The Story of My December 2020 Book Reviews

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I have a bunch of posts to publish however after writing my post about reading wanted to write about what i had been reading over the past year. At this rate not sure if i will cover everything I read since January 2020 however I started a monthly recap from December onwards. I have December & January written now. This is my December post. Hoping to post January sometime this month in addition to some other stuff.

In December 2020 I finished two books and started a third. I finished one productivity, non-fiction and one science-fiction.

The first book I finished was tribal leadership. It was a fascinating book about the psychology of groups of people, a.k.a. tribes and how they organise. A lot of what the authors said resonated with me. I think because what they call a stage four tribe encompasses a lot of the trates and characteristics we have been aspiring for in devops culture. I think it’s hard for me to realise that even though I’ve been trying a lot I still gravitate between stage III and stage IV sometimes. According to the book the use of I versus we is partly the distinction. The good thing was even before reading this book I have tried to move towards the we your the group versus the individual. Not sure who recommended it however I think it was someone at work. Since finishing it I have been recommending it to others especially since we been talking a lot about dev ops culture at work.

The next book I read after tribal leadership was a bit of a change of pace. That was deliberate. I am trying not to read the same type of book back to back. I am also trying not to read too many books in the series straight through to give myself a break. The next book I read was Revelation space. I already read Chasm CIty. That was technically the 2nd book in the universe written by Alastair Reynolds. I was worried since there were mixed reviews about the audio performance on audible for Revelation space. After listening to the book I can understand what people were complaining about however it was by no means as bad as described or making it difficult to read/listen to the book. The story was pretty good and having read Chasm City did not ruin Revelation space. I have read that it shouldn’t prior to reading Chasm City so I was pleased that that was true. Clocking in around 20 hours to listen to it was pretty long but not the longest I have read. The plot was slow going at some points however they brought things together pretty nicely. Based on how much I enjoyed Revelation Space I will listen to the next book in the series. I am just going to take a slight break and change gears a bit first.

I finished Revelation space right after Christmas. I started on the next book straight away however I did not get to finish it until after the New Year. That means I will talk about it in my January reviews.

My Story of Reading Again Thanks to Audiobooks

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Growing up I loved to read. As an adult I still enjoy reading however I have done much less of it over time. Looking back I don’t see one single reason why I stopped reading as much as I used to. When I was single I still read. It may not have been as much as in High School or College let’s say, however I did it. When I got married there was even less reading. I think the reasons then were that there was less time to sit and focus on a book. Especially when I would get into a good book and stay up very very late to read. Not something I could do with small children and feel good in the morning. Funny enough it is something my wife has done.

I have been maintaining a pretty big list of things I want to read. In the past two or three years I have started reading a bit more than I had been in the presiding 8-10 years. Interestingly as I started reading more I found it difficult to physically do it. I turned to e-books more and increase the font size. Around the same time turns out I needed progressive lenses. Small type was never my friend however it became more of an enemy in recent history.

I have known about audiobooks for ages. As a kid we even had a free tape recorder for books on tape because of my vision challenges. Back then I just decided to read instead of listen. Until very recently I think my parents had the take recorder they got for free from some service As an adult I have heard many people talk positively of audiobooks however I never really paid it munch attention.

For several years I have known I need to avoid the news. I went back to my blog archive and apparently I have been avoiding watching the news since at least 2005. I have been trying to actively avoid reading it completely since the summer of 2018. Every productivity and mindfulness person that I have read talks about how the news is not good if it doesn’t make you happy. At the same time I continue to read about how using social media is bad for you. I have gone off and on for a while not reading the news. I will go a few months and then fall back into old habits. Less so with social media. I have all but cut out Facebook and don’t really use many other ones.

Earlier this year, around January I decided that one way to help me cut out looking at mainstream news would be to read more long form books. I think the inspiration to try audiobooks instead of a regular book on my phone or tablet was that I was commuting on the tube and listening would be much easier. With that in mind I signed up for trial subscription with Audible.

Since signing up from Audible the amount of books I have read this year is more than the last 5 to 10 combined. Listening to books has been very transformative for me. I have not even wanted to read mainstream news as much and I am engrossed in books for 8 to 10 or 20 hours per book. I did relapse to the news after the US election through Christmas. At the time I am editing this post I am back to actively avoiding the news.

I have read so many interesting books that I would like to write brief reviews for some of the stuff I have read. It has been a mix of Sci-Fi, Fiction, & Non-fiction. I started almost about a year ago so I have a lot to catch up on.

Am I Missing America or Just Hungry?

