This week: a 2-year Schengen visa, planning a Greece trip, tracking expenses, and some wonderful poems.

For folks not in the know, this is a weekly stream of consciousness zero-agenda “here’s what’s happening” or “here’s what’s interesting” post.

What’s been happening

• The Greek Schengen gods have finally decided to give us a multi-entry 2 year visa. Yay! I had requested for this in a cover letter, and apparently the new rules make it a bit more standardized, but this was still a pleasant surprise.

• Finished the Monk movie this week. My opinions remain the same: it is good fan service, but not the best Monk on screen.

• Workouts are done this week, and it was a new set of routines. It went well, but it’s looking like I might need a new set of weights to keep up with RPE 8-10.

• We’re planning our Greece trip and it looks like it’ll be about 10 days with 3-4 days in Athens that includes a few day trips from there, and one island. We’re leaning towards Santorini despite the crowds there, and depending on the time, we might also try one more island: Mykonos or perhaps Paros.

• I’ve been tracking house expenses for about 6 months now, and just want to say an ode to one of the oldest pieces of software invented: the spreadsheet. It’s still the most accessible and data-dense user interface out there. In a single sheet, I’m able to see a detailed list of my transactions, overviews of my spend grouped by Needs/Wants/Dues/Savings, transaction categories with Budgets, and daily spends with thresholds. And while it took a bit of QUERY magic to get this constructed, it’s still far better than anything custom I could have made in the timeframe. I’m rooting for the future of the spreadsheet: imagine AI speaking spreadsheets natively, and normal folks being able to manipulate the data around the world and plot graphs with them as easy as iteratively typing and refining a query.

• Onam is coming up and we visited Vellayani this week to give gifts to everybody. Sooraj was there as well and he was talking about the number of exams he has to pass to advance a grade as a marine engineer. I count my blessings that computer engineers have nothing of that sort, I can’t imagine studying and passing an exam at this age.

• Also saw Pranchi: who has grown up a lot and is a lot more muscular now. Also he’s now friends with his brother, and it was cute to see them together.

• I bought some Pears body wash, and started itching all over as soon as I used it. I suspect I have a Pears allergy, and it’s the absolute strangest thing. I thought Pears was all about being hypoallergenic. The only other report I saw was this one from 2016.

• Leaving you with this wonderful poem: But We Had Music. I’ve been reading Marginalian this week, and there’s so much good stuff in there.

Links of the Week

• Another wonderful short poem: Joy.

• This font reminds me of so much: the wheek-wheek sounds of a dot-matrix printer the foremost.
• Signed up for Sundaygrids this week, which is a super interesting way even renters can offset their electricity bills with an investment in solar. They’ve got a one month free credits if you sign up now.

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