All Apple All Day

Remember 9/11?  Of course you do.  12 years ago next week.  9/11 was also the only day my brother ever spent at my parents new house.  Time goes on, and we forget things. Last weekend helped my family to remember. 

Well, it finally happened. After a pretty solid 5-year run, my 2008-era 1st-gen Time Capsule has apparently bit the dust. It's deceased. An ex-Capsule. And unlike the last time, I'm not sure if I want to repair it. But let's consider the options.

AAAD is primarily dedicated to the iOS-based renovations we're doing at our house in Chicago's suburbs.  But it's not just about that topic, or even that house. We also rent out our former house in the city - a duplex down in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood. And last week, we dealt with one of the downsides of property management - our condo was burglarized. 

Our Summer of Vacations is almost over. The AAAD family just returned from a long weekend at Disney World. First things first - if you're going to Disney World, you need the "My Disney Experience" app.  Period. Full stop.  We were able to see and do essentially everything at all 4 Disney parks, in 4 days - almost SOLELY due to the real-time updates we were getting through the Disney app.  Here's a recap of our Disney Experience - and how the iOS app dramatically improved our experience.  

Here's a fun fact: my son was born on the same day as my dad, 55 years later - July 24. They've had a few joint birthday parties, and they were able to throw one in Turks and Caicos, and that was great.  Of course, 7 year olds need to have birthday parties with their friends, too... it's basically their primary social event. So this weekend, we threw a backyard movie night with about 25 kids.  To do that, you need a projector, a PA, and most importantly, a huge movie screen. Here's our review of the Airblown 12 ft. Inflatable Deluxe Movie Screen . 

As many of you may have noticed, AAAD has been "dark" for much of July. Sorry about that. There's a good reason, though - we've been traveling a LOT. (It didn't seem like a good idea to announce to the world that we'd be away from home for a few weeks.) But now that I'm back in Chicago, I can finally talk about our world tour.... (and because this is an Apple blog, I should probably mention the tech we used along the way.)

I know that I've written about this a lot in the past (and other people have written about it a lot MORE in the past) but there have been some pretty pervasive rumors that Apple is developing a "low cost" plastic iPhone. Here's where I think this is headed:

Hope you're having as much fun as we are at the AAAD household. Working on some "craftsman style" trim work today -- more on AAPL shortly.

It's been an incredibly busy summer at the AAAD household. And all told, things are going great.... and we're making some good progress on our slate of projects.

Remember how I was going to DIY the expansion to our home theater? Well.... that plan's out. This project is going to be one of the most, if not THE most, visible items in our home. Now that I really think about it, I should probably engage someone who knows how to calculate molding angles with a miter saw.