Fun and Games Dept

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.

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.

I am so happy to be flying again. This afternoon I flew this 1975 Piper Warrior, my first time flying a Piper Warrior. It’s basically what I’m used to but a little different. Every airplane has its own personality.

The instructor and I did 10 landings and after the first couple I was starting to “feel” the airplane. It was a lot of fun. I’m really happy to be in the air again.

Jeff and Mark from North Carolina are visiting for the weekend. Jeff’s family lives north of Phoenix and they decided to wrap up their visit with a stop here in Tucson. It was great to see them.

Mark is celebrating a birthday this weekend, and Chris and Mike made a Guinness-chocolate cake to celebrate. It was wonderful.

The Sonoran Desert is slowing moving toward it’s characteristic desert look as we move away from Monsoon Season 2021. Things became very green during the uncharacteristically rainy monsoon season. The rain was a good thing, because we needed to break the drought, but now the grasses the popped up are turning brown and I’m a little concerned they will contribute to wildfires later on.

This is a shot from the first or second look out along the road to the top of Mount Lemmon, about six miles to the north of our home.

Tomorrow, ABBA will release another song from their upcoming album “Voyage”. It’s still so weird to type that.

Originally recorded in 1978 but discarded and never finished, ABBA has finally finished “Just A Notion”. Out tomorrow, there are some snippets of the now finished track available on YouTube today.

Enjoy.

After seven hours of driving across the desert, we arrived at home just in time for dinner with the family. And, another spectacular sunset.

It was a very good long weekend in Las Vegas. I feel relaxed. I intend to hold on to that feeling.

Tomorrow we head home to Tucson and I can say it’s been a very nice time in Vegas but I’ve had my fill. We’ve been staying at the Downtown Grand near “The Fremont Experience”. There’s plenty of LED screens, loud music, and people flying by on zip lines. It’s a lot of fun, but I feel like we’ve done it for this trip and that’s all good.

It’s been too long since I’ve done so much people watching. It’s different now than what it used to be. The pandemic changed us all. Politics are everywhere. I passed a Vietnam Vet in a wheelchair who appeared to have Parkinson’s Disease. He was carrying a big poster of President Biden dressed up as a member of the Taliban. Many folks around him were offering to buy the Vietnam Vet a beer. I don’t know if it was for his service or his political beliefs.

And a quick aside, on this trip I noticed gas prices have gone up quite a bit in the past couple of weeks. Someone put stickers all over the fuel pump. The stickers had picture of Biden saying “I did this”. For those that are stupid, the President of the United States does not set the price of gasoline. It’s called capitalism, and gas prices are going up it’s because of supply and demand, not some edict from the Oval Office. Grow up.

I’m going home with a little more money than I brought and we are well under our gambling budget for this trip. We walked “the Strip” this afternoon and had a nice time. The Fremont Street and the Strip are like two completely different Vegas experiences. I like them both, in moderation. Two and a half days have been enough.