In the Shanghai office.
Surface Pro X Unbox
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Macs and my Alienware, but when I picked this fellow up a couple of years ago it was a G-d send: I had clients who would call me while I was driving to work or an appointment and demand I edit something RIGHT THEN. The integrated cellular on this Qualcomm Snapdragon-based PC made me much faster and much more responsive.
Sorry to say that I don’t use it as much anymore, but as a speedy Web Book it’s still really nice, and super light.
Sorry, Apple
In early December, I ordered an Apple Mac Studio desktop. I loaded it up with a top-end processor, tons of memory and storage, and even though it would take a month to get it, I ordered it anyway. $6k all in.
Right in the middle of Chanukah, I got a note from Apple saying sorry, your order is being delayed for another month. No explanation was provided. A year after launching the device, it was still taking months to produce.
So I spent just a little time digging into the issue. While I found no official announcements, I was led to suspect that Apple was facing one or both of two issues:
• The COVID-19 outbreak in China hammered the Apple supply chain, and the company could not get the product out of the factories.
• There were undisclosed production or performance issues at the upper end of Apple’s homegrown silicon, the M1 Ultra chip.
So I thought about it for two days, went online, and canceled the order. This was not the right time to get a high-end Mac.
One Week In, Not On The Road Yet
I pulled out this picture of the northern approach to the old Ridge Route (looking south into Grapevine Canyon) as a sort of talisman, a charm if you will, in the hope that it would help me in my effort to get started on my list of road trips before age, global warming, or TEOTWAWKI make such trips either too expensive, too politically incorrect, or downright impossible.
A potent combination of consulting work, preparations for our Council Camporee, and an impressive honey-do list are all conspiring to keep this newly-minted retiree off the pavement and stuck to the 10 wheels of my Herman Miller Aeron chair. The road will need to wait a bit, so bear with me.
Meantime, there’s still lots going on and lots to share, so stay tuned.
A Cooling Moment
Sitting in the heat of the summer at high altitude, I pulled out this picture I took eighteen moths ago of the West Glacier stop, formerly the Belton Station on the old Great Northern Line in Montana. It’s still hot outside, but this cooled me down.
A Bucket and a Pen 