I finally got an iPad Pro back in my life.

 I probably vaguely covered the topic, as well as that I vaguely disappeared from updating this blog - I'm referring to last year (2023) around the beginning of July, which was when I woke up in a nurse's dorm, completely naked; I was the victim of an overdose (apparently). 

I struggle to recall the precise details of where I went wrong, leading up to this occurrence, after the fact, and I swear that I had identified that my personal belongings were somewhere in the nurse's dorm, yet I was too much out of it, at the time that I was transported to the main part of the hospital by the emergency medical transport personnel, to make certain that my belongings weren't lost in the shuffle, being that these were items most surely attached to my body (I wore my iPad Pro, at the time, inside a bag that I never took off). I can recall that I found a fentanyl-tainted methamphetamine sample inside a  silicone container, nearby where I slept, back then, as a homeless person, but I recall that I consumed it without issue, at the time, and that I went about my day just fine, at the time - not quite in fine form, as I had to resort to shopping-carting around, since my baby stroller broke down (I used the stroller to transport my items around town). The reason I reported to the shopping cart was, ironically, related to my iPad Pro, of back then, to begin with - I had a delinquent bill, with AT&T, and, as I was, at the time, I could only imagine making payments for the device, and for my service, with recycling money (collecting and redeeming recyclable bottles and cans). 

Nowadays, things are different from all of that, lifestyle-wise, and to my benefit - this model iPad Pro is the latest model; it had been a while, since I was out on my own, without an iPad Pro to prop me and my project aspirations up, and make things presentable. My financial situation, on top of my housing circumstances, are much more well-supported, at this point. On one hand, looking at my own iPad Pro, after experiencing, first hand, an Apple Vision Pro, which is fantastic, and a heap of fun to play around in - it's challenging to portray the experience to somebody else, but, in short, it is a truly immersive augmented, camera assisted, operating system, run primarily on eye-tracking technology, whereas the controls of the device (keyboard, scrolling, etc.), unless the user implements the Dwell option, which means, essentially, that the user's gaze, and a certain amount of time afterwards, upon a single object, such as a link, the corner of an app window, a menu list of items(s), basically any individual selectable item within the operating system and apps is gaze-able. The cool thing about the Vision Pro, though, is the augmented reality feature of resizing screens, such as video screens, as can be imagined, I fancy, by referencing my iPad Pro, in my room.

The Christmas season 2 episode of Ted Lasso, a show I came to be fond of, after trying out the Vision Pro.

Now, imagine that the iPad Pro screen is resizable, up to virtually the entire visual field, and all of it (apps and VisionOS) is controllable by camera-tracked fingertip pinches. The resizing feature of it would amount to that there is now a 100-inch projection screen in front of the viewer, all done virtually, with some simple finger gestures, done in thin air. It's quite fantastic, and it makes watching media on smaller devices a bit dull, although the iPad Pro does have a gorgeous color profile to it, and great apps, which aren't matched by other platforms - that's what I really missed about my lost iPad Pro - the accessibility and the diversity of activities that I could achieve in the iPadOS platform, with an iCloud backup installation of an iPadOS that dated back several or more years, which I had been building upon. I lost access to my backup, this time around - I guess that I was fooling around with tightening up the security of my device, out of paranoia, I'm sure; I became convinced that somehow, people were tunneling in, or had peeked over my shoulder, on the bus or train, for example, and I changed my password in to something hopelessly complex, prior to losing my device, due to the hospitalization. 

Anyways, here's to a new season of better photo captures and high-resolution video, as well as advanced graphic and image creation, for the Sticker Time collection. Who knows what'll be next?

Anyways, I purchased up the iPad Pro in-store on Cyber Monday, and it arrived near the end of the week, and I picked it up. I was expecting to slip right in to my trusty old iPadOS installation and configuration, with over 700 apps neatly organized in to folders, if I remember correctly, but I apparently did some screwy stuff with my iPad Pro that I had previously, right before I had my misfortune last year, when I lost my device, and I locked myself out of getting the configuration, itself, (which amounts to a lot of work - the configuration of the apps in to folders). I must have changed the password on myself, or something like that, because I couldn’t sign in with my previous iPad password, for my old device; hence, I lost that section of the work I put in to the device, but it amounts to only the encrypted information on the device, itself, not iCloud-stored information. So, I’ve got to make out a new, or makeshift, configuration with a new set of folders, but I’m definitely glad to have the device back in my hands - this one’s thinner than ever: Apple calls it “impossibly thin,” and it’s practically true, yet it’s a very sturdy device. One of the first things that I did was LiDAR-scan my room and port over my video game accounts, that I started playing on my other, Android devices, and, as luck would have it, the progression ended up being a passing of the torch, completely, from an Android tablet experience - not a bad one, with this Yatiom model tablet, “for kids,” it had been marketed as, yet, it came with 10 GB of RAM: pretty competitive, as well as intelligently put, although my new device has 16 GB of RAM. There were some processes that I was running, in audio, on my old device, that pushed the limits of throughput and available memory (apparently), and I encountered an app crash, from out of running those processes on my old iPad Pro, which only had 8 GB of RAM. In any case, somehow, serendipitously, my Yatiom Android tablet got it’s screen broken, the next time I looked at it, after receiving the iPad Pro, so I’m lucky to not have had a lapse in tablet format and a higher-RAM-running operating system.

R.I.P. to my broken YATIOM Android tablet, which gave out, just as soon as I received my new iPad Pro.

The iPigeon.institute 2024 Halloween Sticker Time Collection and Marketing Materials.

This year's Halloween is gearing up to be one of the funnest and most spooky yet.

 For those of us who loom around the cutting edge of retail and e-commerce merchandising seasons, we'd have surely encountered early Halloween, Christmas, even next year's Easter's marketing materials, gadgets, and gags, alike. I felt that, in the spirit of Google Labs launching their Image 3 ImageFX engine, that I ought to try it out on some quirky and cute pigeon Halloween costume ideas. Here it is: a set of 6 new Sticker Time Stickers, known as the first in a series of Halloween and seasonal Sticker Time Collection stickers.

Pirate gear is classic garb for Halloween, on this pigeon.

This cute pigeon wears a ghost costume.

A spooky pumpkin-headed pigeon.

This inflatable T-Rex costume is one of the most fun costumes to wear, at Halloween.

This pigeon wears goofy alien head gear attire, for a costume.

A creepy skeleton cloak, with cat ears, for this pigeon.

Product Review: September 2024 Perfumer's Apprentice Haul.

 Since around October of last year, I decided to make good on an inkling I'd had, with regards to that fragrances would work out well for balancing my mood, so I began purchasing retail designer fragrances by Dior, and alternately, I also began purchasing individual aroma chemicals and natural fragrance products from suppliers such as Liberty Natural and The Perfumer's Apprentice, whom both have delightful catalogs of fine and natural, as well as synthetic (Perfumer's Apprentice) fragrance components. My use case scenario ranged from trying my hand at making a complete fragrance composition from scratch, to developing simpler layers to add, on top of my designer bottles of fragrance. In the past, I've also purchased fragrances such as Spicebomb, by Viktor and Rolf, for such purposes. 

My workflow in fragrance, lately, has been based on developing a fragrance from scratch, stemming from a purchase haul I made two months ago, which was, conceptually, a women's fragrance which had Anise (Licorice) and hyacinth as the feature ingredients, for which I purchased small amounts of over 20 ingredients, in order to create it. The results were moderately amusing, yet I found myself tending towards trying to wear the fragrance, myself, (being a male), so, as the weeks of the month wore on, in that month, I gradually developed the fragrance, staring from a confectionary licorice aroma, initially, to an overpowering floral hyacinth earthy aroma eau de parfum hydrosol, with strong remnants of the Anise and licorice theme still remaining - it was too strong to wear when going out, so I resolved to have it as a room spray. 

Image of hyacinth bulbs in bloom, by Artur Pawlak from Pixabay

I felt determined to not have wasted my investment money, for the month, in purchasing the ingredients for the composition, so I ended up setting it aside, and I made plans, for the next month, to renew my aspirations to create a reasonably wearable female's fragrance, with natural ingredients, from Liberty Natural. I purchased Rose Otto, for a sizable and costly dose of fresh petals and natural floral bloom, and the effect turned out nicely - the scent of Rose, in this case, ends up being a scent modulator, of sorts, and the effect of Rose Otto, rather than as much, the scent and smell, itself, of Rose, served to give the composition a twist, which I could be satisfied with, so I bottled up the oil layer of the composition in to small containers, for preservation and documentation of the creation. Prior to this, I had also given the fragrance a sizable helping of grapefruit essential oil, to brighten up the overpowering effect that the hydrosol composition had. I also added absolutes of Tonka bean and Cocoa, for a sweetened culinary gourmand effect, overall, since the fragrance had a confectionary theme to it, at its outset, with Anise and licorice fragrance at the core of the composition, for which I decided to try Canthoxal, a synthetic component, and it worked nicely. I also added Carnation absolute, for additional fresh petals and spice, being that the scent of Carnation blooms contains a high amount of eugenol, for which, the smell of Clove would be the best reference material (actually, carnation blooms, naturally, would seem to have nearly no scent, at all, so I am referring, here, to the extracted oil, or the absolute). Lastly, from Liberty Natural, which was last month's purchase, I added Champaca CO², for its anti-inflammatory therapeutic effect, rather than that it would seem to be a floral component, being that the scent of this particular extraction of Champaca blooms might best be liked to the exotic spices of Indian (subcontinent) culinary fare, with lightly fragrant hints of cardamom, fennel seed, and cumin to it. Comparatively, the essential oils and absolutes of the Champaca flower have, in increasing magnitude, respectively, much more floral and lovely aromas to them. 

I decided, initially, in creating this Hyacinth and Anise fragrance composition, to complement the natural fragrance components with synthetic ingredients. This might range, in meaning, from that the aroma chemical is a standardized formula, of the manufacturer's own design, or, alternately, that the entire ingredient, itself, is manufactured from sparse chemical raw material resources, through means, perhaps, such as additive or subtractive chemistry processes. For example, for the initial carnation flower effect, I had Carnation essential oil, to begin with, yet, according to my reading studies, and practical, hands-on experience, in recent and former outsets of creating fragrance compositions, essential oils, themselves, sometimes tend towards decomposing (oxidizing) in the fragrance composition, giving the creator (me, in this case),  temporarily false sense of what the fragrance would end up smelling like, being that some of the rarer fractions of scents, in cases where the ingredient is a delicate one; here, the carnation flower scent would have its soft, fresh petals character subdued, or disappeared, as the fragrance sits out, as time goes on. After all, the fragrance composition ought to be stable, over weeks, months, or years, depending on the production stage and packaging materials. In this case, I'm still in the early to mid-stage development process, so I use temporary, reusable plastic spray bottles, for example. In addition, synthetic ingredients also have the added benefit, at times, of being lightly colored, or clear and colorless, which is helpful during The marketing stages of producing a professional designer fine fragrance. The synthetic ingredient aroma compound for Carnation that I employed for this composition was Methyl Diantilis, which is reputed to be a more stable synthetic component. I wanted to experiment with the potential for the synthetic ingredients to have a "stabilizing" effect, as well, in terms overall course of things, given that I'm using a host of natural fragrance extracts, here - synthetic ingredients are relatively cheap ingredients, by comparison, and they tend to be lacking, in various ways, compared to natural fragrance extracts.

