September 2019

Mobility.

I have a lot of respect for this guy. I don’t know who he is, I don’t know what he’s working on, nor do I know where he is working. I do know that he’s using a Mac in a public space in a seemingly good spot to get some work done. I find that awesome.

I’ve always had dreams of being a Digital Nomad. I love the idea of working remotely and I’m quite fortunate to be a company-sanctioned telecommuter, but I have a habit of setting up shop in my home office and doing all my work from there, rather than taking advantage of the digital tools available to me and working where I need to.

I do find I get more things done when I change up the scenery a bit. I like the white noise of a coffee shop while I’m working. I can’t have headphones in; I’m more of the type to have music playing in the background, which adds to the general ambiance of a room. I have specific needs to not throw off my concentration, and I occasionally have a hard time finding that at home. Getting out of the office more often would definitely help my concentration.

A couple of years ago work gave me a Windows 10 Dell Laptop, saying I had to make the switch due to security concerns on the network. Frankly I never turned in the company assigned Mac equipment I was given when I joined the company back in 2015, so I still use it from time to time. The Retina display, and the entire experience for that matter, far outshines the Windows 10 experience I have on my Dell laptop. I don’t know how anyone, in this day and age, can think a display resolution of 1366×768 can lend itself to any sort of productive endeavor, especially since Microsoft tries to cram everything and the kitchen sink into ribbons and buttons and advertising in their latest incarnations of Office products.

I’m going to have to read up on the Bring-Your-Own-Device policy at work to see if I can get back to a company-sanctioned Mac platform again. I already structure my day so I have meetings in the morning and development time in the afternoon. If I can maintain these two constants, I might be working from a local coffee shop sooner than later.

Then I can really get some stuff done.

22 September 2019 by J.P. City Life. Geek 0

Testing.

I am making updates to the infrastructure of code that runs my installation of WordPress for this blog. Since this blog is self-hosted, I’m responsible for making sure it runs like it should after I patch updates and the like. Luckily I haven’t tricked out the software too much; updates generally go smoothly.

If you can read this, the test has been successful.

If you can still read this, the test continues to be successful.

OK, so the third upgrade I did didn’t work. You couldn’t read the third iteration of the sentence of “if you can still read this…”

For the technically minded, I’m moving to newer versions of PHP on the server. I didn’t get things to where I wanted to be, but things are where they need to be. It works for me.

22 September 2019 by J.P. Geek 0

Reminder.

So last night we went to the movies to see “Downton Abbey”. I’ve been excited to see this movie since it was announced; I’ve missed watching the show and escaping to Downton on a weekly basis.

I shan’t spoil the plot here but I will say I thoroughly enjoyed the film, I could easily watch it again, and I find the presentation to be absolutely beautiful. It was a comfortable escape. It was a beautiful gift to the fans.

As the final credits rolled I realized I was feeling glum about the experience. It had nothing to do with the movie, as I said, it was a gorgeous cinematic event for me. I was realizing I had last seen the Crawleys et. al in 2015 and I was contrasting where my head was then versus where it is today. Though this has nothing to do with the movie, I realized the U.S. political climate has put me in a clouded funk since the 2016 election. I’ve actually known this but watching entertainment I dearly loved before American society lost its mind completely and contrasting the same escape during these dark times (The Age of Chaos and Insanity) forced me to take stock of the effects this insanity has had on me.

Shame on me for allowing the Trump administration and all its stupidity and stupid supporters to affect my mood at this magnitude.

I’m ready to go back to the movies and again to watch Downton Abbey to drink in its magnificence and to allow my head to escape to better times.

Perhaps I will find hope.

21 September 2019 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Never Can Say Goodbye.

One of my very favorite tracks to spin as a club DJ is “Never Can Say Goodbye” by The Communards. I would usually put it toward the end of the night and it would almost always fill the dance floor, in fact, it’s one of the very first songs I ever played as a club DJ. Jimmy Somerville’s soaring falsetto vocals are fun and when married with the impressive orchestration, the collaboration makes for (in my opinion) a superior version of a song that was previously recorded by Gloria Gaynor and The Jacksons.

As I watched this video today, I couldn’t help but feel like the old guy in the room in that the folks dancing and having a great time to this song are smiling, the tempo is upbeat, and the mood of the track is jovial. Going to a club today there’s a lot of down-tempo angry-sound lyrics, darkness, and way too much auto-tune. In the 80s we had fairies, today we have zombies.

Both Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles were out gay men back in the mid-late 1980s while they were collaborating for The Communards. This is before being out was a mainstream thing and parents were throwing coming out parties for their junior high school aged children.

Wow, I do sound like the old guy in the room.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this track as much as I do. Full confession: Richard Coles is probably one of the first guys I ever had crush on and even watching the video today I have to admit I find him wicked cute.

I do like the nerdy type from time to time.

20 September 2019 by J.P. DJ Gayish. 0

Rest.

App developer, graphic artist, and The Icon Factory co-founder Ged Maheux recently wrote a blog entry about the Activity app on the Apple Watch and how it never accounts for rest days.

You can read the blog entry here.

Ged is absolutely correct; Apple Watch will prompt you to work out and close your rings every single day of the week. When I decide to work my own rest day into the mix I’m prompted several times by my watch, made to feel quite guilty about being fairly lazy for the day, and then I’ll either relent and work out or “mute for today”.

Our bodies need recovery days to maintain balance and prime functionality. Apple needs to build some rest days functionality.

Now, time for a burger.

19 September 2019 by J.P. Apple. Everyone's A Critic. 0

Cuts.

