The Angel 🍿

Is it just me, or is the layout off in Safari and Mail in 12.2?

So much delicious food in my pantry, so little time.

I did a pretty good job of documenting my adventures on my trip to Chicago. Lots of pictures, a few short updates, and five podcast episodes covered my movements though-out the city. I wanted to sit down and reflect on my overall experience.

My time was mostly my own, and the list of things that I wanted to do was pretty short. For the most part, I only spent money on food and beverages. There weren’t any experiences that I was interesting in, mostly due to the cold temperatures outside.

I thought that I was going to use ride-sharing and food delivery services a lot more, but we only made one round trip and had food brought to us twice. I walked everywhere, and everything was within a mile or two of the hotel.

Everyone wore headphones in the city. I joined in for the same reason, so that people wouldn’t talk to me. I caught up on podcasts, which is what I normally listen to while walking. I did listen to music on my last day, which was also nice.

I wore a backpack almost everywhere I went. My iPad Pro was a great travel companion, allowing me to write, update websites, and read the news wherever I set up shop. Chicago has a $.07 bag tax, so it was also nice to be able to throw whatever I bought into my bag and keep on moving.

Amazon Go was a great option for ready-to-eat meals and snacks. The employees were very attentive and its clear that corporate wants the stores to be clean, bright, and neatly stocked. That may be partially due to the limitations of the camera system, but regardless, it was a net positive for the customer. Prices were also fair.

I think Molly’s Cupcakes was my go-to spot. They had the best coffee that I found, and a great environment. They also played 90s music which was good for the setting and not offensive. The cupcakes were award winning, but I was partial to the cheesecake. Yum!

YNAB was a great travel companion. I don’t often add transactions on my phone on the go, instead opting for doing the heavy lifting with receipts and the web app when I get home. It was also nice to be very aware of my budget balances as I went through the day. That being said, this has been a crazy two months, so I did my second Fresh Start of 2019 when I get home.

I closed my rings with ease each day. I have a Move goal set at 600 calories. At home, I close that ring if I do my 60 minute walk in the morning, otherwise its usually in the 300-400 range. It was nice to be active while just going about my normal day instead of a scheduled exercise time.

I had a nice time in Chicago, even if the city life isn’t for me. This was a much better vacation than our trip to Orlando, where I had to drive from the hotel to get anywhere. Also, Lake Michigan is awesome.

Paying rent is very different when you physically write a check as opposed to letting Bill Pay handle it.

Lord of War 🍿

As a pilot, and a lover of Boeing jets, I’ve been following the 737 MAX stories very closely. Aviation can be a difficult beat for any reporter to cover, but in times like these, it’s important that the flying public is given an accurate view of the situation.

The Department of Transportation and Justice Department have launched criminal probes of the MAX certification process. While it’s possible that there were a few bad actors in the process, it’s unlikely that there are systemic problems within the safety certification process.

The aviation community’s first priority is safety. From my first days of flight training on the airfield, a culture of safety was ingrained in me. Everything starts and ends with safety. Accidents in aviation are extremely rare, but when they do occur, we learn new lessons to improve processes and safety.

The 737 MAX was the Boeing response to the Airbus 321neo. Reports bring up the fact that the Boeing team was scrambling to get the MAX designed and certified so that they could keep up with their competition. This scramble should not necessarily be equated to cutting corners.

It’s a normal business process in aviation design to create substantially similar aircraft in order to streamline the certification process. The 757-200 was initially certified, and then Boeing created the 757-300, an elongated version. For the 737, Boeing had already created the 737 (1964), -100 (1967), -200 (1968), -300 (1980s), -400 (1980s), -500 (1980s), -600 (1990s), -700 (1990s), -800 (1990s), and -900 (1990s). The MAX is simply the next iteration on the 737. Each time, improvements were made, sometimes capacity expanded, and the FAA certified the airframe. So it would be unfair to immediately draw conclusions on this business decision alone.

