This week I got the beta for Ulysses, I think it’s Ulysses Version 21. Playing with this app again as my main text editor, it’s like finding an old love. I have always been a fan of the way this app looks and feels. Love the way it handles links, it’s a pretty slick, minimalistic and powerful.

I have been using Drafts, since forever for everything text related and most recently for all my writing. Occasionally I’d use iA Writer, especially since the last mayor update, but Drafts has been the go-to for everything. I was a heavy Ulysses user when I had my blog hosted with Wordpress, since I could compose and post straight from the app to it. Sadly, Ulysses does not support, or doesn’t have the Micropub feature (yet), making it impossible to compose and post from the app to Micro.blog, where my blog is currently hosted. Which is why I had stopped using Ulysses and moved to Drafts and/or iA.

Every chance I get, I would harass the Ulysses people on Twitter asking for this feature and always get the same response

I’ve +1’d the feature request for Micropub in your name, so please consider your vote counted. I can’t make any promises, but your feedback is highly appreciated. Thank you for helping us to continuously improve our app!

That was today actually and probably the 5th time I’ve gotten this same response

One day, they did have a different response, though. They said they were kind of working on it, I remember taking a screenshot of the tweet and probably posted it here on Micro.blog, but I am not going to look for it 😜

I really hope they add this feature, I really like this app and would love to continue using it. For the time being, I am composing in Ulysses, exporting as Markdown and then copy and paste to the Micro.blog app or Gluon. It’s kind of a hassle but I also want to test this version of the app and help in any way I can. I wonder how is going to go the moment I need or want to add images to my post. Normally, I would use iA Writer exclusively when adding images, it makes it so easy to do so and then posting directly from the app to Micro.blog.

Again, like finding an old love or maybe I am just in the honeymoon period.

Will see.

I was browsing the Netflix’s and stumble upon this documentary, The Social Dilemma, I am sure some might have heard of it. Anyway, it kind of freaked me out a bit. I mean, most of this stuff I was already awarded of but when it is presented to you in this way, it sinks even more. After watching, I started thinking about my social presence, but much more about my usage rather. The first social network/app where i find myself wasting toile the most, it’s instagram. I hate this is the case, part of me feels very guilty of still having this account opened. I have expressed my feelings on this many times over. Well, on Monday I deleted the app from my phone and I only check instagram when i am at my work computer, using the browser. Which by the way, it is a much better experience than the app. That being said, i yet don’t feel like i spend a lot of time browsing it. When I am at home using my phone, i no longer feel the urge to download the app and start browsing. Maybe this will give me the final push to delete the whole thing. In fact, I rarely post any photos there, it’s just browsing.

Will see what happens. Meanwhile, I have noticed that both my Twitter and YouTube, think that I am Canadian. Something to do whit my company’s internet I presume. Every time I go to YouTube or amazon.com, I am Canadian.

Not going to lie, this will most likely, well, this is another Task Managers type post. This is a constant struggle for many of us, some have settled and found their best app/workflow and that is cool. Me, well, some may say I’ve got a problem 😅

Last night I was thinking about this long and hard. After some thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that, as far as my personal life, I don’t have that many buckets. Where I do have many buckets is at work and I feel like I don’t need to carry that with me all the times on my personal phone.

For my personal bucket, I am just going to stick to Reminders, I don’t have a lot of organization in there, just lists and there aren’t that many. It is simple, works great with Siri and notifications stay persistent on the locks screen, thus I rarely miss anything.

For my work buckets, I am just going to really on good-old Todoist. Sadly, I am all Windows at work making Todoist the best option for me. I really do like Things 3 but I need a full-on tasks manger only for work and, like I have said before, I work on Windows therefore, Things 3 is not an option.

Let us try and see how this works out.

Over the weekend my wife and I sat down to started watching Disney’s live-action Mulan movie on Disney+. We are both big fans of the animated movie from 1998 and when this movie was announced we were both very excited about it. I can not speak entirely for my wife on this one but as soon as I saw the trailers I got the sense that this was going to be a very different movie from the original. It had a different vibe, it made me think of movies like Hero, or House of Flying Daggers and I was a hundred percent on board with that.

It took us two days to watch it 😅, not because it’s a very long movie but just bad timing. We started late Sunday and we couldn’t finish it, at least not until last night when we watched the other half. My impressions of this movie are simple – I enjoyed it a lot. I loved it as it’s own thing. Perhaps because I was already prepared for it not to be the Mulan we all. Know and love. It’s a good Mulan (1998) inspired action movie if you will. There are a lot of nice nods and callbacks to the animated version but it is not that Mulan.

