Weekend Wrap 4/27/2026

Each weekend, I like to pause, reflect, and look back on the past week. This isn't a deep dive or grand reflection—just a quick review of a handful of things that brought me joy, made me think, or challenged me.

This is coming out a day late: for good reason. At least, if you ask me. You'll see why a bit later. But I was tied up with the second half of the creatine article as well, and that gobbled up much of my writing time this weekend.

Music

At The Gates is legendary. They dropped their groundbreaking album, Slaughter of the Soul in 1995, shaping the landscape of melodic death metal. Then, they broke up. Fast forward to 2014, and they released their comeback album, At War With Reality, to general acclaim. Since then, they have continued to release solid albums, with The Ghost of a Future Dead being their eighth album.

In 2025, it was announced that vocalist Tomas Lindberg had been diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma. The band was working on this album, and before starting treatment, Tomas recorded all the vocals in one day. Sadly, the cancer won, and Tomas passed away in late 2025.

The Ghost of a Future Dead gathers Tomas's final vision, the album renamed per his requests. But all of that emotional weight wouldn't matter if the music wasn't good. But it is. It is excellent. This is a near-perfect swansong for Tomas, and a masterclass in classic Gothenburg death metal.

Tomas will be missed, but The Ghost of a Future Dead is an excellent reminder of his, and the rest of the band's, talents.

Books

After finishing Dungeon Crawler Carl, it was time for some more pulpy fiction. Time to return to The Dresden Files, with book 18 (yes, 18), Twelve Months. The Dresden books are just a good time. After reading so many of them, they feel comfortable and familiar.

Honestly, I couldn't stop reading Twelve Months. That's why this didn't make it out until today. Last night, I was in the home stretch and had to get to the end. Twelve Months is an unusual Dresden book. In so many previous books, and particularly Battle Ground (book 17), there is a lot of fighting.

Twelve Months is much different. It is very introspective. It is Harry Dresden dealing with the fallout of the previous book, and he has been messed up. I found the slower, more contemplative pacing of the story to be a huge breath of fresh air. There really were only 2 battles in the book, and both were fairly short.

This is a book about a man who has made tough choices, finds himself in an impossible situation, but is still determined to do his best and be a good person, despite the fact that he refuses to see himself as such. I really enjoyed this one.

Refinement

Things are going well here. My workouts continue to be consistent, with small weekly gains being made. I am usually getting to bed on time, and in a more healthy fashion. I am pleased with the progress being made here.

Next month, it will be time to work on something new. I have some ideas of where I want to improve, and this will be a good opportunity to make some more progress.

Quote of the week

Anyone who has been reading this for a while knows how much Tiny Experiments affected me. This week, this passage resurfaced, and I was reminded how important it was that I use April to assess my refinements, work on them a bit more, and find the points of friction along the way.

It is so easy for us to make a decision, commit, and then fail. We throw in the towel. It wasn't for us. We were too weak. Now wasn't the time.

Maybe.

Or maybe we didn't pause to see what worked, what didn't, and how we could make things better. Improvement is incremental. Our progress should allow for that, and patience is a must. But taking time to reflect, to change course, to reassess ensures that we are able to continue to make that progress.

We need to give ourselves some grace, some space, and enough chances to actually improve.

Area of improvement

My focus is my main goal for the week. I want to find small ways to improve my focus, my ability to lock in, and get things done. It sounds simple.

It rarely is.

Wrapping up

That's it for this week. A bit on the shorter side, but time just hasn't allowed for a lot of extra things this past week.