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It has been 3 years and change since I moved to England. Other than missing family there really hasn’t been many things I have missed or longed for. Now sadly there finally is something. Apparently you can get Girl Scout cookies delivered by Grubhub. I saw this on Lifehacker. I cannot get Girl Scout Cookies in the UK at all. Even though both of my girls are in Girl Guides. They do not do anything similar.

Two years ago we had our sister in law bring us over some. It was glorious. In 2020 we did not get the opportunity. We should have planned better and brought back cookies when we were in Florida in February. Such a fail on my part. Having cookies delivered like take away would be brilliant right about now.

The Story of 3 Years in England

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airport display boards

Today mark’s the milestone of our family’s arrival to London. As with most anniversary in some ways it is feels that so much time has passed. Yet another is it feels like it was so recent. I have many vivid memories of the day we travelled. Actually I remember vividly parts of the day before and the few days after our trip. So much to remember that I hope I journaled enough of it.

So much has changed in the three years we’ve been here. And as cliché as it is to say much has not. One thing is for certain I am still enjoying living in London as much as I was excited to be moving here on this day three years ago.

I sometimes cannot believe that I’m living in another country. It happens every so often when I take a step back from the day-to-day. I realise wow I’m living in a completely different culture. Usually that is followed by “cool” in my head.

There is likely so much more I could write however I want to keep this post brief. I think what sum’s everything up isthree years in and were still happy to be here and look forward to the next three or however many more…

W Sisters on Halloween Well Sort Of

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I was reminded at dinner tonight that Christmas Eve or more specifically 24 December is Rainbow’s birthday. It is not widely known rainbow is another name for T’s lovie money also know as Dee Dee. I think originally rainbow’s birthday was on Christmas however that date got changed recently.

What did not know until today dinner was that 24 December is also Halloween from stuffed animals. I know that fact about stuffed animal Halloween is not widely known since I had I known about it nor had anyone mentioned it to me until now. It was widely known I am not sure why no one decided to tell me until today.

If the stuffed animal community was trying to keep this day on the download and I apologise for publicising it on this blog. I am a positive for them not sure how many people actually read this.

To Keep or Cancel the Apple Card

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When I moved my Apple ID to the United Kingdom I was prepared for the fact that Apple Cash as well as my Apple Card would stop working, or need to be canceled. I know that the Apple Card was only available to those in the US. I remember when I tried to sign up for it using my US Apple ID and the region on my phone was set to the UK it did not even work. I assumed then that the card would simply either not work or I would get forced to cancel it after switching my entire ID to be associated to the UK.

Knowing that I would likely run into issues I figured I’d be proactive and simply call to cancel the card before it became a sort of challenge. One afternoon right after switching my Apple ID to the UK I called Apple. I spent about 30 minutes on hold. Then I spoke to someone and got bounced around from person to person. Finally got someone that said they could actually help me. It turns out they themselves could not help me since in order to cancel an Apple Card a Goldman Sachs supervisor needs to do it. So I spent some more time on hold. In the end it was their own customer service representatives asking me if I wanted to keep the card. They knew that I had moved to the UK. I was confused however they said as long as I had any address I could use in the US, I can keep the card. They asked me if I had any families address? They said the only real reason I needed a US address is in case I need a replacement card or statements sent to me in an emergency. We still have plenty of friends and family in the states that will be happy to do that for us. I decided to just keep the card if that was the company issue I got its attitude. I decided to continue using the address I previously given Apple/Goldman and make no change.

I was surprised that Apple (Goldman) prodding me to keep the card. It did feel like they were pushing me to avoid canceling. It wasn’t very forceful however under the circumstances I thought it was a no-brainer that they would want me not to have the card. Retrospectively a friend suggested that in the current climate of Covid-19 they probably want to keep as many cards that are in good standing as possible. And I was in good standing.

I then thought maybe there’d be some weird technical issue with using or having the card on my phone. I had already removed it from my iPhone before I called. I then tried to add the card back to my iPhone and I was surprised when there was absolutely no issue in doing so.

I thought the byproduct of moving my Apple ID to the UK would be losing this Apple card however for now it’s business as usual with it. I assumed the same would be apparent for Apple Cash. I am pleased with the outcome even though I’m not sure what systems have interdependencies where they will flag an anomaly with my setup.

W Sisters and The Story of Not Even The Best of What’s Available Bagels

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When is school started again this September the girls extra-curricular activity routine changed a bit. They previously had gymnastics on Friday’s. The Gymnastics place could not use the same venue due to new guidelines. The requirements to do swim seemed kind of ridiculous so we stopped that on Saturdays. In the end our new routine became a Saturday morning gymnastics class with the same people at a different venue. For now we had to give up on swim.

