Six times now – miss you, Mom
Looks like they allow whoever to claim a deleted handle after 30 days (@kingsbury is *NOT* me – my archive is here)
Welcome to the long-delayed new theme for 7 Minute Miles! I’ve had a number of design goals for quite some time, the biggest of which was making this site appear better on mobile devices. A few months ago, I set up a test environment using the excellent WordPress development tool Local, by WP Engine. While there is still a lot of tweaking to do, it’s time to make the switch and make updates to production (I know, I know).
So what were some of my key goals?
- Responsive design
- Dark theme
- Larger fonts/easier to read
- Hamburger menu navigation
- One design for all devices
- Clean up and simplify code
- Full PHP8 support
There were a number of things I initially had on the list that I decided to drop. I still really, really like the three-column newspaper look on larger screens and it was hard to let go of that Masonry codebase that I’ve used for quite a long time. Also decided I just don’t like Gutenberg and don’t want to switch now. That will change if/when the Classic Editor plugin reaches end of life, but I’m comfortable modifying the underlying theme code directly when needed.
So what’s left to do? Lots of testing across different devices (iPhone, iPad, iMac, Windows) and a review of all my previous sub-pages (some of which may not come back). Now that this is live, I need to review the demise of Tweetbot/Twitter and decide how often I want to post here and what format that will take. As always, you can find the RSS feed here and I still highly recommend NetNewsWire for following people.
Thanks for visiting!
This whole thing with Twitter started me down a path with my Twitter archive that has spawned an entire new direction of personal tasks that all tie in with Marie Kondo’s philosophy of reducing clutter and determining what “sparks joy” in your life. I finally figured out a way to automate the creation of posts on this site for every historical @kingsbury tweet that was missing and have set up yearly pages you can access here.
Since Twitter would downsize any attached photos, I’ve been going through those pages to look for pictures that have better originals, then looking through my iCloud library to see if I can locate and update to the best versions. This lead to the discovery that my iCloud photo library was missing a number of months, so I started looking through all of my old hard drives to see what I could find. After moving jobs and upgrading personal laptops over the years, this was a prime candidate for reducing clutter and better organization.
I’ve long battled with music and photo files, but this is my first stab in a long time of trying to get everything at least in one spot for a review of what to keep and what to delete. Just trying to eliminate duplicate folders is a huge step in the right direction. Now that iCloud file storage is (mostly) solid and we have fiber to the new house, I’m consolidating everything in the cloud now. This generally works great with my many devices that can access it, but I do still have concerns about how iCloud manages local disk space (and how I can have local and secondary cloud backups of this data).
Now that I’ve been in my new role as systems engineer at TPT for a month, I figured it was a good time to reflect on this change and write about my experience so far. The organization’s post-COVID return to the office has been branded as a “Return to Lowertown” and it literally is for me too. Hard to believe it’s almost a year already since we left Rayette Lofts to head on down the river…
The commute back and forth has been great so far, usually taking under 15 minutes each way. Next spring, I hope to ride my bike a few days each week if I can sort out the storage issues. I splurged on the expensive parking option in the Lowertown Ramp, which is easy-in on Sibley and easy-out on Jackson (plus covered spots with no winter scraping). I’ve never really had any security trouble in Lowertown, but it is convenient to have a parking spot right next to the office entrance.
Some other logistical things: currently working a hybrid schedule of four days in the office and one day from home (Wednesdays), which has been very nice. While every day has been focused on getting up to speed on systems and technology, I’ve been trying to use the work from home day as a deep-dive research day (which is easier alone). TPT has a nice lunchroom, so I’ve mainly been bringing in frozen lunches to eat. The reawakening of the downtown St. Paul lunch dining scene has been slow, but there are pockets here and there. Still exploring the skyway, but always open to suggestions and recommendations.
This is a streak I can fully get behind: four full years of bonus time as of today (read about year one, year two and year three). As the memories of that day fade farther and farther out, I love having this extra “birthday” to reflect on how lucky I am to have more time with family and friends before moving in to my forever home (pictured above).
My overall health remains good, but wear and tear issues are starting to be felt more and more. Heading to see a foot specialist in a few weeks to have my left foot looked at – not sure if it’s a broken bone, arthritis or something else, but it’s not been the same since running the Garry Bjorklund Half in June. That was my first race longer than a 10K during bonus time, but I’m not sure I want to do anything longer than that again (but we’ll see what the doctor says). Rode 500+ miles on the bike this year and have the watch move streak at 905 days and counting, but played a lot less golf this season. Should drop 25 pounds, but that’s been a challenge.
My periodic MRI and subsequent talk with Dr. Tummala was very positive, so I don’t need another one of those for three years. That’s really great news, as I feel ultra-claustrophobic in that machine now. Had a visit with the dentist this week and everything on that front is still coming up Milhouse. I have a love/hate relationship with my glasses – the prism prescription is now probably the best it will get, so I still need to generally wear them for driving and golf. I can get by the rest of the time without them, so that’s an OK compromise.
