J.P.

The Great Purge.

I refuse to be sick. It’s just the way I approach the idea of illness, I refuse to accept it and I press on. Nine times of ten I feel like this approach works to life but once in a while my body wins over my mind and I end up getting sick.

Hence the activities of Friday.

After repeatedly vomiting during the day on Friday and taking some much needed downtime from work, I decided to just approach the weekend to allow my body to do whatever it needed to do. Apparently, that meant lots of sleep. I am writing this on Sunday morning and for the first time in months I actually feel well rested. I took three or four naps yesterday, went to bed early last night and ended up sleeping straight through until my usual wake up time, which these days is around 06:00. I get up early because after all, I’m a middle aged man and that’s when middle aged men apparently wake up. I also have a feline that likes to stir a bit at sunrise.

When my body wins the illness battle and convinces me to slow down, I take a moment and realize that it’s time to listen. So that’s what I’m doing. As a riff on Friday’s theme, I’m calling this weekend “The Great Purge”. I’ve made a few promises to myself in regards to tamping down on some of my habits (caffeine intake, calories intake, etc) and trying to get myself to a better place, both mentally and physically.

My career can be stressful. It’s manageable, at least I think it is, but it is stressful. Sometimes I think I take work things a little too seriously.

Home life can be stressful too. Again, I think it’s manageable but sometimes a house of five grown men can be overwhelming.

As one that tends to read into things, I feel like this bout of illness was my body and brain ganging up on me a little bit and saying, “hey, slow down a little bit. Get your act together.”

And that’s what I’m going to try to do.

4 June 2023 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Caturday.

Truman often situates himself on the bed when it’s time for us to get up, but he’s always at the end of the bed and facing away. This is the feline equivalent of interested disinterest. But it’s to be assumed that this is for kibble distribution.

3 June 2023 by J.P. He's A Feline. 0

So Sick.

I can’t keep anything other than small sips of water in my stomach. After barfing with mic mute on and the camera off on three of today’s meetings, I decided to take the rest of the day as sick time, cancelled any weekend plans, and am just doing whatever my body wants to do this weekend.

Someone keeps settling in next to me on the couch and on the bed and looking after me in his way.

2 June 2023 by J.P. He's A Feline. 0

Digital Minimalism.

While I was chasing storms a couple of weeks ago (and driving hundreds of miles across Texas), I listened to some podcasts. I’m not an avid podcast listener; my interest in the art waxes and wanes as much as the moon, just on a slower timeline. But along the way I discovered Cal Newport’s podcast “Deep Questions” and I found it fascinating.

I’m eager to read Cal Newport’s book “Digital Minimalism”. Lately, and this week in particular, I have found being online to be overwhelming. There’s a lot going on in the world: the endless war in the Ukraine, the debt ceiling fiasco, the upcoming presidential elections, in addition to the usual idiocy that’s celebrated by society these days. I needed to find a way to calm down the noise. I especially needed to find a way to quiet the noise in my head.

I (mostly) left Twitter months ago when Elon Musk took over the platform. I still have my aviation/storm chasing account over there but I rarely look at it. I don’t like having the application on any of my devices because it just mines endless amounts of data. Same with Facebook and Instagram. I don’t need the datamining in my pocket. I do, however, like to know what’s going on with family and friends via Facebook and I like sharing and enjoying photos once in a while.

In this video by Cal Newport, he talks about focusing on “Digital Minimalism”, not “Digital Elimination”. There’s good content in the algorithmically supported applications out there. The trick is to minimize the distractions while you’re there.

For the Mac, I recently discovered a Safari extension called Social Focus. It’s worth the $1.99 price tag and it looks like the options will do much of what I’m looking for this sort of thing to do. Here’s my options for Facebook:

Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox all have similar extensions available; a quick search revealed “Social Fixer” for those browsers.

In the past I’ve talked about 30 day challenges I’ve given myself; these are month long odysseys to try to improve my life in some way. For the month of June I’m focusing on “Digital Minimalism” in two ways: ridding my iPhone of anything with “infinite scrolling”, especially the social media apps, and using social media in a responsible way with the Social Focus extension in Safari making things a little more sane.

