iPhone

Most folks are familiar with the phrase, “when in Rome do as the Romans do.”  While on this trip to visit our friends and manufacturing partners in Leon Guanojuanto Mexico I learned a new phrase, “a donde fueras,  haz lo que vieres”.  A loose translation of this old spanish saying is, “where you go, do what you see”.  A donde fueras, haz lo que vieres in Leon means eating quesedillas under a makeshift tarpelin tent and paying scant attention to the bubbling pot from which the meat is pulled, (I’m not certain but I think I saw an eye wink at me).  Most delicious street food I’ve encountered, and a Mr. PQ favorite.  He wants me to make this comida at home, but I’m reasonably certain this feat can’t be replicated in the United States, because it’s not just the ingredients.  It’s the hot desert air and the cool shade of the tarp, it’s the seasoning

It’s a new year, and here at Pad &Quill we are working with our craftsmen and our designers to roll out new products we love and we believe our customers will think are awesome.  Or in Mr. PQ parlance, 'areaweSOME!!' A compounded mutation of standard English with an obligatory crescendo as he stretches the 3 syllable word to 6.  He can hardly help himself however, as by the time a gold-standard prototype arrives on our marketing desk, the idea has percolated and incubated in his head, heart and soul for 6 months to a year.  Having left the percolating and incubating of the four quills to Mrs. PQ, it’s hard to say he fully understands the concept of being pregnant with a child, but, he fully comprehends the labor of love it is to bring a new product into the world.

Speaking of pregnancy, I’ve noticed a new trend among our younger friends that brings announcements of new arrivals to an interstellar level of 'areaweSOMEness'. It appears one can no

Mr. PQ and I are headed to the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week.  (Disclaimer: For those savvy social media thugs thinking to burglarize our home while we are away, allow me to dissuade you with the knowledge that a very well-armed housekeeper is on the premises and frankly, you’d be disappointed as we don’t own jack: unless you include Mr. PQ’s invaluable beard grooming kit, which he will most likely take with him as he doesn’t travel anywhere without an impeccably groomed beard).

Anyhoo.  Back to CES and Las Vegas.  I’ve not returned to Sin City and CES since our first traverse there in 2011.  Pad & Quill was a fledgling company with a few bookbindery cases for iPad and some paper napkin sketches of wallet styled cases for iPhones.   We walked 273 miles of convention center floor, barely surviving the epilepsy inducing lights and carcinogenic haboobs of second hand smoke.  As you can tell, the

“Mom, you know that psych test I told you I failed?  Well guess what, I actually got an “A-“ on it.   Apparently her ADD can also have an effect on her perceived outcomes on tests.   This is the same kid who thinks she is “bad” at running track, but won a varsity letter in track and field her sophomore year, on a team that has won back to back “big” school state championships.  There is a position of being your own worse critic, and then there is the perception of a kid going to school in a wealthy, white suburb where she is surrounded by a student body that averages 26.3 on the ACT, with the top 400 students achieving a 29.  A respectable 21 on same exam can make a person feel “stupid”.  She doesn’t even factor in that her ADD is a 50 pound anchor around her neck when trying to perform on four hour tests that are comprised of filling in little ovals with a number 2 pencil.  In a competitive world

There are days when writing a blog post are easy, and then there are days you wake up wanting to spend the day in baggy sweats listening to John Denver on Spotify and crying because all your children are leaving home and Mr. PQ told you last night’s roast was a little dry.  You’d be dry too if you’d spent two days cooking in a crockpot.  Whoever is squelching the patent on the cure for PMS should really spend eternity in Dante’s fourth ring of hell.  Seriously, if we can engineer a smart phone that slides the screen content up and down with a subtle tap on the home button, (Yea iPhone 6, my fun size fingers thank you!) I’d think we could come up with a countermeasure aimed at reducing the monthly pseudo psychosis and histrionics of half the world’s population.

I’m not holding my breath, because while the aforementioned iPhone doesn’t bend, it does consistently send out random voice texts to people on my contact list. 