Sometimes the FAA will reject a request for a streamlined certification process. The Boeing 767 features the exact same flight deck layout as the Boeing 757, but the FAA chose to require a separate pilot rating for aircrews on each airframe.

Regardless of the certification, streamlined or not, the aircraft had to prove itself. Boeing underwent a rigorous process to prove that the updated aircraft was safe to fly and ready to enter service. The plane was put through a battery of systems, ground, and flight tests. The FAA is an independent regulator and takes flight safety very seriously. They do rely on industry experts for specialized areas of expertise, but they had no incentive to approve an unsafe airframe.

While we want answers, and want them quickly, aircraft accident investigation is a lengthy and thorough process. In the United States, even in fatal accidents, it usually takes two years for a final report to be issued. The fact that these accidents occurred in foreign countries, and one in water, will make it more difficult to complete a thorough and rigorous accident investigation.

The worldwide grounding of the MAX fleet seemed to be haphazard, with the FAA garnering a negative impression by the flying public. It’s important to remember that, while these accidents are scary and certainly two of the same type in this period of time is unusual, we have to keep an evidence-based process.

We will find out what happened in these accidents, Boeing will make changes to processes, procedures, and training, and the 737 MAX will fly again. In the meantime, have confidence in the airlines, mechanics, pilots, and regulators that regardless of their personal interests, safety is always priority one.

Wahooo!!! Cardhop for iOS is out! Just a few minutes ago I went upstairs to my iMac to use Cardhop to look up a few addresses instead of using contacts on my phone. This is really great news.

I love steam in bag vegetables.

I spent all day traveling, unpacking, and cleaning the car, so I haven’t seen any of the Apple updates. So I’m going to read about them on the Apple website, which is a first for me.

The only time we ran into traffic on our entire road trip was in the last 4 miles before our house.

These kids working on this Sunday morning coffee shop team are hustling!

When it’s quieter in the Narthex before Mass than the Sanctuary, it’s time to leave.

Apple is primed and ready to announce their new paid news and television subscription(s?) next week at a media event. There have been a flurry of reports on publishers joining the service, including The Wall Street Journal and Vox. The big question surrounding the offering is the economics. For magazine publishers, sacrificing huge royalties to Apple may be worth it to increase readership. For news publishers, the upside may be harder to see.

In the Internet comments section, there’s a different discussion. We continue to transition to a subscription economy, and in an era of “free” news, many question whether or not people are willing to pay. To quote one commentator, “Why would I pay for news in 2019?”

That’s an interesting question.

For many months, I’ve used The Wall Street Journal as my sole source of news, along with two local news organizations. I don’t watch local or cable news broadcasts, but I do read reports put out by my local paper and also by my local NBC affiliate. That represents the sum total of my news consumption, about 90 minutes each day.

My wife reads from a wider range of sources, to include the BBC and Reuters. She will send me articles of interest to read from time to time. What I find remarkable is the difference in editorial standards and what news products flow from them.

In the time since I moved exclusively to the WSJ, I have rarely read articles about entertainment scandals (save for those surrounding Jeff Bezos), conspiracy stories, or anything truly bizzare. The Journal has a very specific readership, but even when reporting outside of business news, only the highest quality stories make it in front of my eyes. I pay handsomely for the service, but in a way, the editorial process recognizes that I have limited time and so only the most important, best researched stories will make it to print.

All news, paid and unpaid, is ad-supported. I know that the Journal has extensive web trackers and an internet & print ad program that targets me when I’m reading the stories. But what I’ve found is that paying for news results in a higher quality product. Gone are the clickbate headlines and salacious gossip.

So why pay for news? In a word, professionalism. It used to drive me insane that next to hard news on the Fox News website was celebrity sex scandals and bikini pictures. We want high quality, professional journalists to spend their days chasing the big stories, developing sources, and bringing to us the information that we need to function as a society. If we refuse to pay for quality journalism, we will all suffer the consequences.

A last view of 875 N Michigan Avenue

NBC Tower

Wrigley in sun