I eventually settled on a [center-mount kickstand](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DYFS3N4) that works well on my [new bike](/new-ride/): 
I also picked up a [small under-seat bag](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLKNJ3HZ) for storing odds and ends (and snacks - okay, mostly snacks and drink powders for longer rides). 
And I [gave my car a stylish hat](https://social.lol/@jbowdre/112781113729255106), in the form of a [SeaSucker Talon](https://www.seasucker.com/collections/bike/products/talon) bike rack.
It attaches with powerful vacuum cups... which seems wild, but it feels pretty sturdy. SeaSucker says they've tested this setup at up to 140mph so hopefully it'll do the trick for ~50mph trips across town. (And now I won't have to steal my wife's station wagon whenever I need to transport the bike.)
#### Adventures
I [took Friday off and went for a slightly-longer-than-usual ride](/mental-health-gravel-ride-day/) (~20 miles versus the usual ~13ish), and this route incorporated a few miles on a gravel trail. I was quite impressed by how well the front suspension fork absorbed the bumps on the trail, and I love being able to lock the suspension when on smoother surfaces. I really like this bike!
This week I also registered for another adventure: a [40 mile ride](https://www.springcity.org/century) followed by "all you can eat" barbecue. I participated in this ride last year and had a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to tackling it again.
### Learning Golang
I've made it through Chapter 4 of the [Golang programming book](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL38409851W/Go_Programming_-_From_Beginner_to_Professional) I'm reading, and I've followed along with dozens of exercises and completed several self-guided "activities" to reinforce my learning. I'm learning a ton, and gaining practical experience in the process - and I think having a passing familiarity with the language first has actually been a big help, too.
### ChillFeed
I did make a [new release](https://github.com/chillfeed/chillfeed/releases/tag/v1.1.0) of my little [feed aggregator](https://github.com/chillfeed/chillfeed). The big change with this release is that the `fetch_log.json` used to keep track of the order in which posts were retrieved (since I've learned I can't necessarily trust the timestamp included in the RSS feeds) is now stored in a separate branch to avoid sullying the `main` branch unnecessarily. This should make it easier for downstream ChillFeed instances to update from the upstream template repo.
I think I might move the fetched articles to the new `data` branch as well so that the only instance-specific deviations from the template would be in the config file.
In any case, my [ChillFeed instance](https://chillfeed.jbowdre.lol/) has become my primary feed-following tool, and I'm learning a lot as I continue tinkering with this little project. Good stuff.
### Concert Plans
We went to a *lot* of metal shows last year, but have only been to a few so far this year. We have firmed up a few plans for the remainder of the year though:
- **A Day to Remember** in a few weeks
- **CAKE** (maybe?) in September
- A [3 day metal festival](https://www.furnacefest.us/) in October
- **Postmodern Jukebox** in December
There may be a few more that we pick up before the end of the year, but these are the ones I'm tracking with firm-ish plans right now.
### In other news...
- I celebrated another Duolingo milestone: a [1400-day streak](https://social.lol/@jbowdre/112769174766129159)! I've been using Duolingo daily for learning German since watching [Dark](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5753856/) almost four years ago, and I added Esperanto lessons a few months back. (Esperanto is *really* neat, by the way, and well worth checking out if you have a passing interest in how languages work.)
- I started playing [The Last of Us Part I](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1888930/The_Last_of_Us_Part_I/) on my SteamDeck last night. I'm enjoying it so far.
- 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. I'm hoping to finish it this week, maybe?
