Kentucky Bourbon Trail – October 2019
Earlier this month we visited Kentucky (just about 18-months since our last visit) with some friends to explore the Kentucky Bourbon Trail again. It was a fantastic week.
Heaven Hill Distillery, Bardstown, Kentucky – March 2018
Heaven Hill Distillery makes many brands of bourbon. Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Old Fitzgerald, and many more. The rickhouses you see pictured above, taken with a drone at a few hundred feet up, each hold 15,000-20,000 barrels of whiskey. Each building could be valued at $100,000,000 USD. The larger, lower building holds many times that.
Stitzel-Weller Distillery, Louisville, Kentucky – March 2018
You’ll have to forgive me, as it is going to take some time for me to get through all of my photos from our trip to Kentucky in late-Winter. If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter you may have already seen a few of the photos I’m going to share here. But there will be many that I haven’t shared yet as I’m just now finding some time to go through them.
Eliza and I visited this distillery just outside of Downtown Louisville because we wanted to visit Bulleit Bourbon. It turns out that most bourbon brands are offshoots of other, much larger, companies. In this particular case, Bulleit is housed within a distillery with a much longer history.
I don’t have the time to catalog all that we learned on our trip (I’ve attempted to write a post that sums up our trip a few times already and have failed several thousand words in) but I can say that I highly, highly recommend the Kentucky Bourbon Trail to anyone that enjoys whiskies.
The Best of 2019 as told by me
At the end of the year I like to sit down and make a rather random list of the “best” things I’ve seen that year. I do this almost entirely from memory but I also peruse my browser history and look through my Unmark archive in order to uncover some of the things I appreciated throughout the year.
You can review previous years: 2008, 2009, 2017, 2018.
At the tail end of December I sat down and made this list and since then I’ve taken some time to cull through it and make the list you’re reading now.
Best Blog: Gurney Journey by James Gurney
James Gurney, who I interviewed for The Watercolor Gallery, has kept a blog for a very long time. This past year wasn’t necessarily a stand-out year for his blog – it has always been very good – but I believe his blog and his YouTube channel deserve recognition this year.
Runners up: Waxy’s links, Kottke as always.
Best (new to me) Blog: AOWS
Since I’ve really been going all-in on my photography this year I’ve stumbled across a lot of photographers. In fact, I’m well over 100 photographers on my private Photography Twitter list (I’m @cdevroe there). I’m very glad to have found AOWS. See also the Instagram account.
Runner up: Chris Sale.
Best place: Kentucky
Last year I said that we’d likely return to Kentucky and we did – that must say something about it. We enjoy the entire state, the distilleries, horse farms, and rolling hills. See posts.
Runner up: Cape Cod – This was our first trip to Cape Cod and I enjoyed the whole feeling there. Likely because so many people are either retired or on vacation. I’d like to go back and make more photographs in the future.
Best book: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.
I didn’t read nearly as many books as I’d like this year. But I’m trying not to beat myself up when I miss self assigned goals like number of books to read. I did a lot of fishing, photography, and even started a podcast this year. So I need not read books.
Dark Matter was a nice change of pace from other things I’d read this year. I always like a book that has time jumping. And this book sort of did.
Best service: OneDrive
I can’t believe I’m writing this, but OneDrive – for the most part – holds up very well for my needs. I have nearly half of a terabyte stored there and it isn’t skipping a beat. I use it mostly as a cloud-based backup of all my photos and videos. I also use it to transfer things to/from my computer and phone which worked well when I was on so many different platforms; Android, Windows 10, iOS, and Airdrop wasn’t possible.
Runner up: Disney+ just for The Mandalorian.
Best song for working: Morning of – Colin Stetson
According to Spotify I listened to this song, and the album it comes from, a lot while I was writing code.
Best album: Benton County Relic – Cedric Burnside
Love the old style jazzy/bluesy feel of this album.
Best company: Disney
I wrote a bit about what they’ve done with Lucasfilm since they acquired the company. But, when you look at the scope of Disney – and watch some of their documentaries about how it all came together – they really deserve a round of applause this year.
Runners up: Microsoft is still killing it and I think 2020 looks interesting for them. Apple for finally fixing their laptops.
Best hardware: Canon 400D
I shot nearly as many photos on this camera as I did on my phones (Pixel 2 XL until October and then iPhone 11 Pro Max) and the camera is 13 years old. It is rugged, has a lot more features than I ever knew it did, and I’m satisfied with the results I’ve been getting.
I have the feeling that next year a film camera may win this category and I’m very excited about that.
Runners up: iPhone 11 Pro Max – the battery life alone deserves an award, iPad Pro – I still use this every single day, in fact I’m writing this post on it right now and I’d say I do greater than 75% of my photo editing on the iPad.
Best desktop app: Firefox
Rather than keeping Firefox in just the browser category, I’m going to give it the best desktop app award. I really, really like Firefox and it has improved greatly this year in terms of speed, privacy, feature set. I simply cannot live without Containers at this point.
Runner up: Lightroom CC.
Best mobile app: Anchor
If it weren’t for how relatively easy it is to create a podcast using Anchor I don’t think I would have done it. Though I am looking forward to my podcast getting a bit better with some desktop-based editing apps. If you have an idea for a podcast I suggest at least giving it a look.
Runners up: VSCO, Twitter, Pocket Casts, Cash.
Best tool: Photoshop CC
Adobe has made very big updates to the entire CC suite of apps. I feel like they deserve a nod as a result of that.
Best podcast: BirdNote
The podcast is just so simple. I love it.
Runners up: ATP. I go back and forth on whether or not I should listen to ATP. Very good information, they were even nice enough to answer one of my questions, but the constant hypercritical (see what I did there?) take on things can sometimes be draining, and so I take long breaks from listening. But that is the entire point of the podcast so I don’t begrudge them of the style. I just always try to look at things positively is all. Also Cal’s Week in Review.
Best YouTube channel: Nick Carver
Nick has easily has the largest impact on my approach to photography this year. His channel is also very entertaining even when he’s discussing very nerdy photography topics.
Special second place: Joe Rogan Experience – I have to cherry pick episodes that I’m interested in, mostly with scientists and outdoorsy people, but the interviews and long form style are refreshing compared to the bit-sized bits we get through TV these days.
I watch a lot of YouTube. Probably too much. Not probably. Actually too much. It is how I learn, am entertained, waste time, etc. In fact, I watch a lot less TV because of YouTube. So this isn’t an easy category to choose.
Runners up: Morten Hilmer, Jack Black, MKBHD, Kevin Nealon, Rainfall Projects, The Lion Whisperer, Zimri Mayfield.
Best Twitter account: Todd Vaziri
Behind-the-scenes and background information on special effects in TV and movies. Fascinating stuff. The amount of work for just a few seconds of video is amazing.
Runner up: Adam Savage.
Best Instagram account: Luke Beard
Luke shares a ton of photos via Stories from his town of Atlanta. It is inspiring the number of photos he’s able to take, process, and publish and has really gained a following in that area. He’s also super gracious in his responses whenever I’ve asked him how he did something.
Special second place: captain.solo – I can always appreciate when someone creates their own style and sticks to it – it isn’t easy to do either of those things. This account has.
You can also follow @cdevroe on Instagram where I frequently share accounts and photos I like via Stories.
Runners up: Dan Rubin, PPP Repairs, Clyde Butcher, Brad Baldwin.
I hope you enjoyed this year’s list. Whenever I sit down to make the list I always under estimate the amount of time it takes to create it. But I’m always glad that I do so that I can look back on it in the future. So this post is more for me than for you.
Hiking in March 2018 (audio)
Recorded March 11, 2018.
A little over a year ago I went for a short hike in the snow just after returning from a trip to Kentucky and just before starting my job at Jujama.
Side note: I record tons of these audio bits that I never get around to publishing. They are awesome to look back on regardless if I publish them or not. I need to record a lot more audio.
Best of 2018
This year I’m taking a slightly more comprehensive approach to my “best of” list. I’ve taken a look at previous year’s lists: 2008, 2009, 2017 and comprised a slightly more complete set.
Again, this is only the things I came across this year and can remember. I don’t keep a list throughout the year but rather rely on my memory. If you think I missed something great please reach out.
