2 (crap) movies at a brand new cinema, close monitoring of personal and domestic health, Spring-time walks, all the mid-year review prep, Dom's third appearance on MLW, plenty reviews and reflections for the future of my projects and a brand new sci-fi trilogy to read.
I'm also reconsidering the future of this "FortNotes" format. The original logic of finding a suitable balance between WeekNotes and MonthNotes is still the main driver but I'm also in a habit of weekly retrospectives which could feed into the Bitesize podcast content with these notes as guides. That said, I'd like to give it a few more goes to wrap up for the quarter before any more changes.
Life #
- Visited brand new Arc Cinema in Daventry to experience it before others, first to see Sing 2 (not as bad as expected) then The Batman (dreadful in so many ways)
- Smart meter installed following ridiculous electricity bills from Ovo (prior to planned price hike) - now meticulously observing power-hungry devices
- Negative results from recent blood test screen for prostate cancer, diabetes and other fortysomething health risks
- Met Andy Higgs for a spot of Turkish eggs breakfast in Yorks, first time in person since lockdown hit
- Walked around Stanwick Lakes with the kids to enjoy the lovely Spring weather and fun with cinematic iPhone video on the zip-wire, followed by a brief trip to visit my BFF nearby in his (massive) new home
- Trip over to Melton Mowbray for some disappointing lunch and over-priced shopping but missed out on any pork pies
Work #
- One in, one out: an engineer handed his notice in but a neighbouring EM (teamwise and locality) accepted their offer, joining end of May
- Observed how our talent team scout people with LinkedIn tools, suggesting a DEI language tool to analyse the outbound messages for any biases
- Refined recruitment process to speed up engagement and, ideally, application to offer for a better candidate experience
- Visited Birmingham office to meet-up with other EM's and some engineers for F2F meetings and socials
- Commenced quarterly team Speedbacks to get peer feedback for mid year reviews
- Recorded our first podcast episode with two senior web engineers - great content and ideas but needs lots of work to make it sound cohesive
Sides #
- Making Dress Circle with Dom went live
- Increased engagement on ComediPlayer from extra BBC Sounds RSS content
- Reviewed Personal Dashboard charts and data for relevance and accuracy, identifying metrics I'm not interested in anymore (fitness durations, toilet trips) but also new ones to track (BTC growth, car finance and fuel costs, movies & TV shows watched)
- Outlined a plan to reposition MLW on makelife.work for future product iterations and brand cohesion
- Released Bitesize 4 but decided against anything last week
- Made a guest mix for 1 Indie Nation podcast (to be released)
Read #
Watched #
- Sing 2 and The Batman at Arc Cinema (great new cinema but crap movies)
- Predator (fond memories ruined)
- The Lion King (the original, not the remake)
- The Adam Project (Ryan Reynolds)
- Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (killer cast)
- Flight Of The Navigator (childhood classic)