I feel like I’ve been drifting for the last little while. Some of it seems almost like depression, particularly where I have little energy as well as little interest in some things that normally give me pleasure. My sleep has been messed up for the last month, I’ve got some projects to get to around the house, and I’m just, “meh”. Sure, some of it is Covid, some of it is the dead cat bounce dropoff after a post-vaccine high. I still enjoy listening to Razamanazz by Nazareth, but it’s less compelling to get my juices flowing.
I’ve been reading various blogs and books about change, motivation, and more specifically, articles around jump-starts to your lagging energy. Many of them talk about the little things to get you going, kind of the typical philosophy that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, regardless of the evidence out there that much of that visualization on step one doesn’t work for certain personality types, including analytical introverts (i.e., me). We know it’s still only 1 step, and we can’t “trick” ourselves into thinking otherwise.
But, I still want to do SOMETHING in September, maybe harness some of the age-old “back to school” excitement in some way. Which has led me to the “3×30” idea. Basically, three things that I choose to do in a given day that is a bit out of the normal, something I am doing just because it makes some part of my life easier or moves me ahead on some project. Three items a day, thirty days in the month, ergo –> 3×30.
Yesterday was my first day, and I deliberately chose NOT to put anything big in the day. I didn’t want it to seem to myself that I had held off on something big, or that I was going to trick myself into thinking I was doing 90 big things for the month. Some of them are going to be quite small.
Item 1.1 is pretty small — I cleaned my work desk and installed a new work surface. I bought a vinyl deskpad a few weeks ago, saw some benefits to it including for example that I can use it as my mousepad. My existing mouse pad was a bit bigger than I wanted, and it didn’t work well to sit partly on one surface and partly on the desk beside. By contrast, the vinyl goes up and over the “lip”, and it’s flush with the desk. Everything fits well, all slides around nicely. Not “big”, but it is a bit different.
Item 1.2 was even smaller — I charged my Kindle. I have been actively trying to read more in the last four months, and while I did some of that on my phone, I really want to do most of it on my Kindle. After I uncovered its hidden location back in June (it was in a backpack I had checked several times expecting it to be there but it was tucked down in the bottom under two books I had never lifted fully all the way out to reveal the treasure!), I ploughed through some 50 books in June and July. I’m down a bit for August, not quite getting the re-energy boost that I normally do from reading, even though it is CLEARLY in the simple interest / mystery world. In August, I did some personal writing and have been reading some classic writers on writing (Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Syd Field, Blake Snyder, etc.). But my Kindle was getting low again, and I don’t have a great charging setup for mini-USB hubs at the moment. But I dug out a cable, hooked it to my desktop, back in business.
Item 1.3 is a bit of a cheat as it is more redoing previous steps than taking new ones. My host, WHC.CA, was the subject of some vandalism last weekend, and they have suffered fairly significant loss as a result. One result of the internal attack was that a bunch of website servers, including one that hosts three of my accounts, were reimaged and their backups wiped. For some people, it’s catastrophic. Everything they had is lost. If it had been last January, it would have been a pretty significant loss for me, and I’d be pulling out my hair. But I had that meltdown last February, my website situation is part of a more nuanced perspective now of my life, and, well, it’s easy to say all of that because I have a full offsite backup.
While my website is down, I was going to leave it a day or two more to see if the recovery process might produce better results, but in the end, I thought I would give it a small “go” myself. It’s not complicated — upload your backup, click a few buttons, good to go. Or at least it should have been. There’s a small niggling issue that the host has created what they call “lifeboat” accounts, which my backups don’t want to connect to, preferring instead to connect to the regular old account. As a result, I have to upload it manually and reconnect the database manually. Which I can do, but it’s a small pain in the patootie. And, well, I don’t have to. The hoster had the problem, not me, so if I upload to a specific directory, they’ll put it back together for me.
Which I decided to do. I turned it all over to them to fix and get going. If it doesn’t work, I can engage, but honestly, it’s more hassle than I need to take on. That’s what they’re paid to do. It might be faster for me to do it, it might be more satisfying for me to do it, but well, why take on work I don’t need to take on? I uploaded the files, stored them on the server, and said “Go to it”. They fixed it last night or this morning (I got confirmation early afternoon it is “up”) and I can see it, even if it isn’t fully public yet. That’s not on them, I had to change the internet DNS (domain name server) addresses to match the lifeboat over the regular accounts, and it usually takes about 24h for the internet to share those addresses with everyone. But fingers crossed. It seems to have worked so far. As such, I’ve given them the other two ZIP files and now I just wait for them to do the recoveries.
Three small “incremental” things to improve my life, although one is recovery more than progress I guess. Not big, just some small steps I’m taking to move the needle a bit. The big or important stuff often crowds out some of the smaller things, but some of those smaller things make a difference. Or at least I hope they do.
Ah, late summer. The time when a young man’s fancy turns to back to school tech. Papers. Notebooks. Maybe, dare I say it, the laptop of his dreams?
Okay, I’m not a student, but I do dream of getting the “right laptop” some day.
My quest started in the late 90s. I wanted to get a laptop, was debating whether I would get a laptop instead of a desktop, but it’s not really what I wanted the laptop to be. If it replaced my desktop, I wanted power to crunch spreadsheets, handle wordprocessing, some basic games, a bit of photo editing, and internet browsing. Call it the SWGPI protocol. Five basic things. I give it a name because it is going to come up again. Stay tuned.
So if it was a desktop replacement, I needed some power to do SWGPI, plus some video editing, and a good sized screen. But then if I did that, and wanted to go mobile, I would be stuck with this honking big laptop. Great to take my whole setup with me if I was going to Peterborough for the weekend, no chance of leaving anything behind, but battery life would suck AND it would be unwieldy. What they used to call luggables.
I decided to get a full desktop, which then left me wanting a simpler writing computer to handle wordprocessing, a small game or two, and a bit of internet stuff. WGI, if you will. Lightweight, good battery life. That was the dream.
And so off I went one weekend to Toronto with my nephew. We combed all the big and little computer stores in Toronto to see what I could find. What I found was bulky replacements (SWGPI) at a reasonable price OR I could find near WGI but at insane prices. $2500-$3000. My dream was found in a Sony Vaio at $2999, onsale from original pricing of like $3999. Way out of my price range.
Expanding my search to New York
At the time, David Pogue was a tech reviewer for the NY Times. I found his email online, and despite him saying very clearly “Don’t ask my opinion about stuff”, I wrote and asked him anyway. I basically asked him, “Are there any lightweight laptops that don’t have an optical drive, etc. at a reasonable price?”. I was surprised but he answered and said, “Not really.” Everyone had gone BIGGER with their designs, i.e. the desktop replacements, so there was supposedly no market for the little footprints.
Fastforward about 8-10 years, and netbooks were all the rage. Almost exactly what I had been looking for previously. I had made do with some other tools here and there, but never really found what I wanted at the right price. Netbooks seemed like the answer, but it took me a while to decide on a model. I still have it. The only problem? It was slow as molasses. Even with everything eventually stripped down to Linux. Adequate, but not the dream.
I also tried pairing a Bluetooth keyboard with my Android tablet. The result was buffering and fast battery drain.
I bought a more powerful and faster laptop, a nice HP model, 17″ screen, great. Not small, but powerful and met my needs. Poor battery life so I upgraded it, but it was never the dream either. It still works, and is strong enough to use it in my basement for a streaming computer. The wifi is kaput though, so not much good for coffee shops. And, of course, with a 17″ screen, a DVD writer, and a few other internal bells and whistles, it’s firmly in the luggable category too.
Family influencers
A few years ago, Andrea jettisoned her desktop in favour of a laptop. It is plugged into a docking port that connects her to an external mouse, keyboard, ethernet, and a monitor, and it serves her well. Well, it did until the hard drive died recently. She was ready to ditch it entirely and get a new one, so I thought I’d pay for a simple repair and use it as my portable machine. Bigger than I wanted, but not horrendous, even if still in the luggable category. Except it wasn’t that much to fix, it didn’t take too long, and by the time it came back, she hadn’t replaced it yet. So she just took it back. But it made me start thinking about a new laptop of some sort.
Last year in March, as the lockdown began, it was clear Jacob would be using a computer a lot more than he had. We considered the one he had in the office upstairs, a full-size desktop option, but we were leaning towards something a bit more suited to his interests. The one he had was a repurposed desktop that Andrea or I had used previously, and it got him going, but if he was going to be online all the time for school, maybe something a little nicer was in order than just what was doable for occasional surfing or playing.
We debated similar issues to what I needed. He was going to use it as a desktop replacement, so we were going to get some power. He has some eye issues, so a larger screen was also warranted and likely all the time (not just plugging into a larger monitor). And he was starting to get into gaming. There was a nice gaming laptop on sale at the time, way more power than he was going to need for awhile, and twice the cost of the type of laptop that would “do him for now”. We took the plunge. Of all the things we did in the last 16m, I think it was one of the best decisions. Jacob LOVES the computer and its power.
