Mitch's Blog

Some people collect shoes. Some people collect hats. I, apparently, am a collector of moderately priced computer bags, day bags and man-purses.

Or, I should say, a recovering collector of those things. My purchasing habits have slowed drastically over the years.

However, I bought a new computer bag for an upcoming trip. It’s a Timbuk2 Authority Laptop Backpack Deluxe.

I have a peculiar relationship with computer bags because I work from home. So mostly the bags just sit in a corner. But some of the time I’m traveling for business, and on those occasions, I live out of the bag 12+ hours per day.

During the 2010s I used a fantastic Timbuk2 Command messenger-style bag that I loved. I even took it on our African safari.

In 2020 I temporarily switched career tracks, and my new role did not involve travel. I was hired full-time at Oracle, and as part of my welcome package, they sent me a computer backpack, which was a bit of dark comedy because this was June 2020 and nobody was going anywhere.

I returned to tech journalism and the conference round-robin two years ago, and soon I began to fear the Timbuk2 messenger bag was an invitation to a permanent back injury.

For a while, I used the Oracle backpack, but it did not have enough pockets. Everything swam around inside the great cavern and I spent far too much time rooting around looking for sucking candies or whatever. Also, the bag did not have an outside pocket suitable for holding my phone, wallet, Airpods and Apple Watch when going through airport security.

Still, I resisted the temptation to commit a new bag, and switched off between the Oracle bag and the Timbuk2 messenger for a while. I bought an $8 cross-body strap in an attempt to make the Timbuk2 more ergonomic, but that didn’t work out.

At a conference earlier this year, I met a man who also had the same Timbuk2 bag and we bonded over bag nerdery. He had even had his bag modified to permit cord pass-throughs.

Friday, I finally broke down and bought the new Authority backpack. From Timbuk2 again, because that is a brand that has served me well.

The bag was supposed to arrive today but it’s been delayed to tomorrow. I leave for my trip on Tuesday. I hope the bag is not delayed again. Yipes!

In other bag news, Facebook has been tempting me with ads for this Lochby Field Sling. I don’t need it but it is a nice bag and at $59 it isn’t all that expensive, is it? I have been using this lumbar pack that converts to a sling bag, from Mountainsmith, as my daybag when I need a little more pocket space. But that Field Sling is nicer. It has a rotating strap that moves with you! A one-handed hook for easy access! A quick-adjust strap for perfect fit! And it pairs well with the Lochby Mini Pocket Journal, so if I buy the bag and the journal, I will become the sort of person pictured in the ads, who goes out into the woods for adventures and journals about them.

I think we’re going to need to add an extra room to the house for all my bags.

The Army Veteran Killed Outside His ‘Trump House’. Kerry Sheron, who was brutally murdered outside his home in Escondido (not far from where we live), was a 69-year-old Army veteran who worked as a cook at a senior living center in town. “Neighbors knew him to be affable and generous with the kitchen’s leftovers, knocking on doors to offer up packages of cookies, often with a Bud Light in his hand.”

His family, friends and neighbors, quoted in this article, have only kind words and praise for him, regardless of politics.

A San Diego woman is one of seven rear admirals to have their promotions nixed by Rambozo Hegseth.

Rear Adm. Amy Bauernschmidt commanded a nuclear aircraft carrier and now commands a carrier strike group. Hegseth, on the other hand, is a former Fox & Friends weekend host whose mother and sister have denounced him publicly

Five of the seven people denied promotion were women or people of color. Hegseth has said publicly that the philosophy “our diversity is our strength” is an “insane fallacy.”

Truth Social will sell fast access to its market-moving posts.. Those posts are by Trump, of course, who owns Truth Social.

This is the golden age of grifting.

The word “blog” has a branding problem. It sounds old-fashioned and fuddy-duddyish. But there really is no other word for what I do here, and what other people like me do on their websites.

Remembering the time when we were first married and I went into work on a Monday morning and I popped into the breakroom to get my first cup of coffee, and one of the women who worked in the office asked me how my weekend was and I said, “Good. My wife left — "

And the woman I worked with gasped and turned white and stammered, “I’m s-s-so sorry.”

And I rewound the conversation 60 seconds and I realized what I had just said and I clarified: “She left to visit her family. For a week. She’s coming back.”

It is amazing to me when I think that my grandparents on my mother’s side came from Lithuania and Latvia and I know virtually nothing about those places.

I know more about Botswana and Namibia than I know about Lithuania and Latvia.

This came up because I noticed that I seem to be on a mailing list for PR people pitching stories about Lithuanian startups.

So I guess I know something about Lithuania now – they have a startup culture.

My ancestors also came from Poland. I know a little bit about Poland, but not a lot.

No one wants to see the evidence of their own AI usage. “Everyone’s freaked out about AI and also using it more than ever.” By Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day.