Free Wallpaper

Too Hot

Homemade Pizza Pic

Fun Bike Ride

I Give Up

I tried for so long to only game on the Mac. And, it is possible. There are some great games on the Mac. But, so many games are never ported, or are ported badly. Many others that used to work, no longer work, due to the 64 bit transition.

So I bought an Alienware R8 with a 2070 Super. It's not top of the line, but it can play games. I won't be using it for much more than that.

I'm really curious to see what happens with Apples transition to Arm based Apple Silicon. But, for now I'll be doing most of my gaming on a PC again.

Anniversary Disney Trip

We celebrated our 25th Anniversary this June. We decided last year to go to Walt Disney World multiple times this year. One of these trips being for our Anniversary. We were worried about going in during the summer due to the crowd levels and heat, but this was a once in a lifetime event.

We normally do a moderate amount of planning for our WDW trips. Decide on a rough schedule up front, reserve dinner reservations, and fast passes for our favorite or hard to get rides. We have also gotten into the habbit of always going for almost a whole week - Saturday to Friday. It takes us about 8.5 hours to drive there and back. You can use extra magic hours and crowd levels to determine where you want to go on each day of a trip. We almost always plan on one day for Animal Kingdom, one day for Hollywood Studios, 1-2 trips to Epcot, and 2-3 times at Magic Kingdom. We always have either a Season Pass or Park Hopper so we can jump parks and change plans if we want to. We also try to plan on a whole day or multiple half days for resort resting. Taking a break can make things much more relaxing and less stressful on your body.

The schedule for this trip ended up like this:

• Day 1
  • Drive to WDW
    • Staying at Port Orleans Riverside
  • Magic Kingdom
  • Dinner at Skippers Canteen

• Day 2
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Disney Springs for Lunch and shopping
    • Lunch: Frontera
  • Animal Kingdom
    • Fast Pass for Everest changed to Safari due to rain
    • Fast Pass for Flight of Passage
  • Animal Kingdom Lodge / Kidani Village Resort
    • Dinner: Sanaa

• Day 3
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Magic Kingdom
    • Fast Pass: Big Thunder Mountain
    • Fast Pass: Haunted Mansion
    • Fast Pass: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
  • Lunch:
  • Back to Resort
  • Contemporary
    • Dinner: California Grill

• Day 4

  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Epcot
    • Lunch: Fish and Chips
  • Hollywood Studios
    • Fast Pass: Tower of Terror
    • Fast Pass: Slinky Dog
    • Dinner: Hollywood Brown Derby
      

      

      

      

      

      

• Day 5

  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Lunch: Resort
  • Magic Kingdom
    • Fast Pass: Space Ranger Spin
    • Dinner: Be our Guest
    • Fast Pass: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

• Day 6
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Disney Springs
    • Lunch: D-Luxe Burger
  • Epcot
    • Dinner: Nine Dragons
    • Fast Pass: Frozen

• Day 7
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Drive Home

Good:

• Fun vacation with my Best Friend.
• Off the diet for a week and only gained 5 lbs.
• Many days weren't nearly as crowded as we expected.

Bad:

• New smoking areas are outside the park, so we always smell smoke when entering the parks now.
  • Saw multiple people sneaking smoking and vaping in the parks. :(
• Very rainy trip. Most days the storms kept it from getting too hot.
• Last full day was hot hot hot.

Fun to Learn

I haven't been keeping up with the latest changes to Swift and the iOS. This has been keeping me from updating existing apps on the store. I have also wanted to update and bring some of my old apps back. I have a few ideas for new apps that I would like to create as well. So, I have been spending a bunch of time working on improving my iOS development skills, and getting up to speed on the current state of iOS development.

Wow, things have come along way. I was never a big fan of Objective C. It has some great features that really helped, but it always felt old and cumbersome to me. Swift seemed like the future right from the beginning. It feels like a modern language to me. The new versions of Swift have improved and evolved the language in wonderful ways. Perhaps more importantly, I enjoy writing code in Swift.

I have been using a Paul Hudson's Hacking With Swift site to get back up to speed. I think his teaching style and pragmatic approach is very compatible with my own coding preferences. He has a large number of guided videos on YouTube that are great when combined with the content on his site and in his books. He also does an amazing job at updating everything for the latest language updates.

