Truman has been very intent on keeping track of the visitors around the house. I know he’s itching to get outside, but that would be very dangerous for a guy like him in a desert like this.
June 2024
Wheel.
I’ve never been a huge “Wheel of Fortune” fan, but I do hearken back to the days when Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford shared the stage, the winning contestants bought items on a shopping spree, and the remaining balance was either used “on account” or on toward a gift certificate.
Here’s an episode of the original “Wheel of Fortune” from 1980. Many of the episodes were taped over when they reused the video tapes; yay for the rich people that had VCRs back in 1980.
Amphitheater!
A couple of years ago we had a contracting company build what we can the “amphitheater” in our back yard. This area is about 10 feet below ground level and overlooks the wash that crosses our property in the back. The space has been quite enjoyable, though dusty because we had them install hard packed dirt and sand as the “floor”.
We decided to finish the space off and this week the contractors completed the work. The amphitheater now features paver stones in desert colors, making the area even more enjoyable.
Earl now has a relatively secluded place to relax on a beautiful day in the desert.
Influencing Truth.
Dave over at Blogography recently featured a YouTube video by an astute observer who points out the fibs, deceptions, and lies found in many YouTube Influencer videos. If you have 38 minutes and feel invested in the topic, here’s the video:
The video highlights all sorts of things, like illogical positions of the sun in the sky relative to the supposed time the video is being recorded, inflated rankings in marathons, and inattention to details like digital clocks showing the real time, etc. This woman has the receipts. You’ll see those too.
Influencer culture is rather gross. It’s an extension of the Reality TV generation conflated with rampant consumerism where you should buy what these influencers are saying you should buy. Their lifestyles are amazing because their videos show just amazing they are. But they’re not.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to get more people to notice my little videos about hiking, storm chasing, and aviation. Honestly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest. Maybe I should just admit that I’m a boring middle aged man. I’m going to keep making my videos because I enjoy the creative outlet, but I’m realizing I’m doing one thing very wrong.
I’m being truthful. The truth does not begat engagement.
During the storm chasing trip I featured a segment in one of my videos where I show myself in the shower, getting ready for the day, checking out weather websites, etc. Being the “Bewitched” nut that I am, there are a couple of little “witchcraft” segments where I pop on my shoes and magically change my shirt. I’m here to admit right now: those two little scenes were staged. But me getting out of the shower? I put the camera up before I got in the shower, took my whole shower, and then the camera captured me getting out of the shower. Same with the shaving, and the brushing of the teeth, and the packing up my belongings to vacate the hotel room.
Note that at no time did I show a shot of me getting out of bed. Because I was traveling solo, there was no one there to film me getting out of bed and I wasn’t about to set up the camera, set the alarm clock back, get back in bed, wait for the alarm, then get out of bed, and fake waking up. I’ve told many tall tales in my life, but that poor habit was solidly in my youth and something I quickly grew out of. I can’t bring myself to “Survivor” or “Big Brother” my way through the day, taking multiple cuts of the same shot to pick the perfect shot. Maybe it comes from my days of radio, but I tend to grab things live.
Yes, there are times when I’ll say the same phrase multiple times because I stumbled over my words while talking to the camera. Yes, I will hike up a trail, put up the camera, go back down the hill, hike up the hill again, and then grab the camera after I passed by, so I have a shot of me hiking up the hill. I’m actually doing twice the hike for those shots. But I’m not going to be claiming it’s before dawn with the sun beating down on me, or bound out of bed with a sure shot of energy when I’ve already gotten out of bed, set up everything, gone back to bed, and done it for real.
I do my best to represent who I am, where I am, and what I’m doing. And apparently that does not please the YouTube algorithms. OK, fine. Then it’s no engagement numbers for me.
We all know Influencer Culture, and those embroiled in that scene, are tacky. I like to think that some of them are doing it for the creative outlet, much like I do with my videos, but for the most part, they’re there to make money off residuals from you buying what they’re selling.
I guess there’s not enough money in selling the truth.
Hiking Mount Lemmon: Aspen Draw Trail and Summerhaven.
