The Logan Family

Author: Luke

  • I went to India

    I went to India

    What to say about traveling to India for the first time? If you don’t have time to read through it all, the short of it is this:

    the trip was amazing.

    Video Summary

    What stood out? Best to break it down:

    The travel

    It took a lot to get ready. Our office has a google doc of some of the important things to remember when traveling to India. This was useful, but besides that, there were a ton of other things to accomplish in the week before the trip:

    • Get cash from the bank
    • Check with Verizon, to ensure my phone works
    • Get items from pharmacy like tums, pepto-bismol, melatonin
    • Mow the lawn
    • Laundry

    How to manage all of these thing to do before the trip? I took a page from my friend Chad’s approach when he travelled to Disney World: break things down into smaller, day-by-day to-do lists, all before my 11pm Friday departure out of Charlotte.

    After mowing the lawn and packing, charging all of my devices, playing one last game of memory with mercy, and saying goodbye to Rosie and Taylor who were going out for the night, I was ready to cover the 90 minute drive to Charlotte, along with a cup of coffee to help mess up my sleep rhythm and get ready to adjust to India time.

    Check the forecast in India for the week to know what to expect:

    Screenshot

    The route was Charlotte to London (8 hrs)

    London to Hyderabad (10 hrs).

    Leave Charlotte at 11pm on Friday. Arrive in India at 5:20 am on Sunday.

    My company was able to offer economy+ fare, and if it is feasible for any long trips you may have planned, jump on it. The upgrade was worth it.

    What was the weather like in India?

    This was the final forecast before leaving for the week:

    The final forecast before leaving for the week.

    After not sleeping the first flight, I took a melatonin and slept 8 of the 10 hours the second flight, so I was ready to GO upon arrival. Made it to the hotel around 7, hit up the hotel breakfast, pool, then a massage. Mike, who I was traveling with, had some issues with his back over the past couple years, so getting a massage was helpful.

    Now might be a good time to talk about:

    The food.

    It’s awesome. Guy Fieri travels across the USA to go to flavortown. Well, we can one-up that mission, because flavor-town is actually in India. 

    What did we eat?

    Rather than be ignorant and just say “I don’t know, but it was good”, here is a partial list:

    • Cashew nut upona
    • Base bale bath
    • Coconut Chutney
    • Sambar
    • Sprouts Idly, a carb eaten with sambar soup for breakfast. 
    • Paratha (bread)
    • Samosas – little meat filled, fried breakfast dumplings.
    • Egg curry
    • Bhaji
    • Cholar Dal: made from a type of beans or something. 
    • Suji ka halwa. This was really good; slightly sweet, like cream of wheat? 
    • Dalia khichdi. 
    • Lassi: almost like a milkshake
    • Mango cream. 
    • Chicken Biryani- the best dish in the town
    • Peshawari Mutton
    • butter chicken- very different than what the name seems to be.
    • Pickled mango- my one food mistake of the trip.

    Most of this list? Comes from the breakfast buffet at the hotel.

    Indian Breakfast items at the hotel

    Putting small portions on my plate and going to town (think, hummus) the meals were great. On the last day, the chef came out to say good morning  and ask if there was anything I needed (great service!). He took one look at my plate, thought about making a correction, then settled by offering to re-make my plate because I prepared the Indian breakfast foods the wrong way. 

    Our team, who I will share a bit about in a second, took great care of us. We got a chance to go to:

    • Peshawar
    • Broadway Brewery- saffron infused gin there was on point!
    • Masterpiece International Buffet- beware of the pickled mango!
    • Bawarchi- beware of fake bawarchi
    • Crispy Crust- try the mango cream
    • Skyhy – excellent apps. Sometimes open talent night if you play the guitar.
    • 10 pounder pizza. Way better than 9 pounder.
    • The hotel rooftop. It’s a great cricket-viewing setup.

    Meal after meal, the flavors kept coming. One of my favorite parts was the dinner at Masterpiece. It was a team dinner, and they were sharing a bit about how much of our office is comprised of people from all around the country of India. I asked a bit about the food from the different areas, it was interesting to hear how many of the regions have their own types of oils used in cooking, and a variety of wheats used for cooking.

    Compare that with the USA, where we only have a few types of oil, and mostly wheat flour, unless you want to spend an arm and a leg.

    Time for some food porn:

    Mango Cream

    Meal after meal, it was amazing. It made me think, in the U.S., our spectrum of major flavors goes from salty to sweet; at least, that is the way things our in our house. In India, the flavors were all over the place. It was as if my taste buds that never get used were getting a chance to shine. And after eating a lions share at every meal, I felt great after.

    Except for the Lassi: this one messed me up. I think it was just too much dairy for the moment; but I would do it again.

    Out of the whole week, there was only one, semi-dire event: eating a large spoonful of pickled mango.

    As a normal, American person, one would think, “pickled mango? What’s the big deal?” Well, it is not just mangos in brine. It is a seasoning used with rice as a shortcut to add more flavor. Here is a link to the recipe if you are curious, but it was an intense shock of something salty, spicy, and sour all at the same time. For about 90 seconds, I didn’t know how this was going to play out. My part of the table went silent, but it was ok. The best I can compare it with is like eating the ginger and wasabi in a big spoonful at a Japanese restaurant. It’s not wrong, it’s just not right. If you are curious, here is a recipe for pickled mango

    Food wasn’t the end of it. The best way to experience a country is to know the history, the sports, and the culture.

    A museum, a cricket match, and a temple nailed that trifecta.

    The fun things to do.

    Wednesday of our stay was a national holiday in India. Vasavi and the team showed us through the Salar Jung museum, which housed a collection of artifacts owned by the King hundreds of years ago, and includes exhibits of:

    • Miniature paintings
    • Swords
    • Porcelain
    • Bronze and Marble statues
    • Chinese and Japanese furniture, cups, art, etc. 
    • Wood carving items from lots of cultures
    • Walking sticks. Yes, this was fascinating. 

    There are too many great items to share, but this was my favorite item of the day: a marble statue carved to look like a flowing veil. The detail was something I had never seen before:

    There were too many great items from the museum to capture, but here are a few items:

    Vasavi and Swamy

    But that’s not all: our company has a cricket team: you know, the British sport with a wicket? So we had to support our guys on Saturday as they played against another company for their fourth game of the season. It’s pretty dope: many IT companies participate (like Verizon, AMD processors, Dell, many others you may recognize). They have jerseys, and play on a field outside of the city. The fields are often converted farms that put together these great facilities, and lease them out to leagues that want to play cricket, and they were in great shape. They even professionally stream the games, complete with scores and replays. 

    We were able to see about 90 minutes, but did I mention it was 108*? We were roasting, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to play in that heat. Storable India folks are a tough breed. 

    The Temple of Equality was next on the list. It was new (only a couple years old) and gigantic. Cameras weren’t allowed inside, so not many pics to share. And we didn’t do the “audio guided tour”, so we were clueless about the 108 gods that we saw that day. 

    But it was beautiful. And the sound of the buddha singing that melody over a speaker covered the area in serenity. Many of the “followers” (I am not sure the right word for people that work/live at a temple?) were much younger than I was expecting. 

    The architecture was something unlike anything I had ever seen. Beautiful, intricate details are something that people stopped doing hundreds of years ago, or so I thought. Seeing so many details on such a new temple brought a different kind of energy to the place. 

    We made it to the top where the buddha was sitting. Did I mention it was 109* or so? The temple requires shoes to be removed, so viewing the buddha on the white-painted walkway did burn my feet. As I am on the plane writing this, my feet still hurt a bit, but it’s fine. I would do it again.

    The final stop for the day, and the final step for my whole week, was to see the official emblem of Hyderabad.

    If you google Hyderabad, India (Not to be confused with Hyderabad Pakistan), an image of Charminar is going to come up. This is the four-spire muslim monument with a mosque on the top floor. It was built in 1591, and the official emblem of the city. 

    Sometimes I have a hard time with large crowds. It can give me a bit of anxiety. Large crowds in the area, along without our awesome tour guide Aarshad, a little bit of dehydration, and lots of beggars, a quick lap of the monument was more than enough for me on that specific day.

    It was a completely different part of the city. 

    We stayed in the Westin, Hitech City. The Storable office is pretty close to the hotel. And this is just a small part of the city of Hyderabad, a population of 10 million. It is on a giant plain, and driving outside of the city reminded me of the dry, hilly parts of west Texas. 

    The city is ancient. And after learning a small part of its history from the museum and talking with my coworkers, it seems the history of Hyderabad interweaves Hindu, Muslim, and British influences over hundreds of years. 

    More recently, Tech has been moving in in a really big way. There are dozens and dozens of 20+ floor buildings under construction. Huge signs of companies you would recognize from across the world have signs strapped across the buildings the have been completed, the largest being Deloitte. 

    People from all around the country are moving to Hyderabad and moving the industry forward, including most of my peers in the Storable office. 

    What were you doing in India anyways?

    Ok, this post has been about a bunch of touristy stuff. And yes, we did a good deal of that. But the reason for the trip was work, and we did a large amount of work.

    I work at a company called storable, and we do software for self-storage units for a large marketshare across the country: around 60%. Think inventory, payment processing, access to facilities, auctions, etc. Now, we do the same for marinas, and are moving into the camping/RV vertical as well. It’s pretty cool.

    Part of our project is being manned by our team in India, so this was a week to do some forecasting and planning, and more than anything, just get some FaceTime with our peers who we only see over zoom on a regular basis.

    The conference room

    We did a week of reviewing, planning, Jira boards, projecting, collaborating, and anything else you can think of relating to the software development lifecycle. 

    The bulk of our time was spent with Aarshad, who is on our team, and Vasavi, the product owner (think, “the boss”). Aarshad showed us all of his favorite places, and Vasavi was an amazing hostess who helped us all feel welcomed. She spent her day off showing us around town, and very much reminded me of my wife: works hard, is a great mom, values her faith, etc.

    The other things

    ’m going to stay clear of saying “India was this” or “India was that”. It is a huge country, and I only saw a part of it. 

    You know what I really liked about Visiting Hyderabad? The clothing. It was beautiful- there were so many colors, and not just boring western style clothing. 

    The traffic seemed a bit chaotic at times- but most of the way through the trip, Mike pointed out: none of the cars have any dings or scratches in them. It is like they are all moving in the same direction, and understand the same rules. 

    The language. India has 3000+ languages. How drop. That is astounding. In the office, people come from around the country, and there are two main languages spoken, Hindi and Bangali. But, around Hyderabad, many of the signs were in three languages: Hindi, English, and Bengali.

    Museum Sign in English
    Sign with Bengali, English, and Hindu
    Bengali or Hindu?

    Finally, the post wouldn’t be complete without reflecting on the time Mike got on stage and did an impromptu song in Skyhy, while the band was finishing up their warm up. A core memory was created that night, and, Mike was pretty good:

    Mike did an impromptu song.

  • Goodbye, for now

    This is a post to say goodbye (from the blog) for a while. Here is why.

    One of the first pictures from the blog in Feb, 2021

    A little over two years ago, some pretty terrible things were said. Those harsh words and accusations really shook me- they made me doubt my identity and values, and question a lot of things.

    This blog has been my way to work through that. After 85 posts, with confidence, I can say:

    • Being a dad is the best. I love my girls.
    • Taylor is an amazing gift in my life.
    • Church is an essential part of who I am. The people and community are so, so important to me.
    • There are seasons in life. Good ones, bad ones, and everything in between. That’s ok.
    • Solid friendships are worth fighting for. This is something Taylor teaches me through the way she lives.
    • Having something to look forward to is important.
    • Laughing brings joy to everyone. Laugh at yourself. Laugh with your family.
    • Counseling is important. Life isn’t easy. Talk it through with someone.
    • I am only responsible for myself. Not how others interpret/respond/react to things.
    • Stay curious to learn, or try something new.
    • Saying sorry means a lot.
    • Jesus Christ is the most important part of all. Where would we be without prayer? Without worship music? Without keeping that as the cornerstone of our lives?

    This blog has been a special outlet for me, and if you have read through it, I hope you enjoyed it as well. Now, I feel like I DO know who I am. I feel like I have confidence in how these weekly posts show the parts that make up my life, and that was the goal for me with this blog since the beginning.

    One of the most recent pictures of the girls on the blog.

    I don’t want to go down the path of posting weekly updates and measuring views to get results. And, I don’t think you would want to read that either.

    What will you do now?

    This blog has reminded me how much fun it is to create. So, I want to follow that passion and use it with my professional life by making videos/posts/blogs/social media about the things related to IT that I really enjoy. I don’t quite know what that is going to look like, but time will tell.

    What happens to the blog now?

    I’ll keep the blog for sure. Going forward, I will do some posts every now and then. Later this year I am going to India for work, so I will be doing a post about that. And another post when we go to Disney World, for sure. Other than that I am not certain. I hope to keep it going though, to pick up at some point in the future. It is a great way to document our family events. Maybe I’ll keep doing that in some way? Stay tuned.

  • Work from home life, work life balance

    Work from home life, work life balance

    Taylor and I both work from home. Taylor is in sales, and spends a large amount of time on work calls during the day; I am a software engineer, and spend a large amount of time doing deep work (mostly pretty quiet).

    It has been this way since the pandemic- Taylor’s company from Greensboro allowed her to work from home; since then, she has transitioned to a new company out of Philadelphia. My company doesn’t even have an office, but on paper, they are out of Texas.

    Taylor’s setup is downstairs; I am upstairs. Taylor’s office is very clean and organized. Mine is not.

    The great thing about this setup is how much it helps complement our other job: as parents. Often, the day will go something like this:

    Taylor: “Do you have any meetings this afternoon?”

    Luke: “Looks like my last meeting ends at 1”

    Taylor: “Can you pick up the girls from dance at 3:45? I have a call until 4”

    Luke: “Sure, thats fine.”

    Boom! Ok, that isn’t very climactic, but compared with how challenging things were before, it just makes so many things so much easier. Then, If I need to, I can add an extra hour on before or after the workday to keep things balanced.

    Also, it is just 1/2 mile walk to Rosie’s school, so walking to school with her in the mornings is often one of the highlights of the day.

    Work Life Balance

    Increasingly important has been the drive for work/life balance for me. Taylor often says I have an “Interest based attention span”, and I have a ton of interests. But if I go too far with one of those interests, other things seem to go off the rails. Let me explain.

    Here are the key elements:

    • Professional Life: Work
    • Emotional Life: Time to be happy, be sad, and everything between
    • Spiritual Life: Church, time for prayer
    • Social Life: Time with friends, family
    • Mental Life: Time to read, grow as a person
    • Physical Life: Working out, getting the blood flowing.

    Ok, that list doesn’t come from any doctor or a book. It’s 100% just Luke making this stuff up.

    There are different seasons in life, but if there isnt a little bit of time to fill each of those proverbial “buckets”, I’m not my best self. So here are the ways each bucket gets filled:

    For work, I wake up and do continuing ed in the mornings. This world of IT is still fascinating, and there are so many fun things to learn.

    At home, I value laughter when we can. Also, the ability to laugh at oneself; this part I learned from Taylor, but allowing the kids to laugh and poke fun at how much I love to sneak some of the kids candy can make for special moments. Time being sad is also ok.

    At Church, I am on the prayer team. We get a list of about 80-100 things to pray for each week, for people in the church. Also, I am teaching a class at our church right now as part of our Wednesday night “Connections” classes. Listening to worship music throughout the week totally fills this bucket too.

    Taylor keeps us busy socially; marrying her was the smartest things I could have done in life. This bucket gets filled with weekend trips, date nights, and pickleball, which I am going to pick up a little more now that the weather is getting warm.

    Mental life is a way to keep grinding the axe. This can be reading, or anything else that tickles my fancy. Taylor calls this the “things I obsess about”. It is the way I stay curious, maybe even a little weird. Listening to podcasts while doing yardwork is an example.

    Physical life is just a way to take care of my body. Don’t eat junk food, exercise a few times a week, drink water, sleep good. During the work day, I may slip in a 30 minute run; or some quick yoga moves to stretch my body that tends to sit in a chair all day.

    Not every week includes all of the elements, and sometimes there are tradeoffs: more exercise some months, more work some months, more social time some months. But I loosely try and tend to each area of life just as a normal rhythm, and without it, I start to feel restless.

    Anyways, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

  • Dinner Party, and something new

    Dinner Party, and something new

    Before jumping into the fun stuff about the dinner party, I didn’t do a post last week. Or the week before. The reason I didn’t write was because I didn’t know what to write- or how to write about it.

    My older brother Jake had a birthday. I haven’t spoken to him in 2 years. It is embarrassing to talk about. Some things in life are- embarrassing, sad, broken. The details of how this came about are not worth going into here, but my phone number is blocked, which means I cannot call him or his wife to wish him a happy birthday.

    The biggest shame is that it has been allowed to go on for this long. Surely someone, somewhere could have spoken into his life over the past two years and said something to the effect of, “Hey, I know things aren’t great, but he is your brother, and you should give him the benefit of a doubt. Cutting him out of your life isn’t the right thing to do.”

    There is a lot more to say about it, but I love and respect him, and do wish Jake a happy birthday.

    Party Time

    Taylor and I work pretty great as a team. We learned this early on in our marriage, and have recently gotten out of the habit of collaborating for parties after 10 years of having Children and living through a global pandemic. So we thought this might be a great time to have a party. What were we celebrating? Nothing at all.

    Taylor has to have something to look forward to. I think we all do- whether it’s a vacation, party, time off of work, etc. Since there haven’t been any weddings in a while out of our friend group, and our group is almost done having kids (are we, Cores?), what fun reasons are there to get together and celebrate? Nothing much, but let’s have a party anyways!

    Taylor took the Friday off of work, the grandparents had the kids, and Taylor spent THE DAY cleaning. How this was relaxing, I have no idea. But, Tay the house looked beautiful. You could hardly even tell that children lived there.

    She asked that people dress “funky formal”, which was part of the fun. Bowties? I have never worn one before. Funky Formal? Definitely gonna wear a bow tie.

    Dinner was catered- kinda. There is a great local place with some tasty, but not too pricey, food. They cater many events, but also have options for a take-and-bake kind of thing. Along with a fancy dessert. And charades. Then, fireworks that I brought home from South Carolina. Mortars that shoot up into the sky are a lot louder than I remember them being.

