July 2024

Distractions.

I have been purposely focused on avoiding distractions at work and in the my use of technology this week. You’d think that at age 56 I’d already have all this figured out and instead be pushing and shuffling paper and work all over the place like some seasoned pro, but I’m not wired that way. I love shiny, new things, especially when it comes to tech, and my mind often churns at trying to find a better way to get myself organized. The result is I often spend more time organizing my organizational methods rather than doing the things I had organized in the first place.

It’s all confounding.

For years I have subscribed to a loose interpretation of the “Getting Things Done”, or GTD, methodology for organizing my life. As iron clad as my memory is to the names and ages of the women that worked in my high school cafeteria back in 1983, I tend to forget tasks that I have to do at work unless I write them down. I have a spiral notebook where I jot things down all the time and then I add them to a digital to-do list. This is where things go sideways. Some folks in the tech space declare you should never use anything but plain text files to maintain this sort of thing. That works great for about 48 hours but then something falls out during a sync between systems, and then I have to remember what the todo list has forgotten, which negates the whole point of writing it down in the first place.

I could keep this all in handwritten notebooks but they can be cumbersome to carry around. My father kept a small notebook in his shirt pocket at all times and wrote things down there but while I’m clearly old enough, I’m not ready to wear shirts that require a shirt pocket at all times.

So then I switch from the plain text file approach to a solution designed for this sort of thing, which is a suite of applications called OmniFocus from The Omni Group. The application is outstanding and since the latest release has been even more fantastic. The thing is, it relatively locks me into the Apple ecosystem, aside from a web portal that has improved by leaps and bounds over the past year. As long as work allows me to get to that web portal from my Windows computer, I’m good.

But then my “be your own tech guru” instincts kick in, usually spurred by the clamoring of my open source contemporaries about “closed systems” and the cycle then repeats.

I have been focusing very hard not to be distracted by the differing voices of what’s right and wrong in today’s technology.

The truth is, I’m at the point in my life and my tech interests where “it just works” reigns supreme over everything else. I have to focus on technology that I trust, and while I don’t really trust any technology, my Apple setup is the closest I get to something I can trust: it should just work, they seem to be making good strides toward privacy, and most importantly, it allows me to achieve a minimalism that helps declutter my brain, my life, and my existence.

Side note, I still want a vintage Apple //e on the back desk in my office at some point in the near future. That’d be fun to futz around with.

The removal of “fiddling with the tech” distractions this week has allowed me to accomplish about 16% more this week at work and allowed me some brain cycles to think about upcoming videos as a creative endeavor. This has improved my mood and well-being.

Writing about this in this here bloggy thing, and making these declarations and discoveries public, has reinforced that this path has worked well for me this week.

I should probably read this blog entry whenever I start to feel distracted. I’ll have to save the permalink somewhere so I remember that I wrote this blog entry to begin with.

Maybe a sticky note on the monitor will work.

Lighting.

So here’s a photo of me sitting in front of my video editing computer.

I have an old webcam attached to this Mac mini that I use for testing scripts that I may record in future videos. I’ve been in my “creative flow” for much of the evening and it feels good. Being happy away from work makes it easier to be at happy at work.

Some folks in my social media circles are starting to lose their minds when it comes to the presidential elections. I wretched about it last night so there’s no reason to get my hackles up about the subject today. I rolled my eyes one too many times today so I just shut down the browser and went and did something productive.

Unprecedented.

Vice President Kamala Harris takes her official portrait Thursday, March 4, 2021, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

So, Joe Biden announced yesterday that he is withdrawing from the presidential elections in November. He endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place. I suppose it will become official during the Democratic National Convention in August.

Of course the Orange Rapist is having fits and wants a refund on all the money he spent on screaming at Joe. This course of action has completely thrown off his summer golf plans. It also eclipses anything that happened last week during the Republican National Convention and spins the news media away from the outrageous bandage he’s been wearing on his ear. He paid for those props.

I sound cynical. I am cynical. In my perfect world, we’d just start talking about the president elections now instead of spinning up the hype four years before this cursed event.

Joe did the right thing. I was never crazy about voting for him this time around. It’s time for younger blood to come in and get things done. It’s time to change course. And now, Trump is the oldest candidate to run for president in the history of the country.

The media should be questioning Trump’s competence and mental acuity now. He’s way past whatever excuse we could call “his prime” and should also step down. That little Reddit troll he selected to run as his VP, the one that grew a mangy beard to look less ugly, wouldn’t stand a chance in the role, so it’d be fun to watch that go down in flames.

Overall I’m comfortable with Kamala, much more comfortable than I was with Joe. I think she has it in her and I’ll be throwing my vote in her direction come November. That is, if the country is still here, she’s still the nominee, and nothing startling has happened like twisters wiping out half the northeast again or something.

