I often get questions about the various chargers and cables that I use. I put a lot of thought into what I use, and that extends to my family. We have so many devices that need charging these days and so this is always an evolving approach. Especially as the landscape of cables and connectors changes.

My goal in all cases is to have the most compact, powerful and flexible system. It needs to charge all the devices I might bring with me, and ideally do them as fast as the device allows. iPhones can charge up to 25W, iPads 45W and Laptops anywhere from 30W - 100W.

The basic architecture for my setup is the following:

1. At Home - I have a bedside setup that is permanent and can charge my iPhone, Watch and AirPods.

2. Every Day Carry - A charging kit for every day use - in my daily carry

3. Overnight Travel - A charging kit for my bedside when I travel, to charge my iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch

4. Everything Else - For all the other devices I bring, a charge and cables.

When travel it’s important to have international adapters. I chose charges that allow for you to swap the US plug with an international plug. This is much better and usually stronger / more secure vs some of those setups where the either tiny or huge adapter doesn’t work because your plug falls out of the wall or it’s too large to work. I cover some of these details below.

Before the pandemic, I had a pretty good routine for sleep and exercise. That included a lot of walking I did by virtue of being on a campus where I had to move around between buildings and opportunities to walk and talk with others for meetings.

Like so many, the pandemic pushed me into a zone of languishing and I let go of these habits. It wasn’t hard - I’ve never been one to take to various exercise regimens. I find exercise boring, and I find other things that I can do that I enjoy more.

We have a Peloton in our house, and it’s a very cool product - my wife Lora likes to use it. But I’ve not enjoyed it that much. I don’t like stationary biking. There is no gamification that makes it feel anything but a grind to get through. Classes (live or otherwise) don’t motivate me.

That brings me to rowing. Earlier this year my friend Kelsi Leitz (also my Pilates instructor) got a Concept 2 Rower and was raving to me about it. I remember rowing in high school and not having any particularly happy thoughts about it. However, desperate to DO SOMETHING I became curious.

Then at one of my first monthly manager lunches, the group was sharing goals for the year. Many of the managers in my team shared how exercise was a key goal. A few of them started talking about their rowers - Egatta and Hydrow. Aha, I was on to something.

I did what most people do at this point. I headed to YouTube and watched a bunch of videos going over each rower. Those helped me decide to get an Ergatta.

For many years I’ve wished to learn to make my own Pizza. I have many friends who do so successfully and that inspired me to get going! Now we make pizza every Saturday night at our house.

To hopefully inspire you - I have never made any kind of dough in my life. I was starting from total scratch. I’ve experimented with many different techniques and gadgets and have settled on a repeatable path that I like.

You don’t need much to make pizza from scratch. When I started I made Pizza in our Jenn Air oven with a Baking Steel. While it did not produce a true neapolitan pizza, it made something I like to eat! From there I have shifted my pizza making to cook in an outdoor pizza oven.

The last time I wrote about How I make Coffee was 2015. Coffee is one of my favorite daily rituals and I am very particular about my equipment.

There are so many different ways to make coffee and there is only one way that I make it and that is using Pour Over. I have found that Pour-Over provides the most consistent brewing methodology (it’s just hot water and gravity) and really allows you to experience the different tastes in coffee beans. I weigh the beans and water so the coffee tastes the same each time.

I use three techniques for brewing coffee using pour-over. Two are “at home” and one “travel”.

It’s that time of year again! I’m happy to bring you a bunch of ideas for Holiday 2020. Last year’s list is still a good place to go for some ideas. I will often carry over a few ideas from year to year.

I didn’t include any Apple or Microsoft products this year. Honestly, you know what they are, if you need a new Homepod, iPhone, AirPods, Surface, XBox you probably already purchased them.

Following my review last year of the iPhone Xs and Apple Watch Series 4 here are my thoughts on the latest hardware from Cupertino.

I continue to feel that the iPhone X was the best phone Apple made, and the Xs and 11 are clear descendants from this excellent phone. The iPhone Xs was a nice improvement on the X. Apple introduced us to the new Max size, which is what I have been carrying for the past year. The Xs also launched a new camera - the 2x telephoto camera. The 11 Pro adds a third camera - the wide-angle - and Apple has many more tricks up its sleeve. 

iOS 13 - a quick note on iOS 13. My feeling is that this is one of the biggest collections of small upgrades Apple has made. It's pretty overwhelming to explore and discover the hundreds of changes in the new OS. So whether you have a new phone or an older phone running iOS 13 you will have a lot of new capabilities to play with. I'm thrilled with the range of improvements that make every day tasks like sharing, messaging, and browsing better.

I recently had two TeslaPowerwalls installed to serve as backup for our home. My PowerWalls are powered by my solar panels which I also expanded since installing in 2015 (I added 8 panels to my home). I am now offsetting 50% of my power utilization a year (even with my Tesla Model 3 which consumes about 20% of my total energy each year.

I want to get this out of the way and say I don’t need PowerWalls. We loose power in our home about once a year due to trees falling or lightning usually in the summer or fall when the trees still have leaves and we get heavy rain. I have considered getting a generator over the past few years and went so far as to have generator hookups installed on my electric panels but just could not get myself to purchase a gas generator. To do so would have meant.

• Storing gas and keeping it fresh

• Dealing with maintenance and up-keep

• Finding a place for a massive generator

• Wheeling it out and starting it every time we needed it

But my procrastination and annoyance bought me enough time for the day when I pulled the trigger and got them.

I know it’s been a while as my posting schedule was essentially shut down this summer. I hope to get back to a twice a month publishing schedule.

A week ago I returned to work after taking the last 8 weeks off as part of my Microsoft sabbatical and traveling for most of it with my family. We visited 12 countries and 17 cities and planning for this trip was an 18 month project which included a lot of detailed planning on what to bring!

I learned a lot about how to optimize for travel packing and below are some of the details about what products I found useful.

In this post I’m going to share a number of apps that I enjoy and have been using of late. This is NOT a list of all the apps I use, that would be too long and so it’s really apps that you may not have heard of or my favorite app in a category (like weather).

Good luggage doesn’t need to be expensive. I feel that you should have some decent carry on and checked luggage.

However, you can spend a lot of money on luggage - and like anything - meet any budget.

My personal favorite luggage are the Rimowa Aluminum luggage. They are incredible bags. German engineering but outside the price range of most people. I love the black aluminum bags and have them in their carry-on size (36L) and checked luggage (68L). Their hybrid luggage is polycarbonate but lacks zippers and is also a great choice.

But I’m here to write about Away Luggage. For the money, I don’t think you will find luggage as good as theirs. They make their bags in polycarbonate and aluminum (like Rimowa) but cost a third as much. They also have some very innovative features such as a batter that is built into their carry on bags and can be removed as well.