Desktop Publishing
In 1993 I graduated from The Art Institute of Atlanta with an Associate in Arts Photography degree. Soon after I was employed by my hometown newspaper the Tallahassee Democrat as a staff Photographer. I learned so much during my time there and I still miss going to the basement to watch the presses. While there I had many tasks and one of them involved working up composite thumbnails of my rolls (yes… actual film rolls) after I developed them (yes… with actual chemicals). The software we used for this was Aldus Corporation’s PageMaker.
PageMaker was developed by Paul Brainerd and his software was the dawn of what became Desktop Publishing. After many years of success, Paul sold Aldus to a then fledgling company called Adobe and PageMaker eventually became InDesign, which I use on a daily basis at my current employment as a Graphics Manager for a printing company.
Paul Brainard recently passed way and until I read about this, I admittedly did not know much about him as a person. After selling to Adobe, he went on to many philanthropic enterprises. I encourage you to read his bio here at the History Link
Regards, Darren
darren.robinette@me.com
12 As One
The Seattle Seahawks won Super Bowl 60 and a bit of redemption against the New England Patriots. There are a lot of videos and articles about this team but something that stuck out that I was noticing early on as a fan. The players and coaches to a person every time they were interviewed would talk about how close they all were to each other, how encouraging they all were for each other and how much they want to play with and for each other. I noticed it to.
In week 11, Seattle QB Sam Darnold threw 4 interceptions against the LA Rams and lost the game 19 to 21. In the post game press conference, someone in the media asked linebacker Ernest Jones if he thought Sam Darnold was the right player to lead this team. Ernest got offended and said
If we want to try to define Sam by this game, man, Sam’s had us in every f—— game. So for him to sit there and say, ‘Oh, that’s my fault,’ no, it’s not. There were plays that defensively we could have made, there were opportunities where we could have got better stops. It’s football, man. He’s our quarterback, we’ve got his back, and if you’ve got anything to say, quite frankly, f— you.
After that quote the team went undefeated the rest of the season, playoffs, and Super Bowl. And they had to do it in the toughest division this year. Here is a crazy stat showing how hard this was. Since seeding began in 1975, a No. 1 seed has won the Super Bowl 27 times. Only one of those No. 1 seeds had to beat three 12-win teams during that playoff run: the 2025 Seattle Seahawks.
I am very proud to be a member of the 12’s.
Go Seahawks!
Islands in the Stream
I am such a fan of The Muppet Show and pretty much anything Jim Henson. The kid in me was so glad that Disney, with Seth Rogan as Executive Producer, decided to do a reboot. The first episode is out now for streaming and the guest star is Sabrina Carpenter. The musical number of Dolly Parton’s and Kenny Rogers “Islands in the Stream” performed by Sabrina, Kermit and then Miss Piggy was outstanding.
So funny. You can check out the clip Here and the full episode is available from Disney+ Here
It’s Getting Harder To Be a Fan of Apple
A columnist for Macworld recently posted about the problems that those of us who use and are fans of Apple products. I particularly identify with the following quote
We are experiencing a period of great angst in the Apple community, and most of it is the result of Tim Cook’s leadership. Cook has done a tremendous job over the years, building on Apple’s success and taking the company to new heights. For years, the Macalope skewered pundits who suggested Cook was a failure for not delivering a product as successful as the iPhone, as if it were reasonable to suggest he deliver another once-in-a-lifetime product. Cook’s tenure has been one of mature, stable stewardship, and over the more than decade and a half he’s led the company, Apple continued to ship hits like the Apple Watch and AirPods.
But Apple has burned through a lot of goodwill with its biggest fans because of the company Cook has been keeping, its maniacal grip on the App Store (but it magically loosens for Elon Musk), some recent design choices (cough–Liquid Glass–cough–horrible icons–cough), and an inability to ship enhanced Siri. People who used to be counted as largely friendly to the company are having less of a good time being in its corner these days.
I am hopeful things change for the better. You can check out the full article here at Macworld
Regards, Darren
darren.robinette@me.com
Super Bowl 60
See a much older Post about why I root for them but congratulations to my Seattle Seahawks for making it to Super Bowl 60.
It was an exciting run to finish off the regular season and then make it through the playoffs.\
Regards, Darren
darren.robinette@me.com
Absenteeism
So my blog here has basically been an afterthought for me for over a month now. I have decided not to bother trying to do some sort of explanation and “catch you up” post, just suffice to say other things in my life have just been more important. I found myself self-editing a lot last year, I would think of something to write, could be short could be long and then for whatever reason I would just tell myself it’s not important enough to bother. I am going to make the effort to not do that any more.
So there.
I will share that for 2025, I did increase my time reading for enjoyment and managed to read the following…
Pepper & Carrot (Graphic Novel Anthology 1–30) by David Revoy & Antonio Parisi
Daredevil Vol 1 (Comic Book) by Mark Waid
After the Funeral (Novel) by Agatha Christie
Red Rising (Novel) by Pierce Brown
Firefly #7 through #9 (Comic Book) by Greg Pak
Shit My Dad Says (Audio Book) by Justin Halpern
Painless (Novel) by Derek Ciccone
Project Hail Mary (Novel) by Andy Weir
OMG… that book was amazing and I can’t wait for the movie.
