Sneezing ~

Sneezing has always been an issue for me.



My parents taught me to cover my mouth when I sneezed or coughed so my hands would get messy and I'd have to wash them or wipe them off with a Kleenex or paper towel.



As a kid I usually just wipe my hands off on my pants but sometimes it was way too messy for them. I remember several times in elementary school sitting in class doing the classwork and sneezing and I would cover my nose and mouth with my hands and end up with snot all over my head.



It was embarrassing to have to go up and ask the teacher for a Kleenex or towel or something but I did. After that I learned how to hold my sneezes in. That brought all sorts of issues because people would see me do that.



They would laugh or they would act shocked. Friends would tell me your head's gonna explode. People told me that when you sneeze your heart actually stops for a minute and if you're holding it in that's just gonna get worse.



I've read articles about how you shouldn't hold your sneezes in, but because mine are so messy and I tend not to have anything to wipe my hands off with, or my face off with, I just hold them in. I'll squeeze my nose and close my mouth, if my hands are not free, I'll just hold it in as much as I can.



I just don't like the embarrassment that comes with sneezing. Sneezing while hurtling down the road at 60 miles an hour is always exciting. I've had friends who sneeze three times and then just stop.



And they're consistent about it, which is weird. I've had friends that sneeze as loud as they can, had one friend who every time he sneezed he would say, ah shit, that was always funny to me.



Sneezing is messy business.

AI recorder thoughts ~

One of the new devices that has been popping up in my feeds has been an artifical intelligence (AI) "recorder". The concept behind is that it stays on all the time and records everything like a voice recorder, then at some point uploads the recordings, transcribes them into text, analyzes what was recorded, and presents the user with a list of notes, tasks items, ideas, etc. that can then be edited and made into actionable items by the user.



This is a great idea if the people you encounter don't care about their privacy being violated! It probably also violates some laws about illegally recording people without letting them know they're being recorded. Maybe the user should wear a "Smile, you're being recorded" button?



But I think it's an awesome use for this new technology. What a way to mash things up into something that can be useful!



I remember a guy I worked with wanting a person to do the things this AI recorder is supposed to do. He was a union thug that worked his way up the ranks to be the "facility representative" where I worked. He was good at it, and I loved hearing his stories of how he put it to management over and over. He was also one that would hide a voice recorder in the drop-ceiling of the manager's office and then have his buddies retrieve the recorder so he could have inside info on what was being discussed.



But when he was working he would lament that he didn't have an assistant that followed him around and captured all of his ideas on paper. He had ideas for our employer, for businesses, and for products he thought should be developed. He and his brother ran a trucking company from where we worked (illegal but still done), and he was all over the map.



I miss that guy! I wish I could send one of these AI recorders to Lee and turn him loose with it. But at this point he's probably passed away and all of his ideas have gone with him. Except this one!





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#ai #recorder #capture #notes

Love reading ~

I love to read. For several years now, I've read mostly on a screen instead of in a physical book. I have a couple of Kindle readers and I use the Kindle app on my phone and my iPad I also look at books on the computer on both my Windows and Mac computers.



I've enjoyed by my ebooks from Amazon for the Kindle format. But, one of the things that I found was it's so easy to buy a Kindle e-book that I was buying too many of them and then not reading all of the books that I bought.



For a couple of years I tried to slow down and then I would spend six months reading all the books that I bought and then I would buy a bunch more and spend six months buying the books that I bought.



I finally came up with a method that's helped me a lot. When I get in the mood to buy a book, I'll go and look for one. I'll even go and try to find authors that I've read and enjoy. and I'll find their ebook and I'll be ready to buy it.



And instead of buying it, I add it to my books to consider list on Amazon. I've disciplined myself so that I go on one day a week, sometimes every two weeks or so, and review the books to consider list and decide whether I want to buy that book or not.



The list has grown over the last couple of years and I don't want to buy all of those books all at one time, but they do interest me. When I get low on things to read, I'll go and buy. Two or three books and then have them ready and waiting for me when I get finished with what I'm currently reading.



One of the benefits that I've found is not only slowing things down so that I'm not spending money I don't need to spend, but Amazon will notify me when a book on my list goes on sale for a lower price.



I've gotten several books by major authors that were cut for some reason from the full price to one third or one half of the full price. And then when I'm ready to read it, it's waiting for me and I enjoy it.



I love modern technology, especially when it helps me manage myself and save money at the same time.



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I love doing computer things ~

I've been doing computer things for a long time.