DispatchQueue.global().async {
	do {
		let data = try Data(contentsOf: url)
		let downloadedData = try self.decode(type, from: data)
		DispatchQueue.main.async {
			completion(downloadedData)
		}
	} catch {
		print(error.localizedDescription)
	}
}

I have headed down this path before. What makes it different this time?

Honestly I don't know, but it feels different. I feel more committed to getting something new released this time. But, only time will tell. Will I stick with it, and dedicate my free time to it? I intend too, and I hope I do. There is nothing like the feeling of setting a difficult goal for your self and reaching it.

More Trike Stuff

I finally got the trike a little more out of the way in the garage. My poor wife has had to move the trike out of the way and then back in to the garage, every time she pulled the car out.

I still really love riding my trike. But, I've recently been spending a bunch of time looking at some other models that have better gearing and a few other enticing features.

Current top contenders:

• Trident Trekker
• Ice Sprint X
• HPVelotechnik Scorpion fs26

I really need to stop by Trident Trikes next time we are near Asheboro.

Disney World Birthday Trip

Trying to catch up on posts I should have already completed.

We went to Disney World for my Birthday this year. It was great, as always. We are going more times this year than we ever have. Having a season pass really encourages multiple trips.

This was also the longest trip we have ever taken with our Tesla. It made the drive longer than it normally is, but it was also more comfortable than normal. We stopped at 4 super chargers there and back. The Tesla charging network makes owning an electric vehicle easy for trips like this.

It really helped staying at Fort Wilderness. The cabin only had a 110v outlet, but that was enough to charge the car back to full in a couple of days.

We try to go to the Magic Kingdom a couple of times during our trips.

This was our first time riding Splash Mountain. We usually skip it, because we don't want to be wet the whole day. But, it was raining anyway and the lines were more reasonable than normal. Of course it was fun.

We got lucky and saw Kevin at Animal Kingdom. This was one of the first times she was wandering the park.

I'm always so impressed with the level of theming here. My photos never really do it justice.

We are already planning for a couple more trips this year. Can't wait.

3rd Gen iPad Pro

Apple just released several great updates to existing products. The most significant update was to the iPad Pro. I have been a huge fan of the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil since the first version was released. This update has refined and improved the iPad Pro in almost every way.

Specs

• 11 inch, and 12.9 inch screens
• Both available in silver and space gray
• Sizes for both in 64GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB
• Improved speakers and microphones
• Home Button replaced by Face ID camera system
• Not a feature but worth mentioning: Headphone jack removed due to reduced thickness.
• USB-C connector replaces Lightning conector
• 18W power brick included
• A12X 64-bit processor
• Improved cameras

What I ordered

I got the 12.9 inch, space gray, 256GB LTE iPad Pro. This is the first time I have paid extra for the LTE option, and I only plan on using it when I need extra conectivity. I wanted to get more storage this time, but I could not justify the added price for it. I was already ok with the larger iPad Pro, but this generation physical size actually got smaller while keeping the same screen size. It feels perfect now.

I also got the new Apple Pencil, which charges wirelessly while connected to the iPad case via magnets. The pencil is a little smaller. It has a new double tap feature for tool selection in apps that support it. Also, there is no longer a cap to lose. Pairing is done wirelessly when the pencil is connected to the side of the iPad.

I once again got the Smart Keyboard. Its a little better this time around, but still not perfect.

Pros

• This is a nearly perfect device. It feels great, it looks great, I love using this device.
• The pencil is always charged and I don't have to worry about losing the cap.
• Application updates are rolling out with support for the pencil double tap.
• This thing sounds amazing, not as good as the HomePod, or a real stereo system. But, for travel this will be a great way to play music.
• iOS keeps getting better.
• How fast is this thing, It handles everything with ease.
• With USB-C the dongles I already purchased for my Macbook Pro can now be used with the iPad as well.

Cons

• This is an expensive luxury item. I wish it was cheaper. I would have bought more storage if it was cheaper.
• Why does it come with the short USB-C cable. They sell a longer cable, it needs the longer cable.
• No headphone jack is a bummer, but understandable. I can't remember the last time I plugged headphones in to my iPad.
• iPad does not support external storage connected via USB-C. There are apps that can do this, but this should be supported by the OS directly. I'll be shocked if this is not in the next version of iOS.
• I should be able to develop iOS apps on iOS. The OS upgrades that are needed to support this take iOS from a Mac companion to a Mac replacement.
• No mouse and trackpad support. I need a cursor sometimes.
• The Apple Smart keyboard does not have media keys. I want the standard set of keys.