December first, the last 31 days of this decade. Sounds pretty dramatic. Don’t it? There are a couple of things I feel like I want to focus/work on this month as a prep for 2020.

Digital minimalism.

I want to cutback on my digital presence and be more present in my real world/life. Cultivate friendship and my real relationships, reach out and be more engaging. Although, I would dare to say that the Micro.blog community sorta falls in the “real relationship” category, unlike twitter and Instagram or any other form of social media, Micro.blog does gives me that sense of real connection.

Health.

I have made a commitment to myself to be more active and live a healthier life. Right now, it is far from perfect but it isn’t as bad as it used to be. I have made some progress. I have lost a few pounds, getting down from 220 to 195 lbs (currently). I do feel much better about myself. It not only has helped me physically but mentally. So I have plans for myself, I want to continue on this path and be even better!

Profession.

By the end of the year it’ll be about 4 months since I’ve started my new job. I am still learning the ropes and getting better at it. I want to continue striving for “greatness” I don’t mean it in a pretensions arrogant way, but I aspire to master and be good at what I do. Support my team and the company’s goals and take onto more responsibilities as they become available.

And last but not least, the most important task in my life, my family. I want to be a better provider, be more present and a the best parental figure I can be for my girls. More hugs and more fun! Also be a better husband, even after 11 or do years (I think it’s been 11) I’m still working it.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Delight yourselves with another first of the month home screen setup screenshot. 😜

Tobias ᴠᴀɴ sᴄʜɴᴇɪᴅᴇʀ:

Muting or blocking someone online isn’t so much about you just disliking the other person. It’s about protecting your sanity and guarding your mental space from input that you can’t control. You wouldn’t hang around toxic people offline, so why would you do it online?

🛎 (ding)

I personally haven’t blocked anybody in years. I guess I’m not very popular — and I’m fine with that — so this doesn’t affects me.

But I very much agree with this post, it’s all about protecting your sanity in what most people think of Twitter as a toxic environment.

Something I would really like, it’s another Jet Black version of the iPhone. Yes it would scratch more easily, finger prints and all. But man! It was so cool looking. Also I didn’t care for the scratches or anything. Actually as I get older I baby less my phones, maybe the first two weeks. Guess as a habit, since that’s the usual return period, after that I don’t give two peppers! That’s what Apple care plus is for (😜).

Yeah the green iPhone 11 Pro looks swell, but, Jet Black man!

Since our Thanksgiving plans changed last minute, little one it’s sick, in-law is getting some kind of heart surgery, we didn’t want to risk it him getting sick before surgery. Thus, I feel like I should head out to KFC and get a bucket of chicken 🍗! 😅

(At least I got my fancy stout beer and some whiskey samples)

First snow commute! Although, there isn’t, currently, that much snow and still, some people were panicking-ish. That being said it was still the smoothest ride I have had all week. One thing though, I was listening to a podcast on my way here, as you do, and it was very political. I mean one of the main guests was Tulsi Gabbard. I listened to about thirty minutes, which is how long my commute usually is and I found myself I don’t know. Rather than getting interested in the conversation, as I usually do, I was feeling a wee sad. The whole political scenery and how the game is played and our archaic ways of doing politics are so upsetting, frustrating and depressing. I am not sure I can do another two hours of this podcast.

Fear Of Getting Old.

My only fear about getting older is that, like computers, that eventually they get too old for a new software upgrade. That one day, whenever the come up with a new neurological implant that will make us more technologically advanced, and just like an old computer, I’ll be too old for that technology. 😅

There is something that has been on my mind since I think last night. As I have expressed before, there are too many games that have been recently released and that I want to play most of them. But, do I really, want to play them all? Do I want to play them because I am really a fan of the game/franchise? Or, do I want to play these because everybody else is? Everyone is talking about it and, you know, FOMO.

Instead of asking what’s everybody playing and enjoying, I should be asking myself. What brings me joy to play? Is it a racing game instead of, let us say, a Pokemon game. Maybe it’s not a new game that had just come out but maybe revisit an old game that I loved. Like maybe, re-play Assasins Creed Odyssey (for like the 4th time) or even Horizon Zero Dawn (that game was so good).

I feel like in the past I have gotten games for the wrong reasons. “Everyone is talking about this game so I have to play it”! And then I either don’t stick to it or I do enjoy it but maybe I sacrificed another game that probably would have been more in my alley.