Best Blog: Becky Hansmeyer
I’ve linked to Becky’s blog 6 times this year. Mostly related to her iOS app SnapThread (which I can’t even use because I’m no longer on iOS). She openly published her thoughts, trials, tribulations, and triumphs (and new children) throughout the year. The epitome of a personal blog.
Runners up: Waxy – Andy Baio is back at it and the internet is better for it. Jeremy Keith’s Adactio is also always good. It might as well be perpetually in this category.
Best Blog Redesign: Lynn Fisher
Each year Lynn Fisher shows off her talent to build responsive web designs in a fun way by redesigning her site/blog. Go ahead and resize your browser on her homepage. Very fun.
Best (new to me) Blog: Windows Central
Hear me out. This blog publishes tons of times per day. The web site is obnoxious with ads (very thankful for RSS!). Despite that, since switching to Windows 10 this year I have been thankful to have a resource like this to keep me up-to-date with all things Windows. It has proven very useful to learn a number of tips and tricks and to know what the latest features are in Windows.
Best place: Iceland
This past September we visited Iceland – and it was definitely the standout trip of our year. The landscape, the water, the horses, the northern lights – everything was amazing.
Runner up: our trip to Kentucky this year to travel along the Bourbon trail. See this post and this post.
Best book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
I certainly laughed out loud more than once while reading this book. It was a fun read and is much better than any of the movies or series I’ve seen trying to adapt it to screen. Though I did enjoy Martin Freeman in one of the more recent movie adaptations.
Runners up: The Road by Cormac McCarthy – sad, but good read. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand – what a story.
Best service: Spotify
Spotify continues to be one of the greatest services I’ve ever used. Eliza and I are on a family plan and we use the service every single day at home, on the go, at work. See also.
Best album: Hollywood Africans – Jon Batiste
This is a fun album. It wanders around a little but overall it is a solid album to put on while enjoying a Manhattan (one of my requisites for good music). I also enjoyed his interview with Terry Gross about the album.
Runners up: Free Yourself Up – Lake Street Dive, SYRE – Jaden Smith (don’t @ me).
Best movie: A Quiet Place
I am hoping to watch this one again soon. It isn’t particularly revolutionary or mind blowing – but the pacing, the acting, and the overall balance of the movie is really good. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
Runner up: I just saw the new Spiderman and it is very refreshing. So glad they did something so different.
Best company: Microsoft
In my opinion, Microsoft has been firing on all cylinders for nearly the entirety of Satya Nadella’s lead. Their Surface hardware, Windows 10, Azure cloud services, acquisition of Github, Open Source initiatives, and push into mobile through Android has really been something to watch. Don’t call it a comeback but really, this company is back. See also.
Best hardware: iPad Pro 12.9″
I haven’t had time to write a proper review of this device yet but I do plan to. This is easily my favorite iPad ever – and I really, really liked my iPad Air 2. One quick anecdote; Face ID is extremely fast and works in so many more circumstances than I thought possible.
Very close runner up: Google Home Mini. We now have 3 of these in our apartment (kitchen, living room, bathroom) and we use them every single day for playing music, starting Netflix or YouTube videos on our TV, viewing photos from past vacations, and setting reminders or alarms. I hope to utilize these even more this coming year but I’m delighted at the capabilities of a device you can get for $29 (when on sale and we even got 1 for free with our Spotify subscription).
Best desktop app: Firefox
The Mozilla Firefox team is killing it this year. This browser is my favorite ever on any device. I also use it on Android and iOS. And I’m glad too given recent news re: Edge and Chrome. A few features I cannot live without at this point: Containers, Sync, Pocket (which could work in any browser but is built right into Firefox).
Runners up: 1Password – Eliza and I moved everything into 1Password this year and we couldn’t be happier that we did. Should have done so a long time ago. Visual Studio Code – Still the best code editor on any platform and certainly the best free editor.
Best mobile app: Pocket Casts
I use this app twice a day on my commute to and from work. I never have any issues with it, and every decision made by the design team seems to be right in line with what I want from a podcast app. My feature wish list for this app is relatively short and I believe they are coming with a not-too-distant-future update.
