This photo of Mt Cook and the Southern Alps of New Zealand turned out pretty well.

My daughter wanted to know the make of plane we flew on from Auckland to Los Angeles and I was not able to tell her.

It’s quite a contrast traveling from sunny and warm Auckland late last week to cold, drizzly and dark (at 5pm) Seattle.

I realize that I’ve not written a thing on this blog in November. Blame this on our traveling in New Zealand for the whole month.

In reference to my entry about Sonoma I’m attempting to get a handle on the new predictive text capabilities.

I’m still recovering from a Trans-Pacific flight that ended this past Thursday.

I’m presently reading “Homeland” by Cory Doctorow and it’s definitely an interesting read these days considering how politics have changed in the years since its publication.

Oops. I accidentally upgraded my MacOS to Sonoma when I thought I was just doing a bug-fix update.

We’ve just completed watching all 3o episodes of the Chinese production “Three Body”. Episode 29 in particular is very tense and exciting but the whole show does not disappoint and certainly follows the major plot points in the book. I hope that the following volumes of the “Three Body Problem” series can be filmed although it might take a while. Of course I’m now curious to see how the Netflix series compares.

I’ve decided to try out passkeys on a couple of sites that support this method of login. So far it’s working but I’m being cautious about fully investing in using passkeys instead of passwords. In the meantime I’m reading about passkeys online and there’s a lot of information to digest.

I’m glad to finally get the latest 2023/2024 Covid vaccine today. At present Kaiser Permanente here in Seattle has it available for members on a walk-in basis as well as by appointment. I probably should have also gone ahead today and gotten the flu shot. I’ll do that in a few days.

Another review of the recent bio of Elon Musk. As a science fiction fan what I really want to know is whether Isaacson writes about the naming of the various SpaceX rockets and asks whether Elon Musk still reads the novels of Iain M. Banks, the author who inspired those name.

Down at the Edmonds shoreline. I love this time of the year.

These drones are doing good work. A great example of pushing new technology to help people in creative ways.

Breakthrough drones deliver breast milk in rural Uruguay - leaps.org

We just finished watching Episode 4 of “Three Body” which is the Chinese 30 part series based on “The Three-Body Problem “. So far I’m intrigued and certainly glad to have read the book otherwise I suspect I’d been thoroughly confused with what is happening.

I now have reservations for Wētā Workshop Experience in Wellington New Zealand. I gather this is a popular tourist attraction so I wasn’t going to risk turning up on the day without reservations.

I’m hoping that I can finally get the updated Covid-19 vaccine next Saturday morning. We have appointments set.

At Snoqualmie Falls today. It’s been raining here in the Pacific NW for a day or so and it’s suppose to continue for a few more days. I think a revisit to the falls later in the week will reveal even more drama!

The best feature of iOS 17 for me is the updated Camera app {allowing full use of the 48 megapixel sensor in so called HEIF Max mode) being extended to the iPhone 14 Pro. I have one less reason to update to the iPhone 15 Pro. For the last couple of days I’ve been taking photos in this mode and I’m very impressed with my camera upgrade. :)

I’m writing this particular entry in Drafts and posting using the action “Post/Update to Micro.blog”. One of the attractive features of this action is the ability to restrict cross-postings to certain other social media - in my case, Mastodon, Bluesky and Tumblr.

I’ve had some ongoing nasal congestion with a slight sore throat but I just tested negative for Covid using a rapid test. I suppose I’ll test again in a couple of days since we have a visitor coming from out of town in a few days. Actually I’m also hoping to get the latest vaccine this coming week.

I upgraded last year from the iPhone 11 Pro to the 14 Pro and I’d probably just do the same this year and not go for the 15 model. For a photography at least the 14 is probably going to be just as good, if not better, than the 15 model as well as saving some memory on all devices.

It’s frustrating that I can’t get meaningful information returned on a search for COVID-19, vaccine, etc. in Threads. This is particularly upsetting at a time when virus activity is increasing and I’ve been thinking that the new search capability would actually be useful.

I love the colors revealed in this photo of a Mt Rainier glacier.

I have continued to use an N95 mask when indoors around large groups of people but recently I’ve been relaxing my guard a little bit. This is a good reminder that the virus is still out there.

www.aarp.org/health/co…