This page contains longer, titled posts that I have made to my blog, so as to more easily separate them from other posts that I make here. If you would like to subscribe to the feed for this page, point your RSS reader here.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Early summer this year was a time for travel. Family travel. Across the continental US to a family wedding and then across the Atlantic to visit with my parents. From there I turned around and headed back West to meet my wife on the US West Coast for a couple of days of r’n’r in West Marin, before finally crossing the Pacific again back to Maui. Introducing transitions I’ve mused on my micro.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Yesterday I spent a wonderful evening at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center at Paul Simon’s second of two shows on the island. Although officially retired from touring, Simon shared that the concerts were a “thank you” to the island now that he lives here. All profits from the shows are going to two Hawaiian environmental projects - Auwahi Forest Restoration Project and Kua‘āina Ulu ‘Auamo (KUA). What to say about the concert?
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
My face looks as though I have had half a dozen fillings. Yesterday while outside working on something in the garden which I am now told want work - grumble, grumble, but that’s another story - I was stung by a yellow jacket. For now it is mildly uncomfortable and looks as though I’ve out on weight in my face. My wife says that my face looks like Joe from Family Guy!
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Patrick Rhone recently shared a photograph with a quote in it, on his blog. The quote spoke to me of the meaning behind the title of this website, Crossing The Threshold. The quote reads, Books and doors are the same thing. You open them and go through to another world. ~ Jeanette Winterson We Cross a Threshold with intention, with purpose. We open a book, climb over a gate, step out of our front door, walk into a new job, land in a new country.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
I watched The Great Hack on Netflix last night. Following all the news reports over the last year or so, it wasn’t all new news to me but just seeing the implications of how our data is used, seeing the wide spread use of people’s data to achieve ends (whatever those ends might be and regardless of the effects on ordinary people), seeing people being pitted against each other by anonymous third parties, hit me hard.
Friday, July 26, 2019
Since I first came across this poem, it comes to me in times of doubt. It reminds me of those who do feel different, who question the normal route through life that the modern world and education ask of us. It calls to me of the seekers, the questioners, of those who see things differently, look deeply, of those, men and women, who are, "…too gentle to live among wolves," the sensitive souls.
Thursday, July 4, 2019
This is a post written in installments over the course of, and just after a weekend of wedding celebrations. A weekend of activities that were just made for me… not. .. Having said that, I do wish to empathize that I am here to enjoy myself, make new friends and most importantly celebrate the commitment that a lovely couple are making to each other. And so it begins… I start this log on Friday evening.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Yesterday dealt me a lesson in spades. I will keep the details confidential to respect the agreements of those who I was working with - what is said in that circle, stays there - but will share the more overarching experience. No boundaries Without boundaries in my life I ended up feeling frustrated, feel as though people are taking advantage of me, become overwhelmed with things that I have to do, and end up blaming others for how I feel.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
I’m looking forward to seeing nvUltra when it comes out of Beta. I’m currently a few days into a 60 day trial of The Archive - it’s nvAlt as I would want it to be…AND I want to see what nvUltra looks like before I decide where to commit.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Being able to catch a quick 40 winks can be a life saver for me. I usually find a patch of the afternoon, mid-afternoon, when I start flagging. My eyes start becoming heavy and ache, an ache that might drift round to the back of my head. I notice that my ability to focus or be productive in my work, dives. I can push myself to keep going, but my work becomes less focused and more fractured.
Monday, June 3, 2019
I’m still vacillating between using iAWriter or Ulysses as my main writing app. I like Ulysses’s interface, but I also like the fact, indeed maybe prefer that iAWriter files are .txt and can be accessed outside of the app. Ulysses seems to allow one to see Dropbox Folders (the complete folder not just individual files) in both Mac & iOS versions, but iAWriter in only the Mac app.
Friday, May 31, 2019
My first newsletter using the Buttondown email service went out today. In the newsletter I reflect on my changing approach to online output, including my website and social media. Update November 29, 2022: My newsletter is now hosted by Micro.blog. You can subscribe to it here. The archive of my Buttondown email is here.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Since planting out our vegetable garden we have had the case of the mysterious disappearing broccoli starts. Although there were no signs of slugs, yesterday I went to the beach to get some sand to put around the edge of the raise beds. Apparently for slugs it feels like glass to crawl across the sand. However, yesterday afternoon and this morning more broccoli plants had gone, as well as an ochre seedling.
Monday, May 20, 2019
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. - Genesis 2:2, King James Bible I do not practice the Christian faith, but I grew up in a country, England, that is heavily influenced by it. Sundays were a day of rest. The only stores that were open were the local newsagents, or corner shops.
Friday, May 10, 2019
Can the micro.blog community help me? I am rusty with setting up DNS records. I want to add a subdomain of the type mail.yourdomain.com so that I can send out my newsletter with Butterdown using that domain. My domain is hosted on Hover. My question is what would this new DNS record look like? What Type, Host & Value should I use in the DNS settings?
Saturday, May 4, 2019
This morning’s very strong winds must have taken the internet out. The issue that I reported this morning has been escalated from just our problem, to a known outage in the area. But it appears to be localized as I am currently piggy backing off of our neighbour’s WiFi by positioning myself by a window in a particular room of our house. The winds, which beat down the cane grass in the next door field, were replaced by heavy rain.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Those times when I am writing a blog post or newsletter, and then my head gets ahead of me and starts editing everything that I am planning to write (and what I have written). Then it starts critiquing what I am writing and I grind to a halt. A that stage I shut the noise off and just let the words come out. That is what editing is for in my book.
Monday, April 29, 2019
My wife & I took the inaugural Southwest Airlines flight from Maui to Honolulu yesterday. It is the first airline to enter the inter-island market for a long time. In recent years Hawaiian Airlines have dominated the market, with one or two much smaller airlines offering only a handful of routes compared to their larger competitor. The result for passengers has been expensive tickets on inter-island trips. With Southwest now offering a few routes, hopefully increasing to more, I don’t think that I am the only one who hopes that their presence will knock down the price of flights between the islands.
Friday, April 26, 2019
I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure…Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness. ~ Brené Brown. The transition that I spoke about here feels complete. Over the Easter Weekend I deactivated my eleven year old Twitter account. I am now off of mainstream social media in totality. I feel comfortable with the decisions that led to this place, and I now feel vulnerable.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Some mornings I feel paralyzed in moving towards getting things done. It is as though my mind is in a mental gridlock. Normally the only thing that will move me forward and unhinge the mental stickiness is to reach for a pen, revisit my Bullet Journal and explore what needs to be done. Somewhere in there is probably an activity or two that I don’t want to look at. Activities that just need to be unpicked a little more so that they feel more manageable to me….
Monday, April 15, 2019
This post is not an attempt to be bleak, or to put a damper on the day. Rather it is a sharing of thoughts that go through my mind on the subject of death, shared with the hope that someone else might take something from it. The Tibetans have a saying, we are one breath away from our next life. They don’t say this in order to put a dampener on life, but rather wake us up to life!
Sunday, April 7, 2019
With the season change has come the corresponding weather change. Living in a tropical climate that means something a little different to the more northerly latitudes that I am more accustomed to, and where I have spent most of my life. First is a rise in temperature. It is gradual, but as my wife said a couple of evenings ago, the bite has been taken out of the air. There is less wrapping up to do.
Saturday, April 6, 2019
My wife & I went to a wonderfully inspiring and rich talk last night given by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer in The Green Room, a series of lectures hosted by The Merwin Conservancy. W.S. Merwin was an American poet, Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. He lived on Maui, until his death in March of this year, on an 18 acre property that he had turned into one of the largest and most biodiverse collections of palms in the world.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
My Wonderful Days. I’ve been using this journaling app on iOS since 2011. On OS X almost as long. I don’t use it regularly. Sometimes months go by between uses. But it is there when my hand written journal isn’t at hand, and for that I am very grateful. It syncs between devices, creates a PDF of entries and continues to be updated, including using Markdown now. The apps have served me well, and continue to do so.
Saturday, March 30, 2019
(aka, looking for a quieter online life) Spring has sprung. Even in the tropical climate of Hawaii, it has been noticeable in the last couple of days. The temperature has risen, this was a cold winter. Even out of State visitors were noticing that - sometimes cold for a Hawaii residents is still warm for a visitor! The rain appears to be lessening and the warmth of the sun feels so good as it works its way through to the marrow of my bones.
Saturday, March 23, 2019
A dear friend came over a couple of nights ago. I lit a fire outside in the fire pit, my wife made dinner, and once we had eaten we sat around the fire talking while waiting for the Spring moon to rise. As it did, we took little pieces of paper on which we had written things that we wanted to let go of in our lives, and threw them into the fire.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
I’ve just reinstalled Typora after seeing a new update on Macupdate. I had previously uninstalled it as iA Writer fulfills many of my needs, but seeing the update this morning reminded of what I like about Typora’s user experience. It’s cleanness, simplicity and how Markdown is rendered as you type, giving you a live preview of what you are writing. I’ll be interested to see how my usage of the apps, along with Drafts, play out against each other.
Friday, March 8, 2019
With it being my wife’s birthday today, we headed over to the south side of the island to find some sun - it has been cold & wet of late - and shelter from the wind. We found a small, quiet beach and spent a couple of hours there. The warmth of the sun creeping into our bones felt healing and restorative. I unintentionally left my phone in the car, but there was a blessing.
Monday, March 4, 2019
I had a quiet morning working at home by myself. A good friend came by around lunchtime and so I stopped for a bite to eat. Before too long we are engaged in animated conversation and the subject matter turns to something that got us both worked up - not at each other, just about what we are talking about. I’m now trying to return to work, but my mind is feeling like a shaken up glass of dirty water that has just been placed back on the table.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
I have just realized this. Today is one of the twelve days during the year when the date, written in xx/xx/xx format, can be read the same regardless of whether you are from the UK or USA. 3/3/19. The others are 1/1/19, 2/2/19, etc…through to 12/12/19. Clarity on both sides for a day!