Category: Life

I’ve been reading and listening a lot to Seth Godin, the marketing guru / daily blogger. After all he’s the one who got me on this 3+ month blogging kick.

However, I wonder if some of his thoughts are for higher level stuff while I’m still trying to get my own craft locked down. Between the new gig (which uses a lot of old skills but still feels fundamentally different), and the fact I still haven’t gotten the work / family / exercise practice down, there’s some fundamentals I need to work on.

Even so, I think there’s a value to looking out past the horizon. I’ve always been a proponent of slow and steady growth in the profession, but also of constantly strategizing for the future.

Maybe delusions of grandeur aren’t so bad, as long as you remember it’s for the future and you don’t assume it’s happening today, right now, right now.

Yesterday evening, my boy did something cute and amusing. It tickled me so much I thought I’d write about it today.

I woke up this morning and I can’t remember what on earth it was.

But I still have the warm fuzzy feeling, amplified by the thought I’d share on the blog.

So instead of sharing the instigating incident, I decided to share this warm fuzzy feeling instead.

Have a good day!

I’ve noticed this odd dichotomy between how I write about work versus family.

Now that I’ve achieved a certain level, I feel generally confident about knowing how to get a decent living in this profession.

But with the kiddos, it’s all about unknowns and questions.

Admittedly, work is much less dynamic than raising children. There’s only three key variables for work – compensation (money), effort (hours), and experience (projects).

Then again, maybe it’s just a function of time, I’ve been playing at this architecture game for about twenty years now, and only in the kiddo game for about five.

So there’s still a chance I’ll also start waddling around as a parenting know-it-all in fifteen years.

Exercise.

Stretch.

Walk a mile.

Blog.

Read a book.

Quit social,

And caffeine.

I had heard a rumor that each state employee has multiple licenses to install Microsoft Office on their home computers (beyond the web app). So last month, I took a moment to download the program, installed it, but ran into an activation problem. I still had access to the Office 365 webapp so I just forgot about it, until we were sent an email confirming the rumor.

The key was knowing for certain that I had a legitimate rights to the program. I’m not an IT guy by any stretch of the imagination, but I can mash keyboards, and I’m not scared about nerfing our home laptop. I went back at it, messed around with some settings, deleted some stray items, and got it to work.

Like kids in the 50’s grew up working on cars, I’m of the generation that grew up messing around with our PC’s, those 286’s and 386’s. There was a lot of time spent sitting in front of the computer inserting one floppy disk after another for a big installation. The computer is a black box, but not a scary one.

Once in a while, all that time in front of the CRT is validated. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the highest and best use of my time, but at least it wasn’t a complete loss.

The hard part is social has crafted themselves to be a great feed of a interesting tidbits. Eating candy isn’t the best thing for one’s brain, but it’s awful hard to quit.

As I’ve been spending less time on Facebook (the New York Times article about how they were letting partners read messenger PM’s was a kicker) I noticed that I transitioned to Twitter, a platform I previously didn’t use outside of major national events.

So last night I took some time to dumb it down a bit. Partly to shape it towards Nevada politics (I’ll find out about big events in DC soon enough) and partly just make it less exciting.

The next problem might be that I will also have to stop mindlessly revisiting and refreshing the same websites as if it was 2004.

Ultimately I suspect it is a battle to train myself to prefer more substantive fare over the quick hits of news, gossip, and superficial interaction.

Our boy is a happy little guy. He doesn’t hesitate to beam with pride over the smallest little things.

With a baby, it’s easy to watch them level up. Each little incremental improvement is quite obvious. Even with our daughter it’s still noticeable with all she’s learning from the world around her.

But for us growed up folks, how do we find our own little victories? And when we do, then we should celebrate them with a big toothy grin!

There’s a lot of posts saying whether resolutions work, or most likely don’t.

The most interesting blurb I read came from last year’s cycle, when someone said they select just 2 items to work on for the year and hammer those two items.

I like it because it is a very narrow focus but there is still a little choice and variety. That said, I took that advice year and the results was mixed. I read my fair share of books, but I didn’t end up really doing much of a dent in the mound of paperwork that still needs to be sorted out.

But it’s a new year, so my two resolutions at home are:

• Keep up with this daily blogging thing for the new year. Ideally I’ll keep it going for the full year, but I’ll allow myself to reassess at the equinoxes and solstice.
• Exercise. Like the rest of America, I really need to get moving more. The tangible goals from this one are to get the blood pressure and my weight back down.

For work, it’s relatively straightforward. Just figure out how to do my job, learn to be a great client, and take stabs at improving the process when the opportunities present themselves. It’s all too new for me to have tangible goals aside from general basic self-orientation.

Well, here’s to 2019!

I started a more detailed year in review, but ultimately that’s most likely best kept to myself.

It was a great year professionally. I got lucky getting a job I partially deserved, but I hope I’m doing good work for the state so I’m hoping it’s starting to be earned.

With such a position, it’s a little easy to get one’s head inflated, but I constantly remind myself that people’s responsiveness to me is due to the position than who I am. After all, no one was giving me the time of day when I was in Houston trying to move out west.

Indeed, life has a way of cosmically balancing things out, with a body that is racing towards forty years outside the womb.

Well here’s to middle age privilege! I got an office with a door, and a yoga mat cause I need to stretch out my gimpy lower back that flared up over Christmas!