We stopped in to Michaels the other day and when we hit checkout I was floored that they’ve removed all cashiers and only have self checkout. Unless you are paying with cash, in which case an employee has to come up and help you check out. So weird.
This shop always has a ton of mannequins outside and it makes me laugh every time I see them. It looks like a crowd waiting to get in the store, minus all their heads.
Caught this coming out to run errands after work tonight. Spectacular colors.
Needed a new day bag that could hold the ipad. After searching around, I ended up back at my fav bag company Timbuk2. Here’s the new bag next to my current full-size bag.
September was a slog, and quite possibly the worst month in many years. Family passed, friends lost their jobs and my fiancé was bitten by a dog and had a scary few days in the hospital. There were a few bright spots there, but I’m just glad to see October hit and fall weather start to roll in.
I’ve not been reading as much as I’d like, even though I have a good backlog of books. I’m hoping to get through The Peripheral before the movie hits. Shocking I’ve never read that book before, it’s right up my alley on topic. I’ve also started pre-reading a good friends unreleased book.
Here are some links I ran across recently. Enjoy!
This is a bonkers ride down a mountainside. I can’t tell in the video if the riders have any speed control or if it’s just a free fall. I wish I could say I’d be brave enough to ride this, but no way.
This is both heartbreaking and wonderful. I’m partial to dog stories as we have two dogs that we share a home with. Neither of which can ride a bus.
I have a Timbuk2 messenger bag, and it’s great. It’s just too big to be a good day bag. Ordered this today, and will be using it extensively on our upcoming Maui trip. Also, I LOVE how Timbuk2 shows a video clip of actual people wearing the bag.
I didn’t upgrade my Apple Watch this season, but the new Ultra looks sexy as hell. A few good friend s picked this up and love it. This video is a bit long, but I love that it’s in Scotland and how much detail he puts into the everything.
I don’t recall how I ran across this link but I love the site, the themes and the mission. “We are a tri-monthly magazine that is open to submission from speculative fiction writers from across Africa and the African Diaspora.” Much reading planned here.
One of the reasons I love reading Hacker News so much is the depth of intelligent discussions and feedback that come in the comments. The topics covered in this thread are often way outside my interest, but the way the books are covered here makes me want to rethink my reading habits a bit.
Headed up north to Los Padres National Forest just above Los Olivos for some camping and wine tasting. The views were amazing and we captured some great sunset photos. We stayed at Camp Figueroa, a new spot for us. Nestled near the top of the mountains, it was a crazy, windy and narrow uphill drive to get there.
We arrived Saturday around 12PM, not knowing what to expect aside from the camp pics on recreation.gov. The campground had lots of trees, including many manzanitas. The spots were a mix of tiny and narrow to large and private. We lucked out with two decent spots.
The camp host came by to check us in and warned us that the area had very bad flies during the day and evening due to the excessive warm temps we’ve been having lately. Boy, was she right on that. The bugs were so bad that we ended up spending the late afternoon and early evening inside our camper. Still, we had charcuterie, drinks, music, games and family.
The plan had been to get set up in the campsite and then head into Los Olivos for wine tasting. But because the drive up into the campground was a bit crazy, we stayed at the campsite and relaxed in from the bugs. The evening cooled down enough to have a fire, and the bugs did somewhat dissipate.
Camping is never without it’s gotchas; we always forget something. And like this time, it’s sometimes a big thing. I had removed the door to our camper on the last trip to do some work on it. When packing up for there weekend, I forgot to pack the door. We realized this as I set up the pop-up, and with the crazy amount of bugs, it was a frustrating shock. But we’re adaptable, and made a makeshift door from our shower curtain that worked perfectly fine for the weekend. Thankfully we always have a ton of clips, tape and other things on hand that allowed us to craft a new door.
I don’t think we’ll be back to this spot again, even though it was a pretty site with great views. It was decent, but overall just not to our taste.
Because this is my personal site, it’s basically in near constant flux. I adjust things over time to see what I think works best for me. I’ve decided to adjust how I handle links here. I originally played with a weekly link list, and then moved to a separate section for links. Neither seemed right for me. The weekly post was a bit too rigid; I don’t want to be nailing myself down to a cadence I can’t keep up with. Adding links to a separate section, along with images to make it into a “post” takes a bit of extra effort during the work week, and I just don’t have that in me all the time.
A separate post-type seemed the best way to gather these. Hence the “No. 1” here. I like the idea of starting these off as a numbered series. I’ll post these when I feel it’s right. I’ll probably play around with the styling here as well. I’m not certain this structure feels right yet.
This was an interestingly timed read for me. I’d just gone to CVS to get a Covid booster, and after the shot had some time to kill near the magazine racks. I hadn’t thought about it in quite some time, but I used to be quite a magazine junky back in the day. Pre-internet of course.
Tim Bray took a dive into magazines and had some refreshing thoughts on reading paper vs the web.
The text and images stand still! There are no late-displaying ads or graphics pushing the words around while you’re trying to read them. Nothing asked me whether it could send notifications. Nothing suggested that I switch to the app. In fact: No. Popups. Ever.
I don’t think I need to add anything to this.
I LOVE these cardboard robot creations.
I had no idea there was a whole movement around keeping older Macs updated. I may be digging out my PowerMac G5 just for kicks.
I’ve been enjoying Wouter Groeneveld’s blog Brain Baking lately. I had to force myself not to include more than one link there, but this one has resonated with me more than many of his posts. I love seeing what other people do with their personal sites. How they organize content, what types of content they write or curate, how they design their site. Personal sites have been seeing a bit of a renaissance lately. I think I need to do some more thinking and writing on this subject.
I’m a huge fan of BasicAppleGuy. Expect more links from him in the future.
This was astonishing to watch. I suppose I’ve always been aware of catcalling, and just how awful it is. To see it to this extent just shocked me. I hope people see this and understand the underlying reason why this behavior is vile, but many won’t. It’s a stark reminder to be kind and mindful. When I’m out walking our neighborhood sidewalks, if I make eye contact with someone passing me by, man or woman, I typically nod and say a simple hello or good morning. They don’t always respond, and that’s ok. Anything more from me would just be pushing past respectful behavior and it’s just not acceptable.
Apple had their big iPhone event last week with several new product launches. Nothing came out that had me jonesing for new tech, and this got me thinking about my excitement around technology in general.
My first foray into smart phones was a Palm Treo. This was before wifi, so I used to download news from the web onto the phone each morning so that I could read it on my Treo at work on my breaks. The handwriting with the stylus was weird but it felt so futuristic that I didn’t care.
I loved this phone but damned if it wasn’t FAT.
My next big buy was a Nokia N80. I was beyond excited with that phone, and paid a pretty penny to get it. For its time, it had an amazing camera. It was also able to browse the web, something I thought was akin to magic at the time. I recall photo blogging being nascent and exciting back then. The idea that you could snap a photo anywhere and then post it to Flickr, your blog (if you were technically capable of building) or whatever service you wanted to, was amazing.
I have no idea why I was angry in this pic. Phone too small maybe?
xTechnology kept advancing and phones, and tech in general, just kept cranking out new and more amazing features. Not everything was useful but it was COOL. And damned if I didn’t want to play with it all. Computers were also changing, with laptops becoming the norm. They just kept slimming down while simultaneously improving power and capabilities. My first MacBook Pro felt like the future.
I was part of a small group of tech fiends here in LA called TuttleLA. We would gather at coffee shops, each of us bringing our latest gadgets, ready to gush about the new things we could do. We were building things like photo blogs, vblogs, websites, and all manner of web goofiness. This is back when the web was cool, nerdy, individualistic and full of possibilities. Web standards? PSHHH.
TuttleLA peeps and me, surrounded by our nerd gadgets in 2010.