June 2016 home screen

Darn tasks undone… 

I like to track my home screen changes over time. I’ve been trying to get shots on the first of every month to understand how my priorities change, what things are important to me or deist reacting me.

What does my home screen mean to me?

The home screen on my phone is my portal to tracking and minor productivity. I desire to minimize distraction - games, notifications, even icons - so I have less cognitive friction to do something useful.

For example, only the following apps are allowed badges:

• OmniFocus
• Messages
• App Store
• Settings
• Unibox

I have some other notifications set up but they all funnel through my Watch - messages, VIP emails, calendar events. Nothing else.

The idea is that, if I want my attention drawn, I want it drawn to helpful things on my phone. So that’s app updates and tasks due today.

What has changed?

I removed one of the virtue tracker app/workflows - Rest. I wasn’t using it and didn’t care so: gone. The others I’m not super consistent but I just reworked them to require fewer steps to get actually more information.

I ditched MyFitnessPal and I’m thinking about getting it back. I tried 4? Maybe 5? calorie trackers in May and precisely 1 did what I wanted but it had The Worst Interface and food database of any I’ve tried.

I just want a tracker that can show via a badge how many carbs I’ve eaten in a day. Apparently I am the only one on Earth that does.

Distraction

I added FB back. Ehhh….

I deleted Neko Atsume.

I added LinkedIn for a few things in working on. (I really dislike the app and service…)

IG forevahhhh.

Icons

So much open space man. So nice. So clean.

I’m considering adding some encouraging text to the bottom of the wallpaper since it’s so open. It’s kind of part of practicing daily gratitude, part just using space effectively.

I mean I have this huge phone. Why not do something with it?

Does this make me more productive?

Eh? I don’t do “useless” things as much but I also don’t regularly review my task list. I think I just dislike phones as a whole.

I’d rather carry my iPad and, say, mount it on my monitor to have my task list open constantly rather than carry a phone.

Maybe I just need to set regular task list check in times throughout the day…

  <img src="_image.jpg" alt="">

June 2016 home screen

Darn tasks undone… 

I like to track my home screen changes over time. I’ve been trying to get shots on the first of every month to understand how my priorities change, what things are important to me or deist reacting me.

What does my home screen mean to me?

The home screen on my phone is my portal to tracking and minor productivity. I desire to minimize distraction - games, notifications, even icons - so I have less cognitive friction to do something useful.

For example, only the following apps are allowed badges:

• OmniFocus
• Messages
• App Store
• Settings
• Unibox

I have some other notifications set up but they all funnel through my Watch - messages, VIP emails, calendar events. Nothing else.

The idea is that, if I want my attention drawn, I want it drawn to helpful things on my phone. So that’s app updates and tasks due today.

What has changed?

I removed one of the virtue tracker app/workflows - Rest. I wasn’t using it and didn’t care so: gone. The others I’m not super consistent but I just reworked them to require fewer steps to get actually more information.

I ditched MyFitnessPal and I’m thinking about getting it back. I tried 4? Maybe 5? calorie trackers in May and precisely 1 did what I wanted but it had The Worst Interface and food database of any I’ve tried.

I just want a tracker that can show via a badge how many carbs I’ve eaten in a day. Apparently I am the only one on Earth that does.

Distraction

I added FB back. Ehhh….

I deleted Neko Atsume.

I added LinkedIn for a few things in working on. (I really dislike the app and service…)

IG forevahhhh.

Icons

So much open space man. So nice. So clean.

I’m considering adding some encouraging text to the bottom of the wallpaper since it’s so open. It’s kind of part of practicing daily gratitude, part just using space effectively.

I mean I have this huge phone. Why not do something with it?

Does this make me more productive?

Eh? I don’t do “useless” things as much but I also don’t regularly review my task list. I think I just dislike phones as a whole.

I’d rather carry my iPad and, say, mount it on my monitor to have my task list open constantly rather than carry a phone.

Maybe I just need to set regular task list check in times throughout the day…

  <img src="_image.jpg" alt="">

Memorial Day 2016

We spent the weekend visiting family (my in-laws) in Okiboji, IA. This is the first time in memory that I’ve done anything which included celebrating the actual Memorial Day holiday.

