Augmented reality for years ~

I've augmented my reality for years. When I was younger I got a radio
from my grandmother. It was a white stand-up clock radio that was an
analog clock and you can set the alarm on it when I was restricted to
my bedroom in the fourth grade or fifth grade that's the radio that I
listened to Chicken-man and Paul Harvey on.

As I got older I'd buy boom boxes. I remember I bought this big silver
boom box that was awesome. I would listen to the radio on it and I'd
listen to my cassettes on it. When I got home from school I would put
it on the table and listen and actually fall asleep with my head on
the table.

Then came the Walkman radios with the headphones. I loved them but I
hated the spongy foam on my ears. I was so happy when they came with
those plastic stick in the ear so that they didn't fill the ear but
you could still hear the music really well headphones. Then came the
waterproof versions. I didn't use them very much because they were
always too expensive.

But I've augmented my reality with music and then as technology has
progressed with Bluetooth whisperings in my ear from podcasts and my
own little programs that quoted facts and jokes and weather
information randomly.

I'm concerned about visual augmentation because it could be very
distracting. But I'm also rather excited about it. The idea of being
able to go to the aquarium and have on a pair of AR glasses and see
the name and type of each fish and shark swimming in the water just
excites me to no end.

The possibilities of being able to see bubbles over cars as I drive
down the road giving me information about what they're about to do or
their speed or even the rating of the driver if we can get that far
without too much invasion of privacy are exciting.

Being able to drive by a business and see that a restaurant's busy and
the wait times two hours would be amazing.

I'm excited about what augmented reality is becoming but don't be
mistaken that it's new, it's not.

Four Tendencies ~

I listened to Gretchen Rubin's book, The Four Tendencies, again. In it she proposes that there are four tendencies and personalities that humans have that drive our decision -making in our actions. It's not quite the personality quizzes that pigeonhole everybody into boxes that tend to limit us, but they're just tendencies that we have.

I was reminded that I fit the upholder tendency really well. I have strong tendencies in that direction. I'm a rebel too, and that twists me up inside at times. But the chapter on upholders really resonated with me. (ooo, touchy feely words :-)

So many of the things that she said upholders tend to do or act like fit me to a T. Inner and outer expectations, love to do lists and checking things off, can come off as rigid or distant. React badly when situations change unexpectedly.

It's funny because there was this meme going around several times asking the question "what would your warning label be?" And my answer every time I see that is "Volatile when shaken". Because I don't like things being shaken up unless I'm the one shaking.

It was fun to listen to the book again. I got a lot more out of it this time. I'm hoping to learn more about myself and others and hopefully fit into the world a little bit better and understand people better.

Check it out at
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Tendencies-Indispensable-Personality-Profiles-ebook/dp/B01MU23P0N/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Q21IKVXC9JLQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7W6u-PZ6t69JymWKsydRDeRG2xV3pX_jnPncnx60AsqA36r2uTKClNhjLzi4Wux9r9viJj5om8mZu_Y_wfLK579ziKvppW9r7gUKCH3rXZjl2le0gQEOn6ZCRZn8WypqKIVaR4KEFvRco8eeN-ocCiJQqNiEmhQmK91U3lqdg7pu-34WLTVtEzFB5hGQrVjjYDbEp4ZoJoKXj_2X-kHP2xWU8u74n5GxsAo37dhEgSU.LJSd91Gyh5J-MvV_DpRhT6jbB8KqqOkvtwZjhELRJng&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+four+tendencies+by+gretchen+rubin+book&qid=1711630653&sprefix=four+tend%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-1

Load of wood from neighbor ~

I recently got a load of free wood from a neighbor. He took the tree down himslef and cut it into short lengths. My wife talked to him while she was walking the dog and told me he had said we could have as much of the wood as we wanted.

I didn't do anything about it until I finally met the guy. Super nice widower that moved down from the northeast to be close to his kids and grandkids, he's one of those guys that does all that outdoor stuff well. He told me to take as much as I liked.

I took the truck over there and loaded up the bed with a bunch of wood. I took a lot of the fire-ready pieces but also took a lot of the bigger unsplit pieces so I'd have some work to do myself.

It was nice doing some manual work like that. I didn't break anything on the truck and I didn't hurt myself. It was a good workout, to the point that I was sore for a couple of days afterwards. And I stacked the wood in the back corner so it can "season" before I try to split any.

Every time I hear or think the word "season" in association with firewood I wonder what they put on it, salt and pepper or what? LOL

Anyways, it's nice to have a nice neighbor. Hopefully I can be nice too...

Growing sprouts ~

A little while back I started seeing a couple of videos on YouTube about growing sprouts and a jar. I thought it was a silly idea but I gave it a try with some broccoli seeds that I had.

I had grown the broccoli seeds or other broccoli seeds in a little pan of dirt and harvested the sprouts from that after about 10 days and that was fun. I added to my morning eggs but just throwing them in a jar and rinsing them twice a day just didn't sound like it would work.

