The only problem with not having been working out for “so long” and somewhat picking back where I’ve left off is that now my arm, especially close to my elbow, is angry at me. It is hard to tight-grip and lift heavy things, for now. This means I need to be more mindful with today’s workout.

Also, lots of stretching and massaging.

This kind of Sucks!

I should have known better!

I have not been using my 20L Peak Design Everyday Backpack and it has been fantastic.

half the room gasps in Spanish

I know, I have been wearing and swearing by this backpack ever since I have been at my current job, which is a little over 4 years now. In fact, I haven’t shopped around for another backpack ever since. That and I don’t want to make spending over 250 USD for a backpack a habit.

Sometime last year, in one of my Stitchfix box deliveries, I randomly received a backpack, THE NORTH FACE Vault Everyday Laptop Backpack and it is the most boring uncharacteristic, most basic backpack that you can possible imagine. Loved the color, though. Ever since I got it it sort of became my gym bag. We would occasionally use it to carry the iPads, headphones, and other stuff for the girls when going out and about, essentially a diaperless bag.

On my most recent trip to Yuma, I took my boring backpack instead of my everyday one. It was a super-short trip so I took very little with me. And I gotta say, it was a delight…

Let me explain. The Everyday Backpack is great, it’s got enough space for all my shit plus my camera. This backpack, however, is the first generation, it is so rigid and tough, plus, with everything I put in it, it becomes heavy and not very comfortable to carry around, at least for me. That said, I did not carry my camera with me although I could have possibly been able to.

Now I am in the market for a backpack, I think, perhaps not exactly a 250 plus USD one but something simple. What will happen to the Everyday one? I don’t know, perhaps It’ll get used in a much different way, I haven’t even been carrying it to work since. I have just been carrying my essentials, a notebook, a laptop, a pen, and a few accessories or cables and that is it. I think I need to rethink my EDC system, too.

So, here we are, the state of the backpack at the end of 2023, ish.

Well, it’s been a week, for sure, well ever since last Saturday.

• 🥳 Last Saturday was Luna’s 5yo birthday party
• 🛫 On Monday we woke up early, worked from home then headed out to the airport.
• 🌱 Tuesday, is field day.
• ✈️ After all day on the field, I get dropped off at the airport.
• 🛬 I arrived at midnight, slept about 3 hours.
• 🎂 Wednesday, was Luna’s birthday celebration at her pre-school. We had juice 🧃 and donuts 🍩.
• 📷 next up, downtown lunch with Luna, Marley, and Mom, street photography with Luna’s new camera (and mine until it died)

• 🤒 Late evening, Luna gets sick (sad trombone)
• 👨🏻‍⚕️💻 Thus, on Thursday and Friday I was busy working from home and being a nurse.

📺 TV shows watched

📺 Onimusha (2023) - ★★★★☆

Finished it this week, pretty cool but didn’t love it.

Started:

📺 BLUE EYE SAMURAI (2023) - ★★★★★

Only two episodes in and I am loving this show. There’s good stuff in here.

📺 Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023) - ★★★★★

I am a sucker for anything Godzilla-related so obviously I was going to watch this. Watched the first two episodes and I am excited to see where this is going.

🎮 Video games currently playing

🎮 Gunbrella (2023) - ★★★★★

Finished it and had lots of fun playing it.

🎮 Assassin’s Creed Mirage (2023)

I think I am about 60% completed on this one.

🎵 Music piques

🎵 The Glass - Single - H.E.R.

🎵 New Blue Sun - André 3000

🎵 The Liftaway - Walk the Moon

🎵 Patience - Chris Cornell

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.