Gosh how I love Adam Lisagor and I really love Sandwich Video.

With Marco Arment’s piece on Apple losing the functional high ground gaining widespread visibility this week I find the timing of a recent fiasco with my iPad to be a perfect opportunity to throw in my two cents.

Over the last few months I’ve been transitioning from being a heavy OS X user to being an iOS only user while my iMac still lives in Memphis during our prolonged transition to Chicago. When I decided to participate in taking a photo-a-day as a part of Project365 I knew that I wanted to ensure that I’d be using our Canon Rebel T3i as my primary camera for these photos. I’ve long wanted to explore photography further as I find it to be a compelling creative outlet that I’ve never invested any intentional development of my own skills in and I saw this as a way to try new things with photography over the next year. This excitement prodded me to follow through on an idea I’d been kicking around over the last few weeks. I’ve enjoyed taking advantage of Sunday mornings as a way to explore downtown Chicago at it’s least busiest time of the week. I get downtown by 8a with an area of the city in mind that I’d like to explore and I get to finding new art, food, culture and inspiration all before heading to church. After a few consistent weeks of exploration I had the idea to start documenting these little adventures through photography and posting them to Flickr as a way of sharing what I find. This past week was to include my first photographed Sunday morning adventure in the city. I’d decided to visit the newly opened Maggie Daley Park in the park district of Chicago. I photographed Millenium Park, Cloudgate, the Chicago Theater District and the Jay Pritzker Pavillion on my trek from Do-Rite Donuts & Coffee at Randolph and Dearborn to Maggie Daley Park at Randolph and Columbus. The first real snow of the season had started to fall earlier in the morning and was coming down pretty steadily by the time I’d arrived at the park. I was promptly informed by security that the park was closed due to the icy conditions and that I would accept liability if I continued on. I marched onward and took many photos that would never see the light of day along with a few that just might. After a half hour of walking the park and getting enough photos for one trip I started back to my car. On the way I realized that I still didn’t have any way of getting these photos off of the SD card in my camera and onto Flickr. I grabbed a bus to the Michigan Avenue Apple Store to pick up a Lightning to SD card reader and headed back to the car. It was 10:30a and I had all intentions of catching the 11:30a service at Soul City Church. With an hour to kill and rather than leave my gear in my car with the 30° temperature I decided to head to my office at the other end of the block from Soul City and make some headway on importing and uploading the photos to Flickr. I opened the Lightning to SD card reader and plugged it into my iPad with the SD card already loaded. Photos.app automatically opened on my iPad with the option to import the photos. I deleted the photos that wouldn’t make the first round of selections and selected roughly 80% of what was left for import onto my iPad. Or so I thought.

I waited while the progress bar marched onward stating that my photos were importing and the green check marks slowly graced each photo in the list to indicate that it had been imported. Once the import completed I noticed that the import tab of Photos.app stated that there were no photos to import. My inner dialogue started to reel about how this could be.

“Where are the 20% of the photos I decided not to import?” “I’m sure I have them somewhere from a previous import.” “At least I have the new photos I’ve taken recently.” “Right?”

I checked my photo library on my iPad and found that the photos I’d just imported weren’t there. Photos.app was still syncing with iCloud (I’ve been using iCloud Photo Library for the last few months). I doubted this was the problem but I went ahead and killed Photos.app to see if the photos would appear on a fresh launch. I re-opened Photos.app and found no changes with the library but iCloud still wanted to sync. I re-attached the Lightning to SD card adapter and re-inserted the SD card and found no changes with that either. This was the point that a bit of panic set in. I’d just spent the morning taking photos in anticipation of getting to use my iPad to manage this new project; now I was deflated and concerned that I’d lost my photos. To make matters worse my next steps required me inserting the SD card into my work PC and attempting to find out if the photos were truly lost. Finding that the card had 5GB of space used gave me some relief but as I dug through the card and found nothing listed my stomach dropped again. I did some searching and found a myriad of tools for recovering photos from an SD card. Unfortunately the most recommended application, CardRecovery, cost $40. I wasn’t willing to risk a botched attempt to recover my photos with one of the many pieces of crapware that didn’t have any reviews or well known sources to vouch for it so I downloaded the evaluation version to make sure it could even find photos on the card first. Once CardRecovery had found the photos I wanted I went ahead and purchased it in order to be able to actually recover the photos. This isn’t the experience Apple intended.

