Categorized days ~

One of the gurus that I have read online for several years posted something recently about not being able to maintain consistency in his actions. It was interesting and he noted the irony of saying that he was inconsistent on a blog that he had posted 24 more than 10 years every week.

I can understand where he is coming from. What I've learned over the years from his post is that he does things in spurts, sets aside a week to develop a theme and a bunch of posts around that theme, and then automates it so that those posts happen without him. So I understand the being inconsistent concern.

Having worked shift work most of my life I dealt with that every week. The shiftwork I did was not like so many other people's schedules, a set of days off with either straight days, straight evening shifts or swings, or straight mid shifts overnight. Or a shift with rotating days off that moved according to the calendar.

No, I called my shiftwork schedule the permanent jet lag schedule. First day back was a late evening shift, second day back was a little bit earlier but still an evening shift usually until 9 PM. Third day back could be another evening shift or could be a dayshift like 84 or 7 to 3. Fourth the back was an early dayshift, as early as six in the morning or seven in the morning. And then the last day was either another early morning shift or a midnight shift where I got off on my fourth day, went home and took a nap, and then went in and worked from 1030 until 630 the next morning. And then I was off for 2 1/2 days and started the whole thing over.

It took me so many years to finally just categorize my days as either a day shift, and evening shift, or a day off. And then to prioritize what I was gonna do depending on what type of day it was.

That helped me a lot!

The other thing that I did was instead of being focused on specific rituals I would just focus on keeping things going in the direction that I wanted them to go. Always choosing to climb the mountain instead of taking so many steps down on them and taking more steps back up. This helped me a lot and led to a much more stable consistency as my kids grew up and moved out of the house and as I got to the schedule that was much more consistent than I've ever had in my life.

Categorize the day and always choose higher. Simple on paper, very challenging to pull off. I still work at!

#shiftwork #us

Effects of the internet ~

As time goes by I fear the effects of the Internet on our society more and more.

This incredible tool has brought people together from across the planet. It's been used to communicate, to improve life, to opening up a good thing to so many good people.

But an attitude many take when using the Internet, especially under-age teenagers, is that it's OK to lie about your age so that you can do whatever you want to do. And you learn as a user of the Internet that you don't have to tell the truth to get something that you want. You learn to maintain your anonymity, but often times it's better to lie or provide information that can be disconnected from you rapidly.

In a lot of cases, especially on social media sites, this leads to people making comments that would get them punched in the mouth if you made those comments in person.

I remember someone had left a comment on a YouTube video about how the creator's mother's birth canal was like a cave and that image haunts me today.

For a long time but wasn't so concerned about is the fact the Internet has the but as it seems deeper and deeper into the cracks of our society concerning the sprouts very dangerous fruit

Here more and more people are caught doing something that there not supposed to be doing the phrase they didn't say I couldn't do that! Because our society thrives on Cortese's blitz court decisions drive real life activities lawyers get paid lots of money to write stupid freezes like caution contents of this cup of hot coffee may be hot.

Where I work we have to have parking stickers to get in the gate. Recently we had one of our employees drive through the gate and be allowed to drive through the gate and parked in a brand-new vehicle that he had bought the night before. No parking sticker at all. When he came up to get a new parking sticker he told us about it and said you didn't think they let me in but I went ahead and pulled up at the ages, waived the right through. He tried it just to see if he would be stopped. And because performance levels so many jobs and the expectations are set so low the repercussions of not just doing a job correctly are hardly ever meted out this guy just made it right through the door secure facility.

I remember we had a exchange student from China for all that was a totally different experience for us as a family, but one of my observations was that he was more than willing to falsify anything to get what he will. When he was told that he had to apply for something he just kinda filled out the application with whatever information he felt like inside it were the parent or guardian was supposed to sign it because he just figured nobody would check.

I know that we've had this throughout our history is a country in the society. They just seem to be getting a lot worse. Because trust is already so low the trust level of our society is going lower and lower and lower nobody trusts their own family and lawlessness continues to use.

I hope that people will strive to do the right thing and be honorable. Especially the people that I'm around. Because that's what I'm doing.

Plating food ~

The continual changing of the English language is perturbing at times. But sometimes it's just funny!

I've been thinking about the word "plate" and how people serve up food. I was thinking about how the English language gets used incorrectly and nouns become verbs.

When someone is taking food out of a dish I learned that was dishing out the food. In the past few years, though, "plating" food has become the way people have said this concept. "I put it on your plate" gets shortened to " I plated the food". "I am plating it for you."

What happens if someone calls a plate a dish? Then they would have to say that I dished food for you and if someone were to say that the others would look at them and wondered if you insulted or talk bad about it? An initial thought would not be that you took food from a pan and put it on a dish so that someone could eat a portion of it.

I guess what's happening is more and more words are visual and everything is in context. But if you don't know the context of how something is being used and you can't see what they're doing if they say they're doing it for you can you keep up with the language?

I guess I need to calendar some time so that I can capture my thoughts on this. Funny!

E-books ~

I have been reading e-books for a long time.

I remember in 1999 I had a Texas Instruments personal organizing device that had calendar and calculator and notepad and other things on it. It was one of those calculator sized devices that had a flip cover on it and was basically a personal organizer. And I would put e-books on it and read it as I rode the bus and train in the Washington DC area.

I graduated from that to my Handspring visor devices. They ran the PalmPilot operating system and allowed me to carry e-books on them. I used the graffiti text capture software so much that I can still to this day right on a notepad in graffiti style writing and read it even though it looks weird.

But I read e-books on my Handspring Visor devices. I bought them instead of the PalmPilot because Palm Pilots were way too expensive and Handspring Visor was bucking the system and offering devices that were more expandable at less cost. I remember getting a handful of plug-in devices for my Handspring visor. One of my favorites was the GPS plug-in. I would watch as we drove down the road and my GPS would calculate where we were even though I didn't have a map or anything. I would plug in coordinates and capture coordinates as we traveled. Which I still do today.

But I digress. E-books. Now I use Amazon Kindle e-books almost exclusively. I still purchase some PDF e-books and then read them on multiple devices. I take my e-books from Amazon and convert them to text so that I can do what I want with the text. I usually if I really want to read the book completely will run the text through text to speech software and listen to them. Or have started using a couple of e-book readers to read my text files and converted Amazon Kindle e-books. It all gets very complicated. And I love it!

But e-books have become my main way of consuming books. I have two Kindle paper white waterproof E-ink readers that I use. Why two? Because if one craps out I want to be able to keep reading on the other one. Even though I can read all my e-books on my phone using the Kindle app and on my iPad using the Kindle app there also. Or I can read them in text files on any device that I want to read on.

But I like the Kindle Paperwhite readers because they use e-ink, they're completely visible and easy to read in bright sunlight or in the dark with their backlight, and they're waterproof so I can take him in a pool or tub and not worry about them getting fried. Although I haven't tested that rigorously!

But I love e-books and I love the ability to be able to read electronically and carry a library with me wherever I go. It's bad enough that I can search the Internet and get any piece of information that I want almost instantly, but I prefer to carry lots of books with me so that if I want to read something or review something that I read a few years ago I can just pull it up anywhere.

I love modern technology!

Bible belief ~

One of the challenging parts about being a Christian is what I believe about the Bible. I believe that the Bible is God's word. That it was written by people guided by God. And that when we read the Bible we can learn more about God than we could ever learn any other way.

One of the hard things I experience is when people pick and choose from the Bible. Friends that are quick to quote scripture in certain subjects don't want to read other parts of the Bible or don't want to hear about other parts of the Bible that say what they're doing shouldn't be done. A lot of people say "that's in the Old Testament so it doesn't apply anymore" but then will quote from the Old Testament and say this is how you want to live your life this is what you should do. Same book in the Bible, just different chapters and verses that don't fit what they're doing with their lives.

Some people take to heart the law and the festivals and have a big time saying "we're becoming more like the Israelis". This is what the Jewish people did so we should do the same things!

But when I read the Bible and I read history I read that the Jewish people turn away from God over and over and over. And that Jesus freed us from those restrictive boundaries saying nobody could do all those things. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one gets to the father except through me.""

I just find it interesting that the same people that will claim freedom will also claim restriction so that they can justify what they feel think or believe.

I prefer to develop my personal relationship with God and to lean on what Jesus taught was the greatest commandment. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Challenging!

Don_t get in my way ~

Our country the United States of America for many many years the motto identified with "don't tread on me". "Freedom, justice, and the American way" was an awesome statement that generated a lot of attention and income for marketing agencies.

But in the past several years I've noticed that the motto has changed. Now it seems to be more like "don't get in my way".

I see it in the abundance of mind-numbing activities and treatments. I see it in the constant search for distraction and activity to go and boast about. I see it even in the liberal movements that are getting so much attention lately like transgenderism and socialism and the like.

"Don't get in my way" says that any rule guidelines for decorum are to be ignored as we step past the safety tape saying "do not cross". You see people dying as they step out on a ledge or hang from a rock or get too close to the lion that they jumped the fence to get in the cage with.

"Don't get in my way" smacks of disrespect and we see that in day-to-day interactions and we see it amplified on social media.

I hope that we can teach more people about truth and true justice for all not just subgroups. And I hope we can get the American way back on what our founders hoped it would become.

Loved Johnny Carson ~

I remember Johnny Carson when I was growing up.

My parents would have me go to bed by 9 PM. I would fall asleep listening to the stories told and Hill Street blues and other mystery programs. Taxi was one of them.

But on nights when I couldn't fall asleep or I woke up for some reason I would listen to my parents watch and listen to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

I loved it! I loved his delivery, I loved the way he would introduce guests, I loved it when I could stay up as I got older and watched him interview guests. It was amazing!

Now in our modern society I can pull up Johnny Carson shows on YouTube anytime I want. I tend not to until they show up in my suggestions. And when they show up enjoy watching and listening to him do his thing.

It's fun watching Johnny Carson introduce and then interview comedians that I have enjoyed over the years. All the big names, all will little names that became big names, it's amazing!

But Johnny Carson remains the center of the comedic universe that I grew up with. Ed McMahon sitting off to the side chuckling and encouraging. But Johnny was the main event.

It's fun watching Johnny Carson now! Sad that he's gone and nobody even comes close to the way he was, but fun.