I never got bored while watching this flick. Some scenes and or situations that were maybe a little more dramatic on the animated version weren’t as dramatic on the live-action. But that didn’t take away anything from the movie to me. The fighting and battle sequences were amazing, something you would expect from movies like, as I mentioned above, Hero or HoD.

I am sure there are flaws and purists will criticize it because it is not exactly like the animated movie but an interpretation of. Like maybe the lack of some of the humor that the animated version has, although there are very hilarious moments in this movie. Also, the dragon in the room, not being apart of the live-action version. An introduction of a character not present on the animated version.

Personally, I am an easy sell, if it entertains me and keeps me away from my phone for most of it, it’s a good movie. I do like different interpretations and takes from other characters in movies and books, I am not a purist. I would watch it again, in fact, I plan to. Again, it is its own version of this tale and I am more than fine with that. I think the most important thing is that (to me) it still keeps what is the core element of this story. This girl that has this big sense of duty, and love for her family, discovering her power through her journey and becoming a great warrior.

I have misplaced my wallet and other items many times before. With some patience and mad searching skills 😝, they usually turn out. Whenever I misplace my wallet it usually turns out to be in a pocket in my backpack that I have forgot about, my car or in the washer 😅

This time around I knew in my heart “, after searching on all these places, the thing it’s gone. Last time I had used my wallet was on Friday, I remember I bought the Super Mario’s 3D All-Stars game. I might have gone to our local market for bred after. Yesterday I didn’t leave the house for anything so it wasn’t until this morning that I realized it was gone.

I did panic a wee bit, searched the entire house, called the two palaces I had been, almost sure it wouldn’t be at those places. After half of day of searching I had to call my bank and cancel my debit card make an appointment to get another driver’s license and cancel my PayPal debit card. However, what made me rally panic was company’s travel credit card, lots of monies that it ain’t really mine. Which it was the first thing I got taken care of.

This is the first time I have ever lost my wallet in such a way.

What I am really sad about is the wallet itself. It was a nice thin leather wallet from Pad & Quill and they don’t have it anymore 😢

On a much better note, we have purchased Mario Kart for the Nintendo Switch 😁👍🏼

For the past week or so I have been trying to “show” Marley how to game. I mean, she does some gaming but usually on the iPad – ‎Sneaky Sasquatch mostly. Recently though, she has shown interest in playing the way I play, on a console or the Nintendo Switch. To me, the Nintendo Switch has the most kids-friendly type games, or at least the ones I own. I don’t think I own many kids friendly vidjia games on either the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Making this the obvious choice, the Switch. And here’s is the thing, I am having a hard time thinking about what would be the perfect game for a 4-year-old. I want her to learn and have fun and not be frustrated.

I was trying to think about the type of games I was into or got my first experiences with and at what age I was. Thing is, I cannot remember at what age, at all. I remember my cousins having an Atari but I never played Atari. The first Nintendo game I remember playing was Super Mario Bros and that game was released in 1987 on the US, I was 4-year-old. Although I must have probably played it a year or two later. I am not sure, to be honest. I know the first console my parents bought me was a SEGA Master System, also released around 1987 and the first game I remember playing was Alex Kidd in Miracle World, also released on 1987. Maybe I was 4yo when I started gaming. And I remember Alex Kidd been a little frustrating.

Anyways, I cannot find Mario Odyssey for the switch anywhere, so Yoshi’s Crafted World™ was probably the next obvious choice. So far she likes it, she likes the fact there’s a pink and a purple Yoshi, and so am I. She is not about collecting things and finding secrets but more about just playing around. She does get frustrated at times when she can quite figure out what to do, “I am not good at this game papa”. I jump in and help out of course but then I get into this debate of how much is too much that then she won’t get any good at it. Makes sense? I guess this will be a trial and error thing. I kind of want to get Mario Kart and see how she does maybe. I was also thinking maybe Animal Crossing might present a good experience but we will see. One time I downloaded Viva Piñata to the Xbox. Think of it as Animal Crossing but Piñatas, and she wasn’t really into it. But I will try AC, I mean that’s a game that I had purchased mostly out of hype and I couldn’t get into it.

Maybe Marley will.

Yesterday I had a good workout. I am pretty happy about it and I feel very motivated. As long as everything else in my world works out, I should be able to keep it up but then, we have Murphy’s. Needless to say, I am very sore today, it feels good in a way. My purpose yesterday was to do a somewhat full-body workout to, in a way, condition my body and prepare it for what’s coming.

If you follow along, you should know I am all about kettlebell and body-weight kind of workouts. I am also a huge fan of EMOM type workouts and that’s what I did yesterday.

EMOM

• 5 burpees
• 5 kettlebell snatches (per side)
• 6 Kettlebell Clean & Press (per side)
• 20 Swings
• 7 Rollouts

Again, the idea is to complete each movement within a minute and rest the remainder of it, then moving to the next movement. I completed a total of 5 rounds, resting 60 seconds between them. I took the inspiration for this workout from Juan Leija on the Instagrams, in fact, 90% of my kettlebell workouts are inspired by him.

Let’s see what can we accomplish today. Luna seems to be a little on the weather as well thus I might have to take her into the doctor.

IN OTHER NEWS:

There’s seems to be some kind of event today and people are wild about it 😜

A lot of us in one way or another, have a journal, whether is on a blog form, a journal app, or a physical form of sorts. I see lots of people posting their journaling notebooks or what have you, other folks use dedicated apps and automated ways to journal. All of these options interest me and I love to experiment with them all. However, I have always seen my blog as my digital journal. I write things I don’t mind other people reading. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have dark thoughts in my head, those, I post too – most of the time. No matter how personal, they usually end up on my blog.

I basically blog my mind, openly and no f*cks given – sometimes 😜. I am yet to find a topic or subject which I wouldn’t dare to post to my blog. I guess if I have a very dark thing in my mind, something that may or may not get me in some sort of trouble, I don’t even bother writing it. Most of those I talk to someone about and that’s usually my wife. Don’t have that many people around I can talk to these days.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine today. She asked me how thing were going of course, we haven’t seen or talk to each other in a while. We always talk about fitness, well-being and such. She’s a gym rat, dedicated and she currently training for her second competition. So anytime she asks me how things are going, she’s most likely more concerned about my healthy habits.

I am always opened with with her and I told her I’ve been slacking. Like I have been working out here and there but there are never good workouts. What’s a good workout? Well, in my book, a good workout is when (in my case) I am holding the kettlebell with intent. When I am putting effort and watching my posture. When I have a plan and I execute with everything that I’ve got. When I go out and get it!

Lately, if I workout I just swing it. I just do things because I want to just close my rings. Never have a plan, I do things on auto mode. When I go for a run, normally it’ll be at least 3.5 miles. The past few times I’ve run, I am done as soon as I hit the 2 miles mark. After that I don’t care anymore.

I am not sure what happened to my motivation or desire to take care of myself. All I want to do is play video games and drink beer.

Today was a “working from home” day. Marley, caught a a fever last night. She wasn’t feeling well. Not to risk her cousin’s well being at grandma’s, I stayed home with her.

Not her normal self, which hurts more to me than to herself. Not eating or playing just laying on the couch shivering and watching movies. Eventually called the doctors office, mostly to my wife’s request. At first I was advised to wait it out for a bit since all symptoms had just started last night.

Midday comes around and Marley, on her own accord, tells me, “papá, I want to go to the doctor”.

That took me by surprise.

I called again, and they scheduled us for a visit. She was so cooperative and so well behaved. Usually that is not the case.

After examining her, the doctor decides to perform a strep throat test. Doctor comes back , “Glad she asked to be seen, test is positive”.

There is something about Marley that we cannot quite explain. Well, maybe we can but not in a conventional way. She has this six sense, she sense things, she sees things in ways that for some people may be somewhat creepy. For us, this is a normal thing. Which is why, a lot of the times, when Marley talks — we listen.

I have finished Ghost of Tsushima. Not only have I finished it, I platinum it, meaning I have completed everything in the game and there is nothing left to I do. Well, maybe to find a couple of clan banners and “Mongolian records” but that’s not fun 😅

I loved this game so much that just like any other game that I had gotten so into it as with this one, I want to replay them. Replay them over and over until I am sick of it. Like Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey, I have probably replayed those games at least 3 times. The only difference is that they either had New Game + and was able to replay with all my goodies or at least I could use armor or weapons I had purchased as extras. Also the DLC’s. Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t have NG+, at least not for now. I know many games out there don’t have it right at launch, they get updated later with.