Apple actively markets a connected lifestyle that “just works”. Sadly, that mantra has been slipping at a faster and faster rate over the last few years due to the churn and burn of Apple’s software development cycle. What had started as a simple task I’d like to accomplish in 20-30 minutes had snowballed into something that derailed my morning and cost me money to fix. As someone who supports technology for a living I can understand how some of you might be rolling your eyes thinking “Technology isn’t perfect and sometimes it breaks.” and to that I say (with all the love in the world) you’re being ignorant. I recommend Apple products to my friends and family who want something that just works. The fact that two pieces of hardware, the OS and the native software that Apple made were at the core of my little debacle isn’t something I can shrug off. In fact, avoiding the conversation will only contribute to the continuation of this type of experience and ultimately further the erosion of the products many of us depend on and support. Consider those you love who don’t want to have to be technical in order to use their Apple products and think of how they would’ve felt if this had occurred for them. I know my mom wouldn’t calmly assess the situation and get to recovering her photos. She would have been crushed and anticipating the worst for her photos. Her content also probably wouldn’t have been nearly as miniscule in importance. My concern about the expanding base of issues with Apple’s software isn’t for the tech crowd. We’ll be able to figure out a workaround or fix when something doesn’t work as advertised. My concern is for the 90% of users that buy Apple products. Ultimately they have much more of a stake in Apple’s future than we do as they’re the majority and will vote with their pocketbook.

This isn’t meant to be a doom and gloom post about Apple’s future but I do have concerns about how the company will deal with these issues. This year will see the release of the Apple Watch which is yet another product that requires resources and will be scrutinized more than the products that are currently experiencing these bugs. I can’t imagine that Apple will redirect resources to patch existing issues which may lead to that precious customer sat slipping. Who knows. I just want to be able to import my photos without fear again.

At the beginning of December Spotify released its Year in Music 2014 feature which sums up the top music and trends on Spotify for 2014. The feature also allows users to view this information based on their own Spotify usage. This is the second year I’ve used this feature and while others find it provides a surprising retrospective of their taste in music, it’s something I find compelling about using Spotify. Personally this kind of data is why I love Spotify and have adopted it as my primary music application/service. My 2014 Year in Music doesn’t conform to all aspects of what I would’ve expected for myself but it is an accurate representation of how I’ve used the service this year. The weeks and months following Riley’s birth were full of late night sessions of Rockabye Baby’s many lullaby covers of popular artists that was a much needed break from traditional lullaby songs which is why the winter months were dominated by the group. The spring brought about a renaissance of my interest in The City Harmonic when my grandmother surprised us in coming to town to meet Riley. Summer months allow me to open the windows in my car which requires the bass and lyrical thrust of Lecrae’s fantastic new album [Anomaly](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomaly_(Lecrae_album). Over the last few months of the year with the Fall came a lot of changes for my family and a newfound inspiration to participate and enjoy life and not live to work but rather to take a step back and realize that I want to work to live. I couldn’t think of another artist that sums this up for me other than the polarizing Owl City. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve debated sharing my Year in Music for fear of what it opinions may be formed about my own taste in music but over the last few weeks I’ve come to find that I’m confident in my taste in music and find it to be one of my favorite things to discover and write about.

After going through the stats for 2014, Spotify offers to create a playlist titled Play It Forward in your library that takes what it knows about your taste in music and provides 30 songs to get you going for the new year. I was nervous that having so much lullaby music at the beginning of the year might really skew this playlist but I can’t find any traces of children’s music in the selections Spotify made for me. To be honest I’m rather surprised at the accuracy of what’s been created for me and have found some great new music from this playlist. It’s to the point that I want more than 30 songs as I’m already beginning to wear some of these new tracks out. If you’re a Spotify user and are looking to find something new that’s custom tailored to your listening habits I would highly recommend using the Year in Music feature to create your Play It Forward playlist and to take a listen to mine.

