What was supposed to be a wallet rotation turned into a photo inventory.
Apologies for the short post, but I was wrestling with some technical bits (you may have seen some brokenness, and that’s related.) Good night!
The Change That’s Needed
It’s kind of a tough one, but the things I eat could really use a change. I know this every time I slip on some not-so-old clothes and they’re super snug, or, worse, don’t fit any more.
It’s not even the expense and trouble of finding good alternatives that also happen to taste good, but that, often, it requires a serious time commitment to get things solidly rolling. I’ve seen others work on this by pre-packaging some of their meals in advance, and that seems like an efficient option, but, I must confess, I’m without a plan. Any help in this area is much appreciated.
Feel free to share if you have something you’ve been putting off as well.
What do you know that you need to change, but are afraid or unwilling to make the first step?
Today’s prompt is from the Written with Desk community on G+:
Teen Age Idol
I idolized Rick Astley. Well, not really, but I did actually enjoy his tunes, especially when they would pop up on MTV.
If I had to have an idol, which I can’t say I really did, it would probably have been the King of Pop himself, Micheal Jackson.
The 80s and 90s were some of the years it was good to be a fan of MJ, from Beat It, to Thriller, to the Moonwalker anthology, life was good if you loved pop.
Who did you idolize as a teenager? Did you go crazy for the Beatles? Ga-ga over Duran Duran? In love with Justin Bieber? Did you think Elvis was the livin’ end?
Music Mondays #1
My choice for this week, and my first of 2016, is Police Bust, by Joseph Trapanese, off the Straight Outta Compton movie soundtrack.
I admit it, I’m a bit late to the Straight Outta Compton soundtrack, but I’m glad, for once, that a Spotify alert caught my attention.
This is not my first experience of the work of Joseph Trapanese, as put quite a few spins on his Tron Uprising soundtrack, even weeks after Disney canceled the excellent show (boo, Disney!) This soundtrack continues his signature style of adventurous, driving music. I totally imagine running and chasing going on, listening to this.
The funny thing is that I haven’t seen the movie yet. I will, and now I know it will definitely sound good.
Note: This is a late post. I’ll have another choice tomorrow.
Worst/Best Case
It's a Saturday, so there's no work for me today. This Saturday does, however, require some travel away from my warm bed, in order to celebrate my brother's birthday.
Worst case for the day would be a combination of factors, such as a car breakdown on the way home plus inability to pay for a tow. Basically, it's tough for today to go too badly. A car breakdown would mostly be a big inconvenience and mostly due to the cold after dark (desert areas get really cold winter nights!)
Best case would be that the food at the restaurant chosen is really good and that the nieces and nephew are relatively calm (love them, but they can get really excited sometimes.)
Here's to a good day!
Of all the awful possibilities, what’s the worst possible thing that could happen to you today? Now, what about the best?
Zoom Zoom!
Funds permitting, the one luxury item I'd love to purchase is a car. It's not just any car, however. It's an electric car, but, even that's not so extraordinary. I'd prefer to buy a Tesla Model S.
It's a car that starts at $75,000. That's nearly 5 times the cost of my current car, which I've had for about 13 years.
It's still pretty much a dream car at this point, mostly due to performance and fueling costs, and also because the car itself is fairly high-tech in its amenities. The main stumbling blocks right now are not only the high purchase cost, but some of the lifestyle changes needed, such as an outlet needing to be installed at home, which I don't have the authority to undertake. That's the major one, as I'm lucky enough to live in the western state of California, so charging away from home, to the places I would drive to, isn't a problem.
Home-charging would cover the range of local destinations.
Having a car that not many have yet would be kind of neat, but mostly I really want to reduce use of gasoline (and have that extra money that such a reduction entails).
I also have read that it's got quite a bit of get-up-and-go too, which is a nice bonus as well.
Tell us about the one luxury item you wish you could afford, in as much detail as you can. Paint a picture for us.
Jump Right In
That first day on the support queue. Hundreds of messages were in it. It seemed like it scrolled forever.
I felt like a tiny fish in a tank of sharks. Luckily, I was not completely without aid, as the support veterans were not far away, virtually and physically, and I slowly gleaned wisdom from them, even as I took notes and learned not only how our hosting system works, but filled in gaps in my knowledge of how the web works.
I could bounce a question (or 2, or 10…) off a grizzled tech, or a lead, and usually, they let me know what’s up, or, better, how I could proceed towards a solution or unlock tge needed knowledge. I definitely worked with some wizards (and still do!)
Nearly 9 years later, I don’t see that queue so often these days, but I do still learn things, even as I work to improve the support the company provides. I was warned, even though the job felt like a dream job, the pitfall of cynicism was tricky to avoid.
I think I’ve avoided becoming jaded pretty well. I think that has been made easier by seeing pretty regular successes, even with the missteps that can happen to any growing company.
This is the longest I’ve been with any company. I’m glad it’s worked out and look forward to each day because of getting through those initial months when it was “sink or swim.”
What about you, kind reader? See other responses here:
Photo credit: Matthew Wiebe – unsplash
The Failed App
For whatever reason, it never gained enough traction to justify the expense of its continued existence. Thus, its backend was shut down, and its development ceased. The life of many apps do go down that path sometimes.
The app’s original version was fairly basic, but perhaps a little too ambitious to take on an encumber the in its chosen niche. Some of the community has remained loyal to the vision, if not to the developer themself.
I still see myself as a bit of a lurker when it comes to most of the online communities I choose to follow, and, despite things not working out, for that app, I still follow its developer, and that’s paid off a bit. The developer kept working on new ideas, and has even had an award-winning app following the failed one.
Persistence, when seen in action like this, is very inspiring. It must have been more difficult towards the end of the failed project for the developer to focus on working on the app, knowing that downloads had plateaued(it was free to use, but also had paid extras. The sad, but understandable decision was made, based on performance of the app’s sales, and its popularity waning, to put it out of its misery.
This seemed to be a case where the unpopular choice didn’t work out, but I’d hardly say it was wrong. I had made the choice to watch the developer, in order to catch when their newest project was nearing completion as well, since they’re very good at transparently communicating about their own development process. I’m really looking forward to a new set of characters and community growing up around “whatever’s next”. The latest project seem promising, and it’ also due to it going after an area of usefulness that many similar apps have fallen short of capturing.
We’ll see. 🙂
One Word: Habits
That’s my word for 2016. I just realized it within the past couple weeks. The only way some long term goals, like fitness and learning a new language (Japanese, in my case) are going to stick, is if they become integrated in my everyday routine.
I’m lucky to have pretty good resources to motivate myself, make myself accountable(but, I’ll enlist friends and family as we’ll), and to track progress, so I’m optimistic, and realistic. Continue reading
Happy Endings
Sometime during the past year, I tried to quit caffeine. I did pretty well for a few months, and, as a result, felt pretty good, and even slept better.
I slowly, however let it back in. That’s a bummer, for sure.
Falling of that wagon has been a bit rough, but I’m working on it again. Luckily, I’ve got plenty of decaf tea, although I’d really like there to be more decaf coffee at work – I dig the flavor of coffee. Luckily, I don’t have an allergy to citrus, so quite a few alternative beverages are still open to me, when plain water won’t do.
This will be the year of better health, for good.