Ponderings and Musings

I’ve been making some tweaks to the self-hosted WordPress instance that’s running Ye Ol’ Ancient Blog. There’s a lot of drama going on with the company that owns WordPress, and while I’ve been following along a little bit with said drama, I haven’t really gotten into the weeds on the whole thing. I don’t like the idea of my blog running on software supported by a lot of drama, so I’m contemplating moving to a new platform by the end of the year. We’ll see if that happens.

In the meanwhile I’ve been tweaking settings and trying to make things run a little bit faster. I’ve felt inclined to blog a bit more this week, and that’s probably because of my ongoing social media fatigue. A few of the folks I follow on Mastodon have been striking a weird, self-righteous vibe, at least a stronger vibe than usual. I blame the impending U.S. Elections. Perhaps this is confined to my bubble but people seem a little more high strung and on edge than usual.

I find this fatiguing.

Life is too short to be serious all the time.

When I was a young lad I would make my way over to Grandma and Grandpa Country’s house for my after school snack. This was easy to do, since they lived next door. I’d usually hang out with Grandma Country until Dad returned home from the family business. Grandma and I would watch “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie” together, I’d have a few of her most excellent cookies and a glass of milk, and while she was usually busy going through her afternoon routine, she always had time for her only red-headed grandchild.

All of this was 50 years ago, but I am fortunate to have a retired husband that’s usually home in the afternoon who makes a nice snack for me as I work my way through my workday in the home office. While I don’t have milk and cookies for snack these days, mostly because of my contant eye on my health and well being, he knows how to make snack time interesting and appealing for us middle aged guys that watch our gut and “Bewitched”.

Plus, he does such an outstanding job with the presentation.

The week is off and running and I’m feeling pretty good today. The workday has been productive thus far, I’ve been feeling creative with photography and videography today, and since I had a good night’s sleep, I didn’t pass out on the couch during my lunch hour.

These are all good signs.

I’ve been shying away from social media for the past couple of days, outside of sharing the link to my latest video and a few witty remarks on the Fediverse. Too many people are in such a state about the upcoming U.S. Elections. I know I could easily get into a similar state if I started wallowing in the muck, so I’m trying to stay clear of that sort of thing. I’m fully comfortable with my voting decisions, which are based on my personal moral foundation. Love + Labor = Life. Do the right thing.

I’ve resurrected the MarsEdit application on my Mac, which encourages me to blog more and scream into the social media void less. At one point I thought about moving this nearly-quarter-of-a-century old blog to a new platform, but I don’t want to risk losing data, formatting, and the folks that still stop by. So I’m content with leaving things just as they are for now. 

It’s easy to ignore the noise that is complaining about tech companies if you go out and create instead of consuming all the time.

Life shouldn’t be all consuming.

I am amazed at the quality of night shots with my new iPhone 16 Pro. As I type this entry I can barely see Truman sitting on the garage roof about a yard away from me. I pointed my phone in his direction and hit the button, and this was the result.

I’ve been a fan of Adam Conover for years. Here he talks about the truth around billionaires and how things are going things these days.

I stumbled upon this screenshot in my iPhoto Camera Roll today and it gave me a feeling of nostalgia.

Not only has tech appreciably changed in the past 12 years, but how much has the world changed in the past dozen years? How much has our approach to technology in our lives changed during this time frame?

The usual social media suspects are present: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. This screenshot evokes feelings of fun when I think of these social media services back then, not the absolutely awful crapfest they’ve become today.

I miss the relative innocence of 2012, when we thought the world was going to end on the Winter Solstice because of Mayan Math and every move wasn’t being mined by corporations that told us to “Lean In”.

I need to find a way to find that simplicity again.

The city side of my family was big into bowling. Grandparents and great uncles and great aunts all participated in bowling leagues. Grandma City was often found on the “Davenport” on Saturday afternoons watching people bowl on the television. It was a way of life.

My work sponsored an employee bowling tournament in the spirit of team building. It’s an interesting thing, building a team across several continents in places where there may not be another employee from the same company for more than a hundred miles. In these Work From Home instances, we were encouraged to take half a day off and go bowling with our family. To enter into the tournament we needed to take some photos, submit our scores, etc.

Earl and Jamie went bowling with me and we had a really nice time. I thought it would be dead on a Monday afternoon but half the lanes were in use. I’m not much of a bowler, but I did my best.

Earl and I decided to make a spontaneous trip to Phoenix yesterday. We did some shopping along the way, stopping at the outlets outside of Tucson and enjoying the autumn weather.

Last night we went to a local brewery for supper and then out to one of the local gay clubs where I watched people do their gay thing. I didn’t talk to many people, other than my husband and the bartender, but folks around me seemed to be having fun. I did too. I’m happy as an observer.

We’re headed back to Tucson in a little bit. This adventure has been fun and my head is in a good place.

There’s going to be quite a bit of photographic content on the blog over the next few days as I try out all the features on my iPhone 16 Pro.

Tonight I was inspired by the Moonrise behind the Rincon Mountains to the east of Tucson. The Rincons are about two miles from the house, and often make for some dramatic photographs.