path: root/raves.txt

Rants and Raves

# Firebox Stove Rave

The best food I've ever eaten was cooked over a campfire. 

Ever seen people pull up lawn chairs, encircle the gas grill, roast marshmallows, and sing Kumbaya? Didn’t think so.


To my great disappointment when I started cooking professionally I started as Garde manger, in charge of the pantry—salads, appetizers, pates and other cold foods. To make it worse, I stood right next to the fish station and got to watch as the my fellow chefs played with fire while I stood shucking oysters and sprinkling bacon on Ceasar salads.

Fortunately that only lasted a few months. Eventually I moved up the kitchen hierarchy until I reached head chef, and there was plenty of fire, and learning to work with fire, along the way. Still, the "fire" here was always carefully regulated gas stoves. The kitchens I worked in never used coals or wood flame.

It wasn't until I started to travel full time in an RV that I started to cook outside, first mainly on a propane stove, then over coals, and eventually learning to cook over open wood fires. 






# Radius Outfitters Tool Roll

My grandfather kept his tools in the shed behind the carport. The shed was bare metal, utterly unbearable in the midday heat of the Tucson summer. It was a mornings and evenings place, before breakfast, after dinner. My grandfather bookended his days in the shed, surrounded by the tools he used to repair everything from trucks to TVs and radios. 

My father kept his tools in the garage, on a set of shallow shelves interspersed with peg board. There were heavy wooden doors to keep out the salt air of southern California. 

Tools must be cared for if they are to serve you well. Their enemies are heat, moisture, salt, dirt, oil, sand, grime, and carelessness. Sheds and garages are ideal storage places and have served generations well, but what do you do when you don't have either? I live in a vintage RV. Many live in apartments, condos, cabins, boats, and other homes without garages, shops or even a shed. 

For years I relied on plastic bins from whatever big box store was nearby when I needed one. There's even a photo of my tools in these boxes [in WIRED](https://media.wired.com/photos/6414b2ef9a1cb24af36f8167/master/w_1600,c_limit/3_BVARGAS_Wrenches-3.jpg). These boxes did an okay job of keeping my tools mostly dry and dirt free. They also fit in the limited storage areas I have. They work in other words, but they're not ideal.

Plastic bins are terrible for organizing. I'm pretty sure I've spent at least as much time looking for my 9/16th socket as I have using it. They're also made of plastic. Fill them with heavy tools and start tossing them under your vehicle and they won't last more than a few months.

Enter the Radius Outfitters Tool Roll, which has completely changed the life of my tools. Radius Outfitters makes overlanding gear, gear that's designed to hold up to the abuse of living (and repairing) on the road. 

Now I always know exactly where my 9/16th socket is—I can skip the searching and get to work actually [turning wrenches](https://luxagraf.net/essay/turn-your-own-wrenches).

Tool Rolls are nothing new of course. Your local hardware store is full of them. I [inherited one from my grandfather](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2015/12/tools) that dated from when quality goods were still common. Unfortunately, tool rolls at the big box stores are mostly garbage these days—made of cheap nylon with poor stitching, weak threads, and thin zippers. 

This is where the Radius Tool Roll sets itself apart. It's of the old, well-built school. Made of 1680D Cordura, with heavy stitching (bartack stitching to reinforce seams), the Radius is virtually bombproof. I've been using it for months, tossing it around under the bus and my Jeep, working on gravel, sand, occasionally concrete, and, unfortunately, in the mud. The tool roll isn't very clean anymore, but otherwise it's held up perfectly to all the abuse I've dished out.

There are three levels of tool sleeves on the inside of the roll, and it can handle up to 14-inch tools. There's also a zippered sleeve that perfectly fits my shop manual. At one end of the roll is a single zippered pouch, and the other end has two identical pouches (these are where I keep my sockets wrenches). It's enough organization to keep my basic tools neat and organized, but not so many pouches that I forget where I put things. Getting this balance right is no small thing in my experience, so kudos to Radius Outfitters for finding the organizational sweet spot.

I'd also like to call out the leather handle, which is extremely comfortable, and something most other bags and rolls I've tried overlooks. This thing gets heavy when it's loaded full of wrenches, a comfortable handle is a necessity and again, Radius Outfitters gets it right.

The only weak point of Radius Outfitter's Tool Roll is that 14-inch tool limit. There's no room for my breaker bar, larger wrenches, or oddly shaped tools like strap wrenches, multimeters, and so on. 