The Adventures of Mary Darling (Novel) by Pat Murphy
I mostly use the Apple Books app on my iPad Mini for my reading. This device may be my most favorite Apple purchase, just because of how much I enjoy using it for so many enjoyable things.
Lastly, I am also going to try and start ending my posts with a sort of signature line that includes an email.
If you are so inclined, drop me a quick note and let me know if something interested you, or if there is a question, or maybe just to say hello.
Regards, Darren
darren.robinette@me.com
Maybe Not All The Time
So update. Friday evening I came down with a stomach bug and it put me out of commission for about 30 hours. Which means I missed participating with the Marching Chiefs Alumni for Homecoming. It was apparently a beautiful day, great show, great game and I missed two friends wedding proposal. Sigh.
MCATDT
I will be participating in the Homecoming game for Florida State University as a former member of the Marching Chiefs band. Every year, for Homecoming, the Chiefs Alumni get together and form our own pregame show and then also perform with the current Chiefs at halftime. Every year it’s such a special time getting together with fellow band geeks, some I only see once a yea at this event. For the past few years I have also volunteered my time designing and printing the name badges for the alumni to wear for the events.
Here’s a Hymn to the Garnet and the Gold…… MCATDT
World Series
Dodgers vs Blue Jays Both teams had incredible League Series wins. Even though, as a Braves fan, I would normally pull for the National League, I just can’t this time.
Go Jays!
Kindness
Paraphrasing Wil Wheaton…. “Always choose to be kind. And just to be clear: Nice and Kind are not the same thing. Nice is about manners, and it comes from here. [I point to my head] Kind is about empathy, and it comes from here [I point to my heart]. Cruel people can be nice, but they will never be kind. Please, practice kindness.”
Styrofoam
I follow accounts and websites for a fair amount of artists and one of my favorite is Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal. I have had opinions and thoughts about the ongoing onslaught of AI generated art but Matthew has hit the most grandest of home runs with this take… I am still nodding my head and giggling. Let’s Talk About AI Art
Styrofoam
I follow accounts and websites for a fair amount of artists and one of my favorite is Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal. I have had opinions and thoughts about the ongoing onslaught of AI generated art but Matthew has hit the most grandest of home runs with this take… I am still nodding my head and giggling. Let’s Talk About AI Art
Progress
It should never be a straight line when going from never done a thing to being good at a thing. Embrace failure and setbacks.
Yes! More of this please!
New trailer for the Mandalorian and Grogu movie. Looks promising, and looks more like the Star Wars I grew up with
Painless by Derek Ciccone 📚
Growing up I was pretty narrow in my reading for fun. I was a fan of Agatha Christie (by way of reading a lot of Hardy Boys) and read pretty much most of her novels, And Then There Were None is a favorite . I then moved on to the Star Wars Universe after becoming such a fan of the movies. When George Lucas licensed authors to write aout his characters and worlds, it opened up a vast range of story lines and I consumed all I could.
As a side note, the most recent Star Wars series, Asohka, has introduced a really great bad guy, Admiral Thrawn, from the Heir to the Empire series.
It had been years since I really read for fun and I have been trying to get back to consuming some more books. I am purposely trying to branch out and read some things a little away from my previous genres. I will start sharing some of those books here. I am not a very fast reader so to begin I am trying to stay away from long commitments to multi-book series.
Painless, was a free download for Apple Books and I gave it a try. It was a very nice, light read that lent well to my current reading habits. Not to many characters, pretty straight forward story line and I really enjoyed the main character, a little girl named Carolyn.
Music That Influenced Me #3
It has been a little while since I have shared an influential album… actually it has been a while since I have posted at all, so let’s fix that today. Number three on the Influenced List is “Frontiers” by Journey.
I know… most everyone would say the album “Escape” with their most popular song ever, “Don’t Stop Believin” would be the easiest choice but I have different reason for my choice. Around the time this album was released in 1983, the Sony Walkman (and the many generic knock-offs) was one the most popular tech devices of the time. Mine was a Panasonic and I wore that thing out playing cassette after cassette, I was not unique, most kids my age were all walking around with those things stuck on our belts and the funny headphones over our ears.
I was a Boy Scout and in 1983 our Troop had a trip to the BSA Sea Base in the Florida Keys to go sailing and get Scuba certified. It was amazing and maybe I will make a different post about that trip and the others I went on with my fellow Scouts. The reason I think so fondly on this album is because it was the only cassette I had with me for that trip… and that was a long van ride from Tallahassee to Islamorada. So I must have listened to the album on repeat for a dozen times going there and coming home.
Journey had a number of hits from this album including “Seperate Ways (Worlds Apart)” and the mega ballad “Faithfully” but my favorite tracks also included “Chain Reaction”, “After the Fall”, and “Send Her My Love”. To be honest every one of the songs on here are great and hold up well to this day.
Woz
He is still goofy, an uber nerd and Steve Wozniak is as happy as ever. People are saying what a huge mistake it was for him to sell all his Apple stock. He has made a post to comment on this. He admits he is still very rich but wealth has never been important to him, happiness is. He never tries to get out of paying taxes and gives to charities regularly and anonymously.
You've Got Mail
Today I learned, AOL was still offering Dial-Up service. If I think about it, it may have been the only choice for very rural areas but those areas are probably getting smaller and smaller and satellite options are now getting more affordable and useable.
Still… kinda sad. Those dulcit tones from a 5600 baud modem doing its connection handshake.