Last week’s notes were skipped because I was in the middle of helping my in-laws shift from Coimbatore to Chennai. That hectic move finally finished this weekend. So expect this week’s notes to be light on content as well. But do read till the end for a lovely surprise.
Work
I took more than half of the week off for the aforementioned move, so nothing of interest here, besides the final full-day session of the technical principal training program on Friday. We all showcased the artifacts we had put together for the Kata problem statement we were given. I will be writing a long-form post on the learnings that resulted from this separately. So do be on the lookout for that.
Learning
I finally got my hands on the backup Yubikeys in the previous week. I spent a good amount of time setting it up and getting to know its capabilities. Right now, it is setup to hold all of the OTPs for various websites (both for personal and work). I also set it up as an additional layer of protection for my KeepassXC database.
The latter setup is proving slightly cumbersome especially when I’m outside and quickly need to open Strongbox on my mobile to grab a password. I have a backup Yubikey in my wallet, which is made of leather. More often than not, NFC on my iPhone SE 2020 is not able to figure out that my key is inside the wallet forcing me to take it out and scan it. Due to this reason, I’m not yet convinced that the added security on my KeepassXC database is worth it.
Personal
On our penultimate day in Coimbatore, we started hearing a loud squeaking sound in the house. Knowing neither the source location nor the type of animal making it, we attributed it to a rat stuck in the pipes. We continued hearing it on our last day as we were in the final throes of packing and stuck to the same conclusion.
To our surprise, we heard the same sound as we were unloading in Chennai. And again, not knowing what it was, we thought it was probably a rat or something in our new apartment.
It wasn’t until the day after we moved into the new apartment that we discovered the source of the noise and discovered these cutest little things.
Turns out that their mother had chosen to lay them in a nest in the compressor of our air conditioner for warmth. Not knowing what was inside, we removed the compressor unit and packed it along with our stuff.
We then spent a good amount of time over the weekend feeding them with milk and slowly nursing them to the best of our limited abilities. We soon realised that we were in no position to be their permanent caretakers, especially since we knew nothing about nursing baby squirrels. With a heavy heart, we bid goodbye to them today afternoon and handed them over to Blue Cross India. We miss them already, but also know that they’re in a place where people will take good care of them. And who knows, they will hopefully make a lot of new friends there.