Category: Life, The Universe and Everything

News outlets are all reporting on Trump nominating Robert F Kennedy as US secretary of health and human services. And these outlets typically describe RFK as a “vaccine skeptic.”

A skeptic is “a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions.”

Skepticism is a powerful force against groupthink. I’m a practitioner, and a fan.

Someone who questions or doubts facts demonstrable well beyond a shadow of a doubt – like that vaccination saves lives – isn’t a skeptic.

They’re just wrong.

Jung said “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

So, when the gamblers and bookies do things that disagree with the pollsters, my money’s on the bookies.

Sadly, the bookies basically called the US Election weeks ago.

This morning brought resigned sadness, but not much surprise.

I read the idea, somewhere, that politics and policy affects us in two ways: by what it does to us – the liberties provided or restricted, the taxes and tariffs levied – and by what it says about us – how our sense of self is reflected and affected.

What our tribe’s politics and policies say to people – especially those outside the tribe – about who we are, what we believe, and what values we hold dear.

It’s mostly through that lens that I’m despondent about another Trump presidency. Because of what I believe the choice says about the beliefs and values of the tribe that chose him.

A tribe that I’m part of. A tribe whose decisions cause ripples in every direction, and into the future.

Electing him to lead, and to represent the US on the world stage, is a decision that I fundamentally do not understand and deeply disagree with.

I didn’t understand it the first time. We knew plenty about Trump through how he ran his businesses. He had a long history of mistreating people who worked for him. He didn’t dispute it. He was proud of it. He berated belittled and verbally attacked people who disagreed with him. He weaseled out of agreements. And he styled himself a “self-made success,” despite starting well up the ladder thanks to inherited wealth. (You may notice that Trump’s current favored sycophant suffers from the same misapprehension.)

I was confused the first time. I’m utterly incredulous the second time. We had four years to see his reprehensible character and behavior amplified by the office of the presidency. Four years of him acting like a petulant child who needed nothing more than his mommy or daddy to send him to his room until he learned to behave like an adult. Four years of him putting his immediate family into positions of authority and responsibility for which they were no better suited or prepared than he was.

And there was a veritable conga-line of close former advisors and collaborators vocally, publicly, and voluntarily shouting that he’s unfit to lead.

And yet. Here we are. At least another four years.

So now what?

Well, mostly things are the same as yesterday.

He’s a bloviating cretin who spews an incomprehensible amount of nonsense and cruelty and who has historically broken more promises than he’s kept.

I don’t expect him to change.

So it seems there’s little choice but to see which promises he tries to keep, and do what can be done in response.

He’s stacked the deck pretty strongly in his favor, so stopping him will be … hard. The Supreme Court seems unlikely to help. The media is basically why we’re in this mess in the first place, so don’t look to them for help either.

I’m honestly not sure what that leaves.

What I am sure of is that there will be people who will need help. Will need support and defence against this “new world order.”

So we’ll help. Because, what we do matters.

Dear America,

I get that some folks are uncomfortable with the prospect of a female president.

And I can believe that the idea of a Black female president makes some people even more uncomfortable.

I don’t understand, but I can believe.

And some folks really aren’t worried about her gender, or her skin color, they really disagree with her politics.

And that I can l understand a bit.

Maybe one of those is you.

Fair enough.

I entreat you, vote for her anyway.

Even if – especially if – you were going to “sit this one out.”

Don’t abdicate that right and responsibility.

I’m not advocating for her because I think she’s the best possible president.

Rather because I think – because I am completely convinced – that she’s the best option.

By a country mile.

And because the alternative saddens and frightens me, in equal parts.

I’m saddened and frightened by the notion that the country would give power and control to a man who’s clearly and consistently demonstrated that he uses power to attack and suppress those who disagree with him… A man who has clearly and consistently demonstrated that he’s a petulant, racist, xenophobic, nepotistic, misogynistic, anti-science narcissist who can’t distinguish fact from fiction… A man who routinely, and almost casually, encourages violence against those with whom he disagrees.

That the country would give authority to such a man again makes me despondent.

Maybe you don’t like Kamala’s politics. Or her past as a public prosecutor. Or her performance as Biden’s Vice President. Or that she was part of Biden’s administration at all. Or that she’s a Democrat. Or her choice of running mate. Or.., something else.

I’m not saying those concerns aren’t important.

I’m saying that when forced to choose between the alternatives, I don’t see a choice. I have disagreements with Harris about what’s best for the country. I have a deep disagreement with Trump about what it means to be fit for leadership in a democracy, and what it takes to be a decent human being.

I get that a bunch of the people reading this live in states where your vote “doesn’t matter.” Where your vote will be just one more vote for or against the candidate that will nearly certainly carry your state.

That’s broken and needs fixing, make no mistake.

But even if that’s you. Vote.

Make a choice.

And please, please,

Choose wisely.

I’ve needed vision correction most of my life.

I have a strong memory of putting on glasses and being able to see the leaves on trees.

Despite the dramatic improvement, I hated wearing glasses as a teen. As soon as I could convince my parents I switched to contact lenses. I wore rigid gas permeables for years, before switching to extended wear softs for a while, and eventually to daily disposables.

I wore contacts basically exclusively from my late teens to my late 30s. I don’t even remember why I decided to get an updated glasses prescription, but at some point I did.

I still wore contacts most days – my glasses living in a case in my bedside table.

Until late 2019.

As COVID grabbed the world’s attention – and there was much speculation and uncertainty about how it spread – I decided that despite being careful about sanitation, sticking my fingers in my eyes twice a day every day was a risk I could easily eliminate.

By the time I considered switching back to contacts, two things had happened. First, my old contacts had passed their expiry date and I’d chucked them out. Second, and more importantly, I had gotten my first set of progressive focus glasses.

Presbyopia is a harsh mistress.

A bit over a month ago I decided to investigate contacts again, and made an appointment at a local optometrist.

I expected to end up with contacts and reading glasses, but learned that multifocal contacts had come a long way, and were only marginally more expensive than single focus. So we started there.

Over the next couple weeks I tried various combinations of distance and reading correction, ultimately finding a prescription that’s “pretty good.” Distance isn’t as good as my glasses, but it’s workable. Near field is similar – workable, but not as good as my glasses.

Annoyingly, this seems as good as it’s likely to get – ok, but very much a tradeoff.

Even more annoyingly, with contacts in you can’t “cheat” and look over/under them. Want to see detail in a piece of art? Getting closer doesn’t help.

As a final experiment I got single vision contacts and a cheap pair of reading glasses, to see if that was the sweet spot. After trying it for a day, running errands around the city and meeting friends for lunch, I can confidently say that reading glasses are not better,

Not even a little bit.

So after all that I’m likely to stick with glasses, at least most of the time. They’re better for reading. They’re better for distance. But they get rain drops on them. And steam up when coming in out of the cold.

And when you take them off to swim, or shower, or get a hair cut, the world closes in and gets very very small.

The optometrist told me that despite the claims in the marketing materials, multifocal contacts “won’t give you back the eyes you had twenty years ago.”

And that, it turns out, is what I really want.

So I guess I’m waiting for the ocular implants Cyberpunk fiction has been promising for decades to become an actual thing.

And when that happens, I hope they come with the option to toggle the world into black and white…

I really like bags. I used to swear by messenger bags, and have a couple Timbuk2’s and a Chrome, but my back stopped loving asymmetric loading some years back. So I switched to backpacks – and ever since that switch I’ve been looking for “the right one.”

And it turns out that “the right one” really means “the right ones.” Much of the time I just need a bag to carry my computer and other “bits and bobs” – what the kids these days call an “everyday carry” bag. Sometimes I want to bring my camera along with a computer and those “bits and bobs.” For a while, when I was flying between Seattle and Palo Alto regularly, I wanted a bag to carry my computer and pack for a couple days. And occasionally I don’t want to carry any of that, and just need a bag to carry “stuff.”

