March 2025 - An Easier Month

Published on May 13th, 2025 by Spencer Cloud

Apartment

I traveled much less in March than February, so I focused more on the apartment.

Vornado Fan

Summer is fast approaching and the sun is cooking my apartment more and more each day. I need a different air conditioner than the portable A/C unit my that came with my apartment. Although those units seem nice, they suck because they literally suck.

I bought a fan to procrastinate researching air conditioners. I got a Vornado fan, specifically the Silver Swan Alchemy, since it has a good balance of functionality and aesthetics.

Vornado fan running on high

Also, did you know that strategically pointing a fan out of a window cools a space better than moving air around inside willy nilly.1

Shredder

I thoroughly enjoy dramatically trashing junk mail.

shredding a mailer for a gym membership

Welcome Mat

The apartment came with this bee mat that I embarrassingly used for about four months.

welcome mat with an image of a bee

I bought something similar to what my sister gave me for my first apartment back in Denver.

welcome mat that says “welcome” in many different languages

Coffee Table

And this finally arrived.

art deco, reflective black and gold round coffee table

The apartment feels a bit more cohesive and less like an empty space with a bed, desk, and couch.

Denver, Again

My childhood friend, his wife, and their baby stayed at my parents’ place for a long weekend in Denver. I took the opportunity to visit again and see a lot of people that I care about at once.

My friends say that their daughter turn into a granola girl based on her interest in nature during our hike.

Colorado mountains landscape - interestingly shaped cloud over tree-covered mountains

Colorado hike - roadside parking before the hike, dry vegetation and plenty of evergreens

big blue sky and mountain background, evergreen-filled mid-ground, friends sitting and standing on rocks in foreground

Tech

Frustrations with Apple

Apple runs circles around Windows when it comes to bug-free software and usability… but that’s changing.

I like Text Replacement on iOS. It makes perfect sense there — typing on a touch screen sucks, so the less we need to do it, the better.

However, Apple automatically syncs iOS Text Replacement with MacOS Text Replacement, and this is frustrating madness. Why on Earth would I want these to sync? Using a full-size keyboard is a vastly different experience.

I have an odd text replacement setup in iOS, which changes the word “i” to “I”. This happens automatically for most people with autocorrect, but I disabled autocorrect for regular typing as I usually swipe text — if I tap text I’m paying more attention and likely avoiding a bad autocorrection. But now, on my entirely different device, when I type any word starting with “i” on Mac, with a full-size, physical keyboard, the text replacement bubble pops up every 5 words or so. This seems small, but it adds up and gets old quick — it feels like talking to someone who can’t not be the center of attention interrupting me every time I talk.

I had a workaround, but it stopped working in a recent MacOS update. I was this close to signing out of my Apple profile on my Mac to use it without any Apple syncing features before I found this solution:

echo 'delete from ZTEXTREPLACEMENTENTRY;' | sqlite3 ~/Library/KeyboardServices/TextReplacements.db
defaults delete -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems

It deletes the Text Replacement data from local database. It’s not a big lift, but I have to redo this every time Text Replacement re-syncs. Who knows how long this will work too, just like the other workaround.

This nudges me closer to giving up all my remaining free time and switching to Linux. After all, if I’m spending this much time fighting against built-in defaults, I might as well spend that time configuring something that won’t fight back.

tmux

I started using tmux. At first I didn’t see the point, but most Neovim/vim resources talk about using it every day, so I gave it a try.

Within five minutes it proved its worth. I accidentally quit WezTerm while working on a project. Since I was using tmux, I just reattached to the session and picked up where I left off.

Exercise

I ran for the first time in months. I partly blame this laziness on the cold, but I also just don’t run as much as I used to since now I prefer bodyweight workouts from the comfort of my own apartment. I should (probably?) be prioritizing muscle-building exercises over cardio anyway.2 It felt good to go outside on a nice day and explore my new neighborhood.

Friends

College

Speaking of running, a college friend visited New York to run the NYC Half Marathon brought to you by United Airlines™️. I finally hosted him after he hosted me so many times in Omaha, then Philadelphia, then Malaysia one time, and then Chicago.

By pure coincidence, Creighton basketball made the finals for the Big East conference in New York. If they won an unlikely victory against UConn, they would play in the finals at Madison Square Garden. They won, so we bought tickets.

This was the first time I visited MSG.

crowd standing and applauding at Madison Square Garden at the start of a basketball game — flashing lights everywhere

about 3 seconds of basketball at Madison Square Garden

Creighton lost, but not by much. They led for the first half, but lost their lead shortly into the second and lost the game. I still have fun seeing a close game even if my team loses.

We donned our Creighton gear even though St. John’s fans made up the majority of the audience — St. John’s is in Manhattan after all. Someone shouted at me after the game, “What’s it like to go to school in Kansas?” Little did he know that I live in Manhattan and that Creighton is in Nebraska. Instead of correcting his misinformed notions, I said, “Oh, it’s fine.”

High School

The same friend that visited Denver visited New York immediately afterwards for work. We hung out, discussed life things, visited some of my neighborhood bars, and ate free dinner on his per diem (thanks!).

Local NYC Friends

My Jetblue friend from last month’s post took a job at SpaceX and moved to Los Angeles. We ate in Queens for a going-away get together. I’m grateful to have experienced standby flights with his benefits while we still could.

Video Games

Again?

Red Dead Redemption (1)

I last played Red Dead Redemption 1 in high school. I liked it fine, but never finished it and didn’t see the surprise ending3 until years later.

Then in 2018, Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption 2 and blew everything out of the water. I played it in Argentina while missing home, so I enjoyed it more due to the setting. Not only does it take place in the Wild West, but specifically the parts of the US where I grew up.4

Playing RDR1 again after playing RDR2, a prequel, paints the first game in a new light. It’s also a different experience playing through the Mexico part of the game after learning Spanish and visiting Mexico in real life.

I played on the “hardcore” difficulty, where you die instantly if anyone gets a good enough shot at you. It encourages you to play more strategically and makes it more engaging, frustrating, and rewarding.

Streaming to Reduce Video Game Time?

Being an adult and having my own space and Playstation 5 means no more social pressure to limit play time5. I have self-control, but positive behavioral nudges are still nice.

I told this to my Creighton friend, and he suggested I stream on Twitch. It seemed a little extreme at first glance, but I think I’ll do it. I don’t expect anyone to watch, and I don’t want to be a “streamer”, but if anyone can see how much time I’m spending on video games at any moment, it will help.

Consumption

Articles

Videos

Music

  1. This is simple convection current science. As we blow warm air out the window, it needs to be replaced by something else. With the furthest window in my apartment also open, the path of least resistance is the cooler air from the outside. ↩

  2. From what I've read from different sources on fitness for a male my age. Or maybe not? I don't know, I'm not an exercise scientist. ↩

  3. Where the main character dies and then you continue playing as his son. ↩

  4. My interpretations: The Heartlands ~= Nebraska / Iowa; Dakota River ~= Missouri River; Grizzly Mountains ~= Rocky Mountains; Citadel Rock ~= Chimney Rock; Valentine probably isn't directly inspired by Valentine, Nebraska, but it's a frontier town in the Heartlands so that's my head canon. ↩

  5. Or social pressure to increase play time, but that only happened sophomore year of university when the roommates and I would competitively play Super Smash Brothers almost every day. ↩