So, I had two options, just keep playing, roaming around looking for trouble or restart the game and lose everything I have.

Last night it occurred to me. Why don’t I create a second PSN profile? And that’s what I did. I have created a new PSN account/user just to play Ghost of Tsushima as a new game without loosing what i have done on my main account!

I am pretty sure people do this all the time but for whatever reason it had never occurred to me to do so before.

For Tsushima!!!

To the right, my first “good” camera, the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark I. On the left (by the keyboard), my current one the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III. A long time ago I tried to trade-in the Mark I but they returned it, saying something wasn’t working properly. To this day, I have no idea what’s wrong with it to be honest 😅 As far as I am concerned, it works well.

For a while my wife has been expecting some interest in getting into fan-photography, as I call it. Well, this week she purchased a memory card and today I charged the battery and set her up with the 25mm (50mm in full frame terms). I think the 25mm might serve her in many situations I believe. She probably would’ve been better off with the 17mm (35mm in full frame) but we will see. I don’t have the kit’s lens, usually a zoom-in lens so she’ll start with primes. She is excited and so am I.

I have been indulging way too much these past fours weeks or so. I was doing pretty well as far as staying active, working out, running, eating well and such. Lately though, it’s been pretty bad. It all kind of started with those two to three weeks of field work. By the time I got home I would be exhausted and with no motivation to do any type of physical activities whatsoever and then justifying having a beer or two because “all that hard work”. With that, I was also putting a lot of strain on my legs and back and not taking care of it when I got home. No stretching or conditioning type workouts. Now that I am done with the field stuff and technically back to my old routine, I should be able to pick back up. Nope. All I have been doing it’s being lazy, not paying much attention to what I eat, not drinking as much water as I used to and perhaps indulging too much in other stuff — like beer. I have been drinking way too much beer lately, I need to cut down.

I can really feel it on my body, my core doesn’t feel as strong and with that my posture, I am starting to have back problems again, and I am truly starting to feel a little unhealthy. Right now, I don’t dare to go to the scale. Although I really don’t think I have gained much weight, maybe a pound or two but it will be more if I continue down this path.

I need to “write” this out and putting it on my blog so it’s real. To hold myself accountable sort to speak. With that said, most likely starting Tuesday 😅, I will be making some drastic changes and pick a goal.

Let’s bring sexy¹ Gabz back!! 😜😅

I have been so focused on my field work these past week and a half, that i had stopped listening to my body. Thus, I am sort of having lower back problems again. The only difference this time around is that I know how to go about it and maybe get back to where I was without the need of physical therapy. Also I have fall off my exercise regiment. If I have worked out at all in these past two weeks it has been on the weekends, well only Saturday’s rather. With all the field work done, I can get back to my “normal” routine and pay more attention to my body.

Ghost of Tsushima

I can’t believe it took me this long to get this game, and yet, here we are. I remember when I first saw images and game footage of this game and thinking “this game is beautiful and its going to be huge”. The game comes out and it’s an instant people’s favorite but I was still hesitant.

I am a sucker for samurai lore, I think. We all are to an extent. Anything feudal Japan, Samurais , Ninjas ,all of it. As I have expressed many times before, I am a huge of the Assassins Creed series, especially the last two games and Ive always though. Why they don’t make and AC game based on feudal japan? Yes there are other games out there with the same Samurai thematic like NIOH, which in all honesty, it was the game that made me buy a PlayStation 4, along with the announcement of the Final Fantasy VII Remake of course. Another game with the same thematic was Sekiro Shadows die Twice, which I got for the Xbox One. Both of these game, I had stopped playing very quickly, they are, at least to me, too difficult, way too challenging and that took all the fun out of them. Just like the Ninja Gaiden games, I hated the were so difficult. Because of these games, I was hesitant to get Ghost. I was afraid that’s I was going to spend 60 USDs on another unforgiving game and I was going to be sad and frustrated.

Well, turns out, the game it’s actually way more forgiving than the previous games I’ve mentioned. This game plays just like an Assassins Creed game. The combat is fluid, and is not like you need to be on a constant defense position and do perfect parries in order to block your enemies’s defense for a one blow kill. Yes, you could I presume but you don’t have to in order to succeed. Just like the most recent AC games, it is an open world with what it looks like a massive map. There are your main missions, side quests ,random encounters, shrines, camps where you can get upgrades, all of that fun stuff. When I was talking to my friend Justin about this game, my first thought was “Assassins creed and Horizon Zero Dawn had a baby but ditched the mechanical dinosaurs”. I never feel like I am doing chores, if anything I am having the time of my life with this game. After installing it, I played for two and a half hours, non-stop, that’s saying something given my attention span these days.

