Tools
Some of the physical and software tools I use on a regular basis:
VS Code
I find myself using VScode more than I ever thought I would. Half of the folks I work with use Macs and the other half use Windows machines for development in various languages (we’re mainly systems guys, so lots of Terraform and Ansible and Packer and Powershell and Bash) so having a common interface to work out of makes it a lot easier to share ideas and pass on knowledge. All of the plugins also allow me to customize certain parts to my liking such has having vim mode. I feel like I have an arm tied behind my back without those keystrokes so that is a non-negotiable feature for me. Later on I will include a list of plugins I find particularly handy.
Inkdrop is by far the best Markdown based note taking application I’ve used yet. Obsidian is great and I also had no problem just using a directory full of markdown files attached to VSCode, but something about the way Inkdrop tweaks the note taking and organization process just does it for me.
PENS!
I love my fountain pens, particularly Pilot Vanishing Points and anything I’ve ever used from Edison Pen Company. They’re by far my favorite writing implements and are just a joy to used. But, they’re not always the most practical thing in the world. In the last couple years I’ve started to enjoy so-called ‘tactical’ pens since they’re usually so overbuilt and just overall fun to use. I really enjoy the capped Benchmade pens with the carbide glassbreaker tip, they’re really well proportioned but do look like kind of stabby. I picked up a Surefire Pen 3 which will use standard Fisher format refills, SpacePen refills, or Schmidt EasyFLOW 9000 refills and it totally innocuous. It’s just a bit fatter than other pens and great to write with. My biggest disappointment has been the CountyComm embassy pens, they are milled to fit a particular Schmidt refill instead of standard Fisher refill and when the cap is screwed on it presses down on the tip and ends up with a big blobby mess that needs wiped off and takes a couple of scribbles to start flowing. When it writes it is fine but there’s just no need for the cap to touch the point.