started loving my car after the trip. It didn’t give me any problem whatsoever. I drove from Sydney to Melbourne in 8.5 hours and I wasn’t even tired. Even the return trip was not tiring. That was a great achievement because I usually can’t drive for long.
After watching Queen’s Gambit in Netflix, I started watching chess games and playing some chess in chess.com. I have played chess long time back, however, I’ve never played competitively. I know how to play and all, but I didn’t ever spend time learning the game properly. I might spend sometime learning the game for casual play as it stimulates my mind.
I’m still playing with my DJ setup everyday and I’m getting pretty good at it. I’m planning to give it some more time before deciding whether I should own the gear that I rented or I should stop doing that altogether. One positive that came out from this new hobby is a new-found appreciation towards music. I attentively listen to songs now to understand the structure of the songs such that I can utilize them in new ways to do some fun mixes.
How is everything else?
COVID situation in Australia is getting better. There are small clusters here and there, however, I don’t think they are that critical and it is impossible to erradicate the virus. We are keeping our fingers crossed on pfizer vaccine. USA started the vaccination program. We should wait and see how effective the vaccine is.
At the same time, UK is affected pretty badly. There are almose 30k cases every single day and now they have gone for a hard lockdown. This will be a very sad Christmas for them. I think the Australian summer helps a lot with containing the virus where as everywhere else it’s the cold weather which increases the spread even more.
What am I reading?
I couldn’t spend much time in reading.
- Sapiens, A brief history of humankind (295 / 480 = 61.5 %)
- C++ Programming Language (312 / 1279 = 24.4 %)
- From Mathematics To Generic Programming (129 / 312 = 41.3 %)
Any new learnings?
Nothing much apart from reading C++ books.
Backlog
- Session on Embedded Testing
- Bluetooth temperature logger
- Build a simple radio - Lame level 10
- Setup an MQTT server and a few nodes
- Solar powered IOT hub for agro industry
That’s a week!
- Pradeepa