![\"\"](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/87ed80da1a.jpg\")
I’m trying to figure out how to make time to do the piled-up admin work I need to do.
\nThis is difficult because I will probably need to take some time away from seeing patients to do all the admin stuff, which is how I make money. But when I am with patients, all this unfinished stuff lives rent-free and makes a lot of distracting noise.
\nSo, to do the work that pays me, I need to make time for administrative tasks that don’t.
\nYuck.
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-03T16:30:51-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/10/03/i-need-tiem-to-do.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/10/01/rss-vs-laundry.html", "title": "RSS vs Laundry ", "content_html": "I enjoy catching up on my RSS feeds much more than I enjoy catching up on the laundry.
\n(Note: I’ve got a household of six people, four small kids. It’s a lot of laundry.)
\n", "date_published": "2026-10-01T19:19:45-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/10/01/rss-vs-laundry.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/29/status-update-night.html", "title": "Status update 29-9-26 (Night) ", "content_html": "I’ve been trying to work on some stuff, but I’m tired, in a foul mood, and I find nothing but faults with everything.
\nI wish I could finance some of this stuff, but it’s time to stop.
\nThings will probably look different in the light of the daystar tomorrow.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-29T22:13:09-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/29/status-update-night.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/26/ai-human-judgment.html", "title": "AI \u0026 Human Judgment ", "content_html": "I was listening to this podcast while I was riding my bike this morning. One of the points that was made, which Feels very right to me, is that In a world where agentic AI systems become the norm, the things we should be helping our kids develop is judgment.
\nMy attempt to summarize what I heard in the conversation is this: AI systems are going to be very good at making a lot of information available to people. However, we can probably assume that unlike people, AI systems aren’t going to be worried about consequences, because they don’t have bodies that die or that can be incarcerated.
\nAnother way to say this would be that the stakes of making bad decisions, or acting in harmful ways, are higher for human beings than they are for agentic AI systems.
\nBe that as it may, as agentic AI systems make more information available to human beings, there’s information could help human beings make better judgments that truly in better decisions/actions that affect other human bodies living in the real/material world.
\nThe crux of the argument was that judgment ultimately needs to be something that human beings don’t outsource to agentic AIs too often.
\nHas I’ve continued to think about this, I think there are a lot of implications for education systems, and family systems, out of which are systems that encourage and discourage children from developing particular skills.
\nI have four kids. What can I do as a parent to help them develop the best possible judgment skills?
\nI suspect this is the thing that’s going to be on my mind a lot…
\n![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/17670/2026/53dc7033-dda8-421b-a0f9-3caad9acd606.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-09-26T10:47:24-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/26/ai-human-judgment.html",
"tags": ["Me!","Listening","The Jackpot"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/22/status-update.html",
"title": "Status update",
"content_html": "I woke up early enough to work out, but I’ve ben pushing hard for three days, and even though I want to keep pushing, I know a rest day is a good idea.
\nAs a result, I had some time in the morning to get things done. I planned to focus on just one thing and started to do that, but then got stuck on something. (Grumble…)
\nThen I jumped to another thing I’ve been working on and made a few small adjustments.
\nNow: I’ve got two irons in the fire, and they are all heating up slowly… and I’ve got to get to scheduled stuff. The fire will get cold if I can’t tend it, but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-22T11:00:32-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/22/status-update.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/20/i-woke-up-at-am.html", "title": "4:00 am", "content_html": "I woke up at 4:00 am today because of a thunderstorm, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I tossed and turned for about an hour, then gave up, made coffee, and did a workout.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-20T10:00:19-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/20/i-woke-up-at-am.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/17/work-stuff.html", "title": "Work stuff ", "content_html": "I’ve been working crazy hours on some organizational work for the past few days… I think the work is interesting, and I like it, but I wouldn’t call it “exciting stuff.”
