Category: NoneTech.非技术

It feels silly that I need to write a blog about this. When I google how to do this correctly, I found zero articles to solve the problem I’m facing. Some of them are outdated, some of them are talking about something else.

My problem with iCloud videos is capacity. I’m currently using the 200GB iCloud plan, and that runs out of storage. I can upgrade my plan to 1TB, maybe eventually I will do. But I feel this is not sustainable if I don’t delete some content and just let it grow. If I can live for years, then those photos/videos will outgrow what money can buy. So the solution is easy, I need to offload some big files in my iCloud. In my case, 75%+ space is used by photos and videos. I need to archive some of them which doesn’t bring much sentimental value to me and save them on some back volumes.

The first try I did is use the https://www.icloud.com/photos/. That’s easy, I just view “Albums -> Media Types -> Videos”, since they are normally huge in size. And then I need to download them and delete them. A couple of files in, I found a problem. The video I download has “creation time” and “last modified time” at the current moment. That’s useless for video archive if I can’t tell when and where they’ve been taken. Photo files have exif but videos don’t. I’m not familiar with the metadata standard for videos, but somehow iCloud can tell it in its interface. I already selected the “unmodified originals” when I download those file, so I guess that’s some limitation of how browser handle file downloads. But this is a dead-end, I didn’t find any way to archive downloading that over iCloud on the web.

Then I go back to my Photos.app on Mac. There’s a feature of Export, which has a sub-option of “Export Unmodified Original for x videos”. On the next dialog, you can choose “Export IPTC as XMP”, “Filename: Use File Name”, “Subfolder Format: Moment Name”. This option is very helpful. I finally get my videos exported with the right “creation date” and “last updated date”, they are even been organized in a nice name folder including location and date. Say “Golden Gate Park, April 18, 2015” is very descriptive for a video 🙂

But then I found another issue. I can’t see all the videos that I can see from iCloud’s “Albums -> Media Types -> Videos” in my local Photos.app. Then after some research, I found the issue is because I migrated and then moved my iPhoto library to the Photos library. And after that somehow this Photos library is no longer my System Photo Library. You can click “Option” while you open the Photos.app, and then you can tell which one you are using. Once you choose the right Photos library, go to “Preference” and click the “Use as System Library”. It tries to scare me by saying any photos which are not uploaded to iCloud may be lost. But anyway I need to go ahead. Then your Photos.app will start to sync up with iCloud. But that is very slow. I waited for about an hour but there’s still nothing showing up from my iCloud. All the photos and videos are downloaded from my iPhones, which means they already have a copy in iCloud. So the behavior of re-upload them into iCloud is useless.

Then I figure out the right solution. I can click “Option” while opening the Photos.app, this time I choose to create a new Photos library. Then I can go to preference and set it “Use as System Library”. This time the iCloud photos under “Albums -> Media Types -> Videos” will show up with short hesitation (download metadata from iCloud). After that, I can use the “Export Unmodified Original for x videos”. On the next dialog, you can choose “Export IPTC as XMP”, “Filename: Use File Name”, “Subfolder Format: Moment Name” option to export those videos as you do with local Photos Library. And then you can delete them, which also removes them from the iCloud library. Eventually, that storage will be reclaimed. Problem solved. To sum it up:

• Create a new Photos library
• Set the new Photos library as “Use as System Library” in Photos.app’s preference; Go to iCloud tab and choose to sync up with iCloud Photos, use “Optimize Mac Storage” to save some SSD storage
• Let it sync up a while, so your videos will show up in “Albums -> Media Types -> Videos”
• Choose the video you want to archive, you can choose multiple by using “Ctrl + Click”
• File -> Export -> Export Unmodified Original for x videos
• On the next dialog, choose “Export IPTC as XMP”, “Filename: Use File Name”, “Subfolder Format: Moment Name”
• Check the progress bar (a white/grey circle on the top left bar of the Photos.app window), make sure the export is done
• Right-click and choose to delete videos

很喜欢任宁和枪枪夫妻主持的「迟早更新」。他们最近的一期「全世界的动森小岛，联合起来！」里面有个有趣的小观点，解开我心里的一个节。他们说到了动森的世界观，本来挺扯的。不过非常文艺的任宁说的很好玩，他说岛上的居民非常爱国，经常在一起唱岛歌。但是岛上的居民又不排外，而且正相反，他们非常喜欢外来的动物和其它岛上发生的有意思的事情。这个意向特别的好，我想他也解释了一个动森吸引人的关键原因。

