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.
Mini Vacay
Taking a few days off from work and with my Wife going to visit my Sister and her family. Looking forward to a little break from my work even if it’s just a few days.
Another Great
As a trumpet player… it’s almost a requirement to have the first phrase of Feels So Good memorized at all times. My favorite brass musician.
Run
Really tough this evening. The heat and humidity were just a little too much. Slow pace but further distance than I thought I would do. #RunTLH
Baseball
Congratulations MLB and the City of Atlanta for a wonderful All-Star Game. It was great seeing the incredible athletes showing their skills and the sincerity they have with each other playing a game.
I also like the compromise for the Swing Off.
What a Deal…
Happy Bobby Bonilla Day to those that celebrate. Still 10 more years left on that contract. Amazing.
The “Final” mission was absolutely an amazing thrill ride with a bunch of wonderful little Easter eggs. #FindAWay Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
They Fixed It!
HaHaHa…. I wrote earlier this month about Apple swapping the colors on the Finder icon in the beta for the next macOS. See here Robinette - Finder for reference.
In the most recent beta version for macOS, they switched it back. MacRumors - Finder
The Fediverse
I have gotten asked what exactly Mastodon is and I always give the very simple answer of “it’s like the old Twitter but not owned by any one company”. For most the answer is fine and the questioner goes on about their day. A few ask for more details and that is where I run into trouble, trying to explain the Fediverse in more detail can be hard for someone who has only ever use social media from the big tech companies like Meta. Recently, someone I follow on Mastodon, Elena Rossini made a video that perfectly sums up exactly what the Fediverse is and why someone should consider using it instead of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, etc. Take a look and see if it might be right for you, like it is for me.
Adobe and their latest trickery.
So, like many large tech companies, Adobe has been adding on various artificial intelligence features across most of their applications. Many of them are quite useful, such as the photo cleanup tools added to Photoshop, as well as the auto generation background for InDesign. I don’t begrudge any company for wanting to continue to make profits from the software services they provide. However, Adobe is doing something that is down right scummy. If you subscribe to their Creative Cloud plan choice, you will be automatically enrolled into their higher priced Creative Cloud Pro plan, this new plan is $120 more a year when billed yearly. Again, I have no problem with the addition of a “Pro” tier plan option, if you have a use and find value in the options available there, then that is the plan for you. My problem is Adobe not notifying the plan switch in any way or at least I can not find any notification with my account. There will be 1,000’s (100’s of thousands?) of accounts that get upgraded and those users may not even know. Users have the option to resume their non “Pro” plan but you have to log in to your account page at adobe.com and manually switch to the now Creative Cloud Standard plan.
I am a Graphics Manager for a small printing company and have use Adobe applications going on 35 years, hell I was even a beta tester for InDesign. My biggest complaint with Adobe is their lack of an à la carte choice for those users who don’t need all 20+ applications that are part of the Creative Cloud plans. I really only ever use the four Acrobat, InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop in our production workflows and have absolutely no need for the Audio and Video applications, as nice as they may be. Now they have given me a new complaint and this is pretty scummy on their part.
Adobe is switching some Creative Cloud users to a pricier AI plan article at The Verge has more details.
Finder
Watched the Apple Keynote for this years WWDC and something struck me as odd looking at the screens of the new macOS… the Finder icon seemed off. Yep turns out they reversed the colors on the icon and my brain just keeps saying nope. This is a beta and I hope they uh, reverse course and switch it back to the correct way.
Also the text in the About windows needs to be centered not left justified.
Norm!
Of all the characters on Cheers, Norm was by far my favorite and George Wendt’s portrayal was comedy gold. Incredible talent and loved by his peers, sad to read of his passing.
Visiting Tallahassee
Other than a few mispronunciations (forgiven) and calling the Gulf of Mexico an ocean. ;-)
Tony of Build the Dream Now does a really great job of telling you about my hometown of Tallahassee.