Enter the dragon
The dragon is my messed up head. I started thinking I wanted a new portable tool for writing, or simply anything I could use upstairs instead of always working in the basement where my office is set up. I spend the whole day down there, I don’t really enjoy coming down here at night too. But if I’m doing stuff on my computer, this is the computer I use.
I thought I was going to have Andrea’s used laptop and she would get a new one, but she ended up keeping hers. I like the power of Jacob’s computer and he has even been able to use it well at the cottage, but it’s more than I would need. My solutions? Not so effective.
We have been considering picking up a new iPad with a keyboard and having that as an extra tool around the family room, kitchen, etc. We have an old one already (Gen 2), plus Jacob’s (Gen 3, I think?), and they’re okay, but not awesome. Not something we would grab to play on, too slow by contemporary standards. And I’m leery about relying on it for writing anyway (given drainage of the battery from using Bluetooth connections constantly).
So I’m back to the same eternal question…full desktop replacement or portable tool? The solution is relatively obvious for me. I have a properly working desktop, upgraded within the last year, and I love the current power. I don’t need to change it. Ergo, I’m only looking for a portable tool. The WGI option again.
Possible dream dates
I did my due diligence online, but there is only so far you can go in internet research to know what you want. A friend lent me a Chromebook recently which is almost all I want. It lets me write, it can access the internet through wifi, and the footprint is about right. But the specific model has a keyboard that’s a bit wonky for layout (including one key in a really awkward position that I hate), and I found it limiting for my work. It does run, of course, Chrome OS instead of Windows, and a limited form of Chrome OS at that, so I couldn’t load an app version of Word even. I had to rely solely on Google Docs. Doable, but not really ideal. Almost, and the price was right. But not the dream.
So tonight I went off to Canada Computers first. I checked out three or four different models that they had, and it quickly became clear that I’m likely aiming for a 13.5-14″ screen. That’s on the smaller size for availability although there are some 12.5″ models too. The screens are all way above my needs, and the power is likely to come out to an i5 Intel option or Ryzen 5. They benchmark almost equally at the moment, and I don’t have a preference. The background for the size is almost comical though. I have a great shoulder bag that I got at MEC maybe ten years ago. I love it. And so I want a computer that will fit inside it. Anything bigger than 15″ for screen size is really challenging for that option. Don’t get me wrong, I have other bags, including a full padded knapsack. But it isn’t the dream. I want it small enough to fit in my shoulder bag.
One computer looked great until I checked the reviews and tested that aspect myself. A few reviews said the keyboard was compact, almost cramped, but on a small footprint, there’s not much you can do about that. It’s as wide as it is. Except on the one, it was also cramped for depth (keyboard to function keys). When I typed and went to hit the space bar, my thumb was tapping the trackpad. And not even “close” to hitting the space bar. My hands and fingers are just too big / fat for such a layout design. Pass.
Another one from HP was decently priced, good look, backlighting was a bit odd, but whatever. My current laptop is HP and I’ve got a lot of value out of it, so I was willing to consider it. It felt like I was typing on something made by Mattel. A toy, not a workhorse. Pass.
Asus has a series of small footprint laptops called Vivobooks, and I found a workable model. The right price and size, the keyboard feel was fine, as was the layout. I wasn’t 100% sold though, and battery life is not quite as high for the model they had in stock. I didn’t need to buy tonight, and there were some other brands to consider.
I headed next to Best Buy. I ended out checking out another HP model (Envy) that hadn’t been on my list yet probably should have been, but I wasn’t a fan of the keyboard again, and it was the same price as others that were better on specs. Pass.
I considered the Vivobook models as well as some Acer setups, but nothing was drawing me in. Nice but no sale.
And then I thought, not for the first time, “I really like the Microsoft Surface Pro that I use for work, too bad they’re so expensive.” It really does all I need it to do, but work paid for it. I had seen MS Surface options in the $2K range in the past, well outside what I wanted to pay.
But I happened to see on one of the review sites that there was an MS Surface option for less. What the …? Ohhhhhh, there is regular and then there is Pro. Well, what are the regular ones like? Slick as sh**.
I’m sure I’d like the Pro models more, but the regular new version 4s are equal to what I have on my desk for work. It runs full Windows so I can run 64-bit Word. I have enough power to do all my internet stuff, including editing blogs. I can do some basic gaming, and some basic video stuff no problem. And battery life? Off the charts. They rate it to 19h, but even the PC Mag benchmarks put them in the 15-16h range for video usage. If I took it to the cottage, I could likely use it for three or four sessions without having to recharge. Around the house? Maybe five or six outings. And it is well within my budget. Sign me up, amirite?
