Ponderings and Musings

I often spend weekend mornings finishing up half-baked blog entries I’ve written during the week. I also use this opportunity to respond to comments and other correspondence around my social media presence. There’s a few blog entries that remain quite popular, usually those around cash registers, or old department store chains like W.T. Grants.

As I was sorting through my email, I saw a message from WordPress, which is the software that supports this blog. I subscribe to WordPress’ “Jetpack” service, even though the blog is self hosted on my own server. The Jetpack service seems worth the money and it allows me to see visitor counts if I so desire, but it also helps in automating much of the maintenance one has to do on a website in these here scary Internet times. It’s less fuss, less muss, and that’s fine by me.

The message in question indicated that I had received several subscriptions for email notifications this week. I was vaguely aware of email subscriptions to the blog, I thought there was a handful of them at most, but it seems there’s many more than I originally thought. So, I’d like to say to everyone that subscribes to my entries via email: Hello! It’s wonderful to have you here.

At last night’s dinner, a party of four was seated at the table next to us. They were pleasant and lively and we could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. Apparently one of the members of the party considered himself a YouTube Influencer of sorts and I could hear chatter about video editing and plans on ramping up his channel, though I couldn’t ever discern what his influencing way about. The bits of gray in his large beard indicated he was probably in his 40s. I took a moment to try to find him online last night, but with the small bits of information I was able to glean from eavesdropping, I couldn’t find him anywhere.

I have little desire to be some sort of middle-aged Social Media Influencer. I have no desire to focus on that sort of thing, but when I hear that there’s some people following along to our 21+ years of documented adventures and the what not on this blog, I’m a bit humbled.

So, Hello!

It was a good day. Earl and I took a short stroll around the lawn after taking the garbage cans down to the street. A good reason for a stroll.

Chris and Mike installed some rose vines on either side of the front door. They’re looking great.

My iPhone camera didn’t capture these colors as well as I hoped it would. These flowers were strikingly beautiful on my walk. They made me smile.

Spring has sprung in the Sonoran Desert and it is lovely.

I was out and about today and decided it was too warm to go with the the windows down, so we switched to the Arizona default of constant air conditioning. Most folks in the area use air conditioning year round, but I like the fresh air when I can get it.

Today it was a little to warm for that approach.

One of the things I really love about living in the desert, especially at this time of year, is the warm breezes that blow at night. I enjoy sitting out on our patio well after dark, looking at a moonless sky and enjoying the warm breeze.

Yes, it’s a dry heat. And I love it.

I’m a month away from my storm chasing trip and I’m ramping up my meteorological studies so I can be in the right place at the right time more often this year. Last year I witnessed several awesome thunderstorms, some impressive straight line winds, and one F1 tornado in the very northeast corner of Colorado. I don’t know where the storms will take me this year, and as far as I’m concerned, anything is game, but I am really looking forward to the adventure.

Temperatures are firing up here in the Sonoran Desert, and our two canine family members love to sit in the hot sun for a few moments every afternoon. Lucky gets himself right situated on the landscaping rock and sister Jinx sits next to him, apparently holding watch, to make sure everything and everyone is safe.

We don’t let them spend too much time out there as we don’t want them to get a sunburn. I do believe they enjoy their brief doses of sunshine, though.

Good, Better, Best
Never let it rest
‘Til the good get better
And the better get best

I woke up this morning feeling energized and ready to take on the work week. This is the first time in a while that I’ve felt this way; last week was mentally exhausting for me and I don’t even really know why, other than it just was. Sometimes, it is what it is and it was what it was. The key to a successful life is to get beyond this and keep moving forward.

I’m continuing my decluttering exercises I started last month; I have a bunch of old technology ready for recycling, I have a bunch of old clothes going to Goodwill, and I’ve been throwing out paper and such that I just don’t need anymore. On the flip side, I’ve been looking at all the books I’ve accumulated over the years and I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. I was looking at a couple of titles by Erma Bombeck (one of my favorite humorists of all time), and I was thinking I might want to read those books again, because they always put a smile on my face. Then I got to thinking, I don’t really enjoy reading books on an electronic device, though I try over and over to make it something I should do. Perhaps it’s because I’m using an iPad instead of a Kindle or something, but there’s nothing like a real book and turning real pages.

I’ve also been cleaning up some of my computing workflows, namely trying to reduce the “friction” around capturing my thoughts. I’m using an app called Drafts, which is designed to capture text quickly. From there you can go back and process it through automation; I have built quite a few automations where I can push text to my to do lists, other lists I have built for upcoming adventures, such as my storm chasing trip next month, or to my journal. I forget things because I don’t write them down, and Drafts is giving me the ability to write things down quickly.

On a Monday, at lunch time, the work week is off to a grand start. I’m hoping to maintain this cadence through the week. Good things are ahead, and I’m doing what I can to get those good things as easily as possible.

I stopped at a local gas station to put a bunch of expensive gasoline into our car. Fuel prices have jumped up a lot in the past couple of weeks, we are currently around $4.299 a gallon.

I feel like an oil executive is getting very rich because of this.

One of the things that agitates me quite a bit is the use of technology for dubious reasons. This particular gas station has decent sized screens built into the gas pumps, much like most of the gas stations in the area. This particular location has seen it fit to put advertising videos on the screen while one is pumping their gas, and the videos in question are very, very loud in volume.

That is, until you bang on the touchscreen enough times to shut things up while you’re being lectured on the virtues of candy and such.

I despise advertising. I used to make a living writing ads for a radio station and I still despise advertising. I am usually quite good at tuning out the idiocy, but when the volume is cranked up to 11, I’m going to start banging on keys until the volume goes away.

I won’t be stopping at this location again.

Having a personal blog online for over two decades is an interesting experience. I’ve talked about going back and reviewing pieces of our life that happened a long while ago, but one of the more concerning aspects of the longevity of this blog is the amount of spam I receive that has one too many details for my comfort level.

I’ll get an email referencing a blog post from well over 10 years ago from sort of marketing spammy type thing and for a few moments it completely unnerves me. There are times that I wonder if it’s worth maintaining this now-antiquated presence without some sort of further guardrails around on the whole thing.

Of course, I’m a bit of a control freak, and I like to know everything that’s going on, to the best of my ability, at any given moment. In this increasingly chaotic world, that’s hard to achieve. But I like to keep up the façade for my own personal enjoyment.

I’ve been writing a daily post for the past few years because it wasn’t an exercise in sharing life, including the mundane points. When I first started the blog my posts were not as frequent.

As the Internet moves to a darker place, with way too many bad actors operating in the space and way too many corporations trying to monetize everything this side of my consumption of oxygen, I’m wondering if my ideals and values are outdated and in the long wrong could create further security concerns and the like.

I guess it’s a matter of what will happen first, I reach my expiration date or my blog gives out one too many secrets.