A Day in the Life…

Published 2024-11-01, based primarily on the events of 2024-10-05

Some of my friends have commented over the years, that my life would make an entertaining reality TV show… I never fully understood what they meant by that. Everything seems normal to me!

But with that background: In September 2024, during childhood cancer awareness month, when the good people of the Relay podcast network held their annual fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, I decided to host my own sub-campaign (Kingsrook vs. Childhood Cancer). As part of the campaign, I wanted to come up with some ideas for milestones – “prizes” of sorts – to help motivate my friends to give, and the idea came to me: Once our collective donations reached $1,750, I would publish a day-in-the-life – my life – as an online multi-media experience! This way, they could all see if it really is as entertaining as they think.

In truth, the content on this page is taken from more than just one single day – but, it is representative, I think of a typical (weekend) day in my life, so, without further ado…

Morning

7:00 AM – Upon waking (whether by alarm or nature), I start each day by putting in my AirPod Pros, starting a podcast, putting on my slippers, and going for about a 10-minute dog walk. Normally they get to use a doggy door into our backyard any time they need to visit nature. However, two of our pups need to be kept separated, meaning only one of them can have access to the doggy door at a time. So overnight, whichever one is unable to go out, he’s the one who gets the morning walk with Dad. In reflecting on this start to my day, it seems fitting: It’s exercise (turns out, I do quite a bit (all of it low-impact, which is just what I need)); It’s dog-based; And I do it using Apple tech.

7:45 AM – After a shower and getting dressed, the first chore of my day is putting away dishes from the dishwasher from the night before. I don’t know if it’s something I do wrong, or something my dishwasher doesn’t do right, but I always have to dry at least some of them, so I end up drying all of them, just to make sure they’re good, before I put them away.

Depending on who else in the family is up, I make breakfast during this time. This is usually a mix of cereal, bacon, frozen pancakes, various fruits, but on Sunday mornings we have a special tradition of homemade pancakes and waffles (with bacon, of course). But, as this was a Saturday, I had my standard bowl of cereal – which is a 50/50 mix of Granola cereal and Honey Nut Cheerios. Oh, we feed the dogs around this time too, but I’ll say more about that when we do it again for supper time.

8:30 AM – At some point in the morning (on a work day, it’d be the first thing I do when I get to the office, but on a weekend, it’s more of a “whenever” thing) – I make a cup of coffee. Here’s a video:

While we’re talking about my office (since weekends don’t have too much time down here), here are some pictures of my working space:

9:30 AM – Next up I kept going with chores around the house: Sweeping, paying bills, online shopping, making a grocery list – all normal stuff, right? Also on this day, I got to spend an hour or so helping my Freshman with some Algebra. To celebrate a job well done, we shared a Happy Apple – Happy Apples being a highlight of the fall season, and second only to real Southern Illinois peaches when it comes to my seasonal fruit favorites.

Afternoon

12:00 PM – The thought occurs to me, that I haven’t yet shared one of the joyous sounds of my home: our four puppy dogs greeting anyone who comes home. Here’s a clip…

Anyway… after that – my Saturday lunch consists of a bowl of soup (today I had Progresso Creamy Chicken Noodle – Light), and a Peanut Butter (natural, of course) and Jelly (Grape Jam, actually) sandwich on toast (open faced – one piece of bread – so it’s all the flavor, for like a third fewer calories). Soup & Sandwich Day is a real treat – every Wednesday and Saturday for me!

12:30 PM – After lunch, it’s time for our daily dog walk. We try to go a different route around our neighborhood every day, usually between 45 and 90 minutes, depending on the weather and what else we have going on. This day, I brought Barkley the Akita mix and Charlie the Dachshund:

Notice that theme of exercising, dogs, and Apple tech appearing again here (as my Apple Watch monitors my walk every day).

2:00 PM – Next up, since it was Saturday, it was time for me to go run my weekend “errands“. Today’s destinations were pretty standard: the library, two pharmacies, and the grocery store. My favorite part of this trip every week is that I get to listen to my favorite podcast: the Accidental Tech Podcast. It really does elevate the experience for me, from something that might otherwise feel like a chore, to something that I look forward to every time.

3:30 PM – Back home, and more mundane chores around the house: Putting away groceries, cleaning the kitchen, and going through some personal emails. Then I even took a break, putting my feet up and taking a load off before the final chapters of the day.

Evening

5:00 PM – Our dogs all let us know when 5:00 rolls around, because that’s Doggy Supper time every day. On the advice of some professional that we talked to at one point in the past (a vet?), several years ago we stopped feeding them out of traditional dog bowls. Instead, we have quite a few (more than 50 last time I counted) treat puzzles that we try to rotate through. The idea is, to give them a little bit of a challenge, to keep their minds sharp, and to help keep them from being so bored. I’m not sure if achieves those goals, but it’s fun for us at least.

5:15 PM – After the dogs eat, then it’s the humans’ turn: People Supper. I usually like to make something a little bigger or more involved on Saturday night. Tonight I tried a new recipe I looked up while at the grocery store: I was looking at some nice bell peppers, and thought that stuffed peppers sounded good, but I always find them annoying to eat, so in a moment of inspiration, I started to Google “deconstructed …” and it auto-completed for me “deconstructed stuffed peppers” – which was just what i had in mind! I picked this one – which used riced cauliflower instead of rice (which I’d never had before). It called for ground turkey, but I knew I had some ground beef and pork sausage at home, so i used those instead. It turned out great, and I had a blast making it!

After supper I make milkshakes for the wife and kids (since it’s Saturday, of course), do some dog training, and finally start to settle down for the evening.

Night

8:30 PM – With my day almost done, it’s time get back into one those thematic elements: Almost seven days I week I perform an evening ritual of riding for 30 minutes on my Recumbent Bike, while almost always watching an episode of Star Trek. We could say that it’s a random episode of trek, but … oh, never mind, I’ll spare you the details of how I actually choose which episode to watch, other than to say… it involves Google Sheets.

Tonight’s episode was: The Next Generation S01E22. Symbiosis:

I watch my nightly Star Trek on my exercise bike, wearing my Apple Vision Pro. Even after six months of having it, I still consider to be shockingly awesome every time I put it on.

This night, being a Saturday, my bike time is followed by 8 sets with my dumbbells. I figure, since the bike is an all-legs effort, I need to balance things out, so four nights a week I add a little arms work. I’ve only been doing it for about three months, but I’ve found it a nice addition.

9:30 PM – The final part of my Saturday is seriously the thing I start thinking about around the time I start that morning dog walk. It’s been just about a life-long tradition for me, to eat Popcorn on Saturday night. The techniques have changed a lot over the years, going through a long microwave phase when I was a kid back home, through even some dark times without popcorn as a young adult. But now I’m kinda settled in to a wonderful routine, that comes out just about perfect for me every single time. Here’s a video (taken on that VisionPro):

Well that’s it – I always watch a show (again, on Vision Pro) while eating my popcorn (I’m currently doing my first viewing of The West Wing), and then it’s straight to bed. If I’m up for more than a few minutes, I’ll read (back on the iPhone, Kindle app) until I fall asleep.

And that’s a day in the life of a Darin.

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P.S. If you watched the videos, you may have noticed some background audio tracks. I created these, with no real skill (certainly not playing any instruments myself!), but by combining some of Apple’s freely available loops using Garage Band. You may not like them, but I kind find them catchy, and have had more than one of them stuck in my head… so, to further complete my commitment of making this a true multi-media experience (we have text, photos, videos, and now audio), here are some loops of those tracks – be careful of getting one stuck in your head!!