January

01/12/2025#

Why did I leave Nimble? Because I felt stuck. No purpose and no direction. Do I want to start another software engineering job? I don't know ... don't feel like it right now. But when I'm running out of money, I'll change my tune. What do I want? I don't know. What do I know? I know that I want to leave my comfort zone and explore. The growth comes from discomfort, right? I'm not gonna lie, leaving my job was scary. Deciding to take a break from full-time employment for "self exploration" was scary. Well, not so much scary but rather anxiety-inducing. The source of anxiety is money. I'm in a super privileged position of having substantial savings, but it feels "uncomfortable" to burn through them ... but it's just me bitching. Any great adventure involves sacrifice. Shedding some $$ isn't even that much of a sacrifice.

Anyway, the plan is to embark on a long roadtrip with an open heart and mind. With a readiness to embrace both good and bad things that happen along the way. I'll be taking notes along the way ... mainly to have something to share and reflect on. The roadtrip didn't start with me hitting the road – it started with me making a decision.

A test run of making beef jerkies in the oven. Before: After: The jerky turned out to be fine. But the oven with its door ajar (to let the air with moisture escape) kept setting off the CO2 detectors. Annoying - the dehydration session was 7-8 hours. I would've used a French word Touché here. Because I thought, for years, that it's a fancy way of saying "too bad". No, touché in French means an acknowledgment during a discussion.

So I borrowed a dehydration machine from Josh (who, by the way, is totally weaker than me). I want to make several batches to take with me on a trip.

I also hacked together a spigot for my water jug: It's amazing how much more energy and motivation I have to work on [small] things without having to worry about my job.

01/13/2025#

I want these journal entries to be available online. I use Obsidian for taking notes, and it has an official "publish" service for $8/mo. It looks really nice and convenient ... but expensive. I think I can mange to publish stuff through GitHub pages for $0. I already have a domain registered, and mkdocs + github actions + github pages combo looks like a simple and straightforward solution.

I dropped off my Cube for oil change. Also, I asked Kenny to perform the thorough undercarriage inspection. Cube isn't a quiet - though it's AMAZING – something is always rattling or whistling, but it has been this way for as long as I've owned it – at least 50k miles worth of driving. But I figured some peace of mind before setting out for a long drive wouldn't hurt. Well, everything seems to be fine; they replaced rear brake pads and did some adjustments.

01/14/2025#

Oh boy ... low gauge wires and high current connectors are expensive. Good thing I have an Amazon Prime trial; it ends tomorrow though.

I need to decide on a day when I depart. Hopefully, I'll finish the power setup upgrades this week. Everything else can be done on the road.

I received a call from my Medi-Cal Case Officer, my application might be approved soon. I don't know if I want to delay me leaving until I get approved ... $670/mo is a lot of money to pay for my current insurance through COBRA.

I think I had a very interesting instance of carbon monoxide poisoning yesterday. I was cooking borscht and baking a pie in parallel. In a tiny apartment with all doors and windows shut. I noticed an elevated heart rate and some palpitations (like, the heart was beating heavy). But then I left for my Monday pickleball ... and I was on fire. My precision and situational awareness were superb. Also, who would've guessed, my English was quite smooth too. And when I got back home, all my CO detectors were going off like crazy – it was kinda hard to breathe inside. Anyway, today I asked Claude AI if CO poisoning could cause the "enhanced" performance I observed. Well, it could. But not because occasional CO exposure is "healthy", but rather the poisoning triggered stress release of adrenaline and other hormones that boosted my performance. Some studies.

01/15/2025#

This journal is up and running on https://cake-icing.xyz/. All hail to GitHub pages, mkdocs, simple-blog, and Open Source.

I tried making jerky using the Dehydro machine (~1.1 pounds of beef and ~0.3 pounds of ground bison):

It yielded:

The prep was simple, the machine just works. I think I'll dehydrate all the meat I have in the freezer. I ran the machine for around six hours. The bison meat needed more time – the jerky had too much fat on them; I don't think it would've lasted for long in room temperature.

01/17/2025#

I got a new charger for my battery, a 12v/30A smart charger. An expensive sucker, but I figured it'd be quite handy to have a faster charging time when I'm on the road. The charger came with no wires, and since the output current is relatively high, the user manual called for 6 AWG wires. I never crimped a wire that thick without a crimping tool, but it can't be harder than crimping thinner wires, which I've crimped many times, right? Wrong. Attempts to crimp 6 AWG battery terminals with pliers and a nut were a waste of time and money. And then Anderson Powerpole Connector terminals, huge and VERY sturdy. Josh made a good suggestion of heating up the terminal before trying to crimp it. After burning my fingertips a bit, I got this:

It looked "good enough" to me ... but it wasn't.

I also tried to use my small clamp tool, but without it being affixed to a tabletop and a longer lever, I failed miserably to even make a tiny dent in the terminal:

I wired everything together, connected the charger ... and it was a complete failure. The connections were worryingly warm to the touch – a sign that there is a poor connection (precious electrical energy escapes as heat!). Even though it was alarming, the main issue was in the charger not being able to read the correct voltage on a battery due to a voltage drop -> it didn't supply a high enough current thinking that the charging process must be in the absorption phase.

Long story short, I got a hydraulic crimping tool and a set of new terminals ($100 😭), stripped old terminals, and crimped new terminals using the right tool. Beautiful:

At this point, I've spent more money on my custom power setup than a decent EcoFlow power station would cost. Learning is expensive. Using the right tools saves money and time. Experience is priceless.

I've decided on the date of departure – January 22nd.

01/21/2025#

Tomorrow is the day. I think I did fairly well playing a game of elimination while packing my stuff for the trip. At first, I was a bit at a loss on how to organize different items, but if you group things by categories everything starts making sense. A green cabinet - kitchen stuff; a water jug - a water jug; a big black box with a yellow lid - garage/tools stuff; smaller boxes - different foods divided into food categories; a large collapsible black box - clothes and related stuff; a wooden box - power setup stuff. Some stuff didn't make it into the picture, but everything should fit inside the Cube quite neatly.