Aaron's Status

6:39 pm

Climbing and therapeutics

I returned to climbing last Sunday outdoors and things felt OK, so I went with the family to the gym on Tuesday evening as we usually would. I had said that I would “take it easy” and “just topline,” but I always tend to warm up on a boulder or two, so I did that.

It felt fine, so I worked on a bit of a tricky V3 until I got it, and continued to boulder. I ended up sending two V4s, which is probably my record for V4s in a single session ever. My “project level” is probably still V4 (haven’t sent a V5 yet).

Also, in keeping with my new trend of PT and self-care I broke down and bought a Theragun Relief massager. They call it “percussive” massage because rather than vibrating, it actually oscillates like 10mm or so. I had tried one (a different brand) at a buddy’s house and thought it felt really good so I had to have one.

It’s quite a nice way to loosen up those tight muscles and treat soreness.

On personal VPNs

I have a Ubiquity Dream Machine Pro (“UDM Pro”) router/firewall at home. I really like Ubiquity stuff because they actually know how to make an interface that a human can use and the UDM Pro is no exception. It has miles of features and they’re all in a UI. It might not be the most intuitive but it is there.

Anyway, you can very easily turn on either an OpenVPN or WireGuard VPN that you can then connect to from anywhere. I use it on my phone with the Android WireGuard client, which is also lovely.

I love that it connects virtually instantly, and when I’m on my own VPN, all of my phone’s DNS is tunnelled, so it’s like having my Pi Hole ad-blocking DNS with me everywhere I go. Unfortunately, you can’t be on a VPN while using Android Auto, but I haven’t found a reason yet to need both at once.

Being appreciated

My “grandboss,” the CTO of the company I work for, took time out of his day today to tell me that he appreciates the work I’m doing on my current project, and that literally made my week.

I review resumes sometimes

Over a year ago, when I was full-time coaching, all of the biggest tech companies simultaneously decided that rising interest rates gave them the perfect excuse to just fire everyone they didn’t like and the market was flooded with tech workers searching for new jobs.

When that happened I decided to offer a hands-on resume review service, and I did a few of them before interest in it waned and my life moved on. I never took down the landing page but to my knowledge it isn’t linked from anywhere.

Out of the blue last week, someone signed up (and paid!) Turns out they were referred by a mutual acquaintance, but nevertheless, I was surprised and flattered. We did our live session today, the first I’ve done in over 18 months I think, and it went quite well.

Doing that did remind me of the things that I like about coaching and advising. It’s really nice to be able to help someone directly to solve a real problem that they’re facing.