That's where the [Gear Box 3500](https://radiusoutfitters.com/products/gear-box-3500), comes in handy, for bigger stuff. The Gear Box is similarly well-made and well-thought out, with optional hook and loop dividers, and a magnetic lock mechanism. Unfortunately I broke the lock, but the box still functions without it. The 21-inch by 14-inch interior capacity gives me room for bigger items and slides into the same spot the similarly sized cheap plastic bin used to fit. 

That's all I have tested, but Radius Outfitter's also make [smaller organizers](https://radiusoutfitters.com/products/small-utility-organizer), if you have a set of tools that doesn't require the full roll or box, and well as some [very heavy-duty looking totes](https://radiusoutfitters.com/collections/heavy-duty-canvas-gear-totes) that might be nice for my small collection of power tools. All of the company's gear boxes break down to lay flat for storing.

I spent the weekend I wrote this article sitting in a Walmart parking lot tracing electrical issues in my Dodge. A kind strange stopped to talk about the bus and ended up taking me to his friend's home garage, which was better stocked with tools than many professional mechanic's shops. While the man rummaged around in a bin of spare parts, I wandered around lathes and welding gear, thinking that the one thing I miss living on the road was the opportunity to have a shop like that, but at least with the Tool Roll I know that what tools I do have are well cared for, and with any luck, will be something my children can one day put in their own shops, whether that turns out to be a building or just a spot under the seat of their vehicle.
















The quality of tools has been declining since I was born. WIRED's own Buy It For Life guide to things that last (ostensibly) a lifetime is sadly short of tools. 

Tools are only as good as their storage.

Some of both of their tools are now in my tool roll. 

There are a few screwdrivers inside, some wrenches, files, and a plastic jar of the sort men my grandfather’s age seemed inordinately fond of keeping things in, their wives having doled out all the Skippy or Jif the container once held on sandwiches, or in cookies baked in ovens surrounded by Formica counters and build atop linoleum floors, surfaces of the golden age of petroleum, surfaces of the postwar three bedroom brick ranches of the West, well stocked with sugary sweet and creamy peanut butter jars destined ultimately not for the recycling bin but

My cousins and I might have eaten the contents of this jar at some point, though it looks perhaps too new for that. Our children maybe. My cousin’s children. Mine have never seen a three bedroom brick ranch house in the desert. Never will. Not that one anyway.

Inside the jar is an impressive collection of jeweler’s screwdrivers, tiny files, a loupe, a wire brush and a tool whose use is a mystery to me, labeled simply ATT. Not the Bell Telephone Corporation he worked fifty some odd years for, but ATT. Tools demand brevity.

The rest of the bag is filled with larger equivalents of the same tools in the jar. The red and clear lucite handled Craftsman screwdrivers I remember hanging from the magnetic strip on the front of the shelf. The larger flathead with the wooden handle was always sticking too far out of another Jif jar, precariously leaning against the back wall of the workbench.


https://radiusoutfitters.com/products/tool-roll

# Kettlebell Rave

I hate running. If I am running, it's because I'm being chased. Or I am chasing something. 

Neither of those scenarios come up much though. Every now and then I might do some trail running because I want to get to a particular location by sunrise or because I'm trying to track a bird. But running for fun? There is no fun in running. Have you ever watched someone running? Do they look like they're having fun? No, they look miserable. Because they are.

I hate running so much that back in high school, when told I had to "take" a sport, I went through the list of options and picked rowing because it seemed unlikely to involve any running. I was right. Mostly. Now rowing turned out to be it's own special kind of physical hell far worse than running, but at least it wasn't running. I don't mind enduring hell, so long as it isn't running.

Yet I've noticed that the old adage that "use your body or you'll lose it" becomes increasingly true as I age. I'd go back to rowing, but boats are expensive, and hard to transport when you [live in an RV](). I like to lift heavy things, but weights are also out for those us in RVs or apartments. What to do? I know what you're thinking, go to the gym you moron. I hate gyms. I might hate gyms more than running. It's a toss up.

For years I got by with pushups, sit ups, and pull ups whenever there was an opportune tree nearby. It worked. Mostly. A little lacking in cardio perhaps, but I'm not trying to win a marathon, I just want to stay strong and age with a modicum of grace.

