---
title: Is it July Already?
description: What's happening.
synopsis: What's happening.
date: 2025-07-02
imageURL: /img/pexels-rovenimages-com-344613-949592_copy.webp
imageAlt: Fireworks in the night sky.
---
In my last entry I noted that I was trying to be a little less salty this year, and I'm pleased to say that it's paying off. I'm also trying to tackle some of the value judgments / statements that pop into my head by reminding myself to phrase things in a more productive way. For example, I recently had a discussion with my brother in Vietnam on how my moral nihilism aligns with my veganism. During the discussion, I found myself resorting to terms like "good," "bad," "better," and "worse," terms which really muddy the waters when you're speaking about this particular topic. As a result, I am trying to remember to describe the *effects* of something rather than using words that abstract away the mechanism by which said thing impacts the world. I'm sure this won't be advisable or practical 100% of the time, but I suppose I'll just have to do my best and use my judgment.

I haven't touched the Google data analytics course in a while; I mean to get back to it, but I found myself falling into a common pattern with this course. I quickly become bored and frustrated when courses are slow, or spend lots of time on simple things. This probably says something about my past experiences with educators, but I also often feel patronized by courses. For instance, I don't need a lesson in breaking things down into steps. It seems to me that this skill is something that people will either already bring to the table when they enroll in a course like this, or if they have reached adulthood without the ability to exercise computational thinking, perhaps this area of study isn't suited for them? In any case, I find it frustrating to have to spend hours of my life on something like this. I'm also not a total newcomer to some of the skills under the data analytics umbrella. I've used data many times in my personal and professional life. As one example, in a previous role for a coffee chain making its first entry into the USA, I used sales data to model the impact of payment processor rates in a spreadsheet. Because of this, I was not only able to save the company money, I was actually able to choose a payment processor for our US operations that would, on average, *lose money* for every payment they processed for us (low ticket totals are very dangerous for fixed percentage processors, as [Square found out with Starbucks](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-15/square-shows-path-to-recovery-from-money-losing-starbucks-deal)). I'll just have to keep trying with this course. Goodness knows I need to work on my tolerance for drudgery.

I haven't managed to get back to the UK yet, which makes me sad. The xenophobic, anti-immigrant UK government has made spousal visa requirements so onerous that it's extremely difficult to pull off unless you are wealthy. In the absolute best case, Sol and I would have to spend months apart, and I would have to give up my job and attempt to find one in the UK that pays well above the national average salary. I don't have any idea what the job market is like over there at the minute, but I'm not hearing good things. If I had £100,000 in the bank, we could literally be over there in six months, but for average working people, it's an absolute gauntlet. we don't have any wealthy family who can help us, and we live in an expensive city. Even if we lived out in Cheapsville, Indiana, we couldn't possibly save enough to meet the financial requirement. On top of that, there is also the horrific transphobic legislation in the UK and other signs that fascism is encroaching more quickly every day just like it is in the USA. Sad isn't the word, really. I'm furious.

I've been steadily improving my incense making practice. At this point, I have a number of stick builds that I'm proud of and receive good reviews. I think my blending skills have really advanced, and I'm slowly working towards scaling up enough that I can put out the occasional release for sale. Somewhat disappointingly for me as a former print broker, it doesn't look like it's going to be feasible for me to do short packaging print runs, so packaging may look like a simple paper tube and a label. A big bugbear for me at the moment is making sure sticks dry straight. It's difficult for me to control the temperature and humidity in my space such that some amount of warping is inevitable. I wish it didn't bother me as much as it does; after all, this is to be expected when you're not working out of some big facility. I'm also working on a foray into the world of percolated extracts, which I hope to create from materials that don't play nicely in combustible incense. I'm still also trying to process this category of material in such a way that is can be used in sticks; I recently attempted a lacto-ferment of rosa damascena, which unfortunately went moldy. I'll try again when I get another bag of rose petals.
