The Weekly Wrap: May 19, 2024

On Friday, I flew out to Portland for a conference. It took two long flights for me to get across the country. While the first flight became nap time (I was up at 4:30 AM), the second flight presented a decision I encounter every time I travel for work. On the plane, do I get work done or do I relax? I never quite know what the right choice is.

On the one hand, I am travelling on the company dime with my company laptop. In theory, there are plenty of things I could be reading, reviewing, or editing. If I pay for Wi-Fi, I would even have full access to all our systems. On the other hand… I don’t wanna. I’m stuck in a small space for several hours, tired, and generally not able to concentrate on actual work things.

Before the days of laptops and on-board Wi-Fi, this wouldn’t even have been a possibility. I could watch a movie or read a book without any feeling of guilt. It's only as technology and access have grown that we've encountered this dilemma. What are our work boundaries when in transit?

Ultimately, I split the difference. On the second leg of my journey, I enjoyed lunch while watching The Imitation Game and, then, I brain dumped some work stuff into a Word doc while half watching Top Gun: Maverick. 

How do you choose to spend your time while travelling for work?

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• Cars make places feel crowded. [The Deleted Scenes]
• We need wild abundance. [The Atlantic - gift link]
• "This is the summer of quitting the things that don’t serve you." [Men Yell at Me]
• Signs your identity may have been stolen. [Lifehacker]

• Physics and football. [StarTalk]
• Creating the perfect restaurant noise level. [Gastropod]
• Hands off the chocolate, climate change! [Short Wave]
• Of all the elements, why gold? [Planet Money]

• This week, the Husband dove into our Disney+ account and found they had Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We've seen all the other films in the series so thought, why not? While it was marginally better than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it was not good. This movie was weirdly slow despite all of the chase scenes. And those chase scenes felt like action for action's sake. I do appreciate that the movie mentioned Harrison Ford aging. It's too obvious to ignore. They also tried to cram in all the usual Indy things and it didn't quite work. [Disney+]
• For my movie pick, I was weirdly craving a rewatch of Gladiator. I have not seen this film in over a decade and the movie itself is almost 25 years old. The visual quality of the images is a bit poor but the story holds up. The overall plot was a touch slower than I remember, but I liked the build up of the narrative.  Also, I am still a fan of the musical score. It's just a great listen on its own. [Paramount+]

• On Monday, I tried my hand at a new vegetarian recipe. Mushroom bourguignon could never be confused for the beef version, but it was tasty. The mushrooms have that great meaty feel and the sauce was rich. I opted to quarter the mushrooms instead of slicing them like the recipe called for. I think that made it feel more like the traditional version. We plated our bourguignon over egg noodles. I also really wanted to add potatoes somehow. I think the sauce would have been delicious over Boursin mashed potatoes. [Smitten Kitchen]
• For one of our farm share meals, we made a "clean out the fridge" fried rice. I chopped up half of the rainbow chard from the share and sautéed that up with some green onions (also from the share) in sesame oil. For protein, I cooked some shrimp from our freezer and scrambled together a few eggs. Then, I tossed in the leftover rice from a takeout meal. Finally, I mixed it all together with a few splashes of soy sauce. It was a surprisingly tasty, no recipe meal.