personal

Reader, I did it again. I joined another social network. I know, I know. I should know better, right? But this time feels different. There’s something special about this one. Maybe it’s simply the contrast from Facebook and Twitter that makes it so appealing, but I can’t help but feel there is great promise in Mastodon.

About a month ago, on a whim, I started an experiment where I stopped checking my personal email on my phone, or via the web. Instead, I moved all my personal email activity over to Mutt.

Get Pelican: it’s good! There comes a time in every young man’s life when he begins to neglect his digital lawn, and the weeds grow so thick you wouldn’t think there was any home there at all.

It’s easy to forget what’s important to you. It shouldn’t be. It should be easy to say “no” to the unimportant. It’s counterintuitive that we so easily set aside our priorities in the wake of the new shiny.

One thing that parents can always bond over is irritation over children’s programming on television. For my wife and I, the primary focus of our irritation is the cartoon adaptation of Curious George in all of its incarnations, but we each hate it for different reasons.

Let’s talk about regrets, shall we? They tend to haunt us through the years. Sometimes they are the things we wish we had said (or could be unsaid), and sometimes they are bigger than that, a path you didn’t take, or one you abandoned only a few steps along the way.

Do you keep a journal? I often wonder. It’s something we’re told we should do. Any simple search on the internet, or any self-help book you care to pick up, will suggest that there are numerous mental health benefits to journaling.

Iteration is the thing. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. After all, tinkering is easy to do, especially when you are working with a platform as flexible as Jekyll.

I’ve been trying to get back into the routine of doing morning pages. That is, the process of writing three pages of material each day to clear my mind and prime my creative pump for the day.

Earlier this year, I wrote about my resolutions for 2014, and in that post I promised a monthly follow-up where I would report on my progress towards each of my defined goals.

New Year’s Eve has always been an uncomfortable holiday for me. While for many, it’s used as a time of renewal and looking forward with hope to the future, I’ve always spent the time reflecting on what did and did not get accomplished the previous year.

I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons again for the first time in over ten years. It’s been a lot of fun, and challenging as well. When I started playing again, I elected to start by being the DM for my group, which is quite a bit of work, but very rewarding.

One downside about social media is that it’s easier to get caught up in other people’s drama just from tangential contact. In most cases, it’s just the narcissism of small differences at work, and it isn’t worth your time and energy to get upset about it.

This Is Not A Review> This Is Not A Review # I have been using Google+ for a little over a week now, and over the course of that time, I have written several versions of this post you are reading right now.

General Updates For the Month of June 2011> General Updates For the Month of June 2011 # I have been traveling virtually non-stop for work the last couple of months, so I have not had much time to devote to this site.

Last night I found myself looking through old blog posts on this site in an attempt to avoid thinking about any of the other things I need to get done. As I was looking back through the posts from 2004-2005, I was struck by how much my writing style changed when I switched from blogging anonymously to using my real name.

I have not been posting here much of late, which is partly due to the amount of stuff I’m working on, and partly due to the fact that I’ve been writing and posting stuff in other places around the web, since it is easier.

I can’t decide if NaNoWriMo is harder than I thought it would be, or if I’m just a bigger wimp than I thought I was. Regardless, it is tough. So, rather than writing out a long entry about it, when I should be working on the novel, I decided it would be quicker to record a quick video.

It appears that I have written myself into a corner here. When I first started this site back in 2004, I intended it just as a writing exercise. It was supposed to be a place where I would publish daily in order to build discipline as a writer.

This weekend I went to the Body Worlds exhibit at The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.