I have not been in Yuma Arizona since 2019. I was very hesitant about this trip but it turned out to be a good one. And yes, one of our trial was close to the wall.


Today’s going to be a long day… 🌱 🛫🛬🥔


Somewhere down to Yuma.


Someone [Luna] got her first camera.


Sisters


As of today, according to my on this day, it has been 5 years of microblogging.

I guess I am a little over my trial period. 😋


When in downtown Nampa…


I do not know what it is but I have this urge to go out for a run, an intense workout, or something. Like my mind is running at 10,000 revs or something, All over the place and it is hard to focus. It scares me a little because I can react impulsively.

I had a good night’s sleep, though. (∪.∪ )…zzz


The Journal app, Day One, and Me.

I have mixed feelings regarding Apple’s new Journal app on iOS 17.2 beta. When it was first announced I thought, Oh, Cool! But I think that “Oh Cool” was not meant for me but more for others. If that makes any sense. When I installed the beta and started playing with it, I kind of liked the app. I enjoyed the user interface, and its simplicity, and the post suggestions are pretty great for quick entries. Other than that, for now, that’s all there is to it, and, I am sure it’ll be fine with most users especially those who are on-and-off journalists or have never done it at all.

Then again, the few things that did awesome for me were the suggestions and quick entries. Things that everybody, very quickly, made sure to point out, “Day One already does (or has) that!”, in some way.

And that is very true.

I have been a Day One user for over 10 years. Day one was my blogging before blogging, or rather before I dared publish. Now, my journal is my personal blog. However, ever since I have been publishing to my blog, wherever it may live, at the time, everything that is published, gets into Day One as an entry via IFTTT. So for as long as I have been publishing, I have been creating entries on Day One.

As you can probably tell, however, my actual interaction with the Day One app is very minimal, or non-existent. This is why Apple’s Journal app felt novel to me, no matter how behind, features-wise, it might be compared to DayOne. Because I was actually using it, intentionally interacting with the thing.

This begs the question. Why would I stop using Day One at this point in time? As of right now, I’ve got over 3,500 entries, 3,571 to be exact. In Apple’s Journal app, I have 5, so far. And this is, I bet, very much due to automation. I don’t have to think about entering something on Day One and I only go into the app if something needs fixing or adding more photos.

Again, it is yet very early for the Journal’s app and who knows eventually get shortcuts and automation support. Or even better, a way to import from DayOne (or wherever you get your journaling).

Then again, it’s 3,571 (3,572 once this one is published) entries, that’s one heck of an import (😅), and I am sure there are people out there with probably double the entries I have.

Guess it’ll be a waiting game for now.

UPDATE

I was looking at the wrong numbers.

Those were the numbers for media entries.


🍿 Sherlock Gnomes (2018) - ★★★★☆

Sherlock Gnomes poster


I have decided to change it!

I always find it hilarious every time the girls get some toy and their naming system. Yesterday Marley and Luna got some Hatchimals and we asked if they had named them. They came out with these somewhat generic yet complicated randomly made-up names. Names that they eventually will forget and come up with some other random thing. And when you ask; a thought his name was this?

They come around and go,

Ah, no, I’ve decided to change it!!

😅🙃


No beer for Gabz

Since losing my wallet – again – a month or so ago, the only item I made sure to quickly and promptly replaced, was my debit card. I have yet to replace my driver’s license. Super responsible of me, I know. I have been carrying my passport with me though.

Today, however, was the day I left it in my car. And today, was the day that we went out for lunch, in my wife’s car, to one of our local breweries. One that we have been going for years and probably been carded once. Well, today was also the day our waitress was taking her job way too seriously (😅) and she asked for my ID, (sad trombone), I offered to show a picture of it, which for whatever reason I have, but she declined.

Oh well. It’s okay, is not like their beer is that good anyway (😝).


Not sure where we are going today but this one is definitely ready!


This week’s Marley’s art


I always enjoy these “Subway days” with Marley. They order Subway sandwiches for the kids and we parents get to join them for lunch. 😊🥰


My Defaults?

Inspired by the latest Hemispheric Views pod-radio-show, episode 097 Duel of the Defaults!

So, after listening to what will go down in history as one of my favorite episodes, I thought I would play along and do my own default assessment. I never made sense of Andrew's scoring so I won't be scoring myself.  And all of mine will be iOS, mostly.

Here we go,

📮 Mail Server

  • iCloud and HEY

📨 Mail Client

📝 Notes

✅ To-Do

📷 iPhone Photo Shooting

  • Long-press on the camera icon/little button

🟦 Photos Management

  • Photos App

📆 Calendar

📅 Calendar Backend

  • iCloud

📁 Cloud File Storage

  • iCloud Drive

📖 RSS

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts Management

  • Contacts (often forget this even exists

  🔎 Browser 

  • Safari, and Chrome (Work)

💬 Chat

🔖 Bookmarks

📑 Read-it-Later

📜 Word Processing

  • Pass

🛒 Shopping List

  • Shared Reminder List

🍴 Meal Planning ( as Recipe Management)

💰 Budgeting and finance

  • Pass

📰 News

When I care to check, News app, and Podcast shows as Today Explained

🎵 Music

  • Apple Music

🎤 Podcast

🔐 Password Management

  • iCloud KeyChain

Well, there you have it, This should probably turn into a page for the blog (😂) or should have been a microcast (🙃).

Now, there is one category I would like to add of my own,

📸 Photo Editing

What are yours?


A New blogging workflow

My blogging workflow has somewhat changed in the past month or so. Before I would compose and publish, strictly from Ulysses, at least long-form blogs with pictures — or without.

Lately, I have found myself just simply using a combination of Drafts and Mimi Uploader, all from my iPhone 14 Pro more and more. So far has worked well.

For example this post from a few days ago.

Mimi makes it so easy to upload images in bulk and get the markdown links from it for easy use. I selected all the pictures I wanted to post, copy the links to a Drafts note.

Since I am using Jason’s super-awesome GLightbox plugin I just needed to add some simple code to be able to generate a grid-of-images. A code that I have a text replacement shortcut for (😉). Then, I added some text, opened up the Drafts actions drawer, and selected this useful action which I believe was created by Craig, selected any categories if needed, and voilà!

Just note that if you are looking at this blog post with pictures on your mobile device, you might not see the nice-looking grid of images, you might want to use a bigger screen 🤷🏻‍♂️.

Mostly I have been posting short posts without a title but I think I will just do it all from Drafts. When I am not composing and publishing from my device, it is usually on my computer, and I just use Micro.blog’s web editor.

I’m sure someone who may or may not read this will think that this is a lot of clicking around and that there’s possibly a better way to go about it. And that might be entirely true, and maybe one day I’ll change my ways again, but this way works well and for now, this is the way.

Again, for now…


We’ve found the house with the full-size candy!!


> I’m gonna need a bigger basket

— Luna, age 4


In my mind, I was going to finally finish this game [Final Fantasy XVI] tonight. I was very wrong. I am close to 50 hours and I’m just about 95% completion. I am enjoying it but; can we wrap this up? I need to get to Mirage.