Yesterday I went for a very enjoyable hike along the highest elevations of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The Aspen Draw Trails afforded me some peaceful times surrounded by evergreens and some impressive views. Here’s a video my adventure.
Tech!
I’ve decided to start playing around with the next step in video production. Green screens! Not bad for my first attempt.
Caturday.
Truman can occasionally be impatient when it comes to his dads getting out of bed, but he is always looking refined.
Lost.
I’m still making my way through photos and video footage from my storm chasing trip in May. While I’m going through all these picturesque bits and bytes I sometimes feel a moment of disbelief realizing it’s been nearly a month since I trekked out onto the Great Plains. That is usually followed by a pang of boredom, because the weather in the month of June in Sonoran Desert is generally very boring, especially for a guy that loves wild weather.
We have been experiencing near record heat for the past couple of weeks and it looks like the trend is going to continue for the foreseeable future. This should come as a surprise to no one; the climate is changing and too many people don’t care about the climate enough to do anything about it.
I’m tired of selfish people.
I think I have isolated myself too much from storm chasers that are still out on the Great Plains chasing storms well into June.
When I came back from the trip and realized the car needed a few thousand dollars of repairs I began to wonder if chasing storms was worth it. Blazing thunderstorms, high winds, and impressive tornadoes a mile or two away? Sign me up. Dancing in ping-pong ball sized hail? I can probably pass on that opportunity.
But gosh, how I love visiting The Great Plains.
Sunrise to Sunset.
Lucky is the man that sees both the sunrise and the sunset of the same day.
And speaking of lucky, Lucky and Jinx certainly enjoy their sunset walks. Usually they go out with Mike and Chris, but once in a while Uncle J.P. and Uncle Earl will take them for a walk. They still follow their usual routine, once we’ve determined the asphalt is within everyone’s tolerance levels.
Avoiding Fiddly.
All my life I have been one that wants to press buttons. I’m not talking about pushing buttons to get people going, but rather buttons on equipment, i.e. computers and the like. I always want to know what the button does. There’s a part of me that’s surprised I never pulled a fire alarm in school, especially in elementary school, where a little hammer on a swing broke a piece of glass that then pushed a button behind the glass.
My amusement at pressing buttons led me to technology and to this day I love fiddling with buttons, physical and virtual, in the technology space. At times this can lead to a decrease in productivity. Instead of using an application to get things done, I spend the vast majority of my bandwidth playing with all the bells and whistles in an application to try to get things to a point of where I can get things done. This approach is not overly productive and as I get older, my desire to be ‘fiddly’ remains, but my recognition of this trait is accepted and I modify my workflows to avoid ‘fiddly’ situations.
Narrowing my focus to a specific set of applications and earnestly fighting the urge to try other applications keeps my employer happy.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is constantly releasing upgrades and updates to their products and the work desktop services team dutifully pushes these changes to our company laptops. Hardly a few days go by when I’m not being prompted with pop-up ads to “try this new things in Teams!” or “you can collaborate with friends in the web version of PowerPoint!”. These pop-up ads, coupled with the constant barrage of Teams messages from folks ignoring my “Busy” status tends to make my to-do list longer than it needs to be.
For a couple of years I’ve been using an application called Obsidian to manage my notes, lists, and other general writing adventures. Productivity gurus far and wide have been touting the virtues of Obsidian for years but I have never been completely happy with the experience. The interface resembles nothing on any platform it’s available on. The syncing service is great, albeit a separate subscription. But my downfall with the application is that it is so customizable that I end up customizing the experience more than actually writing or making lists or taking notes.
While theming an application to my liking is pleasing, it’s not productive for a fiddly guy like me.
So I’m trying out new applications that aren’t as fiddly for this purpose. Before Evernote went completely catawampus a decade or so ago, I was content with Evernote. OneNote at work is alright for work stuff and that’s probably where I’ll land at work.
At the moment I’m looking at Craft. Right now it looks promising, especially when it comes to the user interface. Plus, there’s a web version which makes it accessible across platforms, something very important to me.
If I’m not fiddling around with it too much by month’s end I’ll probably write a blog post about the experience.