    Chad got a delayed Christmas Present
    First pic of the night
    Funky fresh?
    Gentelmen
    Ladies

    Something New.

    We have 2 cars. One is 15 years old. The other is 13 years old. They are paid for. My role in the household is to keep the cars running- change the oil, tires, lights, inspections, and ensure there are no “check engine” lights in the car.

    I go to the car shop every other month. The cars are running mostly pretty great- but I am sick of it. Going to our mostly awesome car repair guy, and taking a few hours, every other month for ONE of the two cars, I kinda reached the end of my patience. To argue the other side, at least all of the recent maintenance things have been fairly inexpensive recently.

    We knew we needed a new car. Taylor wanted a minivan. I wanted the SUV. Neither of us have ever had a new car before (3 years old, anyways). I was motivated because I tend to obsess over things. After many months and wayyyy too much time researching, we finally got out to a place that had the model of minivan, and SUV for us to test drive side by side and see what we like. We even had the kids, and made a unanimous decision: we all liked the SUV better.

    So I knew what we liked, and made them an offer: $2k less than their asking price. THEY SAID NO. My children were there, and they still stuck with their guns. Really?

    There was another model, almost the exact same. $1k less than their asking price; they still said no.

    Some might say, surely you could have financed just a little bit more? Yes, we could have, but I wanted to pay for it, and stick with an exact figure that Taylor and I agreed upon.

    The THIRD option was 90 minutes away, in Raleigh. So, I asked my mom if she had anything to do that Friday afternoon, she said no, so we went to Raleigh.

    This is the last pic of the Camry. We had it 9 years, added 80k miles, and it only depreciated about $5500. I guess its true what they say: Toyotas really hold their value

    Originally I was hoping to sell it myself and get a few thousand more than the dealer would offer, but the last time I sold a car myself- maybe 5 years ago- it was hard to navigate around all the scammers out there, and seemed like a hassle. And the dealership made a better offer than I was expecting.

    A nice guy named Jermaine helped us out. We had been in touch the day before. The car was a trade-in, and had just come in the day before that.

    He saw what I was reading, and we ended up talking about Jesus for a bit; Jermaine helps to pastor a few churches in the area.

    Last shot before leaving
    All the paperwork
    On our way home

    We are pretty happy with it. Coming from a car that is 15 years old, it feels like I am just coming out of the Stone Age: the bells and whistles on cars are pretty amazing. This is a 2021 model, but feels pretty darn new to me. Some of these things have been normal on cars for a LONG time.

    Other fun things

    These are just some other fun pics from the past couple weeks, with no context.

  • Mardi Gras, Making cake, multi-media

    Mardi Gras, Making cake, multi-media

    When there is a daddy daughter dance, attendance is not optional. It is not the dad’s night to shine on the dance floor (though a few did).

    We got our tickets to the daddy-daughter dance before they sold out. Yes, I have a weird tone when writing these posts, but the event did actually sell out. A friend of ours was really sad learning about the dance that day through his daughter, and realized he couldn’t go because he didn’t have a ticket.

    We went last year (here is a link to last year’s event for all my mega-fans that want to see it).

    Rosie got a special dress for the occasion, and she got to choose the fine-dining option, no place was off the table.

    The final decision, between Applebees, a steakhouse, and a taco place, she chose the taco place. The conversation was delightful.

    The place was packed with dads and sweaty kids. The snack table was popping. The moms worked their butts off to make this night possible, where no moms were allowed.

    The 360 Photo Booth was a hit. But the highlight of the night was the daddy dance off. Our host, Brian, shared that he wasn’t going to participate; when sharing that, I didn’t quite remember any dance off happening from last year’s event. Oh, but it was so amazing:

    Daddy Dance off.

    The dad that did the split took home the prize this year: pride, and a torn hamstring.

    The whole night I kept thinking to myself: “Rosie is just like her mom.” No, this isn’t a slight towards her or Taylor. She is just like her mom when, in the early days of our marriage when we were attending what seemed like an endless amount of weddings, Taylor would often disappear, only to turn up having a conversation with yet ANOTHER friend/coworker/someone she grew up with/sorority sister/parent’s friends kid, what-have you. Taylor was just very social, it drove me crazy and it is one thing I really love about her.

    The whole evening at the daddy daughter dance, I kept looking up, and Rosie was GONE. But, she would always turn up, just like her mom did.

    Making Cake

    We had fun at the Super Bowl this year. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a ton of pictures to really share about the evening, but Rosie and Taylor spent some time making a great cake for the event.

    24″ pizza
    Mercy watching Usher
    Tay leading the charge

    Rosie in the zone

    Mardi-gras

    A few fans wrote in that they were disappointed about not getting a post last week. I apologize deeply on this shortcoming, as this should have been posted last week.

    Our neighborhood does a pretty fun Mardi-gras event each year. And by pretty fun, I mean the parade is led by 4 riding lawnmowers kind fun. Beers in coozies, kids in beads eating sugar kinda fun.

    So much fun, we invited our friends from the country to come join us this year. Houston made it at the end after addressing a plumbing emergency at his house, but we had a blast in all the ways listed above:

    The parade this year was the most impressive one on record:

    Multi-media

    Ok, I wanted to come back to this one, and answer the question about where and how to store the ever-growing collection of videos and pics on your phone. What do you do with them?

    This is part II; last time, I shared a bit about our current setup:

    • WD Mycloud to store videos locally
    • Amazon Photos to store all photos
    • Plex server to watch videos on the tv.

    This works ok, but it has its issues:

    • Videos are hard to organize
    • Videos need to be formatted properly
    • Lacks many features we like on images, like location, finding people in videos, etc.

    Update:

    Currently there is no service that does what we want it to do, which is to format videos and keep them organized with a great user experience, without storing them in the cloud. Plex is the service used, but even that just puts all videos into the same folder, and they cannot be searched via date, location, etc. Plex was designed to serve movies, like a personal DVD collection, and can be extended for home movies. The features just aren’t the same, and formatting the videos to be the right format for a tv is time consuming and technical.

    Also, we want to keep our videos in the same place we keep our videos.

    One note here: if the goal was to just keep our videos stored, and access them occasionally, I am quite happy with our current setup. The biggest difficulty is organizing, and watching on the tv.

