• The simple post

    I collect text editors on my iPhone like some collect coins. This latest app is the simplest yet – and may turn out to be my favorite.

    The last one was my favorite until it crashed and took an entire post with it. I was so pissed I had to put myself in time out – sans iPhone.

    The damn thing is too expensive, and more importantly – probably too fragile – to be tossing it around like a catharsis frisbee.

    So on we go. Another text app for John. It syncs with Dropbox. It better be stable. It also better have a persistent state when it’s interrupted by little things – like a phone call.

    Sometimes we forget. The iPhone does that too.

  • Easy come, easy go

    I often come up with (what I think are) great blog posts driving to or from work. The fifteen to twenty minutes I spend in the car, radio off, windows open, countless strip malls a blur as I speed by on US 19, are some of those rare moments that are undisputedly “my time.”

    I always think to myself, “there’s no way I’ll forget this one.”

    But I always do.

  • Feeling at home

    I live in a relatively small town in Florida’s most densely populated county.

    Dunedin comes from the Gaelic name: Dùn Èideann, thus named by its Scottish settlers. It’s the Gaelic name for Edinburgh, their hometown in Scotland. It’s commonly mispronounced as a two syllable word: Dune-din (the first like the dunes of a beach, the second like the first syllable of the word dinner – or the din of battle.) It’s correctly pronounced with three syllables: Dun (rhymes with run) – E (like saying the letter) – din (again like the din of battle).

    The video above is just one of the ways Dunedin embraces its heritage. It’s not a very good video, taken in bad light on my phone, but it gives you an idea. Both the middle and high schools feature a version of the Dunedin Highlander Band, both with pipes a plenty.

    High school was not a good time for me, but one of the highlights was the band. Don’t laugh. Yes, the band. The video is of a couple members of the middle school band fund raising outside a local drugstore (can’t imagine why I’d be at a drugstore). They were playing a tune the high school band used as their march. They played it proudly as they entered the stadium and left (for football games). They played it at the end of half-time as they left the field.

    And every time they played it I got goose bumps, cementing my status as a nerd. It was a thrill to catch them playing last night.