在美国生活不自觉的就被两党化政治所影响，开始潜意识的觉得爱国主义和盲目排外是绑定在一起的。不过这显然是一种偏见。爱国和爱外国人事物并不矛盾，而且很长时间里面“我们”一直是两者共存的（比如我小时候，我年轻的时候都同时幼稚的保持着这两个爱，长大了变得复杂了很难清晰分开这两个爱）。作为生活在海外的中国人，我还爱中国，我也很爱各种各样的“外国”。两者并不需要对立起来，所以问题只是处在这个所谓的“盲目排外”。我还是不要纠结如何定义这个度了，已经解开的这种对立让我感觉挺放松。不纠结于把所有的现象归因，让复杂的事情保持复杂挺好的。所以动森式的正能量并不是故意媒体的那种样板化的正能量，而那才是我所喜欢的生活方式。

BTW, 「迟早更新」的这个制作利器的采访值得一读。我们也应该创造自己的声音。任宁特别文艺，枪枪聪明又温暖。而且他们的 podcast 是国内音质最好，剪辑最用心的吧？

Altruism: noun. The belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.

Jez Humble, 韩捷 tweeted. He said:

I was also adopted. I agree 100% with what Kelly says in this thread. The decision to have an abortion is an individual one that nobody else has the right to interfere in, whatever their personal beliefs. Anything else is misogyny. https://t.co/XVXhrKdUXy

— Jez Humble (@jezhumble) July 23, 2020

I respect Jez and follow his tweets. This one tweet is not that much special, it fits his persona of supporting feminism.

Feminism: noun. The advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

His wife Rani is running a project for vulnerable women in the Bay Area. You may consider supporting her project.

That’s just a background. But what triggers me to write this down is because he talked about something very personal. He said he was adopted, which I never know. I thought all the kids in the first world is spoiled in love and everything is perfect. I’m not joking about adoption is not perfect. Not at all, I think that’s ultimate altruism in humanity, that’s morally brilliant.

I’m not good at writing. Because I always lose focus and miss my point. I should be better at editing that. But let me use that as an excuse for now.

Why do I think his support of Women’s right to abortion is great altruism here? Because as someone who is been adopted, there’s a chance that their biology mother had a hard time choosing abortion in the first place. I know there’s a big chance their biology parents well decide to give birth to this child. But we all learned that the world is not perfect, due to religion, ideology, social taboo, etc. an accidental pregnancy may leave no choice for a mother. And there’s an ideological divide that someone thinks the mother can’t stop the pregnancy even at a relatively early stage (which I can’t argue because I’m not a medical expert). But most people believe we have ownership and responsibility to take care of our physical and mental health. So there might be conflict. This topic is controversial. Let’s put that aside. But if a person who is adopted who supports his/her mother stops the pregnancy at her will, then he/she may eliminate the existence of his being. That’s a fictional thought because that’s not logically sound, you can’t change history by doing that. But I like this as a thinking tool, if we can change history by traveling in time, will you agree with your parents to stop your existence? I will hesitate, I will put some of my points later. But in Jez’s tweet, what I can see is he have a braveness to support his maker (mother) in case she wants to stop her pregnancy. That’s an altruism act I appreciate it, I collect those gems when I’m alive.

D’you know what I mean

by Oasis

I met my maker I made him cry, and on my shoulder, he asked me why
His people won’t fly through the storm
I said hey listen up man
They don’t even know you’re born

I don’t why. But this chapter of lyric comes to my mind when I think about Jez’s altruism. I must say I don’t even sure I’m right when I use the word altruism because I’m a bad English communicator. But I know the idiom of “meet your maker”, which referring to god if you are into that kind of thing. And the funny expression of “ready to meet my maker” means someone is ready to die. Maybe that’s not funny. To me, I believe my maker is my parents. I’m lucky they are very traditional, they got married, gave birth to me, raised me and they are not divorced. So I’m very lucky that I met my maker on the first day of my life, I live with my maker for the most time before I’m an adult. And then I still FaceTime them frequently when I move aboard. So I can meet my maker every day, and know they made a decision and stick to it, to make me and raise me. I’m more mature now, and kind of
educated, so I start to have that kind of thought that I don’t always need to make a selfish opinion on things. I can put selfless above selfishness sometimes now. That’s why I respect Jez speak up about himself and share an opinion that shows empathy to our maker, especially sympathy when makers are facing difficulties mentally or physically.

Let’s clap for this brilliant opinion. Let’s clap for his altruism perspective. Let’s clap for a shining facet of humanity.

