Crumbling Sanctuary

The Waste Budget

2017-04-26T18:50:00.001-07:00

I've noticed something interesting about my free time.

Regardless of what I do with it, I feel like it's wasted. Has anyone else noticed this? Anyone? Bueller?

If I zip through a book, I missed a chance to watch a movie. If I do watch a movie, I wish I made progress on a video game, or a tv series. If I do one of those, I miss the chance to get caught up on housework... or build something new, or hit up a museum, or...

It's a bit frustrating. Even actively desiring to waste time in the manner I wish feels... wasteful. It's like FOMO, fear of missing out, but missing out of things that I can do myself, sometimes without leaving my house. That's not exactly what people were thinking of when they invented the concept of FOMO, but that's amazingly resonant.

So I was wondering... what if I applied budgeting principles to free time?

At first blush, of course, that seems ridiculous - in America a Budget is almost a curse word, a hated word, like "diet" or "prioritize". When, in reality, whatever you are actually eating is your diet - if you eat only cheetos & mountain dew, that's your diet. Whatever it is that you've actually done, that's your priority. Whatever you are spending your money on is your budget.

Prioritizing is choosing what you'll do ahead of time. Dieting is choosing what your going to eat ahead of time. Budgeting is choosing what you'll spend ahead of time - normally applied to money, but I'm thinking of applying that to time.

Maybe.

I'll give it a shot, see what happens.

Exhausted

2017-04-02T15:12:00.004-07:00

My apartment has become a vampire. I come home, and I'm frequently overwhelmed with ... stuff. Prepping food, doing laundry, dishes, cleaning up after myself or my son, culling our possessions to get ready for the move this summer.

In addition to the normal 40+hour workweek, a slowly increasing commute both ways, a tendency to not get enough sleep, and the everyday life of raising a 5 year old. I get home and...

... And it's more exhausting. A place that was originally a safe haven is now a taxing influence and a source of stress.

Hopefully, this is just a time that will pass. Once the move is over, once we reboot and start anew, maybe then, just maybe, will I be able to relax.

Unin-lent-ionably

2017-03-02T19:41:00.000-08:00

I kinda dislike the concept of Lent.
On one hand, that seems off, as I still align with the greater Christian Faith.
On the other hand, it's an observance created by Western Catholicism, which I have almost no alignment with, so that makes sense.

That all being said, I have tampered down my presence on social media for Lent... unintentionally. I got an automated message a couple days beforehand from Verizon, stating I've nearly used all of my data for the month. When I checked data usage for the month, Facebook by itself accounted for nearly 2 GB of data... so I removed the app from my phone.

I didn't even notice it was Lent season for a couple of days later. Little things - people with random different books on their desks than normal, seeing my compliance officer with a smudge on her forehead.

The idea of Lent is to fast from something prior to Easter. People give up caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, tv, you name it, as some sort of lame attempt at sacrifice. I say lame because it's rarely an actual life change. They say it's a time to focus on Christ - Everytime you'd grab that coffee, or sit down to bask in the TV glow, you were supposed to redirect your thoughts to the most high.

I don't get that. I mean, sure, there's some benefit towards fasting for small periods of time, but really it's only useful if it's part of a lasting change. That's like those dieters with a predesignated "cheat day", as if the day of the week has magical properties - Can't eat that pizza on Thursday, I have to wait until Saturday. It's like focusing intently on getting out of debt, then celebrating by leasing a car or using that now-open credit for a huge trip. It's backwards, IMHO.

Now that it's been basically a week without Facebook on my phone, have I missed it? Kinda. I did like that feeling of posting something bouncing around in my head, and getting a handful of likes or causing a couple of laughs. But in reality, the main problem the app caused was a downward spiral of time that just evaporated when it was opened. I have other time-wasting data-aggregators (Feedly, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram), but for some reason they don't draw my focus as much. Facebook was always the hole... and the longer I keep it off my phone, the better. At least for my data plan.

A girl I used to date doesn't have any Social Networking on her phone... including the various messaging services. She'd get on in the morning, and the evening, and that's it. If you needed to get ahold of her, there was just the traditional ways - calling or texting. Is it strange that I consider texting traditional? Maybe she was on to something.

