On Friday, I started a 30 day experiment where I "upgraded" my smart phone to a mostly dumb flip phone. This is day 4 of that, I'm loving it way more than I thought I would.
I saw one of your earlier posts or comments about that...glad it's working out for you! I have been tempted to do something similar. I'm practicing leaving my phone at home or in the other room at times I know I don't need it or really want it. Started running without headphones, too, in a effort to disconnect a little more.
Thanks! So far, so good, anyway. I'm only on day 4, but liking it so far.
I still use the smartphone (on wifi) in the mornings when I let the dogs out. Mostly just to catch my daily Pokemon and play my daily word game while I drink my coffee. Then it gets put away.
Had a bit of trouble getting my work MFA moved off of it, so I still keep it semi-nearby in case some random thing decides to try push notification instead of prompting for a code, but other than that, it's been smooth sailing.
I don't know that I could run without music, lol, and I no longer have any discrete MP3 player that still works.
Believe it or not, before phones had GPS, I actually had a decent sense of direction 😆 (now, I can't get out of a paper bag without GPS)
It's got a map app and GPS which seem to work. I did replace the stock Google Maps with Organic Maps, though. Haven't tested it beyond plotting a course to the grocery store, but that worked well enough. For the purposes of my experiment, I don't consider that cheating since I did have maps/navigation/GPS on my flip phones in the past (though they relied on cell towers for positioning).
I figure if I commit to the dumb phone life, I'll grab a dedicated GPS unit for my car like I used to have (assuming those still exist).
I hosted an art gallery / techno party at a non-profit organisation I volunteer for. It's a club for alternative cultural events everyone can afford. We're talking 5€ at the door and 1,50€ for a beer, at a 10 hour event with multiple DJs and life bands.
It took 4 weeks of preparation to create a concept, book artists, DJs, techs, a caterer etc.
On Friday after work I drove to the club to prepare it.
We built a video installation, mounted a free-standing vertical canvas to practice graffitti, hung 20 artworks, tested sound and light equipment, etc.
I was back home at midnight.
On Saturday I drove back at noon to finish preparations, then ran the show, which went from 6pm to 4am the next morning.
I was back home at 9am, after working 37h on a weekend.
It was the first time I did any of this, and since my partner was sick, I was doing most of it alone. One of the most exhausting weekends of my life.
But twice as many people showed up as expected, and it was a complete success.
Even though an art exhibit doesn't exactly fit our usual 18-24 year old audience.
We primarily market over word of mouth, a self-hosted web forum and Instagram.
I've never seen a club like this anywhere else, that's why I became a member and devote up to 20h a week to keeping it alive.
It's a wonderful oasis in our capitalistic hell-scape.
It's a small thing, but I'm happy that the mandarin seeds that I've planted a while ago are sprouting. Eventually I'll use them to graft into Malena (my Sicilian lemon tree). The end game is to have Malena producing multiple fruits; she already has a grafted rangpur branch.
The tree herself also made me a bit happy. Replanting her from a vase to the ground stressed her, but now she's all like "I have more space for my roots! Who cares if it's winter? Time for new growth!".