    This leaves us with one of a few different ways to proceed:

    • Google Photos- now called 1Google. If on android, this is the way to go. 2 Terabytes, $100/year.
    • iCloud+. A great option. I am toying with the smaller plan to see what is available, and really like it. It syncs pics with my computer to quickly edit them for this blog. It can be shared among people in the house with Family Sharing. If you have an Apple TV, use this one. $9.99/month ($120/year) for 2TB
    • Amazon Photos. This is what we have been using to backup our photos for years. Currently, we have 59,000 photos. We also have FireTv in our house, so it just made sense to use this one. The app on our phones automatically backs up all photos/videos. Currently I am uploading all videos stored on our local drive. Currently I am using the 1TB for $60/year, but will eventually jump to the 2TB for $119/year.

    A couple caveats here. Bandwidth is important. No matter what solution you use, your upload speeds are very important for this. One good place to check is speedtest. No matter what solution you are using, if you are uploading a lot of content to the cloud, it will take some time. We have a 500MB internet plan with fiber, and it took about 6 hours to upload 220 gigabytes so far.

    However, we are done with this task. The next step is to continue uploading our videos, and then, possibly sell out WD Mycloud server on eBay. A lot of time was spent on this task trying to avoid lock-in with a specific cloud provider, but the features are pretty great, and it seems like the best way to go for now.

  • The zoo, and the cloud

    The zoo, and the cloud

    On Saturday, we had nothing to do. This doesn’t happen…ever in our family. Normally there is at least something to clean/organize. But this time, nothing.

    “Let’s go to the zoo!”

    There’s not much to say about the zoo, but I did take lots of pics, so enjoy this little video.

    This visit did make me wish I had a better camera- especially with a zoom. Do you have a camera? If so, what kind? There are some great options, and people who do photography seem to have a lot of fun with it.

    The cloud

    What do you do with all of your videos/photos that you acquire, year after year? The library of media only gets bigger each year, as phones with better cameras take increasingly larger sized images for each shot.

    The options are either:

    1. Store them in the cloud.
    2. Keep them on a file in your house (locally)
    3. Not bother; delete them when you get a new phone.

    Before deciding what option is best, I think it’s important to figure out what you want to do, because there is no one-size fits all solution. My goals are:

    • Keep all photos
    • Record 4k videos, as my camera has that option (most cameras do now)
    • Be able to watch those videos in 4k on our tv
    • Have a good app to look up photos by time/location/person
    • Keep videos, but all videos don’t need to be available at all times.
    • Save money.
    • Automatically sync my media, as well as Taylor’s

    option 1: the cloud

    This is the best option, and the most expensive. There are three major options out there, and each seems as good as the other, in my opinion. I am not going to go deep into the details on these, but here are the three major options, and reasons why they may be the best fit. Some prices are listed, all for the size of the library we currently have at our house, which is about 2 terabytes

    • Google photos. Has an app on the phone. $10/month. Best if you have google chrome cast.
    • Amazon Photos. Has an app on your phone. Photos are free for prime members. The app is great: sort by person, location, time, etc. $12/month. Best if you have fire TV.
    • Apple iCloud+. Just buy extra storage. The app is also great. $10/month. Apple TV supports this to play things on the tv.

    Whatever you use to stream your tv with will have the best way to show your photos/movies. Also, month after month, year after year, this can get expensive. And uploading terabytes of data to the cloud will take a long time, depending on the upload speeds of your internet. Once the initial upload is past, you are pretty much good to go.

    Option 2: local storage

    One of my goals is to avoid the monthly fee each month, so I went with this option. This is a NAS: Network Attached Storage. It is one of the cheaper ones, but a good way to get started.

    It plugs into your router, not your computer, and is a one-time expense, and should last a couple years before we max out the storage capacity.

    Pros:

    • one time expense
    • Automatically uploads all media from Taylor and Is phones.
    • The app is good, but limited.
    • Don’t have to worry about file size, or 4k videos.

    Cons:

    • Western Digital is a storage company, so their priority isn’t to make the best app. We got spoiled with the amazon photos app (others act the same way) where location, person, even things are searchable).
    • App cannot search by location, person, etc
    • Playback on a tv.

    This brings up an important point about metadata. Each time you take a picture, besides the name of the photo (the file name), all sorts of other information is recorded in the photo.

    At this point, we have all of our photos (Taylor and I) backing up to Amazon Photos automatically. This is a great app, and again, free for prime members. We have been using this for years, and love it.

    We have all of our videos being backed up to our local storage device, a wd mycloud 4 terabyte device next to our router. Here is a link to learn more about that, if you are interested: https://www.westerndigital.com/brand/wd/my-cloud-home

    But we still don’t have a great way to watch these videos on our amazon firetv stick.

    For each photo/video that gets created, there is a ton of metadata included. Your phone keeps a local database of every image, who is in the picture, what else it thinks is in the picture, the location, time of day, the camera settings, and a whole lot more. Here is a screenshot of what I got when writing some software to get the metadata for a video I wanted to see:

    The reason this is important is because we have a way to play these videos on our tv, but each tv/software has certain limitations: videos have to be in the right format to be played, including resolution, file extension, bitrate, size, and there has be enough bandwidth to stream the file to the tv without any interruptions, so you better have good wifi.

    There is a free, local media server option that can do a lot of this for you. It was created as a server to keep all of your movies and music (think back to when people had VHS tapes). However, it has been tweaked to be able to show home videos that are stored as well: https://www.plex.tv

    It is the recommended way to interact with your videos on our wd-mycloud, so I set it up. We got spoiled with our other ways to view photos and videos (the google photos app, iPhone photos, or in our case, amazon), so this interface seemed terrible:

    But, it is free, and allows us to view home videos.

    But there is one last problem, and this is where that metadata became important: Plex only plays videos in the proper (landscape) format. This means that every video recorded in portrait mode (up and down), doesn’t play properly on the tv.

    After combining all of our videos into a single file, I wrote a bash script to go through and get the metadata for each video. In our case, we wanted to get the orientation of the file: 0 degrees, 90, or 270. If the video was 0 degrees, we are fine: it is landscape, no further action is needed.

    If it was a 90 or 270 degrees, it is portrait. We would need to:

    1. Move the original file to a new folder.
    2. Format the video by adding black bars on the sides, so it will play on the tv.