We'll see how it goes

Prayerrible

2017-02-20T20:18:00.001-08:00

I'm really terrible at prayer
My prayer is terrible
Prayer, Terrible
Prayerrible

Perhaps it's because I don't know what to say
That's the obvious contender, as I don't do well with small talk
Or large talk
Or anything that doesn't turn into some sort of exploration

Explanations are great
Explorations are great
You sit down, run some stuff together, brainstorm
Ideas form like bullets in your head
Charts and ideas are etched on napkins
Most get trashed
But that really good one gets shoved in a pocket

There's a certain beauty in that, the conversation
Which is what prayer is supposed to be, theoretically
But the part of conversations I like is the back and forth

Maybe that's why I'm terrible at prayer
I talk and it seems to bounce off the ceiling
I open and it stays closed
I say nothing and nothing happens

I can blame that
I really could
It's wrong, but I really could just stop right there
It's not wrong in the sense that it's incorrect,
Rather wrong in the sense that it's incomplete
Because I'm the same way when I'm with people long enough

Back when the TV show House was on, they would have an episode every other season or so
Where the titular doctor would have to figure out something without the aid of his team
and he would grab random people and instruct them to pretend they were his team
He'd give them instructions
You, agree with everything i say,
You, disagree with everything I say,
and You, become morally outraged at everything I say
It didn't matter if they understood medicine, or science
Or English, in at least one case
But they were there, they were responding
And that allowed his mind to go places it couldn't
It wasn't the response that mattered, it was the process
Restrictions breed creativity
The power, the answer was inside him the whole time

In a friendship, a relationship, Initially, it's fine
You talk about shallow thoughts, deep thoughts
Talk about the day, talk about the dreams
Past and Future
Hates and Loves
Learn about each other, back and forth
And then there's this awkward point
Where that conversation just dies down
Because it seems there's nothing left to say

You try and get through it
Chase a shared interest
Find those little hooks
I saw this article, I was reading this book
What do you mean, you've never seen that movie
I haven't heard this song in forever
You won't believe what just happened
But it just prolongs, delays
Until silence falls

Maybe it's just me
Maybe I'm the shallow one
What you see really is what you get
Don't judge this book by a cover
But don't expect to still be reading it in a couple weeks either

Perhaps I'm terrible at prayer because I'm not deep enough for God
No temptation has ever overtaken you that is not common to man
Especially this guy
He's got the same X things cropping up
And had a crappy memory
So he didn't realize he was living a loop
A Mobius life
And now that his memories are coming back
It's just making him realize
How repetitive his life has been
And he doesn't know what to do
Because all of this has happened before
And all of this will happen again
If he doesn't do anything different
But there's no indication of what that different thing would be
Could be
Should be

Instead of just being prayerrible

Poldarn, Volcano God of the Forge

2016-12-28T22:28:00.000-08:00

I'm always fascinated by fake religions. Not in an angry, atheistic, all-religion-is-false kind of way. And I'm not looking at any actual religions - but rather the ones made up by authors and creative types. Religions and belief systems in books, games, movies, and the like. A few, like the Jedi-ism, are picked up and ran with by denizens, almost to the point of being actual belief systems. But most don't. Most of these things are only read by a few, or never really discussed in a serious manner. Why should they? They're mostly McGuffins, herrings of multiple colors, just existing for the sole purpose of directing the plot... or worse, being creative window-dressing. A filler along the lines of "Oh yeah, these people probably need to believe in something higher then themselves that I can manipulate later if I run out of ideas." For shame on those who do.

One of the reasons I like these fake religions is you can kinda get an idea of what is important to the people of the world. Their belief system subtly indicates the direction that all the those characters in their fake cultures. That old adage about 'artists using lies to tell the truth' just resonates. And I find that really interesting.

"Volcano Goddess," Charles Tan,
via DeviantArt

In KJ Parker's Scavenger Trilogy, the main deity of the series is called Poldarn. The main character is also given that name as he wakes up in the mud, Jason-Bourne-style. All of KJ Parker's books I've read have an almost infatuous look at something simple in the world, and in the Scavenger Triology, it was a look into blacksmithing. Poldarn is the sole deity of one of the cultures, and the local volcano that makes up the bulk of their island is called "Poldarn's Forge." Poldarn is kind of a sort of Hephaestus meets Shiva deity - he's the creator and destroyer, the reshaper of the world, both individually and as a whole, in addition to being a crafter and artisan. In the culture, they see that the world is something that has always existed. constantly destroyed and reborn. A unique element to their island is that it doesn't actually have any metal or mines innately within - their people are referred to as simply "the raiders," as they will periodically raid the mainland for metal to fill their stockpiles.