Well, no, cuz there are 4 different models. Son of a biscuit. There’s a really nice 12.5″ footprint, but I feel the typing is a bit challenged. Another in the 13.5″ that is highly doable, another in 14″ and then options that are either tablet-y or 2-in-1 foldables. All reasonably within a couple of hundred dollars as each other. I even considered one that would take a SIM card. But I ruled it out, dumped the tablet-y one, passed on 12.5, went with 13.5.
Whew, all settled.
Everyone wakes from the dream
I want to take it with me to the cottage, I have 10d to get the laptop and get it set up, plenty of time. Except none of the Best Buys within 300km have ANY in stock. Are you freaking kidding me?
I grabbed the info for the model I want, I’ll do some more searching tomorrow online, but in the meantime, I trotted down the road to Staples. Hey, look, there’s one! Same price, same model, all good. Oh wait, small distraction, there’s an open-box version of an older model, really sharp and small, $300 less. I feel like Red Leader was talking in my ear, “Stay on target…”.
Copy that, Red Leader. I’ll stick to the 13.5″ model, MS Surface 4. Great, let’s do that one. Oh wait, they don’t have THAT model in stock. There is, however, the same model with an extra 256GB of SSD space, only a measly $400 more. Umm, no. For way less than that, I can use a USB key or upload to the cloud. None of the base models in stock. Frack.
I really thought I was coming home tonight with a lightweight, small footprint laptop with long battery life. I was SO happy that I had it figured out. Alas, the quest continues. Sure, at least I’ve assembled the clues into a coherent map, but that isn’t the same as grabbing the Holy Grail.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about “who I am” and how I describe myself. I even wrote a psych profile of myself. Me, trying to step outside myself, to see myself more objectively. And I started thinking of who I am as I approach retirement, what I want to have accomplished in my life by the time I pass on, etc. Somewhere in there, I started to think of it a bit as a simple question. What is my legacy from having lived? What difference did I make, what will people remember about me?
I realized early on that it depends very much on my various roles. If I go chronologically, the simplest legacy is my first role in life, as the son of Jack and Theresa. I had no legacy as a grandson as I never really knew my grandparents, I only had a grandmother left when I was born and she died when I was very young.
It’s also odd to realize too that my legacy as a son, who I was as a son, is a finite area. My parents have passed on, my ongoing duties to them are (mostly) finished. Sure, there are other things in life that I could “credit” to them having been my parents, but it is not necessarily in my role as their son. That period is officially over.
In the first 20 years of life, I don’t know that I generated much of a legacy. My father was proud of my academics, my mother probably felt like she didn’t understand me. I didn’t really understand either of them very well. I also feel like I probably seemed ungrateful, that my desire to move out, to graduate from university, to get a white collar job, etc., all seemed like somehow I was better than them. It wasn’t true, but it’s hard as a teen to realize that when you say you don’t want “x”, and “x” is what your parents want for themselves (or have at least achieved for themselves), there is inherent in that striving to better myself a judgement of what came before. Not intentional, not malicious, just there.
I was the Golden Child for my mother, that was clear, as her youngest always was, I suspect. As the last of the children, I got to keep the title and prize belt longer than the other kids. A mix of pride and expectations, not necessarily the “favourite”, more that I could rarely do wrong.
My legacy with my father
My legacy, such as it is, is probably three-fold.
First and foremost, from age 20-28, I got to know my Dad better than ever before, oddly enough from a distance. I had a better understanding of his life choices, perhaps simply reflecting the cliché that teens leave home thinking their parents know very little, yet see a few years later how much the same parents have learned in the meantime. However it came about in phone calls or from verbalizing our feelings more, I feel like he passed on with neither of us having anything left undone or unsaid. I would have liked another year or two to really solidify what we had, but nothing that would rise to the level of actual regret. I was his son, he was my father; we loved each other and we both knew how the other felt. I honour that bond when I tell my own son that I love him every day.
Second, I did my father’s eulogy. I am not quite sure that is a legacy, since he had already passed on, and we only decided after he died that I would be the one to give it. It’s a double-edged honour though. I did it, yes, but I cried my whole way through it. I doubt anyone understood a word I said. I am proud I did it, or perhaps more honoured that I had the privilege, but I wish I had “performed” better as his son.
