Spring is in the air

Published on March 15, 2013 in A Day in the Life. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Yesterday, about this time, it was near freezing outside. Today, it is currently 66 degrees. The sun is shining, and the birds are chirping. Spring is upon us. It’s time to clean the dusty, neglected places, and prepare for the warm days ahead. It’s time to service the old lawn mower and weed eater. And yes, it is time to pull Voyager out of storage, and get her tires inflated and chain lubed.

I have really let myself go this winter. I’ve put on some weight, and lost some muscle mass. It’s time to start laying down the junk food, and hitting the trails. I plan to do a lot more mountain biking this year. I’ve gotten soft riding around this beautiful, but flat and paved Greenway. I need dirt, gravel, and hills. I need to get my big ass off the couch, and into the woods.

Spring is in the air. Can you smell it?

Will the human species ever outgrow religion?

Published on March 13, 2013 in Religion. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Chosen by GodAs I’m sure you know, the Catholic church has a new supreme leader today. I personally have no interest in church politics, Catholic or otherwise, but I do want to pose a question to you, may beloved readers.

Let me qualify this by saying that for most of my life I was a Christian. I was raised Christian, and indoctrinated to resist any challenges to my faith. Amazingly, I was able to overcome my upbringing, and find my way out of it. Today, I am a well-adjusted person, who doesn’t put much stock in beliefs in general. I know that any belief could be overturned with sufficient evidence. And I know that individuals can change because against all odds, I myself did.

The question I put forth to you  is do you think that we, as a species, will ever put religion away? Science and the knowledge we gain from it is continually increasing, so do you foresee us in the future saying, “Hey, I don’t know if there’s a God or even a point to Universe thing, but all this religious stuff is kind of stupid… let’s get rid of it!”

What do you think?

Mission accomplished

Published on March 12, 2013 in A Day in the Life. 0 Comments

Well, I made it through day two of my new goal setting/self-discipline thing I’m on. I barely made this one. The last goal I had for today was to blog, so, here I am. I’m sorry this is going to be a mostly pointless and quiet short of a post, but I am determined to change the way I operate, and if that means I have to throw up a few pointless blogs posts then I’m gonna do it.

This is really very new to me. I’m not used to, well… consistency. I’ve always been the kind of person who loses interest in things really quick, and seldom finishes a project. I want that to change. I need that to change.

In related news, I have almost weaned myself off of social networks and Reddit. They are truly addictive, and massively wasteful when it comes to our time and energy.

I’ll try to put a little more into the next post, so stay tuned.

Structure… shit works better with it.

Published on March 11, 2013 in A Day in the Life. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I tried something new today. I’ve been trying to cultivate a little more self-discipline in my life lately, so I decided last night that I should start planning my days. The process is pretty simple. I gathered all the information I needed; my schedule, tasks that needed to get done, and then I created a folder in my Google Drive entitled: Day Plans. Next I created a doc entitled: 2013-03-11-Day-Plan. I started the doc out with a quick motivational paragraph, and then listed my goals for the day, and tasks that needed to get done in order to accomplish them. I think adding this tiny bit of structure to my life is going to help me tremendously. It seems to be working pretty good too. One of my goals for the day was to get a blog post in, and there you have it!

Finding a way out of the Fog

Published on March 10, 2013 in Philosophy and Youtube. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Foggy RoadHave you ever had one of those moments when all of a sudden, everything becomes clear? It’s sort of like you have been driving your car through a dense fog, not totally sure if you’re on the right road, or even on a road at all for that matter, and then all of a sudden you come out of it. The first thing one would do in this situation is quickly correct their steering wheel to put themselves on the right path.

I just had such a moment. Let me tell you what has happened:

I have been searching out information on how to be a more disciplined person lately. One of my biggest flaws is that of procrastination and laziness. I always put things off to the last minute, and most of the time I can’t complete a task that I begin. It’s embarrassing. Anyway, I was just watching a Youtube video on time management by a fellow called Bryan Ogilvie, and he said one simple thing that has resonated with me big time.

“Align your work with who you are. What get’s you out of bed in the morning? What are you passionate about?”

