How I made my sneakers fit correctly
A while ago (possibly about a year?), I bought a pair of Skechers Vigor sneakers because they offer a wide size and have a nice unassuming appearance to them.
The sneakers arrive in the mail, I put them on, and they fit but at the same time they didn't.
I figured these things are new so they have to be broken in. I tried wearing them for a few days but they still felt wrong.
I made a decision at that point.
They went back in the shoebox and in the closet.
Even though they didn't fit the way I liked, I figured I'd keep them anyway as a backup pair for when my tried-and-true New Balance 608's wear out.
Recently, the time finally came when I had to retire my 608's. They were very used, beat up, starting to fall apart and looking terrible.
I was going to put on a new pair of 608's, but then remembered I had the Skechers in the closet.
My thought was okay, money was spent on those sneakers. I'm going to try an experiment to see if I can make these things fit correctly.
I took out the soles.
What I figured was these would make the sneakers feel even worse...
...but that didn't happen.
I put on the Skechers and now they felt great.
Perfect? No. But way better than before. NOW I can wear these things.
What I realized is the memory foam sole used in the Skechers Vigor is way too thick, so much to the point it felt like I was walking on putty. Those memory foam soles also made my feet sweat like crazy. I have no idea why. They just did.
Without the soles, my feet breathe properly and I can wear these Skechers all day comfortably.
It's probably true these sneakers will wear out twice as fast without the soles in them. I'm okay with that since they didn't fit correctly before anyway, so getting them into a wearable state is a win. I saved these things.
Small victory, but I'll take it.
Eating ridiculous cookies, Oreo Space Dunk
I rarely buy Oreos or cookies in general, but when I saw the Oreo Space Dunk cookies, yeah I had to get them.
It was actually the appearance that sold me on them because it looks like an '80s arcade. You've got the packaging with the big 3-D SPACE DUNK letters on it, starry night in the background, and so on. The cookie itself has a spaceship on it. It totally works.
Is there a difference between regular Oreos and Space Dunk? In fact, yes.
The creme is different in look because it's blue and purple even though it tastes the same as the regular creme.
The taste is the same as regular Oreos, however, it has a small amount of popping candy added in. Think of it as a light sprinkling of Pop Rocks.
You'd think this would be a bad combination, but it surprisingly works because the popping candy was kept to a reasonable level. The popping doesn't happen immediately but it's definitely there.
Ridiculous cookie? Yes. But they're fun, and that's the whole point...
...and fun enough to where it actually got me to get some, which is saying something. I've passed by Oreos many times in the candy aisle at the supermarket and never given them a second thought. Space Dunk Oreos got my attention, so yeah, the packaging worked and the cookie delivered.
Explorer is cool, but Firebird is cooler
I went to buy some strings recently, and the Epiphone Firebird was there hanging on the wall. Yeah, I had to try it out.
Even though I don't like tuners on the bottom of the headstock, I actually really liked how this thing played and sounded.
For the longest time I've thought about getting an Explorer style guitar (it would be the Schecter E-1 if I went for it), but there's just more cool factor to the Firebird.
I really, really like the way a Firebird takes to a sunburst finish because it brings out the center of the body in a real nice way. The gold-and-silver control knobs look great too. I also really like the trapezoid inlay markers on the fretboard.
Then there's the sound of the Firebird. You don't see too many guitars out there with mini humbuckers installed from the factory.
The best way I can describe the mini humbucker sound is that it's close to the sound of a humbucker in a semi-hollow body guitar (even though the Firebird is a solid-body) with "honk" to it. Yeah, I know, that sounds weird, but I can't describe it any other way.
On first listen, you'd think it sounds like an SG, but then you play it more and... no. Sounds different. Then you think it sounds Explorer-ish, but again, no. Firebird really does have its own tonal character.
This is not the first time I've played a Firebird, but when I do now, I think hm.. maybe I should get this instead of an Explorer type in the future.
The price of the Epiphone Firebird is certainly nice. Very affordable. Definitely worth checking out.
