It’s raining. We have watched two episodes of “Succession”. I’m looking at home office decorating ideas by looking at homes for sale in different parts of the country. And I’m drinking a glass of sparkling wine.
Life could be worse.
Keeping It Real.
Social media is in such a state these days. Earlier this week, Bluesky announced they’re now letting folks sign up for their service without needing a referral code from an existing member. Apparently the sign up process includes having to give your mobile phone number so you can confirm your identity with an SMS message.
That should make privacy minded people a little nervous, but it’s become the norm with most everything online these days. Disheartening.
I have a couple of accounts on Bluesky that I don’t really use that much. One is for my tech and personal adventures, the other is for my storm chasing and aviation adventures. I use it as a stream of information more than anything, if I look at the platform at all. I don’t have it installed on any of my devices, opting to look through a web browser when I want to see what’s going on. I imagine I might use it a little more during storm chasing season later this spring. It’s good to know what’s going on with others when it comes to storm chasing.
Twitter continues to be a mess. I’ve maintained one account on the platform, again for aviation and storm chasing purposes. A vast majority of the people I followed in general life has fled from the platform. I keep my account purely for a data source and don’t really interact that much with anyone or even look at the platform with any sort of regularity. When I took a peek this morning the suggestions and recommendations went all political and angry and I figured Twitter continues to be the dumpster fire it has become notorious for being.
I really wish more storm chasers and aviators would move over to something like Mastodon, which isn’t controlled by corporate interests. But when you’re “click-dependent”, whether for monetary purposes or for the dopamine hit, it’s unlikely you’ll immediately get that rush when you switch to Mastodon. And that’s a shame.
I tuned into Mastodon this morning and saw a bunch of political posts, most of which were shrouded with a content warning as is the practice in most areas of the Fediverse. The never ending disappointment from the Supreme Court of the United States was populating my feed all over the place and it was making my blood pressure rise so I decided to step away from Mastodon for a few days.
The topic of “being a brand” versus “being me” online came up recently in a very interesting thread on Mastodon. I really enjoyed that discussion. I have always been a “what you see is what you get” kind of guy online, as I am in real life. Back in my early 20s, when I was working as a radio personality, I was told I should look a certain way and change my speech both in and out of the studio to meet a certain demographic expectation. I told the person making those recommendations that didn’t really fit my style and I was just going to be me to the best of my ability. My radio career is way back in the rearview mirror of my life but I still try to be honest and true to me when I share my nuggets of life here on this bloggy thingy.
The Mastodon discussion also revolved around people talking about their careers or other business interests first and foremost when it came to “sharing their brand”. I have a great job in tech, I lead an awesome team of developers, and like everywhere else in my life, I strive to be honest and true to who I am when interacting with my co-workers and the team that reports to me. I don’t know how to be any other way and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t get the idea of having to build a brand online or even building a brand in real life. If my husband and I are going to be multi-millionaires it’s because we got there being true to who we are, not because we followed a prescribed notion of who we were expected to be.
As a complete pivot away from the subject, I’d also like to share that I’m typing this blog entry in an old favorite application called “Ommwriter” that seems to have been resurrected from the dead. I’m listening to music included with the app on my noise canceling headphones. It is suppose to encourage creativity, and it does.
Flight Decisions.
I had planned on flying this afternoon. It’s been a week or two since my last flight and I was looking forward to going up solo and just playing around with the airplane a little, doing a few landings at a nearby field, and then heading to home base to airplane away.
A simple one hour flight.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans and I ended up canceling the flight. When it comes to aviation safety, I am quite conservative.
Today was one of those days where I don’t like making a weather call. We all know the weather is always changing, but today the forecasters couldn’t make their mind up on the timing as to when the storms would be clearing out of the area and the forecast kept jumping in and out of my planned flight time. So I played it safe and called off the flight. The decision was a good one, thunderstorms were in the area at the beginning of my planned flight time and that’s never good. Mother Nature decided to be funny and bring out the sunshine about an hour later, but then storm clouds quickly followed and more rain moved into the area.
I made the right decision. Going with my gut is always the right decision. It doesn’t mean that I enjoyed making that decision though. It’s just part of the plan to become a very old pilot.
Storms are suppose to blow through for the next few days so I probably won’t look at flying again until one night next week. Hopefully Mother Nature will settle down a bit and get herself sorted out so I can enjoy the friendly skies.
