Month: November 2018

Novice

I’ve never been what you’d call musically inclined but there have been a lot of influences lately and I decided to try my hand, literally, at this gorgeous ukulele.

After some initial tuning mistakes that are now corrected, I played a total of two chords tonight. Looking forward to a jam session with my very patient muse this weekend.

Currently

Music: Obsessing over Magic Slim’s Born On A Bad Sign Blues album

Reading: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Part psychology and part mythology.

Podcast: Imaginary Worlds, features a new science fiction story every 2 weeks

Food: Tracy’s quesadilla casserole and my prize-winning Thanksgiving chili

Plog

I’m on a photography hiatus for a bit but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. Now that I am off of FaceGram I will be focused on this web site and my photography website again (plog??)

I’m loving this idea more and more because:

  • I won’t have to look at ads
  • I won’t spam you with ads
  • My data and images aren’t being analyzed and mined for someone else’s benefit
  • It’ll be my platform, my content. Not someone else’s algorithm

If you are a creator I’d suggest putting the focus off of them and more on you and your work. I really do believe that the focus off of social media and to our own personal corners of the web are making a comeback.

Having said that, you can still catch me on these great sites. I’ll be redesigning them as well.

Website | VSCO | Smugmug | EyeEm | Flickr |

11/11 GHR Check-In!

Time to evaluate my progress for my Groundhog Resolutions, the 10th
annual attempt at creating life-long habits for myself. I’ve discovered
that right after the end of the year holidays I am not mentally or
physically capable of sticking with resolutions for the upcoming new
year. I need a break so I take the whole month of January off to reflect
and plan and start on 2/2 instead of 1/1.

I’ve got one more month (12/12) to wrap all this up until Groundhogs Day 2019.

Fun-

Get another tattoo: Coming soon

More camping: Waiting on warmer weather

More skinny dipping: Think I’ll have to skip that this year

Learn Spanish more fluently: Downloaded the Duolingo app for practice but haven’t used it. Will work with the MissAdventurer

Join a book club: No decent bookclubs around town.

50 Books a year challenge: According to Amazon and the library, I’ve read 46 so far. I’ll share my reading list next month.

Snail mail friend: Fail mail

Volunteer: Who’s got the time?

Fitness-

Kickboxing: The gym offers one class…during the day. One day a week. Fail.

Self-defense: Can’t defend myself. Fail

Yoga: Almost daily. Is it supposed to hurt when I stretch?

More 5 & 10k obstacle course racing: I finished the Warrior Dash again. Next year I want to do a minimum of 3

Consistent training: Working out with Tracy is mutually beneficial. Accountability may be the one thing I needed to maintain this.

Consistent nutritional training: Really been enjoying more meals at home. Eating out is becoming frustrating and disappointing. This is making my decision to eat in easier

Hashing: I’m done for this season. My foot injury sidelined me.

Hiking: I want to explore more but again, foot. Time to hit some light, low elevation trails.

Geocaching: I want to find at least ten more caches before year end. Will I renew my premium membership? Lets find out.

Meditation: Ommm… this has been beneficial but not consistent.

Creative-

Complete my book: I have been enjoying the process so far. It won’t get done this year. There is too much I want to include and that involves more research. Besides…still working on an ending.

Photo essay on a topic I am passionate about: Cold, crisp nights will help me round out my Tulsa After Dark series for the year.

Video log every month: This is so easy and yet it hasn’t been done.

Leave inspirational notes everywhere:

Year in photos album: Cannot wait to see what 2018 memories I’ll have at the EOY.

Shoot more film: Film is a precious commodity. A costly commodity. Sure, the Fuji camera is fun but at almost $1.50 a sheet? I am convinced that I will buy a Canon 35mm soon though. It’ll be cheaper

DAM: I have all the DSLR photos organized into yearly folders. Finally. Now to sort the wheat from the chaff. Oh, and since I shut down Google photos, I need to organize and integrate all these mobile pics from the years too. I just doubled my work!

image

Mind Mapping

I’ve recently re-discovered the app MindNode, an app that helps diagram ideas and thoughts in a visual way.
Here’s an example of what a basic mind map structure looks like:

Just a simple diagram I generated about mind-mapping and why I use MindNode instead of other similar apps.

  • Cost: $15 for the unlocked iOS app. Or free if you don’t mind limited features.
  • Sync: Using iCloud, it syncs very well between my iPhone and iPad
  • Export: I use a Windows laptop, not a Mac. So I have to use a Windows version of mind mapping tool called FreeMind. Whatever I create on my iDevices will open on my laptop.

Maps can be used in a variety of ways of course. I have used mapping for
productivity, goals, notes, brainstorms, problem solving, book
summaries, task management, video summaries ( I take notes while
watching TED or podcasts). Here lately though, I have been using it to
map out plots and story ideas for the novels yet to be but on paper.
Here is a sneak peek of one of them:

Redacted of course! Can’t give it all away just yet.

#deletesocialmedia

I just finished the monumental task of deleting all of my accounts. On purpose.

Why should you care about this? No idea. But for me, it is refreshing and liberating. I admit it was rewarding to receive online praise for my photographic work. To see it used on websites, magazines and books is very rewarding. For every day photos, the accolades came and went. Gone are the days when most will leave constructive criticism only to be supplanted by a simple “heart” icon indicating that they liked it. I’m over this.

The rest of social media was updating anyone and everyone about what I was doing. Look at me! I’m witty. I take decent photos. Here’s what I ate and where.

I used to be a charter member of every major social media platform as a beta tester. It was a new frontier to be explored with friends. But no more. Too much superficial. Too divisive. Not fun. Anti-social. No privacy and hacks.

Enough.

I’ve enjoyed meeting people from various social media outlets when we were offline. I am also enjoying meeting and cultivating friendships IRL. We’ll go old school and share a conversation, not a tweet thread. Share experiences as opposed to posts. This is what matters.

I am no longer a member of

  • Google
  • Google+
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Gone. It’s over. Done. I officially killed my social media accounts and severed a lot of relationships and a ton of “friends” in all the places I have lived and worldwide. Well, not them, just the online versions of ourselves.

Now I can and will focus on what matters:

Working on my social skills.

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