Decisions, decisions…

IN OTHER NEWS:

I kind of want a new domain name. 😂🤦‍♂️😅

Today I left the house a little late, I had a hard time getting out of the bed on time, for some reason. I had left my lunch bag at work Friday therefore also left my coffee mug, so I had to improvise this morning to have my coffee to go. Traffic was normal, not a bunch of yahoos on the road, maybe except for the lady behind me that turns out she works here too. But the interesting part about today’s commute was the fact that, man, they change the lanes patterns! I hate it when they do that! I mean, not so much the fact that there’s now a new traffic pattern but the fact that you still see the old one. It trows me/us off, makes everything so confusing and then we all turn into yahoos on the road!

Side Note: Felt like sharing this little story form a fiend on Twitter

Frozen 2

Why was Elsa born with magical powers? The answer is calling her and threatening her kingdom. Together with Anna, Kristoff, Olaf and Sven, she’ll set out on a dangerous but remarkable journey. In “Frozen,” Elsa feared her powers were too much for the world. In “Frozen 2,” she must hope they are enough.

First time and the cinema for Marley! Today we adventures ourselves and took Marley to the Cinema to watch Frozen 2. She has been waiting all week for it! We had company of course, Annie’s brother, his wife and kid (Liam). Alll things considered, it went well. My oldest it’s a lot like, hard to keep still (😅).

The movie was great, I really enjoyed it. Enjoyed better than I did the first one. However, I might be a little bias since I’ve seen the first movie like a trillion times!

The Everyday Backpack by Peak Design 🎒 has so many pockets! For like a week or so, I have been searching for the charger brick for the iPad Pro. It’s been lost. I have been using the MacBook Pro’s brick to charge it. Well, today it’s been found (by my wife) in a pocket I totally forget it had! 😅

MEANING

• adjective

sad or miserable in appearance don’t look so woebegone, Joanna

ORIGIN

Middle English (in the sense ‘afflicted with grief’): from woe + begone ‘surrounded’ (past participle of obsolete bego ‘go around, beset’)

This is a weird one, never heard of it before. I can’t help it but think of it as hoe-be-gone 😂

📺 My Hero Academia

Despite being born powerless into a super-powered world, Izuku refuses to give up on his dream of becoming a hero. He enrolls himself in a prestigious hero academy with a deadly entrance exam. To make the grade, he’ll have to put in some serious study time with the mightiest hero of all.

This is an amazing show! I actually got into this show awhile back but had dropped it for a bit. Now I am resuming watching it again where I left of, Season 3. My problem is , I’m sort of scared of watching. Sounds very silly! Right (😅)? I get too invested on these shows and its characters. I always fear the worst it’s going to happen to them, it’s like “I can’t watch him/her get hurt” (🙈).

Yesterday I ranted a little bit about declaring podcast bankruptcy – again –and how my way to deal with it was to delete the current podcast app I was using and install a different one.

Instead of weeding out my current lawn, I just moved to a different house, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty (🔔).

Well, turns out I like my current Podcast app, which is Overcast. There a few reasons, mainly because, I don’t really know why I just do (😅). The thing is I went through it and unsubscribed from all the shows I wasn’t really paying attention to. Deleted all the old episodes of the ones I do and just kept the most recent one for each show.

So many games, so little time (and perhaps also so little money). Been a gamer, or video games enthusiasts, used to be a lot easier back in the day. Nowadays, not so much! I have been playing video games since forever. The first console I owned I remember was the SEGA Master System. Does anyone remember Alex Kidd in The Miracle World?

Anyhoo, I am still a video game enthusiast these days but as I get older and life gets more complicated, there is less time and patience for video games, sadly enough. There’s very little time for playing, especially when you have kiddos. I currently own a PlayStation 4, Xbox One S, a Nintendo Switch and a Nintendo DS XL (that I barely use at all). Oh! and still, have a Super Nintendo (both the original and the mini one that got released recently) and a GameCube.

I lost my point…

The thing is, I wish I had all the time in the world to play all the good games in all these consoles and systems that I own. Sometimes I want to play games out of nostalgia, Like Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes for example (Nintendo’s remake of Metal Gear Solid from PSone), or Xenogears from PSone. Lately, I have been wanting to play Horizon Zero Dawn for the PS4 again or some Halo on the Xbox. Then on top of all these, you got all the cool Nintendo Switch games that had come out that I also want to play. like Zelda Link’s Awakening, (finish) Astral Chain, Pokemon Shield, (finish) KATANA ZERO even when it’s too difficult and have no patience for it, (finish) Dragon Quest XI (which apparently I lack of the attention span necessary for this game), (finish) Fire Emblem: Three Houses and for whatever reason, I always come back to lay Diablo 3, it’s such a great game. Like I have said, so many games!

