Monthly Archives: March 2014

Apple, did you REALLY do that?

Thoughts

It’s been a frustrating week. Nance’s phone switch to Android looked like it had failed because she stopped receiving texts from other networks. We figured that it was either a bug in her phone or a bad port of the number. And then we discovered that in fact, it wasn’t ANY other-network phone that she was dropping texts from, it was ONLY iPhones. Huh.

Turns out Apple did something unbelievably evil. When you have an iPhone, your phone will now use iMessage instead of a real SMS to talk to other people if it thinks it can, even if you enter a number. The problem is when you get rid of your iPhone, you don’t *necessarily* get rid of the link from your phone number to iMessage. Net result: everyone who has an iPhone thinks they are texting you, but in fact the messages silently fail.

Once we figured this out, we called support; yes, they said, they could delete the number. 2 hours. No worries. Nope, 2 hours later, it was still broken. Called again. Did we say 2 hours, we meant 24. Nope. 36 hours later, the answer was give it more time.

Net result: this is Apple’s bad decision. By “breaking” SMS and moving it to their own protocol, the company added a tricky and largely undocumented step in getting moved to a new phone. Talk about lock in. What’s worse, it’s easy to blame the new carrier or phone, when in fact it is working perfectly. Crossing my fingers we’ll actually get this fixed one of these days.

Mood: frustrated.

Good Morning!

Thoughts

sunrise_cellphone

 

There’s an old expression that the best camera is the one you have with you, and honestly, that feels a bit lame. After all, I carry around a slightly battered Nexus 4 most of the time – a phone that has been panned for its lack of a decent camera.

Well. I’m full of it. One sunrise, taken with my cellphone.

Life is all about grabbing moments like this. I sometimes think that our pocket cameras rob us of the moment though. I don’t need to see the sunrise on my little glass screen when I can sit and watch it, almost FEEL the photons whamming in to in real time. I clicked my one shot, and then just absorbed the morning. Aah, morning.

I’ve seen too many sunrises of late. No matter how hard I work, things always seem to be just a tiny bit out of my grasp. More focus is required; I’m working on it!

Beautiful

Thoughts, Uncategorized

night_sky

Nights here in Florida can be absolutely spectacular. Last night, Nance and I decided, after a pretty hectic and stressful day, that sneaking off to the beach and watching the moon rise would be a good way to spend (rather than pass) time, and we were rewarded with this picture. 30′ on f3.5 if I recall, prior to the moon coming up.

Seeing the moon rise is always quite magical. It was late by my clock (I suspect it more likely my clock was wrong 🙂 but you never know), and the sky slowly lit up in the most unbelievable colors. We walked back home happy, cobwebs blown from our minds, and the dust of the day scattered to the winds. Beautiful.

Not Broken…

Uncategorized

I thought I had broken my poor little camera, and I was distressed. I even took it to a shop, who told me that this one was trashed and I should get a new one… so I decided to take it apart. I mean, it’s dead, right? So I used to love pulling things apart as a kid, so why not see how it works. I had no intent or even desire to fix it (it’s electronics… when it breaks, you buy a BETTER version!!!), but as I looked about for how you actually dismantle a Nikon, I found a nice article on exactly the problem I was having, and Voila! One repaired camera, fixed with a screwdriver and a little gentle twisting.

Our disposable society has become, to me, a bit frustrating. I like fixing things. I like being able to go hands on and fiddle. Lesson learned, I guess: don’t accept failure quite so easily because if you’re a really careful and good boy, things like this happen:

sunrise_broken_camera

Now that’s worth it 🙂

Fear of Flying

Flying
Papa Victor sitting on the ramp in Vero
Papa Victor sitting on the ramp in Vero

I always smile when I fly. There’s something magical about just cruising along at a couple of thousand feet. Despite the fact that there’s some (limited) danger involved, the feel isdifficult to describe. It’s just peaceful but exhilarating at the same time.

Last night, I finally managed to slip away from work and go fly a plane. It’s a simple thing, really, because I have the best friends in the world, and so there’s always plenty of aircraft and experienced pilots around. The trick is, of course, time. Work is unending, and there’s always more of it to do. At some point, though, you realize this, and you do the best you can, but fit in a few little things for you.

Yesterday’s flight was interesting because Dan wanted me to help him copilot a Cessna 182 that had just had a new autopilot installed. While we worked the systems, I could keep an eye on traffic. So, we flew Victor Mike down to Vero, carried out a careful preflight, and whoosh… back up into the sky. What a girl! We did find a few little problems, but nothing major and so we got into the business of ferrying the aircraft back.

The flight back was delightful. It was near sunset, and the winds were manageable but tricky – 020 12G15. When I was flying a lot, that wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest, but, after flying the RNAV 09L, I managed to land (horribly), over-controlling, but making a safe touchdown without too much of a thud. The rollout was fine, and I made the first exit from the runway, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.

I think tension is the trick; when I am tense, I over-control, and when you over-control, you definitely get more tense as the plane hopscotches around. Like always, I guess it’s just time, right? Every problem in life seems to come down to simply time; how we spend it, how we waste it, how we pass it. The more I fly, the better I’ll do. I love it. Peeking out the window, I want to go right now.