./janella.com

Teenage Beta

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 10:08:51 -0700

I just found out both my teenage kids are running iOS 26 Developer Beta on their phones. I tried explaining the pros and cons and what a developer beta is for, but it’s in one ear out the other. “My friends are doing it, dad. Why can’t I?”

The Talk Show 2025

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 12:59:40 -0700

I attended The Talk Show Live From WWDC 2025 in San Jose last week. It was the first time I ever attended a taping, and it happened to coincide with the first time in the last 10 years where there wasn’t an Apple executive on the panel. It was still a good show, slightly over 2 hours long, covering Apple’s announcements the day prior. I took this photo using the iPhone 16 Pro Max, about 10 rows back, stage right.

Not bad, right?

The full video is on YouTube.

A Break From Social Norms

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 08:30:39 -0700

About a week ago, I deactivated all of my social media accounts—TikTok, Instagram, BlueSky, Threads, and even Facebook (though, let’s be honest, I barely use Facebook anymore). No big announcement. No dramatic “see you later.” Just gone. Quietly.

Sometimes the need to disconnect comes slow. Other times, it hits all at once.

Lately, I’ve felt spread too thin—skimming through feeds, double-tapping photos I won’t remember, saving videos I’ll never go back to. Social media, for all its good, can feel like a low hum that never turns off. I wanted silence. Or at least, something closer to it.

So I signed out.

Now, I’m giving my attention back to this blog—the place that’s always been mine, even when I’ve neglected it. It’s dusty. A bit uneven. But it feels like home. There’s something grounding about writing in a space that doesn’t exist to chase algorithms or ride trends. Just me, my thoughts, and the occasional photo.

Speaking of photos…

For my birthday this year, I received a Fujifilm X100VI. I’ve been a Sony A7III shooter for years—still love it—but man, that thing is heavy. Beautiful sensor, serious performance, but not exactly casual. More of a “strap it on and commit” kind of camera. When I wasn’t using it, I defaulted to my iPhone. Which, honestly, is great in the moment but never feels like I’m photographing, just… snapping.

The X100VI hits differently.

It’s compact enough to bring everywhere, but still makes me think about the frame. It slows me down, in a good way. Makes me see again. I’m relearning the feel of shooting with intention. And more than anything, I’m reminding myself to just take more photos. Not for likes, not for a curated feed—just because I enjoy it.

The plan, if you can call it that, is to post here more often. Short entries, maybe a photo or two. Nothing big. But something real.

For now, I’m enjoying the quiet. Social media will still be there when I’m ready to return. Maybe in a week. Maybe longer. But for now, I’m making space—for photos, for writing, for something a little less frantic.

And that feels like a break worth taking.

Getting New Tires Today

Sat, 27 Oct 2018 14:13:16 -0700

My MINI stripped of its wheels. Don’t worry, she’ll be getting some new ones soon.

Nighttime Photo with iPhone XS Max

Sun, 07 Oct 2018 13:18:07 -0700

This nighttime photo was taken with iPhone XS Max. It turned out OK, didn’t it?

Garbage at The Fox Theater

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 11:48:57 -0700

Concert photo of Garbage at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California last night. They played a lot of obscure or b-side tracks.

My Eclipse Time-lapse

Mon, 21 Aug 2017 16:50:30 -0700

Not much of a timelapse. I’m impressed by the clouds more than the partial eclipse.

Breakfast the Other Day

Sun, 13 Aug 2017 12:28:14 -0700

The girls and I went to breakfast at the local diner the other day. They find eating at a diner so comforting. 📷

More Beach Time

Thu, 29 Jun 2017 02:35:30 -0700

Enjoyed the beach today with the family.

Hawaii Time

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 21:28:11 -0700

The beach last week.

Thank You, Mr President

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 10:52:12 -0700

Clean

Mon, 04 May 2015 09:28:20 -0700

I have been here blogging on and off since 2001.

Lately, I’ve been in the off mode. Life has been busy for the last six years. Raising kids, changing jobs, and dealing with the general curveballs life throws. Times for carefree thought is rare. When an opportunity presents itself, it is almost always limited to what you can do on your iPhone. So posting an Instagram photo, sharing my status on Facebook, or reblogging on Tumblr is almost only what can be done.

There is an opportunity here.

I have often been depressed looking at this space, where my blog would reside, and seeing it going unused. I still go to my Tumblr. I go to my Instagram. My Facebook. I use the web of services and tools that pervade my daily life.

This page will now be the launching pad, the hub, the Grand Central Terminal of my interweb life. A small snippet of a post or a photo that leads to other photos will be placed here. To access the main content, simply click the link after the posting.