    Here is the code for that:

    Now, we can view our videos, even the portrait mode, on our tv, through the janky plex interface.

    That is a lot of work, for a video interface that is pretty bad. What if there was another way?

    At this point, we have almost everything we wanted:

    • Photos backed up to amazon photos
    • photos AND videos are backed up locally to our WD Mycloud
    • Videos can be played on the phone through the app.
    • Videos can be played through the Plex app, but the interface is terrible. We can do better.

    If you have a TV that can do Airplay, you can stop here; just stream the video (stored on WD Cloud), to your tv. This is a great option. But I want more.

    What we need is an app that can make use of all of the metadata from a photo/video. The job of the Plex media server is to make sure your videos can be played, and if not, format them to the right format. Running some computer code to get the job done isn’t ideal.

    Is there something else that can work with the files we have (not in the cloud) that can show them on the tv, without having to use Plex or running computer code?

    Just yesterday I bought an Apple TV 4K to give this a try. If it works, I can sell the WD Mycloud on eBay for about the price of the Apple TV; if it doesn’t work, I can return it. Here is what I have so far:

    • It can show photos AND videos from an external drive, connected to a MAC, through the PHOTOS app. No need for the Plex server. To do this, you need to enable media sharing on your Mac.
    • This external photos library needs to be the System Photo Library, or, the main library used by the photos app on the computer.
    • The Apple TV need to be signed into the same Apple account/userID as the Mac.

    The Pros of this approach:

    • My files are still saved locally; no monthly cloud fees
    • Fairly easy to set up.
    • No more Plex server for watching videos on TV
    • Can see 4k as it was filmed.
    • We have iPhones, so the same apple ecosystem makes it nice.

    The cons I have found (so far):

    • Had to buy an Apple TV. I can sell the WD MyCould for about the same price though?
    • The interface on AppleTv for photos isn’t as great. Cannot search by location/year/person.
    • Photos on the local external drive can only be viewed through the “Computers” part. Again, not the best UI for searching for videos from a place, or featuring a person.
    • Syncing photos. This approach doesn’t automatically sync photos/videos from Taylor and I’s phones. There may be a way around this by syncing to iCloud+ with a shared photo library, and then importing that to our local drive every month or so. This is something I am going to look into.

    One of the takeaways is that the premium you pay with storing your photos and videos in the cloud is that they have stellar apps that can make use of the metadata in your media, and create versions of your videos to play on any device, at any time. If you steer away from that and still want the same niceties, you will have to put in some work to get there.

    I have 2 weeks to return my AppleTV. In that time, I am going to see if there is a solution to the syncing issue, while still showing videos saved on our 4 terabyte external drive, connected to the Mac. Stay tuned.

  • Birthday breakfast, basketball, biking adventure

    Birthday breakfast, basketball, biking adventure

    Around here, a birthday isn’t just a day. Around here, there is a birthday with one side of the family; then another side of the family; then alone with just the family.

    This week I woke up on my actual birthday, read a book about the Old Testament, checked my blood pressure (part of my new years resolution, everything is fine), and realized: here is your sign. You are old and boring.

    Taylor and Rosie made an awesome breakfast, with a candle in the scrambled eggs for kicks.

    Rosies special sign

    Rosie even made this sign for me, and explained what each of the icons means:

    • Guitar because I like music
    • Video game controller because I like playing zelda
    • sunglasses because I am cool
    • Heart because she loves me
    • hat because it is time to celebrate
    • scary emoji because 39 is old
    • beers
    • cupcakes because they got me cupcakes
    • basketball because go tar heels!
    • burrito. Everyone loves burritos.
    • Chocolate because I like candy

    Rosie is so thoughtful. May she never change!

    UNC Basketball

    Every year Rosie and I go to a UNC game on a night when the schedule works best- typically a 7pm weeknight game when tickets are more affordable. This year happened to be an awesome year for the tar heels. They were #3 in the country when they matched up against Wake Forest.

    This year all three of the Lineberry boys got to join us, and the night was great. This year we went a few hours early to enjoy dinner, and looking at some of the stores on Franklin street.

    We spotted the famous Roy Williams across the stadium wearing a pink sweater. I told Rosie about his accomplishments, and Rosie asked if we could go see him. With 10 minutes until tipoff, it didn’t look like there was a line any more, so I said “Sure.”

    We made it all the way across the stadium. I got a little mixed up and had to jump over some seats, but we made it down right beside Mr. Roy, when “Excuse me- you are gonna have to go back to your seats.”

    Security got us. Apparently there is a cut-off for when Roy allows drop-ins. He made sure to get our attention, and the people around us confirmed what he said to Rosie and I: “Come back at halftime. I want to see you.” were his words, after seeing my smile and boldness to bring my 9 year old.

    Rosie did confess that she was a little embarrassed and didn’t want to take him up on his offer, but still. It was a fun memory.

    Also one thing we noticed is that the opening part for the games- including the laser light display on the court- was different than last year:

    Rosie and I at the game
    Got to see my friend Charlie Hiser
    Mr Igetbuckets, Armando Bacon
    RJ Davis warming up
    Not the best seats

    A small adventure

    There is an area near our house. It is a small little green space, with a little pathway removed from the road that is good for riding bikes. This little green space has a creek running through it, and is bordered on 2 sides by a slightly busier road in town. There are no sidewalks around it, which means, no one ever goes over there. Is is the perfect little spot for an adventure.

    It was going to rain that Saturday afternoon, and Taylor had been out with the girls doing this and that. So, this was the best opportunity to build up the suspense for Rosie. Her response? She is just like her mom (in the best way possible): “Why don’t you just tell me where we are going?”

    No, I would not tell her! That would defeat the purpose! But, we got the bikes and helmets ready, packed a PB&J, and rode the 3/4 of a mile to our destination.

    The first challenge? Cross the creek without anyone falling in. Luckily there was a 2×6 laying there, and a narrow-enough place to lay the board down, and cautiously cross, one by one.

    Across the creek, what did we find?

    1. No trails
    2. Lots of pricker bushes
    3. a lot of mud
    4. It was hard for the girls to walk.

    You know what Rosie’s reaction was?

    “This is so fun daddy, I feel like an adventurer or explorer or something.” That side of the creek wasn’t as grand as I was expecting. We crossed back across the creek, used some hand sanitizer, and ate our sandwiches.