This month, I received a surprise fragrance endowment, care of my Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Peer Support and Caseworkers; in particular, from one of them, named Matt (thanks, Matt), who gifted me with a 3.4 fl. oz. bottle of Dior Sauvage, Eau de Parfum version (there are 5 different versions of Sauvage, for men; I typically like the Sauvage Elixir one, especially during the fall and winter seasons, and I haven't yet smelled the newly released Sauvage eau Forte hydrosol), which gave me a new and unexpected fragrance project to work on, being that I'm mostly unfamiliar with the Eau de Parfum version of Dior's Sauvage line of products. The reason I favor the Elixir variant is that it is lush and heavy; perfect for colder weather, whereas I find that the Eau de Perfume version is pungent and literally perfumey - not so much a problem, however, and Mark, my Department of Mental Health nurse, assured me that the scent is masculine enough. Still, I like an over-the-top good smelling fragrance profile, so, this month, I stocked up on some old favorite ingredients, which I'd run out of, such as Benzoin Oliffac, Ambroxan and Exaltone, two musks, which I'd lost, during the course of a former, unexpected eviction, some new-to-me samples of fragrance profiles that I'd been favoring, such as Siam Benzoin Resin in Benzyl Benzoate, Black Hemlock Absolute, for which I'm sampling as a complement, or as a woodsy, smoky-sweet alternative to Blackcurrant Bud Absolute, and related compounds, such as Labienoxime, and Rhubofix, in the vein of earthy and mailette ingredients I'd initially purchased to create my perfume-from-scratch, such as Terrasol and Sarriete Base. Lastly, I venture off, this month, in to incorporating flavor ingredients in my fragrance compositions, with cinnamon and hibiscus flavor concentrated, being that I'd mostly not found a powerful and pungent-enough cinnamon, for my spice olfactory profile; here, hearkening back to my love of Spicebomb - I felt that i could create a reasonably-distanced and unique take on Spicebomb with my Anise / Licorice / 🪻 Hyacinth fragrance, and I also needed a flavor to fill up a Geek Bar Pulse nicotine vaporizer, which I found I found I could refill, so I chose Hibiscus for the flavor, and it worked out great with my flavorless 50 mg nicotine salts that I purchased locally, from Broadway Smoke Shop. The Hibiscus 🌺 flavor concentrate worked out great, since it has propylene glycol in it, which is a food grade antifreeze that vaporizes (it's in fog juice) in an e-cigarette inhaler, such as the Geek Bar Pulse.

I felt that the fragrances I was wearing (Dior Homme Sport), working with (Dior Sauvage Eau de Perfume), or creating (the Anise / Hyacinth spice fragrance), lacked a certain degree of Amber and Musk, so Ambroxan and Exaltone became two iconic favorites that I could implement in to layers of fragrance that I could apply, as separate perfuming sprays in different spray bottles. They both smell great, at different price points ($15.00 and $72.00, respectively), and, in the case of this purchase haul, the both of them smell a bit more powdery and less base-y than I'd recalled, off-hand, yet they work well, for my situation, since the low end of the fragrance spectrum I'm working with, and fragrance profile I'm trying to fill out, such as with the Sauvage Eau de Perfume, is reputably satiated by the addition of the Black Hemlock Absolute, which has a rich woodsy, syrupy, sweet, and smoky fragrance to it that I'd been looking for, all in one ingredient. Rhubofix is a nice, spicy, earthy fragrance ingredient - a bit pungent, so I only incorporated several drops, as opposed to a few squirts that I put in, when it came to Benzoin Oliffac and Calibrian Bergamot (I'd forgotten, during the course of writing this blog, about needing to refill my Bergamot supply, and the Calibrian Bergaptene-free Bergamot from Perfumer's Apprentice is far more delightful than a standard Bergamot oil, with a bright and sweet citrus aroma to it. It's just great, as far as that slice of citrus fragrance profile is concerned.

September's haul of fragrance ingredients.

In diffusion, this little stub fragrance layer, in combination with the Sauvage Eau de Perfume, ends up giving off the impression of bubblegum anaesthesic, in my opinion. On the skin, the combination smells like a powerfully artificial cinnamon feature, dressed up in the fanciest of decolletage, with what I consider to be the feminity of the Dior fragrance feeling subdued; perhaps veiled, in that it might still be inferred.