{"id":34286,"date":"2025-09-02T09:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T14:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=34286"},"modified":"2025-09-02T09:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T14:06:07","slug":"suddenly-i-am-like-a-low-rent-jack-baruth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/02\/suddenly-i-am-like-a-low-rent-jack-baruth\/","title":{"rendered":"Suddenly, I Am Like A Low-Rent Jack Baruth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Those of you who have followed <a href=\"https:\/\/avoidablecontact.substack.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Jack Baruth<\/a> for any amount of time know that he is a connoisseur of fine, expensive watches.  I am not.<\/p>\n<p>But when my old Apple Watch stopped holding a charge, I thought about whether I would replace it.  Mostly for two reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;re still running on a lean mixture here until I fill out my work schedule.  Or maybe permanently if we get used to it.<br \/>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m thinking about de-MBAing my life a little.  I mean, the Apple Watch, even my old one, tracked a whole host of metrics&#8211;stand goals, active minutes goals, exercise goals&#8230;.  All arbitrary and determined by an algorithm I didn&#8217;t know.  Still, I found myself working to hit those goals even if they didn&#8217;t make sense in doing so.  Like getting up and walking around the house when I awakened in the night to get a stand hour in case I had a long nap or long meeting later in the day.  I mean, I can tell how I&#8217;m doing by how I feel and how much exercise I&#8217;m getting (currently: not much) by how I feel and whether I have the good muscle soreness or how I sleep at night.  So do I need to hit artificial targets determined by Cupertino?  Or am I just nerfing on this because I&#8217;m not getting my allotment of martial arts classes and gym sessions anyway?  Time will tell.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So I dug into my bureau for old watches (including a <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/29\/an-old-essay-from-the-hard-drive-the-daddy-watch\/\" target=\"_new\">daddy watch<\/a>) that I wore before my FitBit&#8230; what, seven or eight years ago?<\/p>\n<p>Of course, after that length of time, the batteries were dead.  In the olden days, I&#8217;d take it to the shopping mall and one of the guys at a kiosk would have sold me a new battery and would have installed it.  But if I&#8217;m not going to the gym, you know I&#8217;m not going to the mall (well, unless it&#8217;s an <em>antique<\/em> mall).  So I popped open the backs and got the memory sizes, and&#8230;.   Of course, I did not have any button batteries of that size in hand.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, I have all sorts of button batteries of various sizes from remotes, children&#8217;s toys, and other things, but not for actual watches.  But since they&#8217;re sold in ten packs on Amazon for $6, I order ten and they linger in my battery cabinet for&#8230;.  Well, archeologists will eventually have to tell you when they&#8217;re done lingering, as I&#8217;m unlikely to use them all.<\/p>\n<p>So now, look at la-di-dah me, with two watches from which to choose:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/twowatches.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Of course, I only wear the silver one because a brown watchband might indicate I would have to match it with something.  And color-coordination in clothing is not a skill of mine.<\/p>\n<p>So now I have 8 more of these batteries in the cabinet.  I can take up watch repair (battery replacement anyway).  Or, if I live for thirty years, perhaps I can replace the batteries on these watches four more times.  And they&#8217;ll likely spend most of that time in the drawer where they&#8217;ve spent the last half-a-decade-and-more since I don&#8217;t wear this kind of watch in the house, and I don&#8217;t leave the house all that much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those of you who have followed Jack Baruth for any amount of time know that he is a connoisseur of fine, expensive watches. I am not. But when my old Apple Watch stopped holding a charge, I thought about whether I would replace it. Mostly for two reasons: We&#8217;re still running on a lean mixture [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34287,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34286\/revisions\/34287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}