So I’ve ended up with a collection of bags. I have a Tortuga that was great for for those short work SEA-SJC work trips, and a Timbuk2 that I really like, but the bag I grab the most these days is one I Kickstart’ed from a local design firm here in London called Wingback. When I don’t need to carry a computer, like when I’m running out to restock on coffee beans (from Monmouth) or bagels (from B Bagel), I grab a basic backpack I bought from Stubble & Co. (I had hoped that bag would be my “daily carry,” but it turned out not to be great for that.)

The most problematic is when I want to bring work stuff and my camera. Years ago, basically by dumb luck, I found a bag from a now-defunct company called Kata. It was on sale at a camera store in a mall, and seemed better than the Case Logic bag I had, mostly by virtue of having room for both camera gear and “other stuff” and a dedicated laptop slot. I used it for years, and it’s actually still in pretty good shape.

The thing I didn’t like about it was the need to take the bag off to get the camera out safely. I knew a bunch of bags had started adding side access, so I looked around. After reading a bunch of reviews I decided to buy the bag that everyone seemed to rate at the top. The Peak Design Everyday Backpack (v2). I got the 20L version, ’cause bigger would just mean I’d pack more stuff, and more stuff means my back gets grumpy faster.

Sadly, after a few trips to our Vietnam office – where I needed work stuff and camera – and a couple trips other places, I realized the bag just isn’t as good as I want it to be.

It’s both too big – camera gear rattles around in it because of the specifics of their divider system – and too small – fitting my work computer, personal ipad, e-ink tablet and Kindle is hard. The accesses are awkward and stiff, making it hard to get things in an out. And it’s got pockets that “share” space with other pockets, so you can’t really use all the organization it offers.

So I started looking for something better.

After asking friends and my brother for suggestions, reading a ton of reviews, looking at a bunch of bags on-line, and auditioning a half-dozen in person [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (mostly from Amazon – let’s hear it for free returns), I’ve come to the conclusion that the Peak Design sorta sucks, but it seems to suck less than everything else I’ve tried.

Turns out, I’m picky (I know, you’re shocked). I wanted something around 20-25L, with roughly a 50/50 split between camera and other stuff, and that rules out a bunch of camera bags right there, which are often bigger and lean 80/20 or more into the “camera” part. Side access was the reason I was on this quest, so it was clearly a must. And I’m right handed, but I want the side access hatch be on my right side, which ended up ruling out a bunch of otherwise promising bags, too. (I tried a couple with the hatch on my left, and it fights my muscle memory. Worse, it’s opposite to my everyday bag, so I’d never “learn to switch,” it’d be frustrating every time.)

I also don’t like roll-top bags, which are all the rage right now (in particular a really well regarded one from a bag company that can’t spell) – I find them a hassle to get in and out of. I also don’t love “tactical” looking bags – I’m more “city professional,” than “special forces.” If Barbour made a camera bag, I’d probably try it. And my work computer is a 16″ MacBook Pro, which rules out a bunch of bags that only go up to a 14″ machine. Finally, when I travel for work I have a couple other electronic gadgets that need to fit so a “just big enough” laptop compartment probably isn’t just big enough.

After all that, the nearest miss was the Nomatic (Gomatic in Europe) Luma 18L. It was so close, but at 18L it was just a little too small. Another inch or two in each dimension and it’d have been a winner. Design was great, materials felt high spec, and based on our experiences with the Kickstart’ed Nomatic travel bags we have, I’d have given them the benefit of the doubt.

The Gomatic Peter McKinnon 25L was pretty close too, despite the high price tag. I’m willing to spend money on a good bag, but as the price goes up, my expectations go up to match. When I discovered that, for some reason, they didn’t put side access on the 25L version, adding it back on the larger 35L, that one went back too.

So after all that I made one more attempt at organizing the Peak Design, and I came up with something that seems better than my last few attempts. We’ll see how it does on the next trip.

Until then, if you’ve got suggestions for a bag I haven’t tried but should, drop me a line.

I learned on a flight that my aunt lost her second husband.

That sentence is true, but doesn’t fully convey my meaning.

My aunt’s husband has died.

