Daily writing prompt

Who are your favorite artists?

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My favorite artists are all musicians. I’ll give you a short list, okay? I think the word “art” is probably a little too pretentious given the type of music all of these folks make/made. That’s okay. I like what I like, you know? You know it when you see it and all that.

• Rush. I was a kid in 5th grade the first time I heard Rush and they had a monumental effect on me. They rewrote my future, musically and pretty much socially. They set me on a path as it were. It was odd how as their musical directions changed over the years it always lined up perfectly with how my own musical tastes were changing. They were always right where I needed them to be.
• Throwing Muses. Rush changed my musical outlook when I was a kid and then continuously adjusted it again and again throughout the rest of my life. Throwing Muses did the same thing to me when I was in high school. Like most high school kids I was sure that I had the world figured out, musically speaking at least, and hearing The Muses for the first time turned that entire outlook upside down and backwards and inside out. It was a monumental change. I owe this band so much.
• Eric Clapton. I share this one with a frustrated sigh. His career has been long and varied and huge swaths of it are totally uninteresting. Also, he’s demonstrated on a couple of occasions that he is a bit of a schmuck, and that is upsetting to me. Really, he’s just a spoiled child who seems to believe everything he reads even when what he reads is idiotic and clearly untrue. Putz. Still, from the start of his professional career through his first drug fueled semi-retirement in 1971 or so his guitar playing inspired me to play guitar in a way that no one else ever did. Before I heard Cream I was curious about learning the guitar. After I heard Cream I was obsessed with the idea and HAD to learn to play guitar. Clapton did that to me.

Those are the big ones. If art is meant to inspire then those three are the biggest sources of inspiration for me. It seems too short a list though, so let’s add a few honorable mentions for luck.

• Jeff Beck
• Yes
• Pink Floyd
• Genesis
• BB King
• Jimmy Page
• Albert King
• The Pixies
• Nirvana
• Pearl Jam

Just to name a few.

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

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It’s been a while since the daily writing prompt was so blatantly a repeat. They’ve already asked us about our hobbies, and recently. Oh well, once more into the breech?

My Number One hobby is music. Playing it, listening to it, writing it, recording it, thinking about it, everything. Guitar and saxophone, analog and digital, if it’s musical I’m into it. Except country music. Hell no on that front.

Honorably mention go to photography, I’m not good at it but putting a camera (digital or film) into manual mode and getting an exposure right is pretty cool. Another would be writing this silly little blog. I sure do it enough, right? Being a hockey and baseball fan is another, though my 21st century attention span keeps getting shorter and shorter and it makes it tough to watch games. I like good TV and I love a good movie. I used to list reading near the top of my hobbies list but ever since I started wearing bifocals it’s just become more difficult to focus my eyes than I ever thought it would, and they get really tired really fast.

So there you go, probably the same list of hobbies as the last time they asked about hobbies.

Daily writing prompt

What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

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Possessions are fun and all but they are just stuff and stuff can be replaced.

The rebuild would need to start with a home to live in, including some basic furnishings, and a car to get around in, specifically to the office and back. I need a computer and a phone for work so those would come next. After that I would need mental health items. Specifically a guitar and an amplifier with a cable to connect them, and a digital camera with a memory card.

In other words, if I lost all of my stuff I would just start over and rebuild my collection of stuff. I would not end up with exactly the same stuff, but the stuff that I truly need (professionally, mentally, and personally) would be replaced. It would likely be a painful and slow process, but I’d get there eventually.

Daily writing prompt

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

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Topics about which I’ve changed my mind. Well, off the top of my head there are bunch that I can think of. On closer inspection though, are some of them more as though I convinced myself that something was true only because the reality didn’t appeal to me? I’ll explain along the way.