Not wanting to be left out of a money making opportunity, NBC/Universal recently announced they’re launching the Peacock streaming network in 2020. This streaming network will have 15,000 hours of programming available. I’m sure it’ll be yet another monthly fee for accessing this service.

My husband and I cut the cord years ago. We have relied on an Over-The-Air antenna and the usual suspects of streaming services: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix. Other than “Madam Secretary”, the handful of network shows we watch have been available on Hulu or another service. The truth be known, we enjoy indie and alternative series from the streaming services when compared with the mainstream stuff being put out by the traditional networks.

And really, who wants to watch Sean Spicer dance around while dressed up like an avocado?

When Apple TV+ comes out we are going to buy an iDevice so we can stream the service free for a year. I’m really interested in the new series “For All Mankind” and I’m mildly interested in “The Morning Show”. I’ve resisted CBS All Access but with “Star Trek: Picard” coming out next year we’re going to need to shell out some money for that. Then, of course, Disney+ is coming out in November and we’ll probably sign on for that.

When does it become cheaper to just go with cable?

Of course, the streaming services are offering no-ads services, and our time is money, so perhaps paying for streaming services without ads vs paying for cable with ads still has a leaning toward to the streaming services. Though, I think we’re going to end up with too many offerings and just start pirating and sharing video that way again. If we could do it in the ’00s we can certainly do it in the ’20s.

Now if I could just find “Judging Amy” again.

18 September 2019 by J.P. Geek 0

Hiawatha, Iowa.

I’m in Hiawatha, Iowa tonight and tomorrow night for work. I’ve been here before but it’s been a couple of years; this was the first time driving here for work since moving to Chicago. The drive was pleasant.

I enjoy work trips and getting to meet with fellow team members face to face. A night in the hotel room can be a little boring, especially when the Internet connection won’t allow me to VPN into the office, but I have enough bandwidth to waste time writing blog entries and watching the various versions of “The Bob Newhart Show” theme song. I enjoy trying to figure out where Bob is walking through Chicago back in the day.

Telecommuting is wonderful, even working with team members over video conferencing is great, but nothing replaces face to face time.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s day at the office.

17 September 2019 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Videos.

I’m watching old private pilot videos from the 60s and 70s on YouTube. I need to go flying. Very soon.

https://youtu.be/mcKtQFWN9eQ

16 September 2019 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept Pilot. 0

Screams.

After taking our weekend visitors Jeff and Mark to O’Hare for their flight back to Raleigh-Durham, I decided to take some time to go on one of my little urban adventures in the city. I decided to head out to the western neighborhoods, and I began my journey on the Red Line so I could transfer to the Blue Line and head out to the Northwest. That’s how the Loop-oriented CTA lines work in Chicago.

As I made my transfer from the Red Line to the Blue Line at Lake, I followed the trail of folks with luggage looking to make the transfer so they could head to O’Hare. In the CTA stations there are plenty of posters and other reminders to “walk left, stand right” on the escalators, and during the week daily commuters do an excellent job at observing this rule. It’s rare to see someone clog up the escalator.

On the weekend it’s a completely different story.

A young woman was standing next to her luggage on the escalator, staring at her phone, clogging up the folks trying to pass on the left. Just as I was perfecting my glare (along with others), the escalator came to a abrupt halt.

Not a big deal. For the uniformed, when an escalator comes to a stop, it simply becomes a staircase. The escalator stops, so you walk up the stairs and you easily reach your destination. It’s not a difficult concept.

Except below me on the escalator some woman started screaming as if the station had been plunged into darkness, a portal to Hades had opened, and the compartment was being filled with some sort of noxious gas. (I promise I wasn’t “crop dusting” the escalator on my way up).

Bewildered by this screaming, other patrons on the now stopped escalator took this as some sort of wailing cue and started hustling up the escalator rapidly.

I believe my response to all of this was, “Settle down, Loretta”. I then proceeded up the escalator in a calm fashion, threading my way around the woman blocking the path because she hadn’t figured out what was happening yet, and I made my way to the Blue Line.

People need to calm down.

15 September 2019 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Design.

Our friends Jeff and Mark from North Carolina were in town for a visit over the weekend. While Earl worked the Cubs game, we took the opportunity to drive out to Oak Park to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio. He left the complex in 1909.

I’ve always been a fan of Wright’s architecture and I wasn’t disappointed with the visit to the Home and Studio in Oak Park. While this particular group of buildings was not in his well known “Prairie Style”, the design of his home and studio were definitely his work. Moving from room to room, one is “compressed” into a small space along the hallway and then “decompressed” for a grand entrance into the next room. His office was three stacked octagons, and the work studio has chain used to suspend the roof and ceiling out in plain view, instead of hidden in walls like you’d find elsewhere.

The Preservation Trust has done a magnificent job in bringing the site back to its 1909 glory. When the Trust took over the property in 1976 it had been an apartment building and a dormitory, among other things. One stairwell is still in its 1976 condition and it’s evidence of what good willed people can do when they put their mind to it.

I’ve never understood this American trend of ripping down beautiful downtown areas in the interest of “Urban Renewal”, and I will never understand how someone can take a gorgeous, historic, and obviously unique building and carve it up into a bunch of apartments.

The visit was a pleasant one; I look forward to taking Earl out there to experience it as well before the snow flies.

14 September 2019 by J.P. Fun and Games Dept 0

Mobility.

Testing.

Reminder.

Never Can Say Goodbye.

Rest.

Cuts.

Hiawatha, Iowa.

Videos.

Screams.

Design.

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