It was poignant. Both MJ (Alyska’s mother) and I lost a parent this year and had someone to remember. The photos below are from the cemetery laying flowers at graves for family passed long ago and family not so long ago.

   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Bunches ">  Bunches  




   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Stone Petals ">  Stone Petals  




   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Planting (with apologies to MJ for the angle...) ">  Planting (with apologies to MJ for the angle...)  




   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Those Recent ">  Those Recent  

Prior to this, Alyska and I visited a very old family cemetery.

It was lovely being a part of this and capturing some photos for it. It’s the kind of thing everyone hates doing in the moment - I dislike taking photos as I desire not to disrupt things - but is nice to see after when you do get a few impactful shots.

My family never really celebrated Memorial Day. We are bad at holidays in general and we’ve not too many veterans in the family nor did we do much to remember past family. I think we’re more of a memento group. There were always artefacts from family in close proximity in the house - pictures, awards, etc - which translates to a sort of constant rememberance that dulls to mostalgia over time.

My Dad’s birthday was Sunday, he would have been 70, and I only sort of recognized it as I was spending time with still-new family. Aside from the little guilt (there’s always guilt) at realizing I didn’t mark it specifically (we’re bad at holidays). I did look through some of the hournaling I did in February while I was with Dad in his last days.

It’s still a little fresh for a full-on Memorial Day, I think, and the artefacts around the house are still above a dull roar. We’ll see how next year goes.

  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">

Olbrich in May

Alyska, Holly and I went to Olbrich last Saturday.

  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">

Olbrich had the Badger Bonsai Society out displaying their trees. It was delightful.

  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">




  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">

It was just a lovely day.

  <img src="_May+Market-6.jpg" alt="">




  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">




  <img src="_May+Market-8.jpg" alt="">

Holly really got into it.

Also: HATS

  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">

Happy Budai

Photo project themes are an organic, dynamic entity. They evolve as a photographer’s taste and eye and life change over days and months and years. You can kinda maybe sorta direct the flow of them but you end up with something Not Quite Right.

  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">

Budai is traditionally depicted as a fat, bald man wearing a robe and wearing or otherwise carrying prayer beads. He carries his few possessions in a cloth sack, being poor but content. His figure appears throughout Chinese culture as a representation of contentment.

According to Chinese history, Budai was an eccentric Chan monk (Chinese: 禅; pinyin: chán) who lived in China during the Later Liang (907–923). He was a native of Zhejiang and his Buddhist name was Qieci (Chinese: 契此; pinyin: qiècǐ; literally: “Promise this”).

Via wikipedia

  <img src="_img.jpg" alt="">

He was considered a man of good and loving character.

Nifty Houses (oh and also I’m learning Lightroom)

Cottage quaint

   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Modern chic ">  Modern chic  

I went to brunch with Barista Powers this past Sunday. As is my jam, I got up early and opted to go to the cafe attached to Metcalf’s 4 hours before brunch.

I mean, I’d been up for an hour, so.. yeah.

Our goal was to trade photo editing secrets. He wanted to steal my sweet golden shimmer (not that) and I wanted to consume his fabulous Lightroom thinkmeats. I’ve been meaning to convert to Lightroom since Apple dropped support for Aperture but the mental battlement it is to start anew, including the “what the shit do I do with the libraries?”, is kind of intimidating. Having someone walk me through the application as well as figure out how to recreate my visuals breaks down that wall.

So I been playing around with All The Sliders and I think I can get the split toning pretty well. The glow represented in these photos came via a preset subsequently tweaked to get the tone. As much as I think it worked here, presets aren’t consistent so I have to figure out the glow piece that doesn’t depend on all the preset junk.

Hopefully switching to Lightroom will help with some depth as well since I can edit the RAW files rather than the JPGs.

Also: cross processing works way better when I have full color control. Less color overlay look and more direct tonal range color shifting which is what cross processing actually is.

The two houses were in the neighborhood on the other side of Midvale from Hilldale. Two very different styles, both of which I find raher appealing.

   <img src="_Metcalf+Cafe+-+faceless.jpg" alt=" Faceless Cafe ">  Faceless Cafe  

PS: We went to The Great Dane for brunch.

If you’ve never been, you should.
SHOULD
(do it now!)