Train.
While we were meandering on back roads on Saturday, we spotted the vintage Union Pacific passenger train near Picacho Peak. As we made our way along the Frontage Road aside Interstate 10, Earl snapped a few photos.
Monday Vibes.
It’s not a bad start to the week. Truman was curious about the tripod sitting on my back desk so I showed it to him.
Bridal Wreath Falls.
I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post that I hiked up to Bridal Wreath Falls in Saguaro National Park here in Tucson. I’d been up there a few times before; this was the first time I’d seen so much water coming over the falls.
We have some storms in the forecast this coming week. I’m hoping to see even more water over the falls if I hike up there this coming weekend.
Earworm.
One of my favorite albums of all time is “Cosmic Thing” by The B-52s. This song (“The Deadbeat Club”) has been on repeat in my head since late last night. Here’s your chance to enjoy it as well.
While most folks think “Love Shack” when it comes to The B52s, that track is probably my least favorite on the album. My favorite track is “Follow Your Bliss”, with the album version of “Roam” coming in a close second.
I was but a young gay when I first heard “Channel Z” at a gay club called The 1270 in Boston.
Oh, and here’s the official video for “Roam”. The choruses are truncated for the radio release (as seen here) when compared to the album. The album version gives the song the room it deserves.
Epiphany.
I went hiking yesterday. This is something I’ve been trying to do on Saturday mornings. With the recent rain, there was a lot of water coming over the falls at Bridal Wreath Falls, and when all was said and done, I hiked 7.75 miles and climbed around 1500 feet to see all the beauty Mother Nature has to offer in these parts.
I often choose to take the lesser traveled trails when hiking. I enjoy being alone and I like to get lost in my thoughts without having to worry about entertaining others or being part of a conversation while I’m trying to catch my breath as we climb up switchbacks to get to the top of that next ridge. Occasionally I’ll talk to myself under my breath; it’s a habit I’ve had since I was a kid and it helps me work out whatever is churning in my mind at any given moment. As I was making my way back to the trailhead I think I startled a woman making her way up the trail alone. She said to me, “I’m sorry, I was talking to myself.”. I simply replied, “Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t hear you and honestly, the reason I’m usually on the back trails is so I can talk to myself without startling people”.
We had a bonding moment.
As I sorted my head out while reveling in my solitude, I realized that my approach to life changed a bit when both my father and my father-in-law both passed within a week of each other in late 2011. Shortly after the services, an acquaintance said to me, “we’re not really men until our fathers are no longer around”. I think I really took that statement to heart and went to “adulting” mode in high gear. I mentioned this to my husband later in the day yesterday and he said “you definitely changed after our dads passed”. He quickly followed up that the changes weren’t for the worse or anything, I just didn’t seem to have as much as fun as I did when we first met.
I always attributed that to just getting old.
While I was hiking I got to thinking about the videos I used to make and the photos I used to take and all the crazy little things I would post here on this little bloggy thing and I started to realize I missed that frivolity.
Always looking for the “why”, I started to wonder if my change in attitude had something to do with the changes in society in general. Social media was a lot more fun in the early ’10s. While politics have always been annoying, people weren’t quite so incredibly nuts back then. All of this (gesturing wildly) felt a lot less chaotic in general and as life in the United States became, for lack of a better word, darker as the ’10s wore on, I just felt less inclined to be giddy and frivolous in my creative pursuits. I was adulting because it seemed like the necessary thing to do.
I feel like we all take ourselves way too seriously these days.
Every once in a while I’ll meet a random person who just has the most awesome energy. It’s a vibe that is so full of light. I remember that feeling. And I need to find that, and more importantly, share that vibe again.
When I started this blog over 20 years ago I just rambled about life. I hoped to make people smile. Sharing the smile vibe makes me smile. Smiling is good.
So, right then and there on the way down from Bridal Wreath Falls, I made a short snippet of a video.
It’s less than 10 seconds and it’s just a statement. But wow, it felt amazing.
Caturday.
This guy always wins my heart. Here he looks at the human as he wonders why there’s no treats being dispersed.
This!
This is a bit of a geek thing, but Keenan is spot on with their latest blog entry, “RSS Readers Make Me Want To Jump Into A Vat Of Acid“. Go follow the link.