我挺久不发博客。因为我用笔在写日记，收集我的记忆。但是想来我的很多记忆也并非属于我自己。所以有空还是写写。

今天刷 Instagram 偶然看到 Alex 的一张全家福照片，他说现在终于成为新西兰公民了。看到他们开心但也随着岁月成熟的样子我真的非常高兴。我非常非常的敬佩 Alex，我曾经觉得他就是那个高不可攀的终极偶像。我们共事只有短短两月，而后就只有很少的交集，他后来也伤感的登上小船漂到了世界一端的那个岛上。

曾经，我辞掉了我幸运得到的第一份工作参加了 Sam Newman 先生的一个创业项目。可是那时的我太不成熟，被项目中的无良人坑了，几个月就丢了饭碗被踢出来了。新婚还不懂事的我觉得这是天大的麻烦，所以发推求工作。Alex 当天就约我出来喝咖啡，也许那是个周日的晚上。我借口不会喝咖啡，他就说可以吃芝士蛋糕——柠檬味的非常好吃——我就更慌忙的推脱完全不懂他说的那个东西是什么。但是我们约了第二天在金湖茶餐厅见面。

和 Alex 相见的那天他在星巴克点了伯爵红茶。对于那时的我来说花掉二十块钱买一包袋茶冲一下热水很是不能理解，但是不明觉厉。对于 Alex 当时用的 Django 我完全不懂，python 也是从来没写过。但是和 Alex 聊天缺让我热血沸腾，不知道为什么，他鼓励我去接受这些看似挑战的新技术，他相信我一定可以马上搞定。而后我就幸运的加入了他的团队，队友还有蚂蚁和二傻。

我记和 Alex 一起工作的那段日子超级有趣，醒着就在看文档实验代码片段和各种配置。因为什么都不懂就写 wiki 给自己备忘。除了和老婆在一起聊天、给她做饭就剩下睡觉和研究技术了。后来我做的事情就是采购服务器，把【好看簿】从一台服务器升级到三台的服务器组。工作很顺利，这是我第一次在家办公，而且让我对在家办公很上瘾。我现在还记得每次和 Alex 见面他都拿着一本皮质的记事本，所有的事情都用笔记录下来，手帐写的非常整齐。他随时都有有趣的点子，听到别人有趣的点子也都记录在本子上。他非常忙，有接不完的电话，是个非常有趣的老板。他说之前在美国做过一个创业项目卖掉了，而后做了几年企业项目，后来就做了这个新的创业项目。他身上那种对工作和生活的激情是我羡慕的，我很想成为他那样的人。他给我看好看簿上他的结婚照，我得知嫂子在微软工作。他们两口子都是信息技术从业者。

后来，另外的挚友给我推荐了 ThoughtWorks 的机会。那次运气很好，通过了面试。所以幸运的得到的和 Alex、蚂蚁、二傻工作的机会就提前要结束了。现在看离开的选择还是对的，加入 TW 是我更大的一个转折点。Alex、蚂蚁、二傻这样好的同事和导师到现在也是难忘的。

看到 Alex 的全家开心加入新西兰的照片我非常开心。看起来真是一家人，每个人颧骨上的强健的肌肉都在描述他们努力生活后开心微笑锻炼出来的清晰轮廓。我们的样子都写下了岁月，我们也都有我们自己亲爱的女儿——美丽的家。这就是我们的样子。

Get up from Grants Pass’s Riverside inn early, say 7AM. And I start to think about the trip. It’s about sharing our joy of being closer to nature. And I feel satisfied.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 5, 2017 at 9:08am PDT

Hannah shared a bed with me last night, and she sleep lean towards me all night. Every time I woke up, I found I’m sleeping on my side at edge of the bed. Being a parents on the road is hard #LOL

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 10:34pm PDT

We have a nice breakfast this morning. It’s a free breakfast from the restaurant, a old couple sitting beside us talked with us all the time. They recommended river trip to us but didn’t know if they have a plan already. That feels like grand parents, they have goodwill but that’s based on their imagination. We also shared what we feel good yesterday in national park, because their son and son’s finance are planning a trip for today. We found “visiting the Visitor center for recommendation” as the best accustom choice for their son & finance.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 9:24pm PDT

The room is on the river side. We found the temperature in Grants Pass is about 90F at day time, so it’s a misinformation that I say the weather is nice here. But we are lucky because we just stay here at night and morning, which have a very nice weather indeed. The river side room should be good for a couple without kids, it’s romantic and easy.