The first try failed. I used broccoli seeds that were supposed to go in the dirt. Apparently there are differences between dirt seeds and sprouting seeds. I still haven't figured out exactly what the differences are but I'm learning.

I bought some alfalfa sprouting seeds off of Amazon and tried them. I put two teaspoons or tablespoons in a mason jar and did the little straining thing and kept them upside down so they would drain after I rinsed them.

I had way too many sprouts in that jar. They tasted good but the last bits were slimy and not good. I cut it back to one tablespoon in a mason jar and that actually did a lot better. After a few rounds of doing that I ordered some broccoli sprouting seeds and the first batch of that was very small.

Apparently I need two tablespoons of broccoli seeds where one tablespoon of alfalfa seeds worked just fine. So now I'm at a point where I have three jars going and I ate sprouts in my eggs this morning.

My goal with this is to have nutrient rich foods added into my diet with very little work. I could buy them but it's satisfying to actually grow some for myself and it fits with what I'm trying to learn because I've tried to grow vegetables on the deck for two or three years.

I get a few but it's just not enough to sustain. So far my conclusion is that I need a lot more going to sustain even just one person let alone two people having a salad a couple of times a week. I had a friend at work that started a whole business based on growing lettuce using hydroponics and then keeping fish in the water so that they would poop and add to the nutrients in the water to help the lettuce grow.

He and his family built an entire building and set up a whole hydroponic system and he did that going into retirement. It was always fun to think about but I don't know that I could ever scale up to that level.

But I am thinking about scaling up my hydroponics to where I'm doing it outside on the deck using rain gutters or something else. It's a fun little project and it gives me something to work on and think about and then eat.

Professor of life ~

The other day a passerby referred to me as "professor". I was sitting outside of a hospital enjoying the the warm spring sunshine on a clear, cool, low pollen day. While sitting out there I was listening to a summary about a book and was using pen and index cards to draw the words of the main points of the book as I listened. I was dressed in blue jeans and a button-down Oxford-style green-checked shirt with another pen and a voice recorder in my shirt pocket. I had a bottle of green tea beside me on the rock wall I was sitting on.

I liked the moniker "professor". Even though the guy that called me that was just passing by and looked like a male nurse on a short break from duties in the hospital showing that he was paying attention as he strolled purposefully on the sidewalk it still felt good.

Who knows? I may put it on my business card or resume and that say that I am a professor of life as I learn more and more.

Creating stories ~

Growing up there was always a question about what somebody's story was. My parents would comment on people and say "what a shame". They would wonder out loud why somebody would act the way that they did.

They would come up with explanations and more questions. When we were driving somewhere and somebody pulled out in front of my dad, he would say bad words and call them an idiot. In a nice way, but still.

As I was growing up I asked questions and got answers. A lot of times the answer was I don't know and then maybe it's this that or the other. Or they would tell the history of the person and explain that that's just the way they were.

After learning all of that growing up as an adult I would tell myself stories about the people around me. I would pick up little clues here and there and then expand on them in my head. If somebody was mean to me, I would explain it away because they didn't know any better or they had a rough life or whatever.

If somebody cut me off in traffic, they were in a hurry or they were stupid or worse. Because I was surrounded by the victim mentality, it was easy to think of myself as a victim also. Those stories were lots of fun because it was always my fault because I wasn't strong enough or fast enough or good enough or rich enough or whatever.

I had to work shift work and so I couldn't do this that and the other for my kids so that made me a bad father. I had to fight against those urges and tendencies. That fight typically came out as anger and frustration.

Because I would explain what was driving my decisions and nobody would understand. Including my family. They didn't know about the stories in my head. And about what I had convinced myself was probably true.

In the past few years I've slowed down and Started to unlearn some of those things. I Still battle the stories. But I tend to say "no we don't know that" and do my best to put it aside until I have more facts or observations. Approaching a situation openly and with curiousity is a challenge, but I'm learning to do that more and more. I don't like being taken advantage of and so it's hard for me to lower down my defenses.

But I'm working on it.

Rubberband Man ~

One of my favorite songs of all time is Rubber Band Man by The Spinners. I remember hearing it and thinking it was so cool and I never could hear it enough because it was on the radio and after it was played it wasn't a hot hit so you didn't hear it again for quite some time. But I remember enjoying it every time it came on.

I never did buy the CD because I couldn't find it and I had other interests that I wanted the CDs more. But when streaming services started playing songs and I was looking for something different to listen to I could added that to the mix and it was awesome.

Now I have that song in my mix of jams and convertible-top-down music. It's always fun when that song comes on because I enjoy the beat and I enjoy the funny story in the song. I have yet to hear a remix or a use of that song in a modern song.

There's probably some out there but it's probably not anything that I would run across and what I listen to normally. If you want to listen to The Spinners version check it out on YouTube at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSMVflSBKx8