1. What’s your biggest “secret” tech you use all the time?
I run Linux Mint on my laptop – I don’t have to pay for access or upgrades, and it is incredibly easy to customize it. It runs all the modern web browsers and has lots of office software and music/video player options. Using Windows 11 at work is just so painful.
2. What is your best “analog” hack you still employ
Handwriting in my journal with just an ink pen. I find it easier to get my thoughts down on paper when entering into the “analog” journal instead of typing it into some app or document. More formal writing I prefer the keyboard/laptop but for those basic seeds and random thoughts my brain needs the time it takes to get it down in my notebook first.
3. What tradition from your family or culture do you still keep alive?
The parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles have all passed, but some kitchen traditions still exist. Cooking some dishes just exactly the way my mother would. Keeping the kitchen knives sharp, the way my father would.
4. What’s the coolest toy you ever received as a kid?
I was probably nine or ten and got this really cool action figure, “rescue airplane”Big Jim Sky Commander airplane, to play with my Big Jim action toys. A few years later, we got an Atari console under the Christmas tree. Childhood was fun.
5. What’s something you let go of that made your life noticeably better?
When my car was stolen, I decided to switch to a bicycle. I took some of the insurance money and bought a nice e-bike, and in the spring through the fall, I try to ride into the office three days a week. When I need a vehicle for something big, I borrow my sister’s truck or use a ride-sharing service.
1) My secret tech is to only buy dumb TVs and buy a good streaming device to connect to it. The bloatware on most TVs (streaming apps and proprietary apps) are really badly designed. Smart TVs are cheap because all the installed bloatware companies pay money to the manufacturer, yet the apps are slow, not updated enough and the TV does not have the processing power to be a good streaming device. The only downside is dumb TVs are a little harder to find and the largest size I’ve found is 50″.
2) I try to fix just about everything, but the best analog hack is for those larger rechargeable items like small vacuums and similar stuff that the batteries inside go bad. It is pretty easy to open them up and rebuild the batteries versus dispose of them and buy a cheap new one.
3) We still open presents one person, one present at a time versus crazy chaos of hand them out and everyone opens at once. That takes away all the fun and appreciation of the individual gifting. Don’t be a savage at Christmas.
4) Air Trix – Using a cool blower, you must move a styrofoam ball suspended on a column of air through various obstacles. It was magical.
5) My last job working for an ad agency. Holy crap did it beat the shit out of me for 8 years. 5 of those years were spent trying to get out of it and find a new job while trying to provide for a full house during the lowest economic times in my lifetime (until now and stupid man). Crushed my confidence and was just toxic on all levels. When there was even hint of layoffs, I offered myself up as soon as possible and on my last day wore a suit and tie to turn in my computer and keycard and then went out and celebrated.
1) I am tech dumb. I use my mapping app to get everywhere.
2) I wear a non digital, non internet analog watch.
3) No strong familial traditions.
4) I got a new Big Wheel when my stupid little brother came home.
5) Letting my fire service career go was tough but oh so much better off now.
1. I keep an old laptop running Windows 7 and Office 07 for productivity tasks. I still can use all of the old DOS based keyboard hacks to quickly create and manipulate spreadsheet data, and I’m much faster that way than using a newer version.
2. I echo Greg’s answer. I also always wear a watch, and the plainer the dial, the better. My favorite watch doesn’t even have numbers on it.
3. Biscochitos are a lard based shortbread cookie flavored with anise and booze. Someone in the family bakes them each year for Christmas. The biscochito has a cloudy backstory but is thought to be a Catholic adaptation of a Moorish treat that for some reason settled in what it now New Mexico.
4. I got a snazzy blue tricycle on my third birthday that was the most liberating thing I ever received. I was able to be my three year old self in record time once I had trike to convey me.
5. Smoking cigarettes. I was never addicted to the nicotine, but I was very much addicted to the habit. I’m so glad to have the health risks, expense and disgusting-ness of that habit behind me for good.