Jon Allured

Computer Programmer, Whiskey Drinker, Comic Book Reader

Week in Review: Week 4, 2026

published 01/25/26

This was a weird week on many levels. Monday was a holiday but then people were talking about a general strike for Friday. No work, no school, no shopping. I wasn't sure what I would do but then at the same time an insane cold front came through. The high for Friday was predicted to be -10 F which was enough for schools to close.

Since Jess and Jack were going to be home and the strike was on I decided to observe it as well. We basically camped out at home and rested up trying to stay warm. We watched some coverage of the strike and talked to Jack about why we were striking and what it meant. We talked about being proud of how the people of our state were responding to the situation. He's 10 so we did our best.

Then the very next day ICE agents murdered another Minnesota man. Crushed, pissed, scared, powerless. Lots of feelings. What do I tell my son now?

Highlights

Most of my time was spent exploring how I will automate the task of announcing on social media when I pushing a blog post. I have mostly got this working locally for Bluesky but nothing I'm ready to actually ship just yet. And I want to get into Mastodon's API too so I can get that automated too.

Some Best Things

I'm trying out a new section - let me know what you think. The idea is to just share some of the best things from the week. Here goes.

Some fun new music came out this week. My new favorite band The Barbarians of California released Bomb To A Knife Fight. In Apple Music it is on a "single" with a couple other songs that I also really like. A couple days later Pelican released an EP called Ascending. They are an instrumental metal band but they did a track with Geoff Rickly which is kinda rad.

I was listening to episode 199 of Working it Out and the guest was Jordan Jensen. They talked about her new special and that reminded me that I had noticed it but not watched it yet. She was so funny and cool on the podcast episode that I paused it and then later that night I watched Take Me With You and it was also very funny and cool.

A bunch of us went to the Timberwolves game on Thursday and they were playing the Bulls. I grew up loving the Bulls and so it was really rewarding to watch them actually pull off an upset and win! This win got them to .500 which…is better than nothing.

Next Week

We have a friend in town so I'm excited to see him for a dinner date. There are also a few other family things including a band concert so you know just a wholesome Midwestern week coming up. Other than that I can't think of anything really going on in my area - you?