Lee.org

TL;DR: I’m going to try switching from Notion and Dynalist to Obsidian to manage my life notes.

Over the past few years I’ve been looking for the best way to take and keep notes related to life.

I’ve tried a bunch of tools but not been happy yet. It’s essential to not try too hard at this task because the tool is just… a tool. But it’s also important to keep thinking and looking and doing. My good friend PPG correctly reminds me that no tool will ever be perfect, or heck, even “very good”. But trying helps.

Here is what things look like right now. My tasks are:

• Passwords and similar – kept in a searchable pile of Google Docs
• Events – personal, family, work – kept in Google Calendar – this is for concretely timed events like “going to dinner tomorrow at 6pm
• Todo items – with due dates/deadlines – kept in a Notion Timeline – this is for todo items I need to start working on particular date

• Quick Notes – kept in Dynalist – My goto “Gotta write this down quickly!”
• Static Informational Documents – in Google Docs, on my computer, on little scraps of paper in piles on the floor of my office

I’m only moderately happy with the Notion Todo list because while the Notion interface is pretty (a plus!) , it’s terrible with writing large, formatted documents, like instructions, or documentation. And the timeline tool has an effective granularity of 1 day, no more and no less, which isn’t excellent. Google Docs is a good place for documentation but there’s no way to make Google Docs have the timeliness of for example, saying “Hey, don’t forget to work on that project today!”

I tried using the paid Dynalist app to keep everything together because for $5/month Dynalist integrates with Google Calendar. But Dynalist isn’t a great place to write long documents either.

So today I’m trying Obsidian.

What I want is a tool that can be:

• Timely – “Don’t forget to work on that project today”)
• Holds well formatted documents – (“Here’s your password info. Here’s all the notes on your project. Here’s the timeline of that long-running project.”)
• Calendar-ish – (“Ding ding! It’s time to pick the kid up from tennis lessons! It’s time to leave for your work appointment!”)
• Quick Note Capable – (“Here’s the shopping list, sorted by location in Trader Joe’s. Here’s the name of that guy you met last week.”)
• Searchable – (“How do I get back to that project?”)
• And the magic part: Integrate all of the above – (“Ding ding! It’s time to work on that project again! Here’s the running notes from last session and the documentation you’ve built up!”

I’ve been oogling Obsidian for a year, which consists mostly of me being on the Obsidian subreddit, and occasionally googling about it. Let’s hope this is a USEFUL, LOW-PAIN attempt.

Last night I got excited because the Obsidian Outliner Plugin look a lot like Dynalist. I know it’s something like “pretty good” at writing documentation, and I think it can now do calendarly things. I got giddy thinking that Obsidian might be able to do ALL THE THINGS. Fingers are crossed!

I’m not saying Trump is a pedophile or whoremonger. Instead, I’m noting this recently released email between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015 where Epstein writes “…[victim] spent hours at my house with [Trump]”. The email clearly appears to be part of a discussion where Ghislaine and Epstein are contemplating blackmailing Trump about his interaction with said unnamed victim.

What the fuck was Donald Trump doing spending “several hours” at Jeffrey Epstein’s house with an underage prostitute (ie. sex traffic victim) under the watchful eye of said prostitute’s pimp? Was he teaching her the art of the deal? Was he helping with her algebra homework?

See this and 2 more similarly odious messages presented here https://www.npr.org/2025/11/12/nx-s1-5605582/epstein-files-release-trump-email-grijalva-massie

Screenshot

I remember when they first introduced this notion that you shouldn’t give babies peanuts “just in case” and I thought that was a bad idea and would probably cause allergies. Welp. That’s what witholding peanuts from babies does! I’m sure it’s true for many other things. Every kid should eat their share of dirt, peanuts, all the other potentially allergenic foods, and build a tolerance to iocane powder!

Reversing peanut advice prevented tens of thousands of allergy cases, researchers say

I got a letter from justice@freebenandjerrys.com asking me to write a letter in Favor of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream not being shit.

On this site, I wrote a letter directed at the CEO, Chairman and Board of Directors at Magnum

I wrote to you directly a few months ago. Here’s a followup.

I had written:
——————–
If you abandon Ben and Jerry’s social mission, I will stop purchasing your product and strongly suggest to my friends the same.

My family has avoided your products since March. Now that the co-founder Jerry Greenfield has left the company for the same reasons, I will actively pursue removing your products from our local shelves by reaching out to friends and local stores, and activism describing how distasteful your products are.

