*Here's what I've been up to since the [last weekly status](/this-week-2024-06-29/)...*
### Cycling
#### New bike!
I bought a [new-to-me bike](/this-week-2024-06-29/), and I've now taken it on three rides this week - it feels great! The Crosstrail's front-leaning posture really helps transfer power from my legs to the pedals, and I can feel that it's working my calves more than the upright posture of the Verve ever did.
#### New gear!
Of course, a new bike needs new accessories. I transferred over my [headlight](https://lightandmotion.com/products/vis-pro-1000-trail-gravel), [radar taillight](/hindsight-riding-with-bryton-gardia-radar-taillight/), and water bottle cage. I also added a [heavy-duty phone mount](https://designbydelta.com/collections/mobile-holders/products/smartphone-holder-xl) since the one I had designed and 3D printed for the other bike wouldn't work.
I'm trying to find a kickstand that will fit the bike's peculiar frame; pre-2016 Crosstrails had an integrated rear kickstand mount, but that was removed in later for some reason. I don't know why the ability to park a bike without having to carefully balance it against a wall seems like such an afterthought.
Oh, and I ordered [some weird suction cups](https://www.seasucker.com/collections/tour-de-france-2024/products/talon) so that I can maybe carry the new bike around on top of my BRZ and not have to borrow my wife's station wagon all the time.
#### New riding buddy!
I don't really need two bikes, so I'm trying to find a new owner for the Verve. To that end, I invited a friend to join me for two of my rides this week. He hadn't been on a bike in over 15 years, so he struggled a bit... and I struggled a bit with riding slowly enough for him to keep up. But he seems to be having a good time (he came back for another ride this morning, after all), and some targeted Zone 2 training is probably good for me anyway.
### Golang Learning
I mentioned last week that my next "for learning" read would probably be something Go-related. I've fumbled through using Go for a few projects (including my little [feed aggregator](https://github.com/chillfeed/chillfeed)), but have never deliberately sat down to learn the language. It's always just been smashing stuff together until the angry errors go away. I think it's time to change that.
Past-John wisely picked up a [Humble Bundle](https://www.humblebundle.com/) of Golang Programming books back in May, so present-John has started working through [Go Programming: From Beginner to Professional](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL38409851W/Go_Programming_-_From_Beginner_to_Professional) by Samantha Coyle. It starts out pretty basic (as it should), but I already have a better understanding of pointers (and how/where/when to use them). I really appreciate all the exercises and activities to guide me through learning this stuff. I'm looking forward to developing more foundational knowledge of how to wield Go effectively.
### Home networking
I've been a Google Fiber subscriber for a bit over seven years now. In that time, my rate has been a consistent $70/mo for symmetric gigabit service, and I can't remember an outage that *wasn't* caused by nearby construction. That's a pretty good track record for an ISP, I think.
I was a tester for 2-Gig service when that was starting to roll out a few years back, and that required swapping to a fancy multi-gig router/gateway device. At the end of the test, I opted to drop back to the 1-Gig service since I didn't really have any devices that could use more than that anyway, but I had to keep using that multi-gig RG since my account had already been "converted" (and couldn't be unconverted, I guess?). I eventually switched the RG into bridge mode (once that was offered) so that I could continue using my Google Wi-Fi pucks without having to deal with double-NAT issues.
My home network has grown a bit since then, and now includes a tidy little [homelab](https://runtimeterror.dev/homelab). So I thought now might be a good time to revisit. I upgraded to the $100/mo 2-Gig (2 gigabit down, 1 gigabit up) plan, switched the RG out of bridge mode, and removed the now-quite-dated Google Wi-Fi nodes. The RG came with a mesh extender, but my testing suggests that I don't really need that; I've got plenty of coverage within the home using the single AP, and not using the extender will eliminate a lot of the potential issues that tend to come with mesh networks.
As for the wired network, I have a small 10Gbit switch in the homelab environment already, but there's still a 1Gbit switch between that and the RG. So I've ordered a larger 2.5Gbit switch to replace that and feed the rest of the home as well.
### In other news...
- We spent time with my parents, my brother, his wife, and their infant for the holiday. That was nice.
- I updated my [little feed aggregator project](https://github.com/chillfeed/chillfeed) to use a unique UserAgent string, and I felt confident enough about that to declare a `v1.0.0` release! Of course, I then immediately noticed that I'd left in some placeholder code and found a few more bugs *opportunities for improvement*. Maybe I'll push another release this week.
- I also did more tinkering on the GitHub Actions-powered lunch scheduler project at work. I'll probably fork that soon and build something similar to help my wife and me decide on dinner.
- I'm still (very slowly) working on a post about how I set up [a GitHub Actions workflow to build Proxmox VM templates in my homelab using Packer](https://social.lol/@jbowdre/112598536881790346); it's a pretty big topic, so it's taking a long time to write things out clearly. Also, I keep getting distracted.