Goodbye Mr. Spock

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:53:18 -0700

I always felt great knowing I shared a birthday with Mr. Spock. As has been said on the interwebs today, he did live long and prosper.

Conversing with Graecyn

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:40:05 -0700

I took this 90-second video when I picked up Graecyn and Mia at Mama and Papa’s house. Graecyn was in a conversating mood.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:21:11 -0700

Not too sure how I feel about this. I suppose it could be a worse title, right? I’m hoping that when the movie comes out that the only thing we needed to worry about is the title.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Star Wars (@starwars)

Mia Jumping

Sun, 12 Oct 2014 05:16:55 -0700

Mia having fun during Susana’s birthday celebration. We were upstairs just finishing watching Susana open her presents when Mia decided to leap from a chair to a few pillows. This was captured with an iPhone 5S. Sure wish I had an iPhone 6, which can do 240fps vs the 120fps an iPhone 5S can do.

In The City Once Again

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 11:50:31 -0700

The girls are in the City once again. Farrah sent me the above photo from the Palace of Fine Arts. I wish I could be up there with them enjoying the day.

Comcast Does Not Listen

Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:32:02 -0700

I had a similar conversation with Comcast when I was simply trying to find out how many Filipino stations they offered. DirecTV offers eleven Filipino stations. Comcast only offers five. I simply asked if they would be offering more, but the representative avoided the question and started talking about their other channels and how much better they are than DirecTV.

The one-sided conversation took off from there. The Comcast person started talking about pricing, channels, and other features that I was not interested in. When I pushed back he would ask, “Why?” “Why aren’t you interested in this great deal?” “Why do you need more Filipino channels?” Perhaps because those channels are being watched by someone in my house?!?!?

It took some time with me becoming more agitated to be able to pry myself off the phone. I think I finally hung up on them as I simply said, “You are not listening to what I am wanting and asking about, so this conversation is over.”

I understand the person was trying to make a sale, and I was the one who called Comcast. But to turn around and try to thrust their services on me was very off-putting.

Listen to the below call. But be warned: you might get a little agitated after listening to it all.

ryan.block · Comcastic service disconnection (recording starts 10 mins into call)

@SearsAuto My Experience Sucked

Thu, 10 Jul 2014 17:53:27 -0700

This is a simple story of a bad customer experience turning into a worse one by the day.

My truck battery was on its last legs. I managed to get it charged so I drove it to the closest Sears Auto in Cupertino. I was able to be checked in fairly quickly about 11 am, and told my car would be done a little after noon - or within the hour. This sounded great.

The mall in Cupertino isn’t that great, so I called Farrah who, with the kids, picked me up at Sears. We decided to have lunch at the local park and let the kids play. This provided a couple of hours of fun, more than enough time to get the battery changed in the truck. It was strange, though, no one called from Sears Auto during the time we were at the park. As we started driving back I began to wonder if they even started work on my truck.

It was a little after 1:30 when I got back to Sears Auto. I saw my truck in the same spot which concerned me a little. But then I thought, well all they need to do is pop the hood, disconnect the old battery and put in the new one. They shouldn’t need to move it far. In any event, I stood in line to talk to one of the customer representatives. I stood in line for about 30 minutes, a line only 3 people deep, before I got to talk to what apparently was the one working representative. This was strange because earlier in the day, just a few hours ago, there were at least three representatives working. The representative told me that they hadn’t gotten to my truck just yet but it should be done soon. He would make sure.

I was a bit peeved but was able to occupy my time with Farrah and the kids by going across the street to do some grocery shopping. This ate about an hour of time. I asked Farrah to drop me off and just head home with the kids, thinking the truck would be done. Boy was I wrong.

All I could do was vent through Twitter:

then

Unfortunately, according to Sears, I was sending my tweets to the wrong account. Instead of @Sears I should be sending tweets to @SearsAuto. Silly me. I thought that a service with the name Sears would be concerned about the bad customer experience several people were experiencing.

Hoping to get some resolution, I sent tweets to @SearsAuto. They responded the next day:

But they have been silent ever since.

I don’t believe I will be hearing from them. Even if I did I suppose I would only get some half-hearted apology with no rational explanation for the problems experienced by the many people that day.

Thinking back on what could have been done differently by anyone at Sears Auto that day I could only come to this conclusion: they should have set expectations appropriately. If they couldn’t do the work in a timely manner, then they shouldn’t have promised it could be done. They should have stopped taking new work in. Continually building up the workload for a number of workers had only frustrated the customers.

I am guessing this trend will continue at Sears, uh I mean, Sears Auto. In any event, Sears, as a whole entity has lost me as a customer.

