Tag: blogging

Jetpack on iOS

Are any other wordpress.com users who use the iOS version of the Jetpack app for their mobile blogging needs having troubles with the app?

My notifications are always weird. They don’t match up with what I see on the web app. Things that I see in the browser don’t show up on the app for some unknown amount of time, and things that I clear off in the app don’t go away and are back the next time I look. As a total stats/analysis nerd, these issues are frustrating, but they are nothing compared to the new problem I’m seeing.

For the last three days or so I have not been able to upload an image from my iPhone’s Photo Album. It tries, but it hangs almost immediately and it never finishes the upload. 99% of the time I pull images out of Flickr rather than upload them directly, but on the few times I try and fail it pisses me off like crazy.

Anyone else having troubles like this? Is it time for us to start a revolt? Should I start designing “Down with Jetpack!” signs to bring to the protest marches, or what?

End of the Work Day

It’s coming to the end of the work day. 25 minutes left before I can punch out for the day.

It’s feeling like a long week, though it’s been mostly quiet. It’s weird. It’s cold and rainy here today. I was hoping to be able to open the windows again, but no dice. The cats are clearly disappointed. The forecast for tomorrow is pretty crappy as well. Oh well.

There is a little bug in the office with me right now. Robin Sparkles the Cat is hunting it. It’s a little fascinating. I think the bug is just screwing with her. Could be.

If you haven’t guessed, I have nothing interesting to write about in this post. I just feel compelled to post something. Funny how that happens sometimes, right? No? Just me? Crud.

I want to go on a trip or something. Even if it’s just a day trip somewhere. New York is calling me in a big way. I think… maybe. It might actually be my cameras that are calling me while pretending that they are New York. They are manipulative little bastards sometimes.

I’m streaming the Apple Podcast app from my MacBook Pro to a HomePod on my desk and it just stopped playing. What’s up with that? There was only 30 seconds left in the episode I was listening to. I skipped to the next entry in the queue and it’s fine now. Weird.

I have a toothache. Tylenol is handling it, but I have a toothache.

Crud.

Okay. Clicking publish now. Future generations will look at this post and marvel at the pointlessness of it all. I think they’ll marvel at the pointlessness of the entire blog, but what can you do, right?

Publish.

Twitter Alternatives Update

I haven’t tried to embed a post from one of the twitter alternatives I’ve been dicking around with for the last few months. Mastodon, Bluesky, or Threads. Threads is more or less winning the race but I haven’t given up on the other two yet. I wonder if the ability to embed posts into wordpress.com will be the deciding factor? Probably not.

Here’s one from Threads:

https://www.threads.net/@reallytallredhead/post/C5eDKRLvoB7

Here’s one from Bluesky:

https://staging.bsky.app/profile/robj1971.bsky.social/post/3kpkq7324jq2z

Here’s one from Mastodon:

Hey! We have a winner! One out of three ain’t bad, even if it does look like utter and complete shit.

New Update to the Band’s Blog

Something Brewing

I am thinking I might start posting to the band’s blog more frequently. By “more frequently” I mean more often than never. I’ll reblog everything here too. Why post to one site when I can post one thing to two?

I used to own a custom domain for that page. It expired ages ago. If a new name is in our future, I’ll wait until we pick something to look into a new domain.

I Think You Are Reading It

Daily writing prompt
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
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It’s been a weird morning. I feel like I am massively off of my regular schedule, but I am getting caught up now. I’ll probably write more about it later, because I am a chronic over-sharer, as you may have noticed.

Anyway, if there was a biography about me, what would the title be? I foresee such a thing having one of two possible titles. The first would be something like, “Inside the Red Head’s Head.” Another possible name could be, “robertjames1971.blog.”

Wait a second! Something with titles like that already exists! Who would have thunk it? There is something similar to an autobiography already and you are literally reading it right now! I mean… this is more of a journal than an autobiography. Maybe if you squint a little you could call it a memoir. Probably not. Whatever, it’s a slice of my life at this point in time and I think that counts. Even if it is a carefully curated slice of life containing only the crap that I am willing to share with the greater universe. That still counts… I think… maybe… maybe not, but it’s good enough to answer this question today, don’t you think?

