Category: Society

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 18, 20236:45 pm

Who Yelled ‘Fire!’

While walking to Pet Me Please in San Diego neighborhood Normal Heights, today, I passed a mural that demanded photographic attention. Unknown to me at the time: The building’s business is All County Fire, which sells protective equipment for preventing or combating unwanted, ah, flaming events.

The Featured Image is a single shot; my plan to take another was interrupted by a gentleman who asked if I had taken a photo of his car, which was parked on the street. He worried about an accident; perhaps he had experience, but I didn’t ask. After understanding the object of my interest, he praised the artist who painted the mural, explaining another adorned the other side of building. I later looked but didn’t find it.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 14, 20239:22 pm

Soon to be as Popular as Grand Ole Opry?

Today, I did an In-N-Out drive-by while other cars were ridiculously stuck in the drive-thru. What’s up with all this vehicular laziness? Park. Go inside and order. Your food will come faster. Shall we time it so you can see, or is your butt so planted you would never consider the freedom and ease found at the counter?

But I digress. The Featured Image, quickly taken from inside my Honda using Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, is shared solely to illustrate this post—and opportunity to snark vomit all over the fast-foodery’s homeland. This week, In-N-Out announced plans to open its farthest east location(s). In Tennessee. Why the Volunteer State, you might ask. The company doesn’t really answer, but you don’t need more sense than the drive-thru nutters to rightly reason. That’s where the customers are—meaning California expats and refugees. And you thought they all flocked to Idaho and Texas (yes, where many did flee).

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 10, 202311:34 pm

The World on My Wall

On the last day of 2022, I ordered a giant, world map from Maps International via Amazon. A roll tube containing the item arrived today. Measuring 40 x 80 inches (101.6 x 203.2 cm), the laminated reference fills most of the wall behind me.

Among my 2023 goals: be more aware about global events. That’s an ambitious task, when so much of the U.S. press makes every little minutia into a catastrophic crisis.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 2, 202310:56 pm

I Tipped Over the Apple Cart

During December 1998, I walked into CompUSA and walked out with my first Apple computer, the original Bondi Blue iMac. Appropriate timing, perhaps, December 2022 brought that chapter of my digital lifestyle to a close. I have moved on from the company that Steve Jobs’ vision built and which Tim Cook turned into an empire.

Since that winter’s day 24 years earlier, I primarily used fruit-logo hardware, despite additionally running Windows PCs for many years (since Microsoft was my beat as a reporter). The biggest gap came with my enthusiasm for Chromebook, starting in 2011 and 12. If Google still sold something as luxurious as the Pixel or LS successor, I likely would be typing on a Chromebook now.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 31, 20228:52 pm

Better Than Two Barrels of Monkeys

I wouldn’t call 2022 a barrel of fun, would you? But barrel(s) of laughs is appropriate enough, if chuckling at the ironic or insanely non-sensical means anything. There was plenty of that.

For example, Elon Musk made a bid to buy Twitter, then walked away only to return and take ownership. He then started releasing, through journalists, starting with Matt Taibbi, the so-called “Twitter Files”, which shockingly showed a level of collusion between the social media platform and government agencies to influence, if nothing else, U.S. elections. Oh that influence includes the Biden campaign in 2020.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 28, 20229:12 pm

Not Hello, But Goodbye

My 16.2-inch MacBook Pro—Apple M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU; 32GB unified memory; 1TB SSD—is gone. This morning, an associate professor and his wife purchased the laptop, which will become her go-to machine for video production. The monster machine will be missed.

On Christmas, parents bought my wife’s 13.3-inch MBP for their college student son. Same day, our daughter inherited my iPhone 13 Pro, which gift I already regret giving because of bad behavior on her part this evening (You don’t need to know, but I do need to remember). Samsung gave great trade-in amount for Annie’s smartphone. She and I now own the Galaxy S22 and S22 Ultra, respectively.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 25, 20228:10 pm

A Very SoCal Christmas

Christmas Day assumed various nuances that made memories for the Wilcox family and others. For starters, we could celebrate free of SARS-CoV-2(severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates that oppressed the previous two years’ holidays. Summer suddenly reappeared in a magnificently mild and sunny day, with the temperature reaching 25.6 degrees Celsius (78 Fahrenheit). Even as I write, temp is unseasonably 19 C (66 F). Tomorrow is supposed to be nearly as warm as today.

As I will more fully explain in a few days, my wife and I have changed computing platforms—PCs and smartphones. At 12:30 p.m. PST, I met parents and their adult age college student to buy Annie’s 13.3-inch MacBook Pro M1 (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD). I have yet to find a buyer for my 16.2-inch MBP M1, which is a monster configuration that only a crazy man would let go—or swap for something seemingly less. All will be revealed soon enough. There are reasons.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 24, 20229:56 pm

Oh Holy Night

A few weeks ago, Dad asked about conducting a video call with the remaining (adult) children gathered. My sister Nanette, whose day job is software support, took the request and set up a Zoom meeting. Our father is 81 years old, and his computing device is an iPhone, so some testing was necessary beforehand. Of course, during last night’s final prep, his home lost electrical power (weather is stormy back home). She persevered, as did he.

Following some snafus getting him connected, sometime after 7 p.m. EST, we gathered online—some of us seeing one another for the first time in decades. We all live in different states. Nan’s husband joined and my wife. Our youngest sister is widowed. Missing and sorely missed: The eldest daughter, who passed away in 2016.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 23, 202210:39 pm

No Christmas Cheer Here

One of the nearby assuredly festively-decorated houses isn’t this Christmas season. You can get a sense of what’s typical from the profile of Queenie, who joined my “Cats of University Heights” series in December 2021. Sadly, she vanished last month, and her owner assumes coyote.

Sad as that may seem, the family suffered another emotional assault a month earlier, when the homeowner came home to find that the four towering palms outside her house had been marked for removal (e.g. clearcutting). Reportedly, San Diego Gas and Electric ordered the curbside destruction.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 18, 202210:43 pm

Great Galaxy!

I don’t believe in the multiverse, but let’s pretend for the sake of narrative. In one reality, my wife and I continue to use the iPhone 13 Pro pair purchased in early autumn 2021. In another, we upgraded to the 14 models released this year. Along another path, we bought Google Pixel 7 for her and Pro for me. But in this here and now, we are unexpected owners of Samsung Galaxy S22 and its, considerably larger, Ultra sibling.

The saga starts with an insane crisis beleaguering our daughter, where, because of incompetence and mischief, she got locked out of her iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Air—and iCloud account! About a month later, and many Apple support calls or Genius Bar visits, she has regained use of the handset and notebook; iCloud is irrevocably lost, or so seems situation as I write. Someone, and she doesn’t recall being that person, activated recovery key, which my daughter does not have. Without it, Apple Support agents continually say she cannot regain access to her iCloud identity. Ah, yeah.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 13, 20228:58 pm

The Real Rainbow

Responding to some of the news from Washington, DC today, I present a simple reminder. The Featured Image comes from Sigma fp on Christmas Day 2019. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 125, 1/500 sec, […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 12, 202211:15 am

Best Use of Porta Potty Yet

Every delivery comes with St. Nick’s personal guarantee: “These toys don’t stink!” As seen in San Diego community University Heights along Louisiana Street, where one of my neighbors has massive home foundation reconstruction underway.

I used iPhone 13 Pro to capture the Featured Image. Vitals: f/1.5, ISO 50, 1/3968 sec, 26mm; 10:29 a.m. PST.