So when iOS 12.1 got released last Tuesday, decided to nuke and pave. Feels nice to start fresh again. Definitely trying to keep the bare minimum of apps. Especially trying to keep off the news sources. So currently only going with the News.app. No more RSS, no more Reddit. Garage is pretty much done, just a couple things left. SCI is wrapping up their stuff tomorrow. Can control everything, which is nice, and can see the inside, and have the outside security cameras back up. Getting an epoxy floor, the apron and sidewalk should go down next week, and then we have to hang some organization stuff, move stuff out from the basement crawl space, and actually start parking in the garage again. Will be nice. Stupid thing about the Liftmaster MyQ Garage Doors: have to get an additional hardware piece to get them to work in HomeKit. Probably don’t need it, since we can control through RTI, but I do like having Siri control. Curious to see how status works through the HomeKit too. Still on keto. Seems to be working out for me. Found out about erythritol as a sweetener. It’s amazing. Made waffles, cookies, tarts even, all keto friendly. Also found out Cool Whip is kind of keto friendly. So got reintroduced there. I probably fell out of keto for the first time since starting earlier this week. The culprit? Domino’s pizza of all things. Their thin crust is the best we’ve found so far. Not kidding. Maybe I’m still partial to a cold slice of Pizza Hut supreme, or a Papa John’s sausage and banana pepper, but for thin crust? Domino’s is my clear favorite. After getting my blood tests back, trying to cut back a little on the red meat, trying to eat more fish. Started cooking some at home (the pre seasoned stuff from Jewel) and it’s pretty good. Turns out cooking Cod is more allergic to Tracy than tilapia or salmon. I’ll have to try others to check, but seems pretty odd. Oh, I should see what pre seasoned stuff they have at Whole Foods. Oh, and tried Kai Sushi Lakeview just down the street again. It’s amazing. Expensive, but the fish was great. And they started serving hot food as well, and the ramen is pretty good too. I have no issues ordering the sashimi platter. And speaking of raw fish, I discovered an Aloha Poke Co location relatively close to work. Went there like 3 times in the past 2 weeks. It’s good, and I think pretty keto friendly. Found it while on a walk for Pokemon GO raids. Got my first invite to an EX-Raid next week. However, I’m thinking of starting over so I can be Instinct and on Lucy and Jackson’s teams. Yes, still playing Pokemon GO. Oh, company I work for rebranded. I, for the first time in 15 years, now work for a new company, Numerator. After so many mergers and acquisitions it’s about time. Now it’s not this acquired company’s culture or process or product, or this other merged company’s policy. It’s the Numerator way. Been spending too much money lately on stockpiling LEGO sets. Not even building them, just when the go on sale. Kinda need someplace to display them. But not planning on any new iPhones, iPads, or even the new Mac mini, however tempting those all may be. Maybe next fall. I did bite the bullet and get a Kobo Forma, their newest eReader with a Comfort Light screen (which means less blue light at night). It’s amazing. A little big, but amazing nonetheless. I just need to keep up on the reading. Currently in the middle of a Harry Potter reread, on Order of the Phoenix. Not looking forward to the political parallels.