The Superior Hiking Trail is about 300 miles of glorious north woods trail, which meanders from hamlet to hamlet, campsite to campsite.  The College Quill and I have plans to complete a thru hike next summer.  (For the uninitiated and Mr. PQ a thru hike traverses the entire trail in one outing).  Due to my rigorous effort alongside 18 of my new best friends, we will need to hike 2 extra miles next summer.  I spent the glorious bulk of last Saturday wielding a McCleod spade and exposing 2 foot wide stretches of path.  As we labored, a fellow trailblazer and I conversed about various hikes and the ideal gear for locations and seasons. Humorously, we had both experienced hikes we approached looking for the world like REI models, only to encounter a pair of tourists clad only in pedal pushers and sneakers.  My first summit of a 14’er taught me that a Sherpa is redundant when there is a conga line of girl scouts and grandmas making their way to the peak. 

Mr. PQ begins the slide down the backside of 40 this week and he has the dubious distinction of sharing a birthday with either Labor Day (yea, party) or the first day of school (birthday, what birthday?)  This year he has a few days of buffer between the first day of school and the Great Unveiling of ’14. In case you missed the announcement announcing the announcement of the official announcement, Apple is releasing a new something they won’t say. It’s an iPhone.

So, in addition to thinking about school supplies and Tandoori Chicken (birthday dinner; why do I insist on making things I have no business replicating?) I am awash in iPhone 6 anticipation.  Will it organize my wardrobe?  I was told baggy sweats are not appropriate attire for our weekly staff meeting. (Even when said staff meeting is held on a surprisingly cold and rainy day and I foolishly wore uniform shorts to meet my morning training clients, and baggy sweats were the

“I’m pregnant”

No, not me, Mrs. PQ, it’s Mr. PQ who’s expecting.  He mentioned he has been working on some new things, but him not being the science-y type, male fertilization never crossed my mind.  The man who runs to the emergency room for morphine with a little back pain ought to handle the whole transition labor quite well, I’m certain.  I caught him crying as he sang along with Disney’s Frozen soundtrack the other day, so the hormones must have kicked in by now.  He watched the movie with our oldest, while the second daughter and I were backpacking in the Porcupine Mountains (UP-Michigan) over the weekend.  We hiked the trails with a much- anticipated glimpse of black bears as the state park brochures promised.  In spite of being in the most remote portion of the park, we encountered nary a bear, print or slightest indication that bears were local inhabitants.  I travel prepared for bear

Well it's that time of year again.  As you can imagine Mrs PQ and I are quite busy getting ready for the arrival of iPhone 6 in September.  We do have a couple surprises coming prior to September though.  Keep an eye on Instagram and our newsletter as we announce some beautiful products coming in a few weeks.

Regarding the iPhone 6, we have been following all the various tech news sites to glean as much information as possible and incorporate that into our new designs.  The BIG news is that Apple is clearly going to launch a larger iPhone. Most sources agree that two sizes are likely, a 4.7 inch screen and a large 'phablet' like 5.5 inch. These new iPhone's will be impossibly thinner, faster and have even better camera improvements. Here's series of quotes from a few key sites we follow and some take aways about Apple's upcoming iPhone 6.  Rumors for sure, but quite interesting.

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I popped into my “other” job at the YMCA Tuesday, only to be met by a coworker informing me that “Crazy” Patrick had died.  While his demise is sad, sadder still in my mind is that he died alone in his house only to be discovered by his sister, his body already beginning to seep into the threads of a battered easy chair.  I suppose Patrick suffered the euphemism “crazy” attached to his name because he was quite possibly the only person I know who owned a different monochromatic outfit for every day of the week.  From headband down to matching sneakers it might be a blue day or a red day for Patrick, as he’d corner you into a conversation littered with adventurous tales which, when strung together, wove a story to rival that of Forrest Gump.

Waiting eagerly for iPhone 6 to release, Mr. PQ and I have traveled to the north shore to work on a new project aimed at introducing a notable piece of the north woods to our