It’s a truck

Yesterday I accidentally used the inspector on my google chrome browser at work. It was like discovering The Matrix (😂). I managed to figured a thing or two, simple stuff thought, nothing too crazy. But it’s a start, and thanks to Manton for letting us create test blogs to okay around.

A couple of days ago I posted about some of the frustrations I have with my hosted site in Micro.blog. A lot of times I get frustrated over little things that normally aren’t, or haven’t be, a big deal but every now and then they come out off the woods to annoy me. And I think most of my frustration don’t come from Micro.blog’s service or options but more from my inability to do or have the things I want on my site, or think I want.

Last night I went ahead and signed up for Wordpress again, even got a new domain name and everything. Then it was time to set it all up. Picked up my theme, a couple of options here and there and (boom!) I had my site! Then it was a matter of download my .xml file from Mb and import.

Long story short, for whatever reason WordPress didn’t like the file I was trying to import, so that started to frustrate me a bit. Contacted the support people (both last night and this morning) and wasn’t much help and didn’t seem like they care.

Anyway, this kinda put some things in perspective a little bit.

• It is much easier and satisfying to deal with Micro.blog than it is with WordPress.

• Manton is always listening (and/or reading), more personally involved and always willing to really help. He cares.

• Micro.blog has served me well for almost a year now, it’s not its fault that I’m so needy (😅). It’s working great so why leave my hosted site?

After much thinking and fiddling around, I have canceled my WordPress account and getting my refund.

🧙‍♂️

An entry from two years ago:

Just a day Today hasn’t been very eventful or exiting. I am still searching for a job, a job I have no idea what and when would it be. I did get my Costco membership like any decent human being does (laughs). Also yesterday I have switched cell phone carriers. I have switched from Verizon to T-Mobile, so far so good, not to many complaints or annoyances. Oh spent some times at the morning office (coffee shop) got a new punch card with 5 punches (score!).

I miss that coffee shop! Don’t miss T-Mobile or being jobless, though.

Every other game I was either already playing or looking forward to play, has been put on hold. The reason? Gears of War 5 dropped and I’m a huge Gears fan. It was kind of out off nowhere if I’m being honest, I had totally forgotten about it. Until one day I, for whatever reason, decided to turn on my Xbox One S and there it was waiting for me! Don’t mind if I do!

Now, I have been playing pretty much non-stop since. But, I have been putting it off for the past two days or so. There’s a monster, big huge monster and I think it’s scared me a bit. (😂) Judge not please!

Just the thought of having to fight that thing stresses me out. I don’t like big monsters chasing me, I don’t like that!

Anyway, one day I will brave-up and beat it. As for now, I’ll watch Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba on zee Hulu’s.

Today I had almost signed up for a Wordpress account — again — almost. This past week or so I have been going back an forth in my head about the current status of my site/blog. Mostly the way it looks, the way I would like it to look, its features and functionalities and how I would like it to function or behave. I love Micro.blog, I love the platform, the community and how simple it can be. You open the the app, you jot down some words — publish! Sometimes though, I feel like I’m not entirely happy about how my site looks, or how it behaves or its features. Some of these feature that I like aren’t available across all the templates micro.blog provides, which is why I am always switching back and forth between them. For example right now, as I’m composing this post, I’m using Kiko with an extensive custom CSS script that I did not come up with. I love this theme, it’s my favourite, however it doesn’t have pagination for example. Because of this reason I often end up switching to other templates, hoping they’ll satisfy my “needs”, but always end up back on the same one and the cycle repeats.

Some functionalities can always be added if desired but is not as easy as turning a switch on and off kind of thing. It involves some programming-CSS-coding-witchcraft that I somewhat understand but don’t know much about. It’s like if I wanted my site to behave and feel the way I would like, I need to be some quasi-programmer-wizard of sorts. Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo , now you’ve got pagination good Sir!

(Side note: I will always be incredibly grateful with the Slack/Micro.blog community, they’re always so very helpful and sometimes I even feel bad because I’m always asking about something. I feel like I annoy them so much, I’m sure one day they’ll just kick me out.)

