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I rode my bike home from work yesterday, and then Shobhit and I drove straight to the U District, and specifically the Apple Store at University Village—I had made a Genius Bar appointment, because my iPhone's battery maximum capacity finally fell below 80%. I had noticed far poorer battery performance well before we even went to Europe, and Shobhit and I went into the Apple Store once and asked about it, and they confirmed they won't replace the battery using Apple Care (which I have on three different Apple devices: my iMac laptop, my iPhone, and my AirPods; I kind of wish I also had it on my iPad which is hopelessly outdated at this point) until the maximum capacity dips below 80%.
Well, it's at 78% now, and with no more than usual use, it's regularly down in the tens or even single-digit percent charge at the end of the day. I was actually kind of thrilled to see it at 78% because that meant I could finally get a new battery, and with AppleCare they replace it at that point at no extra charge at all.
And they
would have yesterday, but Apple was experiencing a widespread system failure. Plenty of stuff was clearly working at the store, but even things like running diagnostics was apparently affected. The woman we talked to said they had to turn away a bunch of people yesterday because they just couldn't help them. She said even other Apple stores in the region (University Village is the only one in Seattle proper) were experiencing the issue. Thankfully my issue was very straightforward: all they had to do was look in my Systems to see I was at 78%. The woman didn't do that, she actually ran diagnostics on my phone, which evidently was simple enough to work. But, they did not have the ability to spend the time replacing the battery. All she could do was confirm that, yes, I qualify for a new battery. She was even brought the box with it, apparently to save until I come back again today.
So that was the suggestion: no need for a new Genius Bar appointment, just come back today and drop off the phone, and they will take about an hour to replace the battery. So that's the immediate plan after work today.
I have to say though, even with this inconvenience, I much prefer this system allowed by AppleCare—I'm paying $11.04 a month for this service, and have been on this model of my phone since last upgrading in February 2023. That's 41 months, which means I have paid a total $452.64 into this service to date, so they better have some good features and coverage with it. Damn. I didn't even realize that until calculating it just now. It's still cheaper than buying a new phone though, and I may stick with this model longer than any other I've had, since I've been happy with the photo zoom capability since the previous upgrade, and I have all the storage I need; there's nothing else they can offer that would make me think it urgent to upgrade again.
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Anyway, we did some light shopping at the U Village QFC—which we prefer to the comparatively sketchy QFCs on Capitol Hill—and then drove back home. We only spent enough time to put the few groceries away and for Shobhit to send an email to his boss, and then we were out again: we did our
third-ever Capitol Hill Art Walk.
The first two were in March and in May. In all cases, we find Coldewell Banker Bain's "The Loft," over on 14th and Pike and thus only a block from home, to be the best stop: they showcase an artist for two months, and have by far the best spread on their office kitchen island, including not one, but
two heated pasta dishes. This time one of them had sauce with meatballs, but every time there is a vegetarian pesto pasta that we both love; Shobhit had two helpings. They also had cheese-stuffed mushrooms this month which were amazing, and I think I had four of those. Plus a couple helpings of cheese and crackers, one of my very favorite things to eat.
I think we've sort of settled into The Loft giving the cues as far as our frequency of doing the Capitol Hill Art Walk—because they showcase the same artist two months in a row, we feel no need to do it two months in a row. Besides, we may also get a little self-conscious about being seen as regulars snarfing all their free food. To be fair, we do have genuine interest in the art; this month's artist, who goes by "
Siege," had paintings all over the space that I genuinely loved—they were just far too expensive. He was supposed to be doing a drawing for a free painting at 7:00, though, and I entered both of us. It was later pushed to 7:30, but by about 7:15 we were ready to move on to some other venues.
We did see the artist who had been showcased in May, though, the one whose painting
we actually bought—his first sale, in fact (I thought it was his first sale of the evening; Shobhit thinks it was the first painting he ever sold period; I'm not sure which of us is right). Since he had been showcased earlier this year, it makes sense for him to come back and check out other artists too; I have no idea if he came to the showcases we missed during Capitol Hill Art Walks in July (which we skipped probably because it was the day before we left for Whistler; we would have skipped June because it would have been the same artist) or August (when we were actually back from Europe but I had movies to catch up on and go see). Presumably this Siege guy will be showcased again in October, and I'm still kind of eager to go to West Seattle Art Walk which happens on the same day; maybe we'll do Capitol Hill again in November.
Anyway, the May Capitol Hill Art Walk yielded a whopping 50-shot photo album, thanks in large part to 17 shots I took at the
CENTRL Office shared office space where we found access to their rooftop terraces. Last night I also added lists to each of the three Capitol Hill Art Walk albums, of all stops we did; in May we went to 11 stops, which also added to the photos I took. March had 8 stops yielding 23 shots; last night was only 7 stops yielding 24 shots. I wish I had come up with a list beforehand, but I had forgotten; I've already created check lists of locations in my Reminders app for First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square and Belltown Art Walk, similar to check lists I do for places we travel to for trips. I wasn't thinking yesterday in terms of Capitol Hill and so we sort of winged it, and still managed seven stops. After consulting all three visits, though, I have a list for next time of up to 14 stops for the next time we do it—and this is two more than the 12 I have on the working list for Belltown Art Walk, which it looks like we may be doing with Danielle tonight after Shobhit and I get back from the Apple Store.
I was still really happy we went out to the places we did last night; we saw a lot of great art, including everything you see embedded as images in this very post—the flower painting with the black background was maybe my favorite of all. It was way too big and likely far too expensive, though; it must have been something like 5' x 4', give or take. I'm happy to have gotten a photo of it.
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One more thing! I just had my biweekly Zoom lunch with Karen. We spent a lot of time talking about Apple products, what with my visits to the Apple Store this week, and the iPhone 18 being released tomorrow—the reason the woman yesterday told us to return "the sooner the better," as otherwise they're going to be slammed with people making orders and purchases—and the folding "
iPhone Duo" coming out next month with a price tag higher than many new computers.
We also talked a lot about work. She had some venting to do, and she commented on how little stress I seem to have at my job. I noted that we were really comparing apples to oranges there: she owns her entire practice, which employs eight people, and I don't even have any direct reports (thank god). I thought we might talk more about travel stuff but we actually ran out of time. It was still a lovely hang, as always.
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[posted 1:07pm]
