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.
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.
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?
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.
Labor Day isn’t *actually* the end of Summer, but it feels like it is. It’s one of those markers on the calendar that seems like the end of something and the beginning of another. Here in Virginia Beach, the Tuesday after Labor Day was the first day of the school year when I was a kid, I guess that’s why it feels that way to me.
It always felt like a good time to reset or reinvent. It still does, especially after the last few years.
Pardon me…
Revel in what you are.
Thank you Windham for sharing Bray with us.
A not long but unique list of first world problems:
I have 4 Audible credits and am at a complete loss about what to use them on.
I have a list of projects around the house that I need to get done. I have no idea where to start.
I have a list of creative projects in my Apple Notes. I have yet to start any of them because I don’t know the order in which I want to do them.
I would love to take a test to see if it’s possible that I am an undiagnosed autistic and /or a person with ADHD. That would explain a LOT. Finding the time to do that, on the other hand…
You know, but other than THAT, it’s just great being me. Possibly.
I don’t know if this is the only place where it occurs, but the corporate world is one of the few places where a convoluted backwards process is replaced with another convoluted backwards process in an effort to ‘improve’ things.
Watched a two hour YouTube video of a guy and his dad traveling Route 66 from Santa Monica and heading East. Different then other ones I’ve seen because he stops at many major attractions along the way. A lot of very unique places. Bottle Tree Ranch is pretty neat all by itself. Running Route 66 is a bucket list of mine.
The longer I sat through this, the more I question why in the fuck I haven’t done this yet.
Oh. Money. Right.
The most recent episode of the Podcast (week ending 8/6/2023) really got some traction on TikTok, of all places. I seem to getting more engagement and views there than anywhere else, even the Podcast feed. Moreover, the total engagement over the original post and the video replies I made to the comment section, was between 1200 and 1300 views. That’s amazing, and I’m super happy about it. I will be continuing this format for the foreseeable future. I found a winning formula.
That only took decades…
If you do a search for any particular news event worth remembering in the past 60 years or so, chances are you can find it on YouTube. Specifically, live news coverage. As a fan of that kind of thing, I have found myself down quite a rabbit hole. A personal favorite is the 1968 Democratic Convention on CBS. Yes, all the bad news you can think of is there as well. I don’t want to bring any specific bad news, but you do you, boo boo.
I mention this as a public service. You may want to search for some coverage in the coming days.
Who can say, really?
So, let’s be clear on what most of us in the real world knew to be true.
He knew he lost, he was told several times he lost.
He knew what he was saying was a lie, and he continued to lie.
He intended to cause chaos and violence, and he caused chaos and violence.
He’s as guilty as sin. And yet…
If sees the inside of a courtroom for a trial, much less the inside of a jail cell, I’ll be surprised.
God help us if he gets re-elected.
There is no Culture War. It’s fiction.
However, it’s a fiction that is going to define the next two years of our lives because of the loud minority that created the fiction, and the media that perpetuates it.
There is no Culture War. It’s fiction.
Real people in the real world know that no one gives a shit about your Holiday Starbucks Cup, or whether or not you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, no one cares what Sally and Joe next door are doing, or what Sally and Joe and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are doing. No one cares about whether Little Priscilla needs to get an abortion for whatever reason. No one cares if Jim is Jeannie on the weekends down at Don’t Tell Mama’s, or if Jim really wants to be Jeannie full-time. No one cares if Little Priscilla would like to be known as Dylan and uses some other pronouns than she/her. Do you know why no one cares?
Because there’s no Culture War. It’s fiction.
Remember that when you hear someone screaming about all this stuff that no one in the real world cares about.
Last night was the first night in a while I was able to sleep most of the night uninterrupted. For a start, the weather broke and it got down to the high 60’s overnight. I’m not sure what the other part was. It could be that I did a podcast episode yesterday and felt good about completing something. I took a cold shower before bed, which may have helped under the circumstances. Also, because I occupied myself for most of the evening I didn’t eat or drink anything caffeinated close to bedtime. Might be a combination of all three, I don’t know. But since I’d like to sleep more than 4 hours at a time, I’m going to troubleshoot it and see what what the item or combination that’s keeping me awake.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the issue with ancient people in elected positions doesn’t start with those ancient people.
It starts with the folks and the money that keep electing them.