It started this weekend, I am attempting to go back to my analog watch that my wife got me when I turned 30 years old. This watch has a lot of sentimental value to me and it is the last analog watch that I received from my wife before I swapped to wearing Apple Watches.

My precious watch is a Tag Heur Link Calibre S. I haven’t used this watch in almost a decade so the watch hands weren’t even moving. I had the original idea of bringing it to a jewelry store to get them to fix it but they said they can’t do it and I have to bring it to an actual Tag dealer. There is one sort of close by but I decided instead to get a kit so I could at least change out the watch battery and see if that brought the Tag back to life. Amazingly it worked and the hands started moving again. The next challenge was to get all the hands in the right places which forced me to start looking for the instruction book to move them all around. A curious thing happened, the top button didn’t work correctly and would allow the hands to spin and spin and I couldn’t stop it unless I pulled out the battery. At first that was disappointing but I was able to sort of get the hands into position for time and date, however the position was just a little bit off so I left it alone for a while. I was able to go back to it a week or so later of letting the watch just tick away and was able to put the hands in the correct positions.

This weekend I decided to try and get back to wearing my analog watch and ditching my Apple Watch. During the weekends, I only have one phone and not 2 or 3 (depends on the clients I have and if I can get my email through my phone or not). Since I only have my iPhone and I generally use the weekends as my rest days from stuff like bike riding, I think its a good time to get back into the habit of just using my Tag watch. I lose my connectivity with using my analog watch but thats what my phone is for. I generally use my Apple Watch because I don’t always carry my personal phone with me during the work week so I rely on it for notifications or calls from the family since it’s a cellular version. At least that was the idea when I first started using an Apple Watch, try and ditch the iPhone but after about 10 years of using an Apple Watch I know I’ll never be able to ditch my phone completely but its still useful and has a use case in my life. What I’m trying to do is go back to some of the other things that I’ve put away and re-discovered. In addition to the Tag watch, I decided to scrounge around and look for my other watches that my wife has given me over our long relationship. I haven’t put new batteries into those watches just yet but it’s nice to know they’re still around and that I can bring them back to life.

I’m going to try out this experiment for the summer and continue to make a conscious effort to use my Tag watch when I can. While I do want the Apple Watch to track my health and stuff, I don’t think I need to keep on collecting stand goal badges.

The first unique thing that I did while being in Belgium was to go on a brewery tour at Duvel. They make a lot of beer at their brewery and own many other brewery’s around the world but this is the original one that has their signature beer. The tour consisted of touring where they make the actual beer as well as bottling. At the end of the tour they gave us a gift but we were also allowed to have 2 free beers. It’s been at least a decade since I have had a beer and after drinking it I remember why I don’t have the stuff. I thought the tour was really interesting on how beer is made, how the ingredients matter in the taste composition, and the time it takes for the beer needs to rest in order to complete the process.

My second unique experience, although I’ve kind of done it before, was to visit the Gand-Place in the heart or Brussels. I had visited the famous square almost 20 years ago. My mission for the trip was to to get chocolates for the family in addition to me trying to find the little peeing boy of Brussels that I missed on my first trip to the city. I was able to get a nice assortment from Neuhaus and Leonidas which are the two famous ones that I know about. I took a 360 video of the square, the last time I was there I don’t think I even had an iPhone so that was nice. I found the little peeing boy and even the cartoon museum that I visited the first time I was there.

All in all, the trip wasn’t so bad when I just talk about the tourist stuff that I did, the work part was brutal but I really wasn’t there for fun, I was just fortunate that I was able to fit in some fun while I was there.

Recently my wife asked me to make a poster and challenged me to use my prompting skills to create it with my favorite AI. For the most part, I use Google Gemini for most of my AI needs so I figured I would use it for image generation. I heard they had just released Nano Banana 2 and it’s supposed to be faster than the last version.

