New year, new… design?

If youve been here before, you’ll notice that everything got a fresh, new coat of paint. If you haven’t been here before, well… everything got a fresh, new coat of paint šŸ™‚

For the past couple of months, I’d been using Twenty Fifteen — the old default WordPress theme — because a) it works, and b) I don’t hate how it looks. My plan had always been to eventually replace it with something custom again, so I started building the theme you’re currently looking at about a week ago.

A few notes:

  1. I built a dark mode to go along with the default light theme.

    The icon in the nav will toggle between the two. Switching themes also sets a cookie that is used to remember your display choice. This means you’ll see your last-used theme if you leave and come back to the site at some point.

    I’ve been considering some other theme-related features, such as support for automatically changing the theme based on the visitor’s time of day and/or support for macOS Mojave’s dark mode, but havent decided yet if they’re worth implementing.

  2. The theme uses a system font stack, which means the site uses your operating system’s default font (San Francisco on macOS and iOS, Segoe UI on Windows, etc.).

  3. A fancy new tagline that I consider a pretty good way to look at life in general.

  4. If you still use RSS, you can subscribe to the RSS feed right here. If you’re an Apple News user, I’ve got you covered, too. You can subscribe to the site in Apple News to get updates whenever I post.

As always, I’ll be tweaking things and playing with things pretty regularly. If there are any particular features that you’d like to see or have any questions, please leave a comment below, find me on Twitter, or send some feedback.

Apple officially releases Smart Battery cases for iPhone XS/Max/XR with Qi charging support

From 9to5Mac:

Apple today has officially released Smart Battery cases for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. This comes after 9to5Mac discovered various pieces of evidence within iOS hinting at the existence of such cases.

The cases are priced at $129 for all three phones. Further, the iPhone XS/Max/XR Smart Battery cases are available in white and black.

You can get the cases here:

iPhone Upgrade Regrets, Part 2

An update on my previous post: I did another Jump On Demand ā€œupgradeā€ with T-Mobile and have gone back to the iPhone XS Max from the iPhone XR.

This decision was 100% based on how I use the phone, and not because I think the XR is a bad phone — it isnā€™t and, honestly, itā€™s probably the best phone for most people. It just wasnā€™t the best for me.

iPhone Upgrade Regrets

Back in September when the latest model iPhones were announced, I took advantage of T-Mobileā€™s Jump On Demand feature and upgraded from the iPhone X I had to an iPhone XS Max.

I loved it. It shot great photos, the screen was amazing, and, for the first time ever, I got silver instead of space gray. It was gorgeous.

Then, at the end of October when the iPhone XR was released, I decided to switch to that in order to save some money on my monthly lease payment with T-Mobile.

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Quitting smoking

When I came back to Pennsylvania after visiting my boys in Portland for Thanksgiving, I decided to quit smoking, and I decided to do it cold turkey. This has been really, really hard. Probably one of the hardest things Iā€™ve ever done, but:

Today is day 20 without a cigarette.

Iā€™ve been posting every day — usually only one or two lines, or in some cases emojis — about my progress so far. If you want to follow along with this shitshow, you can do so over here.

8:30pm

I originally wrote and published this in 2012, three years after my dad died. Today is 9 years. I canā€™t believe it — it still seems like yesterday.

I usually try to republish it every year, but havenā€™t for a couple of years, mostly due to not really writing or posting much during that time. Now that I’m posting again regularly (or semi-regularly at least), it’s back.

Also, in case you’re wondering, this is why the site theme has gone dark (and will be staying that way until the end of December).

December 12, 2012

Three years ago tonight, at 8:30 PM Pacific Time, I was sitting on my couch playing Assassinā€™s Creed II. My twins were nearly 6 months old, and they were laying on the floor in front of the couch playing with some stuffed animals. Tiffany was at work. It was cold and rainy outside. My phone rang. The caller ID on my iPhone showed it was my brother, so I answered the way I usually do when he calls:

ā€œHey! Whatā€™s up, man?ā€

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