I've been on sabbatical from work since mid-August. Today was my first day back. What did I learn in that time? No single moment of truth achievedI did not have that quintessential "aha" moment of clarity that I thought might come during this unique time off. This experience was a huge shift for me living a life of priorities only set by myself. I had the ability to do whatever I wanted every day (somewhat) and it took some time to embrace that. ...
The last few weeks have been hard for me getting over the loss of Burkley. Every day is a little bit easier. Things like this poem have been helpful. Grab a tissue, it's a good one. The Last BattleIf it should be that I grow frail and weak And pain should keep me from my sleep, Then will you do what must be done, For this — the last battle — can't be won. You will be sad I understand, But don't let grief then stay your hand, For on this day, more than the rest, Your love and friendship must stand the test. ...
I just reached an arbitrary goal of 567 days of closing my red ring on my Apple Watch. I do have rest days once in a while and I'll set my move goal down about 40% for those days. I've forgotten my charger on a trip and ran to an Apple Store to buy another one just to keep it going. Even if I lost the streak, I'd know I'm still sticking to the daily fitness goal.
On May 10, 2001 Burkley was born. On August 4, 2001 we found Burkley at a pet store, brought him home and named him. We knew he was going to be a huge part of our lives and we would become caring pet parents quickly. Burkley was a very trustworthy dog after he grew out of being a puppy. We could leave him at home without any worry that things would be okay when we got back. He loved being part of our family. ...
My grandmother died in 2003. I miss her dearly. She used to make the best bread and always would freeze a loaf for me to take home and enjoy. I've wanted to learn how to make her bread myself to keep the tradition going. Sadly it took me until now being on sabbatical to motivate myself to work with my mom on recreating the recipe. This past week I drove up to my parents' house and spent half of the day working through making two loafs of white bread. My grandmother's recipe was never really written down so my mom tried to remember some of the special steps she followed. ...
At the opening remarks of That Conference 2018, Clark Sell asked every attendee to post a short video of what community means to them. Here's my contribution! [wpvideo 34LbZJva]
Yesterday began day one of 90 that I'll be taking as a sabbatical from work. Every five years at Automattic we're given an awesome gift of a paid sabbatical - something I've never dreamt possible in our current age. The word "sabbatical" is heavily laden with teaching references. Even dictionaries reference education in its definition: sabbatical | səˈbadək(ə)l | noun a period of paid leave granted to a university teacher or other worker for study or travel, traditionally one year for every seven years worked: she's away on sabbatical | he requested permission to take a sabbatical in Istanbul | he took a three-month sabbatical from his job as CEO of a family business. ...
Since November of last year (roughly) I've noticed that the Plex Media Server app doesn't ever show that there are updates available. I've manually reinstalled the latest server copy several times and it still hasn't updated automatically. I found a solution that resolves this. On macOS you have to delete a preference key for the last time the server was updated. A borked version got released which had a higher numerical value causing the server to never find an update. ...
A coworker referred me to this recent TED talk about how China is changing how commerce happens. Not only does it involve the ecommerce sales experience but all the way through the supply chain to how products are designed. This definitely has opened my mind to how mobile devices can be involved in a consumer's shopping experience. https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_wang_how_china_is_changing_the_future_of_shopping
I bought my brother an Instant Pot for Christmas. If you've never heard of them before they're a fancy electronically-controlled pressure cooker. You can cook many different things in it and they even have a Bluetooth model. I've wanted one for a while but never could justify getting it - so my brother got to be the guinea pig. He absolutely loves it so I was motivated to finally get one myself. ...