Hello world!
I have completely and totally recovered from last weekend’s half-marathon. The weather has been a bit on the chillier side. This week has felt like a bit of a second winter.
🔖 My Favorite Stuff from the Internet This Week
- FediLearns Classifieds | FediLearns
- 😎 Definitely the coolest thing on the Internet this week!
- delphitools
- The 2026 Pittsburgh Half Marathon
- I am interested in any write-up about one of my favorite events to participate in!
- We need something better than touchscreens in cars
- The Invasion of Gemini
- Why AI alignment could be hard with modern deep learning
🌱 Gardening
I got 10 sunflower seedlings put into their containers. I haven’t planted any new seeds so the other seedlings have just weathered the week in their nursery pots. With more rather cold temperatures ahead, I am waiting to start any more seeds. I don’t like how late into May I must wait given this weather.
🍿 Movies
I watched my eighth movie of 2026:
- Mutiny on the Bounty, 1962 (Watched: 2026-05-04)
The 1984 version of this film is super nostalgic for me so seeing this version was really exciting. Prior to this, I had only known Marlon Brando from roles he took fairly late in life. Seeing Brando in his prime taking on the role of Fletcher Christian was fascinating. I enjoyed his performance although it wasn’t particularly engaging.
🎵 Music
📊 Stats
I listened to 266 tracks this week.
🦄 Unique tracks: 212 | Unique albums: 111 | Unique artists: 93
Top 5 Genres
- 🛹 Alternative Rock (67 plays)
- 🍿 Pop (49 plays)
- 🔌 Electronic (44 plays)
- ✨ Rock (37 plays)
- 🎷 Jazz (33 plays)
Top Artists
- NOFX (32 plays)
- Asake (24 plays)
- Black Sabbath (16 plays)
📘 Reading
Books In Progress:
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Progress: 30% of 1,000+ pages)
I am continuing to make my way through The Count of Monte Cristo. We had our first book club discussion about this book this week. I keep the serialized nature of this book in mind when reading and can definitely spot passages that are accordingly lengthy.
Social Reading
🙌 The list at brie.dev/books is up-to-date with all the books I’ve read and tracked ever.
I keep track of my reading in various places across the Internet. I track every book I read as @bbrie on Hardcover and as brie on Rambling Readers. I also track each IRL Book Club pick.
🕹️ Gaming
🕵️ Ingress
I earned the Platinum Epoch medal in Ingress this week! To earn the Platinum Epoch medal, I need 30 more seven-day Ingress streaks. I could achieve this in calendar year 2026, which would be super exciting.
🎮 Steam
No playtime recorded this week.
I think about playing games on Steam but that is as far as I got this week.
🐾 Movement
| Metric | Total |
|---|---|
| Total distance | 20.9 mi (33.6 km) |
| Total on foot | 2.9 mi (4.7 km) |
| Total on bike | 18.0 mi (28.9 km) |
| Active time | 2h 40m |
| Elevation gain | 181 m (593 ft) |
| Avg outdoor bike power | 112 W |
- Time Split: Foot 34%
███████░░░░░░░░░░░░░Bike 66% - Distance Split: Foot 14%
███░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░Bike 86%
Tracked activities
- Friday: ☀️ Afternoon Ride 🚲
- Saturday: ☀️ Caturday in Coraopolis 🐾
- Sunday: ☀️ Oops All Montour 🚲
My exercise was tilted towards the back of the week to permit me to recover from the half-marathon. While I got a few PRs on my bike rides, I took it fairly easy this week. I anticipate ramping things up a bit next week. I registered for the 2026 edition of the Hell Hath No Hurry trail race this week; preparing for that will guide my training for the next six weeks.
I took my tiny e-reader on a little photo shoot Sunday afternoon.
✍️ Writing
🦄🌈 Brie Carranza’s Blog
I am really excited about the blog post I published to brie.dev on Saturday. I am really happy with the writing and the reception on Mastodon has been wonderful.
📯 Social
Most of my social media activity happens on Mastodon. I am brie.rocks on bsky but that’s mostly for the cool handle.
🐈⬛ brie biker-ranza 🚲
- 🧪 Recreating a lab from an F5 Academy event on
localhostbecause I love benchmarking tools and Grafana - 💡 Recognized the tiny e-reader is well-configured enough now
- 🧰 Shared my
gronpost because I still think there are more people who would benefit from knowing aboutgron- …and I enjoy refining how I share the message
- 🚲 I got pedals to match the frame of my bike
- I needed new pedals and these matched well enough that I kinda had to have them!
- 🔗 Shared my “tiny e-reader” blog post
Wow — it wasn’t until writing this weeknote that I realized just how much I shared on Mastodon this week!
Plop
- 📸 Plop and I wishing everyone a ‘Happy Caturday’
- 🐾 Plop walking towards the camera
#WhiskersWednesday
💅 Nails
I got my nails done this week and omg I love how well the strawberry theme turned out:
Thanks!
— Brie