The challenge I was given was to create a poster for the bake sale at our Church carnival that would feature Jesus. I wrote a prompt with the tag line my wife wanted but I made sure to include having Jesus in the forefront while also making the lettering using carnival font. The result is in this post. There was some additional prompting to change the address and who it was for but those were really minor things that Gemini was able to handle quite easily.

I’ve used Gemini before to create wall paper for Dec on my Samsung Galaxy 25+ but other than that I haven’t done much with it but ask it questions. I might do this again for other images that I want to create and maybe I’ll do it for work as well since I need images and diagrams for a lot of things. This could save me quite a bit of time while also increasing my knowledge in promoting.

The price did increase from last year and I would actually get the phone with the bigger storage so I would have 512 of memory instead of just 256. I know for my phones I need more memory than 256, although I’m sure I could get away with it for my work phone but if I ever want to make it more personalized and use it for more than just work I’m going to need more memory. Besides whoever said they had too much memory on their phone? I’m still not getting away from the Apple ecosystem, I just have too many devices and apps that run on iOS. This would become a just in case phone if something ever happened to my iPhone but even then, it would be temporary and I’d immediately get another iPhone. Most people say it’s iMessage that’s the most important app for them, for me it’s Notes.

I put in an email to the person that governs mobile phones at my company to see if I can just trade in my current Galaxy S25+ and just put up a little bit of money to get the Ultra. I’m curious to see what he says since my phone is part of a 2 year contract and normally I have to wait to do upgrades. If that resets my contract, I’m good with that since it’s a company phone at the end of the day. I also can’t forget I have a Pixel 9. I looked up the trade in value of what Samsung would give me and they would only give me $280 for the Pixel and $700 for my Galaxy. I can see where Samsung believes there is value when it comes to trade in’s. It’s time to wait and see what corporate says. I’m not unhappy with my phone really, but I really would like the S Pen.

This post is a little old since I’ve had this iPad since Black Friday but I decided to get an 11″ iPad Pro M4 after the M5’s were announced. Costco had a sale on them and I went ahead and picked one up. I was really considering getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 instead but it’s not available at Costco. I mainly bought it at Costco just in case I got buyers remorse and they give me 90 days to return it. I passed the 90 days recently so I guess I’m keeping this thing. I have made the M4 my personal iPad and transitioned my 12.9 to be my “work” iPad since its easier to stare at all day when I have to do calls, look at documents, or just read my millions of emails.

I decided on the smaller version of the iPad this time mainly for portability. I’ve had versions of the 11″ for over 16 years since the first iPad came out (I still have this device too) and I feel at home using this size of iPad and it is easier to read in bed due to its lighter weight. I paired this iPad with an ESR case because the only option from Apple these days is the Magic Keyboard and I’m a fan of the folio keyboards but they’re moving away from those. I don’t necessarily need to have my iPad be a laptop all the time which is why I like this one because the keyboard can be detached. I normally use the iPad without the keyboard and track pad and using it like a regular old iPad like back in the olden days of 2010. I don’t do M4 things on this iPad, meaning I don’t push it in any way shape or form by using it to “create” stuff. I am used to having the 120hz refresh though since I’ve had an iPad Pro since 2018, so its hard to go back and I also didn’t want to have to deal with Touch ID for my iPad when the FaceID on my 12.9 is so freaking awesome and it wasn’t something I wanted to give up on my personal device.

I was considering making the 11” my work iPad but since this is newer and more powerful and portable, I decided on keeping it as my personal one. Now that my work laptop is actually usable, there’s less of a reason to use my iPad for work but I still do it when I don’t need to be creative and I just have to read or write emails. The screen protector I put on the iPad I might replace, it’s supposed to be more “paper like” but it’s kind of rough on the fingers so I might end up replacing it. What I didn’t do was get the new Apple Pencil Pro, instead I went with ESR again to get a Bluetooth enabled one and frankly it works just fine. In all honesty, I haven’t really used it at all on this iPad to create anything. The added benefit is that it has Find My capability and I can use it with my other iPads seamlessly so thats a major plus for me.

I’ve already taken this iPad on vacation with me and even though the ESR case makes it more bulky than my 10.5 or 12.9 iPad Pro’s, the fact that I can remove the keyboard case and still be able to prop it up makes this iPad my perfect travel companion. Pair this with Plex for downloaded movies, and now YouTube music for audio stuff, this is going to be my new travel computing device for vacations. While I enjoy the 12.9, this is the form factor and size that I think I will stick with. I have eyed getting a mini but my phone is almost just as big so I think this is a good middle of the road choice for me.

I am considering keeping the service since to date, along with Netflix, this has provided the greatest amount of value from a streaming service that I have tested out. Pandora was pretty good when they gave it to me for free for a year, I hated Spotify and Apply Music for the most part and I don’t need all the extra bells and whistles that Apple provides like Apple TV and Fitness. I think YouTube has found the right balance at least for what I’m looking for in a streaming service.

In actuality the weather hasn’t been all that bad and Steamboat is technically skiable even though 2/3 of the mountain is closed due to lack of snow. There are other places in Colorado and Utah that are pretty much lacking any type of snow. That’s kind of weird during this time of year and it should be much colder too. That’s why the different resorts have been having trouble getting snow on the trails because it’s not cold enough to actually make the stuff.

This past day or so, it started to snow because it was finally cold enough. There was about 10” dropped but on the west coast, they got about 7’, yeah thats feet not inches which is HUGE for any single point in time. That’s like a week or a months worth of snow in just a couple of days. The north east got dumped on with tons of snow which would have been nice for me 2 years ago when I went to Vermont to try and ski there but was met with mediocre snowfall and bone chilling weather. I think the only time to ski now is late January and early February to make sure there is at least snow on the damn mountain if you’re going to ski in the Rockies.

So where does that leave me? Well, the terrain is sort of ok in Steamboat. I was able to go up for 2 half days with my daughter before calling it quits because with so many people skiing the same lines, they’re just pushing snow into moguls and leaving ice in between which is really no fun for us. I’ll keep on skiing every day at least half a day, is that a waste of the Ikon pass? Probably but at least I’m using it and not just packing up and leaving. Even though I can’t ski the way I want to, it’s still really pretty here in the Rockies and it’s nice to be in the cold since I’m always in summer at home.

I was a little late in buying my 10.5 iPad Pro, it was meant to replace my iPad Mini 3 and it has served me well even up until now in 2025. Thats a long time to keep a tablet these days but I also have my iPad from 2010 (the OG version) where the App Store doesn’t even work anymore. I have been thinking of replacing this iPad with something else for work mainly because it is no longer getting any software updates from Apple for security. I think it’s running iOS 17, thats not bad by any stretch and it works for most of the things I need.

Where this iPad is starting to feel slow is in the work department. There have been some recent updates to MS Teams and there is now a noticeable delay when I type on the keyboard and when the characters appear on the screen. This is the original keyboard that I got for the iPad that uses the pins on the back so this is official gear and not some cheap Bluetooth knock off. I’ve also noticed that it’s taking more time to load the application too, same thing with Outlook so while it’s not really a deal breaker it is annoying.

Due to my propensity to separate work and life, I don’t want to use my 12.9 iPad Pro for work because I have a tendency to check things at work if the app is available to me. I notice that I do that when I take my work phone with me that I’m looking for notifications to see if there is something that is going to impact my calendar and I don’t need that sort of additional stress when I’m just trying to relax with my iPad. I have been thinking of getting another M2 refurbished iPad Pro, maybe the 11” or the 12.9” but another consideration is that I go with buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 to change things up a bit. I have been gravitating to using Android for work recently, I have 2 Android phones for this purpose and have moved to only using iOS for personal.

