Consecutive months expenses. Dead computer to replace. Car insurance. Replacement shocks for the car. Service and MOT for the car. New rear brakes for the car. Absolute money pit before even going to the pump, but not worth enough for selling it to be worthwhile.
If moving back to London were to become a reality it would have to go anyway, and I can spend the proceeds on cinnamon buns from Gail's.
When remote working became mandatory and companies were forced into adopting it and learning how to make things work, I really liked it. The removal of my commute and being in control of my own environment during the day really worked for me.
Three years on and I'm seeing the benefit of the office. The context of this-is-work and this-is-home makes a massive difference to my productivity.
Unfortunately, the office is a 3 hour journey each way. Doing it more than once a week is untenable. Ideally I'd be there three days a week, but in order to do that I'm going to need to live within TfL's network. That just raises the old question: how did I ever afford to live in London?
Walking London listening to slow, spacious music can make the place feel very different. Block out all other sound and instead fill everything with Moor Mother, Low, Emma Ruth Rundle, of The Field.
I don't think I have ever listened to hip hop in the mountains. And I don't think post rock has ever felt right in urban areas.
My memory before the age of around 16 is very patchy, but I clearly remember driving through the middle of London at night with my Dad (long before congestion and emissions charges) with some Jazz, probably Miles Davis, playing. It smoothed out every corner and pothole and made the journey immersive and so much more than just transport.
Everything I Googled today:
Months of tinkering that started out as a refresh of styles and turned into a complete rewrite, simplification, and a long list of ideas for the future. A shift in a approach from 'This is all about being a web engineer' to 'This is about whatever I want'.
My small collection of technical posts is gone. I never wrote about anything particularly complex and they were essentially useless. They also end up being a marker of how long it's been since wanting to write about a specific problem.
Removing those posts and retaining daily writing meant MDX could go, and be replaced with a much simpler Markdown parser. Styled Components are gone in favour of CSS modules, mostly because that's what we use at work and I don't want to have to think about it. Everything is TypeScript, no JS bundle, 1.4kb of client JavaScript in the shape of one web component, new colour, new fonts, updated layout but keeping (almost) the same grid. The beginnings of an automated about page, using the last.fm API and sraping Goodreads since they closed their public API (though to be honest, scraping is better than XML).
Why didn't I use Eleventy, or some other lighter static site generator? A few reasons: I don't really like templating languages, I want something tangible to practice TypeScript on rather than a millionth ToDo app, and future features may well take advantage of React for interactivity assuming the complexity to bundle size ratio falls that way.
It's still in progress. The homepage is terrible, it still frames me as a front end developer ahead of anything else, and it's still mostly a home for this dull stream-of-consciousness-brain-dump exercise.
Back to wondering how image upload, storage, and rendering is still so complex.
F1 team mechanics, principles, and drivers wear apparel covered in logos because those logos are how they pay the bills.
Another income stream is selling that same apparel to fans, making money from the sale and convincing people to act as human billboards for petrochemical companies, boring corporate tools, and the new generation of addictive products under the guise of supporting a team.
Despite the USA being the capitalism centre of the world, with advertising being a cornerstone of the American dream, there are no sponsors on jerseys in the NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB. They make up for it though; if you ever attend an NHL game you'll probably see a face-off before the puck is dropped essentially frozen, waiting for TV to come back from a commercial break.
Today is Milan San Remo. A 294km race that is one of cyclings Monuments; races that are considered the the most prestigious one-day events because of age, length and difficulty. The youngest monument is Tour of Flanders, first run over the Belgian cobbles in 1913. Milan San Remo has been every year since 1907, save for a break during the Second World War.
Milan San Remo is unique in that the action doesn't really begin until the last hour of racing as teams organise and pace their contenders to the foot of the Cipressa, the first of two climbs that separate those in form from those still ramping up in the early season. The Poggio is a decisive climb and descent where riders show their hands, make attacks that may or may not stick, and attempt to drop or at least tire the sprinters before the flat run-in to the finish.
While the race is uneventful for more than 200km, the final is so unpredictable that there hasn't been a repeat winner for more than 20 years, with Erik Zabel winning in 2000 and 2001. It's the only race where there is a strong chance of a win for grand tour contenders (Vincenzo Nibali, 2018), puncheurs (Julian Alaphilippe, 2019), and pure sprinters (Alexander Kristoff, 2014) alike.
Only three riders have won every monument throughout their career, most recently with Roger De Vlaeminck completing the set in 1979. Unsurprisingly, Eddy Merckx holds the all-time record with 19 monuments, 7 of which at Milan San Remo.