From our trip to the Outer Banks, this person was just sitting in the grass on top of the dunes reading. She began to turn her head as I started taking pics, I don’t think she was aware I was shooting her. The other two shots have her looking up into the sky with the back of her head towards me. But this…
I am the last person to tell you that my photos are worth a damn, but I love this shot.
As long as there is an older generation hanging on to what they know, there will always be a conflict with a younger generation that sees a new path clearly.
Even my generation is not immune. We were quite aware of what we were going through, but we need to know that the new children are the ones we’ll be spitting on and as much as we might like to break that cycle, it seems like this is just a circle of life kind of thing.
The best we can do is Our Thing ™, and let them do Their Thing ™.
And so it goes.
There are times when I wonder whether or not the whole economy hangs on by a thread, that thread being ‘the way we’ve always done it’. Uncertainty and unpredictability throws the status quo for a loop.
I’m not sure that’s the way a global system should work. I am sure that’s the way it’s designed.
If anything, the Work From Home movement proves that we don’t need to look a certain way to perform. But of course, that causes another problem. I’ve talked about this before. If we’re not in the office, then not only is the company wasting money for office space they’re not utilizing, then all the other things around that office suffer. The gas station, the coffee shop, the fast food restaurants, the bars. The folks that are supposed to be making the money at the worker’s expense are taking a beating.
You’re not doing as you’re told. You’re a slow learner.
“You must try harder. It’s not easy to become sane.” — O’Brien
Standards could also mean professionalism. That’s how the Boomers and older try to dress it up.
If you want to be considered a professional, then be professional. A colorful swath of fabric around the neck is irrelevant.
There’s been a lot of talk about ‘standards’ lately. Many people of a certain age are lamenting the loss of standards. They are also crying about kids on their lawn, I suppose.
They’re not mad about standards. They’re mad that a new generation of people aren’t listening to them when they stamp their feet and yell that it’s always been done a certain way, and opt instead to come up with a new way to do it.
I hate to be dark about it, but eventually the annoyance will cease. Luckily, it will never have stopped us from the work.
I don’t think I’m telling you any tall tales when I say that a lot of us have trouble putting a little something away. I remember seeing a story on more than one occasion that a good chunk of us in here in America would be in some real trouble if we got sick, or if we had a car break down with something major, or a major appliance breaks down and need replacing. I’ve certainly been in this place, I feel like a lot of us have. On a related note, no matter how much our young folks save, it seems like simple housing—even a studio apartment—appears to be out of reach of the younger generations. I have three kids, my youngest is gonna be 24 in October. They all still live here at home, because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. It’s at the point where I feel like the best course of action is to pay off this house and give it to them with the understanding that you keep a room handy for Kim and I, and we go traveling in our later years. That’s the goal.
For those of us who have children, we are now entering nervous season. For me, Fall has meant the anxiety of thinking about Christmas. Putting stuff under the tree. Now, I have long since passed the age where Christmas has thrown up all over my Living Room. I still get gifts for everyone, but nowhere near the tonnage I used to. The anxiety of putting that money away has lessened a great deal, but I still get pangs as we get closer to Christmas. But I have found a solution that works for me and mine, and I want to share it with you. I call it my Christmas Club account. If you don’t know what that is, I’ll explain. I don’t know if this is a thing anymore, but you used to be able to go to your bank and set up an automatic deposit into a savings account to have that money there when it’s time to go Holiday Shopping.
But let’s say you manage to put some money away for Christmas. I have a wad of money that needs something to do, but I generally have no idea what the kids are into at this moment in time. If you’ve bought toy horses for the daughter because she told you she liked horses in May, but has moved on to Anime in September and never mentioned it, you might know what I’m talking about. So, I’ve devised a solution that makes everyone happy, and I get to take care of Christmas with as little anxiety as possible. The only thing I have to deal with is the usual Holiday Gloom that I get every year, but that’s another story for another time.
The main ingredient you need for this recipe is Amazon. If you object to Amazon for whatever reason, that’s fine. I understand, and there’s no hate from me. Vaya con Dios, compadres. It’s simple. First, everyone in the house has a wish list that they’ve shared with me. Over the year, they can put whatever they want on it. Second, you have a gift card account with your Amazon account, and it’s reloadable. I use it as a savings account. Every paycheck I put a minimum of 25 dollars on that gift balance. Just using the minimum if you’re paid twice a month, you have 500 bucks in that account by the end of October. Of course, you need to make sure that you don’t use that gift card if you buy something on Amazon in the interim, so make sure you check how you’re paying for something before you place that order.
You must do this first. Don’t think about it, just do it. If you sit there and think about it, you’ll find another reason for that 25 bucks. If you do it and don’t think about it, you may find that you don’t miss that 25 bucks, and it’s residing in a place where it can do some good in the long term. Of course, you may find that you can contribute more, but I would say this. If you can find you can contribute more, then your brain has made the jump into knowing you can put money away. Take that extra money that you’re thinking about putting in the Amazon account and put it in a savings account for when you’ve got to replace that refrigerator. Like you do. I hope this helps, and if you have other ways to handle this, I’d love to hear about them.
Right across the parking lot from the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is a BEAUTIFUL beach, that has had less than ten people on it every Saturday Morning I’ve been there.
One surfer totally made me as I was taking photos. I wanted to call him Ken, but he had a surfboard, his job is more than beach.
However, I thought you might like to see these since this is one part of my trip to OBX that didn’t flame out.
I guess there’s a broader lesson from my little OBX misadventure. I had a vision for what I wanted, which turned out to be beyond my knowledge of the tech I had in front of me, my imagination always appears to be beyond what is possible at my skillset.
The lesson is that If you’re going to do it, then start with what you have and what you can do. Then work your way up.
Now all I need is a plan.
Famous last words, right?
Recently, the wife and I drove to the Outer Banks. I love the Banks, I’ve been going there off and on since I was 17 years old. I’ve watched it grow, and I’ve watched some places decay. The water park where I worked got destroyed in 2003 and never rebuilt. Still, I would put up the drive through the Pea Island Refuge as one of the best drives in the country.
On this occasion, I used my iPhone to capture a POV, the intent was to drive al the way to the Hatteras Ferry to Ocracoke. Then, on the way back, stop at the various places of interest like Hatteras Light, the decaying Waterfall Park in Rodanthe, Bodie Island Light, and various places in between and vlog using my Akaso GO Action Camera. Great plan, or so I thought.
Everything started to go off the rails at 8 AM, when my alarm went off and stopped my POV recording as we were leaving Rodanthe, then every ten minutes after as I refuse to believe I pressed Stop and continued the snooze function. Then, none of the shots I took on the Action Camera were all wrong, I failed to take into account the fact that it is a wide angle lens by design. So, returning home and licking my wounds, I decided to produce the POV video from Nags Head to Rodanthe, and decided to eject on the vlog.
Lessons learned: Turn off the damn alarm, and try using the Cam to get a better Idea of framing before moving to production in bright sunlight.
One of the things that I’ve been dealing with since 2020 is a huge dent in my self worth. More fool me for being the kind of person that ties my self worth into a job, but there you go.
The fact is, I lost nothing simply because I lost a good job telling stories. I was telling stories before that. I’ve been telling stories since I was a kid. The only difference between what I was doing before I got that job was that I learned a new way to tell those stories. Just because one person with a red pen decided I needed to be laid off didn’t change the fact that I learned a new thing.
What I failed to do since that time was continue to tell those stories in the new way I was taught. I felt like I failed, but I really didn’t fail. It was simply that a person who had the power to decide who should be laid off picked me based on some criteria that I wasn’t privy to. It’s also possible the guy just didn’t like me. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and I’m the first to acknowledge that. That’s ok; I didn’t much care for him either.
I’m a storyteller. I’m a writer. I’m a podcaster. Seven years ago, I learned how to tell stories in photographs and videos. I need to be thankful for learning how to do that, and the best way to show my gratitude to the people that taught me, is to do it.
Because I’m a storyteller, and a damn good one.
I’m not a sitting member of the Gen X Council, but I have a membership in the club. There’s going to be some overlap on occasion. Today is one of those days, because I can’t even begin to tell you the utter joy the return of this product gives me.
That’s it. That’s the post.
Sometimes the universe hands you something marvelous that you didn’t expect and says, “Here. This is for you.”
It could be a jelly donut, it could be a new person in your circle, it could be a new activity to enjoy, or it could be the thing that might define the next period of your life.
Whatever you do, don’t scoff and throw it back.
No one wants a second-hand jelly donut.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been possessed with a single thought: Exactly how much stuff should reside on my to-do list? If I had a to-do list, that is. Until a couple of weeks ago, I did not have a to-do list put to paper. What I had is the same as many of us middle-aged married men have, the HoneyDo List. It’s an ethereal mass of effort with not so much a starting point as it is the face of a mountain laden with tasks, with the words “YES DEAR” emblazoned on its face in flaming letters. It’s an intimidating image, and as such it left me stymied as to how to attack it.
So I recently decided that there was only one thing for it. I had to sit down and write it all down. I sat down at my Mac, opened the Notes App, set a timer for 30 minutes, and wrote down all the things I thought I needed to OH MY GOD THAT MUCH!?!
I don’t mind telling you that having an ethereal mass of effort is way less terrifying than having an exhaustively detailed list of all the shit you have to do. Thirty-plus items I came up with in that 30 minutes. Since then I’ve added another 10 or so when I see something I hadn’t thought of, and in that time I’ve gone from abject paralysis to abject terror. Not just because of the size of it, but now realizing that I have no idea which one to do first.
