Weeknotes 274

Happy new tax year.

Despite not visiting the gym at all this week I still managed to maintain my weight loss progress. What’s my secret? Norovirus.

I must’ve caught it around lunchtime on Saturday. I’d felt fine all weekend and it wasn’t until halfway through the train journey home on Sunday night that things started to go wrong, thick waves of nausea swelling and receding, fingers tingling, blood roaring in my ears.

I started doing that grim calculus of whether it was best to remain trapped until London Bridge regardless of how ill I became — because then I’d be within striking distance of home, where even the worst situations are automatically easier to cope with — or to smash the door button to release myself, collapse onto the platform of some unstaffed provincial station and let events play out chaotically from there.

Fortunately nothing spiralled out of control on the train and I made it as far as London. In desperation I fell into a black cab driven by a man who didn’t know where my local Overground station was but bombed straight up the bus lanes to my front door once I explained. I fumbled with my keys to get into the shared entranceway and found it blocked by some new neighbours who wanted to ask questions about reading their gas meter. I don’t even remember how politely I handled that, but I got quickly past, up the stairs, through my own front door, just in time for things to get bad.

I’ve doubtless lived a fortunate life, but norovirus is the most unpleasant illness I’ve experienced, just 48 hours of relentless puking. One nasty aspect was how dehydrated I became, which led to the torture of feeling desperate to gulp down litres of water when in reality (I quickly learned) I could only take tiny, pathetic sips instead.

So, yeah, I haven’t done much this week. Monday was meant to be a holiday but, trust me, it wasn’t. I had to take Tuesday & Wednesday off sick to recover first from the illness itself and then from the sleep deprivation, physical exertion and mechanical damage its symptoms had caused. I lay in the dark and waited for the fragile ecosystem of a human body to return to balance.

Awful.

Anyway, back to the office on Thursday & Friday to spend time with overseas visitors. I didn’t get much actual work done but I did mark all the unread messages as read.

I couldn’t face writing work weeknotes so I decided to stop doing them altogether. It’s been a fun exercise but at this stage I can’t justify the opportunity cost of the time it takes versus the impact it has on its (small to nonexistent) audience. It was good while it lasted and it’s possible I’ll go back to it when I’m feeling more positive about the project.

I’ve spent the weekend resting and napping to pay off the last of the sleep debt. I’ve also had a bit of a spring clean, including a clearout of my most egregious junk cupboards which generated piles of stuff to donate and recycle. The windows are open, the sun’s shining, and the place is feeling at least a little renewed.

PYTHON PALZ: Phil says I should use uv, a new-fangled tool I’d never heard of, to manage Python versions and dependencies. I think I’ll still confine it to Docker as planned — fool me once! — but I’m relieved to have some clarity about what to do about Python inside a container.

I’m going to avoid the Switch 2 discourse other than to say I don’t intend to buy one until there’s an exclusive I can’t resist, which realistically would have to be a successor to Super Mario Odyssey.

As always, I’d pay good money to never have to play or see Mario Kart for the rest of my life, but fortunately that’s one service Nintendo hasn’t yet found a way to charge for.