Today has been a very slow day. The missus and I went out to buy a couple of small items, but that’s about it. The rest of the day has been filled with wandering and puttering around the house. I’ve learned to appreciate days like these more lately.
Thoughts
Grrr. Today is probably my least favorite day of the year: Tax check writing day.
I just configured and handed over my old MacBook Air M1 to my wife who had the same model except with an Intel chip. I think I might install Linux Mint on her old machine to have as an extra toy for tinkering once we’re sure I’ve migrated all she needs.
Cleaning up files on the old laptop, I came across the Hacking with macOS book I bought a few years back but never got started on. Now is as good a time as any to start.
I think my (eventual) podcast will focus on office etiquette. I have so many examples from coworkers over the years that I’d easily have 15 episodes out of the gate. Does that make it a “rantcast?” Now if I could only make the time to record…
Well… A month later, and my eyesight has returned to what it originally was, and my computer glasses work again. An added bonus related to “the event” is I’ve managed to shed more than 10 pounds so far. Let this be a lesson kids; refined sugar is simply pure evil.
I’m really liking Bear as my new notes app, but I’m seeing a somewhat consistent rendering issue when switching to one note from another. When I do, sometimes the new note’s content draws funny and needs a quick scroll to rerender. Anyone else getting this? How about you, @canion?
Some people are way too quick to call a meeting for something that can be solved in one or two email exchanges. Don’t be that person, because I’ll shoot you down if you send me a pointless invite. 💥
I’m playing a form of “Apollo 13” with the work laptop now, trying to find the right combination of apps that will keep the thing charging while I do some work. Launching any browser puts me over the limit and the charge stops. 🤣
Got to the office this morning to find my work laptop’s battery is drained. Sitting here waiting for sufficient charge to get going. I must remember to shut down for the weekends rather than sleep the thing.
A productive weekend. Cleaned most of the back yard. The rest is for next weekend. Built a new barbecue and grilling burgers for dinner. But the best thing was sleeping in really late this morning. The week ahead looks manageable. Life is good.
I just updated my Tinylytics for WordPress plugin to v1.1.1, fixing a bug that would cause a critical issue to be reported in Site Health about an active PHP session being detected that should have been closed.
Oh, and day 5 of battery on the new MacBook Air and we’re still at 30%… 🤯
Speaking of bucket list performers to see live, we’ll also be seeing Tab Benoit at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano in August. I played The Coach House as part of the opening act for Elvin Bishop back in May of 2011.
Just bought a couple of cheap tickets to see Eric Clapton at the Hollywood Bowl in October. We may be way in the back, but we’ll get to see a bucket list legend perform live.
I’ve spent the better part of the day trying to debug a system failure. I can get it to happen once, but then the exact same data update rolled back and updated again is successful no matter how many times I run it. It’s friggen’ maddening I tell you! Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow. 😵💫
Just because a business user asks for it doesn’t mean it should be done. You have to be able to tell your end users no sometimes. Saying yes to everything makes for technical debt in the future. I just had to argue this point to both a user and one of our consultants. Users hate me sometimes. 🏴☠️
There was a time I loathed the use of Emojis and thought they were for lazy people. But times and minds change and I find myself using them more often as of late than I otherwise would have allowed myself to back in the “old days.” ✌️❤️
Battery life on the New MacBook Air M3 is impressive. Going on day four of moderate use from a full charge and the battery is only down to 52%.
I find it hilarious when people start pounding on their keyboard as the answer to fix a hung up or seriously lagging computer. Like it’s going to suddenly knock something loose inside instead of adding to a buffer that’s already backing up.
I stopped using external monitors with my laptops a couple weeks ago as an experiment to see if I could adapt. I tried connecting my work monitors today to see how it felt. Nope. I’ve become accustomed to a Retina display and can’t use external mons now. Plus, I’m way more productive this way.
Woohoo! New MacBook Air is ready for pickup at the Apple Store today. Even though it only took 10 days for the custom config to arrive, it feels like it’s been 20 at least.
It seems I may have flooded the Micro.blog timeline with a crap-ton of Scribbles posts by pasting the discover feed from over there instead of my own when adding a MB crosspost feed. If you silently cursed me under your breath for it, I totally deserve it. The lameness has been corrected. Sorry!
Hah! I landed on the perfect domain name for my Scribbles blog today. How this domain was not already registered is beyond me, but alas, it was not and I snagged it up. It should be resolving properly soon if it isn’t already…
I had hoped to get some good beach photos this afternoon, but the surf was small and blown-out from a brisk onshore wind. Still, it was nice to get the bike out and ride along the sand. I am looking forward to summer returning though.
Drinking a “Fauxrona” (alcohol free Corona) this afternoon. Surprisingly, it tastes very much like the real thing. Non-alcoholic beer has come a long way from the days of O’doul’s being the only option. Cheers! 🍻
I’m taking the rest of the week off from work. My wife and I were going to take the RV out for a relaxing long weekend, but yet another “atmospheric river” rain storm is bearing down on SoCal. I’m hoping to get a little beach time in for myself tomorrow before the deluge begins on Friday.
After trying to use Apple Calendar for just one day, I’m back to Fantastical. Our InfoSec team won’t approve BusyCal, so it looks like I’ll be forking out for another year’s subscription. That’s okay. I use the app a lot.
I just set up one of my other domains as a podcast site on Micro.blog since I have extra domains sitting around doing nothing, and Micro.blog premium allows five different sites. This will either be really interesting, or a total bust. More later…
I’m giving Apple Calendar a spin for a while to see if it can replace Fantastical. I absolutely love Fantastical and have used it since the beginning, but the $57 subscription price is getting too expensive for me. This year’s goal is to only pay for subscriptions that are absolutely necessary.