I’m always on the search for better wallpaper for my devices. I need my backgrounds to be non intrusive, muted by colorful, inspiring, and very high quality. I don’t want to see the pixels, just the theme.
This is my current selection.
Orange is the color of inspiration. Blue is calming. This makes me happy.
With the insurance checkouts and the work on my instrument rating last year, it’d been nearly 30 months since my husband went flying with me. It’d been nearly equally as long since I’d flown without another pilot in the right seat.
We were definitely overdue for a flight. So yesterday I rented the club Cessna 172 and the two of us went up and did some flying south of the city. We had a lovely time.
The key to flying in the desert during this time of year is to go early in the morning and get back on the ground before 11 a.m. or so, at least for smaller airplanes. Otherwise it’s bumpy and windy and not as enjoyable experience for anyone.
We arrived at the airport at 7:00 a.m. and were in the air by 7:45 a.m. and on the ground by 9:00. Earl took a bunch of photos and the airplane handled beautifully.
We’re going up again in two weeks.
Truman has been changing up his napping habits over the past couple of weeks. It’s a rare occasion for him to relax inside his little carpet tube (that was imported from Chicago) but lately he’s been using this area to nap and maintain watch over the dogs of the house.
He’s also taken to sleeping in the middle of the floors as the weather gets warmer. Perhaps we need to install a small fan that follows him around.
It’s been one week since my stomach bug and the extended downtime last weekend. I have surprisingly been able to keep the weight off for that week and am feeling better for it.
The biggest change in this whole thing is I gave up drinking Diet Coke or Coke Zero. I’ve also ramped back my caffeine intake; cutting my coffee and iced tea consumption in half. This has helped my sleep experience quite a bit.
As I navigate my way through middle aged life, I have to remember that my body isn’t what it used to be and it’s not what it’s going to be. Paying a little more respect to this vessel has helped me have a productive week and a better outlook on life in general.
I don’t talk about work very much on my personal blog. I gripe about it once in a while, as at times work can be quite intense, but for the most part my career hums along and I’m in a relatively good place.
Today I celebrate eight years with the company. When I started in 2015 I traveled a lot, particularly to Greenville, S.C., where the team I worked with at the time was based. I really like Greenville, S.C., particularly the downtown area. I’d like to go back there some time.
There have been many reorganizations in the past eight years, some changes in focus, and for the most part I’ve grown in my career. It’s a good feeling. When I started with the company I was hired on as an individual contributor. Today I have a team of 20 or so folks reporting to me.
On Monday I was promoted to the new title of Associate Director-IT Engineering. A director level position in a company this size is something I didn’t think I would ever achieve, but here I am.
I wouldn’t say that I’m comfortable in the new role, but I’m very pleased with the new opportunity and I’m content with the company. At this age, contentment is very important. Yes, there are very stressful days, but that’s what keeps me awake.
Life is definitely not boring.
Fuel prices have been outrageously high in the Tucson area for the past two months. The oil companies say it’s because there’s been maintenance on the pipeline from California or Texas, I’m not sure which, and that the oil companies were also doing maintenance on the refineries during this time. Interestingly, fuel prices at stations just outside of the city limits were sometimes over a dollar cheaper a gallon.
I also find it quite interesting that all the fuel prices at all the gas stations in the area went up to these outrageously high prices at that same time.
That’s not supply and demand. That’s corporate greed.
Fuel prices have started slowly coming back down toward the national average, but they’re not coming down nearly as fast as they shot up earlier this spring.
Again, more corporate greed, plain and simple. We live in discouraging times.
This came up in my Youtube suggestions the other day and I just had to watch it again. I remember wondering the same thing when I was a youngster, “who is Rula Lenska?”
So today was Apple’s annual kickoff of WWDC, or World Wide Developers’ Conference. Folks far and wide look forward to the keynote that kicks things off, because folks far and wide, especially those in media, get wrapped up in the hype.
Admittedly, I blocked off two hours in my work calendar so I could tune in.
There’s a lot of good things coming, including incremental updates to MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS. The star of the show was a “One More Thing…” moment, and that’s the reveal of Apple Vision Pro.
I have an Oculus Quest, which was purchased at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s alright, but I don’t really use it that often and I don’t find the experience compelling.
I find Vision Pro to be absolutely compelling. Now, is it $3500 worth of compelling? I’m sure there’s lots of folks that will buy this at that price and I’m probably not among their number.
One of the things I really like about Vision Pro when compared to other VR headsets is that Vision Pro concentrates on AR, or augmented reality. Instead of taking the user completely out of the space and created a virtual space, a “Metaverse” if you will, Apple gives the user the opportunity to overlay the entire experience on the world around the user. You can tune the world out complete or you can navigate around the system, using your apps and playing games and watching cinematic experiences, while still being able to see everything going on around you.
A really interesting feature is that others can see you. An outfacing screen shows a representation of your eyes and your current expression. I like the thought, but there’s an uncanny valley / “something is off” about the eyes looking back at the world. Maybe it’s the obligatory single blink shown in all the marketing materials.
I really like where Apple is going with this type of experience versus all the other approaches we’ve seen thus far. As usual, Apple takes it in a direction that is as elegant as it can be, seamlessly integrates with their ecosystem, and seems to keep the user first and foremost in their design. Will it become the next iPhone? Hmmmm.
I look forward to a future generation of this technology when it’s only a pair of glasses I have to wear instead of goggles with a battery pack on my hip. But I really think this first generation experience is taking us in the direction of making Augmented Reality a thing.
I hope the glasses thing comes to fruition in my lifetime.
Even though my birthday is over a month away, Jamie, Chris, and Mike gave me my birthday present. Mike kindly installed it yesterday. It’s a Tempest Weatherflow weather station.
I’ve had my eye on this weather station for a while. As I’ve mentioned many times, I’m fascinated by weather, and the guys thought it’d be best if I had my birthday present before Monsoon Season starts up later this month.
As a trained Weather Spotter for the National Weather Service, I’m excited about this piece of hardware installed on our roof. I’ve already given the family the weather stats for the hour several times today and I’ve been playing around with the incoming data and the like. I’ve also started contributing to Weather Underground. I was excited to see the number of weather stations in our neighborhood, and I’m happy to be contributing our data to the mix.
Mike was able to use an old DirecTV mount for the weather station so that made installation easy. It’s solar powered, so I don’t need to climb up there to change the batteries like the old days when we lived in Central New York. And this weather station has real-time data, so I’ll be able to see how high the wind gusts actually are as a storm is rolling through. Plus, this provides lightning detection with a roughly 40 km radius.
In addition to our station stats in Weather Underground, I’ll probably end up putting a widget somewhere on the page here to share our weather data. I love this stuff!
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!