On her first outing at the new gymnastics location M found a little bakery that sold bagels and Challah bread. The girls ate the bagels on the walk back to the bus. The venue was about 15 minute walk to and from any public transportation so to keep the girls motivated and distracted bagels were a great idea. The girls then had Challah toast and sandwitches for several days that week.

When it was my turn to take the girls I found the same bakery and following the same routine. The girls gave instructions that they bagels. After a 15 minute walk in the rain to a small bakery that was packed and the only place I could sit and have coffee while the girls were in gymnastics was outside in the rain I decided that routine was not for me. The next time i took the girls i found a Costa coffee that was closer and had plenty of inside seating that was socially distanced.

For M she continued the routine since the girls loved the bagels. I should point out that these were relatively small bagels. They were plain. And I doubt any native New Yorker would consider then any good. Sadly the girls loved them.

My routine instead was to take the girls out for breakfast. I may have written about my routine with them when we had drama class on Saturday mornings. I did the same thing then. The girls were happy enough for their pancakes sausage and eggs along with orange juice to forgo bagels when I took them.

When the new lockdown happened in early November we weren’t sure if gymnastics would be cancelled. It turns out in person gymnastics was cancelled. They did offer zoom classes around the same time in person class would have been. For the first session we moved our coffee table out of the living room and the girls had a decent amount of carpeted space to do their workout. Since we were not out and about to go to the bakery I thought to go to Sainsbury’s for a few things. They had the bagels pictured so I decided to pick up a bag. Just looking at the bag it is apparent they are not New York bagels regardless of what the label says. M correctly points out these bagels look more like the frozen lenders bagels from our childhood. Nevertheless I got a bag and took them home with some cream cheese or as they call it in the UK “soft.cheese”. The girls were super happy for the surprise.

This weekend after the girls gymnastics in the living room I told M I was going to go back to Sainsbury’s to get bagels. She said why doesnt she just make pancakes. My reply was the effort to get bagels is pretty easy compaired to making pancakes however if she wanted to make pancakes she could feel free to do so. I did not mind the walk. She agreed bagels it was. I don’t realise it was pouring out so I opted to go to the local Co-op that is significantly closer to the house. I really did not want to track all the way to Sainsbury’s in the rain. Yet again the girls were very happy and had two bagels each.

Whenever we get to visit New York again we intend to take them to our favourite big place in Forest Hills again. They remember it however I am not sure if they will appreciate remember how much better the bagels taste than they do now.

Switching My Apple ID (Finally) to The UK

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In early June I finally decided to address an annoyance I had since I moved to London. I took my Apple ID I used in the US and ported it over to the UK. The final straw for me was that I wanted to try out Apple Music (again). Since when I tried it out originally and now they decided to play nice with Amazon Echo’s. That was one of the big reasons not to sue the service. Then I remembered I could not use Apple music the way I wanted to if I switched between Apple IDs to download stuff. Previously I have had to switch between my US and UK accounts on my IOS devices. Lots of things I have were tied to what was my US account. I did not want to use it for new stuff since I wanted to be using UK app store. Every time you switch App Stores on IOS I would lose my downloaded music if I was not logged into the store and had my Apple music account tied to it. That was one of the major drivers for switching to Spotify in the first place.

The hold up for me switching was I had subscriptions that according to Apple’s knowledge base I needed to wait to cancel before I could move. I also wasn’t sure what was really going to happen to all my stuff. After using the UK store more I was pretty confident but not 100% the most of what I had would be working fine. I just was not sure what was going to happen to my photos and I cloud when I switched over.

Since the longest subscription I had wasn’t expiring until next February I decided to call Apple and see if there was anything I could do. After speaking to one person I got escalated to someone else. She asked me to just switching countries to see the error I would get. When I called I was planning on just asking some questions and have the conversation be a mainly academic one. I figured it would be information gathering. On some level I was not ready to pull the trigger. Talking to the lady on the phone gave me some confidence so I took a leap of faith and tried to make the switch. There were one or two challenges that she addressed however surprisingly within 30 minutes my account was moved over to the UK app store.

Prior to the move I had to break my family share with M. Setting that back up and confirming everything had moved was pretty straightforward and didn’t take anywhere near as long as I thought it would.

The only hiccup I had was some odd errors on my iPhone related Apple music that didn’t exist on any other device. A day or two later or reboot or two later the issue is fixed. I’m not sure really what resolve the problem.