\nThis is the kind of stuff that (if done well and kept up with) makes organizations function better. I also find it is a great way to learn about an organization’s history and how it gets things done. It also helps me understand an organization’s institutional memory. However, it is not the kind of work people generally volunteer to do.
\nAs a bonus, when I do this, I can return to other stuff I’ve been working on or obsessing over and see it with fresh-ish eyes. I also come up with interesting thoughts about my other stuff when I’m not working on it directly, so I return to it with a few new ideas.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-17T15:04:43-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/17/work-stuff.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/10/i-need-to-move.html", "title": "I need to move", "content_html": "I’ve been sitting in front of a computer doing the things I do in front of a computer for too long. Time to go and move my body.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-10T13:36:36-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/10/i-need-to-move.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/09/ugh.html", "title": "Ugh", "content_html": "Sometimes, working in small technical (hardware & software) problems leaves me feeling more frustrated and tired than I think it should.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-09T12:59:21-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/09/ugh.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/09/rss-tweaks.html", "title": "RSS tweaks", "content_html": "I deleted five RSS feeds that I’ve been only skimming or skipping for many months now.
\nMy RSS experience keeps getting more the way I want it!
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-09T07:58:52-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/09/rss-tweaks.html", "tags": ["Me!","Reading"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/08/because-im-a-dad-of.html", "title": "Because I’m a dad of four…", "content_html": "This dad pack from Arterra is something that I really would like to buy.
\nThe ability to easily carry the things that I need/want to have access to when I’m out and about with kids is a real luxury.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-08T19:58:08-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/08/because-im-a-dad-of.html", "tags": ["Me!","Gear"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/09/08/morning-rss-feeds-is-the.html", "title": "Morning RSS feeds is the way for me", "content_html": "I know this is very old-news-dot-com, but for years I’ve started my day by looking at email and mainstream news. Recently, I’ve changed things up. I’m starting the day by opening Net News Wire, an app I really like, and reading the RSS feeds I follow.
\nThe effects are interesting (at least to me).
\nThis morning, I was thinking this kind of feels like the internet did around 2005-2010.
\nI llike it.
\n", "date_published": "2026-09-08T09:33:01-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/09/08/morning-rss-feeds-is-the.html", "tags": ["Me!","Reading","Duh!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/08/19/explaining-back-to-the-future.html", "title": "Explaining Back to the Future to a Five year old kid ", "content_html": "Recently, my five-year-old kid saw a DeLorean, and he thought it looked really cool.
\nI told him it was in these really cool movies called Back to the Future.
\nHe asked me what the movies were about, and why they were called Back to the Future . This audio is me trying to explain thfrist two films to him. It’s actually kind of hard to explain these movies to a five-year-old! (Well, it was hard for me.)
\nBelow is a quote from my ridiculous explanation.
\n\n\n\n\n", "date_published": "2026-08-19T15:20:24-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/08/19/explaining-back-to-the-future.html", "tags": ["Me!","Watching","Micro.cast"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/08/18/lots-of-stuff.html", "title": "Lots of stuff ", "content_html": "When he goes back in time, the car kinda runs outta gas, and he has to find a way to get more gas to make the car go back to his present, which is the future in the past where he is, which is very confusing.
\n
I’ve got a ton of stuff I want to get done today. I’m off to a good start… Hoping to maintain momentum. Here are a few things on the pile of stuff I want to get to at some point (I don’t think I’ll be able to get to it all).
\nTried working on an essay that I’ve been working on for longer than I expected. I could not get into the right mindset and sustain my focus in the way I needed to. Random thoughts about all sorts of other things kept getting in the way. I’m going to trust my unconscious and assume that today just isn’t the day to write this thing.
\n", "date_published": "2026-08-17T16:53:40-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/08/17/not-today.html", "tags": ["Me!","Writing"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/02/16/on-judgments.html", "title": "On judgments", "content_html": "Looking back at what I’ve posted and podcasted about recently, I see a theme of me now looking back on the young me and seeing him as rather judgmental. What’s interesting about this is that I now see myself then as judgmental, which is a judgment.
\nWhat should I make of catching myself judging a younger version of myself for being judgmental?
\nWhen I think about it right now, I see a fundamental difference. The way I remember it, the young me was very sure of his judgments. Additionally, the young me felt rather righteous and self-important.
\nI still judge (obviously). I can’t get divorced from making judgments all the time about everything.
\nHowever, I hope I’m much more prone to questioning my judgments and less quick to trust them. I also hope I don’t take myself as seriously as I did in my younger years, because it seems to me that taking oneself seriously breeds feelings of self-righteousness and self-importance, which in turn lead to impulsive, often regretful actions.
\n", "date_published": "2026-02-16T10:15:41-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/02/16/on-judgments.html", "tags": ["Field Notes","Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/02/09/past-me-who-lives-in.html", "title": "Past me who lives in my head", "content_html": "Yesterday, I saw someone wearing a baggy black sweater and distressed jeans. This put my brain gremlins to work. They pulled several files into my consciousness.
\nThe files contained many memories of being with friends at a small café and/or at Denny’s in the mid-1990s. In these memories, it was winter, and indoor spaces were filled with cigarette smoke. (This was when people could still smoke indoors.) Lots of people were dressed in a style that was similar to the person I had just seen. This was the height of the grunge era, and many people dressed in baggy sweaters, flannel shirts, jeans, and well-worn footwear to show how aligned they were with the fashion zeitgeist of the time.
\nThe memory fades, and I start to think about it.
\nI notice a few things:
\nI notice that at this point in my life, when I look back to the 1990s, I see a lot of struggle. I was struggling. Many of the other people around me were struggling as well. We were young and had not established ourselves professionally or economically. We were living our lives in a space between our families of origin and the families we would create, a liminal zone where friendships and community serve as a kind of family structure, even though there are no ties of marriage or genetics binding people together. We didn’t know much about ourselves or the world we lived in. (At the time, many of the people I hung out with and I would not have admitted to this. We were prone to presenting ourselves as people who did know who and what we were because we were authentic and had yet to be corrupted by an accumulation of experiences that would beat us down and blunt our young jagged edges.)
\nAs I savored these associations, a new thought came to me: I was struggling, and those around me were struggling, but we were struggling together. That shared struggle is something I long for as I look back on it.
\nPast me who lives in my perks up.
\n“You think struggle is desirable? You think my struggle is quaint? Fuck you!” The version of past me that lives in my head says to me now. Past me, the one who lives in my head, wants to punch me now in the face. Hard.
\n“Hold up,” I say to past me. “I know… well… I remember how hard this feels for you. I don’t miss that feeling. You probably won’t believe me because you feel so alone, isolated, and misunderstood, but many people around you are going through their own version of this. You hang out with them often. Even though you can’t see it when you’re going through the struggle, there is a collective aspect to this, along with the singular aspect that is yours alone.”
\nPast me makes an obscene gesture. He wants none of what I’m saying.
\n![](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/img-3624.png\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-02-09T16:13:19-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/02/09/past-me-who-lives-in.html",
"tags": ["Field Notes","Me!"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/02/07/not-enough-time.html",
"title": "Not enough time",
"content_html": "Every day, there is so much stuff (books, podcasts, long-form articles and blog posts, films, audiobooks, comics, music, games, tv shows, etc.) I want to spend time absorbing. Every. Day.
\nBut time and my attention are not unlimited. Both are finite.
\nSo I’ve got to make choices about what gets the time and attention I don’t need to invest in work or parenting…\nI’m going to assume you (whoever you are) are experiencing your own version of this, and that you, too, are frustrated by it.\nThis post is my attempt to express solidarity with you.
