His and hers sake samplers
Today’s Texas vs OU 🏈 game will go down as a classic. Talk about a thriller!
My morning: Dad’s happy. Kids happy.
A sketch our 14 y/o daughter made while bored in her animation class today 👁 ✏️ 
IGG Software’s v7 update to Banktivity is one of the best dark mode adaptions I’ve seen. It looks lovely on my MBP.
That said I took the time this week to use my local newspaper’s list of all my races and responses from the candidates to create my draft ballot. Early voting for us starts October 22nd. It’s worth the effort and I’m thankful for the opportunity to vote.
h/t to Mom 2/2
As far back as I can remember my Mom emphasized the need to get to know politicians at every level and to vote in every election. A rather un-America perspective since most Americans only go vote in the “biggies”. Her wisdom was that grass roots change happens locally first. ½
Daughter’s pen/ink line sketch for art class
Four years ago today. I was rather amused by how the potted plants behind her seemed attached to her head. 📷
The Fallout videogame series is my favorite. But I’m only mildly excited for the release of Fallout 76 next month because it will be multi-player (and potentially full of griefers). I’m not sure the beta period will give a good idea of griefers-prevalence.
Glorious morning. 📷 🌞 ☁️
Live. Laugh. Love. 📸 ❤️
Trying to get our 14 year old daughter to spend effort preparing for the PSAT this month has been a frustrating exercise. Always difficult striking the right balance to get the desired result.
⛅️ ☀️ 🏡 📷
My Micro Monday is @ddykstal because everyone needs a badger and chief entropy officer in their timeline.
Just published What’s keeping me in this relationship (with my Mac)? wherein I explore my devices, apps, and start eating an elephant.
What’s keeping me in this relationship (with my Mac)?
As chief technolust-er, procurement officer, and father of a couple of growing kids I have been thinking a lot about the optimal technology plan as our computers pass 5 years of age and the kids break into their teenage years. It used to feel like we needed a couple of computers plus iPads (not to mention phones and gaming consoles). I’ve begun to question this assumption quite seriously but have found it difficult to come to a conclusion – partly because the kids’ preferences are mercurial and also the future demands of school work are unpredictable (e.g. our daughter is pursuing the digital animation track in HS).
I decided to find a simpler elephant to eat, at least for now, and sat down and enumerated the tasks that drive me to use a Mac vs an iOS device. First up the list of “can’t be done on my iPad” items.
- I use the Banktivity budgeting and finance management app. It has a richly featured iPad version that I use heavily. Unfortunately the iPad version is missing the full custom reporting package found on macOS. I only need to check these custom reports once or twice a month, and create new ones rarely, but it is a barrier to completely leaving a Mac behind.
- Income tax preparation. I use TurboTax because I don’t trust doing it online and want to ensure I have the full ability to run it locally in the future.
- Video processing/rendering (it's slow enough on my MBP)
- Major Photo editing projects. There are a lot of great photo editing apps for iOS but I find them slow when dealing with large and RAW images. It's OK when processing one or two but I don't have enough time or patience for doing a large project using iOS apps.
- Software and electronics development projects
- A few random forms and web sites which don’t work properly on mobile Safari (can't believe companies can't get this right)
- A couple of server processes (though these are no longer indispensable)
And now the list of “could be done on my iPad but not as easily”:
- Heavy duty spreadsheet work. I spend a fair amount of effort managing investments and our financial plan. By way of example the Numbers spreadsheet that covers most of this has around 10 different tabs most filled with wide tables. I can do simple updates and tweaks on with my 10" iPad Pro but the screen just isn't wide enough to permit simultaneous clarity of the details while at the same time enabling an effective big picture view. I've contemplated if the larger iPad Pro would be sufficient but I'm not sure. Added context: I have a wide screen monitor on my MBP.
- This one is a bit of a "to be determined" but I've long used Photos on the Mac to create our Christmas Cards and Calendars. Given Apple's decision I imagine this will become more difficult on the Mac. I have yet to explore options on my iPad so I'm not sure if the Mac will still have a clear advantage.
This was a useful exercise for me. The “can’t be done on iPad” list, though lengthy, is almost entirely comprised of activities I do infrequently. The only outlier is software and electronics development projects which tend to have me at a Mac throughout a day or a few days. The conclusion for me is I don’t need a Mac any more. I can share a decent Mac with the kids.
N.B. No actual elephants were harmed in the writing of this post. 🐘
Manchester United is off to a terrible start this season. Such lackluster play against weaker teams. Jose Mourinho can’t seem to coach consecutive good seasons. ⚽️
My thought of the day: Action beats Reaction
I watched some people leave locked Windows laptops unattended while they went outside to talk or went the “facilities”. In case you don’t know, not only can they be stolen they can be hacked, even when locked, in a matter of seconds.
Normally when I hit a coffee shop first thing in the morning I get a ton of stuff done. Today I’m just sitting here alternately staring into space, having thoughts, and watching people. I guess that’s what I need. Not even listening to anything.
I find this perspective a bit mind-bending. I feel like I’m sitting cross-legged on an asteroid watching the sun go by with earth a distant spot of light.
Watch a movie made by a robot—on the surface of an asteroid | Popular Science
Thought it might be good to share a post from today: Things That Help Us Relax: Wirecutter
Finally feeling like Fall today (60F this morning).
Photo from 10 years ago today.
We saw a full rainbow this morning while getting the kids to school. Couldn’t grab a panorama sadly. And the colors were better in real life. Just use your imagination.📷😉 🌈