A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
I have a project that must be completed in three days. I cannot afford to be sick right now.
Maalox comes in a bottle shaped like a flask for a reason.
Staying a few steps ahead of the guys with the white coats.
Oh, TN, what happened to you?
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A Nashville man says he and his 10-year-old daughter were victims of road rage…Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper…"He pointed at the back of my car," Duren said, "the bumper, flipped me off, one finger salute." [Source, WRKN.com, Road rage, accident centers on Obama bumper sticker]
My dreams were so vivid and wacky last night that I suspect I’d fail a drug test this morning.
I’m having one of those days where it would be best to simply hide in the covers until LOST comes on.
Amy, seven years old: "Thanks for dinner Daddy. Without you, we’d starve to death!"
Me: "Well, you’re welcome."
Evan, four years old: "You can say, ‘my pleasure.’"
Three nights ago, my left calf seized around 2am. It felt like my leg was tearing in half. The muscle is still sore today. Two nights ago, my right calf seized around the same time but I awoke quickly enough and managed to massage and relax the muscle sooner to avoid lingering pain. My wife thinks I’m pregnant.
My morning duty today is to cook bacon and clean mouse guts off a large stick that up until this week I would have called sterile. See, the pet shop didn’t have any small rats. Only very large "small" rats so we decided to buy two large mice instead. Either the snake didn’t see or smell the second rotting mouse or he just wasn’t that hungry. And we forgot to check on it. So a couple of days later, the lump of gooey fur became my problem. I have to go flip the bacon now and find a toothbrush I want to forever sacrifice. Enjoy brunch!
Well, file that one under, "oh sh*t! that’s what the big spring does!"
For one who generally publishes multiple times a day, going nearly two weeks without a post is odd. Do bloggers fade away into social media and microblogging sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Posterous? It would be easy to draw that conclusion as many "bloggers" do give up and move to these other mediums. Content creation is challenging, particularly if you stop practicing. Like anything, the more you practice, the easier writing becomes. I am out of practice. Just writing these first few sentences, I’ve had to make some cereal, discuss Pink Panther’s muscles, let the dogs in after having a discussion with a child about why they didn’t need to go out in the first place, and read several Chris Brogan posts in looking for the practice link above. Environment certainly plays into the ability to produce quality content which returns me to the question above. I usually work remotely from my basement office which allows me to take blogging breaks; I don’t smoke and blogging is healthier. I make a policy to avoid blogging from a client site and that’s the crux of my blogging absence. For the first time, in nearly a decade, I’m on a contract which requires my presence at a client’s office.
Where does this put me? I have been enjoying Qik, and Audioboo because I can safely use these services on the drive to the client’s office. I’m a long time user of Twitter and continue to Tweet several times a day. Despite my early disdain for Facebook, I put a lot of brief content on Facebook and use it a bit like an aggregator (see also). Soon, Reality Me is going to be redesigned to aggregate more of these third party services.
Wait! I thought you hated 3rd party services! I have preached over the years that you should own your content. Despite that, I started my blogging on Blogger.com. As a result, I almost lost an enormous amount of writing a research when Blogger decided to simply disable my account. In those early days, I also used Haloscan for comments. Haloscan recently shutdown due to hardware failures that made continuing the service prohibitive. I don’t hate these third party services. Using them comes with risks such as loss of ownership of content, or loss of content altogether. Maybe the third party decides to use your works with their own creative changes; the terms of service may permit that…you read the TOS right? The caveat is that the barrier for entry to using these services is so low that content creation is fun and almost like a game. The positive side of using these services is that they act like free or inexpensive CDNs and bear the brunt of the load when you find yourself on the front page of Digg. Be sure to backup the content you want to own.
Why aren’t you blogging when you get home? My evenings have been consumed with family duties, paper work and client support. This is the time of year that I spend evenings rechartering the scout troop, filing taxes, filling out various long forms to support my work, etc. I have so much due at the same time around this time of year that my head is so cluttered that even with Jott (affiliate link) chiming off reminders, I feel like I’m letting some things slip through the cracks. Fortunately, I believe this weekend my plate clears and then I can begin to fill it again.
The kids were away so the wife and I played.
When my beloved Motorola v3xx bit the dust, I bought an iPhone with the promise to myself that I would use it as a business tool to facilitate building iPhone apps for my clients. I have not talked about my iPhone experience much but that’s coming. In the meantime, know this: 1) Steve Jobs is a user interface genius! and 2) I love my iPhone!
Over the past few years, I endeaved to eliminate paper from my life using cloud tools such as Google Docs. The iPhone seems to be the missing link and has helped me take the last steps toward cutting the umbilical cord to paper. Meeting notes go straight to my iPhone. Todo lists, via Jott, straight into the iPhone. The iPhone has helped make my already digital world even more digital.
Now I need a secure password/data keeper for the iPhone. I’m considering SplashID, 1Password, and iAccounts. What are your recommendations?
Related: Best password manager programs for your MacBook and iPhone 3G
Review: Secret keeper apps for the iPhone
In 1988, I was introduced to this thing called the Internet. At the time, I was told there were 25,000 nodes on the Internet. I have since tried to confirm that number and come up with a number more like 66,000. The Internet at the time was somewhat elitist. Today, the BBC published an article suggesting that 4 out of 5 people believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right. Even the UN agrees. This line of thinking places Internet access on par with roads, waste, and water.
It’s fascinating to have witnessed the growth of such a world changing technology. I’m embarrassed to admit that around 1992 when commercialization of the Internet was being discussed that I was among those saying commercialization would destroy the Internet. When the Internet moved from strictly the domains of the universities and military in 1994, I was proven wrong.