• I once believed that I would always be alone, romantically speaking. Jen proved me wrong and changed my mind. I am extremely pleased to have been wrong about this one. My question though is, did I really believe I was going to always be alone or did I just convince myself that was the case because it was safer to believe it than to ponder the reasons behind it? Something like that at least.
• I once believed that I didn’t want kids. Harry and Bellana changed my mind. I don’t have kids of my own, but if you search through the history of this little personal blog you’ll find a few thousand posts where I mention that I can’t possibly imagine loving kids more than I love my step kids. I have to assume it’s possible, but I feel like to do so would result in your head exploding. Again, I was very happy to have my mind changed on this subject. Also, I may never have truly believed this one but instead convinced myself that it was the case to avoid being hurt by the reality. I don’t know and I don’t care. I am very happy with how things turned out.
• I used to think that fascism was a historical movement with no connection to current reality. Boy was I wrong about that. Consider my mind changed.
• I used to think that god might be an actual thing. Those days are over. Mind: changed.
• I used to think that given the choice between traveling to San Diego or Los Angeles the correct choice would be Los Angeles. Now all I want is to go back to San Diego and then never leave.
• I used to hate country music with the furious passion of a thousand burning suns. I still do. I’ll never change my mind about that one. That one is fundamental to my being.

There you have it. A few topics upon which I have changed my tiny little mind.

Daily writing prompt

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

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When have I felt out of place? How does every minute of every day for about 50 years sound to you?

You’ve heard of “imposter syndrome” haven’t you? Let’s ask Google Bard for a short definition:

Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve all they have achieved. Individuals with imposter syndrome incorrectly attribute their success to luck, timing, or deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent than they perceive themselves to be.

https://bard.google.com/chat/334426d4192b1f8c

There, now that you know the definition of imposter syndrome, welcome to my world. I feel this way about literally everything. Work, play, hobbies, family, friends, literally everything. Know that I am using the word “literally” correctly here, not ironically.

I always feel out of place. I always feel like a fraud. I have no idea why anyone keeps me around for anything. Why am I the only one who sees it? Why am I the only one who sees what a joke I am? I will never, ever understand.

Daily writing prompt

Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

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Recently the daily writing prompt was something like what would your life be like without music. The answer to that question can serve as the answer to this question as well. It’s literally the same answer.

There would be no life for me without computers. At least no life that I would recognize.

My family got it’s first computer back in the early 80’s. It was an Apple IIe. I used it to type up papers for school and to play games. That’s about it. It wasn’t until after I dropped out of college in the 90’s that computers became a big thing for me. It was America Online, specifically, and it served as a pseudo social life. By 1997 I was ready to go back to school and at that point the computer became my academic field. I finished an Associates Degree and then went to a University to finish my Bachelors Degree. In both cases my major was Computer Science. I graduated in 2004 (yes, I was a career student for seven years) and then started my career a month or so later. I’m still with that company that hired me in 2004. Computers had become my career.

Based on all of that I can definitively say that life as I know it would not exist without computers. That’s not the main idea of this whole thing though. Remember when I mentioned AoL being a stand in for a social life? That continued after AoL fell by the wayside. In 2006 I was using the hell out of Myspace. Social media had it’s hooks in me and I was toast. Late in 2006 I met someone. A woman. Her name was Jen and she was brilliant. She was a software engineer and her skills and knowledge put mine to shame. I was super impressed. In April of 2007 we went on a date. That was it. I was hooked. In 2008 we got engaged and in 2009 we got married. In September 2023 we both caught Covid-19 on a trip to Disney World and now you’re pretty much caught up on our relationship.

So you see, without computers I would not have met Jen and life as I know it would not have existed. Not even a little bit. I would still have music but I would be writing and recording home demoes on tape rather than a computer. I might still have photography, but not digital photography and that was what allowed me to learn everything I have without paying a fortune in film costs. There’s also the whole instant feedback thing that digital allows for. I would never have been as into the whole thing as I am today without digital cameras.

Really, computers have been so foundational to the life I live that I would not recognize anything about myself without them. I’m pretty happy that they are a thing and I don’t want to ever have to go without them. Simple as that.

Daily writing prompt

What skill would you like to learn?

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Skills, skills, so many skills. So much to learn, so much to want to learn without ever actually working toward learning. I think that’s going to be the theme of this post. Things I’d like to learn but won’t. Something like that.

I’d like to learn to finger pick. I play guitar well enough, but I am a servant of the flat pick. I am useless as a finger picker. I’d like to be better at it, at least. Every now and then I go looking for practice exercises and then spend one or two days working on it before picking up the pick again. Same with slide guitar. I’d like to be decent at it but I probably never will be.

I’d like to be a better programmer. Ever since being promoted to supervisor at work my coding skills have gone down the drain in a big way. I’d like to be better. I would also like to learn different platforms, not the least of them being the other proprietary system my company uses. I would also like to learn how to develop iOS apps. Just for fun.