Google AI, generate an image of a Jedi Knight writing his or her autobiography.

His pen looks like a lightsaber! HA!

So what do you all think… is it time to cut the crap with the AI generated images of Jedi Knights doing something loosely related to the current daily writing prompt? I might be ready to stop, but I also might be ready to not stop. I am undecided.

Fear

Bloganuary writing prompt
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
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I have to admit that I am struggling to find an answer to this one. I have a couple of thoughts, but nothing I would ever share publicly. The difficulty is the second question. There are a lot of things I am scared to do, but none of them are things that I would ever consider actually doing, you know what I mean?

There is one thing that comes to mind that fits the spirit of this daily prompt. One thing that I am scared to do that I will do if the circumstances require it… or at least I would consider doing it in the right situation. What is it? Move out of the United States.

In 2016 the prospect of a nazi winning the US presidency led to a lot of discussion about possibly emigrating to a new country. Jen and I discussed it a little and agreed we could not leave our family behind even if we did find ourselves in a fascist dictatorship. We talked in general terms about where we could go. Some place where English is the first language and (hopefully) had a warm climate. In the end we didn’t leave even though the nazi did win the white house. 

Unfortunately for American Democracy and for civilization, that same nazi is running for president again. His rhetoric was bad in 2016 but it is already so much worse now. He is openly talking about dictatorship and half of the registered voters in the United States are still supporting him. He may be in jail by the time the election rolls around (he should be in jail now, but he will never see the inside of a cell because that’s how corruption works, right?) but he’s still going to win the republican nomination and he still could win the general election in November. 

If he wins again, do we consider leaving the United States again? Maybe. I think we will at the very least need to revisit the discussion. The topic is a little terrifying in terms of figuring out where to go, figuring out how to get there, figuring out the legal issues, and not to mention the implications for the US itself. It’s pretty scary, all right. Would I do it? No, I don’t think so, but I would have to think about it. We’ll see what happens. 

Would we move to Canada? That would be easiest but it’s cold there. England? Scotland? Ireland? Australia? I think Scotland would be the favorite for us, though it’s cold there too, isn’t it? If it were just me it would probably be Ireland, but for my family as a whole it would be Scotland. I doubt it will ever come to that, and the prospect is very scary to me, but if it does… I guess we’ll see.

Complain

Bloganuary writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
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I complain about a lot of things. I will give you a list and you will see that the things I complain about the most all boil down to pretty much one thing.

  • Fascists and fascism
  • Nazis and nazi-ism
  • Maga
  • Trump and trump supporters and trump sympathizers and trump collaberators
  • Americans whose words and actions are anti-american and anti-democracy
  • Insurectionists
  • Treasonists
  • Anyone who helped or supported or sympathized with the attempt to overthrow the democratically elected president on January 6, 2021
  • Anti-science
  • Anti-vax
  • Anti-evolution
  • Climate change deniers
  • Misogynists and/or incels
  • Bigots
  • Qanon
  • People who abuse children
  • People who abuse their spouses

You see the trend there? That’s the serious list. That’s the real response to the question. Now I’ll give another, shorter (I hope) list that’s more sarcastic and more in the spirit of kidding around and lowering whatever tension I just built up with my real list.

  • People who drive too slow in the fast lane on the highway
  • Winter weather
  • Traffic jams
  • Morning commutes
  • Evening commutes
  • Country music
  • Television commercials, especially the ones that pimp drugs with awful side effects
  • Did I mention snow?
  • Websites that autoplay video, especially when the audio is not muted
  • The New York Yankees or the Montreal Canadians

There… that’s a good lighten-the-mood kinda list… though I should probably delete it and let the serious list stand on it’s own. I feel a bit like a coward leaving the second list, but what can you do, right?

Fantasizing About the Lottery

Bloganuary writing prompt
What would you do if you won the lottery?
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We have all played this game, right? I mean all of us who live somewhere that holds money in high esteem, of course. 