Runner up: Waze this app has saved me hours of sitting in traffic just this year.
Best tool: Trello
I’ve been using Trello more this year than any year previous and I find it to be incredibly well made. I don’t think we’ve had a single moment of downtime the entire year and, although I’d like it to be slightly less expensive for our team of ~30 I feel it is a very useful tool.
I’ve also tried to fit it into my workflow for other things like replacing a previous year’s winner; Bullet Journal. I couldn’t get it to fit. So I now have a hybrid system of using my daily Bullet Journal with Calendar and Trello.
Runner up: OneDrive – I’ve been using OneDrive this year for so many things across all platforms. The utility rarely messes up (whereas Google’s is terrible) and the space is affordable.
Best utility: DropIt
I use this small Windows utility to move files from OneDrive to two backup hard drives and Google Photos from my phone, camera, drone, and Eliza’s phone. It is far, far from perfect but I have wrestled it into doing exactly what I need.
Runner up: Snip & Sketch on Windows 10. I have this app mapped to my Logitech MX Master 2S’s middle click to quickly take screenshots and mark them up. It is an indispensable part of my workflow now working with my team. I just middle click, drag a rectangle, and CNTRL + V into any app I’m using to show my team a screenshot. I probably use this 5 times a day on average.
Best podcast: Meat Eater
I hike a lot. And I like to photograph nature. Listening to Meat Eater, and watching their show on Netflix, has given me a lot of knowledge about how to approach animals, how to know where on the landscape I’m allowed to go, and tons of other tips.
I’m also going to pick up fishing again in 2019 as a result of listening to this podcast.
Best YouTube channel: Zimri Mayfield
This guy is killing it. Each week he produces a new episode in a number of series on design. He’s incredibly quirky and likely not to everyone’s taste but I’ve found his videos both entertaining and educational.
Runners up: Tom Scott – Every video is interesting and the topics are random yet somehow of the same ilk. Nerdwriter – fast, well edited, insightful.
I had a few other categories that I’ve now dropped off because the list got a bit long. So instead, I’m just going to finish off this post with a bunch of random links to things.
Random: @jvdoming, Gutenberg, Floods Part 1 & Part 2, Docker, Cobra Kai, Dark Sky, Micro.blog, Dialog, Cash app, Blue Planet II.
The Android apps I use every day
From the time I switched to Android in late-2017 (more here) I’ve been installing and uninstalling apps and services from my phone – trying to find the right mix for me. I expect the apps, preferences, and everything about my mobile experience to continue to change but lately it seems to have settled a little. So I thought I’d share what I’m currently using day-to-day.
My current Android home screen.
Pocket Casts – I have a 25-minute commute to and from work every day so having a podcast app that I like is very important to me. I’m so glad that Pocket Casts exists because Google’s default podcast app, called Google Play Music (for now) is not very good.
Pocket Casts’ Up Next feature is very well done, in that I can create my own playlist using the currently downloaded episodes, or cherry picked episodes, from any podcast I want. I set aside a moment once or twice per week to curate that list and Pocket Casts does the rest.
It also looks very nice in split-screen mode with the other app I use daily while driving Waze.
Waze – I had heard about Waze for years before I tried it in earnest. When I first downloaded it on iOS and tried it I thought it looked like a game. (And, yes, I suppose it is.) But, it turns out to be very useful in many ways. Like Google Maps it can give you directions from A to B, but that isn’t really what Waze is made for. Waze is made to make your morning commute faster and safer. The Waze-using community can report problems like traffic, accidents, police, etc. and anyone behind them can be warned in advance of these things. It has made a huge difference in my morning commute and helped tremendously in longer trips like our trip to Kentucky earlier this year.
Clip Stack – This little utility saves clipboard history and allows you to manage your clipboard. An app like this, on any platform, comes in handy more often than you’d think.
JW Library – My Bible and research/study app for all things biblical. Not only does it have tons of different Bible translations it also allows for notes, highlighting, video/audio, and more. The app has continued to improve since it debuted a few years ago.
Lose It! – I’m on a diet for the rest of my life so I use Lose It! to track my calories every single day. The app is updated often and is improving a lot each time.