Given that my work load has increased a lot and I don’t like working off my Windows laptop most of the time, I’m in the market for a new tablet. I think I can hold off for a little while longer but I want to see what sales Black Friday brings since it’s not too far away. I have been eyeing the refurb market for the iPad Pro’s only because I have some accessories that I can use with them. The Galaxy Tab’s are intriguing because they are offering 7 years of updates and it has the SD Card slot to expand the storage and the included S Pen. My Apple Pencil was appropriated by my daughter so I would need a new one but I can re-use my keyboard for work and just swap between the devices if I needed to unless I get something like an M4 or better iPad Pro.

I’ve been using an iPhone since the 3GS. In that time I have converted over a long period of time my immediate family and my parents to using the iPhone. Also during that period I acquired an iPad and a MacBook Pro so you could say that I’m firmly in the ecosystem. Even for work I’ve been sporting iPhones until recently as secondary devices because it was familiar and I could download apps that I had from my primary account to it without paying again if they were paid apps.

This past year I decided to get 2 Android phones. One of them is a Samsung Galaxy S25+ and the other is a Google Pixel 9. Both are for work but the Pixel 9 is semi personal because I took an older work phone and traded it in for the Pixel 9 at a steep discount. I have liked what I’ve seen with One UI 8 (Samsung’s version) and Android 16. Both phones operate very similar to my iPhone and have some features like multi-user switching that I like to have as well. It’s also a far cry from my first foray into Android when I got an HTC MyPhone in 2011 for work. I promptly switched to an iPhone 5S when the opportunity presented itself. I’ve been eyeing the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra mainly because it has features that I think I would take advantage of like the 10X zoom camera and the stylus for taking notes.

The general issue is that I use a lot of Apple services in addition to just the phone. I don’t necessarily “pay” for these services, it just comes with the phone and I use the free tier. I think the biggest hurdles for swapping into a Samsung Galaxy 25 Ultra are Notes and FindMy. A lot of people would argue that iMessage is their linchpin but it’s not for me really, a lot of the texting I have to do these days is actually over WhatsApp. I’ve swapped over to using Notes for a lot of my general note taking. I have notes spread out everywhere since Notes wasn’t all that great in the beginning but I’ve never transitioned those notes since it didn’t make sense. There is a tool to transition to Samsung Notes so thats not a big problem but Android doesn’t have Notability which is another note taking tool that I use extensively. FindMy is definitely an app that I use often to make sure my family is safe and that I can find our devices. I have air tags for my bags so I can track them when I have them checked on flights. Also my family is on iOS devices so it’s easy for me to support them when they have issues.

At least for the foreseeable future, I’ll be trapped in the Apple Ecosystem unless I can get the rest of my immediate family to swap over and thats not likely to happen since I was the one that introduced them to the ecosystem in the first place. I think I’ll keep using Android for work so I can continue to learn about it and see what the other side of the mobile market is doing. While I won’t be spending $1200 for a Samsung Galaxy Ultra phone anytime soon for work, the lower models in the Galaxy series and the Pixel series should be ok. I might even keep the ones I have for the 7 years of updates that are promised to see if they really have that sort of longevity which is greater than my iPhones so far (but its close, I got 6 years I think with my iPhone6).

Eventually I got in because I luckily enabled my Apple Account to log in. My account was using my old email address that was deactivated but there was no way to change it which in itself was crazy until I used a totally new email address so I had a backup way of getting into. Even 2FA wasn’t working unless you used the Apple ID to get into the site. I’ve been trying to do this for 30 minutes l, there shouldn’t be this much friction in just resetting a password especially if the user name is known. Just sending an email with a link to the password reset site is just silly.

I’m glad I got back in but now I have some clean up to do in terms of my WordPress account. That’s fairly annoying but at least I got in my blog post for the month. Not exactly what I wanted to blog about but it would be sufficient for this month unless I feel the urge to do another one.