The thing that makes me nervous about Apple’s Journal app is that there’s no apparent way to get the stuff you put in there, out. I’m sure I’m missing something, but from the app itself, it’s definitely not obvious. Are the moments you record available in other apps that can ask to connect?
-
The thing that makes me nervous about Apple’s Journal app is that there’s no apparent way to get the stuff you put in there, out. I’m sure I’m missing something, but from the app itself, it’s definitely not obvious. Are the moments you record available in other apps that can ask to connect?
-
I realized recently that 2024 marks 20 years since I got my Gmail account. It was invite-only back then and I broke Google policy by buying an invite off eBay for something like $15. I can’t even fathom how many emails I’ve sent/received, or services I’ve signed up for with it.
-
Long Distance Family
Before the holidays, I had my first phone conversation with a distant cousin I connected with on one of those genetic testing sites. I don’t make it a habit of reaching out to complete strangers with loose genetic ties, but I had been looking for Italian family on my father’s side in the United States and he had the same surname as my my paternal grandmother before she got married. I didn’t have a relationship with my father, so I didn’t have the benefit of having direct family introductions. So I sent him off a message and we’ve been connected for a few years now.
William lives down in the Berkley area, so it’s nice we’re in the same time zone. He’s in his 60s, has been married for many years, and has kids and grandkids. Our connection is that his grandfather was siblings with my great grandmother Louisa. My great grandmother’s parents moved to Iron, Wisconsin from Italy for a better life and there were a lot of mining jobs there and in Michigan’s upper peninsula in the early 1900s. That’s how one side of my Italian family got here.
Anyway, I spoke to William on the phone and we talked about his trips to Italy that I’d seen him posting about on Facebook. He’d posted some photos about his trips to the Dolomites (3 times per year!) where our Italian family is from. We exchanged a few messages and he decided to just call me up on Facebook Messenger instead of typing it all out. It was nice to have a real conversation with someone I’ve never met in real life but for whom I’ve grown to appreciate from afar.
He knew that me and my wife were planning a trip to Italy in late spring, so he wanted to give me tips. I told him of our tentative plans and he guided us to some better decisions, even connecting us with a personal friend and mutual family in Cadore. Two sides of my family are from Vigo di Cadore, and he gave me the details of a great Air BnB the next town over.
I took a sneak peak of the town on Google Street View and the walls of mountains surrounding that area are both majestic and intimidating. The town is Lorenzago di Cadore and I think we’re going to book the apartment this week.
The way Italian citizenship works through the Jure Sanguinis (citizenship by descent) is that if you weren’t born there you have to register in the comune (town) of your last Italian ancestor, so I’m registered up in Vigo di Cadore, right next door. From family records, I have the address of the place where my great grandparents lived and the cemetery where they’re buried. Although they emigrated to the U.S., they ultimately didn’t end up liking it here and moved back!
I’m excited to finally get to visit the area. We are lucky to have my parents watching the kids for us while we’re away for 10 days, which will be strange for sure, but this will be our first vacation alone of any length in 5 years since having our son. We love to hike and are really looking forward to some mid-elevation hikes in the Dolomites for a few days before we head south. I hear the people are nice and welcoming, and the family I still have there sound excited to meet distant family who were descended from the Italian diaspora of the early 20th Century.
Things are feeling more real and I’m looking forward to my first international adventure since 2007. Hopefully many more to come.
-
Spending half my time on Micro.blog unfollowing mastodon accounts.
And won’t ever be able to get my Micro.blog followers back here that I migrated away.
Wish I would’ve known the implications of my migrations before I made those decisions. Follower management is not good.
-
A quote I’ve always remembered from an old coworker:
With average effort comes average results. With extraordinary effort comes extraordinary results. -
This week, we started going back to 100% analog books at bedtime for the boy and I feel good about it. He’s almost 5, and we’ve read to him nearly every night of his life since before he was able to understand what was going on.