One thing I have also been doing in the recent year or so, it’s buying games I already own in other consoles on the Switch as they’ve been coming out. A few examples would be Darksiders and Dragon Ball FighterZ and some other remakes like I want The Witcher III for the Switch as well among others. It’s so much more convenient to play on the Switch these days. I mean with the consoles it seems like it takes forever to just start playing. Plus I can play the Switch while the lady is watching TV, I can take it with me, the games load right up and I can put it aside if I need to take care of something and pick up right where I left off without too much hassle.

Again, I just wish I had more time and attention span!

Today was the company’s Anual Safety Pause, I believe it’s called. Basically they stop everything we are doing and have some kind of activity to raise awareness about safety. I’ve only been working here for about three months now but it seem like every year it’s a different theme or topic.

This year was all about safety while driving and the way they did it was quite fun. We went to this warehouse open space area and they had setup some sort of obstacle course. They had this path and they had tiny houses made out of cardboards and a crosswalk and they also had people by the tiny houses with play balls, simulating children playing. Also they had someone with a stop/go sign, kinda simulating a stop light at the end of the course.

With that setup, okay, in this facility they use these kind of electric tricycle looking vehicles, to haul some carts with whatever material, most likely seed. So we were driving this things through the “obstacle course” under different scenarios and talk about them. In my group there was three of us and, yours truly, was the second person to go. My scenario was about driving under drowsiness.

So I’m driving the electric thing and I’m wearing these glasses 👓 and as I was driving someone would make the glasses go dark, I couldn’t she shit — pitch black. Sort of to simulate when you kinda close your eyes for a few seconds. I didn’t ram over anything or anybody, didn’t hit any of the cones, I think, and I had fun and learned a few facts that I have just probably forgotten. Oh that losing about two hours of sleep or so, our alertness is similar to the effects of a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. So by definition I was drunk driving this morning (😅).

Last night, well more like yesterday morning, I have decided to declare podcast bankruptcy – for the 10th time (😅). I wish that Overcast, which is my prefer podcast player (as of ten minutes ago) had some sort of Nuke Everything button, that way I could start fresh. Also, it would be nice if it had an inbox system more as Castro does, where episodes just don’t get piled up in the queue, I can simply tirage what I want to listen vs what I don’t want to listen. So, I have just downloaded Castro, and instead of restoring my backup I exported my OPML file from Overcast but only subscribed to the show I do tend to listen to almost every episode of. Sound good right? Instead of weeding out my current lawn, I just moved to a different house, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty (🔔).

Problem solved! (Or so you’d think) Here’s my new problem now. Ninety percent of the time I listen to podcasts at work, of course, I work in front of a computer all day so listen to podcasts is a thing I do while doing work-related stuff. Also, I not only listen to podcasts while working but I use Overcat’s web app and not the actual ios app. This is because I usually have my headset on that’s plugged to the computer. But Castro, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a web app which, I mean, it’s not like a big deal, I do have my AirPods always with me but it is nice to be able to manage everything on the computer. It didn’t interrupt my workflow in any way if that makes sense.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I found my wallet! All is good in the world! Apparently, it had been lost for a day or so. Glad to have it back, it was in my fancy backpack the whole time, just in a different pocket than it usually is (🤦‍♂️).

a·bate/əˈbāt/verb

1. (of something perceived as hostile, threatening, or negative) become less intense or widespread. "the storm suddenly abated"
   • cause to become smaller or less intense."nothing abated his crusading zeal"

   I had to -- as you can tell -- Google this word. I was not familiar with it. I have probably heard of it before but I have personally never used it.

A diagnosis is not an identity by Jeannie

I have autism, avoidant personality disorder, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder. I am not the sum of my diagnoses. I am Jeannie; a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a human being. I am smart, strong, and self-aware. I refuse to let a medical term dictate my abilities or confine me to a symptom list. These terms, to me, are merely means to find ways of counteracting the shortcomings these medical conditions have imposed on me.

Very well said Jeannie. 💜

On today’s commute! Another smooth ride to works, cold morning, not too much traffic. Left the house on time which helps with not having a lot of traffic I guess. Pretty uneventful, well, I saw one small accident. Apparently, a deer tried to T-bone a large FORD pickup, it seemed like it didn’t go well for the deer and only a dent on the pickup.

I was listening to one of the episodes from The Joe Rogan Experience with Malcom Gladwell. It’s a pretty long episode, in fact, I haven’t even finished it yet. As most of these episodes go, they talked about different things but one thing struck a cord. I can’t remember exactly how they got to this or what the specific topic of the conversation was but here’s the gist of it.

