Upgrading my backup phone to ios 26. My Mac is still on Sonoma and will probably stay there for a while.

Spin Doctors cover Purple Rain (yes, that Purple Rain) and I’m here for it. 🫡

Tweaked my back a week or so ago, it was almost healed and then came back with a vengeance. Laid in bed all day yesterday and today is looking to be the same. The only internet I did was redesigning my site, Nokia blue is the one, true blue.

I watched Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (from 2005). Edward Norton saves this entire movie as King Baldwin, and seriously, he only had a few short scenes, wears a mask the entire time (since he is the Leper King), but leaves an unmistakable impression.

The boy has been feeling a bit unsettled for the past few weeks, sometimes waking up at 4 or 5 am and ready to play or just do something. My wife and I have made a plan to slow things down around him and give extra support where we can without trying to push our agenda too much beyond the basics (food, play, bed time, wake up time, general hygiene).

I don’t know if he’s been feeling my own stresses since I was laid off (I certainly have been doing my best to keep that away but you know, kids, they really see this shit). I’m guessing some developmental milestones are happening too. He has amazing vocabulary but expression is a challenge for him (honestly since he was a baby).

I’ve probably applied to around 75 jobs so far, have had lots of support from former colleagues and friends in the form of referrals and connections. Rejections are starting to come in, otherwise, a lot of ghosting. Really is what it is and I just keep myself away from the pressure that can sometimes build (not always successfully).

On the drumming front, I had thrown out my back about a week ago and it’s only yesterday and today that it is starting to feel more normal. I managed to practice these past 48 hours and have been concentrating on repeating the same patterns over and over, changing only the dynamic. My hands and feet are able to play things these days that years ago caused mental struggles (and therefore physical manifestations of those struggles), but I’m super happy about how much I have progressed and without the distractions that can come with being part of a band or something. I do miss playing with other musicians, but all in due time I suppose.

Right now, I just wish for my boy to work through whatever is causing his feeling unsettled and supporting him by being close to both he and my wife.

Inflation and, you know, getting laid off.

My iPhone 13 mini is at 93% battery health. And still lighter than all of these newer phones. The new Airpods Pro are nice. Airpods Pro + iPhone seem like a far more powerful computing option than any VR or glasses imo.

I sniff an Apple global MVNO in the near future.

This is really good and honestly I will keep paying for Kagi vs. any LLM all day.

Kagi News looks good! First they define the problem:

Driven by relentless ad monetization, news has become mental junk food - an endless stream of clickbait that destroys our ability to think deeply and clearly.

Huh….did not have Atlassian buying The Browser Company (makers of Arc browser) in my bingo card: www.atlassian.com/blog/anno…

Guess I’m gonna try to audition to be Pearl Jam’s next drummer 🤣

No…really

The little, seemingly innocuous, questions ChatGPT and others ask at the end of every result, you know, “Would you like me to x, y, z?” is the most predatory dark pattern I have ever seen.

Let’s take it from the top.

My wife and I decided to pony up for COBRA health coverage through the end of the year until new plans and costs are available for open enrollment into ACA next year. The current plans (and subsidies) are not competitive with the coverage I received from work. We have providers/specialists in other states that we see currently that the Nebraska ACA plans do not include (nor do they offer out of network coverage except for emergency and urgent care services).

Healthcare is indeed broken in this country. I would be paying up the nose regardless of COBRA to insure my family.

I stand by what I have been counseling friends and colleagues: get your rainy day fund in order asap. If you have zero, build it to 3 or more months of expenses (but get yourself to that 3 month and keep adding to it). If you have 3, build it to 6. If 6, get it up to 12. Frankly, when you get to 12, add 6 more months if you can. Costs will be variable and surprises come up, and healthcare will not get cheaper.

The state of Nebraska really does not want anyone to successfully file unemployment claims.

Had some fun tonight playing a drum cover of The Wood Brothers song “The Trick” off of their most recent album, Puff of Smoke 🎵

So many devices.

My wife took this wonderful photo of our son during their outing at a nearby lake today. She’s always had a knack and talent for photography, she never wanted to pursue it professionally.
All that to say, I’m a lucky bastard to get these from her.

I listened to this Wood Brothers album about 10 times today. I imagine if you did similar you wouldn’t regret it either.

Listen to it on your preferred digital/streaming service

On Tuesday, August 19th I am officially unemployed. As I dive in to the world of job hunting, I suspect I will need to remind myself of the below regularly. Joan Westenberg writes about The Compound Effect of Consistency, this isn’t secret sauce but it is nice to read it articulated in a concise manner.

So the question becomes: how do you engineer momentum?

Start by identifying the variables that compound. Knowledge, confidence, network effects - these are multipliers. Then strip away friction. Reduce decisions. Automate where you can. Create systems that make doing the thing easier than not doing it.

Following specific YouTube channels in my RSS reader has made life much more manageable.

“Chinese Democracy” by Guns ‘n’ Roses came to mind immediately, which means we are all gonna die.

If ALIENS landed on Earth today…

Which album should they choose to judge humanity?

Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast keeps getting better and better. In this episode with Joe Mantegna, I’m just falling in love with Chicago all over again.

There are a handful of albums I really play on repeat regularly and Hail to the Thief is on top of that list.

Radiohead: Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009) kottke.org

Reading about the social features The Verge are building into their site and I can’t help but be reminded how of how Google really screwed up with Blogger (one of many in a long list of screwups). I read somewhere they still have millions of active blogs but you wouldn’t know it through their search I guess.

The Verge, really doubling down on blogging as the social network, here’s a nice thread on Bluesky by Nilay Patel:

Verge quickposts are a bit "fake" today -- they're just Wordpress entries designed to look more or less like tweets. Since the beginning, I've wanted to make them "real" -- to turn our feed into a true social feed, with all of the social features (and interop with Bluesky and Mastodon!) that brings

— nilay patel ([@reckless.bsky.social](http://reckless.bsky.social)) August 6, 2025 at 11:25 AM