I remember when my brother received a Commodore 64 computer for his birthday one year. He was so excited! It came with a cassette tape drive and we would spend 30 minutes loading the Blue Max space shuttle trench run game so that he could play it and I could watch and that I could play it sometimes. It was a fun game, but it was limited in what you can do and the boss at the end was very hard to defeat! We had spent many hours playing on our original Atari game system. Space Invaders was my favorite because I had become so time synced with the space invaders that I could sit and play it indefinitely on my joystick and big console TV at home.



After I had my own Commodore 64 in college I remember using a heat transfer printer to print my essay for a college class. I had typed up, saved, edited, and printed my college class essay using GeoWorks software which was early "what you see is what you get" document editing. I remember arguing with my professor that doublespaced and 14 point font on heat transfer paper was the same as doublespaced on a typewriter.





I remember another professor at University of Central Florida bragging about how she had gotten a 1 MB hard drive and how it was so big and how excited she was.



Last timeI checked I carry 2 TB of storage in my pocket. Wow!



I remember using America Online dial-up. I remember using CompuServe on dial-up. I remember dialing into servers using the telephone line and downloading software that was posted from other sources.



I remember being my apartment in Orlando while attending University of Central Florida and calling my girlfriend (eventually my wife) and her mother iand playing for them the three voice harmony that I had programmed using "peek" and "poke" commands in my Commodore 64. It was an amazing achievement on my part but probably didn't rank very high in other people's eyes. They laughed and were encouraging. And my wife has continued to be encouraging ever since then.



Now I tinker on my phone and make it do cool things. I try to convince my iPad in my Apple iPhone from work to do cool things and often I succeed but sometimes I'm blocked by my employer's security.



I love tinkering with computers, they're so much fun!

Vibrating alarm clock ~

I use a vibrating alarm clock. I've used one for many years.



My wife is an interpreter for deaf people so we sometimes get catalogs of products for hearing impaired people. A lot of these products include flashing light alarms and bed shaker alarms.



I never went for those, but because my shift work over the years caused me to have to sleep at irregular times and wake up early in the morning while my wife was sleeping, I decided that a vibrating alarm would be good enough for me. My hope was that I would not disturb her very much.



And it worked out. She's been able to sleep and tune it out. I've been able to wake up and get moving without making a lot of noise. Win-win.



I've used different vibrating alarm clocks over the years. For a long time I enjoyed the traveling Tim or something like that. It was a rectangle clock with a face that swung open and closed, and underneath that door there were buttons to set the time and set the alarm and set the alarm mode from really loud beeping to beeping and vibrating to vibrating only or to nothing. I think it also had a really bright light on it, so if a hearing impaired person wanted to set it on the nightstand or shelf near them, hopefully the light would wake them up.



Right now I'm using a "sonic boom" vibrating alarm clock. I keep it set to vibration even though I'm not working right now because that's what I'm used to and it's what my body is waiting for. When i do use a audible alarm clock it irritates me; I don't like the sound, I don't like the jarring beeping and buzzing. If I wake up to music I just keep sleeping usually. So this thing has helped me a lot! I have to say that it also helped me not sleep in because early on in my career I had trouble being late to things and especially to work because this irritated me so much the vibrating alarm clock was a win for me.



It's funny because a woman that we know that is deaf and in her 70s didn't know how to make a an alarm clock that she had work for her. So we gave her a "sonic boom" alarm clock like mine. Hopefully it will help her.



You can check it out at

https://a.co/d/i1yn0Us



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Natural deodorant ~

One of the positive things that happened during 2020 was I tried a different underarm deodorant. Yeah, I know, silly thing to share, but I've really been surprised and wanted to tell you about it.



I was raised using a roll-on type underarm deodorant. I don't remember the brand but it was the kind that was liquidy, rolled on, and took forever to dry. At some point I switched to the gel that was still liquid and took forever to dry. But they were all filled with chemicals that I don't even know how to say.



Over the years I had read about the negative effects of these chemicals. Although unproven some were supposedly causing cancers, especially breast cancers. Some were causing dementia as people get older. The big villain in the chemical makeup of artificial antiperspirants and deodorants was aluminum and other chemicals that were there to block your pores and prevent them from sweating or something like that.



I had read over the years about all-natural deodorants made from salts. I had laughed and thought it was stupid. But since we were already doing a bunch of stupid stuff in 2020 I figured I'd give them a try.



Lo and behold, the mineral salt crystal underarm deodorant works for me! I was teleworking and so I figured it didn't matter if I smelled better or not except to my family. I bought some and tried it and once I got the hang of getting it wet and then applying it to my underarms discovered that it was instantly dry and prevented odors with no unwanted center or anything like that. A couple of times I didn't do it enough and discovered that if you only can I do it a couple times you will stink by the end of the day, but if you follow the directions and apply it liberally it works. At least for me.