Then I discovered GoRuck's sand kettlebells. Now I can lift heavy things and pack them away in tiny bundle when I'm done.

For me GoRuck sand kettle bells hit the sweet spot between price, size, and workout potential. 

I should probably here note that my idea of a workout is very simple: work as many muscles as you can with the minimum of exercises necessary. After a bit of experimenting I found what I've been looking for ever since I stopped rowing: a brutally hard workout that doesn't take hours. The kettlebell swing combined with the Turkish get up give me a very well rounded workout (and I still do pushup and pullups as well). 

I'll be honest, I've never really liked sand weights, they tend to be poorly made. GoRuck's sand kettlebells are an exception to this rule, they're well-made and incredibly durable. They're heavy duty (1000D) Cordura nylon, and use a zipper system with a velcro flap that roles down (like a dry bag) to make sure no sand leaks out. In months of testing I have yet to see any sand leak out. Oh and if you don't happen to live near any free sand you can always grab a bag of play sand from your nearest hardware store.

I started with the 35 pound sand kettlebell, which I think is a good option if you're in decent shape. While GoRuck doesn't endorse it (and it won't work for some excercises) you can under fill these if you buy a size that doesn't work for you. After a couple of months with the 35 pounder I ordered the 44 pounder as well and find that between the two I can create all sorts of complex, well-rounded workouts. That said, I mostly stick to swings and get ups. Like said, I am not a sophisticated person. Me swing heavy bag. Me happy.

Even if you have plenty of space for iron kettlebells there's a lot to like about sand. I've dropped the 35 pound from about waist height on my foot with no injuries. Don't try that with iron kettlebell. These also don't hurt when you stub your toe on them. I have three kids, there are enough Lego pieces strewn across the floor, I don't need an iron kettle bell out to get me too. 

Then there's the beginner-friendly aspect. Sand is more forgiving than iron. I can't tell you how many times I dropped this thing trying to figure out the Turkish get up. I'm pretty sure I'd have some cracked ribs if I'd been trying to learn with an iron kettle bell. 

If you're curious about kettlebells or are looking for some home workout gear that doesn't cost a fortune, and packs up small when you need it to, GoRuck's sand kettlebells are hard to beat. That said, be warned: swinging a kettlebell looks easy enough, but do it a few hundred times and you'll be breathing hard and sore as heck the next day. As GoRuck would say, embrace the suck. Just don't run, cause running sucks.


# Matador Dry Bag Rave

Autumn is my favorite time in The South. There's a day, usually in late October, when the humidity finally breaks, the air stirs, and you can feel it in your bones: summer is over. Those of you in the midwest see that as a shame because snow is coming, those of you in California are like what are seasons? 

But for those of us down here near the gulf of Mexico that cool, dryer air is a thing of beauty. The endless hum of the air conditioner cuts off and you can hear the insects again. The windows are thrown open and you can lay on the couch reading a book feeling the breeze and find yourself thinking, see, this is great.

The problem is that wonderful afternoon coolness and breeze can blow away and by midnight your open window is soaking the couch and bag full of camera gear and batteries you left sitting on it. Which is precisely what happened to me earlier this year. 

The couch will dry, so will the bag, but the camera and batteries would have been ruined (including one, ahem, that wasn't mine) except that I had decided a couple month earlier to keep my batteries and cameras in dry bags inside my bag. I spend a lot of time near water so this isn't as overkill as it sounds, and the real key to this decision was the very not-bulky dry bags from Matador. 

A traditional rubber-type dry bag is bulky and difficult to get in an out of another bag—I have these but I really only use them when I'm actually on the water paddling. The genius of Matador's new bags is in their lightweight construction, the 8-lier bag weighs a mere 2.3 ounces. They're made of waterproof 70D ripstop nylon, which isn't bulky at all either. Despite that, they achieve an IPX7 rating (meaning they're submersible at a depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes).

There are two sizes available, a 2-liter and an 8-liter. I use the 2-liter to store all my batteries, and the 8-liter to hold my Sony A7 along with a spare lens. This setup has the secondary advantage of providing me with a nice kit of batteries that I can grab on my way out the door and know that I have everything I need. It also has a flat bottom, which means you can set it down and it doesn't automatically crumple over (whether is stays upright depends on what's inside).

The bags are not seam sealed, which gave me pause at first, but Matador claims the welded construction it uses is more dependable and durable than seam sealing. I've only had them for about three months so I can't comment too much on long-term durability, but so far they're fine and I've seen no evidence of any seam peeling or de lamination.

