How do you come to terms with not being able to do everything, everywhere, all at once?

I enjoy taking photos. I’m fascinated with collecting rocks. I adore making memories with my children. I cherish taking in walks with my wife. And I forever strive to soak in small moments of solitude in the beautiful places I travel to. But how do I figure out which reasonable combination of these things to do at a given time?

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, one of our family goals this past year (and for next year) is to travel around Michigan. More specifically, travel around Michigan with the intention of walking along the beaches of the Great Lakes to collect various rocks and fossils, a hobby often referred to as rock hounding.

Something I struggle with though, not only during these adventures but other travels as well, is figuring out how to spend my time when we’re out and about. Realistically, I can only do one, maybe two tasks at a time. So, using the aforementioned examples, do I spend the time walking along the beach trying to corral the children while occasionally picking up a rock or two (and having a fear of missing out (FOMO) that I might miss a beautiful agate)? Or do I enjoy the walk with my wife and snap a few photos along the way? Should I be recording video of the kids as they look for rocks worth keeping? Or should I take a still photograph of them instead? Do I use a 35mm film camera or my 120 Contax 645? 50mm or 105mm?

So many decisions, both before and during every single activity. And that’s to say nothing of dealing with the FOMO that making one decision altered what could’ve been the better one after the fact.

I know I’m not the only one to feel this way; my wife expressed feeling the same way during our adventures (we’re both very multifaceted people with more hobbies and interests than is likely reasonable) and I’ve talked with others who feel this way in varying capacities. But it really does wear on me in ways that I don’t often realize until after the fact when I’m in a decompression stage much later on.

I’ve always considered myself to be someone who understands tradeoffs, opportunity costs, and cost-benefit analyses of both business and personal endeavors. But I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I struggle much more with the latter.

In my work life, I seem to have no problem making a decision amongst seemingly endless possibilities and doing it with little to no second guessing. But that aptitude doesn’t appear to translate well into my personal life. I’m not sure why, and I certainly don’t have an answer, but this post is my “thinking out loud” exercise I hope to be able to reference months or years from know when I eventually make some progress on this matter.

I’m unsure why, but as time goes on, the less and less I enjoy being away from home. Our family went on a little trip this week, stretching merely Monday-Wednesday. It was an absolute joy and the kids had a blast, but I couldn’t help but want to be back at home having the usual evening routine after only 24 hours.

I’ve always considered myself a homebody—an introvert to a high degree. But, at the same time, I’ve always enjoyed being in the car on a road trip or exploring and learning about new places. Now though, it feels as though that is coming to an end in some capacity. Or, at the very least, undergoing a serious transition. I crave routine. I crave the simple, almost boring evenings at home with my wife watching our favorite shows, playing our favorite video games next to each other, and snacking on our favorite treats after tucking in the kids for bed.

It feels strange to be so complacent with the mundane. But it also feels like the inevitable after the first 30 years of my life, which saw me move more than 15 times, attend 12 schools from pre-K through college, and go through cancer at the age of 19 (which coincided with a then-gutting breakup that more or less altered my entire social life).

After all of that, simple feels safe and solitude feels sublime. It’s taken a decade of active measures to get to a place where simple is achievable and solitude is obtainable (as much as is possible with a five-year-old and four-year-old at home). So, for now, I’ll embrace this stage of life and continue to embrace the minimal stress and complications it affords.

FaceTime for Apple TV is long overdue and will be very welcomed. As someone with two children who often FaceTime grandparents and aunts/uncles, it’ll be supremely nice to be able to toss an old iPhone atop the TV and FaceTime w/o worrying about holding a device in hand.

The ability to make Webb apps from any website in Safari will be fantastic. Too many native apps lack feature parity with their web versions (or are far behind), particularly enterprise-grade services used for work.

Standby mode for iPhone is also long overdue. I was never sure why Apple didn’t drop this when its AOD was introduced. Seemed like a no-brainer, given the Apple Watch had/has a similar mode.

Live Voicemail and FaceTime Messages are going to be a favorite of mine. I’m a slightly anxious and introverted-ass human who doesn’t like talking on the phone or picking up unless I absolutely have to. Let me see what someone wants before I pick up the phone.

Autofill passwords from mail. Auto-fill from messages is already one of the greatest features of macOS/iPhOS/iPadOS. Seeing it come to Mail just improves upon it.

Check-in is going to be great for those times when we’re leaving family’s house and traveling back home. I always tell them I’ll text them when we get home, but I always forget to do so. I have set up geofence reminders in the past, but this is more elegant.

AirDrop improvements are nice. AirDrop is one of my favorite Apple ecosystem features and the new tap-to-drop feature will be a nice improvement, particularly when sharing photos and videos of the kids with family.

I’m more of a paper journaler, but I’m inconsistent and don’t always take the time to document my days (quite frequently, unfortunately). My hope is the Journal app will be able to let me at least get down a few key notes of each day alongside any photos and other data to refresh my mind should I want to come back and document a particular day.

Safari Profiles look nice. Curious to see how they feel when using them on a regular basis. Seems like Apple is taking a little nod from Arc Browser on this one.

Love the iPad Lockscreen upgrades as well. I would’ve liked to see Apple introduce a proper media center-like mode to turn old iPads into Home Hubs of sorts like many Android Smart Displays, but I guess we’ll have to wait for that.

Interactive widgets will be a nice addition as well. As always, the usefulness of these will likely come down quite a bit to developer creativity. I have no doubt many will create impressive little widgets. And I’m sure many more will make apps that are designed to almost be invisible, designed only to be used in the form of a widget.

Bringing proper Preview-like PDF support and editing to iPad is so long overdue it’s not even worth praising. This should’ve happened the day the Apple Pencil came out.

Apple says (supported) iPads will soon be able to ‘Use the built-in camera in your external display for FaceTime and conference calls.’ Apple doesn’t specify whether or not this is only for the Pro Display XDR and/or Studio Display, but that seems to be the case. I’d love to see Apple include third-party webcam support.

As for hardware, the 15" MacBook Air is a great addition to the lineup and will sell like hotcakes. Especially starting at $1199. Mac Studio and Mac Pro are both nice pieces of hardware but are so far out of anything I would need it’s not worth my commenting on them at all.

Apple Vision Pro is an intriguing proposition. I’ve used both the Nreal Air and Rokid glasses, and while neat, real-world use was less than impressive. These are far better made, but the value proposition seems to be more or less the same, which isn’t compelling.

Maybe new apps and better integrations could change that, but as it stands, I can’t imagine myself getting this first-gen version. At $2499, I might consider forgoing my next iPhone or iPad for it and shelling out. But at its MSRP? Not happening, barring a lottery win.

This list may or may not be updated in the future.

After years of successfully ignoring my itch to purchase a 3D printer, I finally caved to my geeky desires and purchased a Prusa Mini+ a few weeks ago. I’m a bit late to the 3D printing party, but after making a handful of prints and even dabbling in a smidge of CAD, I can’t help but be amazed at the potential of additive manufacturing technology, particularly at-home methods, going forward.

Many of the first items I printed are novel designs made for the hell of it to calibrate your printer and ensure everything is up and running smoothly. But after those, I started getting into more functional designs, such as planters, desk organizers, and even a working carabiner that can hold ~30lbs. One of my most recent prints was a four-inch drain cap for a French drain our home’s previous owners put in place and failed to cover appropriately. Sure, I had to wait four hours for the piece to be made, but for $1.55 worth of filament and a bit of time I was doing other work, I was able to make an on-demand piece that would’ve cost twice as much at the home supply store and taken up even more resources in the form of gasoline and emissions.

One thing I don’t necessarily appreciate about 3D printing is that it’s only further contributing to the issue of plastics and micro-plastics. But, one of the most common and easy-to-print filament types is PLA (Polylactic acid), which is made from renewable resources and biodegradable in commercial facilities. As it stands, I’m using mostly PolyTerra PLA filament from PolyMaker, which is both biodegradeable and comes rolled on a cardboard tube (most other filament comes rolled on 200g spools).

I still have plenty to learn, but the possibilities are exciting. Thingiverse, Cults, and other websites with slicer-ready files make it incredibly easy to get started, but I can’t help but feel the real magic in 3D printing lies in being able to make your own 3D models to print.

I’m always a fan of trying to streamline my workflow; particularly my editorial workflow. But one thing I’ve come to realize over the years is the more means of automation I come up with, be it with text shortcuts or various actions in particular programs, the more often I make mistakes.

It seems some things should be done slowly and less efficiently. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out what’s worth streamlining and what should be kept a more manual, time-intensive process.