The weather took a pleasant turn this past week. Going outside to sip morning coffee again is nice.

As I sit here a hazy smoke lingers over Phoenix. The pinky orange sun barely visible through the cover. Our neighbor California is having one heck of a time with wildfires. Some of the videos on the news are just mind blowing and I feel terrible for those without homes to go back to.

I worry things are just a lightning strike away from igniting here also. The summer has been brutal and as you drive around you can't help but notice how dried out everything is.

What a bloody year this has been eh?

Phoenix Summer 2020. And a nice surprise to be featured on Flickr Explore.

Statue of Pat Tillman outside the Arizona Cardinals Stadium in Glendale.

Tillman gave up his NFL career with the Cardinals to enlist in the Army after 9/11 attacks. Was killed in the line of duty by friendly fire.

After the storm.

My work from home setup is perhaps different from some.

I've gone with laptop only and like the freedom of moving around the house. With the kiddo in virtual schooling, being able to sit down at the dining room table on a whim is great. As are video calls from the stairs/bedroom/breakfast-nook/patio etc

My body has not reacted with the same enthusiasm.

In the before times, I drove to my office, had a "normal" external monitor/keyboard/trackpad setup. Now I type solely on my MacBook Pro keyboard. It's super convenient to have the laptop on various tabletops or just my own lap.

My arms are telling me another story.

For one other surprise 2020 has brought me is RSI. Specifically Tennis Elbow of all things. The angle of my arms as I type isn't helping. Short term I'm taking anti-inflammatory medicine, icing my elbow, and wearing one of those forearm brace thingers.

Clearly I need to re-assess my posture as I move around the house.

It's caffeine all the way down.

Always a nice surprise to find your shot featured in Flickr's Explore.

I know, I says to myself, I'll update my Mac to Catalina. It's been out for a while, and lots of bugs likely fixed by now.

Right?

Mail.app is a shitshow. Data loss with empty message bodies. I've never been more annoyed at an OS update in my life. In a nutshell, I've experienced what is described here. Perfect storm of Microsoft Exchange and a local Mail rule to move messages to a local folder.

The "fix" is to move away from local folders and rules. Instead, create a rule on the Exchange server to move the email to a folder before Mail.app downloads anything. If I hadn't stumbled across that, I would have thrown my laptop in the ocean restored Mojave from backup.

So there's two hours of my life I'm never getting back. Thanks Apple for the stellar quality control.