River view room in summer Grants Pass, Oregon

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 5, 2017 at 9:07am PDT

After the breakfast we put everything include our kids onto the minivan. And then hit the road. No coffee today, because I feel my stomach is sleepless last night due to the extra foods last night.

After 1 hour of drive, we stopped at a state park near Rough River. We see a group people drifting and an old man phishing in the river. It’s beautiful and looks like a movie scene. Kids actually just need the rest room here. We can touch the cool river bed, and I really lure for dipping my foot into this cool river and do nothing. But, I need to drive and make the family time fulfilled.

After another hour of driving we stopped at road side and find those amazing summer snow around the road side. This is like 3 miles away from the Crater late national park entrance. There’s another Chinese family playing here. Hannah and Flora enjoys those permanent snow a lot. They just poking snow with stick and compressing them with their feet, kids’s fund are are easy but fierce. We just staying there for 20 minutes and kids are very high! It’s not a wasting of time when you drive, because you are the boss of the trip. You know your kids are the main factor of joy.

Won't melt in summer

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 6, 2017 at 2:52pm PDT

After another 10 minutes of drive we entered the Crater Lake National Park. Our national park annual pass still work this month, so it’s free, otherwise it cost $15 to enter this park. This park in Oregon feels like a typical national park, you enter a gate and pay then you enjoy plenty of happiness and wow along the road. We like this better than the weird state park eat all national park day of yesterday. It’s just bitching, nothing affect the good experience elf visiting of national park.

I want to repeat yesterday’s success by visiting the visitor’s center first. So this time I choose the Rim Village Visitor center, because the location looks awesome. But it’s a mistake. The Rim Village visitor center is super crowded, and it’s huge in size, so we wasted 20 minutes trying to find a parking lot here. No luck, we then decide visiting here is a failure, but it’s nothing we should just keep driving along the west rim drive. The awesome scene shocked us at the first stop. We found more people visiting the visitor center then those road side stops, which prove our choice are right.

You should stop at any road side scenic stop here. Each of them are awesome! I will share pictures later. It’s speechless.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 6, 2017 at 2:53pm PDT

The traffic is pretty bad here. We found there’s a long drive under contracture (like 2 miles) near the watchman lookout. So you should expect 20 – 30 minutes wait for your turn to proceed. After a 20 minutes wait. We have a closer look at the wizard island. It has some sapphire colored pool on the island, which is double the density of shades of blue on the lake. That’s more dramatic than Lake Tahoe. The road last another 9 miles after that look out, which is a bit disappointing. But the view doesn’t disappoint us at all, they are amazing!

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 6, 2017 at 2:57pm PDT

Dive into the cool blue lake

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 6, 2017 at 2:59pm PDT

We arrived at end of west rim road around 3 PM (due to road construction it’s closed there, and it’s no longer a loop drive around crater lake). And then we turn back. We a low on gasoline so we decided to visit the Mazama Village to get some gasoline, that’s the only place available in the park. We took a 5 minutes stop at Steel Visitor Center, and I get my collector badge of national park. We arrived Mazma village around 5:10PM, and the gasoline pump is still working. The couple in front of us did a full car clean up at the gasoline pump before they fuel their car, which take like 20 minutes. That feels like a drama, because that’s really weird because there’s only 2 pump station which can fuel hungry cars 🙂 We didn’t complain, just listen to music and chill out.

#nofilterneeded

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 6, 2017 at 3:00pm PDT

We took a dinner at this place. Pizza, soda and kids’s pasta. Food tastes pretty bad 🙁 But we appreciate the service, because you won’t expect series chef working here. We pay a good tip and drive back to city. We choose Medford, because it’s the closest big city near here towards our home.

It took about 2 hours drive to arrive Medford. And 80% of time are signal less along the drive. Which make booking hotel at last minute literally a fact. The drive is beautiful, and we should spend more time and energy. But it’s like a rubbish time for a family this size, monkeys are sleeping like zombie and wife are sleeping like a rock. We booked a Hilton Garden Inn 7 minutes before we arrive there. The main reason we choose this stay is because monkeys asked to do a indoor pool swimming at night. But it’s actually a good thing to the family because this hotel looks very very legit, it’s perfect for a long day.

I went out for 30 minutes personal time and visited a local beer place in middle of nowhere in Oregon. But it turns out awesome. It’s called ]The Rough Growler](http://www.theroguegrowler.com), they provide no food but 51 beers on tap. I have a quick beer flights with 10 beers, after I write each beer the bartender tap it right away. Which is awesome, we explore the menu together, and he gave me at least 5 samplers during the exploring. He told me his all time favorite is Fieldwork Pulp, I literally laughing because it’s also my favorite brewer and it’s definitely an awesome sauce. It’s so so lovely, and I’m surprise that a local Oregon bartender knows it and have his own picture with that beer. Yes, I’m lucky to be a beer lover in Bay area where we have local access to Fieldwork brewery. Their canned beer are more rare than their tap beer I can tell, and whole foods plays an awesome role here. I had Pulp more than 10 pours in Blossom hill whole foods and Santa Clara whole foods tap room this year. They are more than awesome. The beer flights here are great, my favorite are those 2:

– Rogue New Crusty: it’s a golden barley wine, which is an American special Barleywine variety. It’s awesome, super smooth, lighter but full of flavor. It’s still a barleywine but with lighter color.
– pFriem Family Brewers Belgian Strong Blonde. Wow, this is awesome Belgium strong ale plus a triple. It’s floral and super fruity, also strong like hell. I love this fancy ale. And this is not my first pFriem, it’s like my 5th? This is the best so far, and I guess it will be the best from the brewer for a long time. Like Pulp for Fieldwork.

Take with the bartender, it’s nice. Oregon’s beer weather is super hot, it fused to everyone’s blood. Those drinkers here a super casual, not like beer geeks in bay area. It’s more like a life style for them. But the beer service is professional , it’s 51 on tap and bartender are beer lover who is kownledgeable. Price is accessible. The light condition is lovely. They have same beer fight service like we do and you can have 10 beers instead of times of 6 (or 4) beers in whole foods. Which make taking full house much easier. After the impressive beer tasking I drive back to hotel and spend another 30 minutes with kids in pool, because I promise so. Which means I finish those beer like a hurricane 🙂

30 minutes in pool with lovely monkeys feels like a twinkling of an eye. Awesome night! We planned for another hour of pool time tomorrow morning, then we will head home.

This vocation is awesome indeed. Booking hotel at last minute doesn’t waste the family a penny. And it increase flexibility and adventurous for us. Life is random, take your time and spend some time on road.

Now we planned a fancy breakfast at morning, and then hitting the pool again. Having epic food and music on road tomorrow. Feels unreal!

Got up around 8AM, went out from hotel at 9AM. First stop is Northtown Coffee in Arcata. Arcata is a quiet town near Eureka. It’s not fancy, looks old and forgotten. The coffee is good thought 🙂 Monkeys had some donuts from grocery store too.

Morning

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 10:05am PDT

Twisted donut

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 10:07am PDT

Hannah spills hot chocolate in the car. And the sliding door of our mini-van is soaked 🙂 We gave her some education and cleaned up the disaster. Parenting is exhaust if you are paranoid about have everything perfect. It’s a cure for perfectionism.

The scene starts to become green from Arcata. Trees, fog, seashore are awesome, cool down our soul. We crossed Big Lagoon, Stone Lagoon and freshwater lagoon. We stopped at Stone Lagoon Visitor Center for some pictures. It’s a lagoon, with forest on seashore, fogs floating at lower sky, it’s a mixture of different shades of blue and green. That’s the them of the redwood national park.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 11:41am PDT

And then we stop at Freshwater Lagoon, the color here is beautiful. A little village is on another side of the lagoon. It’s like a furry lawn spears into a mountain of forest. The seashore is dark grey, and the waves are wild.

Then we arrives at Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center. That’s the first visitor center of Redwood National Park from south side. There’s a sand beach behind the visitor center and monkeys just start to enjoy playing sands here. The sand is grey, dry and warm. Feels pretty nice, like a desert near the sea. The landscape here is redwood forest winded into shore line. The contrast is high, and fog smudge the contrast of colors.

A lady in information center recommended some place for us to visit today, which is good for family with young kids. The main attractions is some loop trails in Prairie Creek state park, some of them are stroller friendly.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 11:42am PDT

There’s no signal for Verizon wireless, not sure other cellular providers. So driving in this area requires paper maps (or a GPS works offline). The exist to Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway is easy to find, and you will find the Prarie Creak Visitor Center is right there. You can reach most of trails here. The parkway is shorter than we thought, so you don’t need to drive far away from the visitor center. Just park there (which is free) and start your trails. We choose the Prairie Creek Trail, which have view of some big redwood trees and also the creek. Kids love trees and creek. They climb dead tree trunks, collecting wild flowers. They chase and play along the trail. So the 1.2 miles walk feels nice, cool and fun. Because the Monkeys keeps stopping, so it take about 1.5 hours for the single trip. We went from north (road side parking #2) to south and reach the visitor center. I went back to drive our car. And I mentioned there’s no signal, so I made a silly mistake. I forgot the car key, my wife holds it. I also lost couple times, and when I start to think my strategy I found I forgot the key. That waste me about 20 minutes. I went back and picked the key from my wife at visitor center. And this time I took a way back from the road side. It’s much easier to follow. I also decide to facing the traffic when walk (take left side of road). So I can confirm the traffics see me. This time I took about 15 minutes walk back to the car, it’s actually not far from the road (not trail). And then 2 minutes later I arrives at visitor center, and picked up my family. Without phone service human are so inefficient 🙂

Holland Hill Road is bumpy, kids love it!

