Ron Guest

The storm arrived a bit sooner than expected. I suppose there are worse places to be stuck than a coffee shop.

Lovely cortado on a cloudy - soon to be stormy - day.

I’m the rare American who enjoys Foruma 1 racing and agree with AT on this - a total train wreck. Huge moments in the race went un-covered and un-explained. I’m not optimistic…

ESPN is very sorry for the car wreck that was its first Formula 1 broadcast

Our local fave sushi place is owned by a great Sushi master chef and his wife. We aren’t into rolls etc, for us it is all about the raw fish quality and variety and they are amazingly consistent. Rather surprisingly in addition to being great with sushi the owner is also a master baker. Our daughter loves his Japanese style strawberry cake. It is light and not sweet - he lets the strawberries speak for themselves and the layers have lovely strawberry halves throughout (just as lovely as the ones on top).

It’s become something of a tradition to order her a whole cake for her birthday and this year was no exception. This isn’t something they normally do so requests must be made well in advance. When my wife sent the text asking for the cake she included the message she wanted written on the top and ended it with tyvm (as in thank you very much). Apparently the distinction was lost as they included that on the cake as well as the message to the amusement of all concerned.

N.B. he makes the best creme brûlée I’ve ever eaten.

Not a bad life… his typical pre-bed routine.

More reasons to hate Facebook

I have an AppleWatch dilemma - also am I just old fashioned? What should/will I do?

I’ve recently responded to several people asking variations on the question of whether they should get an Apple Watch. It has been a thought provoking exercise as I face a dilemma on whether to replace mine.

I have a series 0 Apple Watch. When the AW[footnote title=“…”]Apple Watch[/footnote] was announced I was lukewarm but ended up having major orthopedic surgery with a long recovery period. I really felt a fitness device would help motivate me to recover as quickly as possible and was most interested in the AW since I felt if I was going to spend money it might as well be on something multifunction[footnote title=“…”]instead of something like a Fitbit[/footnote]. The AW completely lived up to my expectations in this regard and definitely aided my recovery - enough to justify the cost on this basis alone.

Before I got the AW I had stopped wearing watches altogether even though I have a few nice ones[footnote title=“…”] including some with sentimental value but these days having a clock on a wrist seems redundant[/footnote]. On the few special occasions I’ve worn one I always scolded the old-school watch for being nearly useless. It’s basically a piece of static jewelry rather than a useful device[footnote title=“…”]I’m not much into jewelry…[/footnote]. I glance at my AW and immediately see a very clear display of the date and time[footnote title=“…”]no matter the lighting conditions[/footnote], the status of my 3 fitness rings, an at-a-glance view of upcoming meetings, and the current and forecast weather for the day. Some of the situational features I find very useful are the abilities to answer (often reject) phone calls at a glance, to quickly make simple responses to text messages, and to control my music selections and volume during workouts. I value not needing to pull my phone out of my pocket to keep up with life.

Here is what’s bothering me - the battery situation. Mine is degrading to the point it is iffy if it will last the whole day. A couple of days ago it went into power reserve mode before 8pm. A battery replacement would cost $80 nearly 25% the cost of a replacement watch. Do I really want to pay to replace the watch every 3 years[footnote title=“…”]I consider the battery replacement a bad investment because the series 0 is so friggin slow…[/footnote]? It’s not a matter of affordability so I am not sure why this bothers me so much nor do I know what I’m going to ultimately decide. I guess it is a techie’s dilemma and partly a holdover based on an outmoded idea of watches.

I love these redbud trees. They really put on a show in early Spring.

I’ve been thinking of Austin a lot lately and then this t-shirt came to the front of my workout clothes rotation. Keeping it Agile (2 years ago).

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Visited a new coffee shop this morning - the light through the window made for an interesting ‘framing’ effect. Then on to the dealer for my car’s routine service. Not a bad start to the day.

Don’t know too many details but happy to hear the Austin serial bomber’s spree has been ended.

Thought of the day:

N.B.: I really need to convince the school district, city etc to use something other than Facebook to communicate with us.

I don’t know why people are so shocked. This will continue to happen because you are the product at companies like Facebook and Google. Meaning everything they know or think they know about you. Facebook is under fire for not protecting your personal data better

When a non-breach is worse than a breach Facebook’s Surveillance Machine - The New York Times

Shopping in Texas

I’ve been having a debate inside my head about updating my series 0 Apple Watch to a series 3 due to a fading battery & overall slowness. I had my last car for 14 years & kept putting off replacing it - when I did I wondered why I waited so long. The AW seems the same.

Great hearing @modernlittleme on the podcast today.

I doubt anyone is surprised Chris Hsu is out. Tough day for those who held on to Micro Focus shares. Micro Focus -54% on CEO departure, lowered guidance

Gotta love the US Postal Service. Our daughter ordered something on Amazon and it shipped USPS. It went from Dallas, which is basically next door to us, to Illinois, then to Coppell which is at least back in Texas. And now is in Allen once again close to us.

@wyatt et al here is my current home screen

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If you’re in the area you could find worse places to spend some time.

Wondering if Florida ending the Daylight Savings time change madness is sufficient reason to move back there…

My journal (I use Day One) just reminded me it was one year ago today I made public my decision to leave my role as an executive at a public corporation. Definitely no regrets and haven’t looked back at all. It was a great decision.

This is loooooong overdue Free Credit Freezes Coming for All U.S. Consumers