Also known as “starting over.” As my little girl turns 3 weeks old the age old debate of having kids young vs in one’s 30s is tumbling in my head. In this stage, parental sleep is at a minimum, and unknowns are still at a high. What will her personality be like, what side of the family will she look like, when will she sleep for more than 3 hours at time? What still remains to be seen is the answer to my headline question. But as of now I have feelings.

Having yet to return to work, my feelings will likely change, but experience feels so much more valuable than raw youthful exuberance. It’s not even a feeling of “it’s all going to be alright.” Having lived more life, I’m far more aware of what can be thrown my way. No, a lot of my feelings of assurance come from having leaned on the support structures of my life, knowing those structures have held up continue to lend confidence for the future.

God has been faithful through difficult circumstances, from financial, to health, family and beyond. Additionally my wife has grown and matured (more than me by a long shot) since our first kid and her strength is a sight to behold. I could go on, but given the maturity of our care network, the idea (and reality) of having kids in our 30s has been far less daunting than I would have imagined it to be in my 20s. We’ll see what I think a year in.

iOS 18.3 beta: downloading…

Mac native apps… I’ve been working on Obsidian for blog posts and it made me wonder, what about it makes it not look like a Mac app? I’ve only been on Mac for a few years so that might help give some context on how I can’t “see it.” Appreciate the feedback!

It’s about this time of the season regular Christmas music starts to get old. In comes Trans Siberian Orchestra to save the remainder of the season!

Mobile technology just speaks to me. Don’t get me wrong, the power and flexibility of a Mac (or PC) are unmatched by anything on the mobile side. That being said, having the ability to carry a computer that can run your business, take great pictures, connect with your family, and listen to podcasts in your pocket never stops being incredibly cool.

My journey started with the Zune… and no, not the super cool Zune HD. No no, it all started with the brown brick. Even in the moment I knew this thing was huge and ugly. The software experience, however was chef’s kiss emoji so so good! I was in love with the huge, overlapping text, and overall minimal aesthetic.

My very first smart phone was actually an iPhone 3gs. I bought it 2nd hand a good ways after release. I was pretty young at the time and don’t remember much of the details around this purchase.

No, my first purchase that was truly impactful came after I had dove deep into the Zune ecosystem. When I learned that Microsoft would be following up the Zune with a phone variant (similar to Apple spinning the iPhone out of the iPod) I was incredibly excited. It was this excitement that sent me deep into blogs such as windowscentral.com(then windowsphonecentral.com). The obsession was real. Enter: Samsung Focus!

Ahh yes, the Samsung Focus. I remember this one being mentally divisive. On the one hand, I was beside myself with excitement to finally be getting my first Windows Phone. Worldwide there were 10 phones that launched. Sadly the United States got the most vanilla of the bunch. For the Windows Phone hopefuls in the US we had choice between the Samsung Focus (a traditional, plastic candy bar slab phone), HTC Surround (a slightly smaller, slightly thicker candy bar phone, with a slide out speaker), and the LG Quantum(a very plain phone with a slide out keyboard).

The 2nd round of phones I don’t remember quite as much about. I ended up getting the HTC Titan. It was massive for the time at 4.7 inches diagonal. This was also my very first aluminum unibody and wow do I miss this material choice. Years into the glass sandwich design of almost all cell phones today, thinking back on the cool, light feel of the aluminum just feels satisfying in my mind. I really wish that something would have come from the rumors of breakthroughs in wireless charging that works through metal so we could move beyond glass. However the next phone on the list managed to bring wireless charging to a phone in a way that still felt high quality.

The Nokia Lumia 920 was easily my favorite Windows phone I owned personally, and is probably my favorite phone period. The size (for the time) was perfect at 4.5 inches diagonal. This phone also is a shining example of how a company can take high quality polycarbonate (plastic) and make it feel premium. This phone just felt good to hold. It was also among the first phones to have wireless charging built in! The other headline feature of the 920 was it being the first Windows phone in the States to include a Pureview camera. While this wasn’t the 41 megapixel behemoth that would later come in the Nokia 1020, it was still an impressive shooter.

After the 920 I was pulled into the Apple land and bounced around a lot between Android and iPhone. We’ll dig into that a bit in a future post.

Only a year late, but on episode 097 of Hemispheric Views there was a duel… of the app defaults. Since then many many posts of folk’s defaults have been posted. I wanted to throw my 2 cents in as well!

• Mail Client: Outlook (personal) and Gmail (work)
• Mail Server: Outlook (personal) and Gmail (work)
• Notes: Obsidian (for blog stuff), Apple notes (personal), Google Keep (work)
• To-do: Reminders
• iPhone photo shooting: Camera Control ~80% of the time, swipe left from lock screen otherwise
• Photo Management: Photos
• Calendar: Calendar (personal), Google Calendar (work)
• Cloud File Storage: OneDrive
• RSS: Reeder
• Contacts: Contacts
• Browser: Vivaldi(personal), Edge and Chrome at work
• Chat (not messages): discord mostly, some telegram
• Bookmarks: none
• Read It Later: none
• Word Processing: Rarely used, but Word when I do need something for this
• Spreadsheets: Rarely used, but Excel
• Shopping lists: Reminders
• Presentations: none
• Meal Planning: None
• Budgeting and personal finance: Simplifi
• News: mostly google, or sometimes Apple news for headline stuff
• Music: Spotify
• Podcasts: Castro
• Password Management: 1Password