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 9:35pm PDT

We take a stop at big tree loop, but we didn’t make it (although it’s just 0.3 miles). Kids falls asleep.

We hit the road again around 3PM, and we targeted Klamath River Overlook. This is a river mouth to the sea. It’s the best picture place of today. Make sure you take the Mouth of Klamath Rd, which has a much better view than the lookout at mountain top. I love the color and mixture of forest, fog and blue river/sea. The lookout at top is too foggy to sea anything, so we just stay there for some cool breaths. We do take lot of pictures at the river mouth, it’s a highlight of the day. From the map this area is called Requa, it’s used to be the place boats went to the water.

Then we went to Yurok Loop Trailhead. This park is a short walk to an amazing beach full of drift woods. You can see derbies of giant redwood here. The beach is grey, wood are white and grey, and lagoon is light brown, so the beach looks like black white film color. The forest and bridge at background has blue/green/pale yellow color. So it’s like a pasted picture mixing greyed out beach and a colorful forest at back. We can see dramatic different views at this trail. There’s iron island themed rocky islands. And a high saturated colored forest/cliff and restless sea (like point Lobos) to the south.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 5:01pm PDT

We feels really lucky today. Those 3 stops are just perfect for us.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 5:02pm PDT

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 5:03pm PDT

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 5:04pm PDT

Kids are playing rocks, parents are melted in the phenomenal landscape

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 5:06pm PDT

Then we went to go east and stay at Medford tonight. So we take the last stop at Howland Hill Road, this is a famous bumpy forest road. And it just blows us away. Kids are so happy that Daddy pig (in Peppa pig theme) drives a bumpy vehicle under giant trees. We feels like tiny bugs in contrast. Because the trees are as thick as the width of our car. So suddenly we feels like driving toy cars here. It’s around 6:30PM, so the color become warmth here but there’s still enough light for us. Because we kids want to see their hotel ASAP so we didn’t take too much stops here. But we saw the famous Boy Scout Trail in middle of the Howland Hill Road, we should visit it “next time”.

After 6 miles of bumpy drive, I personally still want more of it. That’s super fun, and you can give monkeys surprise by steering to bumps 🙂

When we arrive highway 199, we want to drive faster. But the traffic is really bad here, there’s single track road because of constructer (suppose to finish 2018). So the drive feels hopeless and endless.

After about 1.5 hours drive we finally found a small grocery store (ray’s), kids visit bathroom and offload their stuff. And I found a hotel to stay. We stick with the last minute hotel booking rule for this road trip. And we are lucky that we found a hotel at Grants Pass, it’s a city I don’t even know exists. But it’s 30 minutes shorter than driving to Medford which is perfect because Medford is just easier to notice from map but has nothing we are looking for except a place to sleep.

Boneyard Blood Orange pale ale #mahbeer

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 9:23pm PDT

Today’s July 4th, so most restaurant doesn’t open. Those open ones are mostly close at 9PM. Using both Foursquare and Yelp doesn’t help that much because they have no idea if a restaurant open today, 4 stars restaurant also doesn’t mean much in small town because they have very small rates from customer. But my wife found one by her eyes near the hotel, it’s called Taprock Northwest Grill. She took ribeye steak and I took some fried seafood. Beers selection is pretty good. I choose the Bonyard (which I sips some at Toronado this year, they are very good). First one is the Blood Orange Pale ale which is a lighter American Pale Ale with strong fruity aroma, but it’s a bit too sour (blood orange juice) as a pale ale. Then I took the Bonyard RPM IPA, it’s quite good. That’s a very smooth IPA, not too hoppy or too bitter, just right about of entertainment. The night ends awesome, we enjoy those foods outdoor. Kids are super happy with comfort foods and steaks. There’s also lots of fireworks, we have a rider side view with fireworks. How awesome a day can be?!

