This is my niece cat Skippy June Jones. She is one of two cats at my sister’s house but she is the more social of the two. Her sister is Peach Dot but she lives upstairs and wants nothing to do with her uncle. Skippy, on the other hand, is curious about her uncle but not used to the cuddles I tend to give cats. She’s rather stand in her sleek black coat and take a memo.
As I grow older and more solid in my ways, the more I realize that I’m at that stage of life where I want to live a “first class experience” to the best of my ability. I’m very fortunate to be where I am right now. I have the right job at the right time, we have the means for me to entertain a fairly expensive hobby as a private pilot, and we have been lucky to find a fabulous home in the desert with our chosen family. Not everyone finds their path and for the first time in over 50 years I feel that I am solidly where I am meant to be. It’s a great feeling. Many things have come together over the decades and now my goal is to enjoy this as long as possible.
When my husband and I plan travel I always push for first class. If I can’t be in the cockpit, I want to be as close to the front of the airplane as possible. I work hard and I am willing to delay my retirement a little bit so we can afford this luxury. There are two “first class” focuses in my life: airliner travel and computers. Since Steve Jobs’ return to Apple in the late 1990s and Tim Cook’s continuance and expansion of Steve’s vision, I’ve always considered the Apple computing experience to be the first class approach to technology. Many will scream in contrary to me about this, especially online, but I fully believe Apple still offers the best computing experience available to consumers today, and this belief extended to power users and full blown geeks like me. I try other platforms, often, but it’s like sitting in coach on a Boeing Dreamliner, the experience will get you there but will it be as enjoyable as it can be, that is the question.
I’m writing this blog entry from seat 1A on United Flight 6080 from Tucson to Chicago O’Hare. I won’t be posting this entry until right before bedtime for two reasons, there’s no Wi-Fi on this flight and my relatives don’t know we’re flying to see them this weekend. We’re just going to show up at their doorstep.
I’m writing this blog entry on my 2018 iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard setup. It’s a beautiful thing and since trading my 2015 MacBook Pro in for a gift certificate towards my new iPhone last month, I’ve pretty much adopted my iPad Pro as my mobile computer. It’s fills the gap of no laptop and works brilliantly in that regards. It’s thin, it’s light, and it does what I need it to do. If I’m going to do video editing or graphic related things, I have a Mac Mini at home. The integration is seamless and the experience is First Class.
My life is not a recipe for the life of anyone else. Everyone has their own path, their own goals, and their own future. I’m fortunate to be where I am today and to be headed in the direction I feel that is right for me.
It’s a First Class life and I couldn’t be happier.
McRib is back and I tried one today. It’s nothing like the McRib I remember. Specifically, the barbecue sauce is *way* off. Like, I’m burping up a weird after-taste over an hour later. I don’t know if it’s a regional thing or not but the McRib I had today vaguely resembled the McRib I remembered from days gone by. It’s been quite a few years since I last had one so I don’t know if this is a recent change or if this is a new sensation for 2021.
It is what it is, I guess.
Contrary to the title of this post, this is not about technology. In this post, I am the device.
Now that the 2021 local elections are over and everyone is weeping into the beer because things ahead look scary for anyone invested in politics, the news media is going to do its best to whip the populace up about the 2022 midterm elections. It’s what they do. They thrive on chaos to drive ratings.
I am not prepared to deal with this. I have said since the beginning of this year that my gut tells me were just in an intermission between chaos cycles, and I am not mentally prepared for what the midterm elections will bring. There’s nothing great about the U.S. Government at the moment, it’s really just less awful than it was. For example, I hear much more about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell than I do about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
We’re going to continue to get creaky old people shoved in onto our ballots because other than the presidency, there’s no term limits. Code words will continue to be bandied about to shake folks into a frenzy. There will be hollering and screaming and lots of exclamation points on social media. Caps lock will abound and people will continue to say stupid, idiotic things because Fox News told them to.
