J.P.

Selective.

I am super picky about keyboards. I think it’s because I have been an accomplished touch typist since my 10th birthday. We had a borrowed electric typewriter in the house back then and my mother said, “if you’re going to play with the typewriter, you’re going to use the proper fingering”. So I learned how to type when I was in elementary school and to this day I can still type well over 120 words per minute.

So I’m picky about my keyboard. Blame my mother.

Apple does a decent job with their keyboards these days. The keyboard on my iPad Pro Magic Keyboard is one of the best I’ve ever used and the keyboard on my M2 MacBook Air (one year old today!) is quite enjoyable. I even liked the butterfly style keys on Earl’s MacBook Pro back in the day.

But when it comes to PCs I struggle. Being an old guy I like the clicky, mechanical keyboards the resemble something out a 1985 room housing a mainframe. When I worked for Digital (DEC), I found their LK201 and later LK401 keyboards to be absolutely awesome. But the clicky, mechanical keyboards don’t make for good background citizens when it comes to the Zoom work calls.

Enter the Stream TKL (tenkeyless) Keyboard from Cherry (link to Amazon).

As a tenkeyless keyboard it doesn’t have a number pad on the right end of the keyboard, so I don’t have to reach far for the mouse or touchpad. The feel is firm, like a mechanical keyboard, but without the click. The key travel is decent. I can comfortable reach my peak typing velocity on these keyboards. And right now they’re priced right at $25 or so on Amazon (see link above).

Earl doesn’t understand why I have a stack of keyboards in the closet as a result of my quest for the Goldilocks of keyboards.

I just know that I can rapidly type silently about the subject. And it’s an enjoyable experience for me.

Ernie’s Falls.

Here are photos taken during yesterday’s hike to Ernie’s Falls in Saguaro National Park East. The hike was a little over 9.5 miles. It was a beautiful day. Hiking has rapidly become my favorite recreational sport in the way of exercise.

Test Dummy.

After having a mustache for a few years (aside from one day in January of this year), I am clean shaven once again. Jamie is well into his barber school studies and practiced his shaving technique on me today. As I told him when he was done, “I’ve been shaved by many barbers. This shave tonight was nowhere near the worst experience I’ve had.” Like other barbers before him, Jamie remarked at how thick my facial hair is. An old Italian barber in Boston told me way back in 1990, “you have a face full of copper wire”. It’s more like silver wire now, but apparently it’s still designed to withstand the elements.

Jamie did a very good job. No blood!

Video: Ernie’s Falls.

A video of my hike up to Ernie’s Falls in Saguaro National Park East. We had some impressive rains this week so the water coming over the falls was equally impressing.

Caturday.

I love the stately vibe of this photo of Truman. He’s in my work office on his cat tree making sure everything outside is according to his standards.

Life.

Back when I was in 10th grade, my geometry teacher stopped me in the hallway after school. We’ll call her Marilyn.

Marilyn asked, “John, is there a reason you only do about 3/4 of your homework?”

Another math teacher, we’ll call him Doug, laughed out loud as he passed by. He was a popular teacher and his laugh was infectious.

Marilyn was looking at me with a look of incredulity. I looked her straight in the eye, while standing outside my locker, numbered 710, and said, “Yes. If I ace 3/4 of the homework I still pass geometry”.

She looked at me for a moment. She was what I considered at time to be a “scary teacher”. She usually taught seniors.

After looking me back in the eyes she simply said, “You’re right!”.

I passed geometry with an 80. I was content.

Brakes To Break.

I’ve been thinking about stepping away from social media, yes, again. I’ve been somewhat active on Mastodon for the past couple of weeks and I’m realizing that while it is a much friendlier experience than anything else out there (X, Bluesky, etc), there’s still a little undercurrent of something I can’t quite put my finger on that’s requiring more energy than I’m willing to sink into the experience.

When I start writing less on my blog, it’s usually because my energy is being sapped (or zapped!) by something else. And this week I’ve seen my social media participation go up, peak in a little bit of frustration, and subsequently, I’m struggling to write blog entries. This entry will probably sit in the hopper for a few days until I figure it out that’s it’s going to say what I want it to say.

Ironically, I don’t see Facebook as a social media tool anymore; it’s more like a family and friends communication tool. When I post my videos and my pictures there for folks back east to see, I’m basically offering a 1970s style slide show at a family gathering. I’m cool with that.

But coming up with witty remarks and interesting nuggets to engage with others inside a maximum of 500 characters? It’s not working for me as well.

I’m not deleting accounts at this point. I’m going to take a break, probably starting this weekend.

It’ll be a fresh way to start the week.

Technological Inspiration.

I was recently inspired to embrace my “geeky side” and decided my office would look good with a Raspberry Pi powered computer controlling the monitor off my shoulder in my work Zoom calls. I found a good deal on a Raspberry Pi 4 full kit this morning and by supper time Amazon had dropped it off at the front door.

As much as I don’t like Amazon killing brick and mortar businesses, that’s pretty amazing.

It took about 30 minutes to get the new Raspberry Pi 4 kit up and running, complete with downloading and configuring Raspberry Pi OS. I’m using the setup to write this blog entry.

I still have some tweaking to do on the system but I feel like I’m off to a great start.

Check Flight.

The flying club I belong to requires that active members fly with an instructor every six months. It’s actually a requirement of the insurance company; it helps keep insurance costs down. Another stipulation is that we can’t fly with the same instructor in two consecutive check flights. Luckily, there are plenty of instructors as part of the membership.

Tonight’s flight was a good flight. I’m always saying that I’m not flying quite enough since moving to Tucson, and it at times this makes me feel a like I need to knock a little rust off the skill set. I’m resolved to stop flying when I feel like I’m becoming a danger. This isn’t the case at this time.

I did some of the usual basic maneuvers for the flight and learned some new ones along the way. It’s good to fly with different instructors because it’s a great way to keep learning and keep building aviator skills. It keeps me out of the realm of complacency.

Earl and I are scheduled to fly on Thursday with plans to take our friend Ryan up for his first flight in a general aviation airplane, but the weather doesn’t look promising. I don’t want to take someone up for their first flight and have them bounce all over the sky, so I raise my personal minimums a little bit for these situations.

One nice thing about living in the desert is that it’s easy to fly year ’round, so I’m sure another opportunity will present itself if the weather doesn’t cooperate on Thursday.