Ponderings and Musings

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.

Spotted during our walk last night. So simple, but so important.

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.

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.

I’m sitting under the gazebo in the middle of July. This is not too bad for a Tuesday afternoon in the Sonoran Desert; it’s 98ºF but rather pleasant. There’s a decent breeze. The National Weather Service says we can expect thunderstorms but not until later tonight. I like that. Night lightning shots are cool.

Speaking of lightning shots, I’m very pleased with a shot I took during a storm this past weekend.

There’s a little bit of “lens blowout” (I don’t know the official term) at the bottom of the lightning strike but for the most part it came out well. I’m enjoying storm photography and my life videography in general as a creative outlet.

I have been thinking it’s Wednesday all day, though it is Tuesday. My husband is doing better with COVID; he tested negative yesterday. Mike and I are negative, but now Chris is testing positive. He’s just feeling a little rundown. I just heard that Jamie is coming home from barber school with a little bit of a scratchy throat. He partied in Los Angeles over the weekend, so it could just be that he’s tired.

I’m a few days into 56 and I’m feeling good about that. I’m looking forward to life’s next adventure, whether big or small.

That’s a good feeling.

I’ve been trying extra hard to avoid the news over the past 48 hours. My opinion is not important in the cacophony of analysis over what happened in Butler, Pa., and honestly, I don’t have the energy to care, let alone share thoughts and prayers.

I am at the point in my life where I just want to punch something every time I hear Wolf Blitzer’s voice, so I just put on some news noise canceling headphones and go about my day.

This is what 56 looks like.

We spruced up the sitting area in our “suite”, which is marked as the “Activity Room” on the blueprints of our home. The old couch and such had moved here from Chicago and had not held up as well as we would have liked, so when tax time came around earlier this year we picked out some new furniture for the space.

Truman has decided he does not like the couch and shows his discontentment with the situation in the photo. On the other hand, the humans are finding the whole affair quite comfy. The top of the coffee table flips up for those of us that geek out with our laptops while sitting on the couch.

Earl tested positive for COVID-19 this morning. This is his first time testing positive since COVID-19 became a thing. Luckily, he is fully vaccinated and is working with our doctor on a prescription for Paxlovid.

Fingers crossed he gets through this as easily as I have in the past.

On one hand it’s hard for me to believe COVID-19 is still around, on the other hand, of course it’s still around.

I’ve been very pensive this week. I suppose it’s that time of year; I take stock of where I am in my life and what I want to do with whatever time I have left. These are things that consume many cycles of my brainpower at any given time. It just feels like that in the mid part of any given year it feels like it consumes a little more of my time.

I would like to say this photo was randomly snapped and it just happened to catch the moment of me lost in my thoughts. But in reality, I set up the camera and just set it to capture a bunch of photos while I went back to being lost in my thoughts. It’s a good thing I don’t pay for film processing anymore. That’s one of the great things about today’s technology and art.

While I was on my pre-sunrise walk this morning I found myself caught up in a game of “shoulda coulda woulda”. I then quickly realized that game is not productive and is a waste of mental energy. I am here, right now, because I was meant to be right here, right now. It’s the way of the Universe.

I think part of my pensiveness is because I’ve been wondering what I want to do with the YouTube endeavor I’ve been recently endeavoring. At the end of the day I just want it to be a creative outlet. Any creativity I want to share is still shared with enthusiasm, regardless of the feedback or the number of eyeballs that see it. That’s what’s most important to me; the creative process, not any adulation around the result. Typing out this last paragraph has helped me regain my perspective.

As I sit here, in my mid 50s, I’m sometimes a little sad to realize that the magic I once sought as a youngster isn’t really there. Maybe I was looking for magic over Dorothy’s rainbow or something. But then the adult version of me realizes that attitude is a little pessimistic and I remember that we find the magic we seek, no matter where it is.

I need to remember to keep seeking that magic. I’ll find it.