This game is definitely one of the best games in this generation of consoles and it’s worth every penny.

I want to say I may have started my year two at this company, with the right foot - ish. I got to finished all my “minor tasks for the week but more importantly, the Grow out.

You know that feeling that sometimes you get when leaving the house, that you forgot something. Like, did I forget my headphones or my wallet – the stove on. Those are usually the things I think of every time. However, today, I was sure I didn’t forget my wallet, stove was definitely off, I was doubtful about my headphones and my boots 🥾. I take off my boots every day before walking into the house, so I don’t get the carpet all dirty and leave them by the car. Then every morning I see them on the floor by the car and take them with me. I guess this morning I didn’t look down 😅

The thing is, yes I did forget my headphones, at least my Power Beats Pro. I did have my regular EarPods as backups at least. When I was about to head out to the field, well, I opened the trunk and quickly realized, the boots aren’t there. Lucky for me, I had an extra pair of tennis shoes 👟 that I was willing to get dirty. I was so determined to finish this thing that I didn’t care. I didn’t want to call it off and have to comeback the next day knowing I was going to finish today so I said fuck it.

Tennis shoes need a good wash but again, I finished the damn thing and I am so happy 😃 , even if I did it with no boots 🥾

About two-three years ago, before the COVIDs, in a galaxy far far away, I used to play a lot of basketball 🏀. Some of our friends along with my wife, work at the local VA Hospital, which has a nice gym with an indoors basketball court. And, they asked my wife if I played and if would like to join them, and for little over two years, we were playing every Saturday. Every single Saturday we were there, whether it was only six of us or 12 of us, it didn’t matter. There was always bball on Saturday’s. Especially during the winter, since there isn’t much else to do.

Certainly there were a few folks who were amazing at it but most of us just played for the fun of it and the cardio. You know, burning the sins of the Friday night kind of thing 😅

One day I decided I needed to get new shoes and went to my local “Nike outlet” and got these beautiful¹ shoes!!

Used them one game! Then, well, we haven’t played ever since 😂.

Right now my RSS feed its sitting at two hundred and forty nine unread items. Which more than seventy-five percent of them I won’t even bother reading. There are many reasons for this. I believe my interests have changed over the last few years. There is to be a time where I cared about, the “hot takes” in technology, the how to’s, and software reviews. Nowadays, I can barely give two jacks about those 😅. It’s boring and I really don’t care.

I prefer to read , personal blogs, they seem more interesting an real to me. The rest is just majestic bullshit.

Because of this change I’ve stepped away from RSS a bit, most of the content I care to read about I either find in Micro.blog and newsletters. I deleted my Feedbin account and went with some free service but I think I’m going to either kill it or just unsubscribe to seventy five percent of my feed.

IN OTHER NEWS:

It is hot af

Even if we are on the same page, there are two topics that I would avoid talking at all cost, religion and most of all politics. These two topics are so divisive that I much rather to avoid. That being said, I do have very strong feelings about one of them, especially about our current state in “management”. So much so that I also have strong feelings against people or organizations that support and promote our current management and I hate it. Why? Well, I have people close to me, friends or just or acquaintances that I have known for years, that they all have had an impact in my life in one way or another. Until, I find that they, just like me, have a strong feeling in their ideals and politics. That is not the real issue, this is not about left wing or right wing thing, at least to me. It’s is more about supporting a thing (I say a thing because I can’t think of him as someone) that goes against everything that it’s been a decent human. It makes me disassociate from this person and I hate that, because deep down I like this person. But when you support a thing as bad and as inhuman as it is and so strongly that you can’t see all it’s bad, it is hard for me to separate that from the person and accept it.

Today for example, I had to stop unfollowing someone I considered a friend because of this. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. A little bit of “how could you?” As in some kind of betrayal and grieving in a way. Also I’m mad at this person and want to say something but it is not right “you’re supporting everything that is wrong with this country”.

My Instagram timeline should be back to normal now I guess 😉

It’s so hard, trying not to judge a person’s character based on this shit.

