Tag: randomness

Just a quick blog update

So, for the past week or so–in between doing a ton of automotive repairs–I’ve been tinkering with my blogging/journaling efforts. One would think that would mean that I’ve been trying to actually do more writing, right? Well, by looking at the timeline here, that’s obviously not the case.

What I’ve been doing is working behind the scenes on trying to figure out the best way possible to get everything synced between my at home server–the WordPress installation, and the Gemini & Gopher file servers–and my WordPress hosted mirror. If you look back a few posts, you’ll see I had mentioned the desire to have it all playing together, with the ability to continue to have the “big web” content, like my Instagram posts, being brought over into the “small web” of Gemini and Gopher-land files. Well, I think I have things sorted out… Maybe…

I’m still working on getting a perfectly synchronized thing going, and working on trying to fix older “posts” that were migrated from sites like MySpace and LiveJournal–most of these posts are suffering from dead links and references to bad embed codes/commands–which, sadly, this will still suffer in the future as I’m wanting to keep hooks into the “big web”. (See, this is part of the argument for and appeal to the “small web”–keep things simple and less media rich so that data can survive and transfer easier; and, of course, here I am totally mucking up the point by injecting my “big web” ideas into it.)

I haven’t yet seen about whether I can successfully draft things in the gemini-space and have them translate into the larger scope of things–I’m waiting to see if all of my efforts to bring the bigger world into the smaller world works first; as such, this post is being written and published in WordPress for the time being.

…and, just to mention what has driven me to push this along at an attempted increased rate–I’ve been playing around with a “pen-pal” app called Slowly. On Slowly I’ve introduced myself with my ham calls and invited people to Google said calls to find out more about me if they’re so inclined, as I tend to post everywhere as KG4VMA. Well, after making that introduction, I thought it would be a good idea to actually get my butt in gear and make my posts more accessible and in sync so that people using Slowly could see the more up-to-date and for-everyone sides of me. (Yeah, there I go, again; introducing the concepts of the faster “big web” into a world where the idea is to slow down. I’ve really got a problem, here, don’t I?)

So… If you’re into Slowly and would like to exchange letters, you can find me directly with the Slowly ID. My Slowly ID is Z5Z3WY. I try to write ASAP, and usually from the web interface as I find it easier; the web interface also means that I can potentially write a heck of a letter instead of something short, so be warned.

Anyway, I think that’s all I have for now.

I Quit.

I’ve never said those words–“I quit.”

…at least, I’ve never really said them and truly meant them before. Well, maybe that’s a lie; I’ve said them, and meant them–but I’ve been in some of the deepest darkest depressions or some sort of situation where I feel like I have been brutally beaten down by someone or something.

I hate the idea of considering myself a quitter of anything. I’ve always been the type to believe that if you want to do something, then you should devote everything that you have to it, and that you should never give up, under any circumstance. Maybe that’s why I took it so hard when my marriage fell apart. Again. And Again. And Again. But that’s an entirely different story.

I don’t mind admitting defeat. That’s a sign that you’ve actually done something–and learned something. And in the admission of defeat, one is continuing to show that they are learning… you know? I see it as a process of just continued growth and dedication. Make sense?

But quitting…

…but that’s where I’ve found myself. Wanting to quit.

I woke this morning to the sound of my phone ringing–alerting me, shortly after 4AM–that a Winter Storm Warning had been issued. I swiped at the screen, ignoring the call, and rolled back over, to try to drift back to sleep. As I laid there in the darkness, I began to wonder why I’d even set up those alerts and wake-up calls so many years ago, when it seems like nobody cares. I also began to try to think of how many hours of sleep I’ve missed or otherwise had interrupted by these alerts, notifications, and phone calls. And then, I thought of an argument that arose earlier this week…

Too many arguments, too many fights, too many disagreements have come up in my life surrounding some of the things I do–or try to do. And I’ve always tried to do my best at it… and all it’s done is get in the way of so many other things… and left me feeling even worse for wear. And my level of involvement or dedication–while it reaches that point of being nearly too much for me, is still quite small in the grand scheme of things. So, it often feels as if I’m fighting some great battle that doesn’t need to be fought. Or something like that.

Since the late ’90s I’ve been involved in trying to manage an online world for the local EM–at the very start of my toying with an online presence, I think it was still DES! That little project was started by my dad–who simply volunteered his time to the agency at that point–and then picked up by me. I wish I still had the HTML files I’d written back then–or that I could remember which section of GeoCities the first incarnation of the site had been on. Eventually, in August of ’01, I asked if I could actually be a recognized member of the team. A few short minutes later, I was. Following that, I began to dedicate even more time to presenting the best online media relations that I could.

I tried to do my best in keeping up education and training requirements as well–but life happened; finding myself becoming a husband and a father got in the way of furthering those aspects of my volunteer career. I still tried my best to juggle the online stuff, though.

With the advent of social media, I took on more responsibilities and created accounts on Twitter and Facebook, long before any other agency in the area realized the importance of these newly born tools–my accounts pre-date nearly every agency in the Commonwealth, including the state’s own accounts! I began to share PSAs and weather bulletins–some original, many copied. I’d drive around and take photos of storm damage–floods, ice, winds, etc.–and post them online to the website, media accounts, and photo-sharing services. Eventually, I developed a following; my sense of responsibility grew.

As the years pressed on, I continued to share and post; I continued to develop and find ways of getting the most timely information to everyone. My phone became my best friend throughout most of this. Now, it’s become a hated symbol of wasted time and effort, waking me at 4 in the morning, reminding me of the fights that go nowhere.

Earlier this week, I voiced an opinion–perhaps a bit misguided, though I’m not entirely sure–on a topic related to the current “emergency” that’s affecting the community; that opinion turned into a nice little fight between my mother and I. To be honest, I still don’t fully understand why it got so heated.

 

Narcissism? Not Necessarily…

So, it hit the news a few weeks–maybe a month–ago that dudes taking tons of “selfies” are potentially narcissistic whack-jobs; and this news, though fairly old–seriously, go google it–has been repeated a thousand times over. Thing is, it does make a bit of sense, doesn’t it? Couldn’t you see Christian Bale’s character in American Psycho just snapping pic after pic of himself and posting them to Facebook?

…all this attention to the male selfie news has made me question why I take so many on occasion–am I narcissistic? Well, maybe a little… but that’s not why I think I take so many pictures of myself. The fact of the matter is, I’m fat and worthless. At least, I used to be. I saw myself that way, anyway. Maybe I still do, at times. Yeah, sometimes, I still do–and the selfies are taken with disbelief; do I really look this way? Am I really in better health? Am I really attractive?

Other psychological aspects to the taking of these images relate to some of what I am going through in discovering myself as being single. Am I attractive enough? Is there something inherently wrong with me that I cannot see? Am I a good person? Why am I alone?

What’s bad, is that the self-doubt has been around a fairly long time–some of it stemming from my youth, and quite a bit from my failed marriage.

 

more warped randomness…

I had to run to the school to drop something off for Violet, and got the opportunity to overhear a technical issue being had by someone in the office…

…that led to me mulling it over, and eventually looking up a possible solution and forwarding it via email once I got home. That somehow led me to heading over to the school’s technology blog, where I read the latest post, which asks, “How do you use the Internet?”

…and that led me to thinking of this [NSFW, btw…]: