It’s a bit late, but, hey, I never have time to do this stuff…
2023 was a doozie… computers, guitars, jobs, and Legos (plus cat vet bills, and some crazy incidentals)
First up – Apple
2023 was an amazing Apple year, but also one that pissed me off a bit. At the end of 2022, the M2 Macs were released, and the M2 Pro / Max notebooks came out at the beginning of 2023. I had decided that my M1 Max with 32 gigs of memory wasn’t going to be enough (I’m a developer that runs Docker *all* the time working with a Microservices environment that has waaayyyy too many services), plus “needed” extra drive space. So, I sold my M1 Max Mac Studio and my M1 Max MacBook, and grabbed the M2 Max notebook, with some great, bumped up specs. Woo-hoo!
Then WWDC happened… While the Vision Pro is amazing, with my eyesight, it’s definitely a ‘gotta try it out’ product… BUT… the M2 Ultra Mac Studio was released. As I said, I’d sold my M1 Mac Studio, and normally would be happy with the M2 MacBook Pro I have, but there were some issues that popped up with the notebook, and I *wanted* a cool desktop. So, an ‘up’ed spec’ M2 Ultra was purchased. All well and good, especially with macOS Sonoma, everything started working *extremely* well. Safari with the profiles (I didn’t realize Edge and Chrome had them already, *doh*), Edge getting the iCloud password manager to work on macOS, Stage Manager working pretty well, and just a great year for polish for iOS/iPadOS and macOS… not many problems lately, enough so that I’ve back off using betas to get my problems ‘resolved’
So far, so good… so what pissed me off?
The M3 MacBook Pros… I bough the M2 MacBook Pro in March, and it was out of date by October. I wouldn’t be so upset, except the rumor mill so thoroughly had things wrong, that my planning sucked. If I knew that an M3 Max MacBook Pro would keep up with and usually *beat* the M2 *ULTRA*, I’d have just waited. Usually Apple gives us at least one year to be ‘new’… kinda feel cheated, lol… and I’m sure the updated Mac Studio’s are not too far off, either. Ok, first world problems, and I still have two computers that I *rarely* ever push, lol
Guitars
This one, I hate to talk about. I had SWORN I didn’t need another guitar at the beginning of 2023. I really have backed off playing, and wasn’t looking to do *anything* any time soon. Of course, that’s the *worst* time because I could experiment with different guitars and setups… lol… 2022 had ended well, with me getting a STUNNING Taylor well under what it should have gone for. I should have been very happy at that…
Unfortunately, I live on the same street as a Guitar Center… lol
2023 brought several opportunities for guitars I had been searching for for a while. One amazing Fender Telecaster showed up, and almost immediately the one I *really* wanted popped up. So, I ended up with 2 guitars I had no intention of buying, but hey… then a unicorn appeared. A guitar that I haven’t seen available at ALL popped up for a really good price. A PRS DGT model with a rosewood neck. *very* rare. Unfortunately, I know why, lol… Ok, so I was DONE! and I mean DONE! Except… the week before Christmas, I get a call to check out a guitar. A model I tried before, and was NOT impressed by at all… but, I go check it out. Amazing doesn’t even *begin* to describe the guitar. Not only that, playing it through an old, used Fender Hot Rod Deluxe basically checked almost everything I’ve been looking for. *sigh*. Oh well, nice Christmas present…
So, good year for guitars, depending upon how you look at it.
Legos
Yes, I’m still a kid at heart… and the Lego sets for the last two years have been on a completely different level. Lego finally figured out that older people love more complicated sets, and will spend lots of money on them. The sets I grew up with were big and complicated, and had a couple hundred pieces. Now, the little poly bags have that much! And Lego figured out that people like me will do the spends to get good Gifts With Purchases (GWPs). And 2023 was an amazing year. The Lord of the Rings set was just the beginning last year. The big one for me was the Orient Express. Initial pictures didn’t look great, but the set has turned out to be excellent!
Job
Enough about stuff… one thing that did happen was that I got caught in a layoff early in January of 2023. I lucked out and had a job a day later, though. The new position is everything I’ve needed, it’s pushed me WAY outside of my comfort zone, and gotten me to be a much better writer and thinker. I’ll write more about it soon. Frankly, that was one of th best things that happened last year (once I calmed down and settled in!)
Everything else…
There was *so* much more that happened (good and bad)… Iggy passed away, even though I tried to do everything I could for him… I’ve still not really come to terms with that.
I’m hoping to write some more, the amount of things that have gone into my brain on the positive side is pretty overwhelming…
More to come!
Same Scheidt, Different Day 