Ponderings and Musings

I’ve never been a huge “Wheel of Fortune” fan, but I do hearken back to the days when Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford shared the stage, the winning contestants bought items on a shopping spree, and the remaining balance was either used “on account” or on toward a gift certificate.

Here’s an episode of the original “Wheel of Fortune” from 1980. Many of the episodes were taped over when they reused the video tapes; yay for the rich people that had VCRs back in 1980.

A couple of years ago we had a contracting company build what we can the “amphitheater” in our back yard. This area is about 10 feet below ground level and overlooks the wash that crosses our property in the back. The space has been quite enjoyable, though dusty because we had them install hard packed dirt and sand as the “floor”.

We decided to finish the space off and this week the contractors completed the work. The amphitheater now features paver stones in desert colors, making the area even more enjoyable.

Earl now has a relatively secluded place to relax on a beautiful day in the desert.

I’ve been trying a new application for iPhone. It’s called Endel, and it’s suppose to help me find peace, happiness, tranquility, and productivity. So far, so good. I’m impressed by the quality of their soundscapes. The UI isn’t too bad, though there are a few quirks I’m still figuring out. For example, if I need to dump out of a session early I’d like it to fade out instead of just coming to a jarring halt when I hit the pause button.

The UI is interesting as well, in its primarily black and while approach to art. I find this graphic a little creepy looking, though I suppose to intent is friendliness.

Overall I’m pleased with the experience. I’ll see how I feel after the trial period has come to an end.

SpaceX launched a payload of Startlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Station tonight. Even though we live 650 miles away, we get a fantastic view of this sort of thing.

I think it’s awesome.

I’m not really a fan of polluting Low Earth Orbit with a bunch of satellites, but I appreciate the technology behind the effort. I wish we could use this tech to do some growing as a species and move away from the commercialism of it all.

The sight is still quite impressive.

Yesterday I went for a very enjoyable hike along the highest elevations of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The Aspen Draw Trails afforded me some peaceful times surrounded by evergreens and some impressive views. Here’s a video my adventure.

I’ve decided to start playing around with the next step in video production. Green screens! Not bad for my first attempt.

All my life I have been one that wants to press buttons. I’m not talking about pushing buttons to get people going, but rather buttons on equipment, i.e. computers and the like. I always want to know what the button does. There’s a part of me that’s surprised I never pulled a fire alarm in school, especially in elementary school, where a little hammer on a swing broke a piece of glass that then pushed a button behind the glass.

My amusement at pressing buttons led me to technology and to this day I love fiddling with buttons, physical and virtual, in the technology space. At times this can lead to a decrease in productivity. Instead of using an application to get things done, I spend the vast majority of my bandwidth playing with all the bells and whistles in an application to try to get things to a point of where I can get things done. This approach is not overly productive and as I get older, my desire to be ‘fiddly’ remains, but my recognition of this trait is accepted and I modify my workflows to avoid ‘fiddly’ situations.

Narrowing my focus to a specific set of applications and earnestly fighting the urge to try other applications keeps my employer happy.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is constantly releasing upgrades and updates to their products and the work desktop services team dutifully pushes these changes to our company laptops. Hardly a few days go by when I’m not being prompted with pop-up ads to “try this new things in Teams!” or “you can collaborate with friends in the web version of PowerPoint!”. These pop-up ads, coupled with the constant barrage of Teams messages from folks ignoring my “Busy” status tends to make my to-do list longer than it needs to be.

For a couple of years I’ve been using an application called Obsidian to manage my notes, lists, and other general writing adventures. Productivity gurus far and wide have been touting the virtues of Obsidian for years but I have never been completely happy with the experience. The interface resembles nothing on any platform it’s available on. The syncing service is great, albeit a separate subscription. But my downfall with the application is that it is so customizable that I end up customizing the experience more than actually writing or making lists or taking notes.

While theming an application to my liking is pleasing, it’s not productive for a fiddly guy like me.

So I’m trying out new applications that aren’t as fiddly for this purpose. Before Evernote went completely catawampus a decade or so ago, I was content with Evernote. OneNote at work is alright for work stuff and that’s probably where I’ll land at work.

At the moment I’m looking at Craft. Right now it looks promising, especially when it comes to the user interface. Plus, there’s a web version which makes it accessible across platforms, something very important to me.

If I’m not fiddling around with it too much by month’s end I’ll probably write a blog post about the experience.

I find society’s general focus on the negativity around us, and we all know there’s a great abundance of it, to be overwhelming more often than it’s not. The only way I’m personally going to get through this Election Cycle, and whatever comes from it, is by seeking and focusing on the positivity around me. It’s occasionally a struggle but it’s very much worth it.

I’ve decided to keep pushing forward with my YouTube channel. I finally went ahead and built a “trailer video” so folks would know what’s in my content and what my intentions are for the channel. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Lucky and Jinx stopped in my office for a visit. They’re actually a little concerned because Mike it out of town for work until Sunday, so they want to know where the kibble and treats are coming from.

Truman told them to calm down a little bit.

Actually, Lucky and Jinx are just wonderful and have developed quite the personalities over the two years they’ve lived with us. I’m happy to call them family.

Meteorological summer hasn’t kicked in yet, but Mother Nature is feeling it’s time for the hot weather to kick into high gear here in the Sonoran Desert. It’s a little early in the season for weather this hot. The National Weather Service is saying we could be breaking some records.

I am thankful for air conditioning.