And so it begins, Maverick’s agility journey

Maverick waiting his turn at an agility trial

I remember it like it was yesterday. The pet store clerk looked me dead in the eyes and matter-of-factly stated, “You had better find that dog a job.”

Maverick was barely 6 months old at the time and dragging me around the pet store. In other words, he was being his typical energetic self. I told her that he was a Labrador Retriever – Queensland Heeler mix. I kind of laughed off the suggestion, but little did I know at the time how valuable the advice would be.

It took another year and a half, November 2020, before Abbey and I started taking him to agility class. He was a quick study and appeared to enjoy negotiating all the obstacles (well, almost all the obstacles – we’ll talk about the weave poles and the A-frame mishap some other time). More importantly, he was exhausted both physically and mentally after class. That’s when we knew we were on to something. We had found Maverick’s calling, his occupation, his job.

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Book review: Extracted

Book cover for Extracted by RR Haywood

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut reading the same authors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. For me, I enjoy peering into the imaginations of Blake Crouch, Daniel Suarez, Andy Weir, Eliot Peper, and A.G. Riddle on a regular basis. However, I also find it enjoyable to explore new authors. The storytelling changes. The ideas are different. And who knows, I might even discover a new author to add to my regular reading rotation.

For my latest author exploration, I decided to read Extracted by RR Haywood.

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One week with the Pixel 6a

The back cover of the Google Pixel 6a

After almost four years using the Pixel 3, I decided to pull the trigger and upgrade to the Pixel 6a. It was a tough decision. I’ve really liked the Pixel 3. It has been, by far, the best phone that I’ve ever owned. Unfortunately, it’s not scheduled to get any more Android updates, so I figured it was time to move on.

Here are my thoughts after one week with the Pixel 6a. Given how much I liked my Pixel 3, the new phone has some big shoes to fill.

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Book review: Upgrade

Book cover for Upgrade by Blake Crouch

Growing up, I remember marking the calendar and patiently waiting for new movies to open in theaters. I remember waiting every fall for new seasons of my favorite television shows like Seinfeld and Cheers. Never in a million years did I think I would eagerly wait for the availability of a book. Yes, a book. Those things you read.

Well, it’s happened. I’ve become one of “those people.”

I’ve been a big fan of Blake Crouch’s writing since reading the Wayward Pines trilogy. I’ve read Dark Matter, Recursion, and short stories he’s written. I like his style, the pace of his books, and how he often weaves plausible technology and hard science fiction concepts into his stories.

So yes, I had the date circled on my calendar for the release of his latest novel, Upgrade.

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Optimizing Apache and php-fpm settings for EC2 micro and nano instances serving WordPress websites

After upgrading an Amazon EC2 instance from PHP 7.2 to PHP 7.4, I ran into a problem – the server would regularly hang. Sometimes it would happen after a few days. Sometimes it would take a month. In either case, websites served by the instance became unresponsive. The only way to get things back online was through a hard reboot, which a few times had to be done at the Amazon console level. It was not a good situation.

Through lots of research and reading, I finally feel like I have things under control. If you’re struggling with a similar problem, here’s what I did to fix it. The server has went over 4 months without requiring a hard reboot since making the changes.

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Book review: Project Hail Mary

Book cover for Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The more science fiction I read, the more I find myself drawn to certain authors. Whether it’s their style of writing, their storytelling ability, or their imagination of what’s possible, there is something about their work that speaks to me.

One such author who I particularly enjoy reading is Andy Weir. I’ve read Artemis, Randomize (a short story from Amazon’s Forward Series), and The Martian, which is still one of my favorite books of all time.

So when Andy Weir’s latest book, Project Hail Mary, hit the shelves, it was a no-brainer to add it to my reading list, and to make sure that it ended up near the top of it.

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Words Matter

Our choice of words, spoken or written, imbues meaning. It determines what we communicate. It affects our ability to solve problems. The way we describe, or frame, a problem can make all the difference in our ability to resolve it.

Here are three mistakes that I commonly make that demonstrate why carefully and properly choosing words matter.

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Book review: Tiny Habits

Book cover for Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

To be successful, it’s imperative that you have lofty expectations and set at least one big, audacious goal. Having such a goal can be overwhelming. It begs the question, how do you go about achieving it?

The simple answer is that it’s like eating an elephant. It’s too big to eat all at once. It needs to be broken down into smaller pieces. You have to do it one small bite at a time. Still, it requires a process. That’s where Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg can help.

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Sustainable Energy, Self-Driving Cars, Robots, Starships, and AI-Augmented Humans

One of my guiding philosophies is that ideas are cheap. Ideas don’t lead to success. Successful people are those who take ideas and follow-through. They implement them. They make them happen. The bigger the idea, the bigger the success.

If you agree with my philosophy, then Elon Musk’s success should not surprise you. He has taken big ideas like mass-market electric vehicles and reusable rockets and turned them into a reality. Therefore, when he starts talking about his vision of the future, I listen.

Earlier this month, he sat down with the head of TED, Chris Anderson, for an interview that covered a wide range of topics. Musk talked about his vision for sustainable energy by 2050, when autonomous vehicles would be a reality, household robots, armadas of starships taking people to Mars, and his plan to augment humans with AI and why it needs to happen.

It’s a rather long interview at just over an hour, but worth your time if you have any interest in how the future may unfold. Usually I would discount this kind of “crazy” talk, but Musk has a track record of making it happen. I’ve included additional interviews of Musk below that date back to 2013 if you want to see how his past predictions have panned out. Spoiler alert: they were pretty spot on, especially when you consider how big the vision is.

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