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Earl got up: Inside the second act of a Texas legend

Texas RB Earl Campbell vs Oklahoma

ESPN has a fantastic, difficult profile of Texas running back legend Earl Campbell and his life during and after college and pro football. Longhorn fans have seen Earl unable to get out of the golf cart on sidelines for years, but the reasons were a lot more complicated than just a career of hard nosed running.

Turns out, the player known for being one of the toughest runners in the history of football was unknowingly playing with spinal stenosis his entire life, a diagnosis that today immediately ends careers. A wrong hit any time in his career could have sent him to a wheelchair 30 years ago.

So happy to know that Earl has gotten the medical help and counseling help he needed and like the article title says, has gotten back up again.

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Managing Remote Teams During COVID

All in the same boat comic

It’s been over six months since the day I left the office, leaving for Spring Break family vacation and the world falling apart before we returned. While unexpectedly working (and parenting and educating) from home as a family has certainly brought new challenges, I’ve found leading projects and managing a UX team to have been the areas where I have needed to be most intentional about the ways I manage differently in “our new reality.”

This article on how to adapt to the things you didn’t expect when managing remote teams during COVID has some tips I’ve found valuable in my day to day. In particular, as a person who prefers to avoid stepping into unnecessary bear traps I have had to be very purposeful in asking (repeatedly) how people are doing. I’ve found myself being more open in my own struggles (and occasional successes) as well to make the team feel safer opening up.

Not sure how long we’ll be doing this without any choice, but feeling better now than ever that working remotely can be successful for both delivering great work and mentoring great designers.

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Ikea Hack | studio desks

ikea-studio-desks

With the entire family working/schooling from home for at least the rest of 2020, we have been looking for ways to give everybody in the house a comfortable and productive workspace. This Ikea hack of a kitchen countertop on some white Hemnes dressers looks great so we’re going to see if we can mimic it for our space.

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New Apple Pencil Features

apple-sketch-notes

Been using the Apple Pencil for almost two years now and am super excited about the new Pencil UI features coming in iOS 14. Between Scribble, paste handwriting as text, smart selection, shape recognition, and more there are big improvements coming for the Pencil both as a UI tool as well as specifically for handwriting and drawing. The Sweet Setup has a great look into the implementation of the new Apple Pencil features both in Apple Notes & GoodNotes.

Worth a look to see what’s coming this Fall.