Weekly Retro #1
Last week was a rough one here in Minneapolis, and you’ve been following the news at all you know how much of an understatement that is. On Friday, many businesses in Minneapolis and around the state closed in solidarity with the ICE out of MN movement. Workers were also called upon to strike. It was a positive, uplifting day. Much of that would be shattered the following day when ICE killed another observer, Alex Pretti, and members of the executive branch immediately began to spread lies about Pretti and misinformation about his killing.
As I’m writing this there have been some small victories, with Trump at least saying that Pretti’s death—and Renee Good’s before his—will be fully investigated, and Greg Bovino being sent to wreak his brand of havoc elsewhere. I’ll take the W, but also know there is much more to be done.
I did make an appointment with a doctor who I’ll be auditioning(?) to be my primary care doctor. I’ve been experiencing what I’m reluctant to call chest pain, and instead referring to as pectoral pain. It feels musculoskeletal, but it’s also freaking me the fuck out, so that will be the main focus of the visit. That appointment is not for another week, but until it feels urgent, I’m sticking to that timeline.
Somewhat related, I did three Peloton bike rides last week: one low-impact ride, one Powerzone ride, and one Powerzone endurance ride. In fact, each week in January so far has looked like that. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my progress. The rides are harder, but not that hard. I’m also doing the 100-day streak challenge within the Peloton app, and have been mixing in some daily mediation and stretching between ride days to keep the streak going. So far I’ve managed a 25-day streak.
As far as my two gaming related goals go I haven’t done much. I have an idea of some of the games I want to play at least 10 times, but I need to take the time to put together a full list. Part of the appeal of the 10 by 10 challenge is it removes some of the decision making about what to play. On the playing games in person front, I know which community/game I’d like to get involved with, but honestly with everything else going on in the Twin Cities right now, it’s not been top of mind. There are plenty of other ways to get involved with real people in my community if you get my drift.
I also didn’t make much progress on learning more about AT Protocol beyond opening their doc site in my browser and leaving the tab open. I did see they have a starter project for cloning and learning, so that’s likely where I’ll start.
Things I enjoyed this week
- Having political conversations in the general channel of my gaming buddies’ Discord server, not the politics channel.
- This giant list of businesses that closed on January 23rd as part of the Ice out MN general strike. Now that the strike is over it’s a place of business to shop and dine at to thank them.
- Seeing thousands of Minnesotans marching downtown on the coldest day of the year.
- Reading “The Hobbit” along with the gang at the Shelved by Genre podcast. I especially enjoyed when they turned the songs of hobbits, dwarves, and elves into Beastie Boys songs. They’re doing a whole year of Tolkien, including “The Hobbit”, “The Lord of the Rings”, and “The Silmarillion”. Join in!
- The Swedish meatballs from Melissa Clark’s NY Times Cooking recipe.
Published on January 27, 2026