Recent Moments
Medium Stories
Recent Moments
More phone swapping 📱📱
My new laptop feels too fancy to use away from home 👨🏻💻☕️
Grandad’s hospital tests 🏥 🩺
The Bodysnatchers on Top of the Pops 📺 🪩
Photos from the 1950s 🎞️ 🏠
Slow start to app development 👨🏻💻 📝
1. More phone swapping 📱📱
My youngest son’s phone screen started flickering and eventually went off completely. Luckily, he was able to back it up before it failed.
He bought it secondhand in January, and the two-year warranty enabled him to get a free replacement. After returning home, he noticed they’d given him one with a battery health value below 80%.
To cut a long story short, he upgraded to a better model.
Much to my surprise, he came home with the same iPhone 13 Pro Max I’d returned a few days earlier! (I’d kept a record of its serial number.)
I could not live with the size and weight, but he likes it.
(Given how frequently he changes his phone, we’re thinking of placing bets about how long he’ll keep this one! 😆)
2. My new laptop feels too fancy to use away from home 👨🏻💻☕️
My 16” MacBook Pro does everything I could ask for, and it’s not noticeably bigger or heavier than my old 15” one.
Perhaps I’m being overprotective, but I don’t want to take it to coffee shops like I did occasionally with its predecessor.
Where does that leave me?
A few days ago, I tried using my iPad to go through Medium notifications at a coffee shop while Stephanie was drawing.
It was better than using my phone, but only just. Maybe I’m getting old, but I’m much more productive on a laptop than on an iPad. (If money were no object, I’d get a 13” MacBook Air…)
3. Grandad’s hospital tests 🏥 🩺
After he didn’t come at all the week before, my father-in-law arrived early on Saturday to pick up my eldest son. They spend a few hours together each week.
My son and I were alarmed when he described how his doctor wanted him to have various heart-related tests at the hospital.
We asked if he should be driving, but he insisted they’d said he could.
Usually, he would ask me to take him to such appointments, but this time, he asked my youngest son.
It was so nice to have someone else do that for a change, and my son got his grandad to the hospital without any problems.
About five hours later, the hospital phoned to say he was ready to be picked up, and my son had to ring a bell for them to bring his grandad out.
I’d have been stressed about doing that because they fine people for parking in unauthorised places, but my son (who only passed his test in December) had no problems.
I’m not exactly sure what they did at the hospital, but it sounded unpleasant. My father-in-law rarely remembers the details, but it seemed things were ‘not too bad’.
4. The Bodysnatchers on Top of the Pops 📺 🪩
I’m glad the BBC keeps showing old episodes of Top of the Pops because I enjoy playing them while exercising.
Recently, I saw the episode from 20 March 1980. I didn’t know all the songs, but it was still quite good. (BBC iPlayer link)
‘My Oh My’ by Sad Cafe wasn’t familiar, but I liked its bluesy feel. At times, it reminded me of The Rolling Stones.
In 1980, Going Underground by The Jam was one of my favourite songs. It was great to see that again.
Other familiar songs included ‘January February’ by Barbara Dickson, ‘Food for Thought’ by UB40, ‘Echo Beach’ by Martha and the Muffins, and ‘Turning Japanese’ by The Vapors.
The track that most caught my attention was ‘Let’s Do Rocksteady’ by The Bodysnatchers.
I don’t have a clear memory of that song from the time, but I do remember liking other two-tone ska bands such as Bad Manners, The Specials, and Madness.
The style of dancing, which involves a lot of jumping up and down, reminded me of my high school disco. It certainly burns calories! 🥵
The whole band was very active, but I was amazed at how the bass player danced her way from side to side near the back of the stage. The 55-year-old me struggled to keep up, even without holding a guitar! 😆
When I looked up the band’s details, I was surprised to learn bass player Nicky Summers was also the founding member, given that she was often hidden from view.
“I chose bass because though I wanted to make music as part of a group I had no desire to be centre stage, so I thought bass guitar would suffice.”
— Nicky Summers
Source: nickysummersthebodysnatchers.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-bodysnatchers.html
Here is their performance from that episode of Top of the Pops. (They also performed the same song on a later episode.)
5. Photos from the 1950s 🎞️ 🏠
I’ve resumed sorting through the scans of my parents’ old photos to add names and places.
Seeing their holiday photos from the early 1950s, a few years before they got married, was intense and emotional. Although they stayed in the UK, it surprises me how many places they visited before I was born.
(How dare they have a life before I existed! 😂)
Other photos feature family members I don’t recognise. I feel bad for not knowing everyone’s names, but many died when I was too young to know them.
Dealing with such photos is very time-consuming!
6. Slow start to app development 👨🏻💻 📝
I should be spending time each week reacquainting myself with iOS app development. But I’ve not been giving it a high priority for some reason.
I’ve no excuses because my ‘new’ 2021 MacBook Pro 16” runs the latest Xcode and handles the latest Swift and SwiftUI code.
Dividing my time between multiple projects is challenging, and something will have to give. But I’m reluctant to scale back my writing on Medium any further.
Thank you for reading 💛
Alan
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Medium Stories
Autism and ADHD Together Feels Like an Internal Battle
My neurodivergent mind needs variety and routines
Most of my autism and ADHD stories were written in my early days on Medium, and they got few reads because I had hardly any followers.
Rummaging through my drafts, I found elements of what eventually became this piece. Although it isn’t exactly a comprehensive masterpiece, it’s something. And it got me out of a brief stint of writer’s block.
Here is a taster:
I might set a reminder to work on it regularly. Then something changes in me, and I feel like I just don’t want to do it today.
I ignore the reminder. And the next one, and the next…
Is There Ever a Good Reason To Share Your Location With Your Spouse/Partner?
Is it useful and protective, or intrusive and controlling?
Most comments so far have been fair and understanding. However, even though I only published yesterday, there is already a comment that leaves me wondering.
It’s a controversial topic that I knew some readers might misinterpret, especially if they skim it or are influenced by past experiences. Perhaps that’s why it lived in my drafts for months and took a lot of editing.
I’m still wondering whether to delete it.