Probably the best new cheap semi-hollow guitar, Harley Benton HB-35
This guitar definitely looks the part. When it comes to a ES-335-ish size, sound and feel, I don't think you can do much better than the Harley Benton HB-35.
Yes, this is a real-deal archtop.
Yes, the finish is actual high gloss.
Yes, it has neck-thru construction.
The F-holes are real and not fake, meaning it's an actual semi-hollow.
The price? That's the best part.
It's under $300 new for most places that sell them.
As far as the rest of the construction, the body is maple with a mahogany center block. The neck is Canadian maple and fingerboard radius is 12" (just like a real ES-335).
The only thing I don't know is the pickup specifications. Harley Benton labels them as "vintage-style". I don't know the magnet type as to whether it's ceramic or alnico. And if it is alnico, I don't know if it's alnico 2 or 5 (I would personally prefer alnico 2 just for my playing style).
For as cheap as you can get this for, heck, even when you factor in pickup replacement it's still a bargain.
10 months of Linux
I've officially been using Linux as my daily driver for a little over 10 months. Haven't quite made it to a year yet, but that's getting closer.
The most surprising thing about using Linux daily is how quickly it became normal. I thought it was going to take a really long time to get used to it after being a Windows user for so long. Nope. In less than a month's time I wasn't even thinking about Windows anymore.
However, that doesn't mean I didn't take notes.
On my desktop I keep a text file that's included in my nightly backup. Every single time I learn something new with Linux, I open up that text file and document it. Presently, it's over 1,300 lines long. I documented my installation, any packages I need to install, configuration stuff I need to do, and so on. Everything went in there.
Documenting like this is actually something I carried over back from when I used to use Windows. In the past, I got burned on getting my PC setup exactly the way I wanted, then having something screwy thing happened that required a reinstall of the OS. After reinstall, uh-oh, there was something I had before that I didn't document. Maybe it was a certain app, a browser extension, script, batch file or whatever.. and now I don't have it and either don't know where it is or it's gone. I got burned enough times to where I started documenting and have been doing it ever since.
Contrary to the way most Linux users do things, I didn't bounce over to a different distribution every month. For the entire 10+ months I've been using Kubuntu LTS and nothing else. I told myself that if I'm going to do this, I'm committing to just one distro and staying there to learn everything I can.
Is there really any bad stuff to report? No. I thought by now I'd have a whole bunch of stuff to complain about, but I don't.
My goal from the get-go was to get my computer back to how Windows 7 used to work, and I pretty much have that now. But at the same time I've learned a ton of new-to-me Linux stuff, so what I have is a Windows 7-ish look and feel with all Linux underneath running the whole show.
What I would tell anybody thinking of switching from Windows to Linux is to buy a cheap refurb Dell Latitude with 16GB RAM in it (Linux really likes Dell hardware and can usually detect 100% of it with no problem at all), get Kubuntu LTS and put it on a USB stick and just go for it.
With the Latitude, take out the old drive with the Windows it comes with and install a new 500GB SSD or 1TB SSD (I suggest Samsung EVO), then just install Kubuntu. If you like it, then you can connect a full size monitor, keyboard and mouse to the laptop later and use as a full PC. Done and done. If you don't like it, you can easily switch it back to being a Windows computer just by putting the old drive back in.
That's pretty much as easy as it gets, and it's exactly how I went about it. I do have a spare Windows 10 laptop but almost never use it. For my main computer, it's a Latitude with 16GB RAM and a Samsung EVO 500GB SSD with connected external wired keyboard, monitor and mouse.
I honestly believe the best way to go Linux is to get a dedicated computer for it instead of converting over your existing one. With a refurb Latitude, you get an entire computer, and don't need to connect anything external unless you want to. All your bases are covered, you don't lose anything and you can just transfer over everything from the old computer to the new one. This is stupidly easy to do these days considering how cheap a 512GB USB stick is.
Everything I do now for my content is done in Kubuntu. Written articles, image editing, video editing, all of it. It all works and works well, which at the end of the day is all that matters.