My iCloud data and photos seem to have seamlessly moved over. I spot checked one or two applications I purchased and they also seem to be working just fine. I haven’t bought media from the Apple store and I do not know how long so I am not that worried about any of that not working. I have long since been buying music from the Amazon MP3 store when I bought music. Now I mainly use spotify or other streaming services. I never really did download many TV shows or movies and what we have was for when the girls were much younger so I’m not worried if some of it’s not available.

I know at some point many months from now there’s going to be some gotcha that I didn’t realize until then. For now I was impressed with how seamless the switch was. Many of the reviews online talked about horrific experiences making the change. I am only assuming that in recent years Apple made it easier to do this.

The next thing I have to address is that I still have another UK Apple ID where I have a subscription. I have one software subscription tied to it. I get a good deal on it having previously bought the app before they went to s subscription model. I am not sure how to transfer that over to my main Apple ID. Of course I’m not sure if it matters that separate other than it being a moderate nuisance.

I also have to set up a new US Apple ID in case there is one or two things that I cannot get in the UK app store. There already is one free app that annoyingly is not available. That’s a minor inconvenience though. All in all one major technical debt issue I had from moving to England is now solved. It only took me 2 1/2 years to have the courage to try it.

Things I learned in England Roundabouts Are Good Not Weird

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It’s funny how perspective changes when you move to a new location. The roundabout (aka to americans traffic circles) used to be one of these weird anomalies that I never understood. Why in the world did they exist? In the two years I have lived in England I have also spent time driving around Ireland on holiday. I have a newfound respect for the roundabout, a.k.a. the traffic circle.

They can be a bit scary however the fact that you don’t need traffic light is pretty awesome. The bigger the exchange the bigger the circle is. In some remote roads I’ve seen traffic circles basically be this small post in the road, large enough just to have people drive around it. No need for a stop sign. Now that I’m living in Europe I wonder why it’s looked upon so oddly in the United States. I only know of a handful of them in the states yet in theory it makes perfect sense to have a lot of them. I guess I am slowly assimlating.

The Story of Our Experience With British Airways

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In February we took a cruise to the Caribbean. It required us to fly from London to Tampa so we could goto Port Canaveral in Florida to get on the boat. We were meeting up with M’s parents. Since we wanted to go to Tampa and not the more popular nearby Orlando international Airport we had limited flight options. The only direct flight from any London airport to Tampa was British Airways out of Gatwick. Anything else would require us to transfer.

Since we moved to London in all of our personal travel to the states we have flown either Virgin Atlantic or Norwegian Airways. This was our first trip as a family on British Airways. I have flow BA before however I can only recall doing so in Business Class. Before we even got on the plane I had a major issue with using BA. There was no way to book a seat ahead of time in regular economy without spending extra money. If you wanted their low-end tickets you would not be able to pick a seat at all. Their standard economy tickets let you pick seats only when you checked in 24 hours ahead of time. As a family with two relatively small kids that’s not good enough. We need the ability to know we are together when we book our tickets. What good is it to be able to select your seats when you may not have been fast enough on the day to get 4 together.

That limitations not only required us to purchase the standard economy tickets. We also had to pay extra per person to pick her seats when I booked the tickets. Both together added several hundred pounds to the ticket price. Virgin Atlantic had no such restriction. If we bought their standard economy ticket I was able to book a seat. The same goes for Norwegian airlines and they are considered a low-cost carrier. This penny/pence pinching is very annoying. All other things being equal I won’t pick British Airways over Virgin, Delta, Norwegian in the future if I can help it. Business practices do matter people.

If that wasn’t enough their entire online check in process had left a lot to be desired. For both legs of the trip we were required to go to the ticket counter to input additional information. This isn’t the first time we as a family have flown internationally. We’ve never had to do this before however when queried we were told that something about our passports required us to see an agent. I just don’t believe that since we’ve done at least three other roundtrips to the states with no issues. In practice the lines weren’t too bad and on the way home they confirmed my TSA Pre was on my ticket so it worked out. It was simply not a seemless experience. The reason I bring it up is the oddity of because of that glitch we were checked into our flight with no boarding passes. I don’t know if that’s a thing for just British Airways or if airlines are now “checking you in” if you don’t even have a boarding pass. Are you really checked in?

What is funny to me is that the actual inflight service was pretty good. M pointed out the good service also. That does not change that before rhe flight even started I went into it with the negative thought in my head because of the extra cost of the seats. I appreciated the good service in the air. All things equal its not enough for me to choose BA again based on my purchase experience. Since I am not a frequent flyer with them it really doesn’t matter to them anyway! As always it does feel a bit theraputic to write about it though.

Photo shown is not the plane we flew on. That is a 747 I flew on going home from London when living in NY and we flew on something less spectacular that that for this trip.