The forge is both a literal location in the villages, and the blacksmith an actual metal worker, as well as each holding an allegorical meaning. The village blacksmith is one who literally reshapes the raided metals into the tools that each of the people use every day; that man also is the head of the village, the patriarch of the extended family. He is the one that shapes and molds the decisions for the whole family, passing along decisions and intentions throughout those part of their family with telepathic precision. The forge is an actual place, filled with wood and metal, hammers and oil, where they practice their metallurgy. The master of the forge uses it to craft the plows, hammers, pikes and swords that his family requires. By the same token, they see the village itself as a forge - the whole group, by working together, providing warmth and protection, and accomplishing infinitely more than any ember could do alone. The forge symbolizes love, growth, transformation, beauty, the power of intent and the importance of timing.

Parker uses these simple tools, that staple of the world of his post-medieval denizens, to say something that is profound, to me at least. Is Poldarn a concoction and serial behavioral catalyst for his novels? Certainly. Throughout the series, the protagonist learns the art of metalworking, and in doing so, understands more and more about both Poldarn and himself. I understand it's a McGuffain, but at the same time, a part of me wishes there was a Poldarn. It's a very practical belief, on a theological level, one without all the messes of actual historical manipulations. A part of it is almost scientific - Poldarn doesn't particularly care if you believe in him, as he is effectively an embodiment of what many would consider natural happenstance, or even the cyclical nature of things. The belief system isn't that far away from the idea that you are made of starstuff, that we are all part of the universe without being connected to it, but always returning and being reused, reforged, re-appropriated.

"Purphoros, God of the Forge," Eric Deschamps
via Wizards of the Coast

As a Christian myself, I see clear ties to my own belief system. Phrases like "Like iron sharpens iron does one man sharpen another" or the many allusions of God showing himself as a pillar/chariot of fire, or burning away the chaff, or accepting burnt sacrifices are nearly all but cut and paste. Of course the Jews were more of an oft-exiled agrarian people, so there's equal measures of pasteural imagery, things built with clay or wood, with Christ himself born of a carpenter. A single God who simply is, with the people struggling to understand their relationship to Him (Israel literally translates to Who Struggles with God), rather than a pantheon of gods struggling amongst themselves while the people try to keep up. It's really clear to me.

I also think the distance I have with my possessions comes into play with the allure of a deity with a very defined physicality to it. I'm typing all this on a Chromebook from a Taiwanese manufacturer with parts sourced from around the world. My wooden desk is sourced from who-knows-where, this chair from Haven't-The-Faintest, in an apartment filled with stuff designed and built all over the globe, with two exceptions - a toy truck built by my grandfather, and another, smaller, toy truck built for my son by another grandfather from our church. That idea of physically taking the time of crafting - heating a metal, beating it into a shape, quenching it, then doing it again - is just simply lost in my world. Where the most utilitarian things are also crafted by an individual. That pause and lookback is really appealing to me.

We can change the past

2016-12-05T20:38:00.005-08:00

This is an incredibly interesting concept.

On Insurance

2016-11-26T13:14:00.000-08:00

In the US recently, we went through what is commonly referred to as "open enrollment". That time of year where people adjust their medical insurance for the next year. Whilst doing so, I noticed something interesting.

We have a lot of different types of insurance.
And none of them are the same.

In fact, all of them are different. Profoundly so. Sure, they all have a delayed benefit, and require some sort of recurring payment... but that's like saying skateboards are the same as cars because they both are used for transport and have 4 wheels.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the focus has been on Medical Insurance. Medical insurance acts as a manner to pay for medical expenses in advance, requires you to pay portions of some things, but pays some things in full, other things by flat amounts, still others in progressive amounts (for example, when I had a CT scan, insurance paid 80% of it). Each doctor and hospital may or may not take certain insurances, may have different prices for different insurers, still other prices for those without insurance, and so there are massive networks and medical billing is its own industry.

Dental insurance, on the other hand, only sets prices. It still has all the networks and the billing shenanigans that medical insurance does, but you're the one paying for things. It's very strange, to me.

On a completely different level, Life & Travel insurance work about the same way to each other- a replacement effect. Travel insurance replaces however the value of whatever the insured thing was - whether that be an expensive flight that got cancelled, a cruise that had issues, a hotel that got shut down, et cetera. Life insurance does something similar, albeit more morbid - the smallest amounts are just to cover the burial of the insured (typically only seen in things like child insurance), but the larger amounts are to replace the lost wages of the worker insured, or to provide funds to replace the function of a stay-at-home parent.

