Offline life

So, I haven't written anything in quite a long time - probably the

longest break in this phlog's history. Tomasino[1] recently wrote

about how occasional pauses are inherent to the practice of

blogging/phlogging and that people shouldn't waste time apologising

for or commenting on these. I think I agree in general, but I'm

contradicting this now because the last three weeks haven't just been

the usual "I'm still actively interested in maintaining a phlog, I've

just been temporarily busy with real life stuff which has kept me away

from it". I think it's fair to say that during these weeks I've come

to feel more disconnected from and even disinterested in anything to

do with computers, the internet or electronics than I can ever recall

having been in my adult life.

I think probably this is largely attributable to the glorious weather

and ridiculously long daylight hours which are already here in

Finland. The rapidity of the change in season here is nothing short

of astonishign for me, and this is my first time experiencing the

summer part of it as a contrast to the recently experienced winter

part, as opposed to some strange new novelty that appeared immediately

after a long flight and as a backdrop to all the preparation involved

in starting up life in a new country. When I'm home from work and

dinner is finished and it's still bright and warm outside, the idea

of going downstairs to a room with tiny windows to write phlog posts

or code behind a desk has a very hard time competing against going for

a walk or a bike ride, or even just sitting outside and enjoying a

beer.

We have now received our garden allotment so a lot of our spare time

has gone into that. The soil here is a clay type of soil which is

totally unfamiliar to us. It is very dry and crumbly and tends to

spontaneously clump into small, hard pseudo-rocks. It honestly feels

kind of like gardening on the moon.

I have also gotten more interested in cycling, or perhaps more

specifically I've gotten interested in bicycle mechanics and so I'm

riding more as a side-effect of that, and finding that I enjoy it more

for it's own sake. I've gotten involved in a few bike projects, one a

from-scratch build and one a restoration, both of which I will write

about at some time.

I've been enjoying and feeling fullfilled by this offline life, and

there is a vague temptation to just relegate digital life to colder

days, as seems to be SparcIPX's model[2]. But I don't think I really

want to do that. I do feel bad about dropping out of the gopher

community, and about neglecting my own nascent community at

circumlunar.space. I value the community spirit here very much and

want to remain a part of it, so I will try to strike a better

balance between the two, and will try to do so.

That said, it might take a while, because I'm going to be travelling

for a good chunk of June. I'm going to Estonia for work early in the

month, so after that my wife and I are going to travel down through

the Baltic states and then into Belarus before flying back home. I

won't be taking my laptop with me after the conference, so I won't be

able to phlog from the road, but I will definitely make more of an

effort than I have been to keep on top of everybody else's writing.

I see that ZLG is back[3], which is absolutely fantastic!

[1] gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/tomasino/phlog/20180522-move-your-feet

[2] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/sparcipx/phlog/May_2018/05-22-18

[3] gopher://zelibertinegamer.me:70/0/phlog/2018-05-25_2211.txt