Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋

Happy Wednesday. Ahead of the 4th of July holiday in the U.S., my kids have no summer camp this week. We are headed to the Pokémon Fossil exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. I've been listening to Pokémon conversations since my kids were little, and it goes in one ear and out the other. But my kids are excited.

1) Reflection:

When I was younger, I had to travel a lot for work. I was implementing enterprise software at banks and credit unions. I'd go on-site to the client's location and spend several days there showing employees (mostly loan officers) how the product worked.

As much as I write now, I barely wrote anything then. This was 20 years ago, and "blogging" was barely on my radar. In a lot of ways, I mourn the loss of the stories and experiences I never documented. I was thinking about that recently, especially since I did a lot of traveling in June. I wrote a bit about it here.

2) Product

On my recent trip to San Francisco, I realized that the shoes I brought would be no match for the steeply inclined streets. There was a Sketchers store near the hotel, so I went in search of the sturdiest shoes I could find.

Nearly all shoes on display were "Hands Free Slip-Ins." Let me tell you — this is the joy I didn't know I needed in my life. Looks exactly like a normal athletic shoe, but just... slips on. Without me needing to bend over and tug them onto my foot. Why didn't these exist when I was carrying a diaper bag in one arm and a kid in the other?!

3) Product

While on the topic of shoes, the other shoes I love are Vessis. They're completely waterproof (necessary for this wet summer we've been having in Chicagoland). Not great for any kind of serious walking, but fine for quick errands or outings. I've even demoted an older paid to "lawn shoes" — which means my feet are dry even when I'm mowing slightly wet grass.

Want more ideas?

→ How I fill out Google Docs in Claude (with the Zapier MCP)
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→ Not sure how much you should be paying for tools? I built a tool assessment calculator to help you determine if the cost is worth the time you save.

That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna

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