Seeing Santa

Sun, 22 Dec 2013 19:21:00 -0700

The Santa Claus at Stanford Shopping Center has been our staple Santa over the years. The only other time we saw Santa Claus elsewhere was in Hawaii. This year we waited until the weekend before Christmas to visit Santa. It seemed like a lot of other people had the same idea, given the long line we encountered early that Saturday morning.

But the girls were very patient waiting. And when it was their turn to sit on the jolly old fellow’s lap, the girls were well-behaved - for the most part. I think Graecyn is going through a little stranger danger/separation issue right now. But Mia was all in awe of Santa. Mia even spent several moments after the photo session talking to Santa about her gift ideas.

Waiting in line.

Mia tells Santa her wishes for this year.

Graecyn waits for Mia.

Sharing in the Morning

Tue, 05 Nov 2013 17:21:00 -0700

It’s always tough getting the girls ready in the morning. Sometimes they place nice, like this morning. This gives mom and dad the opportunity to actually get ready for work instead of rushing to work.

Bath in Motion

Thu, 17 Oct 2013 13:10:23 -0700

I love the time Farrah and I spent in Bath, London, and Paris. This video covers areas in Bath. It makes me want to go back again. Click the image to play the video.

Bath in Motion - A Hyperlapse of Bath from Jack Fisher on Vimeo.

iPhone Pacifier

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 11:42:55 -0700

Trying to calm Graecyn down, who is sitting in the back seat, with the iPhone camera. Of course I’m recording it.

Lorde at The Fillmore

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 13:48:54 -0700

General admission. Standing room only. A combination I do not look forward to in a concert. But if the artist and venue are right, I will endure. And Farrah and I did endure this combination, at The Fillmore, to see Lorde.

I was lucky enough to snag two tickets back when they went on sale a few months ago, before Royals was getting regular mainstream radio play. I don’t know if I’d be lucky to get tickets now seeing how big Lorde has become. Funny thing was when they went on sale, they seemingly sold out immediately. But I persisted for a few minutes and was able to grab two tickets.

We arrived a few minutes late to The Fillmore. Friday night traffic going up to San Francisco was ugly as usual. We caught a few songs from the opening act, Until the Ribbon Breaks. They sounded great on stage, so I immediately added a few tracks to a Spotify playlist. After their set people milled around, as usual, waiting for Lorde to take the stage.

The crowd started to fill up as Lorde’s set time was getting closer. The crowd was a good mix of ages, as The Fillmore can be depending on the performer. We were situated in a good spot, center and further back on the floor. Unfortunately, to Farrah’s left, a group of unruly 20-somethings decided to talk and bump around people through the whole performance. One couple just wanted to make out all night. In front of us was an older couple, probably in their early to mid 50’s. Made me wonder how many concerts do they attend?

Getting back to Lorde - she performed well for someone who hasn’t performed often on tour. She sounded well, though the bass was on the heavy side, making her voice sound muddled. From another review of the concert, it seems it was her idea to crank up the bass. She had energy, working the stage very easily. She talked between a few songs, using Thank you, San Francisco, often, which elicited approval from the crowd.

Her set was short, about 12 songs or so, lasting a little over an hour. No encore performed with the lights coming up after her last song. I thought she could have done a few more songs, as her album came out that day in some places.

The annoyances of the general admission crowd are worth it sometimes, especially when seeing an up-and-coming artist. It is always nice to see an artist on the rise, seeing them before they get too big, in an intimate place like The Fillmore.

Other reviews of the show are at SF Gate and San Jose Mercury News and SF Station.

The Fragmentation Argument

Sat, 22 Jun 2013 11:14:05 -0700

Siri–the semi-intelligent virtual assistant feature–has been available on the iPhone since the iPhone 4S launched with iOS 5. However, Siri did not work with the iPad until the iPad 3 came out with iOS 6, and it still doesn’t work with earlier generation iPhones, iPads, or iPod Touch devices.
That’s just one example of the subversive fragmentation within iOS. While almost every iOS device is running the latest and greatest version of Apple’s mobile OS, the available features and general experience vary widely from one device to the next. The highly-touted Passbook feature works with all iPhones and iPod Touch devices, but not on the iPad. The Panoramic picture feature of the camera app works with newer iPhones and iPod Touches, but not the iPad.

I’ve only been one iPhone model behind, at the most so I would get most of the iOS features of a new update. I always felt the fragmentation issue with Android and iOS was more a developers issue and not a consumers problem.

It is weird to me that new Android phones can come with older versions of Android. When considering an Android phone I looked at the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. The HTC One comes with Android 4.1 whereas the Galaxy S4 with 4.2. The difference, from what I understand, is features I would enjoy. I could hold out hope that the HTC One would eventually be updated. But how long would I have to wait?