All that being said, this is why services like Wordpress are so appealing for someone like me. All I have to do is to signup, give them some of my rupees, select a nice looking theme with all the functionalities I need and almost no tweaks from my part. After that, it’s all about what I put there, it’s all about the content and super easy too. I type a bunch or words in Ulysses and publish from within the app! (I wish they would add support for Micro.blog as well though)

Moving to Wordpress may bring some other problems, though. The same problems that made me move to Micro.blog in the first place. Wordpress always gave this anxiety that my blog had to be a “Pro-blog”, no twitter-like short posts, always long format and with a title. This is what I like, among other things, about micro.blog, I never feel the pressure of what and/or how my post should be.

I don’t know. Maybe I can find a way were both platforms can coexists in some way. I mean, even if I were to move my site to a hosted Wordpress account, I have no intentions of leaving Micro.blog entirely.

Once again, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Rene Ritchie:

Never let anyone, certainly not the internet, shame you about your technology choices. If you get something cheaper to save money or you get the most expensive, you’re still every bit as nerdy and savvy. No one else knows your business or gets to judge your choices. Do you.

❤️❤️

Well, here’s our first running to our local Urgent Care with Mar. Marley (3-years-old) was playing and bouncing around at grandma’s and hit her forehead with a chair. When it was assessed apparently it didn’t look too bad so they cleaned it up, some ointment and a bandaid was all it took. And she went about her usual ways after that so we weren’t too concerned.

Later at home we went to change the bandaid and realized that it wasn’t as small of a gash as we thought it was.

And to urgent care we go. Not fun, obviously Marley wasn’t thrilled about it. In fact she was very scared. I knew this one was going to be difficult for her, mom (specially mom) and also for the staff at the clinic. Marley is pretty strong when she’s upset or freaking out — she can be a handful.

Short story long, she didn’t get stitches as we thought she would. She got her wound “glued” and some butterfly stitches. She’s doing well, she’s been Marley, our normal Marley.

Now, let’s see how the road to “recovery” will be with this one. 😅🤕

Today I have learned about JOMO “joh-moh”, (🎶 Yomo dale, que tu sabes de eso. Dejale caer to' el peso 😅), the joy of missing out. I should probably subscribe to this idea. Every year there’s an Apple Event, and every year (well, almost every year) I say “Nah, I’m happy with what I got”, “I do not need the latest phone” bleh, bleh bleh! But as it was pointed out on this article that I referenced earlier today,

We are also easily distracted by new shiny objects. We’re driven by FOMO (the fear of missing out) and suckers for what Cal Newport terms the any benefit approach.

and also says,

As long as the new and shiny provides some benefit, we’ll happily chase it. Instead of stopping to ask if this is the best thing to be doing right now, we plod along because (at least at some level) it feels good.

The Article touches in something much deeper but given what’s happening in the tech world, sort to speak, these two ideas resonated with me very much when I read it.

I am the one who, since my first iPhone, the iPhone 4, I have managed to upgrade my device every single year. And every single year I find the most little justification, for an upgrade. “Oh the screen it’s better”, “Battery life, the said I get an extra hour, an extra f*cking hour they said!”, “The camera, the new camera is the best!”. Believe me, even if the new phone it’s relatively identical to the new one, I will find a reason to upgrade.

That being said, the truth is, most of the time is just FOMO.

Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”

Almost everyone I follow, listen or read from, will be talking about these new Phones (and Watches) and how awesome they are. Consequently, I’ll be coming up with all these justifications as of why I need to get the latest when what I currently have, is just fine (and I’m still paying for it, thus making my phone bill more expensive than it needs to).

Yes, I could sell my current phone and cost the new one that way but I loath the whole deal of selling things. Which is why it’s a lot easier to just order my new one from Verizon and send them my old one without worrying about the “tear-and-wear” of the device or any of those intricacies.

Did I like what they announced? Yes, very much I did. Would I love to get an iPhone 11 Pro? Heck yeah (that green one looks hot!). Is it the best thing to be doing right now, though?

So, JOMO…?

No, I am not bored about life, not bored about the iPhone, or the iPhone’s home screen or/and my current tech. I feel bored about music, it’s like I can’t enjoy what I choose to listen or whatever the Siri lady picks for me – nothing dazzles me lately. Sometimes I think streaming services have, in some way, ruined the way I consume and enjoy music. Yes, there’s more discoverability but it’s hard to enjoy it all. A lot of times the discoverability or recommendations are not on point and yet I want to listen to it all! Then, when I do discover something I do enjoy, I easily forget about it because whether I intentionally want it or not, I will move on to something else. It’s like I don’t have the attention span for music these days either. This one reason I try to somehow document what I have listened that truly grabbed me, whether it’s here on my blog or Day One, sometimes both.

Is it a weird thing, feeling this way? Is it a personality thing? Or is it phycological? Am I going bonkers? All of the above?

I have been an RSS user for a couple of years now. I probably got into it around the time when Google decided to kill Google reader or whatever it was called. I have tried a couple of services and I think the one I have been using for the last few years has been NewsBlur. My RSS clients of choice, Reeder 4 and Unread: RSS Reader, always jumping back and forth between the two. Recently I have switched services, to Feedbin. I am really enjoying the service, it’s great, highly recommended. But here’s the thing, Feedbin have released their own app and even though it’s not super full featured like Reeder and Unread, or even Fiery Feeds, the app is great! It’s easy to add new feeds to it, it’s super simple and so enjoyable to use for some reason.

For now I have both Reeder and the Feedbin app installed but keep using the more the later than the former.

If you were to ask me what my favorite type of exercise (or workout) is, my answer will be anything that involves kettlebells. I find it more engaging and fun than just benching all day or strapped to a machine. At this point in my life is all about keep moving, be strong but functional. Thus why exercises that involve a lot of movement are my preferred choice. Luckily for me I have a friend that owns a “playground” for this kind of stuff, it’s called R Studio.

This morning I got to join his kettlebell class and oh man have I miss this! It was about an hour workout class, lots of body weight exercises and kettlebells, right up my alley. It felt so good to workout with a group of people and seeing old friends. This is something I have been meaning to get back into for a while but with my previous job I was working most Saturdays so I wasn’t able to join. During the week was and still is a little impossible to go because it’s very out of my way. Which is why Saturday classes work better for my schedule. I hope I can make this a thing again and join this class every week of all possible. Also makes it a great way to get ideas for my own workouts during the week when I’m on my own.

I don’t know, about a month or so, I re-opened Instagram. Well, more like I opened a new Instagram account and I remembered why I loved the service so much. Now that I don’t have a Facebook account, having an Instagram account seemed like the less Facebooky way of keeping in touch with friends and family. And it was good, until today! Why? Adds. That’s why I was enjoying Instagram again, I had no adds for a while but now they’re back and now I like Instagram less, again.

Guess I’ll never learn.

Today as I was walking towards the break room (side-note: the break room is actually pretty far from my office but I like to take breaks from my desk and walk) when I passed by the site’s manager’s office, the door said Ciriaco (can’t remember the last name) and immediately the name stuck in my head. I know I have heard this name before. Then I remembered that It was a hurricane!

The 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane, which I remember my grandparents and teachers talking about it when I was a kid. The San Ciriaco hurricane was the deadliest, before Maria, hurricane in the history of Puerto Rico.

500 people died, mostly from drowning.

Damage: $20 million (1899 USD)

Fatalities: 3,855 direct

However Hurricane Maria killed more than 4,600 people.

I did not experience neither of these hurricanes, one was way before my time and of course I was here in the states when Maria hit Puerto Rico.

The ones I remember the most When living in PR are, Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane Georges in 1998.

Things are starting to make more sense at work, my new job’s training/learning path isn’t the most straight forward, if you will. My new position hasn’t existed before, it is a new thing so we are all learning as we go sort to speak. I am basically taking bits and pieces of everybody else’s plate and taking over those tasks. So each individual shows me what they’ve been doing for that particular task within the whole process. As I learn things, I connect the dots about what’s going on in the process and how it should go. It’s a new interesting way of learning things for me — as challenging as it is fun.

With iOS 13 around the corner and the Dark Mode along with it, we are all getting our sites, some their apps, ready for pitch-black_darkness_ .

DARK MODE ALL THE THINGS!!!

I have been experimenting with this as well, thanks to some members of the community that are a lot smarter than me for this kinds of things and to whom I say, thank you!

But if I going to be honest, dark mode isn’t for me, I like it but not a lot. Specially the “True Dark” ,as they call it, which I rarely use on my iOS devices or even on the Mac when it first came out. It makes things hard to see and read, maybe I’m saying this because I’m still “relatively” young-ish, 36-years-old, give or take?. I’m not sure if things will worsen as I get older to the point that dark-mode-everything will be a necessity, I don’t know. Comeback and we will revisit in 5 years from now. Deal? Deal!

Thus, the reason I have been including this (Dark Mode) in my Micro.blog CSS is more for others than for myself and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean just because it’s there doesn’t mean I have to see it. I can keep looking at my website in gorgeous-perfectly-readable light mode and forget the dark mode even exists.

Once again, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Today at work they gave me some kind of questionnaire, as part of my new-hire orientation activities. It was kind of strange because as simple and silly as it was (or appeared to be) some questions had me really thinking (or overthinking).

First question:

• What’s your favourite color?

I really had to think about this one long an hard. Usually my answer would be Purple but then I second guessed myself. “But I also like red and pink, sometimes orange”. For the purpose of just answering the question I said Purple

Second question:

• In which store would you max out your credit card?

That’s easy — Best Buy.

Third question:

• How do you like to spend your free time?

(Ha! They said free time, hilarious!!)

When I have free time, Photography, hiking and video games.

(I forgot to add writing/blogging)

Fourth question:

• Three items in your bucket list.

Own a Porsche (but will settle for a Tesla), visit Spain and that my daughters would sleep all night — by themselves — with no mom or dad’s intervention!

Fifth question:

• Favorite food?

Pizza it’s my favourite kind of cheese and donuts my favourite kind of bread.

Sixth:

• Something we should know about yourself.

I really enjoy photography, specially street photography, I micro-blog and…_(can’t remember but I know I put something else down).

Seventh and last question (that I recall):

• What vegetable would you be and why?

Potato… because vodka and fries!!

It was random and kinda fun, I think.

IN OTHER NEWS:

This morning we woke up with a chicken in our garage. No idea where it came from or why. Now, that is random!

🐓💨

This week I got one of them EVERYDAY BACKPACK by Peak Design. I’m pretty sure I ordered the charcoal one, although it doesn’t have the red details like on the website for whatever reason. Regardless I am in love with this bag and I think I like it better without the red to be honest. Anyway, before this magnificent looking backpack I was rocking a TOM BIHN SYNAPSE 25 (on occasion I would use the 19 too).

And here’s everything that was in there.

• Nintendo Switch
• 11" iPad Pro
• iPad Pro cable/charger
• AirPods
• Powerbeats Pro
• Ray-Ban Wayfarer
• Cleaning solution (it’s supposed to be for the glasses but I use it for the iPad and phone too)
• Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III Camera Body (silver)
• Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f1.8 (Black) Lens
• Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 25mm f1.8 (Silver) Lens
• Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm F1.8 Lens
• Some HP computer (my work computer)
• Charging cable for the bahamut of the computer
• My car keys and wife’s car keys
• Spyderco Techno pocket knife. You know just in case I need to cut cheese.
• Bottle opener, in case I need to fix something 😜
• Some sharpie looking pens 🖊
• A pen 🖊
• Apple Pencil ✏️
• insignia SD card reader with usb-c. It’s convenient now that I can plug it to the iPad and transfer My camera’s RAW files anytime.
• Sport-loop Watchband

When putting everything in the bag pack I didn’t put too much thought on where to put what, except for the more obvious things. I just wanted to have an idea how much of all my stuff I can fit with the standard configuration.

Pen looking things are on the right side pockets.

On the left side so far I have the Powerbeats Pro.

Top part I’ve got the iPad Pro, Nintendo Switch, probably my sunglasses will go in here too. iPad’s charging cable in the small pocket there along with my bottle opener and pocket knife. Again, in case of cheese.