    Before peddling back up the hill, we made use of our walkie-talkies and explored the large grassy field bordering the creek.

    One thing I tell the kids often these days is “If you have enough ideas, eventually you will have a good one.”

    This last picture might be hard to see the ducks that Rosie and Mercy saw in the creek.

  • Happy Birthday, Hyderabad, and Hours Wasted

    For the past several years, we have done the same thing for my birthday with the family: gone to boxcar arcade/bar to play games. It has become a pretty fun tradition.

    It was just a simple idea Taylor had a few years ago, and it works great: the kids get a chance to go and do whatever they want, and, for the first time ever, Mercy was old enough to allow us to sit, and just…take it easy.

    But there is only one thing that really matters during this particular night:
    SKEE BALL.

    Every year Taylor and I play; and every year, she wins. Last year we were fighting neck and neck for a final score of the evening:

    Taylor: 230

    Luke: 220.

    This year was going to be different; this year I was feeling lucky; this was my special night after all.

    For Taylor’s first round, she had a new PR: 270.

    Im done. It’s over. It was fun, but it wasn’t fun. Taylor won, and I gladly accept defeat, this year!

    Also, for what it’s worth, Evan got 280!

    One of these two ladies does ballroom dancing, the other does not:

    Ci Ci met her match with Amelia on the dancing game. It really was amazing to watch.

    And Rosie and I have our tradition of playing the Simpson’s game: it is super easy (just two buttons) and she knows I used to watch the show as a kid:

    Here are a few other fun pics from the night:

    Mercy loves the racing games
    Mercy just wanted to throw the ball
    Air hockey
    After some fun dancing
    Aun Evan with the skee ball

    Hyderabad

    Guess what? I’m going to India! The company I work for, storable, does software for physical storage facilities. Our team has hired some people in India, and I will be going to help train them on some of the software we have written.

    India is one place I would love to go, but would never pay my own money, and Taylor has no interest in going, so it will be a lot of fun to scratch the itch of wanting to visit some place different and eat some weird (and great!) food.

    The trip isn’t for a few months, but it is time to get the tickets, and start learning a bit about the city; and, plan for the “work” part of the trip as well.

    Hours Wasted

    This past Friday the local news showed a short clip about a guy in the area that brought his snow-making expertise with him when he moved to Greensboro, and began making his own snow.

    What a great idea! The forecast said it would not get above freezing over the course of the day, so making snow would be a great way to spend an otherwise very cold, very boring, very inside kind of day.

    All I had to do was hook up my pressure washer, and spray, and it will make snow.

    This is the pressure washer my friend Hernan Torres gave us when he moved; thanks Hernan! But, it wouldn’t start. The hoses were frozen. But that wasn’t a problem, I could just defrost the hoses for an hour, and it would be fine.

    An hour later, the hoses were defrosted: but I accidentally knocked the pressure washer over, and it wouldn’t start. No problem! I had to go to the small hardware store anyways, so I asked some advice: all I had to do was take the 13/16″ spark plug out, pull the cord 10 times to clear it, and it would start right up.

    Finally, at 11:20 am:

    It wasn’t snow. All I had was an Icy sidewalk for the mailman to slip on (the mailman did not slip on the ice though). No problem! Back to the drawing board.

    Every other year in our marriage, Taylor would have been pretty open about how this was a silly idea, and there were better ways to spend my time. She would have been right, but there is something fun about working through and trying to solve a problem.

    The articles I read online said that in order to make snow, the water source has to be cold. How can the water be very cold. but not frozen? Often a stream as a water source would work. I didn’t have a stream; but I did have a kiddie pool. All I had to do was fill the kiddie pool with water, let it freeze, and use it as a conduit to get cold water. Just run water from spicket, to the kiddie pool with ice; then, another hose feeds the pressure washer from the kiddie pool. Voila! Cold water supply.

    That’s when Taylor opened the door and saw me with a hose filling the kiddie pool with water when it was 24 degrees outside, and I realized my idea was silly. But, undeterred!

    It didn’t work. I failed to account for the gravity-fed nature of kiddie pool as a water supply: the kiddie pool would have had to have been on top of the trampoline in order for the water to flow to the pressure washer as a water supply.

    By this hour, we were running out of sunlight. It was fun; I have a feeling I was really close. It was a low-risk (not expensive!) thing to try. Maybe next time….

  • All the stuff.

    All the stuff.

    Hi! Thanks for stopping by to check out the blog! Usually the title starts out with something that rhymes, but for the life of me, I cannot get all of these random things to fit into any fun title that makes sense. So this week, it is “all the stuff” from the Logan Family for the first part of 2024.

    Speaking of stuff…

    Here is my shame.

    Twice a year, I clean out the garage. This is in an ideal situation. Before summer, I will clean out the garage and move all the winter stuff to the back, and the summer stuff to the front. It is easier to grab the lawnmower, and I probably won’t need the space heater from April to September.

    Not every year goes according to plan. If things get busy, we are out of town, if the weather is bad for a few weekends in a row during that time… as you can guess, this was that year, hence why it looked so….terrible inside.

    Some of the inspiration from this method may have come from this unique Netflix show many of us watched a few years back:

    Though the Marie Kondo method has been helpful and parts of it live on, I want to point out that even Marie Kondo gave up on the Marie Kondo method after giving birth to her second child, according to this article on CNN.

    After a couple hours, and a little friendly shame from Marie Kondo’s spiritual kin, Taylor, the garage became clean. It will live on. Should it snow, the shovels and sleds are in the front. So are many of the other items that could be used in the winter.

    What about Mercy?

    Rosie started out with Music class fresh and early as a baby. After music class, she did baby gymnastics, swimming, etc. Mercy hasn’t had as much opportunity, and she needed an opportunity to shine. She is a bit strong willed, so Taylor and I also needed a chance for her to get out of the house and try something that didn’t involve putting her will against ours. And it worked.

    She absolutely loved this baby gym class. After all of the times she has gone to watch her big sister do dance, swim team, class performances, etc, Mercy was super excited to have the fam watch her for a change. And Rosie was eating it up too- Rosie was so proud to watch her sister. I keep thinking that the end is near and Rosie is gonna be tired of her little sister, but she continues to surprise me in the joy and support that she has for her much younger sister.

    Mercy almost only played here
    She did this over and over
    So proud of herself

    We (Rosie, Taylor and I) were also all surprised to see how good of a listener Mercy was. She can put up some resistance at home, but was a great listener in her class.

    Its cool, he’s in a band

    My buddy, Daniel, is in a band. Lowland Hum is the name of the band, and here is one of their videos on Youtube that has gotten bit of steam:

    Daniel has pretty much always been destined to be a musician. Back in high school, we were in a bible study together, and while we were all excited about cars, clothes, and other cool high school stuff, I remember Daniel saved his money and bought a mixer. It just seemed so strange to me at the time, because it was hundreds of dollars.

    They do concerts, boast about how special “quiet music” is, and do home shows, which Taylor and I got to see this past weekend:

    It was a great show. I really wish I was better at keeping up with Daniel- he is the best storyteller I know, and so fun to see him up there doing what he does best.

    Carolina vs. Nc State.

    They played on Wednesday. There isn’t much to say about it, but I wanted to share these pictures as Rosie is torn: all of her in-laws love NC State. Here she is the morning of the game, holding her UNC sweatshirt afar:

    But, UNC won. And, Rosie and I are going to the UNC vs Wake Forest game next week, which I am looking forward to.

    Happy B Day uncle D!

    Every year Taylor’s mom does a combined family birthday dinner for Taylor’s brother (Uncle D) and myself. His birthday is on the 9th; mine is also in Jan.

    So, we had a fun meal together last night; Ribeyes, twice-baked-potatoes, salad, and that special dessert. It was a fun night. Uneventful, but I wanted to share a few pics.

    Also, Rosie had a dance competition. Those… are very, very long events. Luckily I got to stay home and take care of Mercy (and watch John Wick 2 for the first time, it is so good). Taylor took one for the team.

  • 2023 Blog Review, favorite things, and resolutions

    2023 is over, so its time to peel back the curtain and reflect on what the analytics say about the blog:

    • 77 posts have been published.
    • The first post was in March of 2021

    According to Google Analytics:

    • There were 1873 page views in 2023, up from 555 page views in 2022 (237%!)
    • 968 users were from the United States; followed by China (27), Ireland (15) and Sweden.
    • Average time spent on the blog: 41 seconds.

    The top pages from 2023:

    1. The home page (205)
    2. Possible diagnosis, home again, and fall . This title was bit misleading.
    3. Sisters
    4. Costa Rica part 1

    All of the numbers above mean this: not many people read this blog, and I am 100% ok with that.

    But what is the goal of the blog? Why spend the time and energy?

    There are some stressful things going on in life. Since starting the blog, some of those things have changed. However, through all of the negative things that happen at work or among extended family (and there have been a few heavy issues), my family is a source of joy, and this blog is a way to remind myself of that. It is good for my mental health to be thankful, and it still is a source of joy for me every Monday morning 🙂

    Favorite Things

    YouTube TV.

    If you are looking for an alternative to Spectrum… this might be it. After years of “borrowing” the cable login information from some benevolent in-laws, we had to get our own. We got it to watch through the ACC basketball season, and all I had to do was select my team, and it automatically finds all games and records them, so I don’t have to find the various channels.

    For kids, it can record every episode of any show your kid is into. Daniel Tiger? Check. Bluey? Check. Peppa Pig? Check.

    Nespresso Coffee Maker.

    We got this three years ago, and still love it. A great cup of coffee every day. It has been consistent, and something I look forward to each day. A bit of money, yes. But, it is a quality machine that just keeps working for us.

    Garmin Vivoactive 4 watch

    This is my second Garmin watch. I would have kept the first one, but after 3 years, the battery just couldn’t last a day, so I was forced to upgrade. If you don’t want all the bells and whistles (and cost) of an Apple Watch, check this one out. It does all the fitness tracking I need, and alerts of text messages, and a lot more features too.

    Nintendo Switch

    I got this for myself for father’s day, partly as a goal to play games with Rosie. In a few years, she will be old and not interested in hanging out with me, so I thought if we could play Mario Kart (or something else) it would be fun. That didn’t really pan out like I wanted. We do play Mario Kart on occasion. She does like the dancing game she got for Christmas. And I LOVE playing Zelda, Breath of the Wild on there. Pro tip: Get it on eBay. It doesn’t matter if it is used. I think I payed $140, and it retails for $299. The Zelda game? $18 on eBay. highly recommend.

    Season Tickets to the Tanger Center.

    Ok, I stole this from Taylor, but it is a favorite thing for both of us. My list is mostly things that can be bought from Amazon (the rest of the blog is a list of my other favorite things). There is a new performing arts center in town that opened up right after Covid, and has some broadway performances that come through. We bought season tickets this year, and they have been fun dates to look forward to. Aladdin, Chicago, Cats, and a few others have come through town.

    high-speed phone charger.

    We got these from Costco. They are $29 and come in a pack of 4. They charge phones WAY quicker- I think around 4x the speed? Anyways, it is quick, for when you are about to leave the house, and your phone doesn’t have juice.

    Resolutions

    Two years ago I saw my general practitioner and he said my blood pressure was a bit high. I got myself a cuff and measured my blood pressure over the course of a few weeks, and found it was mostly low in the mornings, so I haven’t thought much about it. And many people in my family have had high blood pressure, but no recorded strokes or heart attacks to my knowledge. Let me know if I am wrong though…

    The numbers seemed good last year, but it is still something to keep an eye on. So my resolutions for this year are to:

    • Get 7 hours of sleep each night. Sometimes I sleep too little, then make up for it the next day.
    • 30 minutes of exercise each day, no matter what. It is easy to let that slide.
    • Little to no alcohol. There are a few times in January when a drink is important.
    • Drink enough water. Sometimes I look at the clock at 3pm, and realize the only thing I drank all day is coffee, and I feel a bit weird.
    • Measure my blood pressure each morning. Hopefully the steps above help.

    After 7 days, the blood pressure dropped a bit, and I feel great. If I can’t get it to a number I am happy with, I may have to tighten the screws a bit and change my diet too, but I am trying to avoid that. A doctors appointment was scheduled for next month.

    Getting old is great, right?