You hit a big lottery, what do you do with the winnings? Before my wife found her calling as a software engineering genius she was an accountant. My father was an accountant too. My brother is a CPA. Why are these things important? Because all of us would work together to come up with a plan for dealing with the money that would not involve blowing it all in the first few years the way a lot of big lottery winners do. 

Here are a few things we would do……

  • Pay off any outstanding loans including student loans, cars, and the mortgage
  • Upgrades to the house and the cars and the general living situation
  • Figure out a way to use the money to generate an income, either through an endowment or a trust or something that will let us live as well as we can off of just interest. 
  • Make sure my step kids are set financially including a home and some sort of endowment or trust fund so that they are in a position where they won’t have to worry about money ever again
  • Make contributions to our extended family. Our parents and my brother and sister would get a chunk of the winnings to do with as they pleased, but the reasoning on our end would be for mortgages and college funds and healthcare and such. It’s doubtful we could set any of them up for life, but we can help as much as we can
  • Make similar contributions to a few close friends. Again, mortgage and college funds being the hope, but it will be their money to do with as they please. The trick would be figuring out how many friends we can help. It probably won’t be many, but we will do what we can
  • Research the hell out of charitable foundations and establish relationships with organizations working toward some of the things that are important to us. Diabetes research, cancer research, dementia research. Things like that. Find organizations that are doing good work and not screwing over their donors or their targets and donate as much as we can to them
  • Buy a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

That’s the gist of it. I’m sure if we did hit a honkin’ big lottery we would make significant changes to the plan based on the amounts in question and the general situation as it stands in the moment, but this feels like a good plan to start with at least.

My Effin’ Life

Bloganuary writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
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I used to read constantly. I’ve worn reading glasses since I was a kid. A few years ago my eye glass prescription needs changed and I had to switch to progressives. That made sitting down and reading a book more difficult. It’s more stressful on my eyes and they get tired very fast. 

At the time I was commuting to work over and hour each way four days a week. I had a very active Audible account and I was listening to piles upon piles of audio books. When the pandemic hit I inactivated the account. I don’t do well with audio books when I am not a captive, driving audience. That means there have been very few books read (in any manner) since early 2020.

I am going to need to have a new eye test one of these days. There’s a part of me that wants to get a set of reading glasses again to go along with the mid-distance computer glasses I have and the progressives I wear when I am not sitting at my computer. That’s a lot of money for specs though so probably not.

There is one book that I started reading a little after xmas though. I’m only on chapter three and have only been reading a few pages at a time. It’s a memoir. It’s Geddy Lee’s My Effin’ Life. I am very driven to get through it but it’s hard to find the time or the energy. I will read it. I have to. It’s a moral imperative. 

Family Traditions

Bloganuary writing prompt
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.
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Nope. I don’t think I want to. 

Well… okay… I’ll give a couple of holiday season things that I know I’ve written about before, just for the spirit of the thing. I’m having a weird morning and I’m not in a sharing mood so I’ll stick to public-ish info, m’kay?

Both of these little traditions come from my beloved wife Jen’s family, long before I came into the picture. The first happens at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Just after the clock strikes 12:00am to start the new year, one of us opens up one of the doors to the house to let the old year out and someone else opens another door to let the new year in. Cool, huh? I like that one. It’s little and silly but it’s us.

The other tradition I’ll mention is the xmas eve party. When I first started dating Jen her family had an annual xmas eve party at her mother’s house. When we bought our house in 2010 the party moved from there to here. Everything was fine and on schedule until Covid messed it up. Once things calmed down we got sort of back on track. With the kids living in Vermont right now we moved it back to Jen’s mother’s. This year it also moved to the day after xmas due to some busy holiday schedules. It still happened though and it was just as fun as always.

There you have it. Two little family traditions that are not little at all. They are both wonderful. I write this all the time, but I am so grateful and happy that Jen and the kids and the extended family have welcomed me and allowed me to be one of them. It’s one of the things in life that makes me happier than I could ever describe.