It is not quite a year yet, it will be in a few days, since I have been at my current job and working for this company. I remember my first week still, especially since it was also my first experience with a grow out study. I remember I met my new team and Ellen whom I see as my mentor. Well, I had met Ellen during the interviews period but this was our first time working together. Our first work together was actually reading a cornfield 🌽

Now, almost a year later, I am reading my second cornfield. This time though, I am all alone-ish. For obvious reasons she can’t fly out here to Idaho, she works remotely from another state. Lucky for me, there are people on-site, that have done this for many years and offered to help me out. One of them came out today and gave a good “Reading corn 101” rundown. You could tell he knew his stuff so I took advantage of that. I asked him every question I could have imagine, from the most “stupid” one, to the most relevant. We walked the field and did some readings together and then he left me by myself. At this point I was confident enough, put on my Power Beats Pro and started reading – reading and counting.

It is nice, to be out there in the field, just me, my thoughts and my music. However, there was something else. As I am walking up and down the plot, I noticed a different sound, it wasn’t coming from my PBPs or from someone else. I took my PBPs off and stood there in silence. I had totally forgotten, or didn’t even though of it until then. The corn’s tassels! There are full of pollen! What I was hearing was all the buzzing from the bees 🐝 and it was loud. It was both amazing and a little worrying, in a way 😅. Imagine yourself in the middle of all these corn plants and there’s no other sound but this loud buzzing. No cars, no people no machines or any other sounds but the buzzing.

As long as I don’t get stung, this will be fun! Not a fan of being covered in pollen but… What can you do?

I do not like Reels cdevroe.com

All the feels on this. I have always had this love-hate relationship with Instagram. I have closed up to 3 accounts over the years. My current account is less than a year old. And yes, I dislike Stories – sometimes – especially from accounts that have like 20 in less than 24-hours, lol. I have posted but never that many in 24-hours. The main reason I keep Instagram is the same reason most people won’t quit Facebook, I have friends and family I want to stay in contact with. Somehow Instagram seems to be the less Facebooky way of doing it, or at least in my head it is. I fallow some excellent photographers as well and I like that. I don’t share as many of my pictures as I used to and recently all I want to post are snapshots of my regular life. If I want to post nice pictures, they’ll go here, to my site or Flickr.

Right this second, I don’t have the feels to rage-quit Instagram again but it stills annoys me that it is still a thing I “need” to have around. Wish they had a strip-down version of Instagram, where is just photos. No stories no Reels no chat, just content. The closest thing to this, it’s our beloved Sunlit.

Oh, and by the way, my favorite line from Colin Devroe' post,

Yes, I’m old. Get off my lawn. I just mowed it.

❤😅 I so relate! Also, it reminds me it has been 2 weeks since I’ve mowed 😬 (yikes)

How are you? A very common question with – under ideal circumstances – a simple answer. And yet. Why is that I have a hard time answering it sometimes? How are you doing? The usual response would be, “I am doing well” or “I’m good”.

Very often when I am asked this question, I go down this rabbit hole of questions in my head. Should I just say, “I am doing well, thanks for asking”, you know the normal BS? Shall I say “I am okay”? It’s like this simple question makes me double guess everything in my life up until the moment I am asked. Like what doing well or good really entails? Is it been alive and kickin'? Or is it having a job, especially in the pandemic? Is it not having the COVIDs? Having all your bills paid up, having three beers in the fridge, or having a Gigantamax Charizard in your Pokédex? So many unnecessary questions about what should be a simple answer.

Now this is me opening up a little bit. Many times, when I get asked my head goes to a place of insecurities and darkness. Years ago, when I was working at a company that shall remain nameless, I often was comparing my life to others. Thus, oftentimes I found myself frustrated, very unhappy and maybe even depressed because I wasn’t meeting “the standards”. Standards that I definitely got in my own head, I think.

Again, nowadays, I don’t think about those things anymore or at least not as much as I used to but it lingers. I guess this is why, to me, answering this question is hard at times. Am I doing good because I may or may not be good financially? Am I doing good because of my job title? The car I have, the size of the house I have, etc, etc.

Or just well because I have blessings?

So, let me count my blessings.

1. I have a wife that loves me (more like she puts up with me lol)
2. I have two beautiful and healthy daughters.
3. I have a job that pays for my Micro.blog hosting.
4. I have three beers and a camera (Ha! Three beers and a Camera, sounds like a good podcast 🍺 📷 🎙 ).
5. I don’t have a Gigantmax Charizard yet but I will have it soon 😜
6. And beta 5 just came out!