I’d like to learn how to use Photoshop and Lightroom and other photo editing software systems. I have the teeny tiniest idea of how to use Lightroom, but not enough to use it well. Everything I do ends up looking terrible. There’s a small part of me that wants to learn how to develop film too. That includes dark room printing. I doubt I’ll ever do it, but it sounds like fun in a crazy sort of way.

I would like to learn how to design and build electronics. Specifically guitar pedals and amplifiers. I soldered a circuit together once back when I was in college. It was for a Logic Design course. I know I can do it, I just don’t remember how and what I did was pretty shoddy work.

I have mentioned this one before, and recently. I want to grow my own peanuts. I want to learn how to grow them and then cook them. I already know how to eat them. It seems silly, but that kinda sounds like fun to me. I am not sure why.

One more… this one is insane but I did talk to Jen about it on our Covid drive home from Florida. There is a small part of me that wants to learn how to fly a plane. I think having a pilots license and renting a little single engine and flying around for fun (or for actual travel) would be awesome. There is about a 0.0001% chance I would ever pursue learning this particular skill, but wouldn’t it be awesome?

Daily writing prompt

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

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This again? Another question I just don’t want to answer. Too much self reflection is bad for my mental health.

I could pay more attention to my father. I’ve talked to him much more than I usually do over the past week. I think he’s worried about me having Covid. I didn’t talk to him last night. I will try to call him tonight after dinner. I also need to pay more attention to my niece and nephews. Yesterday was my niece’s birthday and I almost missed it. I am terrible.

I can’t say I need to pay more attention to diet and exercise because I already pay WAY too much attention to those things, thanks to the gastric bypass surgery.

I need to pay more attention to being supportive of my wife. We’ve talked about this quite a bit lately. She tells me about something she’s dealing with, or something that’s bothering her, and I leap right into “I can fix this!” mode when all she wants is for me to just listen and lend a sympathetic ear. I end up making her feel worse. I kinda suck like that. I need to do better and think before I start talking. I should be able to do that, but for some reason I just fail left and right.

Okay then, if I keep pulling on these introspective threads I am going to make myself miserable. This is enough for now. It’s 7:04am, I am eating a protein bar for breakfast and now I am going to click that little blue “publish” button.

Daily writing prompt

What’s your #1 priority tomorrow?

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You want my number one priority for tomorrow? It’s only 6:18am right now, you don’t want my priority for today? Okay… I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Maybe I’ll give both.

My number one priority for tomorrow, Tuesday October 3, 2023, partially depends on what happens today. First and foremost must be to no longer have Covid-19. I am planning on testing today, but as soon as I made that decision I sneezed so… yeah. Other top priorities for tomorrow include doing whatever needs to be done to help any of my customers that might need help, closing my activity watch rings and hitting my food and water goals for the day. Fun stuff like that.

My number one priority for the coming day is to take that Covid-19 home test that I mentioned and have it be negative. I am positive I will achieve the first piece of that goal, but also pretty sure I will not achieve the second piece. Other goals include restarting my exercise routine again, hopefully without completely wiping myself out with Covid-19 fatigue symptoms. As soon as I publish this post I am going to have a faux run (running in place, or jogging in place which I pronounce yogging, with a soft J). I haven’t done this routine in two weeks, thanks Covid, so I am a little nervous, but here goes. Also, goals for today include all of the helping customers stuff I mentioned as goals for tomorrow. That’s pretty important.

Okay, so the prompt asked for tomorrow’s priority and I gave today and tomorrow. Two priorities for the price of one! You’re welcome, internets!

Daily writing prompt

In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?

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Hard work is fulfilling. Does there need to be more explanation than that?

For me, the biggest rush in my job comes from problem solving. A customer has an issue with their system. It’s something that we haven’t seen before. We dig into the data. We dig into the code. We step through the customer’s workflow. We follow the progression of the system. We find an inconsistency or a bug or something that needs to be enhanced. We tell the customer what’s going on and what they can do to get around it. We let Development know about it and make a suggestion on how to change the code.

A situation like that, solving a problem… it just feels good. Really good. Would I call it fulfilling? That seems a little strong, but I guess it fits. Maybe if you squint a little or look at it over time and see a trend. I don’t know. I just know I enjoy that and love how I feel when it happens.

It’s different than the feeling you get when you do some physical task around the house or something, but it’s good enough for me and my little brain and my heart and what passes for a soul.