Amazon Spending
Peter Rukavina posted a graph of his Amazon spending and I couldn’t resist taking a look at my data. You can easily request this from Amazon in the “Privacy Center”. A quick pivot table later and I had this graph. I’m omitting the actual scale on purpose — the shape does enough to tell the story.
I’m not that clear on what happened in 2015 that drove a big jump that stayed that way. My family comments that I purchase a lot from Amazon and I thought they were overstating it, but maybe not.
Honestly I was truly surprised at the frequency and amounts.
POAP 7554247 at Yearly Thing 2025.
I made a book — Yearly Thing 2025
For a couple of years now I’ve been wondering if there was a book version of the Weekly Thing. I had in my mind the idea of an almanac. Something that captured some period of time and put information in a different format. This year this idea surfaced again and unlike the last couple of times I could not shake it. It seemed this thing needed to happen! And here it is, the Yearly Thing 2025: Agents, Attention, Artifacts.
The Yearly Thing 2025 places all 324 links that I commented on across 31 issues of the Weekly Thing in 2025 into one volume. It is organized into 10 topic focused chapters:
- The AI Revolution
- The Craft of Software
- Privacy, Security and Encryption
- Cryptocurrency and Web3
- The Apple Ecosystem
- The Open Web and Blogging
- Attention, Algorithms and Digital Life
- Leadership and Building Products
- Health, Connection and Society
- Tools, Productivity and Delights
There is also an Introduction, Weekly Thing Index, and an Afterword.
This repackaging of the Weekly Thing gives an opportunity to see topics in a different light. The eBook version maintains all the hyperlinks so you can go to articles and navigate as you like. The printed book references the issue each item was in, which you can then easily scan a QR code to go to via the Weekly Thing Index if you wish to.
I hope this is a way for people to go back to topics and reflect on them more. Make some notes in the margin on the print. All while supporting the Weekly Thing Supporting Membership program — with all proceeds from the sale of the Yearly Thing 2025 supporting great digital non-profits.
- The paperback is available for $30 on Lulu.
- The eBook is available for $20 on Gumroad. The eBook will give you an archive that you will find formats for Apple Books, Kindle, Nook, Android, etc.
- Purchasers of the printed book that would like the eBook as well can contact me and I will get you the eBook files.
- Anyone that purchases the Yearly Thing 2025 in the first 2 months will receive a special Yearly Thing 2025 POAP to collect!
This may be the first of many Yearly Things that you can collect over time. 🤔
Tyler and I made our way out to Chaska to check out The Forge. This was on our list of card shops to explore. Unfortunately the Pokemon inventory was nearly non-existent. They had a ton of other gaming stuff though. They only had a couple dozen cards but I did find two to add to my binder.
I just finished up this Weekly Thing adjacent project that I started over Christmas. Just a bit more to finalize distribution! I’m looking forward to sharing this. All the proceeds will be going to the Weekly Thing Supporting Membership program. 🙌
We watched Knives Out tonight, again. Tyler hadn’t seen it and now that there are two sequels we’re going to watch those together. I didn’t remember that much after seven years so was still fun to watch again. 🍿
Tammy and I saw Marty Supreme at the Edina 4 theatre this afternoon. Fantastic performance from Timothée Chalamet. The story is “loosely based” on the life of Marty Reisman.
World Snow Celebration
It was a very cold morning but we made it out to see the World Snow Celebration and the snow sculptures. Teams were working towards the deadline of completing their sculptures. They were amazing. We also did the Peoples Choice votes. I voted for Team Falcon of Mongolia and Tammy went for Team Warm Your Cold Brits.
Stillwater.
Delicious Gingerbread Latte and breakfast at Mon Petit Cheri in Stillwater.
Tammy and I had a delicious evening at Rio 1854 — the Surf & Turf for two was amazing. Recommended!
At our very first Minnesota Gophers basketball game in the Barn Lofts! 🏀
POAP 7550517 at TeamSPS Cyberweek 2025.
I’ve been having fun playing Clash Royale with Tyler — he’s my coach and is really good at the game! The game had some big changes recently that are not being well received by the community. He wrote up where he thinks Supercell is going wrong. Spot on! 🎯
Excited to see the MSP airport has been added to the Airport POAP Rally! Follow the Rally. ✈️
Mazie is doing her final packing and preparation to depart tomorrow for her semester abroad in Barcelona. I’m excited and proud of her, and as her Dad nervous and hopeful, as she embarks on her biggest excursion yet. Starting tomorrow I’ll be counting the days until we visit her. 🇪🇸✈️
Escape Rooms of 2025
This year we jumped way into our Escape Room adventures, more than any previous year. We completed 25 rooms in 2025!
This year we went through all of our records and made sure we had a complete inventory of all of our rooms, resulting in our Escape Rooms list. We are getting close to having 100 rooms so that we can become TERPECA voters! Speaking of TERPECA, we did seven rooms that were in the top 100 for 2024 of the Top Escape Rooms Project. Note the ⭐️ next to those rooms in the list.
It was a super fun year for escape rooms! 🤩
Our log for 2025 was…
- Copper Cat Escape - Granny’s Recipe Rescue in Brainerd, MN. See post!
- Copper Cat Escape - Deep Woods Cabin in Brainerd, MN. See post!
- Puzzleworks - The Museum in St. Paul, MN. See post!
- No Esc Puzzle Collective - Sherwood Forest in Shakopee, MN. See post!
- Enigma Adventures - The Istanbul Gambit in Bloomington, MN. See post!
- Puzzleworks - The Hospital in St. Pual, MN. See post!
- Doldrick’s Escape Room - Crazy Train ⭐️ in Orlando, FL. See post!
- Puzzleworks - The Dungeon in St. Paul, MN. See post!
- Puzzleworks - The Anomaly in St. Paul, MN. See post!
- Enigma Adventures - Pirates of the Spanish Main in Maple Grove, MN. See post!
- Escape City - Mindmaster Industries in Calgary. See post!
- Solve Escape Rooms - Caper in the Escape Room in Waukesha, WI.
- Solve Escape Rooms - 14 Floors Below in Waukesha, WI.
- Escape in Time - Gold Rush in Madison, WI. See post!
- Cabinet Mysteriis - The Dreamwalkers ⭐️ in Quebec. See post!
- Cabinet Mysteriis - 2002: The Bovine Odyssey ⭐️ in Quebec. See post!
- Cabinet Mysterlis - Screaming Metal ⭐️ in Quebec. See post!
- Escaparium - Lost Island of the Voodoo Queen ⭐️ in Quebec. See post!
- Escaparium - Wardrobe for sale ⭐️ in Quebec. See post!
- Escaparium - Magnifico ⭐️ in Quebec. See post! Number 1 on TERPECA 2024 and 2025!
- Escape Room Alexandria - The Experiment in Alexandria. See post!
- Puzzled Escape Rooms - Time Machine in Fargo. See post!
- Breakout ND - Gemini Quantum Quest in Bismarck. See post!
- Escape Game - Ruins: Forbidden Treasure in Nashville. See post!
- Escape Game - Yeti Escape Room in Nashville. See post!
We had a great time solving the Scooby-Doo™ and the Spooky Castle Adventure room at Escapology today. It was our first room at Escapology and we’ll be back. Finished in 39m 46s — very fast for us! Room 86!
I’ve always thought it would be amazing to go to a World Cup match and with the 2026 FIFA World Cup being in North America it is time! Tammy did the research and Tyler and I will be at Lumen Field in Seattle on July 6th watching W81 v W82 in the Round of 16! ⚽️