\n", "date_published": "2026-02-07T15:15:22-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/02/07/not-enough-time.html", "tags": ["Me!","Quotidian Studies"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/02/04/phantom-obligations.html", "title": "Phantom obligations", "content_html": "Many people have been posting about an essay by Terry Godier that articulates something he calls “phantom obligation”. I’ve read it twice and have been thinking about the concept much more than unexpected.
\nHowever, the way I’ve been thinking about it has more to do with how I feel a version of phantom obligation in relation to small household tasks, and within significant relationships with other people and institutions.
\nIt’s nice to have phantom obligation as a signifier to think with, to name what I might be feeling after I feel it…
\nThe rendering of the concept into words does not cure my tendency to experience phantom obligation, but it does help me retroactively interpret that experience in a way that has the affect of reducing the pressure of the imagined/assumed/felt sense of obligation.
\nI think this is a good thing.
\n![\"\"](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/9dbc205432.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-02-04T22:38:56-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/02/04/phantom-obligations.html",
"tags": ["Me!","Reading","Afterwardness"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/02/02/from-a-new-york-times.html",
"title": "Exploring his own consciousness",
"content_html": "From a New York Times article on the writing of the French writer
\n\n\nIn exploring his own consciousness, he seems also to explore ours.
\n
This is what I hope I’m doing a version of with From 78.
\n", "date_published": "2026-02-02T13:58:35-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/02/02/from-a-new-york-times.html", "tags": ["Field Notes","Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/02/02/hello-daystar.html", "title": "Hello Daystar 002", "content_html": "Hello Daystar,
\nI’ve been thinking about how I’d like to use the From78 site/blog. One possibility is to use it as a space to record different thoughts, feelings, moods, associations, vibes, hunches, and all the other stuff that makes up my headnoise at the start of a day.
\nHere are some loose suggestions (to myself) for how to make it happen.
\nToday: It is the first day in more than a week that I have not woken up feeling sick. It is marvelous. Be that as it may, I don’t feel like I’ve returned to what I’d call “baseline.” While I don’t feel sick, I feel like I’ve been sick and am still recovering from having been sick.
\nI wanted to exercise, but I decided to hold off because I’m worried I’ll overdo it. What I want is to return to baseline, so I can start training and get more benefit from it than I will if I start before I’m ready… which would actually set me back.
\nI’m also looking at how many podcasts, RSS feeds, and newsletters I subscribe to, and honestly asking myself how many of them I actually read, rather than skim. Some things need to be cut.
\n", "date_published": "2026-02-02T12:15:04-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/02/02/hello-daystar.html", "tags": ["Me!","Quotidian Studies","Hello Daystar"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/31/there-is-cold-then-there.html", "title": "There is cold then there is cold", "content_html": "It has been brutally cold for a week. Going outside, even for a short time, has been very uncomfortable. (The cold air literally hurts any exposed skin, and breathing the air makes the inside of my nose feel that kind of burn that ironically comes from contact with something very cold.)
\nThis is what a typical day has looked like for the past week. (For context: the larger number at the top of each bar represents the temperature in Fahrenheit and the smaller number beneath it represents the temperature in Celsius.)
\n
Today, I see the temp is going to get up to 25 degrees Fahrenheit / -4 degrees Celsius, and I’m thinking to myself, “Things are warming up!”
\n![\"\"](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/draggedimage-1.jpg\")
The idea that my body will experience these temperatures as warm is absurd. Yet, it is also true. Wow.
\n", "date_published": "2026-01-31T08:49:57-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/31/there-is-cold-then-there.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/31/cold-flu-season.html", "title": "Cold \u0026 flu season ", "content_html": "BeforeI had kids, I would get annoyed at how people with kids reacted to cold and flu season.
\nSimply put: I thought they were treating a time of year when many people had to deal with an inconvenient transitory illness like a bigger deal than it was.
\nToday, I’ve got four kids, the oldest is close to seven and the youngest not much over one year old. And everyone in the house has a cold.
\nNot COVID, RSV, strep, or the flu.\nJust a cold.