I’m also very interested in purchasing Cal Newport’s book “Digital Minimalism”, however, I want a physical copy. I think I’m going to go to one of the locally owned bookstores this coming weekend to see if it’s available.

1 June 2023 by J.P. Digital Rights Geek 0

Visitors.

A family of Javelinas passed through the yard early this morning. This was the first time I’d seen young ones this small. The big ones were not pleased as we no longer put out the garbage cans the night before pickup day. Javelinas like knocking over the garbage.

But the little ones are so cute!

31 May 2023 by J.P. Desert Life. 0

Bulk.

When I was a kid we had two grocery store chains in town: Acme Markets and P&C Foods. In those days the stores were considered quite modern. The P&C was a little bigger than the Acme, as it had five checkout lanes and one express lane that was never used. The Acme had four checkout lanes, but friendly meat folks that would pop their head out the mirrored windows behind the meat counter. Mom would do a lot of her daily shopping at the smaller Red and White market that was locally owned close to home. Their they wrapped meat in paper and wrote the price on the paper with a grease pen.

I find Costco and the like to be overwhelming and unnecessary. For years I have mercifully been able to avoid going to Costco with any of our other family members as I complete despise the experience. I just find it to be way “too much”.

Tonight I was asked to accompany my husband to the local Costco. I was not amused. I was not happy. And we’ll leave it at that.

30 May 2023 by J.P. Food. 0

Routes.

I have begun outlining all the Interstate routes my husband and I have driven together over the years. Since we often focus on the backroads, this doesn’t paint a complete picture of our travels but it’s close.

29 May 2023 by J.P. Life In Motion. 0

Sexy.

A casino, a martini or some champagne, lots of money, tuxes, and a sexy vibe. The perfect Saturday night. Alas, enjoy one of my favorite dance songs (and video) of all time. On a Sunday night.

Here’s Armin van Buuren featuring Nadia Ali, “Feels So Good”.

28 May 2023 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 0

Caturday.

Truman is glaring at me because this is not his most flattering pose. He was in the midst of a bath when the hooman decided to snap this photo. He said he wants to talk to Barbra’s agent about flattering angles n

27 May 2023 by J.P. He's A Feline. 0

Anger.

It’s way too soon for the next Presidential Election primary season to start here in the United States. I know some folks started talking about the exercise right after the outcome of the 2020 election was called, but I’d be a really happy camper if we could limit discussions around the next presidential elections to only the six months leading up to the event. I feel like that would give us enough time to figure out who was going to do what and we could make a rational decision come the first week in November.

But the U.S. election system doesn’t work that way, mainly because there’s no money in that sort of sane approach. And money is the name of the game when it comes to Politics.

So I’m not ready for 2024. I’m not ready for the rah rah, I’m not ready for town halls, I’m not ready for any of it. I can tell you that I’m not excited by any of the candidates that have announced their intentions thus far. The frontrunners (if there is such a thing 18 months from Election Day) are both just too damn old. The Baby Boomer Politicians will just not let go and let candidates from the younger generations find their way to the big offices.

What I’m really not ready for is anger and vitriol. 2016-2020 was exhausting on way too many levels and things slowed down just a little bit from the end of 2020 to the present day. I’m not ready for Facebook posts and political rants. I don’t want to be part of any of that. I feel like I’m going to be desperately clinging to the “country” side of my family and just keep my politics personal. Political beliefs should be like spiritual beliefs, but instead of being between me and $deity, it’s between me and the voting machine.

I’ll probably get more worked up as we inch toward the frenetic political pace that is waiting for us on the horizon. I may share some of my opinions then.

But I’m really going to try hard not to get angry about the whole thing.

26 May 2023 by J.P. Political BS. Politics. 0

The Great Purge.

Caturday.

So Sick.

Digital Minimalism.

Visitors.

Bulk.

Routes.

Sexy.

Caturday.

Anger.

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