Rental & Home insurance also replaces your property in the event of destruction... Rental replaces in the sense of grand loss for any reason, while Homeowner's insurance is more... specific. Flood insurance won't help you if your home burns down, sinkhole insurance won't help if it's flooded, and one can only get hurricane insurance, as the joke goes, in Nebraska. Originally Fire insurance was literally a metal plate hung outside the home letting the firefighters know they were allowed to put out the fire because you'd been caught up with your payments - if you hadn't, the agents would take the plate down, and even if the firefighters arrived in time, they'd just sit and watch the house burn whilst you cried about your poor decision making. Thankfully those days are past us.

Auto insurance, on the other hand, not only covers the replacement of the insured person's car, but also serves as medical insurance and even property insurance. It's even more confusing because the large portion of the insurance payout is actually for other people.

I'm certain there are very good reasons why these are all different. Certainly I wouldn't want to have Home insurance that acts like dental - offsetting the costs of upkeep, but not actually replacing anything. Nor would I want Auto insurance that acts like Medical - Getting financially punished for going to the wrong mechanic or not having fixed prices would be utterly miserable. I just can't fathom how we don't notice how bonkers this is.

Response: The American Dream is Killing Us

2016-11-05T10:04:00.004-07:00

Original article is HERE. Definitely read it - It's a fantastic article.

I wouldn't say that it is the dream that is Killing us... but our dedication to fulfilling that dream is making us more and more disillusioned to the world in which we live. Much like their mention of those who mature past such realization are also alongside those who rage against it. However they're fighting for something fluid, something fleeting, but more importantly, morphing more than once a generation. The American dream of those born in the 1900s was massively different from those born in the 20's, which was different from those born in the 40's, and so on... so those of us that reached our twenties in the early 2000s had this 1980s dream ingrained in us, that no longer existed. We had to, as a subculture, find out what the new dream is.

There's an fantastic clip of HBO's the Newsroom that will float around the internet every so often, where Jeff Daniel's character talks about how America ISN'T great, and hasn't been for a while, listing all the ways we are middling to bottom in the world, on a dazzling number of scales. It can't even be a poke at Donald Trump's campaign, as it's from 2012. It's this dramatic retelling of an educated person's realization that all of those things we took pride in we let slide away, and all we have left, is the Pride. The Dream.

This chunk of time has supposed to have shown us that we're not as smart as we think we had been - We have people in Congress who are supposed to pen legislation for technology they don't understand, and an increasingly-uneducated electorate that is fueling their power. The anti-intellectual movement from decades past has reared two highly different responses, with Math, Science & Innovation surging in importance, and on the other end of the spectrum, entire industries spawned around exploiting those who don't understand math. The Lawsuit thing doesn't even need people to do anything wrong - there's a huge issue with patent trolls as well, law firms filing lawsuits on from vague patents usually purchased from unsuspecting innovators or universities, against companies that are actually making products & services.

The article shows that we have a problem in our culture, that "Just World" delusion that the haves impose on the have-nots. We hold these sweeping assumptions - that people who are fine with punching clocks can't be successful or shouldn't be celebrated, that homeless people just need a job, that those who get caught making mistakes are somehow worse than the rest of us who don't get caught.

It's fundamentally wrong.

But the article is also correct at the end.
Because we get to decide who to vote in as legislators, we get to influence the minds of those we put in power, we get to decide.

As long as, of course,

we actually do it.

Plenty of Fish...

2016-10-18T20:16:00.001-07:00

At least I know there's someone out there who understands what I've been going through the last month.

Always Forward

Forward...

... Always

Writing Prompt: Slightly more alone

2016-10-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

It happened again.

You know, I had always had one of "those faces". People would walk up and start chatting me up, completely convinced that I was their nephew, their favorite barista, that dude from high school. In most ways it was annoying, but every once in a while I could go backstage or get ushered into events I had no business being in because I was recognized as an employee or whatnot. I even got a couple dates out of it.

My friends would joke about it. It wasn't a secret. I first ran into some pushback when I was detained by security in a mall north of Atlanta because I looked like a shoplifter who they had captured a few weeks prior. Thankfully, IDs checked out, and evidently the other dude was still incarcerated, so it was pretty simple. I thought it was over, something to laugh about.

Until my great aunt called with condolences to my mother. She'd met me a grand total of twice, if that, and shouldn't have known me from Adam if it wasn't for Christmas cards and family announcements. So it was strange that she would've known I had, evidently, died. In a car wreck. In Queens.

Which is interesting because I've only been to New York once, nearly a decade prior to the call. So it really was news to me. But much to my great-aunt's chagrin and my mother's relief, I was not unidentified man #2 in that wreck. Poor bloke. But my great-aunt was right, I did bear a striking resemblance to unidentified man #2. But that kind of killed the overall mood of the thing for me. I let it slide off me, because hey, what can you do?