\nHaving a cold makes everything even the most mundane task of daily life (sleeping, moving, talking, etc.) go from things that I don’t need to think about to things that require noticeable mental and physical effort.
\nWhen it was just me who had to endure this rottenness, it was uncomfortable, but it was definitely bearable. This is probably why I thought that people with kids were overreacting to cold flu season before I had kids. I was was assuming that my subjective experience of discomfort and difficulties that are part of being sick were representative of what they would be going through.
\nNow, as I experience having to deal with
\nI realize how sawfly cold and flu season is for people with kids! Having to manage the discomfort of others makes my discomfort become far more uncomfortable.
\nIt also makes me more aware of something I talk about in my podcast —how getting older (and more experienced) has made me far less judgmental than when I was young (and less experienced).
\n![](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/img-0442.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-01-31T08:07:48-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/31/cold-flu-season.html",
"tags": ["Field Notes","Me!","Quotidian Studies"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/29/microblog-feels-like.html",
"title": "Micro.blog feels like 2005-2010",
"content_html": "I’ve been using and exploring micro.blog for a few weeks now.
\nVerdict: It’s a product/service that I enjoy using a lot!
\nToday, I was thinking about what makes me love using it so much. I came up with several things, but the most notable was that using it feels the way it felt to use the internet around 2005-2010, which was such a fun time for me.
\nI’m going to keep thinking about this.
\n", "date_published": "2026-01-29T20:18:58-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/29/microblog-feels-like.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/26/being-forced-to-slow-down.html", "title": "Being forced to slow down", "content_html": "Monday morning. I’m sick with something; it doesn’t seem serious, but it definitely impairs my ability to think clearly and quickly. I’m operating at a very slowplace today.
\nPerhaps this can be viewed as a good thing, a kind of physical body event that is making me do something I want to do anyway: Slow down.
\nI’m also not able to even attempt to have multiple things going on. (I’ve misplaced a mug of coffee– It’s somewhere, but I don’t know where– and a cap to my water bottle…). This could also be a good thing. Right? Because it makes me focus on one thing at a time.
\nOf course, keeping this going when my normal, not-sick system settings are restored will not be easy.
\n", "date_published": "2026-01-26T10:21:07-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/26/being-forced-to-slow-down.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/23/george-saunders-on-admitting-to.html", "title": "George Saunders: On Admitting to something ", "content_html": "From an interview with George Saunders in The Atlantic, where Saunders is talking about admitting to what we have gotten wrong, as opposed to avoiding it in all the ways we can avoid owning up to what we have done or failed to do.
\n\n\nAnd as they got older, we would have talks with [our kids] where we’d say, You know, we kind of messed that up. Sorry. And it’s amazing how that kind of just takes the wind out of any negative sails, to just admit it.
\n
Yeah.
\nAn association: This reminds me of one of the many 12 step sayings, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.”
\nIf keep something I’ve really messed up a secret, it can really mess with me a lot… it takes effort to keep something a secret. Admitting to what I’ve done wrong, or poorly, or failed to do, is not fun, but it takes less energy than keeping something a secret.
\n![\"\"](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/eb9ab146cc.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-01-23T09:08:30-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/23/george-saunders-on-admitting-to.html",
"tags": ["Yeah!","Me!","Reading"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/21/i-wish-i-understood-how.html",
"content_html": "I wish I understood how synthesizers worked.
\n", "date_published": "2026-01-21T13:05:51-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/21/i-wish-i-understood-how.html", "tags": ["Me!"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/15/memories-of-snowy-days-past.html", "title": "Memories of snowy days past", "content_html": "Looking out the window at the cold slowly day outside brought up many memories of days like this when I was young.
\nThe clearest memories were from when I was a student at a community college who would go to Borders Books, Misic, & Cafe to study… and (rather often) avoid studying by reading things that had nothing to do with my studies.
\nI found it interesting to notice/pay attention to what it felt like to remember these days from the past in my present.
\nWhat stood out was the feeling of wanting to be someplace warm, with a book, in close proximity to (but not talking to) other oeople.
\nThis feeling that was invoked as I stood inside a warm place and looked out into a cold snowy outside, and it was the same feeling today as it was some 20 years (!) back.
\nThe feeling is a bridge, a connection between me then and me now, between an affective experience then and now.
\n![](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/img-0373.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-01-15T23:06:23-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/15/memories-of-snowy-days-past.html",
"tags": ["Field Notes","Me!","Quotidian Studies"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/13/lofi-influences.html",
"title": "Lo-Fi Influences ",
"content_html": "I just made an influences page here (you can see it at the top of the site in the navigation bar). I plan to keep adding to this as I think about who and what have influenced me.
\nHowever, when I look at it now, I notice something I think is significant that helps me not be overly focused on making things perfect: Most of the stuff the people on this list make isn’t super polished/overly produced.
\nOf course, there are some things on this list that do have a rather high production value to them, such as Bella Freud’s videos, and Ezra Klein’s podcast, but these things constitute the minority rather than the majority of things on this list.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-01-13T12:01:24-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/13/lofi-influences.html", "tags": ["Me!","Micro.cast"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/12/getting-to-work-on-editing.html", "title": "Starting to Edit From78 | 028 An interview with Jason Netek ", "content_html": "Getting to work on editing the next episode of the From78 Podcast. This one is a long interview, so it will take much longer to edit than a normal audio-essay. I’m telling myself not to be overly perfectionistic.
\n![](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/screenshot-2026-01-12-at-3.48.01pm.png\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-01-12T14:44:18-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/12/getting-to-work-on-editing.html",
"tags": ["Me!"]
},
{
"id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/12/today-is-set-up-in.html",
"title": "Hello Daystar 001",
"content_html": "Today is set up in a way I like.
\nA good balance.
\n", "date_published": "2026-01-12T12:55:04-05:00", "url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/12/today-is-set-up-in.html", "tags": ["Me!","Hello Daystar"] }, { "id": "http://From78.micro.blog/2026/01/11/at-mcdonalds.html", "title": "At McDonald’s ", "content_html": "It’s a cold wet Sunday evening here in the American Midwest as I write these words. I’ve had my kids (ages 6, 4, 2, & 1) inside for most of the day. This is not an ideal situation.
\nOne thing I’ve figured out is that unspent energy goes through some sort of change around 4:00 pm, where it becomes manic-crazy-in-your-face-energy. This is the kind of energy that leads to a high likelihood of something double-plus-unfold happening.
\n(Other parents: have you noticed this too, or is this something unique to my family?)
\nSo, I need something I can do with the kids. It can’t last long. It has to be free or very low cost.
\nMy first bet was the library, but it closes early on Sunday. By the time I got them there we’d have to turn around and leave fairly quickly. So, that was out.
\nI consist putting on a video of some sort, but kids programming is psychological warfare against adults. I don’t think it’s great for kids either, but unlike adults, they tend to like it…. And a video won’t really burn off the unspent energy, and will make bedtime more difficult.
\nThen I remembered that there is a small indoor play place at the nearby McDonald’s.
\nThere was a time I looked down on McDonald’s. I don’t anymore. The main reason for this shift was coming across the work of Chris Arnade, who convinced me that in many places, McDonald’s is an institution that is a sort of community center. This is most noticeable in places where good park districts and good library sbranches are absent.
\nI thought about Arnade, and the mind changing work he’s done this evening, as I watched my kids climb and play off some of their unspent energy.
\nI don’t have a big point to make behind this.
\n![\"\"](\"https://from78.micro.blog/uploads/2026/0887e33aaa.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-01-11T18:21:32-05:00",
"url": "https://notes.neilgorman.com/2026/01/11/at-mcdonalds.html",
"tags": ["Field Notes","Me!"]
}
]
}