Offline life
------------

So, I haven't written anything in quite a long time - probably the
longest break in this phlog's history.  Tomasino[1] recently wrote
about how occasional pauses are inherent to the practice of
blogging/phlogging and that people shouldn't waste time apologising
for or commenting on these.  I think I agree in general, but I'm
contradicting this now because the last three weeks haven't just been
the usual "I'm still actively interested in maintaining a phlog, I've
just been temporarily busy with real life stuff which has kept me away
from it".  I think it's fair to say that during these weeks I've come
to feel more disconnected from and even disinterested in anything to
do with computers, the internet or electronics than I can ever recall
having been in my adult life.

I think probably this is largely attributable to the glorious weather
and ridiculously long daylight hours which are already here in
Finland.  The rapidity of the change in season here is nothing short
of astonishign for me, and this is my first time experiencing the
summer part of it as a contrast to the recently experienced winter
part, as opposed to some strange new novelty that appeared immediately
after a long flight and as a backdrop to all the preparation involved
in starting up life in a new country.  When I'm home from work and
dinner is finished and it's *still* bright and warm outside, the idea
of going downstairs to a room with tiny windows to write phlog posts
or code behind a desk has a very hard time competing against going for
a walk or a bike ride, or even just sitting outside and enjoying a
beer.

We have now received our garden allotment so a lot of our spare time
has gone into that.  The soil here is a clay type of soil which is
totally unfamiliar to us.   It is very dry and crumbly and tends to
spontaneously clump into small, hard pseudo-rocks.  It honestly feels
kind of like gardening on the moon.

I have also gotten more interested in cycling, or perhaps more
specifically I've gotten interested in bicycle mechanics and so I'm
riding more as a side-effect of that, and finding that I enjoy it more
for it's own sake.  I've gotten involved in a few bike projects, one a
from-scratch build and one a restoration, both of which I will write
about at some time.

I've been enjoying and feeling fullfilled by this offline life, and
there is a vague temptation to just relegate digital life to colder
days, as seems to be SparcIPX's model[2].  But I don't think I really
want to do that.  I do feel bad about dropping out of the gopher
community, and about neglecting my own nascent community at
circumlunar.space.  I value the community spirit here very much and
want to remain a part of it, so I will try to strike a better
balance between the two, and will try to do so.

That said, it might take a while, because I'm going to be travelling
for a good chunk of June.  I'm going to Estonia for work early in the
month, so after that my wife and I are going to travel down through
the Baltic states and then into Belarus before flying back home.  I
won't be taking my laptop with me after the conference, so I won't be
able to phlog from the road, but I will definitely make more of an
effort than I have been to keep on top of everybody else's writing.
I see that ZLG is back[3], which is absolutely fantastic!

[1] gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/tomasino/phlog/20180522-move-your-feet
[2] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/sparcipx/phlog/May_2018/05-22-18
[3] gopher://zelibertinegamer.me:70/0/phlog/2018-05-25_2211.txt