In the center of the bag, like I’ve said I have the standard configuration, I’ve got my lenses and Camera at the bottom and in the mid section the charger cable for the work computer.

On the main “computer compartment” I have, obviously my work computer. There’s also a small pocket there for quick access, there I’ve got my wallet, chapstick and the AirPods.

There’s also a cool way to securely attach you keys and have quick access to them.

And voilà!

I still got some empty spaces than I could fit more stuff in. I’ll probably going to start carrying the camera’s battery charger, since I got the space. Looks like I may also have some room for a diaper or two (and wipes) if I ever need to carry those, because I’m lazy and I don’t want to carry the diaper bag with me (😅).

So yeah there it is, my new state of the backpack.

Thank you for coming to my show and tell.

First week down!

I’ve survived my first week at the new job. Today was a little mellow compared to the previous days, most likely because it’s Friday. I did get to do some hands-on data entry that I hadn’t had the chance to do earlier in the week other than that it was a lot of corporate (B.S.) compliance videos and such.

Overall it was a great first week. I love the place I’m working at (so far). The people are great, the culture is great!

Looking forward to the second week and beyond.

Side note:

At the end of the day my manager comes by the office and tells me that, since it’s a “holiday” (three-day-weekend) that it was okay to leave early. Apparently it’s a thing they do/allow here. I got caught up with something so I had to stay for a few minutes longer.

Well and as you can see, she want kidding.

I guess I was the last one leaving.😐😅

Another day full of new things! And some familiar ones as well. Today I actually did some lab work, something I was much more familiar with. It’s good to wake up in the morning, head out to work and think:

What am I gonna learn today?

Instead of:

How am I gonna mentally — and emotionally — survive this day?

IN OTHER NEWS:

My Peak Design Everyday Backpack was supposed to arrive today (according to FedEx) but it didn’t. Hoping for tomorrow.

🎒 💨

Field Day

My first field experience today, with this company that is (and also with this crop). There was a lot of dust and corn pollen, yeah… lots and lots of corn pollen. This new gig it’s turning out to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait to visit other fields with different crops.

😁 😎 🌽 🌾 💨

Christmas came early! Today at work I received two boxes — very much to my surprise. These included a new monitor,for my new office/desk, a docking station, a wireless keyboard (and mouse), a computer bag (which I probably won’t use) and of course my personal work laptop.

Oh! And also got some snazzy new boots (paid by the company of course) for when I go out an about to the field!

I’m liking this gig! 😁

That being said, there’s still lots of stuff to learn and lots of work coming my way, I’m excited!

I have survived my first day at the new job! Lots of information was thrown at me today, so much so that at first it felt overwhelming, that was expected though. I am very excited about his new opportunity and see where it goes. So far the team and the company seem pretty awesome to work with. I am getting all the help and accommodations they are able to provide me with and I feel very welcome.

This morning we dropped off my parents at the airport and they’re heading back to Puerto Rico. And so we are back to “normal” or to our reality, sort of speak. Now the house is quiet and lot less going on, which is nice.

And though I did my best to keep with my “diet” and workout routine, during the week and few days my parents were here, I did fall off the wagon a wee bit. Now that we are “back-to-normal”, I am so ready to get back at it in full force. Don’t think the damage is that big but still.

On top of it, it just hit me again that this will be my last weekend before starting the new job. Already wrote about my feelings on that. Today, more than scared, I am curious. I am curious on how, what it used to be an inconsistent routine, will change. It should be more consistent for sure but I am not sure how it’ll be.

IN OTHER NEWS:

After a conversation with some members of the Micro.blog community, I am back at using iA Writer as my main text editor. I had forgot how nice and clean writing environment this is, specially on the iPad Pro.

As the day gets closer and closer, fear rises. I am both excited and nervous (scared) about starting the new job on Monday. I guess the unknown and the don’t-know-what-to-expect is what’s “scaring” me. Also demons of insecurities and impostor syndrome start to creep on.

I’m sure I’ll be okay but can’t help the feelings.

I got new “work” shoes though, I’ll be starting my job in style (chef’s kiss)