(Side note: I am not going to do a direct quote but rather put together the bits and pieces that stuck in my head.)

He [Joe Rogan] was saying something along the lines of don’t waste your time in things you don’t like. That you only have so much energy, to waste it on things you don’t like, on things that have nothing to do with you.

I believe there so much truth in that. This is something we all see on the internet everyday. People criticizing and wasting energy bashing on all the things that they don’t like.

Any form of art is very subjective and there will be many things that we will come across that we’ll dislike but doesn’t mean we need to put our energy in criticizing when other people do. It doesn’t mean they’re wrong, we all like different things — we have different tastes.

The big birthday party celebrations are tomorrow with the family. Of course we had to do a VIP session at home. 🧁🥳

Ever since I stumble upon this post by Nicholas Bate, it’s been on an open tab in my browser to reference it every day if possible. I loved every bit of it even if there are a few things I can’t do, like walking the last part of my commute, but it makes total sense and it’s inspiring.

Basics 7: Daily

1. Act sooner rather than later.
2. Remember they have had a hard day, too.
3. Walk the last part of your commute into work if at all possible; it’s a great transition from one bubble to another.
4. Keep the ritiuals for security, comfort and productivity. Do some new stuff for fresh thinking, excitement and keeping you young in mind.
5. Don’t let anyone spoil your day.
6. Take at least one of your coffees on your own plus paper notebook and pencil and capture….
7. Reasure yourself you are on a planet. Walk real earth, observe a true horizon, feel the weather.

Yesterday I presented a question, asking about what most people do when updating a blog post. Whether they update and let it be or update and repost, something along those lines. I got very good responses from the community, my thanks to all of them.

Here are my thoughts on it. The way I feel about it, if I post something and it has grammar errors or typos (which happens all the fracking time), I update those the best I can, whether I notice them myself or they are pointed out and let it be. My dilemma comes when let’s say I post something and then I go “Oh! I forgot to mention this thing and/or clarify this other thing!” So at that point. Do I add whatever I want to add (let’s say it’s a whole paragraph), delete the old post and reposted but with a note that says “update”? or, Do I just add whatever needs to be added, still annotate that there’s an update but don’t re-post?

I have never done it, yet, but the reason I may consider re-posting (if there’s a significant update to my original post, that is) it’s because no one will know that something has been changed or updated unless they stumble upon my post after the fact. Or if they have an RSS reader application like Feedbin that actually – if you didn’t know – tracks changes and I think it actually brings the article (or post) back to the unread list if I recall correctly.

I don’t know, unprofessional blogging shouldn’t be this complicated I think (😅) but sometimes I like to overthink things, thus overcomplicating things in the process.

Again, thank you all for your input, I truly appreciate it.

It makes me sad having to cancel many of my subscriptions, especially for apps that I use regularly. I need to be more mindful where my money is going and how many subscriptions I have, I wish I was able to afford them all at the moment. However, this doesn’t mean that I have other apps that are just as capable that don’t require a subscription. Sometimes it’s a matter of preference or… I don’t know what else honestly. For example, I canceled Ulysses, I really like this app, I like the interface, the way it organizes things and of course I like the icon. But I have iA Writer, this one I don’t pay a subscription and it works just as good, and some people may argue that it’s better than Ulysses. I have canceled Feedbin, as much as I love the service any of the free options would work just fine. I don’t fallow that many sites, the only thing I’ll miss is how fast it works. I won’t see the articles in my RSS app as soon as they are posted but that’s okay, it’s not like I read stuff in real-time. Carrot Weather is another subscription that, is not canceled perse, it’s more like it’s on hold awaiting review (😅) since it’s not supposed to renew until next year anyway, oh! and Apple Arcade, unfortunetly. The only subscription I have left, as far as apps/services go are Drafts, obviously, Cascable (this app is paramount to my photography workflow, I use it to transfer RAW files from my camera to my iOS/iPad devices) and Apple Music.

I still have Netflix, Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ thanks to my brother in-law, or/and to Verizon since the 1st year it’s on them for whatever reason but just the regular not the bundle, hence why we are using my in-laws account (for now). Apple TV+, somehow I got a free year, even though I did not buy a new device, I still got my iPhone XS.

Many of these subscriptions are relatively cheap, but they do add up very quickly!

This morning’s commute was pretty light, not a whole lot of traffic (at least in my direction). One thing I did notice though, I saw many people in the opposite direction, first, they were moving much slower of course since most of the heavy traffic it’s in the opposite direction. Second, most people, at least 2 out of 5, were all looking down. They were most likely looking and doing something on their phones. No wondering why I see so many accidents in that direction of traffic.