May 2026

• Jun 2, 2026
• Blog, Month Notes & Journal
• 6 minutes reading time

The Vibe

So it's been a bit of an up-and-down month. May is traditionally when the winter really starts to kick in, and the darkness is upon us. The days are significantly shorter. The weather is definitely grey and wet, and that really does affect my mood. I'm really starting to come to terms with the fact that I am severely affected by the weather these days. So with the weather change comes more time inside, a bit of introspection, and a cleanup of the 'inside things'.

I spent a good amount of time cleaning up my Obsidian notes. Obsidian's been a my main tool for writing, working and recording things in general, and I've taken a very organic approach to working with it. I never bought into the kinds of structures I saw others using and so just went with the flow, but I think it had gone to a point where I needed to actually do a clean up and in some structure. So for all of this month, I've actually been working on updating and renovating my vault. Tweaking metadata, moving files and cleaning things up. And that's been a really good thing to actually do, and give my "second brain" a bit of a spring clean.

What I've become aware of is that I have two different versions of a lot of what I do – the blog version and the notes version, and what I really wanted was to just have a single version of the file, but copies living in two different spaces. So I've been working with Claude to clean up my data, add some functionality to 11ty, and really try to hone my tags, categories, and the organisation of files across my system.

I've also been doing this alongside building out the genesis of a portfolio. Again, working with Claude to build out the features I want in my portfolio so I can actually see and play around with it. A big part of this is developing the metadata I need to capture and determining what information about the different projects I worked on I need to be useful. It's also helped me consider the structure as well – is speaking or attending a conference a project? Or is that something else? My aim is really to chart my career over the last 20 or so years of work, because I am now of an age where I have close to 20 years of work in higher education under my belt, and a few side projects as well. It's pretty time-consuming, and sometimes I don't have the energy to do it. The big issue with the structure is now feeling settled, but I still need to actually write up all the projects, and that's hard work.

Looking back on those 20 years has been a bit of a retrospective, making me think about what I've been able to achieve and what I haven't. This has fed into a couple of job applications (internal within the university), and I am pondering the future, but through the lens of the past. When I do look back, I see plenty of achievements and an ability to get things done despite the challenges. I also recognise that it's been a while since that work was acknowledged, or since my contribution was seen as positive by leadership. The last few years, in particular, have seen a marked shift in culture, and it's not one I do well with. The period when I had creative control and a level of authority to lead is definitely over, and it's been replaced not just by a hierarchy, but by one that is completely risk-averse, to the point of being unable to proceed with anything. The days of erring on the side of action are over, and the hope of ever being agile again disappears along the axis of yet another Gantt chart.

Events

In a somewhat ironic coincidence (given the title of my last post) - I managed to attend the Signal not Noise conference in Adelaide. This was put on by a community of Agile and Design Thinking aficionados who have also rebooted a MeetUp (remember those pre-COVID?) that I've been attending to broaden my network. I still feel on the outer – most of the people attending were in distinctly corporate roles, but the subject matter is of interest. The conference was an interesting selection of ideas. The keynote opened by introducing the concept of "synchrony", a biological phenomenon in which individuals in a group tend to synchronise aspects of their biology. With newer generations of sensors, it is now possible to map brain functions outside an MRI (by wearing a small cap full of sensors), which has opened up new kinds of tasks and situations in which we can study the brain. One of the really interesting ones is in studying groups or even pairs, and there seems to be evidence that people who know each other and have a relationship tend to show synchrony in their thoughts. You do tend to 'click' or 'vibe' or get into the flow with others! I found that really interesting. especially when applying this to a team, and a team with quite different personalities – how do you create the vibe?

There was a presentation on emotional dysregulation that used a concept similar to Myers-Briggs to discuss emotional triggers and emotional balance. While I know there are flaws with this way of thinking, I also see power in generalisations and stereotypes, and, dealing with an emotionally dysregulated 14-year-old, I am open to suggestions. We built a professional profile using AI, which was a really interesting activity. This was aimed at developing an external insight into how you are portrayed online and how you might be perceived – for me, this blog is both a blessing and a curse. My old agile coach introduced his concept of Self 2.0 - a way of positioning ourselves in a world of AI. And I wrapped up the day by listening to an application of agile methods to physical product production practices. The day had a lot jammed into it - and I did need a couple of days to process all the information. There was definitely a lot of signal.

As a family, we headed to one of the duelling Medieval Fair events in the Adelaide Hills. It was quite a wet day, but fun to see the nerds out enjoying themselves! I also headed for a night out with workmates for a birthday. We had dinner and then went to a nightclub... which wasn't my happy place - but I had a good night and plenty of laughs.

Photos

Watched

I watched Daredevil: Born Again and I don't think I care about anything Marvel any more. We finished the second season of The Pitt and then went back and watched the 3 episodes of Season 1 we missed because I thought it was just 12 episodes! We had a couple of family movies - Watching Akira and Demolition Man. Clare and I watched Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die which I quite enjoyed.

Listened

I stumbled into Stakeknife, a series about an IRA informer for the British during the troubles, and got lost in the whole thing - absolutely bingeing it over a weekend. There is something about the stories of Northern Ireland that I find captivating. It always takes me back to the lunch room in Buncrana and chatting to Danny in our break and hearing his stories of growing up in Derry. After that, I went and binged on Mark Horgan's previous podcast, Where is George Gibney?, which was another disturbing story, but one that had a powerful effect on the lives of those affected. Definitely recommend them both.

• Tim Klapdor
• Adelaide, Australia
• posts