ALF Chicago Marathon 2025 Liver Life Challenge Update

First, I want to thank everyone for donating! In the week I made my first post, so many people reached out and shared the link across their networks. With the help of the initial outreach, we raised $785! Humbled does not begin to describe how my family feels with all of your generous donations. Since we hit my first mental milestone, the grand-children will be busy at work making personalized thank yous for everyone who donated (and those who will donate in the future). Thankfully, I have most of your emails after you donated, so I will reach out there. Warning: they may be delayed as I will be working with some stubborn employees to get this done….

Here is the link for the fundraising page, and don’t forget to ask your employer if they have a matching program. You could double your donation just like that!

https://liverlifechallenge.org/chicago/support/#jfrye

Notable Articles

Follow Up On RTO Article-Remote Jobs Database

https://www.jobsearchdb.com/job-board-categories/remote-only

If you are being forced to return to the office or simply just looking to make the move to remote work, this site will provide several platforms to find pure remote jobs on.

You Are What You Eat; Or Something Like That

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/13/why-is-the-american-diet-so-deadly

Here it comes; “You are just a millennial. Nothing is good for us! Go cry in your corner and eat plant based foods.” Yes, my wife and I care about what we eat, so we make sure we do the same with our kids. We are not perfect, and there are plenty of things our kids love to eat…especially peanut butter sandwiches. If money wasn’t an issue, we would be more strict with what we eat. However, we do everything we can to make sure the family eats the best we can get. As more people start to question the large lists of ingredients that are on the back of the box, the better quality food we start to get. Yes, it’s more expensive, but you are also paying for the better ingredients.

For an encore, here is a lovely study on Florides impact on Children’s IQ

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2828425

“OH, I WOULD NEVER FALL FOR A SCAM/PHISHING ATTACK”

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/01/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-prolific-voice-phishing-crew/

I proudly wear my security tinfoil hat on this. This is why I question everything. Even if a cop came up to me and told me they needed to ask me questions, I would ask for their badge number, call the non-emergency number, verify the badge number, and continue on with the officer. This is no disrespect to the officer at all, but simply my form of 2FA. People can easily lie about who they are and be really convincing at doing so. Yet, there are reasons why we continue to have articles like this because the attackers get better and better at social engineering. Be aware of your surroundings, and no, your cellular provider will never call you to reset your password, period.

Space Article, Check. Focus On Minimal Environmental Impact, Check. Not Elon’s Space Cartel, Triple Check!

https://payloadspace.com/pale-blue-is-bringing-water-based-propulsion-to-space/

An international partnership to reduce space debris using water to maneuver space. Seems pretty low tech, but if you start thinking about it further you start to realize the many complications they had to get around. The most obvious is storing water in an environment where it will not freeze or become a place to cook your noodles in. What about the weight of water? How about physical space saving requirements needed when hauling a container of water? Either way-count me impressed.

Things This Week

Productivity Workflow(s)

Something I find myself struggling with is finding the right tools for productivity, whether at work or for my personal needs. I need organization for everything I do and if I do not have a system, my productivity suffers. Without reminders, lists, and notifications, my brain will just let me roam free. For some, this might be just how you work, and that is great. I am truly happy for you. That is not me, that has never been me, and that will never be me. Therefore, I spend a lot of time trying to find my groove with the tools out there.

Pen and paper has been my fall back, time and time again. There truly is nothing more solid that getting a quality notebook, a good pen, and your ideas onto paper. My problem with paper and pen is the feedback of “remind me to do xyz at this specific time, without a snooze.” When it’s just simply note taking, it’s easier to do. If I want to search my notes, I cannot use a keyword lookup for that one page where I wrote a specific folder path I said “I am going to need this later.” What pen and paper is great for, however, is journaling and some of my other hobbies. Even though my handwriting is so awful, sometimes to the point where I cannot even read it, I still get an instant dopamine hit when I open one of my journals and jot some ideas down.

With Pen and paper out of the way, the natural progression is finding some app to use for my notes, reminders, tasks, and knowledge base articles. Open your app store on whatever device you are holding now and search the keyword “productivity.” You will find several options, all with their unique features, or maybe the lack of. Some are perfect for just straightforward tasks like holding recipes, or maybe even mind mapping. It is overwhelming honestly, but yet I still cannot say I have found “the one” that meets all of my needs. Apps like Notion or ClickUp provide users with Project Management level features, where you can create different spaces to house different types of “stuff.” Kanban boards, tables, file storage, collaboration spaces, dynamic meeting notes, and so on. Even with all of these features, they still miss the mark in key areas for me. Note taking feels more of a chore and with Notion, I feel overwhelmed with the customization features on every single page.

Then we look at task oriented apps like Todoist, Things, Trello, Super Productivity, and Tasks.org. All provide similar features, but keep it more focused on task management. Todoist was my go to for several years and I dabbled with Things for a brief moment. They both had reminders, which was a must have for me, but Todoist was behind a paywall and Things is only in the Apple ecosystem. I wanted Todoist to work for me, because I was already so heavily invested in it. But I wanted to pain once, and have the features I needed. Not every month/year. Recently, I made the switch from Super Productivity to Tasks.org, which so far I am really enjoying. Super Productivity was great, but it lacked the cross-platform functionality I needed. For me to make this work, I need to be able to create a task on any platform I am working with and have it show up on another platform. Super Productivity is “cross-platform” but the Android app is nowhere as polished as the iOS app. Now I know Tasks.org only has an Android App (and it’s also available on F-Droid, just like Super Productivity), but you can sync your tasks with other compatible CalDAV based platforms (like Nextcloud) and be able to add or modify from your desktop as well. Thankfully, there is no paywall for the reminders, but I do like to donate to any Open Source tool I use. And, to be honest, I really just want the reminders and tasks on my phone since it will always be with me wherever I go.

Then that leaves note taking. I lost track on how many different apps I have tried over the years. Of course I was an Evernote user and enjoyed its quirks, but jumped ship sometime in 2017-18. When Obsidian came out, I immediately got hooked and I was converted into a Markdown enthusiast. It provided the security I wanted for my notes, could be used offline, or set up something like SyncThing to sync notes from my phone to my server across TailScale. Obsidian is not Open Source and the plugin scene is just too much. Joplin I have gone back and forth with, but it is currently my daily driver for personal note taking. It might not be the most feature rich, but it gets the job done.

There is one app I have not mentioned yet that I think might just be “the one.” Originally, I found Logseq through one of the podcasts I listen to and thought I should give it a try. Immediately I was confused on how to use it, because it’s not your traditional note taking app. Like a typical note taking app, you could organize folders of notes or even have several notebooks with their own focus. In Logseq, there are no “folders” but you can categorize similar pages or content within a daily journal using a hashtag. Logseq provides other features, such as whiteboards and flashcards, but the key feature is using the hashtag. You can create todo lists with the hashtag, which if you click on the hashtag itself, will bring you to a dynamic page containing any reference to it. When I got the hang of using Logseq, I immediately knew it was meant for me.

So that is where I am at. If you have recommendations or an app that you love, let me know. I am always on the lookout for “the one.” For now, I will tinker with Logseq!

Tool Shed

Nothing this week!