Author: Joshua

I shared some brief thoughts on buying a GORUCK GR2 previously. Having just taking a week long trip with it, I have a bit more to share.

For my trip I spent 2 days traveling, and six days in the hotel. Because I knew I could wash my clothes, I packed pretty lightly in that regard. That meant bringing swim trunks, shorts, and pants for bottoms. For tops I brought four t-shirts, a light sweater, and a light rain jacket. I wore the pants and shoes while traveling, and also packed sandals.

The shirts were easy to wash, along with underwear and socks.

The rest of my stuff in the bag was toiletries, laptop and iPad gear, and a few other minor things.

The bag worked well to fit it all, but still doesn’t quite feel like the perfect match. For one I also packed a GORUCK 10L bullet, which doesn’t pack down very well. That meant the overall weight of the bag included roughly eight pounds of backpacks.

While I love the look of the GORUCK Bullets, I can’t quite bring myself to like how their larger bags look or feel while traveling.

I intend to keep experimenting. Maybe I’ll find a much smaller EDC backpack for when I arrive, and keep the GR2 for the travel.

With the way flights work these days, having to fit a roller bag on the plane is getting more and more stressful. Having a single backpack means I can easily fit it overheard, or squeeze it into the area under my feet.

The more I think about it, the more I want to keep traveling with just a 15L Bullet. It would mean bringing a smaller laptop (15 inch MacBooks are too large), and possibly skipping the iPad altogether.

I’ll keep experimenting.

With the recent news about Automattic acquiring Tumblr, it’s got me thinking again on where and how I like sharing my thoughts online.

On Twitter I am happy to retweet, share links, and write short thoughts.

In times past I used Facebook for personal messages to friends and for posting pictures. I’ve mostly stopped now though, and will generally only post a few times a year to update family and friends that I rarely connect with.

On Instagram I posted faithfully for several years, sharing image updates of my family.

Now I’ve increasingly been looking for a place I can own, easily create content, and share for public and private consumption.

I’ve tried Tumblr, Path, WordPress, and the sites mentioned above. There’s no perfect solution for everything I want.

I’m inclined to try two WordPress sites. One for public, and another password protected for family and friends.

So far posting on the WordPress app on my phone feels the closest to what I’ve come to expect from a good social networking app.

Amidst all the chaos of life, it’s important to remember that kids really do grow up incredibly fast.

My son is six, and my daughter is two. I love watching them interact together as they hang. Even with the age difference they love being around each other.

I’m reminded that they have an opportunity to become closer to each other than almost any other humans, and the value of having a living sibling means so much throughout life. It’s fun to watch them, and to hear their laughter and play. They also fight a lot, but it’s starting to get balanced out.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to consume data that’s more ephemeral in nature. Headlines and social media sites are one of the worst ways to do this. My ideal would be a weekly cycle with a brush if articles that inform me on things that are happening around the world. The challenge is there’s a lot of news I just don’t want to hear. News that is negative, and which I have no way of resolving fits in that category.

I just signed up for Wired, $10 for a year for print and web. Looking forward to seeing if that is an improvement.

Some random thoughts on my experiences working remotely recently.

Most of the time I work from home, in an actual office room. We built this house a year ago, and I made sure to have a room set aside for work.

Recently though I’ve been having a hard time just being in my office. I think I’ve figured out what’s wrong. Having an office at home can be tricky. You spend most of your time there, and you’re alone. The environment matters a lot.

I’ve realized there’s a few things I need to fix to make the place more inviting. First, it needs to be brighter. Second, it’s time to put some things up on the wall. I listened to an interview recently by Tim Ferriss with Seth Godin. Seth mentioned that his absolute favorite place to work is his office. It has his artifacts and memorabilia from decades of work and living.

The place I go to work needs to be the most inviting place, a location that beckons creativity and interest.

I have a few tasks on my plate for that, and will update when there’s more to say.