The sunrise was beautiful this morning.
Skin.
Since moving to the desert I’ve had some impressive dry, itchy skin, especially on the lower half of my body. I’ve been using Aveeno lotion to treat the issue and it’s done a fairly good job at keeping things under control, but after swimming I would be so uncomfortable with itching that I figured I needed to get this checked out.
I also hadn’t had a skin cancer full body check in a long while. Being a (former) redhead with lots of Irish skin makes me susceptible to this sort of thing, so it’s good to get checked out once in a while. Back in August I made an appointment with a recommended dermatologist; the first appointment available was today. I just completed my visit.
As a bald guy I have lots of bare skin on the top of my head. I don’t like the feeling of sunscreen on my body and I opt to always wear a hat outdoors and/or stay out of the sun whenever possible. There’s a couple of spots on top of my head that have been peeling a little bit. It turns out these were precancerous spots. The young Dr. Harold froze those spots today. He mentioned I might have a couple of red blotches for Christmas and I was fine with that. The other option was a chemotherapy cream that would cause my head to blister and turn tomato red and I decided to stick with the red blotches from the freezing effort.
Dr. Harold checked over the rest of my body and things are looking good for a (former) red head of my age. He recommended I switch from Aveeno lotion to Aveeno or another cream for the dry skin and he also recommended an anti-itch formula. I stopped at the store on the way home and picked these things up. I go back to the dermatologist in a year for a check-up.
I look forward to swimming tonight.
Minimizing.
Up until today my home office (where I do my day job) had three desktop computers of some fashion. I have my standing desk with my work setup and then I had my “back desk” with a Linux desktop running on a 2011 Mac mini and an NCR RealPOS (what a name) cash register. All that was missing was the actual drawer on the cash register, all the parts are there.
I’m on a minimization kick and I decided to retire the back desk computers for a while. While we were traveling back east earlier this month I had great success in making my iPad Pro my main driver for all the things I accomplish on a day to day basis. Now, if I want to edit music or make a video or do things of that nature, I still have my Mac mini in the upstairs office. Cleaning up my home office was good for my psyche.
Clean desk, clean mind or something like that.
Snack.
My husband is very kind. A few times during the week he’ll make me a snack plate when he thinks I’m starting to get peckish. I suspect that he overhears me starting to be cranky with the folks at work or something, so he gives me a little snack to help me finish up the afternoon.
This is a typical snack plate. All that’s missing is a flute of champagne.
Scam.
Yesterday Donald Trump announced he was making a “major announcement” today. The accompanying graphic had him superimposed onto a superhero outfit. “The country needs a superhero”.
Many theorized he was going to run for Speaker of The House, others thought that he was announcing his running mate. I saw tweets of folks theorizing his next major step in his Presidential campaign for 2024 (it’s still way too early for this, folks). His fervent supporters were EXCITED. EXCITED, I tell ya.
The announcement came out this morning.
MAGA folks can buy an NFT of Trump in a superhero outfit for $99, just in time for the holidays. It’s not a real trading card, it’s a digital trading card.
This is beyond “Four Seasons Landscaping Day” lunacy. I’m not going to share the graphics involved with this idiocy but I’m blown away by how stupid this is. I’ve checked several sources to confirm this wasn’t some sort of parody, and then I went to his “Truth Social” social media account and confirmed that yes, indeed, this was the major announcement.
‘ Merica, f*ck yeah! These NFTs are going to look great emblazoned on the sides of MAGA homes.
Pretenama.
Eight years ago I was doing my impersonation of a Visitor from the original “V” from the 80s.
Pretenama.
Update Day!
As mentioned in my previous post, it’s update day for those of us that use Apple products. Excitement! For everything but the Mac, version 16.2 is out. iPhone, iPad, HomePod, AppleTV, Apple Watch, all getting updated. For the Mac I think it’s version 13.1, which is the latest iteration of Mac OS Ventura.
If you have Apple devices that will let you update to the latest software and an iCloud account (it might require iCloud+), you can start up Advanced Data Protection, which encrypts just about everything in your iCloud account. Apple can’t see it, people that might break in most likely won’t be able to see it, the data should be even more secure. It requires the latest version of software across all your Apple devices, so if you have an old Mac mini or something that can’t update, that’s going to be left out of the loop.
These new versions also update HomeKit and how things talk to each other. I’m in the process of finishing my updates as I type this so I can see how things work with the updated HomeKit functionality. Again, you’ll be warned if things can’t be updated and you’ll be asked to remove that device from your iCloud account.
I’m enjoying Apple’s continued focus on user privacy. With so many services and the like mining user data like so much oil on the Beverly Hillbillies, it’s nice have a corporation that wants to help you encrypt your data and keep it secure.
Freeform.
iPadOS 16.2 is out with the new Apple application “Freeform”. It’s a place to gather ideas and collaborate with others with basically an endless whiteboard. I was hoping to share directly from Freeform to my blog, and the result would be an image or something, but sharing only generates a link.
Here’s a screenshot.
Focus.
I saw this wallpaper while we were out and about yesterday. I found the color and design interesting. I do wonder what caused the grease splotch and unfortunately it’s become a point of focus when I now look at this photo.