Snapseed – It takes a little while to get used to this photo editing app. But I love that I can save my own “Looks” (or sets of photo edits). I use it on my Pixel 2 XL and also on my iPad. Nearly every photo you’ve seen from me since December 2017 has gone through Snapseed.
Flamingo – Unfortunately, if you don’t already have this app you can no longer get it. Flamingo is a sane Twitter app that records your place on the timeline and shows tweets reverse chronologically.
Spotify – I love Spotify. After trying Apple Music for a few months I can say that Spotify’s playlists just absolutely blow Apple’s offering out of the water. There is no comparison. I can understand why iOS users would use Apple Music due to how it is built into everything – but there is no reason to use it otherwise. Spotify is just better.
LaunchBoard – I use this app to quickly launch any app that isn’t on my home screen full time. You tap it, tap the first letter of the app you want, and launch the app. Think of it like using Spotlight on iOS. Same number of gestures too.
WordPress – Short status updates and some of my photo posts are created, and sometimes drafted sometimes published, using the WordPress app. It was unusable on Dreamhost but now that my site is hosted on Digital Ocean the app works great. Something I didn’t realize was that I can use this app without activating the bulky JetPack plugin. So I’ve done that and my site is much happier as a result. In fact, I’ve reduced my site’s footprint dramatically recently and I couldn’t be happier.
Chrome – One of the main reasons I switched to Android was being able to have a desktop and mobile browser of my choice. So I’m able to use Chrome (or any other browser) as my default. I also use Micro.blog via Chrome since that is the only way I can currently.
Messages – Pixel’s default SMS manager is called Messages. It works fine for what I use it for. I’m not looking forward to the updates coming to “Chat” that I’m reading about. These updates feel like HTML email – they are fun, but I don’t need those things. SMS works just fine for me. I wouldn’t mind, however, end-to-end encryption of all messages.
Voice Recorder – I record my audio bits using Voice Recorder. I haven’t be publishing many lately but I’ve been recording them still. This is a great way to capture content and ideas.
A few more apps that I have installed on Android that, while I may not use every single day, are great apps to have:
Wikipedia – I read a lot of information on Wikipedia. Mostly on my iPad. Having an app dedicated to it is very nice to save pages for reading later, doing research on multiple topics, etc.
Inoreader – I generally do not read RSS subscriptions on my phone unless I’m killing time. But, when I do I like having Inoreader on my phone. Feedly would work fine too.
Notable mentions are Microsoft Teams and Slack, Google Pay, Twitter app (for Moments when something happens), Dark Sky (though, I’ve been using this less lately since Google updates me on the weather), Google Photo Scanner, Trello.
Also, an app I use daily but that I didn’t have to install is the Camera. The Camera app is actually quite good for my use.
Any Android apps that I should check out that are not on my list?
What I saw this week #51: March 16, 2018
Between our trip to Kentucky and starting a new position (and other things) I haven’t had any blogging time. It was good to have a bit of a break I think. Here are some things I saw recently.
- Brain Pickings on Hawking – Of course, Brain Pickings is so so good. Interesting thought about Hawking; though he was one of our weakest, he helped us understand some of the most powerful things in the universe.
- Xamarin now on MSFT Docs – The Xamarin documentation has a new home. This is good. But, I can say that working with Xamarin a bit over the last year the entire platform is so much better than the documentation. It needs a lot of help.
- Kottke.org turns 20 – Amazing achievement. Well done Jason.
- Light paths of drones – So cool. I would love to try something like this over the summer.
- Parecki’s IndieWeb Reader – Fun project. I need to look into it more.
- Space changed Scott Kelly’s genes – I don’t fully understand everything about this, but any change at all seems amazing to me. Much more research is needed and I have the feeling we’re going to get it over the next 5 decades of space travel and life.
- Kalen Allen – I wish he did a video every day.
- Minimalist wardrobe – Matt D’Avella is back with another great YouTube video. As a result of watching this video I through out an entire garbage bag of clothes. Thanks Matt.
That’s it for this week. I hope to return to a somewhat regular publishing routine soon but until then I hope you’re all ready for spring!