It started out as 3-4 children’s books. We ran out of material after a while, so Libby (library app) and Amazon Kids+ filled in the gaps. But over the last 6 months or so, he’s been wanting more and more to watch books read from content creators on YouTube. We’d still read him a book or two, but then allow him to watch books being read on YouTube Kids.
The great thing is, he somewhat surprisingly didn’t complain when we cut out the iPad. It seemed pretty harmless, but we agreed it was basically too much like watching cartoons. The readers often have too much commentary, or act out the characters in the books. He also wasn’t getting as much explanation or oversight. It took away the fundamental purpose of reading.
His preschool teachers say he’s ahead of where he should be, doing work of kindergartners and a little bit of first grade work. We don’t push him too hard on the learning to read and write, but I want to make sure he stays interested and engaged. It will come.
Tonight I read him four books, two of which were longer. I spent more time asking him questions and sounding out some of the words, all the while pointing to each word as I read them. He was really interested, and asked a lot of questions about the meanings of words. It was just nice to have more one on one closeness with him.
-
Currently reading: [The Kid Stays in the Picture](https://micro.blog/books/9781597775250) by Robert Evans 📚
-
Working from home today and my dog keeps bugging me to go for a walk. It’s pretty cold and wet outside and I just want to stay warm and dry in my hoodie. I’ll probably relent, but I wish we had an indoor dog park nearby on days like today.
-
Getting back into RSS feeds after discovering NetNewsWire. Reading the developers’ [blog post](https://inessential.com/2023/12/17/on_mastodon_support_in_netnewswire), Brent Simmons responds to questions about whether the app should support Mastodon. Personally, I’d be happy with just the ability to sign in and comment directly on articles that implement ActivityPub.
-
At brunch this morning:
“What did you get, dad?”
“Biscuits and gravy.”
“But where are the biscuits?”
“Oh, they’re in there. Somewhere.”
-
Decluttered a bit this past weekend after Christmas filled our house with too many things. On the highest shelf of my bedroom closet is where I’ve kept my brother’s ashes for almost 3 years. I can’t bring myself to part with them, but my heart keeps telling me they deserve to be somewhere else.
-
Happy New Year to all. Wishing you inspiration in 2024.
-
Best thing about west coast New Year’s Eve is celebrating at 9 p.m.!
-
Spotted my first Amazon branded Rivian EDV while out and about running errands in the Portland area. I think they’re kind of cute.
-
Pretty excited about VPN now being on Apple TV. Big fan of Channels DVR for watching Italian IPTV channels for language learning, but so many are geo blocked.
-
Started The Creator last night and had to finish it this morning. Great movie, but it might be a sign I’m getting older when I can hardly finish a movie in one sitting 🤣 🍿
-
The battery died on my wife’s key fob for the van, so instead of just replacing the battery she…swapped her key fob for mine. Classic wife move!
-
Not sure why I’m surprised by the language being used by all sorts of young kids at the neighborhood park, but I am. I need to check my inner grumpy old man in those moments to counter the urge to scold them while they’re cursing like sailors in front of my little ones.
-
I never know the right way to pronounce ‘dachshund’.
-
I just learned our IT dept finally added Power Automate to our enterprise 365 subscription. I asked for access to this for two years in hopes of making my last job more sane considering the vast amount of form work I did. No idea how this could be useful in my new position yet. Anyone use it?
-
According to Portland Nursery, there are only 48 days (Feb 15) until the ideal time for seeding tomatoes and peppers indoors.
OSU says the last chance of frost is May 31, and to count backwards 8 weeks (March 31). That’s a pretty wide spread.
-
To make living itself an art, that is the goal.
-
Still one of my favorite scenes that ever chose me
-
My personalized stations on Apple Music have been so strange since they started including starred songs. I was diligent about starring things way back in the day but then fell off. Suddenly, songs I starred over a decade ago are making their way into my mixes. They are dredging up memories of past lives.