GRIZZLY PEAR
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!
I’m not yet ready to delete my twitter or facebook accounts.
But I have started logging out of them on all my machines. (The phone apps were deleted a long time ago.)
That doesn’t always stop me from logging back in and going down the rabbit hole. But occasionally it does.
I never turned on Amazon 1-click because spending money should never be that easy. I need to take that same stinginess to how I waste my time.
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:
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!
I thought I’d take a stab at reviewing this year using my project post mortem template.
In retrospect it was pretty clear. I had ended last year contemplating a potential shift to going into client side work, which eventually happened. As for the year itself, my two goals were to read more books and get a handle on the paperwork. I think I did a reasonable job of the former and essentially failed on the latter.
I think the biggest issue is time wasted on Social Media. It is the only optional item in my life that I can easily trade out for better work, but I still haven’t been able to kick the habit. I don’t know if I’ll ever delete my accounts, but not drastically nuking my accounts might be like smoking one cigarette a day – a rough week and it’s right back to a pack a day.
With the new job, I think my reading interests have been focused. There are a lot of soft skills to be learned, so I’ve been able to indulge my guilty pleasure of reading business self help books. But it’s also a case where when I’m so fried after a hard day, I’ve felt the need to pull out some of my old favorites to read. I think I’ve maintained a good balance. And then this blog has been the surprise hobby of the year. I’ve taken up Seth Godin on his daily blog challenge, and so far, I can’t complain. It eats up a chunk of my morning, and I’m sure it makes me think more clearly, but I think it’s worth another year.
I’m not sure, this post seems to keep coming back to the idea of tradeoffs. The trope is that you need to say “no” to enough things in order to have room to say yes. Unfortunately, I’m already good at saying “no”, so there isn’t really any fat I can easily cut out. The real problem is “what good things are in the way of doing great?”… and I’m not seeing what good items I should be amputating out of my life.
I think my goals next year are pretty straightforward. I want to give this blog another year’s run. And I need to make time to exercise, since my blood pressure is now borderline high. Beyond continuing / creating these two daily habits, I’d like to keep reading, clear up our housing situation, and clear through (or delete through) a pile of little things to do items that have been sitting on my list for quite some time now. I’m still getting acclimated to the new job, and I suspect that will take quite a bit of mental drag over this new year, so this is plenty.