Diving in Cozumel
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Last week, I went diving in Cozumel, Mexico. Cozumel is a small island off the coast of Cancun. This is the fourth year I’ve gone diving here. It’s one of my favorite places to dive because it’s relatively easy to travel to (versus something like Little Cayman) and has incredible wildlife. The water was 87°F with ~60ft of visibility. Incredible.
I think I’m starting to figure out my underwater camera setup. I’m really pleased with some of these photos. You’re probably here for the photos, so let’s get straight to that. More about the gear at the bottom of the post.
Update: My dive buddy, Chris Sohl, shot a really great video of the trip. I’m the one with the big camera.
Taking a Break
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A few weeks ago, I took three weeks off. I’m really fortunate that I had the flexibility and opportunity to do this. Lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and burnt out at work. I really wanted a break.
I planned to do a 165 mile hike around Lake Tahoe but ended up only doing 40 miles there and then about 40 miles in Joshua Tree. (Check out those links for some photos.) Before leaving, I changed all of my work passwords and locked my work computer in my desk at work. While I was out, I couldn’t access my work accounts even if I wanted to. I forced myself to disconnect.
At first, this was really difficult. I thought about work often on my first few days of my hike. It was mostly bitter and frustrated thoughts. Each day, I thought about it less and less. Instead I started focused on the beautiful scenery and just enjoying the nature around me.
California Riding and Hiking Trail
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The California Riding and Hiking Trail is a 37.6 mile trail in Joshua Tree National Park.
After getting snowed out in Tahoe, I decided to head down to the desert for some warmer hiking. One of the unique things about Joshua Tree is you have to bring your own water. There isn’t any water in the park and if you happened to find some, it’s protected so you’re not allowed to drink it.
Before I started the hike, I left some water behind some bushes near Belle Camp and Ryan Camp. (I found a lot of good information about this on Bearfoot Theory.) I was pretty worried about water, but it ended up not being a big deal.
Tahoe Rim Trail
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I took three weeks off to hike the Tahoe Rim Trail. It’s a 165 mile trail around Lake Tahoe. Here’s a map.
I was really excited about my first thru-hike. I spent a ton of time working on my gear list, doing research, and planning the details of my trip.
The trip didn’t go as planned though. After only 40 miles, I decided to head home. It started snowing really hard on the 4th day, and I wasn’t really prepared for snow or very cold temperatures.
Dark Mode Stylesheet
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With iOS 13 coming out yesterday, there are a lot more folks are experiencing system-wide Dark Mode for the first time. As you navigate around the system apps in Dark Mode, it’s really nice to see everything be dark. The moment you open up an app that doesn’t support Dark Mode, it can be really jarring. Websites in Safari are one of the biggest offenders for me. We can fix this though.
I recently made my personal website and blog support a dark theme if the user’s device has dark mode enabled. This is really easy to achieve with a relative new features in CSS, custom properties (aka CSS variables). They are already widely supported too!
Here’s how to define variables: