Oddments of High Unimportance

Spent 5.5 hours yesterday fixing a stupid Wix page on our web site. God, I hate Wix.

“What can I tell you that I haven’t already told you?”

A good idea — open windows and patio door once a day for 5 mins or so to bring in fresh air — given the internet meme treatment.

If we called it “domocilic eructation,” it would have never caught on.

Popular Mechanics: What Is House Burping? Why the German Practice Lüften Is Everywhere Right Now

I sent the previous haiku to my haiku-loving friend, Rani. This is her favorite:

Haikus are easy

But sometimes they don’t make sense

Refrigerator

This is the first line.

This is the one after that.

Here is the last one.

(from a recent Durham County Library newsletter)

I’ve tried Carrot Weather and a few other third-party weather apps, but the recent Mac Power Users episode on weather apps convinced me that, for my needs, Apple’s default Weather app is fine.

However, I do like a more visual representation of the data and forecasts, and for some years now I’ve been using Weather Strip (don’t remember where I first read about it; Daring Fireball, maybe).

I like the side-scrolling, the clever graphics, and seeing the highs and lows drawn out for an entire week instead of isolated numbers in columns and tables. When prepping for a post-prandial walk, I can see at a glance the “feels like” temperature, sunset time, and a micro-forecast for the next hour. During the summer, I like keeping an eye on the dotted dew point line; when it’s riding close to the forecasted temperature, I know I’m in for a sweaty walk.

A Weather Strip subscription includes ability to use weather data from providers other than Apple, widgets, and family sharing.

Captured this sidewalk inscription on a walk through the Old West Durham neighborhood

Two things that, in my mind’s eye, are perfect for me, yet that I can never seem to pull off:

Hats. At various times I’ve tried wearing a wide-brimmed Stetson type hat, a Tilley adventure hat, a cloth cap like the other oldsters wear, even a derby when I was in high school (shut up). My hat-wearing is now less fantasy self-image and more utilitarian: a ball cap when I’m out walking to shade my nose from UV rays, a Tilley-type hat in summer to protect my ears and neck from the sun, and in winter what in my day we used to call a toboggan.

Fountain pens. I get along with the disposable Pilot fountain pens, but I’ve never been able to stick with a better class of pen. I would use a Lamy Safari, say, at home occasionally in my journal or at my desk but never often enough. I never felt comfortable making them an everyday writing instrument. I couldn’t stick it in my pocket and carry it with me, I never traveled with it for fear it would leak, and today, after inserting a full cartridge, the nib would not let a single drop emerge even after I tried a checklist of methods to unstop it.

I find I favor utility over style. I have some Zebra Sarasa pens sitting in my pen cup on my desk, one in my pocket (a folded bit of paper in my back pocket is all I usually need for scribbling a quick note), a couple in the tray by my bed, and a couple in the kitchen by the scratch pad. They’re cheap, portable, and reliable.

Carbesity - a short report from Duke University journalism students