Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
I wanted to write something to mark my 15th anniversary at LSEG (Thomson Reuters, Refinitiv, LSEG). So much has changed with me and the world . Yet I still get excited by a view like this one out of our conference room during a workshop today. It’s a very different view from my memorable ones out of the office in Times Square or Docklands, but just as energising.
It also helps to still be working with people who make every day fun even after 15 years.
Going to Macy’s when we were in NYC in August we took the escalator up to the 9th floor to goto the Luggage section. Between the 8th and 9th floors the escalator’s change from more “modern” metal ones to a wood one. I recall these from Macy’s from when I was a kid. Back then they very likely between more floors than this one. I remember being very afraid of stepping onto them. They were rickety and old looking even then. They also have much wider “teeth” since they were wood so it was always scary. Seeing them again brought back an inner scream of “Nooooooo”.
Our cat keeps finding trinkets to play with and runs around the kitchen with them scurrying around on the floor. Inevitably they seem to end up under our refrigerator. I am starting to feel like Indiana Jones on a dig every couple of weeks fishing out things that I’ve gotten under there.
It’s always a mystery. I’m never lonely though. Grogu is my trusty companion ever sniffing under the refrigerator trying to get out something. I have not yet started calling him short round though…
I am not really sure what my dad would think of his prescription pad’s being used as note pads. He was a man who brought me home scrubs from work so i could use them as Pajama’s. Based off that he might think this is a good use of paper.
Photo from my mom’s use of these when we last visited NY.
Part of the day is Sunday the girls spent easily an hour to practising a musical number. I can only assume it’s the opening number to the next great Broadway musical. They choreographed it. And they worked on their lines by doing the number over and over again. It was absolutely brilliant. I cannot give away too much of the plot. It had something to do with a human and a mermaid meeting up. I was lucky enough to be able to capture some audio of the practice. I hope one day in the far future the girls will enjoy listening to it just like I did.
One day last year I had a conversation with T that went like this in almost exact quotes:
I said “I am here to entertain you”
She said “you are here to be my dad”.
I replied “I am also here to entertain you.” I then said “guess what you (T) are here to entertain me”.
She replied “no I am not. I am here to carry on life”.
Very profound (and funny) for a 9 year old.
Today I was walking down my stairs as I normally do to get coffee in the middle of the day. My cat Grogu thinks it’s a game and when I put my hand on the top of the banister he tries to paw at it. I went to lean down and pet him when he was doing that. He had other ideas. At the same moment I was leaning down he was making a full leap with the intention of jumping up to my shoulder. Since I was going down and he was going up I mostly missed him. His paws scratched my neck a bit. However he kept going since my shoulder wasn’t where he thought it was going to be. When I mean he kept going, his trajectory took him two thirds of the way down my stairs. I cannot say for certain if he landed legs up however he recovered pretty quickly. For about three or four seconds I thought he was going to fly all the way to the bottom of the stairs and hit our step cabinet. While I was still getting over the shock of the situation he was sitting on the bottom step licking his paw waiting for me to finish walking downstairs.
He likes to sit on my shoulder however I haven’t seen him try to make one leap onto it before. That got me totally offguard.
If cats have nine lives I’m going to count that as one of them.
I had been waiting for Apple to come out with a new Mac Mini that I can upgrade to for a long time. I even wrote about it as far back as 2016. By then it had been two years since Apple had released anything new in the Mac Mini models. I had the 2012 model at the time. They had came out with a 2014 model however by 2016 when I wanted a new computer it was not worth spending money on a two year old computer model that is only slightly better than the one I already own. The challenge was what I owned was four years old and really needing a replacement.
It would be another two years before the mini was refreshed in 2018. At that point I was prepared to buy a new one. I may have even had an order ready to go. However on reflection the differences between what I had that was six years old in the 2018 variant wasn’t hugely different and the amount of money was not insignificant. At the time I past on an upgrade and just used a laptop as my desktop. I also purchased A significantly cheaper Intel Nuc with better specifications that I put Linux on.
Even after coming up with an alternative plan I still really wanted a Mac Mini. I just couldn’t justify the price for what it was getting me. Flash forward to fall of 2020 and I was excited to pre-order a M1 Mac Mini. I did in fact have an order placed and it was on backorder for about six weeks. After a little while though I talked myself out of getting it and continue to use my old laptop. It was not until this winter then I finally decide the time was right to make a purchase. For the money the mini was a pretty nice computer with the M one chip in it. I also had a 12 inch iPad Pro that are used around the house and out and about like a laptop. It’s not a laptop replacement however someone said the perfect quote that it’s about 90% of our computer replacement. For when I’m not at my desk having the iPad Pro is perfectly fine. For when I sit at my desk having a desktop computer works better than a laptop docked to a monitor.
After literally over four years of waiting I finally got my new mini. Was it worth the wait, I won’t say that. It is a pretty nice computer though. my 2012 mini stop being functional as my main computer about three or four years ago. I used it for a while with Debian on it. At this point it is a paper weight.
I was so slow to write this post that a funny thing happened after a few months with my Mini. I started missing a personal laptop or the freedom that being undocked from a stationary position. Even if it was rare that i did it, the flexibility was nice. I went out and got the stock 8Gig M1 MacBook Air. I was worried that the base configuration was not going to be powerful enough. I was wrong. It has been perfectly fine. After having the MacBook Air a while i can say that i do not use it away from my desk often. When i do it is worth the flexibility. I do see the iPad Pro 12” getting flexible enough that i may change that decision over time.
As great as the Mini was, after about a year I had sold it on eBay in favour of the MacBook Air. I still miss a desktop now and again but the laptop is way more flexible.
Walking home from school today I told the girls that we are thinking about getting a car. We like the Prius. An old work friend once called them the Ninja of cars and that name stuck to me so I told them that if we get one I want to name it snake eyes. He is of course the most famous ninja I know.
A asked who he Snake Eyes was. I gave a fake shocked face and told her he was the best Ninja from GI Joe. She said what’s GI Joe? I asked her how she didn’t know what it was? A’s reply was that I had failed as a parent. In this case she was right, but it still stung!
