Tag: people

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 7, 20269:25 pm

There’s No Mending This Broken ARM

I love the battery life, design, performance, and weight of Samsung Galaxy4 Edge, which I acquired in June 2024. But software compatibility is a sticking point nearly two years later. The laptop packs the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 processor. Not all applications—too few, actually—run natively om the ARM architecture.

In contrast, compatibility is nearly universal for Windows 11 on x86 chips. Intel’s newest microprocessors are more competitive with ARM, particularly enabling long battery life. Samsung releases new Panther Lake laptops on March 11, 2026, and I seriously consider getting one. ARM is broken for too many applications.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 18, 20267:56 pm

How Not to Photograph Kids

What a sorry lot of siblings we were. Eldest daughter Annette (right) looks the best. The youngest, Laurette, is placid but not exactly enthusiastic. And me—yes, me—looks like I want to be anywhere else but there.

The portrait comes from my father’s collection of photographic slides. My sister Nanette (missing from the photo) and I visited the Old Man at his home in Maine two years ago today. The following month he went into hospice, and he died 40 days later—April 16, 2024. We later learned that via quick-claim deed he gave away the family farm to the copastors of his church. They sold the property 13 months later.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 16, 20268:39 pm

Best Ride in the Maine North Woods

For anyone applying various vintage or classic film filters to their modern photos, the Featured Image is what you’re trying to achieve. This shot is absolutely authentic. It’s the real deal. You’re looking at my uncle’s dune buggy, as captured by my father in summer 1974, or thereabouts. The vehicle, built around a Volkswagen Beetle chassis, never touched sand, by the way, just the rocky ground of the Allagash wilderness.

My cousin Dan and I used to ride on the back of the buggy, on the (yellow) fiberglass body, holding onto the bar for support. Given how rough were the makeshift roads that lumberjacks had made decades earlier, it’s amazing neither of us fell off.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 14, 20269:09 pm

My Parents, for Valentine’s Day

I resumed looking through my father’s stash of photo slides, today. The number of bad shots is astonishing, and the Featured Image is one of them. I share it nevertheless, for what it captures of the 1970s and because the couple are my parents.

Photographer is unknown, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is none. My father easily could have used a self-timer and tripod to capture a self-portrait. There is no date on the slide, but I would guess winter of ’72 or ’73. My father’s father died in June of Seventy-two. My mother pushed for divorce not long later. They look happy enough here, so I assume this is before the marriage disintegrated. If true, each would be 30 years old.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 5, 20269:30 pm

A Fresh Pot of Bean-hole Beans Unearthed

This is what absolutely authentic photography looks like. To digital content, I can apply film or vintage filters using any of several editing apps to make a photo look like the Featured Image. But this is the real deal, as captured by someone using my father’s film camera—likely in June or July 1972 or ’73. That’s a pure guesstimate.

Likely location: The lumberjack camp the Wilcox brothers called “Dodge City“. During the early 1970s, a group of hunters would spend as much as three weeks in the Allagash Wilderness, which is along the St. John Valley in an area also called the Maine North Woods. My Uncle Glenn had jacket patches made identifying the group as the Falls Brook Rangers, Yankeetuladi.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 4, 202610:12 pm

Nana Banana

Oh the moments 21st-Century Kids are deprived of. There is something oh-so nostalgic about Jell-O made with overripe bananas and a cup or two of real cane sugar. That’s what Nana prepares in the Featured Image, which my father would have taken. Date is unknown, but sometime in 1972 or `73 is my guess.

We sure ate a lot of Jell-O growing up in the 1970s. Eater book review “‘Joys of Jell-O,’ There’s Nothing You Can’t Do with Colored Gelatin” claims that at the height of the jiggly dessert’s popularity, 1968, the average American household consumed 16 boxes a year. You should also read: “How the class history of Jell-O came full circle“—Marketplace”.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 3, 20269:38 pm

Across the Snow

Two years ago, my sister Nanette and I discussed traveling to Maine to visit our father, whose health appeared to be declining. We made the trip, and visited with him February 17-18. He died on April 16, 2024.

As I explained yesterday, the Old Man left to me a treasure-trove of photographic slides, most of which he presumably had shot. They’re all mixed up, which makes sorting through them kind of a memorial journey—no, an adventure! The current batch is so far from 1973 and ’74, and I have seen so few.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 2, 20269:10 pm

She Feels Poorly

The process of sorting through my father’s stash of photographic slides continues, sputtering along. I cannot dedicate the time necessary to sort through them quickly, nor to clean them up (if such process is possible). They are filthy.

The Featured Image has a processing date of January 1973. The young girl beneath the blanket appears to be one of my sisters, two of whom looked more alike. Nanette says “pretty sure it’s me. The eyes would be a bit crossed if it were” our youngest sister. “That’s exactly how I lay on the couch when I’m sick today. My guess is I was sick”.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 29, 20269:04 pm

Getting Good Graffiti

Last Summer, I started seeing sophisticated graffiti splash upon utility boxes across University Heights. My mistake. The San Diego village commissioned local artists to dress up the boxes, and so they did to about 51 of them.

The Featured Image and first companion catch artists at work on a box located near the intersection of Florida Street and El Cajon Blvd. Both photos come from Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, on Aug. 17, 2025. Vitals, first: f/3.4, ISO 32, 1/500 sec, (synthetic) 230mm (digital and optical zoom); 3:02 p.m. PDT.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 23, 20268:38 pm

When Less is More

When Twiggs shuttered both locations—Park Blvd in University Heights, Adams Ave in North Park—in October 2023, many locals, me included, were blindsided. The coffee shops operated for about three decades successfully—granted, changing owners several times and more recently a few years before the sudden end.

New shops replaced both storefronts. The one on Park simply took over the space, with so little changes that one might not realize that Twiggs ever went away. But over on Adams, the new coffee shop is a complete makeover. The change isn’t just dramatic; the place stands apart from every other coffee shop in the five-community locales of Kensington, Hillcrest, Normal Heights, North Park, and University Heights.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 18, 20269:48 pm

They Came from Boston to Dance

What do I know about anything? Third weekend of the month is the book sale at the local library, from which I walked home via Park Blvd. Where Meade and Mission meet the street in a quasi-triangle, there is the University Heights pillar. Approaching, I observed a group gathered and milling about; well, that piqued my curiosity.

Passing through them, I could see from the men’s T-Shirts that they were members of a dance company. I wondered if a public demonstration might be coming or perhaps people were being trained to dance; meaning, everything was educational. Observation led me to presume that they were publicly practicing (and maybe teaching), deliberately outdoors on an absolutely gorgeous, unseasonably warm day; high temperature topped 25 degrees Celsius (78 Fahrenheit).

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 14, 202610:24 pm

We Three Cousins

If you wondered what native, rustic Aroostook County, Maine men looked like in 1978 (or thereabouts), I present the Featured Image taken by my Uncle Glenn. Cousin Dan (left) used an HP film scanner to digitize the photo from an original slide. He emailed the portrait, and two other photos, this afternoon. The scary dude in the middle is me; my arm listlessly hangs over my younger cousin’s shoulder—and holds what looks like a rock; why would that be?

Since I haven’t spoken to the cousin on the right for more than two years, and I know he is a somewhat private, I withhold his name out of respect. Dan, on the other hand, is easier going— as am I—and his identity was revealed in other posts.