--- title: Things I enjoyed this week (March 23) author: George Mandis date: 2014-03-29 tags: post, post, lists, things I enjoyed, march ---

In what I'm hoping can be a regular writing topic I offer a summary of enjoyable and/or interesting things I learned, found or otherwise discovered.

Spring is decidedly here in Portland. That means rain, but that also means warmer breaks between the cloudbursts. The weather has been kind enough over the past week to visit my secret coffeeshop off the Springwater Corridor. It also means celebrating (belatedly) my brother's birthday.
I went to a BBQ on one of those super-sunny days. I saw old friends from high school, people I hadn't seen in 14 years as well as a shooting start while standing next to a fire pit.
March Madness is here, which is fun for a basketball junky such as myself ((Though I don't really like college basketball that much. I do like the chaos of the tournament format, and slightly-shitty, non-professional basketball is always better than no basketball.)) and my good friend. I didn't win a billion dollars.
I discovered a new TV show. There is only so much basketball you can watch, even in March. My friend, who probably has a higher basketball-watching tolerance than I do, introduced me to a dumb TV show called Impractical Jokers. I... I love it. It's beautifully, intentionally dumb, but has a little heart ((The premise is four, life-long comedian friends dare one another to do stupid things in public. They're fed lines and cues through an earpiece, generally enough to establish a ridiculous situation that the comedian will then have to talk his way out of or otherwise run with. Where it becomes likable is when one of them chickens out, showing a shred of decency.)) which makes the four guys kind of endearing. They rip-on and tease one another like only four, lifelong friends could, and the absurdity makes me genuinely laugh out of loud at least a few times every episode. Perhaps that says more about my (im)maturity.
Continued running a bit, despite not getting selected for the NYC marathon draft, going to yoga and generally trying to stay healthy. Looking forward to my next run at the Bridge to Brews event next weekend ((Oh shit that's soon!))
I got a lot of work done, and more than simply discovering how to make better, semi-full-page webpages for mobile Safari or how to generate iTunes-style color schemes for WordPress. That's boring to write about, but good for me. This year has been rough in many ways and I'd be lying if I said it hasn't affected my work. I've had no shortage of projects but have had trouble with productivity. Made something of a breakthrough on that front this week, possibly in-part due to the breakthrough in the weather.

Looking at my calendar for the upcoming week it looks like there will be plenty of other things to like soon.