Tag Archives: 365project2015

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256/365. wherein i discover the jetta sportwagen control to turn off bluetooth autoplay. why is this even a thing i have to do apple?

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256/365. wherein i discover the jetta sportwagen control to turn off bluetooth autoplay. why is this even a thing i have to do apple?

so a few days ago i vented about issue i was having that for some reason apple music on my iPhone had started randomly taking over car bluetooth connection, playing songs from a U2 album i didn’t buy. at the time i lamented that it was the lamest product/brand experience i’ve ever had with apple. “stop trying to shove apple music down my throat. maddening”. responses from twitter, Facebook and email suggested i was not alone. a few google searches later and i discovered i was discovered i very much not alone. the fix suggestions are summarized in “how to stop the Music app from auto-playing in your car”. #2 is “turn off auto-play in your car, if possible”. okaaaaaaay.

hmmmm, i had no idea there was an autoplay option. so i went looking and it turns out there is! we’ve had the car for longer than the iPhone and i don’t have an explanation for how/why it suddenly it started auto-playing ( did odin mess with the settings? )?

either way i can’t believe there’s way to configure autoplay on the iOS side. really, apple? i’m sure it’s not a coincidence that it defaults to autoplay apple music. i’m glad volkswagen gives me a way to turn it off in lieu of ability to control it on the device side.

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255/365. i made a painting today for the first time in never.

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255/365. i made a painting today for the first time in never.

oh man, talk about getting out of your comfort zone. i participated in an canvas painting class with some work peeps today and this is the almost end result. why i would take a picture of an almost done painting and not a done done painting is beyond me. to finish, i touched up her eyebrows and added some petals to the flowers. today i learned that painting cow eyes IS HARD! also, yeah, she’s got a flat-top hair cut. WHATEVER!

even though there’s a bazillion things i’d do differently the next time, i’m o.k. with the results and had a lot of fun making it and hanging out with friends at work who, it turns out, are all accomplished artists.

i don’t know if i’ll get into painting as a hobby, but i was surprised at how much i enjoyed it. many thanks to the folks at “all glazed up” for hosting us.

also, hopefully they’ll forgive me for being a bull in a china shop and knocking over the instructors painting stand with a cup of dirty paintbrush water. d’oh!

and yes, when you work for organic valley the rulebook clearly states if you paint for the first time, you must paint a cow.

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day 4089 – 254/365. getting ready to walk in the cashton fall festival parade!

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day 4089 - 254/365. getting ready to walk in the cashton fall festival parade!

we walked with odin and some hockey buddies in a local parade to raise awareness for the hockey association. even though i’m losing count of how many parades i’ve walked over the past couple of years, i don’t mind since it’s all for a good cause.

because i know a guy in marketing at organic valley, we had some organic fuel to hand out along with flyers and association swag. it’s always fun to hear an ever increasing number of people proactively yell out how much they love it.

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day 4088 – 253/365. first game of the 2015 driftless united futbol season!

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day 4088 - 253/365. first game of the 2015 driftless united futbol season!

odin’s team beat river valley 1-0!

he loves playing with his contact lenses in and not having to worry about getting his glasses knocked off his face. he’s always been good at defense but i think the contacts give him just a little more confidence to get in and get the ball. maybe that’s why he played defense the entire game and didn’t come out once 🙂

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252/365. the end of a very long love of national geographic.

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252/365. the end of a very long love of national geographic.

i have a very strong nostalgic streak for national geographic magazine that stems, in part, from growing up in maine and perusing the large collection we had at our house. this was waaaaaaaaay before the internet and the magazine brought the world to our home. the mix of stories and powerful photography had a profound effect on me. i remember when the afghan girl issue came out and i stared at that cover with her haunting eyes for a long, long time. i have no doubt that the magazine planted the seed for my own love of taking pictures and telling stories. in a parallel universe very close to our own, i am probably a national geographic photographer.

now older and with a family, we’ve had a subscription to the magazine for years. and while we’ve all ( odin included ) enjoyed many of the issues, as the years have gone by it was hard to not feel like it was slipping. i couldn’t always quite put my finger on what was changing. at times i’d notice a creeping corporatism in the stories and it felt like it was losing it’s uniqueness. increasingly issues would be left unread. last month we let our subscription lapse and i had been debating whether or not to resubscribe.

this week it was announced that climate change denier rupert murdoch bought the magazine which i guess shouldn’t come as a surprise since his media company founded the national geographic cable channel in 1997 ( surely not a coincidence the channel is airing bill o’reilly documentaries ). the news spurred me to look into what had been happening with the magazine and i ran across an article written a few years ago by a longtime staff writer and editor for the magazine aptly titled ”what happened to national geographic?” that confirmed what we couldn’t quite articulate that led to our letting the subscription lapse.

any suggestions for print pubs that fill the gap left by the magazine will be greatly appreciated.

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250/365. i accidentally found a new parking spot at organic valley hq.

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250/365. i accidentally found a new parking spot at organic valley hq.

a colleague peered into the office i was squatting in at organic valley hq ( new digs still under construction and my regular office is not at hq which is why i was squatting ) and asked somewhat sheepishly, “yoooouuuuu drive a gray jetta tdi?”

“uuuuuuhhhhhh, yes!”

and before he could respond i spun around and looked out the window to see it was definitely not where i parked it.

“looks like it rolled out of its spot.”

indeed, it had. now i have to admit that i’m wasn’t *completely* surprised. the car is 11 years old and the manual transmission is a little finicky. sometimes, when you think it’s in gear it’s not, and it has a tendency to pop out of gear easily. aaaaaaaand the parking brake is loose so you reaaaaaaallllly have to crank on it to get it to work. up until today we could rely on either the transmission or the brake to keep it in place without both failing simultaneously ( well, actually – true confession time – both failed once before ). maybe i should travel with blocks that i can put under the tires when parked? or maybe i should just stop procrastinating get the car into a shop 🙂

it was mildly amusing that it rolled back to rest perfectly between bushes on either side and a tree to the rear without an inch to spare anywhere. i couldn’t have parked it that perfectly if i tried. *super* !SUPER! glad nobody was hurt and nothing was damaged.

for some reason, i personally think the most amusing part of the story is my boss owns the red jetta wagon in the photo and pulled into the spot where i was parked not long after my jetta rolled out ( and didn’t notice, or just though, “oh i guess snowdeal found a new parking spot.” ).