Good times. If it wasn’t a wasted vote I’d still vote for the Very Large Meteor.

Video: Lemmon Rock Lookout Trail.

I went hiking yesterday morning. It was a bit more humid than it’s been in past weeks, but it was still cool at the Summit Trailheads atop Mount Lemmon. This time I hiked down the fairly steep Lemmon Rock Lookout Trail. Next time I’ll take some hiking poles or something to be a little more steady on my feet.

I had a harder time than usual putting this video together. With the political turmoil going on and Earl yelling “breaking news!” from the other room every hour, I had a hard time finding music tracks I thought would fit the vibe I was striving to achieve.

I talk about being positive and doing positive things for the world in my videos. I truly believe that. But sometimes I need to listen to my own press.

I hope you enjoy my latest video.

Caturday.

Truman likes to keep tabs on me while I’m working on video or looking at weather models and reports.

Crowdstrike.

In case you haven’t heard, we are experiencing what some have termed as “the worst global Internet outage in history”. It’s because of Crowdstrike, a security company used by many, many companies. They sent out a security patch to systems running Microsoft Windows yesterday, and that patch had issues. Computers that applied this patch then crash and can’t be restarted without removing said patch. The kicker is, getting the computer to a state where the patch can be removed is tricky, especially if the computer is not locally accessible by someone that knows how to do this sort of thing.

And because of this, airports and airlines and DMVs and banks and hospitals and telecoms and all sorts of businesses that run Microsoft Windows and use Crowdstrike to keep their systems secure and hurting bad today.

Apple devices (Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc) and Linux computers are not locally affected by this outage, but systems they access could be affected. Microsoft based computers on their own (not managed by Crowdstrike) are also not affected. I’m 99% sure your gaming computer is fine.

We have been dealing with Crowdstrike all day at work today and it looks like the fun and frivolity is going to continue into the weekend. Luckily, the applications my team at work supports all run on Linux based servers, outside of two legacy applications we inherited from another group during a recent re-organization at work.

I’m surprised a patch from a prominent security company made it into the wild with such a defect. Usually these things are caught well before they’re released to the public. As of this writing, Crowdstrike’s stock price is down over 11%. I’m a little surprised by that; I thought it’d be much more.

Lightning.

Mother Nature has kicked this year’s Monsoon Season up a notch, and according to the National Weather Service, this is just the appetizer for what may be an active weekend for storms.

I made my first Official Storm Spotter report to the National Weather Service office here in Tucson tonight. We clocked winds at 52 MPH at 18:28 this evening, which puts things into Severe Thunderstorm territory. Of course I was outside enjoying the majesty of it all.

I’ve been catching lightning shots all night. Lightning at sunset is glorious.

I just caught this strike on video about 10 minutes before posting this entry.

https://videopress.com/v/uesgpoP2?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

That’s Entertainment?

My husband and I have been watching Hulu’s “The Bear” over the past couple of weeks. This show, about a family owned Chicago beef restaurant, has been a frenetic ball of chaos since the first moments of episode one. It’s not something I would normally watch, but there are interesting moments and I get the whole “art vibe” of the production. The show has won awards all over the place and everyone is stumbling over one another to declare how much they enjoy the show. It’s the latest in a litany of Internet sensations and has earned its place among “Breaking Bad”, “Orange Is The New Black”, and the one whose name escapes me right now but I remember everyone hated the last season of it.

Chaos is entertainment in these chaotic times of the 21st century, and it’s apparent that folks just want more chaos.

We tried watching “Succession” and didn’t finish the first season; if I wanted to watch the Trump family be insufferable idiots I’d turn on CNN. I know actors like to stretch their craft by realistically portraying these whacked out characters, but watching “Fishes”, the Christmas episode of season two of “The Bear”, threw my anxiety levels through the roof. The direction was amazing, the portrayals were top notch, but I did not find one ounce of entertainment in the entire experience.

If I wanted to watch folks have inexplicable meltdowns I’d drive to the nearest Walmart or Safeway or hang out in one of the seedy areas of Tucson.

For me, entertainment is escapism where I can find something to celebrate. I find no interest in wallowing in completely mental situations of characters cooked up to scream and fling forks and turn over dining room tables while Christmas carols are playing in the background.

I’ll continue to watch “The Bear” with my husband, as he very much enjoys the show and I enjoy spending time with him. But when it comes to entertainment?

I just don’t get it.

Jamie Lee Curtis in “The Bear”. Photo from IMDB.

Midweek.

We are at midweek. I’m focusing on the good things and avoiding the bad things. This past weekend we went for a little ride up into Redington Pass. It was warm, it was sunny, and it was beautiful.