Perhaps the best feature is the little clear vertical window running down the side of the bag, which allows you to see the contents of the bag without opening it. With only two (of different sizes), I know what's in them, but after the rain incident I ordered another one and it'll be nice to see at a glance which has batteries and which has clothes. 

I also love that the bag comes with a 1-year warranty and that the bags are eligible for repairs even after that.






# Rux 70L Storage Bin

The secret to living well in small spaces—as I have for most of the last decade—is to be very organized. The key to being organized is, as Van Neistat so eloquently puts it, [kit your shit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncZ1mO8mA44&t=67s). The key to that of course is having the right kits to put your shit in. 

A good kit does three things well. First, it has to hold all the stuff you need in that kit. Second, it has to make it easy to get whatever you need in and out of itself. Third, it has to take up no more room than is necessary. You don't want a giant plastic tube to hold the four wrenches, duct tape and bailing wire that make up the repair kit in the car. By the same token, don't try to stretch the heck out of that old canvas bag you inherited from who knows here just so the breaker bar can stay with the sockets. Get a bag that makes it easy to get the breaker bar in and out, otherwise the kit is a failure.

As you might imagine with this basic life philosophy I have accidentally become a collector of bags, boxes, and bins. I spend more time than I should in military surplus stores (parachute bags will change your life), thrift stores, hardware stores, anywhere that's likely to have a box or bag.

At this point you either nodding your head and smiling along to this story, or you stopped reading. For those of you still here, I have an awesome kit to tell you about: the Rux 70L waterproof bag/box packing system. It's a great kit for your big shit.

Rux like to say that their 70L "packs like a box, carries like a bag" and I think that's a fair slogan that gets to the heart of why I like this box/bag—it's all the good parts of a box, combined with all the good parts of bag. 

The firm top and bottom help maintain a box structure and give it the ability to stack. They also make the lid very easy to open. At the same time the sides are soft so the Rux only ends up being as tall as what's inside, which means there's no wasted space.

The Rux is waterproof, and there are a couple of ways to clip in a strap. The strap system is well designed and makes a good way to carry the Rux is it's not too heavy. When you really load it down you'll want to use the handles.

There's also all sorts of accessories you can use to organize your gear. I did not test any of these, but if you need kits to put inside your kits—always a good idea—then the Rux system has you covered.

Depending on how you use your Rux there's one more feature that may appeal: the Rux app. An app for a bag? Yeah, I know. But actually the Rux app is pretty handy for making a packing list of what's in you Rux (you can use it even you don't have a Rux). The key here is only use a packing list if you keep it up to date with the actual contents of your kit. Bad information is worse than no information at all.

If you're the sort of person that likes to keep things organized and tidy, the sort of person who knows that you need to, ahem, kit your shit, the Rux 70L bag makes a great addition to your system. 





stores like a case, and travels like a boss. Ready when you are.

Rux has a couple of good slogans for this box: garage to the beach. 

Fully collapsible design


# Cliffset

There's a dilemma every city dweller faces eventually: where's the fork? Say you finally manage to find that Falafel Stand that's an oasis in the food desert of the financial district where you had a meeting this morning. Let's say the gods smile and you score an $8 falafel platter. This is why you live in a city right? Great food, stuff to do. But. How are you going to eat that lovely falafel? There's a pita sure, but you've got to get the hummus and baba ganoush and the rest in that pita. That's when you're handed a plastic fork.

That plastic fork is an environmental disaster. Well, not as big of an environmental disaster as whatever electronic device you're reading this on, but still not great.

That's not what bothers me about plastic utensils though. It's the plastic. You know what plastic is? It's a petroleum bi-product, meaning it's made from oil. Oil, that lovely black ooze that powers the city around you as you stand there, falafel in hand, contemplating your plastic fork, is essentially all the dead stuff of millennia past put in the earth, which squeezed it like a mesozoic juicer and out oozed the oil. Plastic is then refined from that dead stuff and allowed to cool and congeal into the shape of a fork. That thing, holding that bite of falafel you were about to take, is really a cold, congealed, stick of dead stuff. Bon appétit.

Say no to cold congealed death sticks.