After a long day, I need my lovely finger

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 4, 2017 at 9:29pm PDT

Oregon’s first couple of hours is nice. Food is good, beers are all local. Climate is nice, not cold or hot at summer night. And food, beers are cheap in California standards, tip well please!

I may comeback later. Quite tired after couple hours of drive and walks.

Yesterday is a great start. And today I feel the emptiness after the great start. I feel a bit tired when I finally opened my eyes for today. Kids and wife get up at 8AM, and finish their cereal breakfast at 8:30AM. We took everything to the car and take a short walk to the waterfront of clear lake. There’s Cyanobacteria (blue-green bacteria) in water, so the lake doesn’t looks clear at all. There’s couple of folks phishing on lake, can’t see their passion.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 11:31am PDT

We drive around the lake, and after half hour we arrived at Lakeport. We didn’t plan to stop here, but we want to fuel some coffee for the morning. Then I found Angelina’s Bakery & Espresso on the map, and we sit here and have a quality breakfast. Triple shots latte, Mixed berry Scone, 2 scoops of ice-cream for kids. This is a busy coffee shop, the town is quite quiet and in contrast the coffee shop have waves of customers having breakfast and coffee here. This coffeeshop also sell cooking linens, cooking equipment and mugs. I can feel the family and appreciation of cooking in this little coffeeshop. They have a double broiler coffee machine and a rocky grinder, it’s amazing that they can support a busy coffee shop with this equipment. American’s like dipper coffee, which make serving tons of customer easier.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 10:33am PDT

Every old town have their book shops. This town apparently have long history too, there’s some old buildings as museum in this water side town. The Watershed Books is a good used/new book store to us. We bought 3 art books here, they are not as cheap as the Treehorn books. But the owner must love books too. They label books by mixture of topic and alphabet. And the store have high ceiling. I love the ceiling sky light design, and there’s a banana tree by the bookshelf. There’s also humidity control in this bookstore, which helps preserve those old books.

We played Frisbee for 10 minutes at the water front park. It’s quiet and have good natural shade. It’s quite cool in shade, and the lawn is newly cut. Kids spend their energy running and caching freebee.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 11:38am PDT

We hit the road again, and the target is Eureka, CA. This is a long drive, 4+ hours. I actually enjoy driving at constant speed. I feel smooth, and imagine I’m flying on the open landscape. There’s not much bad drivers, people are not in super hurry to drive on this country road. Hannah is reading comics, and flora is watching the scenic road. My wife is busy with her phone. We switched for 20 minutes, but I can tell my wife doesn’t enjoy the driving like I do 🙂

We saw some giant redwood during the drive. But we didn’t stop, because kids can’t wait to arrive Eureka and swim in hotel.

We arrived the red line hotel in Eureka, and it’s decent. Kids enjoyed the heated pool. And we played in warm water under the sun for a hour. It’s quite challenging to play with 2 monkeys in water. Because they can easily drown me under the deep water. I need to hold the edge of pool to keep everyone safe. So that’s quite a lot of muscle tensions.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 6:04pm PDT

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 6:07pm PDT

After the pool hour, we have a warm shower and then looking for dinner. We choose the “Cafe waterfront” in downtown Eureka. We visited, and they told us come back 10 minutes later. Kids played at the water fountain. And we did couple of window shopping (stores are closed at this time, 6:30PM at Monday’s night, it’s July 4th holiday tomorrow) in the downtown area, there’s 2 very attractive book store but closed. There’s a comic videos, games, books collective store here. Kids doesn’t enjoy them, but that’s eye catching for their parents. When we went back to cafe waterfront we found there’s a long queue now. So we just give up to claim our position in queue.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 7:01pm PDT

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 7:03pm PDT

Then we went to Humboldt Bay Provisions, this is a nice looking wine tasting and food place. But we’ve been told it was under-staff so there’s only wine and fresh oyster tonight. They recommended 2 restaurants to us. And we went to 1 of it called Mazzotti’s Old Town, it’s a Italian restaurant. My wife had the fish paster and I had the Scrampi shrimp pasta. The fresh backed bread dipping olive oil and vinegar wins the kids. We have 3 breads tonight. My wife have the strawberry puree soda and I had a Pinot Noir table wine. The cooking is a bit slow, and the quality is OK. But this is exactly what the family need to satisfy our hungry soul, we forgot to have lunch today. Oh, talk about lunch, we did have a stop in a town in nowhere. There’s a big grocery store, but we just bought a potato salad because it’s just like a Safeway or something, which has nothing special.

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 7:49pm PDT

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 8:26pm PDT

Scampi

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 8:27pm PDT

After the dinner, we send wife and kids back to hotel and drive out for a beer. There’s a good brewery here which is famous, the “The Lost Coast Brewery” which have interesting label design. I had 2 small pour of beer tonight, the Indica and Fog cutter. I just bring out my phone and search for top beers on my favorite rate beer. Apparently people love this brewer on rate beer, but the individual beer rating is not top notch. The pub have halloween themed decoration, which is like a humor. They are very proud of their beer and the tap design looks nice. I love the Indica, the tap version is dramatically better than their bottled beer. It’s much much better feeling than yesterday’s Racer 5. Racer 5 is phenomenal in bottle, but the Indica is amazing on tap. Highly recommend to visit this brewery for beers. They have about 25 beers on tap, mostly their own beers. They have 4 fruity wheat here too, I like their variations. It feels like a good brewery for thirsty surfers, like the famous Pizza Port brewing. Their beer label are very interesting, they must be very proud of those. You can find lots of different souvenirs here.

2 small pours: Indica and fog cutter. The indimca is good! #mahbeer

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 9:21pm PDT

A post shared by Tian Yue (@diamondtin) on Jul 3, 2017 at 9:21pm PDT

And then, the day is over. We will visit Redwood National Park tomorrow. And we figured out a rough plan of where we will stay tomorrow. No booking, just a rough plan, see what we will get. BTW, the red lion is great (tonight just cost $103 after tax), which is a good deal. I love their 55 inch TV plus direct TV, kids are very happy with both TV and swimming pool. This hotel is booked yesterday, so it’s not exactly like what we planned of doing booking at last minute to avoid a busy commuting. I regret a little bit today, because if we don’t book it here we may spend more time resting along the road. I don’t like to stress out at moving to target on time.

Drive to Apple Store to test the iPad Pro 10.5 today. I was planned to buy a Magic Touchpad 2 from Apple store, but it’s out of stock 🙂

I just got my new iMac middle 2017, so I don’t need to test that out in Apple Store. The iPad pro 10.5 brings my attention because couple of podcasts The Talk Show, ATP, Connected, Under the Radar and Upgrade. They all mentioned the iPad pro’s promotion (I mean “Pro Motion”), which is like retina for animation. That sounds really interesting. It’s not a easy engineering topic, and seems apple did it and make it seems “easy”.

I just did like 10 minutes of test in the apple store with a lots of kids enjoying their summer vocation. Here is what I found:

• The screen is astonishing bright and colorful. It’s not a surprise that apple bring the picture on the very surface, you feel it’s just underneath your finger tip. That’s magical. The ture-tone make the color looks bright and white-balance-correct, the brightness and color a astonishing even compare to my iPad air 2.
• The Pro-Motion is nice. It’s not something noticeable for everyone, say my mom and dad won’t notice. But for a nerds, the home page scroll animation is super snappy. And I enjoy it, it’s a feature feels very premium quality. But it’s more noticeable on iOS springboard than Safari’s web page. I guess the webpage’s animation is good enough at 60hz.
• The thin bezel on the iPad Pro 10.5 is great. It give a better immerse feeling on your iPad’s screen.
• The iPad Pro’s cover is good, but not great. It’s very clicky, which is good for a super thin cover keyboard. But it’s pretty expensive, which make me fee that I should use other bluetooh keyboard instead. The keyboard size is just better, but not good enough to replace your laptop or desktop keyboard.
• It’s a bit heavier than I imagined. But it’s relatively lightweight.
• I’m pretty stupid on the Apple Pencil. Because I see it works on video before but it never works in my hand. I guess it’s out of battery when I test it out in apple store last year. This time I try to move beyond my comfort zone. OK, the apple pencil is OK in drawing app like Procreate, it’s not super snappy (as 120hz) but almost work 100% time. But the note taking app blows my mind. The thin line the apple pencil can draw and super responsive screen make it superior than my [traveler’s notebook](http://www.travelers-company.com/) plus real ink-pen. And the overall carrying size is not dramatically bigger than my [traveller’s notebook](http://www.travelers-company.com/), it also combine the functionality of movie player + Kindle. So this is seriously a gadget I want to buy to improves portable productivity.
• So the iPad Pro 10.5 is great! As every podcast discussed. It seems worth the investment. And 10.5 is more universal than the 12.9 one. The iPad cover is very optional, you should consider the leather cover for touch and a standalone bluetooth keyboard for input. The apple pencil is a must have for iPad Pro purchase. The feeling of use pencil as real pen and lay your palm on the screen feels very premium.