Weeknotes Week 19 2024: May 5-11

• On Cinco de Mayo we went to Chevy's and had a feast as a whole family (minus the eldest + a girlfriend). Their porkbelly & beef fajita was mwah.
• Standard work week with occasional difficulties but all manageable.
• Training was good, we had a lot of newbies. The flood of white belts is fun, but also challenging in it's own right.
  • We did these ab exercises on Tuesday and I didn't feel the aches until Thursday.
• Started a new pair of Vivobarefoot Primus Lite III's, my second pair of this brand of minimalist shoes since I started favoring barefoot activity 9½ months ago.
  • The first ones are still wearable but the right foot has a bulged out sole at the ball of my foot, and it just looks weird so I just swapped in the new pair that I've had in storage. (Yes, I pre-bought another pair a while back.)
  • So while the durability of these shoes isn't as great as, for example, hiking boots or traditional super-cushioned shoes, they are much better for my strength and balance.
• On Thursday, the youngest went on a train trip to Seattle area, and there so happened to be much solar flare activity. By the time they arrived on Friday night, I warned them to look up in the sky, and sure enough they saw a brilliant aurora borealis display.

• This display went as far south as being seen in Los Angeles, but despite a few attempts outdoors I did not see anything special to the north.
  • On Friday night I saw a faint pink hue to the horizon sky, and I bet it would have come out better if I did a long exposure photo with my phone, didn't think of it at the time.
  • Many people posted about seeing nice glowy displays after midnight. By then I had given up.
• On Saturday we went to Modesto to celebrate an early Mother's Day with the extended family. It was a good time with some family flying in from across the country.