I’ve always seen Project 365 as a daunting thing to try. There are a few people I follow online that have participated in years past and I’ve never been willing to challenge myself to give it a try. Stephen Hackett provides a good description of what I’ve always assumed as an observer:

Having completed three of these projects in the past, I can speak first-hand to the difficulty of them. Even in a world full of iPhones, it’s hard at first to remember to take and post a photo every 24 hours. Subject matter has a tendency to grow stale, but I view it as a challenge to pay attention to every day’s uniqueness.

This year I’m giving it a go and posting a photo a day. I’m living in a different city that I find new inspirations woven into on a daily basis. Many aspects of life are going to fluctuate this year with 2015 providing a bright outlook for Courtney, Riley and I. With what seems like a limitless amount of new experiences ahead of me here in Chicago I know that I won’t have any shortage of opportunities for a photo per day. The question is whether I will be mindful enough to catch those moments with my camera.

Follow along with me on Flickr or on Twitter.

Casey Liss posted a few of his favorite Christmas albums last week. Two of them have been getting plenty of play this year on the Sonos at Carole’s1 house the last few weeks and all three are in my Christmas playlist on Spotify. You won’t find many of the typical artists in this playlist as I find that they get a ton of radio, film and public play when you’re out and about for the holidays. If you’re looking for a couple hundred new Christmas songs to enjoy this holiday season you should give my playlist a listen.

1. Carole is Courtney’s aunt in Chicago who I’m living with until our house sells. You should really consider buying our house. ↩

Marco Arment on his approach to requesting app reviews from his customers in apps he’s developed.

My strategy to get good App Store reviews is simple:

1. Make an app good enough for some people to love it. By nature, you’ll lose some people along the way, but that’s OK: an app that strives to satisfy as many people as possible will usually only get people to kinda like it, not love it.
2. Accumulate a huge surplus of goodwill from those customers with a combination of step 1, usefulness, delight, and adding more functionality over time.
3. Make it easy to rate the app with a button that’s never annoying or in the way, like the Settings screen.

This is one facet of why I love Marco’s apps and will choose to use them over others. The passive aggressive “Do you like our app?” which leads to two different options for providing feedback is one of the things that grates on my nerves1 the most in an app. Oftentimes it causes me to leave the app altogether to avoid having to make the right decision to get back to what I was doing in the first place. That’s a terrible experience for a customer to have and Marco’s advice is solid wisdom to other developers.

1. I’m looking at you Urbanspoon and MileIQ. ↩

Joey Roth first came onto my radar in 2010 when I was really into tea. Kevin Rose sat down to talk with Joey about his beautifully minimal tea kettle, the Sorapot. While I really wanted one I didn’t succumb to my desire primarily due to the $300 price tag. Since the Sorapot, Joey has designed and released letterpress prints, self-watering planters, lust worthy ceramic speakers, and version 2 of the Sorapot. I’ve followed Joey’s career as he continually brings a fresh perspective on existing products and marries form and function at a level comparable to Jony Ive’s design aptitude. Earlier this week Joey unveiled his newest creation and it’s all about crafting the perfect cup of coffee directly on the stove. Joey has been working for nearly two years to refine the design and improve the functionality of the moka pot in a way that only he can. He’s partnered with California based Blue Bottle Coffee as the exclusive distributor for the moka pot. I look forward to reviewing this new take on making a great cup of coffee when my moka pot arrives in the next week or two.

I first found Bear’s Den through their Agape EP last year which was followed up by this year’s Without/Within EP. I was smitten from the first track of Agape which is the title track of the EP and the first song of their debut album Islands. Every year there are a handful of artists that hit the scene with a truly solid debut album. This year, I would wager that Bear’s Den falls into this elite group. While “Agape”, “Isaac” and “When You Break” were present on Agape, they’ve been re-recorded on Islands with a larger soundstage that incorporates the full band in a wider capacity and broadens the tone and pacing from what was present on the EP. Typically I like to see songs go the other way when it comes to stripping the production down to the metal and wood of an acoustic set but Islands isn’t over produced. It carries the authenticity of the London based trio’s talents into the mix of some amazing new songs to flush out what may be my favorite album of 2014.

