I love that I can go out and run errands while everyone is at work and school. No one likes traffic, and the fact that I can be out and about when traffic volume is light is wonderful. I move quickly and efficiently.

Yesterday, I had to go across town on one of the busier streets at 3pm. Schools were letting out and people were busy finishing up their day. Along the way, there was a traffic accident near a very congested intersection, blocking 2 of the 3 lanes.

Drivers were getting aggressive, and frustrated, as the bottleneck formed. With those three lanes merged into one, more than a few cars displayed a sense of entitlement as we all endured this traffic jam.

While I was sitting there, windows down on a gorgeous fall day, I considered the aggressive and confrontational nature of our driving. We see other cars as obstacles in our way, slowing us down, or otherwise frustrating our plans. We speed up and race people whom we’ll never meet, just to prove a point in our own minds. We cut others off, ignore the rules of the road, and are otherwise awful to one another.

What if instead of seeing the other cars as obstacles to be overcome, I saw them as the people driving them?

UPS delivered the final paperback proof of Humble Service this afternoon.

Everything looks great! The cover design is the trickiest element, but it came out as I planned.

I’m so happy with the way that this idea progressed into its final, beautiful form.

I’ve been having issues with iCloud Drive for the past day or so. It’s great when it works, and annoying when it doesn’t!

I don’t think that Starbucks coffee is all that unique. When consumed without sweetener, it’s a bit generic and has little personality. I think that explains all of the flavor options.

I went in today for my annual wellness physical. I don’t think it’s common for men of my age to participate in routine healthcare, but the visit is included in my health insurance plan. I have nothing to lose.

Since I go in every year about this time, I was very excited I secretly hoped my physician would notice my significant weight loss and praise my good work. I didn’t do it for him, but it would’ve been nice to receive some affirmation. I imagine it’d be like going to the dentist for a cleaning and triumphantly announcing that I had been flossing.

He didn’t mention it.

The nurse got an alert in the electronic medical record when she entered my weight. I saw the huge pop-up window, noting that my weight had plummeted 21%, asking to verify that the weight was correct. Oh boy was it!

I guess my only consolation is the spark of joy I get every time I see myself in the mirror. It’s a little reminder of the gift that I gave to myself by focusing on improving my physical health.

Why did they make Snoopy in Space into 12 small episodes? Each episode is only eight minutes long. Frustrating!

Now that I’m done with my book, I can move on to some other projects. I started with my site footers and now I’m going to loop back and make some improvements to a client’s site.

‘The Onion’ Announces New Nationwide Literacy Program Encouraging Kids To Read ‘The Onion’ For An Hour A Day

just one hour a day of reading The Onion is directly correlated with higher lifetime earnings, admission in Ivy League colleges, higher testosterone levels

Visa Introduces New Preloaded Debt Card - The Onion

The debt card offers something for all our customers, whether it’s young people who haven’t had a chance to go into the red yet, or families who could use a little help toward losing their home.

4 Times Mark Cuban Begrudgingly Offered A Contestant A Deal On ‘Shark Tank’ Because The Contestant’s Sob Story Was About The Time He Hit Them With His Car

I’ve been feeling really awful since Mark Cuban drove his car into me while I was walking into the studio this morning.

Medicare-For-All Worries Seniors Who Want To Keep Medicare’s Quality And Efficiency All To Themselves - The Babylon Bee

With Medicare, I get high-quality, cost-efficient, problem-free healthcare whenever I want, with no restrictions or rationing at all.

iCloud/Apple is so bad at contact photos. I spend so much time aligning and arranging the photos, only for iCloud to screw it all up.

Daughter just crashed with a fever at 102. Poor little girl. Kids are so cute when they’re sick.

I bought a FontAwesome 5 license during their Kickstarter back in 2017. I finally got to use that license on my footer project yesterday. I love these icons.

FontAwesome marked the Micro.blog icon as “in progress” four days ago. Perfect timing. 👍🏻

What a crazy morning. I feel really behind/overwhelmed. Busy afternoon, too!

I love to budget, or at least I love managing my budget. For years, before YNAB, I’d budget by using accounts. I had many accounts spread across several banks. It was a lot to manage, but it kept everything very clear to me.

With YNAB, I keep everything in a single checking account. Instead of using accounts to manage my budget, I let YNAB do the heavy lifting. I pay attention to category balances instead of account balances.

It was difficult to wrap my mind around this new way of doing things. Once I did, it made my life so much easier.

I am the king of my footer.

Dealing with 3rd Party sellers in the Amazon Marketplace is just the worst.

Incredible news coming from the Pacific Coast. The massive, extended rolling blackouts, wildfires, over a decade to fix utility infrastructure, yikes! It’s hard to believe that a single utility company bears so much responsibility for these woes.

The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal, in an unsigned editorial entitled Fires and Blackouts Made in Sacramento, offers this perspective:

The state Public Utilities Commission is in charge of enforcing state safety laws and regulations, which can carry penalties of up to $50,000 per violation per day. Yet PG&E received no safety fines related to its power-grid management over the last several years. The commission has instead focused on enforcing the Legislature’s climate mandates.

The article goes on to highlight the capital investments PG&E has made in order to meet its obligations under California green-energy legislation. In effect, the Editorial Board argues that capital that should’ve been directed to tree-trimming and upgrading infrastructure instead went to these unfunded mandates.

I’m not sure how well this argument holds up, but it certainly offers an interesting perspective. PG&E had a set amount of capital to spend, and management clearly made the wrong choice. The consequences are inconceivable in America today.

Photos in iOS13 is great. I love how it surfaces old memories, like the time I took Alison flying in a glider.