This is where Cliffset's portable cutlery set comes in. It's made of high grade stainless steel, but more importantly for our portable city use case, it comes with a handy carrying case and a cleaning solution. It's really silverware with a dishwasher in the pouch. This is the key, because sure, you could go get a stainless steel fork for under a buck at the thrift store, but that fork is going to end up at the bottom of your bag rubbing shoulders as it were with those old concert ticket stubs, muffin crumbs, and who know what else. That, while ecologically friendlier than plastic, is just gross.

The Cliffset pouch keeps your fork, spoon, and knife nicely ensconced in vacuum molded carrying case that's lined with ripstop nylon and sealed up with a zipper. No grimy ticket stubs or muffin crumbs will ever come in contact with your Cliffset. 

The best part though is the included cleaning tool and cleaning solution. A couple of squirts of the included cleaning solution (a mixture of food-safe alcohol, water, and lemon oil), a quick scrub with the cleaning tool, wipe it off with the included cloth and your Cliffset is ready to descend into your bag until the next time you need it.

As an added bonus the utensils are plenty sturdy. The knife will cut steak with no trouble, and the cleaning tool, which includes raised ridges that fit in between the tines of the fork, is so good at cleaning that I've started using it on my silverware at home. 

The whole Cliffset weighs just 7 ounces and is about 6.5 inches tall, 2 inches wide, and just over an inch thick. You'll hardly notice it in a bag. There are a variety of colors to chose from and the Cliffset makes a great gift.



# Mountain Tea Tumbler


I've spent most of my life in tiny kitchens, whether that was working as a chef working in small restaurants, renting tiny apartments of a chef's salary, or living in a 26-foot RV. It's been so long since I was in anything but a tiny kitchen that when I visit people with large kitchens I find myself feeling disoriented and confused—how do cook when you have to move from the stove just to get something out of the refrigerator? 

One consequence of tiny kitchen living is that you need tools that can handle multiple jobs. There's no room for single use gadgets. My chef knife is everything from a knife to a peeler to a muddler to a bottle opener. 

Similarly, as much as I love a good cup of tea, there's no way I'm going to have a separate tea brewer, thermos, and mug. I don't even have a kettle (amazingly, a saucepot seems to boil water quite well), let alone a brewer. 

This is where the Tea Spot's Mountain Tea tumbler comes in to save me, it's a brewer, thermos, and mug all in one. Even if your kitchen is so large it has a island, the Mountain Tea tumbler is a great way to brew.

The Mountain Tea tumbler is an insulated 16-ounce thermos with a brewer basket that fits down into the top of it. Put your loose leaf tea in the basket, secure the lid, drop it in the thermos, and pour water over the top. Put the lid on, let it steep for your preferred amount of time, pull the basket out, and you're good to go.  

If you're drinking bagged tea you can skip the brewing basket and just drop your tea bag in (no tea snobbery here, I drink both). According to Tea Spot you can also throw in "fruits or herbs for a spa water experience." I have not tried this.

You can drink directly out of the Mountain Tumbler and there's a handle you can use to clip it to your bag. I've throw this thing around and had it tip over countless times in the car and it has never leaked. It fits standard cup holders in your car and elsewhere. I can see where it would, but my cup holders are perpetually full of rocks, tiny children's figurines, and other bric-a-brac so I can't take advantage of this feature.

Tea Spot claims the double walled design will keep your tea hot for six hours. That feels about right, though to be totally honest I don't think I've ever had a 16 ounce cup of tea last me more than an hour. 

The only thing you can't do with the Mountain Tea tumbler is put in the microwave, but with six hours of hot tea you probably wouldn't need to anyway. If you want a slightly larger brewer, there's also the Everest Tea Tumbler, which doesn't have the sipping lid, but is larger at 22 ounces.




# vivaldi mail
I am an inveterate sender of postcards. Postcards are perhaps one of the most obvious examples of Marshal McLulan's famous dictum, "the medium is the message.' The message a postcard sends, by its very medium is simple and immediately understood by everyone I think. Regardless of what you may write on them, postcards tell someone, *hey, I was out and about in the world and I was thinking of you*. 

For all instantaneousness of today's communication options, there's nothing that quite conveys that underlying, *I was thinking of you* the way a postcard does. Another aspect I find McLulanesque is the gap in time between the sending of the card and the receiving of the card. The card is independent of both sender and receiver, third parties carry it to its fate.

I also love email, which I've always thought of as the digital equivalent of a postcard. 