While Islands was only released a little more than a month ago, it was delivered to a growing and rabid fan base. It’s hard to believe that a debut album could already have the traction that Islands does but it’s not surprising when you hear the immense talent that Andrew Davie, Joey Haynes, and Kev Jones have to create gorgeous and personal stories through their lyrics. When paired with a musical sound reminiscent of Mumford & Sons and The Avett Brothers it’s a cogent package that lands with immense force from the first listen. The entanglement of banjo1, guitar and drums drives the album with plenty of unique hooks and immense depth. Lyrically I find “Above the Clouds of Pompeii” and “Isaac” to tell the deepest stories of love and loss. “Think of England” is a progressive track with dark undertones nestled into the backdrop of it’s lyrical slang. “Elysium” has a sweeping trumpet interlude that expands it’s story into a masterpiece for the ears and tells the story of hope and perseverance even in the darkest times2. This might hint at the best metaphor to describe Islands; it’s a collection of scenes that paint a beautiful visual through lyrical proficiency with an evocative and sweeping backdrop of musical transcendence that’s not to be missed.

Find it on: iTunes | Amazon | Spotify | Rdio

1. Yes, there’s a theme here. The banjo, when used appropriately, can add a level of depth that buries the negative connotation many have of the instrument. ↩
2. The official video for “Elysium” somewhat reinforces my interpretation of the song while adding newfound layers through documentation of a real life tragedy from earlier this year. ↩

Earlier this year HBO announced that The Wire was being remastered in HD. I had just started watching the show and was about 4 episodes in. I decided that I’d already prolonged my viewing of the one constant that came up in almost every conversation I’d ever had when discussing my admiration for Breaking Bad and so I kept watching The Wire in it’s gritty1 4:3 standard definition. I’d done the same thing with The Sopranos and thought that it probably didn’t make that big of a difference. The thing is that The Wire gains something from the way it was filmed and the quality contributes to the aura of the show in a way that it doesn’t with The Sopranos. Fans of the show are aware of this and the idea that HBO would be touching what is widely considered to be one of the best shows ever created brings pause to it’s admirers. This makes David Simon’s exquisite elaboration2 on his involvement in the remastering process calm many nerves and generate excitement from the scrupulous afficionados of the show.

So when HBO sent out some promo ads about a conversion of The Wire to HD and a 16:9 ratio a few months ago, I reacted not merely as David Simon, showrunner and ink-stained scribbler, but as David Simon, the medium for Robert Colesberry, professional filmmaker. WWBD. What would Bob do?

---

Well, for one thing, he would make sure to be included in the process.

I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief about the end result and that it won’t tarnish our dear Baltimore. I’m glad to have an excuse to watch The Wire for a second time and be able to see every detail in the way that David Simon and Robert Colesberry originally intended later this month.

It’s 75 degrees outside and pain runs through my body. This is emotional pain like I’ve never felt in my life. I’m driving up I-10 in Florida from what was my grandparent’s house. I’ve been with my uncle for the last week on an unexpected trip to help my grandmother brace for the impact of divorce.

While my uncle and I drove down together, he’s stayed behind as there is uncertainty around grandma’s stability when we started packing to head back to Memphis. So I’m alone in a red Volvo on the 13 hour drive home when I begin to process the past week. The lawyer, the counselors, the endless scanning of documents, the friends, the family and the tears. Oh, the tears.

After 56 years of marriage and a family so woven into this patriarchy, it’s all unbound in less than two years. I keep thinking this can’t be happening. How could it? Not us. We can’t be that family. Can we? We’re stronger than this. Aren’t we? It’s all so selfish but it’s what everyone in our family has always known to be good and true and now it’s over. Dead. Gone.

I’m grasping more than ever for understanding and love that can fill a hole wider than I thought existed in me. I’m searching for God in all of it. Then this song comes on the radio in the background. The DJ of the most recent FM station I’ve been able to tune into talks the song up as one that’s jumping up the charts.

“Here’s “Manifesto” by The City Harmonic on 97.1, The Love of K” (or something to that effect).