I’m sure you like me have noticed this. When you are doing something that you don’t like to do, something that you are not interested in, getting down to actually doing it is a drudgery. If you work a job that you hate or at least don’t see as meaningful, you will have a hard time getting out of bed to do it. Sure, you will do it because the pain and deprivation of not doing it out weighs the pain of doing it, but if you had the choice you know you wouldn’t be there. To contrast; people who actually love what they do and find fulfillment and meaning in it, like doctors, will put in way more time and energy than is requited. I know with myself, when I going to be doing a big hike or mountain bike expedition, I will stay up late planning it, getting my gear ready, and then get up earlier than necessary just because I’m excited about doing it.

My little epiphany is quiet simple: I am wasting my life on things that don’t matter, instead of pursuing what I am passionate about.

I am not passionate about warehousing work, maybe someone out there is, but I’m not. I am not passionate about making a lot of money, and keeping up with the Joneses.

I am passionate about making a difference in the world. I am passionate about solving problems. I am passionate about sustainable, open source, distributed technology. I am passionate about ending war, violence, sickness and hunger. I am passionate about nature, and preserving this wonderful planet for many, many generations to come. And, most of all, I am passionate about having time to enjoy my family, friends, and the things in this life that I call fun.

Now, the question is, how do I find my way out of the fog?

Testing things out on the Chromebook

Published on March 8, 2013 in Technology. 0 Comments

I’m typing this right now on our new Google Chromebook. I’m at work, so I don’t have access to a wi-fi network, and that’s ok. I’m testing the Chromebook’s offline capabilities… which unfortunately aren’t many. You basically have access to Google Docs, but can only edit offline on the word processor app. You can view spreadsheets, but can’t edit them. Yeah, without the Internet, it’s a paperweight.

I’m also not seeing a way to spell-check offline. I’ll have to compare things when I get to a network, but I’m misspelling things like crazy, and nothing’s happening. I hope I’m just overlooking things, because a word processor without spell-check is as useless as vestigial areolas on a man.

As for the other offline apps, I didn’t load them. I’ll have to add them tonight, and see how they work (or don’t work). At least the calculator works offline. Yea!

Enter The Chromebook

Published on March 2, 2013 in A Day in the Life and Technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

ChromeWe’re not usually this impulsive. I know I said we were going to wait until we had a little more free money, but hey… the dude at Bestbuy made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. As bad as I know it sounds, we had planned on only stopping by the store to “showroom” the Chromebooks, so we could buy one online at a latter date. I know, we pure evil. Anyway, the Bestbuy guy told us he had a Chromebook that was discounted due to a broken seal on the box. It had never been used! And, on top of it being discounted nearly $30, he also marked it down another 10%. How could we so no to that?

So, Denice and I are now the proud owners of a Google Chromebook. Well, Denice more than myself. We got it for the express purpose of Denice’s school work. I still have our trusty old Linux powered Sony Vaio to keep me company.

I’ll do another post later on with my first impressions of the Chromebook. Denice is engrossed in its Googly powers right now, and I dare not pry it away from her. I love watching her play with her new toy!

Googe Docs, Drive, and other things to simplify your life

Published on February 24, 2013 in Technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Google AppsAbout three months ago I started an experiment. I decided to start using Google Docs exclusively for doing our budgeting, time management, and even my fiction writing. I was kind of nervous about it at first, but surprisingly we really haven’t had many issues. Previously we had been using Open/Libre Office for all of these things. The open-source apps worked just fine, but I wanted to try using Google for everything because we have been tossing around the idea of getting Chromebooks. To the best of my knowledge, you can’t install open-source apps on the Chromebook. It uses Google services for everything, including primary storage via Google’s cloud service: Drive.

Some of the cool things about Google Docs is that when you use the Doc format, the file doesn’t count towards your Drive’s storage capacity. You can also export files as just about any other format that you want… Excel, MS Word, and even Open/Libre Office formats. Also, everything you do in Good Drive or Docs is saved as you go. There are no “Save” buttons. I found this to be an excellent streamlining of things. There’s nothing I  hate more than losing work because I forgot to save something, or there was a power fluctuation. With Google, you never lose anything (so far anyway). Another cool thing is that no matter where you are, if you have an internet connection, you have access to all your stuff, and the tools you need to edit or create new stuff. If you don’t have your own computer, no problem… just go to your public library, login to Google, and have at it.