Figure I should get a September post in. Still playing a ton of Pokemon GO. Currently at Level 32. Even managed to go on a couple Mewtwo raids while on break at work. At egg hatch, it's pretty cool to see all these random people standing around by themselves doing a raid together, or even walking between hatches downtown. Should have figured out that's what was happening and I could have done the legendary birds in the previous raids. Oh well, should be able to get them somewhere down the line, right? Kids still playing too. Lucy's smart and has me take my phone with me to work, so I plug hers in, connect it to the Go-Tcha, and it auto spins a couple poke stops reachable from my desk and auto catches all day long. Not to mention the distance when taking the El on the commute, since I haven't started biking again. Just today though, they've got me started playing Jurassic World Alive, which is similar to Pokemon GO. It pushes the market/in app purchases a lot more though, kind of annoying. Other big news is that I started a keto diet a couple weeks ago. Trying to get the high blood pressure down. Definitely losing weight. Probably the lightest I've been in years. We'll see if I can hit my target weight and then maintain. Only a couple days I've really missed carbs, one of those being last night when we got sushi delivered. I got sashimi, but all those rolls look really good. And I'm missing dessert. But can't argue with results. Oh, in the middle of getting a new garage. Pretty cool. Did the North Shore Century again, only the 75 mile route again, so all in 92 miles door to door. Rough, since I hadn't been commuting or doing any sort of training. Only got 1 compliment on the bike this time. Rear fender came loose and started rubbing. I have bad luck with fenders on that ride. Go figure, I went Keto the day after, after I stuffed Papa John's pizza in my belly. Maybe I'll get back to riding to work when they have a proper bike valet/garage again. Upgraded the only Mac capable in the house to Mojave. I was running the public beta on the MacBook anyway, but kind of annoying no other Macs in the house have it. Maybe upgrade next year? All the phones got iOS 12. Kids adapted to Screen Time pretty well. They've started sharing, or at least watching each other's phones so they get double the time. Controls aren't perfect, but they'll do. Example: I want to allow Pokemon GO all the time, because they can play while I'm biking, but putting it in the Allows Allowed list doesn't exclude it from being counted in the App Limits (if set by category). I just checked my stats and I use and pick up my phone a lot. Not much thoughts on the updated iPhones and Apple Watches. My turn is next year.

I'm picking today as the anniversary of Daily Dose, even though the site wasn't actually publically available until August 17, 1998. Either way, twenty years is a long time. Started as hand coded html, copied and pasted posts from main, to older, to archive pages. Then moved into perl scripts moving posts around in html files locally before ftping updated site to a hosted account. Not sure if I can remember moving to a database structure using cgi-bin and perl still, or if I jumped directly to PHP. But pretty much been there ever since, technology wise. Content wise, started much like Twitter, short little posts, what I was doing, what I was planning on doing, getting to eat. More than a few a day even. Then fewer and fewer, but longer and longer, eventually daily, less than daily, and just barely monthly now. But moved to Memex for daily posting and recording of activity instead. So that might explain the lack of posting here. But still, there was a break from August 1999-July 2001, however, looks like I was doing Musings in the interim. I guess I missed the 20 year anniversary of Musings (which would have been January 13, 2018). But yeah, I've seen a lot of online life. Haven't necessarily contributed much to the online world, but I've been here for a while.

Took a vacation toward the beginning of July, went and visited the Cases for a week. Good times. Got to go to the Delaware beaches, which felt like Florida. Waves from the Atlantic are pretty rough, but fun. Went crabbing (blue) for the first time, managed to catch enough to at least taste some. And Lisa got me back into Pokemon GO, and then I got Jackson into it too, so we're both playing. Lucy hasn't caught the bug yet. Managed to lose my main credit card (BarclayCard Apple Rewards), which I didn't realize until I was at the airport on the way there. Never got used, so no one stole it, but never found it, and got a new card/number. But I went ahead and switched over all my payments to the Amazon Prime Rewards card instead. Definitely get more use out of that one I feel. Also notifications on usage is much more immediate from Chase vs. Barclays. And supposedly next year Apple will be coming out with a different branded card with Goldman Sachs? Not sure if I'll bother. Oh, cracked my iPhone X screen the 2nd day of vacation, so I then put a case on it. Got it replaced, along with my iPad (which I also cracked the screen on), both under Apple Care, so that's nice. Had to wait for a replacement iPad to get delivered to the store for pickup. Saw my Auntie Agnes a couple times (visiting from the Philippines), had dinner at the house (ordered way too much food from Aurelio's. Got stuff to put up another shelf in the basement for LEGO display/storage. Also had to get a couple more hard drives (got a low space warning on the Drobo 5D. They had a sale on Seinfield, and also added Impulse (YouTube series based on Jumper) and Zebra Gamer gameplay of Paper Mario Color Splash.