All I hear is God. Drenched into every sound. It’s poignant and loud. Beautiful and noisy. It’s what I need. Like a cup of water in the middle of the desert. I realize that I don’t know who this band is but I need more of what they’re offering. The Volvo doesn’t have an auxilary port so I pull over and dig out my headphones. I look The City Harmonic up on Spotify and find a single album. Introducing the City Harmonic. There are six songs. I immediately press play.

I Wonder The song opens with an orchestra getting in pitch and the conductor tapping their baton on the podium to open the album.

Tears begin to fall almost immediately.

“I Wonder” questions the love of God. It’s size and how we see it in our life. Everything hits home when gets to the second verse.

I see it in the pain of the widowed wife. In death defeated where he found true life. I see the love of God and I feel alive. I wonder, I wonder.

These words are what I’m searching for. Finding God’s love in the pain of life. I drink it up. Then comes track two.

Manifesto This is the song that led me to seek this album out. It says so much about who Christ is and what I believe. Even in darkness there is light.

We believe in the one true God. We believe in Father Spirit Son. We believe that good has won.

It’s hard not to sing the chorus at the top of your lungs and lose yourself in Him. The tears haven’t stopped and I continue to belt out garbled lyrics with lots of AMEN.

My God

I lift my eyes up, In these days of trouble. Will my help come from You? And if I stumble, Will You pick me up? What else could a father do?

The words are crafted as if they’re for me in this struggle. Then the beat picks up and the second verse opens.

I lift my heart up, Whether it’s whole or broken, Good God I know You’re gonna work it out.

What more can I do in this moment? I can’t handle the weight I’m carrying. I’m so lost in this music that been carrying me for the last 13 minutes and I’ve lost control of emotion. It just keeps pouring out of me. Everything I’ve bottled up over the last 7 days since I found out what’s been going on and what the outcome will be is just spilling over.

Coming My Way “Coming My Way” soothes and calms. It’s a beautiful ballad to God and talks about the journey home to heaven and finding heaven here on Earth in Him. I calm ever so slightly.

I Am A simple guitar riff, a drum beat and into the first verse.

I am a man who built his house on sand. I am a thief upon a cross. I’m just like Judas, that sorry fool. Who can’t be glad for what he’s got.

In all of the pain, these words pierce my soul. I’ve been angry and bitter at the circumstances and choices that have led to what is unthinkable to me. And yet, I’m no better. I’m fallen and failing each and every day. The chorus repeats that God is good, God is great and God is love. And I am…

I am a man who has been bought by love. I am a man who sold his soul. I’m like the man, who when he found his pearl. He gave up everything he owned.

Through His grace I’m redeemed and I am love. Love works.

This song sweeps me straight off of my feet and I listen to it again. And again. And again. It’s such a beautiful portrait of forgiveness and the redemption that comes through His unending mercy. This is instantly my favorite track on the album. The tears continue to flow as I realize how broken I am in my own walk and how easily I’ve judged others throughout this ordeal.

What I Want

So go on sing, sing, all of heaven and earth. But don’t just sing, be and be every word.

This is my favorite line from “What I Want”. It asks us to step out on our faith and walk the talk. To be the change that God calls us to be on this Earth. This is my constant struggle. To fearlessly be who I’m called to be.

I contemplate the experience I’ve just had. Through these six songs being played a few times over I’ve given up my burden and opened myself up to God in a way that I’ve been missing since I was in college. This album is now permanently bound to this specific moment in my life. The ghost of my burden is forever reflected in this album for me. And yet I can’t recommend Introducing The City Harmonic more highly.

It’s been roughly two years since I jumped into that red Volvo and this album still brings tears to my eyes when it comes on. This past week was the second Thanksgiving without my grandfather present and it has left an impression on our family tradition. As we grandkids grow up and start having our own kids the weight of the thing still lingers. It’s been 7 months since I originally shared this as a journal entry. I was too scared to put these words on Course Code directly in April so I buried it in a Day One entry but this is the force that music can have on a person’s soul and the fear is overcome by it. I hope that someone might find a similar strength from these six songs.