It's true there's no physical limitations on an email like there are on a postcard (though email is similarly "open" in the sense that anyone can read them in transit), but there is the shift in time, similarly unknowable, and I would argue that good emails follow the same format as a postcard: simple, focused messages. 

Not everyone loves email, of course, but I am convinced that much of the dislike we have for email comes from the software we use to interact with it. That is, email clients. 

The technology behind email is one of the longest lasting, most-used set of protocols on the internet. Like the postcard it has stood the test of time.

What we need are better email clients 

The Vivaldi web browser recently released an update with a built-in email client that's well worth checking out if your relationship with email is... not good. Yes, that's right, an email client built in to the web browser. The inevitable question in this day and age of ubiquitous web-based email (by which, let's face it, I mean Gmail) is—why? Why put an email client in the web browser when "everyone" uses web-based email? The answer is that not every does use web based email. In fact I have never used web based email, except for my work at WIRED, which requires me to use Gmail. I have always relied on email clients to fetch and then display my email.

Let's talk about email clients. Here's my history for reference: Mutt, Eudora, Mailsmith, Opera, Thunderbird, Mutt/Vivaldi Mail. 

It's true, these days, Vivaldi email not withstanding, I mainly open and process my email with a console-based mail client first released in 1999. That might sound anachronistic, but I believe mutt is the main reason I *like* email. The reason mutt is great is because the only thing it does is display plain text. It's the back of the postcard, the meat of the message, and nothing else. 

That plain text limitation keeps your email experience simple and concise. Those ridiculous signature and disclaimers people put at the bottom of their emails? I don't see those. Images? I open those separately when I want to. Mutt keeps things simple and when you keep email simple it doesn't take much time or effort to deal with it. It also renders instantly, there's no waiting for Gmail to load the message.

Unfortunately, there are people who believe that email should include formatting, special fonts, inline images, and all kinds of junk. For those emails, and as an extra backup, I've been using Vivaldi's Mail client since it was released as a beta last year. 

Vivaldi's mail client is aimed at much wider audience than mutt and includes all the features you'd expect in a modern mail client, including the ability to render HTML email and even create it. But just, don't. Step away from the font selection dialog and remember: it's a postcard, keep it simple. Vivaldi offers a setting to render everything as text and compose everything as text. Use them.

The other thing I highly suggest you do with Vivaldi's Mail client—and every other client you use—is turn off all the notification and badges. The mailman doesn't come up to your window and flick postcards in your face, don't let your mail client do that to you. 

In Vivaldi both are on by default unfortunately. I can't fault Vivaldi for that, the world being what it is, just know that there is a setting to control notifications and badges and you should turn both off. Check your email when you feel like it, not when gamification tools agitate your serotonin level past the point of resistance.

In addition to fetching and displaying your email, Vivaldi Mail will store your messages locally so that you can search email when you're offline. You can also compose and queue messages while you're offline and then send them later, when you connect again. 

As you would expect from the makers of Vivaldi, which offers more customizability than any other browser on the web, there are quite a few features that let you customize your Mail experience. One that's a little bit buried in Vivaldi Mail's settings is the ability to filter messages that match rules you define. For example I have a personal address and work address, so I created a filter to label all my work emails "work" and then I can view mail by label, so all work related email stays separate from personal even though both are actually stored in the same inbox. 

Labels sync to the server, though right now they have a prefix which means other mail clients probably won't recognize them. Vivaldi on the other hand will recognize labels you've already created in other clients like Thunderbird and Apple Mail, so if your migrating you won't lose your existing organization system.

There are also plenty of features you'll recognize from popular webmail clients, searches can be saved as filters, calendar invites seamlessly integrate with Vivaldi's new built-in Calendar (there's also an RSS Reader), and there are plenty of keyboard shortcuts to help navigate through your email without resorting to the mouse, if that's your thing.

That, in the end, is what I like so much about Vivaldi Mail: you can make it work the way you want. Too many email clients have a workflow in the mind and if it's not your workflow, too bad. There's no way to use them the way you want (Gmail, Thunderbird, I am looking at you here). 

Vivaldi Mail has some sensible defaults, but, like the Vivaldi web browser, Vivaldi Mail is customizable. You can make it work for you, rather than trying to figure out what it wants you to do. This is the first step in improving your email experience, getting a client that works with you.  




Email is everything social media is not—decentralized, open, tk, and tk.