ROLEY

Author: Kris Roley

  • Thursday, September 21st, 2023

    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.

  • Wednesday, September 20th, 2023

    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.

  • Tuesday, September 19th, 2023

    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.

  • Monday, September 18th, 2023

    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.

  • My Brain Is An Endless Row Of Checkmarks

    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?

  • Friday, September 15th, 2023

    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.

  • Thursday, September 14th, 2023

    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.”

  • Wednesday, September 13th, 2023

    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.

  • Tuesday, September 12th, 2023

    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.

  • Monday, September 11th, 2023

    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.