I am sure I have more blessings but those are the top 6 at the moment. I think I am doing well enough.

That being said, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re doing good. Or as my friend Justin would say, fabulous 😘

What makes photographer a photographer? Is it technique, knowing anything and everything about lightning and composition? Knowing all the ins and outs of its camera? Or, is it just owning a camera and use it?

Me personally, I don’t consider myself, nor would I even dare to call myself a photographer. Not even a photography enthusiast, I am just a fan. I am a fan of photography itself and, of course of many photographers that in one way or another, inspire me.

I have been a fan since my early years of college, actually, even before then taking random pictures of my friends in school with one of those disposable cameras. Then on my first or second year of college was when I got my first point-and-shoot digital camera. I don’t even remember the brand but I do remember it was 5 Megapixels and that was the shit LOL. Then I remember getting some Olympus one and those were the good years. I say that because it was now my 3rd or 4th year and I was attending this environmental sciences class and we were doing field trips all the time. The photos I got to take during that time in Puerto Rico, before moving to the States, were so amazing (to me). Yes, they probably weren’t the most crips or high-end pictures ever taken but they were pure and of course, no editing whatsoever back then. I need to find them, there are probably stored in some CD. Remember CDs? I was also very obsessed with sunsets in my hometown. I recall one picture that apparently I, by accident, caught a UFO in the sky. That picture mad eme famous for a week in one of the local UFO forums in the Island 😅

Long-story-short, After moving to Idaho my thing for taking pictures fizzled a little. It was a very different environment for me and I lost my eye as it were. Then I picked up again using my smartphone and when Marley was about to be born, it’s when I had decided to get a better camera than my phone, this was back in 2016 mind you. It was then when I started to be a fan again. Found new things to take pictures of, new ways to see my new world here in Idaho.

Just the way I blog, I have very little to no technique, I think. When I write or take a picture, I do it for the fun of it. That doesn’t mean I don’t put some effort into it and or that I don’t look into learning more of or care. But I am also aware that I can’t call myself a pro on either field and that is fine. What I can say, is that both things give great satisfaction, doing them, moreover practicing, and I am having the time of my life.

We, went out shopping today 🙁. Preschool shopping for Marley to be exact 😭. Yes, our oldest is going to preschool, starting this September. I am not going to lie, I am little nervous about this, part of me isn’t ready el-oh-el. I am also scared, and it is not much so about COVID but more about Marley. Like how is she going to behave or how other kids are gonna treat her. Will she listen and follow instructions? Will she be the difficult kid in the group? Marley has a very strong character and I can tell she has “very strong leadership skills”, and very strong headed. I love all of that about her, even if it drives me crazy-town banana-pants at times. She also has a great heart and can be the sweetest kid.

Many times i get in my head that how your kid behaves at places and/or in situations it’s how you are going to be judged as a parent or as a person. Does that makes sense? I want my kid to be at her best behavior and be the best version of herself she can be (whatever that is), but I know that is not a hundred percent possible. Me, as a parent can do the best I can but also know that kids will be kids. I do think about this a lot and I am not sure if that really matters.

Being a parent is not an easy task and so far we have only needed to deal with immediate family. Now, it will be other kids, teachers and other parents. Things will get complicated. Maybe I am overthinking the whole thing, most likely because I have never gone through this before.

• Changed themes again, back to Kiko. Archie was a good experiment but I like how Kiko behaves better. Plus I like having my On this Day page and it did not seem to work well with Archie.
• Also added “you can also email me” option in my About me page. Hopefully I wont regret this. Also I am proud myself about figuring out how to actually make it work 😜

That es it for now.

Funny story!

Yesterday I went to get a haircut, with my lifetime friend Tia. I don’t remember how we got to the topic but we were joking about memes. Especially about the ones like “pick your last name and the name of your first mascot and that will be you mad max name” or something like that. Then she asks me;

Tia: Okay, name the street where you grew up in and your first mascot and that will be your stripper name.

Me: Well, that’s going to be boring, the street I grew up as a kid was San Jose and my fort pet, was a chicken. See? Boring.

Tia: (laughing) I think that doesn’t sounds bad at all “and here he comes The San Jose Chicken, he’s got a lot of c🐔Ck

Me: 😂🤣🤣😂

Too damn funny to not share it, stay cocky my friends.