I like it so much that I've now been using some form of crystal mineral salt underarm deodorant for two years. I bought it as gifts for my children. My hope is that they'll switch away from the artificial things that they were when they grew up using two this all-natural potassium based mineral salt thing that hopefully will be healthier and better for them in the long run. But that's up to them since they're all adults.



You can find the mineral salt underarm deodorant things that I've tried it at





https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000S83JR0/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_WKMTNKJ90T8822844NFA?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Not answering phone much ~

Growing up, I was taught to answer the telephone. As a child, I remember the telephone being an important part of the house. It was how family communicated with us. It was how a workplace could call or a business could call and let us know that something was happening or something was ready.

I grew up with rotary telephones and thought touch-tone telephones were just amazing technology. And growing up, I was taught that if the telephone rang, you answered it. It could be an important call.

And so when the telephone rang, I would run across the house to go and answer the phone. I would watch mom and dad stop whatever they were doing to go and answer the phone. When telemarketers started their evil campaigns, that made my family hesitate, but we still answered the phone.

And then, being polite, we were taught to answer questions. And telemarketers would talk to us for quite a long time, trying to get us to say yes to whatever they were pushing. I remember getting my first mobile phone because my wife was pregnant and I was on a detail in Washington DC and my wife got a mobile phone and we got it in case she went into labor and she needed to get a hold of me and let me know that I needed to come home.

We've had mobile phones ever since then. I did email on my mobile phone when it was just a text web and it was the tiny screen and all the letters had to be typed using the number keypad. As my career progressed, mobile phones became ubiquitous and I was told that if work called I had to answer.

Sometimes it was an overtime request, sometimes it was an emergency and we need you to come in right now. When I became a manager it became more important to be reachable. So I spent the majority of my life on a hair trigger waiting for the telephone to ring or buzz or sing or whatever.

Since I retired I have embraced the millennial attitude about a ringing phone. My initial reaction is, who's calling me and why, and why didn't they text me first? I hate that because I was so against it for so long, but now that I don't have any of those pressures on me to answer the phone, it's awesome.

And I really enjoy just letting it go to voicemail and then I'll read the generated text transcription and decide if I'm even gonna listen to the voicemail soon or not. I still answer the phone for close family, and I do my best to always answer the phone for my wife.

But not answering the phone is new for me. Fun!

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Not a joke ~

It's hard when I see someone joke about suicide. I'm in a meeting, it's really boring, the person talking is droning on and on. I look around the room and someone jokingly uses their thumb and forefinger to make what looks like a gun and they pointed at their head and they act like they pulled the trigger and shoot themselves because they just want to get out of the meeting

It's funny until you know somebody that actually did that. Other ways that people joke about it:

- I'd slit my wrists if I had to do x.

- I'd shoot myself if I was in that position.

- I'd drive my car over a cliff before I did that.

It's hard and it's scary when you say these things, it is not fun at all!

When someone you know commits suicide for real it's dramatic. It scars a person. It's like a rock thrown hard into the water and the waves splash and overturn some people's boats.

I tend to think of suicide as a selfish act. Sure, I've had those thoughts. I can't help it in our society where so much is bombarded at you and done in the name of "entertainment" and all of the twisting and manipulation of the emotions to get a reaction in a show.

But they've done studies and I remember reading a few articles about how when one suicide happens others happen in a community. Because consciously or subconsciously the message is received that suicide really is a way to make things "better". Or at least escape from whatever hell a person thinks that they're in.

I had a friend in high school that got messed up with mushroom tea and stabbed himself in the chest with a fillet knife. Apparently the trip was not the greatest and he just wanted to end.

That mindset of doing it is one of the more viral things in human consciousness so we have to be careful with. For that reason I try not to ever joke about it. Because a lot of times what people joke about ends up being something that they actually consider doing and sometimes actually do it.

It's like divorce. I've known couples that have sniped at each other and then started saying "well I'd divorce you if you did x" and "you know if you do that I'll divorce you" then all of a sudden they're filing paperwork and they're done over something stupid. Because they programmed their brain to think that divorce was the solution.

I tend to think that that's what also the Bible meant about being careful what you let into your mind and encouraging the people of the different churches that he wrote to to think on those good things. And that love above faith and hope conquers all. If you know of someone that jokes about it or maybe is thinking about it you may just want to love them. Make sure they know they're loved. So that they don't think that what their programming says is the solution to whatever they think is a problem.

Be sure and love yourself. No, I'm not talking about that stuff. Like what you do. Like how you treat people. If you don't, adjust and learn how to speak positively to yourself.


Tough subject. I hope this makes sense to somebody...

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#love