A helpful guide to our journey so far.

We like Baja California Sur so much I’m worried we might not see the rest of the country.

Thursday in Todos Santos

2022, the year where Lettuce made the news twice.

My li’l mate, Luna, turns four today. She wants you all to know that she’s a big girl now.

Ted Gioia asks if smart people do books anymore?

“Goodby logos, hello brand logos.”

Sammy J on ABC Melbourne:

'Acts like a Bureau but always the BOM to me.'

I can't help but feel that Mark Zuckerberg is a bit off Apple at the moment.

As someone who uses WhatsApp because he's forced to, not because he wants to, it's an ugly app and I only get more message spam from Telegram. Every day there's a new spam-women in my Whatsapp.

Ted Gioia in the Honest Broker:

"This is a signal that we have reached the endgame (of the internet) stage. And a new game is beginning with totally different recipes for success."

"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell"

I love Morpho, my new favourite currency (and other numbers) conversion iOS app.

Ahead of travelling to Mexico I wanted to find a new currency conversion app that did two-three things:

1. Had a Lock Screen widget to help me make purchasing decisions quickly and easily considering I still don’t really know how much 1,250 pesos is in personal terms.
2. If they couldn’t do Lock Screen then at least do a widget.
3. Once I opened the app, it gave me a few nuanced currency conversions. I wanted to be able to quickly get my head around AUD, MXN and USD numbers quickly.

Morpho delivered plus they brought in other conversions like weights and temperature.

The widget is great - you can choose which conversion to show, as you can see in the screenshot I wanted to always have a sense of what things on menus were worth so I settled on “what’s 100 pesos worth in Aussie dollars?”

You can then tap the widget to open the app and whatever number you enter at the top is converted below.

Travelling internationally with an iPhone soon? You’ll like this. Even Britt appreciates it and I can never get her on to new apps.

Kurt Vonnegut:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

It’s happened! We’ve had our first American tourist in Mexico think that Austria and Australia are the same place.

The lovely person “spent some time in Germany one summer” and thought our accents sounded similar.

How can I nominate myself for the Father of the Year Awards? I just bought Luna a Paw Patrol car seat with and without beef.

Sam Kris: The internet is already over.

“In the future—not the distant future, but ten years, five—people will remember the internet as a brief dumb enthusiasm, like phrenology or the dirigible. They might still use computer networks to send an email or manage their bank accounts, but those networks will not be where culture or politics happens. The idea of spending all day online will seem as ridiculous as sitting down in front of a nice fire to read the phone book.”

Drove in Mexico for the first time today. I didn’t witness another car on the road in Los Cabos use it’s turn indicator.

I’m worried if I keep using the indicator the local news will do a story on me.

When asked at the restaurant what we were celebrating at dinner tonight I said “being alive!”

Now every staff member congratulates us on every interaction and I’m not sure if they’re being sarcastic or genuine.

The podcast series “Startup” was a thrilling listen as Alex Blumberg created Gimlet. It’s depressing to now read how Spotify has gutted that creation after acquiring it. Maybe Spotify isn’t podcasting’s darling?

I’m using the new Apple Translate app every day in Mexico, it’s pretty cool. Currently having a full conversation with my zero-English Uber driver, Jesus Angel (his name, not a prayer).

My only addition would be the ability to reverse/swap languages easier.

A day in the life of the Withers family: day four (13 October 2022) in Los Cabos, at the Instituto Nacional de Migración (the Mexican National Institute of Immigration), activating our residency visas.

Wednesday sunset

Patron saint of pioneers and travelers, Saint Joseph of the capes.

Or, in Spanish, San Jose del Cabos.

“Fish killer of the week story”

Teaching the Withers girls how to share margaritas

Episode five of Who’s Gonna Save Us with Saul Griffiths, paraphrased by Kai in Dense Discovery:

“A typical Australian suburb spends about $4m on petrol and diesel per year. That creates half a job at the local petrol station which is mostly selling sugar and tobacco anyway – that’s like three things that can kill you in one store! Anyway, if everyone is driving electric vehicles and producing their own electricity, those $4m will stay in the community. We know from spending behaviour that 55% of that money will be spent locally, creating a huge number of jobs. Not just energy jobs, but it’ll be paying for better bakeries, new classrooms, a fresh coat of paint for the sports club, etc. I don’t think we ever really thought about just what a screamingly good thing that would be for every community.“

Turns out that Cabo San Lucas is basically the Bali of the USA.

What a wild ride.

At first Jesus was coming to meet me and take us home.

Then Jesus cancelled on me.

I’m quite conflicted on how I feel about meeting Jesus in the future.

Mexican pests are chill AF

First Mexican sunset // Cabos

Driving from the airport to the hotel in San Jose Cabo and I’ve spotted my first guard in a watch house holding a gun. Despite the girl at immigration saying so, I feel like I’m really in Mexico now.

Mexicans really dislike BlackBerrys

This TSA agent at LAX is giving us a hard time

Adios, Australia

Sitting on a flight that’s migrating our family to Mexico and I’ve never been more terrified and excited in my life. With any luck that energy, and Bluey, will help survive a 13 hour flight with two toddlers. Godspeed, us.

One of these two people just vomited up a whole bloody watermelon on the Qantas lounge carpet

Targeted ad of the year award goes to this lot who just advertised at me, the bloke moving his family to Mexico tomorrow

Self portrait of a tired and weary man who isn’t working for the next six weeks

Will Sansom at UT Health:

“Could eating salmon, cod, tuna, herring or sardines keep our brains healthy and our thinking agile in middle age? New research makes this connection.”

I’ll take some salmon, tuna, and a nap thx.

Freya Stark:

"There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."

Three days til the Mexican sabbatical.

This is so bizarre and weird to listen to: AI-generated Joe Rogan interviews AI-generated Steve Jobs. By podcast.ai.

“Your audience is just so different to the normal Apple user”

Finally found the band for me

Tim Burrowes reports on Rupert Murdoch's "remarkable" 70-year career in the media:

He created a newspaper empire which has shaped the culture of the English speaking world.

He made newspaper paywalls work when nobody else thought he would succeed.

He saw streaming coming and sold most of his TV and film interests to Disney at the top of the market.

I personally find the influence of News Corp and the Murdochs disgusting and intolerable, yet I can also look at that 70-year body of work and say it's remarkable, amazing and will most likely never be repeated in a similar scale. Which is most likely a good thing.

The world is starting to reflect on 2020-2022 and what everyone did, and how we reacted, and I'm not reading many pieces that are all in with their support.

This is from Dr Raya Leibowitz, Israeli oncologist, a scientist (MD/PhD) and the head of a medium-sized oncology institute in Israel:

"I am writing so not to forget the response of governments and societies to the COVID-19 pandemic over the last 2.5 years; responses that were, for me and many others, dystopian. During this time, Israeli society, as I knew it, has dramatically changed for the worse."

The thing I'm most interested in is how I even feel hesitant to share this piece because of the negative feedback I receive from my community for not being all-in on the response to the pandemic.

The article is a personal story of a doctor who held not-so-mainstream views and how her community rejected her. If the net effect of Covid is that you're alive but living with division in community, living with fear and hatred of others, I think I'd rather be dead.

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