It’s disheartening. It’s depressing.
Build a nest egg best you can and get as many safety mechanisms in place as you can to maintain your personal standard of life. I’ve expressed this morbid thought before, but I’m happy to be a middle aged guy who remembers what the country used to be like and I’m thankful I’m on the back half of my life. A terrible thought for “The greatest country in the world”.
I stumbled across this photo of a Kmart with adjoining “Kmart Food” while browsing through cash register photos the other day. The Kmart side looks exactly like the Kmart we would go to in Mattydale Plaza outside of Syracuse but I don’t remember ever seeing a Kmart Food. However, in the late 1970s there was a grocery store next to the Kmart in Mattydale, so I’m wondering if it originally was a Kmart Food.
I know the Kmart in Mattydale burned in the early 1970s and was rebuilt. Perhaps the Kmart Food was removed at that time.
I still think Kmart was best when they stuck with the big, red K and the turquoise ‘mart’.
I honestly don’t remember if I’ve posted this video before. I can’t get this cover version of Michael Gray’s “The Weekend” out of my head, so I’m sharing again today.
We first hear “The Weekend” when in Ireland back in 2008. I loved the track then and this cover version is hot! I love these collaborations over video where everyone does their part and then it’s putting together in post production.
Enjoy!
There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on this blue marble we call Earth. I choose to never forget this fact. It keeps me humble. Our moment in this life is fleeting, nothing more than a flash. After the last breath, my only hope is I am remembered with a smile.
Photos taken tonight at 7:00 PM MST from four miles up Mount Lemmon with my iPhone 13 Pro laying on a steady spot. No flash, no zoom, no special equipment. Keep it simple.
We haven’t been to an Apple store since pre-pandemic times. When we lived in Chicago I always enjoyed stopping by the area Apple stores, especially the flagship store on Michigan Avenue. The vibe is always good, and the Michigan Avenue store had a nice “stadium” area where you could partake in “Today at Apple” and the like.
I’m in the mood for an upgrade to my Apple Watch Series 3 (from the original release), so we went to the Apple Store here in Tucson to take a look and see what they had in stock. Short version: I’m ordering my new watch online.
The Apple Store in Tucson is located in the La Encantada shopping “mall” in the foothills. I love outdoor shopping areas like this, something that would never work up north because of winter. Now that I think about it, there is an outdoor mall with an Apple store outside of Chicago, but I always went there in the summer.
La Encantada is where the luxury brands are located for the local populace and the facility is very nice. It was fairly busy when we were there; the Apple store was by far the busiest of the retailers.
Mask use was encouraged but not mandatory in the majority of retail outlets. In our travels, the only place where masks were absolutely required (with two security guards making sure everyone complied) was the Apple store itself. It was crowded, and it certainly made sense to control the number of folks in the store and to require masks. We waited less than five minutes to get in.
We took our first Apple store selfie in over 18 months.
After chatting with a couple of helpful Apple people about the new MacBook Pros and the Apple Watch Series 7 that was not in stock for the configuration I was looking for, we made our way down to the North Italia restaurant at the end of the way for a leisurely lunch. We both had salads and I had a glass of wine. Our server’s name was Karen and she was very pleasant and efficient. I’m still getting used to the fact that we can dine outdoors at a restaurant in late October here in the desert. We did the same in Chicago, but it was usually quite chilly.
It was a lovely afternoon and I very much enjoyed the experience.
I took this photo by plopping my iPad against the bathroom window and hitting the shutter button. That was it.
I will never get tired of these sunsets.
Truman has been pretty chilled out. Today we bought a new harness so he could safely explore around the property with supervision. Even though the harness is a different color, it’s the exact same model we had in Chicago, and he was purring like a maniac as soon as I put it on him. When it was time to come in and I took it off, he attacked it like he always does.
He was still purring.
I snapped a photo while in his meditative state on Friday.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!