After thinking about it for a while, I thought it would be best to try to group these things into sections that make sense, and that made things a little easier. I was able to start things. The good news is that I’ve managed to clear half the list. I have now reached the firstiest of the first-world problems all related to this tangent: Now I’ve cleared all the stuff that requires nothing but time, I have now reached the things that will require learning time or a budget, and if the past is prologue, that’s my next step. Trying to figure out what the priority is, and now I just need to see if the priority is the investment in time, or the investment in money to hire a pro for the stuff that’s outside my ken.
So that’s one exercise in Executive dysfunction resolved. Now, we just need to dedicate time to sitting down and keeping that list refreshed. That reminds me of a technique from one of the mountains of books I’ve read called The Weekly Review. A way of keeping track of what I have done and keeping track of what I need to do in the next week or month or so. I realize that this might seem like a no-brainer to a lot of you, but it really isn’t one to me. The older I get, the more I realize that I need to have alarms and buzzers and notes and things that do everything but explode in front of my face.
And today, I realize that this whole tangent is a lesson that I haven’t done. Or that I have and I let it all go to pot at some point.
So I need to set that shit up again, Don’t I?
I don’t know who needs to hear this (me) but It is unnecessary to accomplish something every day.
Some days it really is okay to sit back and binge Major Crimes. Or so I’ve heard.
The trouble comes when you do that daily instead of getting something done.
There is a happy medium where you’re not tired from constantly being on.
You (me) should try that.
When everyone is screaming bloody murder about everything, nothing is important.
To borrow a lyric from Peter Gabriel, “Turn up the signal, wipe out the noise.”
This is a political post. Skip it if you need to.
After watching Senator McConnell lock up twice, my thoughts are not with him and whether he should retire. My thoughts are about what would happen if that happens to President Biden in front of the media.
If a lapse like that happens to a President, that President is done. It’s time to have that discussion before it happens.
I voted for Biden. If I have to, I would vote for him again because I’m not interested in inviting the Apocalypse. I wish I was being hyperbolic. But I don’t want to. I want a better option. Newsom says he’s not running. I’m not sure I believe him, and even if he’s right there’s always the possibility of an open convention. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a Governor of California has walked into a convention and threw his hat in the ring.
I would love to see Gretchen Whitmer run. I think she can do it. Additionally, and in no way am I saying this is the only reason to nominate her, but I think she is capable of humiliating Trump into a fine orange paste on the debate stage and in the media.
I never said it wasn’t a good reason, just not the only one.
It’s 4 a.m., and I’m waiting in Hardee’s parking lot for the manager to come and unlock the door so my daughter can go to work. This Hardee’s opens at 5 a.m.
By 6 a.m., no manager has shown up, but 5 people on their way to work have.
It doesn’t usually last 2 hours, but this is a common occurrence. Management clearly doesn’t care.
Unless you’re the one who is late, of course.
I almost expect people to disrespect what I do, and who I am. That’s just the way of things. I deal with that every day, and I don’t much care what they think of me.
Disrespect my time? I care about that very much.
I had a thought to merge all of my content here. WordPress has an embed function, I can embed all my social media here.
I tested it. Sure enough, it worked. The only trouble was that it was god-awful ugly.
I abandoned that idea. Besides, you can all the other places I am in the sidebar.
just because you can never means you should.
The leading lines were just too tempting. This is from the Boat Ramp on Shore Drive at the Lesner Bridge.
Taken with iPhone 12. That’s my daily driver now, it’s a better camera than my T5i.
Also, much less conspicuous than a big black camera for street photography, where I need more practice.
You are not normal.
We are not all made of ticky tacky and all look just the same.
Isn’t that fantastic?
Like Bray said, “Revel in what you are.”
I would like to take the word ‘normal’ and throw it into the sun.
Maybe it’s not so much the word as the concept when it comes to people.
Maybe it’s not so much the word as the person or people who decide what normal is.
Listen. Forget the old cliches. Normal isn’t safe, it isn’t boring.
Normal is like the limit. It does not exist.
There are people in this world who want you to believe it does because if something isn’t normal, you make it the Other. You can be against it. You can hate it.
If normal doesn’t exist, then it’s just us. Humans Being.
I would like to take the word ‘normal’ and throw it into the sun.
No one gives a fuck about you until you step out of line.
They don’t give a fuck about you then either, they just want to see you in trouble for stepping out of line
So, if they didn’t give a fuck about you then, and they don’t give a fuck about you now, why should you give a fuck at all?
A Labor Day trip up to Williamsburg, because apparently a proper celebration of Labor Day involves an outlet mall.
Hey, I don’t make the rules.
Listen.
You don’t have to have an opinion about everything.
You don’t have to go along to get along.
You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing.
All you have to do is figure out who you are.
All you have to do is figure out what you do.
All you have to do is not be a dick.
Do that.