Third, I also helped my mom after his passing. He knew I would do it, it was part of the deal we made when he appointed me co-executor. He expected and I accepted that Mom would need help, and while we didn’t discuss it in detail, it was assumed that I would be the one most likely to be able to do it without Mom feeling like I was telling her what to do as well as the duty not interfering too much with my non-existent family since I was still single. I like to think he approached his death knowing whatever needed to be one in the early stages, I would step up.
My legacy with my mother
When I started writing this, I thought the two legacies would be very different. I had a very different relationship with each of my parents, yet as I tried to describe the key variables, I find myself using the same structure.
First, again, I had a good relationship with my mother before she passed. There was nothing left unsaid or undone. As desired by my Dad, I helped her immediately after his death with a bunch of financial stuff, paperwork, etc. I still remember her telling me the day he died that she needed me to keep it together, for her and myself. At least for a little while to get through everything. And I mostly did, up until she felt comfortable doing it all on her own. I don’t know that she really needed the help, but she did appreciate it.
More importantly, to me at least, I had (mostly) reached the point where I saw her for who she was, not some childish thought of who I wished her to be. Acceptance, as they say. There were two or three things near the end that I would prefer she hadn’t done, but it was who she was. It didn’t change how I felt about her and I didn’t judge her for them, even when they annoyed me. She was 84 years old at the time of her death, having lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War; lost parents and siblings through war and aging; married and outlived her husband by another 17 years; raised six kids and lost two babies to miscarriages; worked in stores and as a cleaning lady; smoked and drank; loved trivia; and laughed whenever she could. She could be a force to be reckoned with, when she wanted to be.
Second, as with my father, I did her eulogy too. I worked my ass off to make sure I could get through it, that I could read it without crying the whole time. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I got it done the way I wanted. I have a photo on my PolyWogg website taken the day of her funeral, a remembrance of life out at the lake, with the water as calm as I had never seen it before. Eerie almost. Yet I use it to remind myself both of my mother and that I was able to honour her the way that I intended.
Third, the last part again is dealing with her estate. When my mother was in palliative care, she asked me to do three things. I was somewhat sad to tell her that two were beyond my abilities to control, and that with a family of my own, I would not accept the requests. I essentially chose to say no to two deathbed requests. That rankles me, in the abstract. She understood why I said no, and while disappointed, she wasn’t angry with me for my choice. She asked because it was something she hoped for but accepted my refusal. And I would give the same answer today.
The third request was tied to her estate, and as I had already agreed long before to be co-executor, it was more of an “add-on” to the previous request. I knew it would be unpleasant, I would much rather that I had said “No way, Jose”, but since I was already saying no to two other requests, I agreed to that one. It seemed to give her some peace of mind that I was willing to take it on. It got done, it was unpleasant, but I did what was requested. I mentioned above that I felt I was “mostly” done with my legacy, but there is something outstanding. I agreed with my siblings that I would eventually scan all my mother’s photos and share them with them, and while I’ve started a couple of times, I have no real desire to do such a large and potentially depressing project. Sigh.
And yet…
I find myself wondering if there are more things to include here, like the legacies FROM my parents to me…loving books, movies, trivia, jokes. Preferring informal over formal, small get-togethers over big events. The importance of telling my wife and son that I love them, as well as my siblings. I would tell my close friends too, but well, that can get a bit creepy hehehe Yet I feel like those other legacy gifts to me will all show up in the other legacy posts.
Overall, I guess that I feel comfortable with my “legacy” as a son. Which is good because it’s not like I can change it at this point without time travel. 🙂
Spenser is hired to find a rare book stolen from a university and the first witness he talks to ends up standing over a dead body within a day, but claims she didn’t do it.
What I Liked
This is the first book in the long-running Spenser series, and it is one of my favorite series of all time. Quirk and Belson are introduced, as well as some general hoodlums, and it is classic Spenser. Keep plugging along, doing what he wants to do or thinks is right, even after the book-napping is resolved.
What I Didn’t Like
Without Silverman or Hawk, it almost feels like Spenser’s on vacation on his own, not quite a full Spenser story. As such, it runs a bit more linearly than some of his other books.
Jane is asked by the elders of her tribe to find an innocent man charged with murder and to help him until things are cleared up.
What I Liked
The introduction of the elders was a great development, and showed that Jane’s work has not gone unnoticed by the clans. They not only are aware of it, they approve and ask her to put her skills to use with another member, a childhood friend of Jane’s.
What I Didn’t Like
The secondary characters didn’t work that well for me…a woman whose story reads like a bad rape fantasy, a cop who happens to be an expert tracker and who happens to follow her despite having no idea who she is or any evidence he sees her, and some crooks who are okay, but not compelling.
