cliff-notes
Coming Out the Other Side
We come out the other side on many things, don’t we? Troubles. Problems.
Beam Paints - M’Chigeeng First Nation Company on Manitoulin Island
My wife is a watercolor artist in her free time and just found a wonderful resource for hematite pigment.
Stray Thoughts - April 2026
A smattering of stray thoughts I’ve had this month. This is brand new for April and will be the inaugural post for Stray Thoughts.
Morning Meditation
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can injure me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him.”
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2
Pentel Arts Multi 8 Pencil
Hiro had this pencil in his last Hiro.report. Had to order it right away and get penciling.
It’s a fun pencil, and switching leads is easy. Rotate the clip to the color you want—the cutout in the clip shows which one is selected. Press the top button, and the lead drops down. Adjust it to the length you want, then start writing. To switch colors, hold the pencil upside down, let the lead fall back into place, and rotate the clip to your next color.
It’s surprisingly small for how much it holds. The tapered barrel makes it comfortable to hold, and it never feels awkward. It’s all plastic, so it has a slightly cheap feel, and you’ll probably want to be careful not to stress the clip too much. Still, it feels solid enough to last a long time with reasonable care.
Bright, fun colors in a very small pencil. This is definitely going to become a must-carry item with my journal.
Kumari Gold Tea
Kumari Gold deserves its own post. This is a reserve tea from The Tea Spot in Boulder, CO.
Separate Blog Experiment For Short Notes Up and Running
A separate blog for short notes is being considered to keep the main page clean while maintaining a record of posts shared on Mastodon.
How do you handle your short, title less posts?
Just keep them on your main blog?
Have a separate blog just for short posts, and link to it on your main blog?
If you keep them on your main blog, do you somehow separate them out? Does your theme give you that ability or have you coded this option in?
NYT George Saunders Interview
NYT George Saunders Interview: The interviewer, with a deep appreciation for writers and their skill in articulating complex problems, highlights the transformative power of storytelling.
The Cliff538 2025 Yearly Review
Another Year is in the books here is the Cliff538 2025 Yearly Review
Merry Christmas Micro.blog, it’s been a wonderful year watching, learning, and getting to know all of you. 🎄
Let's Talk Email
Let’s Talk Email - Having a Bulletproof Email System. Over the past week or so, I’ve been researching, planning, and implementing a whole new approach to email.
Cliff Notes: Dreams of Analog
As a Gen X’er, I grew up in the analog era, and I retain both the right and the skill to return to it.