This is the second husband she’s outlived.

So right now, even more than usual, I take small solace in the unfairness of the universe.

In knowing that we don’t get everything we deserve. And that we don’t deserve everything we get.

My aunt’s first husband – my uncle – didn’t deserve to die. My aunt’s second husband didn’t, either.

And my aunt didn’t deserve to go thought the loss of a partner.

Twice.

My uncle was my mom’s baby brother. Much younger than her – the youngest of 8 siblings.

He and my aunt were the only extended family that lived close to us, were the only extended family I saw with any regularity, were the only extended family I was close to.

They had a huge positive impact on my life, and on my younger brother and sister.

And on my wife and I, who moved a few blocks away from them when we first started out together. They were a safety net. Role models. Dinner companions. Friends.

Their kids were the only cousins I really knew, though I had (have) many.

Despite years of closeness, we’ve drifted apart.

We moved – out of the area, out of the country. If I’m honest we – I – didn’t know how to “go back to normal” after my uncle died.

Now my Aunt, and my cousins and I are miles and years apart. And the gap seems… vast.

He wasn’t the first loss I’d experienced, but there’s no doubt it was the deepest cut I’d felt.

I remember – like it just happened – driving through the night, tears streaming down my face, feeling for the first time utterly and completely broken.

Lost, despite my partner and constant navigator sitting next to me.

And I was just his nephew.

Not his sons. Not his daughter-in-law.

Not his wife.

When I heard the news, I did the only thing I could, though the gesture felt empty even as I made it.

I reached out to say I’m sorry.

I realize I don’t clearly remember the first time I met Stewart. Maybe because from the first time I felt like I’d known him for ages. I think we were introduced by a mutual friend and colleague, and I think we met in the commissary, in the London office building he worked in and I was visiting. Then again, we might have met over a pint at a local.

Unusually, I’m pretty sure we didn’t meet for coffee. Stewart, as he said once, didn’t care at all about coffee – he’d happily drink the worst instant – but he had “tools and rituals” for making tea.

His turn of phrase kept coming to mind as I sat in the chapel participating a different kind of ritual – the kind that involves an officiant describing Stewart’s life in the past tense. His wife widow and three sons in the front row, his father next to them, silent and still, a shallow occasional nod in agreement with some spoken sentiment.

It had been clear from the processional that this wouldn’t be an “ordinary” funeral. The music was straight from Stewart’s playlist – Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance, and bands that, frankly, I’m not cool enough to recognize – which was him to a T. And the funeral announcement had made his preferred dress code clear:

Stewart hated a shirt and tie and only wore them if he was made to so please, if a dinosaur t-shirt makes you smile, jeans and a hoodie is your thing or running gear is your happy place, please do.

There would be no singing “because Stewart would always mutter it was like school assembly, and it’ll be short because he’d much rather everyone had a drink and a giggle.” And there would be an after party.

His passing wasn’t sudden – not that that made it any better. He’d been unwell for years, the initial diagnosis imminently terminal. Once his hair regrew after initial rounds of chemo there were stretches when, unless you knew, you’d have been hard pressed to guess he was ill. (We learned at his memorial that his oncologists were cross with him for taking long runs during treatment, but apparently the doctors had never thought to tell him not to, as “you weren’t supposed to be up to it.”)

Once the pandemic allowed, a small group of us got to occasionally experience what had been his (utterly ridiculous) daily commute going to him to visit. We’d sit at his local and talk over beer, and when he wasn’t up for that anymore we’d sit in his living room and talk. And when he struggled to talk, we’d still sit and talk.

As his condition worsened he and his family ultimately decided that the treatment had more downside than up, and that enough was enough.

From then on it was impossible to even pretend that there was an outcome other than this.

Sitting in a chapel.

Equal parts devastated and angry at the loss of a friend, dead too soon from a disease we must understand and eliminate.

And being utterly, utterly in awe of his partner, who’d navigated his long illness with incredible strength and grace. And struggling to comprehend the impact on his sons, who would navigate the rest of their lives without their father.

Rest in peace, my friend. You are missed.