Do the right thing.
—————————-

Here we are and I’ve had the distasteful task of telling my friends not to buy Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. It’s been successful from a boycott perspective. Every person I talked to understood and said they’d consider changing their ice cream habits. And I know for a fact that any have.

As a loyal Ben & Jerry’s customer, I am calling on you to set the company free. Ben & Jerry’s must be able to live its values without interference. Unless you restore its independence, I’m sad to say that you will lose the trust and patronage of people like me.

For nearly fifty years, Ben & Jerry’s has proven that business can be about more than profit. It has created iconic ice cream while standing up for justice, equality, and peace. That independence and authenticity are why I, and millions of others, choose Ben & Jerry’s. Every pint represents more than a flavour; it represents hope and the values we stand for.

But under Unilever and now Magnum, that independence has been eroded. The independent board created to safeguard Ben & Jerry’s mission has been overruled. Decisions that should belong to the company have been blocked. The promises and legally binding agreements made to protect Ben & Jerry’s social mission have been broken.

This isn’t just about ice cream. If even Ben & Jerry’s can be silenced, it sends a chilling message to every business, artist, and individual who dares to speak out for what is right.

If Ben & Jerry’s independence is not restored, you don’t just risk sales of Magnum’s brands. You risk destroying the very thing that makes Ben & Jerry’s valuable: its authenticity.

Magnum has a clear choice. Free Ben & Jerry’s and allow it to be sold to values-aligned investors who will preserve its mission, or watch loyal customers like me turn away from Magnum brands, taking the trust, love, and value that built Ben and Jerry’s with us.

Thank you and do the right thing,
Lee Sonko

A friend on FB mentioned that the garbage on Facebook was becoming intolerable. I concur.
The FB Purity chrome plugin has made my FB experience much less garbagy, but that’s a short term solution. I recommend it.

I’ve got my WordPress blog… Lee.org to tell people how I’m doing, you can subscribe to it by email or put it in an RSS reader or just visit monthly to see how I’m doing.

Where else do we turn for an aggregator of friends to answer “how are my friends doing?” I switched to browsing reddit, quora, and imgur.com the last few months for my “I need a distraction from reality” and that has worked well! Thoughts?

At Burning Man 2023, I walked into the “Black Hole”, a bar in the center of the event. It’s the home of Black Rock City’s Gate, Perimeter and Exodus Department. I was looking for a friend (Hi PPG!), sat down a bit nervous, looking around for them. I was there for a few minutes, wondering how to find my friend when I finally realized I had NO IDEA HOW LONG I HAD BEEN THERE. The reason, of course, is that this song was playing ON REPEAT in the background. It was, in retrospect, brilliant!

(The song is a remix of the Human League song, “Don’t You Want Me”, which just repeats the phrase, “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar” for the entire song. Amazing!)

When I was a kid, my dad had a watch that looked just like this 1973 Rolex Red-Submariner stainless steel wristwatch 1680. On his, the glow-in-the-dark dots on the face were white instead of yellow.

I came across this image on the Clars.com auction website and I was filled with pleasant nostalgia.

At Christmas when I was about 5, I sat on Santa Claus’ knee and he was asking whether I was a good boy and what I wanted for Christmas. I looked down and saw this watch. I looked up and realized that my dad was Santa Claus! It was a magical moment.

When I had grown, my dad and I talked often about that moment and how impressed he was that I figured out it was him. He’d say, “You bum! You figured it out! How’dju do that! You were just a kid!” I loved talking about that with him.

Whenever we’d talk about it, we’d wonder what happened to the watch. We never figured out exactly. The watch got lost at some point. But that’s ok, our shared joy is intact.

Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega

Magical moments in time.

We got letters from my mom’s insurance provider, Humana Medicare plan saying they were disenrolling her, and a letter from CarePlus Medicare Advantage HMO saying they were enrolling her. I called to find out what was going on and fuckin CarePlus was slamming her (IE, they were becoming her provider without her permission).

Jessica, the nice lady at CarePlus said that the records show that Brenda (evil fucking Brenda) had maybe spoken to mom and switched her “maybe sometime in August or September” with an effective date of October 1st.

I can imagine how the phone call went (if it even happened at all), “Hi, I’m good Brenda from [mumble] insurance company. You’re insurance is going to expire soon but I can help. I’ll help you, Ok?”

Mom, “Hello? Oh if you can help, that’d be great.”

Evil Brenda, “Great! Bye!” [typing furiously, racking up another spiff for the day]

After 40 minutes on the phone with CarePlus, and getting a coveted Grievance Number and Disenrollment Number, my mom’s health insurance should be back to normal.

Fuck evil Brenda at CarePlus.