Of course, there are always potential drawbacks to using virtual tools. Let’s take a look at a few:

If you don’t have an internet connection, you’re basically dead in the water. Everything on Google is by its nature, web-based, so if you don’t have the web you basically can’t do anything. I think this may not be the case with the Chromebook however. I believe it has offline support for some Google apps like Gmail and Docs. But, I don’t have a Chromebook, yet, and everything I do with Google services is dependent on internet access.

Another issue may be security. I have been kind of wary about storing anything too sensitive on my Google Drive. The last thing I need is for my Drive to get hacked, and have my financial account info ripped off. I haven’t heard a lot about Google Drives being hacked, but it’s online, and that makes in vulnerable.

A couple of others shortfalls I’ve found with Google Docs is that on their spreadsheet app, you can’t select multiple cells that aren’t adjacent to one another. This is a very basic function, and I was really surprised that you can’t do it. Another issue I’ve had with their spreadsheet app is that you have to add rows all the time, in increments of twenty. It doesn’t just keep going on into infinity like Excel or Calc. This is more of an annoyance than a problem though.

Overall, using Google services is very convenient, and I would say that the benefits out weigh the drawbacks. Plus, it’s Google. They are constantly improving their services, so maybe in the near future there won’t be any drawbacks to using them.

Take a break, have a snuggle

Published on February 23, 2013 in In the News and Naturism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

The SnuggeryWhile watching TV a few nights ago, I saw a news spot for “Professional Snuggler,” Jackie Samuel. This New York girl is in the business of helping people experience the healing power of non-sexual touch, i.e. cuddling, for a small fee of course. Jackie’s business is called, The Snuggery. For $60 Jackie or her fellow snuggler, Colleen, will cuddle with you for an hour. In the interview, Jackie refers to scientific research that has shown that non-sexual touch can relax, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure. She says that touch in general is lacking in our society.

I think I would have to agree with Jackie. American culture has become on of the most disconnected cultures in the world. For whatever reason, be it residual Puritanistic beliefs, competitive ideologies, or the replacement of technology for actual relationships… we have become isolated from one another. Now you may think someone like Jackie is just a clever prostitute, who figured out a way to get paid without going all the way to third base. Personally, I don’t think cuddling with someone is much different than giving a massage. I think the sad thing is that so many people instantly relate physical touch of this nature with sex. I get a lot of the same ignorance directed at me when I talk about naturism and my love for experiencing the natural world without the barrier of clothing. I have had people tell me that going nude is sexual perversion. I just shake my head and feel sorry for them. Their minds are fixated on sex, not mine. I just enjoy the sunshine and cool breeze on my skin.

The Snuggery appears to be a thriving business. I wouldn’t be surprised if this idea takes off, and other such establishments open up around the country. Sadly, it seems that this is a needed service. Please see the video below for more info:

The cycle of self-harm

Published on February 9, 2013 in A Day in the Life. 0 Comments

Have you ever found yourself staring at a blank screen, trying desperately to think of something interesting to write? As a blogger, this is a familiar position for me. I try to share the things in my life that I think you may find interesting, as honestly as I can, but tonight is one of those night when I just feel like throwing in the towel and admitting the apparent truth… I live a pretty boring life.

I had a very enlightening talk with Denice tonight. She has helped me to see that although I have believed that I escaped the trauma and psychological abuse of my formative years unscathed,  that may not be the truth. I live my life in fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, and fear of rocking the boat. I have some pretty big dreams. I want to “be the change that I want to see in the world,” but the price of that change always seems to be too high for me.

I have become a creature of habits, and most of them bad. I habitually isolate myself from people for fear that once they know the real me, I will be rejected. I habitually work at a repetitive job that a trained monkey could do. I habitually eat foods that I know are slowly killing. I habitually crash on the couch and watch TV or other forms of passive entertainment when I know I would be more fulfilled by doing something creative. I habitually deny myself sufficient sleep and exercise which in turn severely limits my energy… causing the whole cycle of self-harm to start all over again. This cannot go on. This must change!

When I reach the end of my life, I do not want to full of regret. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do about all of this, but I know I must act. I must act now, while the flickering flame of my initiative still has heat to burn.