things i think about while powerwashing 121

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Happy Monday esteemed subscribers! Also yes this edition is 121, last edition was 122 because I mis-counted.

I am currently out on vacation but do not worry! The posts will continue until morale improves. And until that morale improves, I’ll keep looking back at old photos and memories!

My photos are stored in mainly three places:

1. My 2TB Samsung SSD
2. My 8TB hard drive connected to my server
3. Apple Photos (yeah I pay for iCloud ...)

The 2TB Samsung SSD mainly holds stuff that I’m still working on (which is false there is shit from 2024 on there). And the 8TB one is mainly for archival purposes and so I can access them via immich, my self-hosted Google Photos replacement!

It basically works just like Google Photos, can share albums just like Google Photos, and I can upload photos to it like Google Photos! To be clear — someone else wrote this software. I just have it running on my server at home.

To me, there’s something freeing about removing my photos from Google. Maybe it’s about taking back control? Am I a control freak? I do run my own newsletter.

Anyway!

I also love looking at the memory videos Apple creates. I have the thing where they occasionally generate on my phone, but more recently they have this LLM-backed one that generates them (hopefully and presumably) on your phone.

And really, how often do we look at our memories? These moments that we’ve painstakingly lived through and define us. We take a few snaps and they’re gone until whatever little AI contraption or scrapbook we put them in resurfaces them.

Maybe this Monday morning during your commute to work or during your lunch break. Or whenever you're reading this. Scroll through your photos app a bit and remember the good times. Send some funny photos to your friends from that trip you took a while back.

Take some time to remember.

museum of the week

Esteemed subscriber Noah Curran and I rumbled down I-80, we searched for a break. Something to break up the monotony of the all the cars, the corn, the Iowa countryside the truc-

Trucks?

In the burning heat of the Iowa sun, esteemed subscriber Noah Curran and I found ourselves at the door of the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum, located to The World’s Largest Truck Stop.

“We happened upon this museum and we thought it was sick,” Noah said to the lady manning the admission.

“It is sick,” she replied, seriously.

The museum is basically a large warehouse of various trucks that fill up maybe more than a New York City block. Well, let’s just say a large warehouse. From snowmobiles to pickups, they had it all.

After seeing all the trucks on the road and playing my favorite game American Truck Simulator, it was super awesome to see the cars I’d been driving in real life. Kenworth, Mack, even a Mercedes truck!

Highly recommend.

fb marketplace find of the week

Tough ...

anonymous subscriber news

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• anonymous subscriber is going to go hiking in a national park for the first time in over a year
• anonymous subscriber is late to the trend but I started going to a run club, partly for the free snacks
• anonymous subscriber said: my manager said it’s my time to shine at work. no vacation for the next 8 weeks
• this anonymous subscriber enjoys your observations and humor immensely.
• anonymous subscriber said: fun fact: your pigeon friend is actually a mourning dove! but they're both in the Columbidae family, which consists of doves and pigeons :) yes ellie did mention that to me recently!
• anonymous subscriber signed up for a half marathon
• anonymous subscriber said: I bet if you get the train horn you can decrease your rent

animal of the week

Here is a monkey courtesy of esteemed subscriber Magdalene Lam — I believe the photo is of a monkey in Japan.

Send me your animal photos at ryan@torrtle.co!