Kevin Eagan

Tonight is the beginning of an impromptu family camping trip in the mountains. A fresh change of pace. I love that we have the flexibility in our schedules to do this right now. 🏕

Camping midweek 🏕

Buc-ees review: tacky AF, in a sort of charming way. 🗺

So apparently this place is a phenomenon? Near Macon, GA

📍Buc-ee’s Warner Robins

🦴🐶

This week I stuck with what I’ve used over the last month. Didn’t have time to ink up anything new. But that’s ok! It’s summer and I’m out doing things with my family when I’m not working. 🖋

Coldplay, Tampa, FL 🎵

Coldplay’s opening act, H.E.R. I’m impressed! 🎵

Tonight is our first concert as a family (and largest venue we’ve gone to since before the pandemic started): Coldplay in Tampa. We’re excited!

This week I bring back my Gravitas pens polycarbonate — an excellent pent that will stay in my rotation for a while! Plus a modern and vintage Kaweco Sport. 🖋

Bedtime procrastination: Why we choose scrolling over sleeping, Big Think

People who spend most of their waking hours working experience a severe lack of “me time” in which they can be free of responsibilities. Nowadays, some people feel guilty even for resting, so there is a strong craving for uninterrupted personal time.

I am guilty of falling into this trap.

I spent part of the afternoon playing around with new ways to organize my digital notes.

I tried out a bunch of solutions, including a very fun exploration through Emacs, which, believe it or not, I enjoyed! But it was too cumbersome for my needs.

I’ve settled on Drafts as my “digital brain,” work notes organizer, and as a place to start things, and Ulysses for long-form writing projects.

Both of these apps fit my workflow. They use Markdown as default, which I’ve used for years. Both apps are simple to use and yet powerful. Plus Drafts is all about getting the text down, and organizing it later. No fuss.

I hope these two apps complement my already robust and well-established analog systems.

Right now, those include my Hobonichi Techo as my “paper brain”/logbook, and 3 × 5 notecards for daily tasks and other ephemera. I also keep a commonplace book. I write with either a fountain pen or pencil, depending on my mood.

Because both Ulysses and Drafts publish to Micro.blog and other services, I don’t need a lot of other stuff. I will keep OneNote for scans, pictures/screenshots, or image clippings from the web. But I don’t use those tools every day.

I am attempting to learn emacs in my spare time, and it’s too much. I like it in concept but what a steep learning curve. Is it worth abandoning or sticking with it?

I’ve used Field Notes for years and yet I still get excited when I fill up a book and move into a new one. 📝

Another Language by This Will Destroy You 🎵

When I have long work days I like to set certain moods. This Will Destroy You is the right mood for today’s work.

Listening to Soccer Mommy – Color Theory. 🎵

Great vibes.

Our Country Is Trading Children’s Lives for Guns, via Naked Capitalism

Gun owners, who have been conditioned to purchase weapons out of fear of not being able to buy more guns, tend to run out and buy more weapons in anticipation of coming restrictions. That in turn boosts gun profits and stock prices. It is a macabre cycle that appears to be fueled by Republican-led fear-based culture wars.

Unfortunately, gun violence is now the leading cause of death in the United States among children ages 1 to 19. This addiction has to stop. Why won’t it? What is wrong with us?

This week I have a new acquisition: the Pen Addict x Opus 88 Halo. The Opus 88 pens are “eyedropper” pens (meaning they are filled by squeezing ink into the barrel via an eyedropper or syringe) with a shutoff valve to avoid ink burping or drooling. The pen acts as a large ink reservoir, and you get more ink by opening the shutoff valve at the end of the barrel. 🖋

This is a great starting point for those who want to connect queer history to other US histories.

A Pride Reading Starter Pack: 10 Queer History Books to Read This Pride (Book Riot)

Happy pride! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️📚

This is a Kaweco Sport V16, a piston-fill Sport from the 1960s. EF 14k nib.

Excellent writer! I’m going to have fun with this.

Sometimes little things like this bring so much joy in the moment. 🖋

Memorial Day in full swing. 🐶🍺

An Ode to the Card Catalog, via Messy Nessy Chic

If the LOC is now looking to offload their outmoded system, it’s probably because they’ve recognised that there’s a huge market for ordinary card catalogs for collectors. Today, cards alone can reach a minimum of 4 figures when sold at antique stores or auction.

Like all outmoded systems, the nostalgia brought about by the card catalog system keeps it alive beyond its practical utility.

… and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry,—determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows.

– From Walden by Henry David Thoreau, ch. 2. Read for free on Project Gutenberg.

I always return to Walden. I’m aware it portrays an idealistic vision of living life in the industrial world – and one even Thoreau could not achieve, despite his curmudgeonly insistence on it all.

It feels more absurd today. This was a tough week, especially.

I’m OK with five minutes in nature. A few minutes outside, enjoying the rustling leaves and sunshine. If I can swing more, I do.

Here’s what I’m thinking: A weekly post where I pick five pens I’ve used this week and show them off. Maybe bring in some commentary on them too. 🖋

Poet Jane Kenyon:

Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.

Find more about her book A Hundred White Daffodils at TheMarginalian.org.