There’s a special bond between a man and his barber.

I don’t like the word “infotainment.”

Bought a gas blower and trimmer today. I’m big time!

Cauliflower is life.

Airbus to Retire the A380, the Superjumbo That Never Quite Took Off

After billions of dollars of investment, Airbus is retiring a plane it had hoped would supplant Boeing’s 747.

If the design had been more beautiful, would things have been different? It’s so ugly.

The Pope and a Trusted U.S. Cardinal Clash Over Sex-Abuse Crisis - WSJ

The dominant view in the Vatican was that the Americans were going too far in tackling sex abuse. When Cardinal O’Malley called for the world-wide adoption of the U.S. practice of publishing accused priests’ names, other Vatican officials privately condemned the practice as defamation

On the contrary, the Americans are the only ones willing to act. Again, this is not hard.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I used to have a very large number of apps on my phone, constantly downloading and trying out new ones. Those were in the golden early days of the App Store. Nowadays, it’s rare if I add a new one every month.

As a part of this change, many developers have moved over to subscription models. For many customers, this is a huge problem because the value proposition is unclear. There is an exception.

One of the best apps that I’ve used, now going on six years, is YNAB. I would put it on the same shelf as 1Password, CARROT, Castro, Day One, Deliveries, Fantastical, Oak, Things, Ulysses. This is a quality, well-designed, beautiful app.

YNAB switched to a web app and subscription model back in December of 2015. There was the usual consternation, but over the past 3 years, there has been tremendous, meaningful, solid development work. New features are released regularly, and the syncing backend is as solid as it gets.

At the beginning of this year, I took inventory of my apps, workflows, and tools. This is a normal occurrence. When it came to my family’s finances, I looked at our YNAB budget and considered if it was really working for me. After much reflection, observation, and research, I decided to fully implement YNAB’s four rules.

I created a “Fresh Start” budget, realigned my categories to mostly match theirs, and reallocated my dollars. The whole process took less than half an hour, which is incredible for budgeting. Now, I just have to maintain the machine.

YNAB is a great example of a simple idea, executed thoughtfully, and assembled with an eye on design. It’s an app I used across all of my devices, every day, and it gives me the comfort and peace of knowing where my money is and what its doing.

How great is it that Micro.blog makes a separate RSS feed for microcasts? I just started listening to @nathanrhale’s new microcast, and I subscribed to the feed in Castro. No other services needed. The best!

It’s nice when the kiddos help out with the chores.

I’ll never get over that blue.

Medium rare ground beef tastes so good.

Working into the evening with rain providing the soundtrack.

Spent about an hour out in the garage reconfiguring the van. Moved seats around for better loading and unloading, purged napkins and old materials, refreshed kids books, and reorganized technology. I ordered in a wireless charging pad to install later this week. A nice refresh!

Car seats are complicated.