What's that thing we were all told when we're young? That you're one in a million? It's just a platitude, celebrating our uniqueness, specialness, snowflakery, et cetera.

But even with that - people have always complained about doppelgangers, long lost twin why not me, right? So like you do, I wrote it off. One time deal. Except it wasn't. It happened again. Then again. My new hobby became trolling obits and such. Looking for myself.

No joke, that's what I called it.

A hipster bank robber in Oakland who got his 15 minutes cut short by an overly-patriotic Texan. A redneck who got pissed off and made a scene in north Alabama and tazed to death. A dentist in Oklahoma, killed in a home invasion. My face kept showing up in the news. Different places of birth, dates of birth, different names, gay, straight, Democrat, Republican, poor, rich, smart, moronic, some a bit older than me, others younger... the only thing that was consistent was that there wasn't anything consistent. The younger ones had more social media stuff, the older ones didn't, one was even minorly famous for something involving eating large quantities of pizza (in that case, we're clearly related) but most were nobodies.. Well, that's not true. They almost exclusively had poor choice in haircuts, compared to moi, although I am seriously reconsidering my style or lack thereof. But seriously, they were all accidents. Every single one.

Until last Monday. This article wasn't describing an accident, nor a crime of passion, though. Somebody wanted this accountant gone. I've seen enough movies to think it was a mob hit, provided there were mobs in... Albuquerque. But unless Breaking Bad was a documentary, I sincerely doubt that to be true, and going over whatever the local post reported, they doubted that too.

He was stabbed, several times, in his sleep. then finished off with an ax. It was brutal, horrible. but it was also starting to show me a pattern. This article was from months back... sadly, you can't do a Google Alert of my smug mug, so it takes me a fair bit to find 'em. I can't find them in order. Because of that, I found no pattern, just like anyone else.

Until I put them into order. Date order.

That's when it made sense.

Someone was sweeping the nation, West to East, with a single target: Me. Or, looking at the bulging file on my desk, us. Whatever we were. They've been doing it for years.

I didn't share this information with people. You may think - goto the police! the FBI! Somebody! - but let's be realistic. I'm just a random dude, and of this pile there's only one murder. A bunch of accidents, yes, with a strangely coincidental timeline, certainly, major similarities, sure... as much as a you can say for a, let's be honest, tragically average looking white dude.

There's 7 billion people in the world. If that platitude is math, if I'm truly one in a million - that means there's 7000 people just like me. And again, statistically, about three hundred in the United States. In reality, there's probably more, as you probably won't find people with my description in India, or China, where a massive chunk of the world's population is. The last death was in Minnesota, a couple months ago. So, I've got time.

Well... I thought I had time.

I got an alert this morning. It seems that in my hometown, where my parents lived, there was someone with my name. Can't find a picture of the fool, because he was as old or older than my parents (well the youngest daughter was my age in the obit, so he's not that far off), and thus isn't hip to the social-narcissist jive. It was just an obit. Death due to "complications". Most people would chalk that up as a strange coincidence, that two people with fairly unique names could live in the same county for 18 years and never know the other existed. "Ain't that strange?" they'd say.

Most people don't have this file on my desk.

I'm thinking whoever is doing this will figure out that maybe this older gentlemen wasn't actually the person he was aiming for. To be fair, I did move quite a lot during college & afterwards.

But one thing is very clear.

I need to run.

Now.

Sleep well

2016-10-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

Tonight I put my son to sleep in his room. He didn't want to go to sleep, but passed out snuggling with his blanket and stuffed gorilla, curled up in the fetal position in my recliner.

Two years, one month, and three days ago, we moved into this little apartment. We were sad, confused, and didn't want to be here. Caleb didn't even want to sleep in his bedroom the first night - streetlights streaming in, illuminating boxes, casting long shadows across cheap carpet and bare walls.

We've got everything situated now. The best art a 2, 3, and 4 year old can muster. Curtains to block out those streetlights. Boxes replaced by blankets and toys, stuffed animals and dirty clothes.

It's still a place of transition. A place that I'm getting sick of.

But it's still home

At least for now

Pile of Shmita

2016-09-26T21:50:00.001-07:00

Shmita is the word for an ancient command, recorded in Leviticus 25, as a test of faith and a promise of the faithfulness of God.

You probably have never heard of it. There's very little evidence that the Hebrew people of the Bible followed it in the time before and after the book was compiled. There are some sects, sure, that have explored it more, and some that even practice it today... but there's also a huge amount of work that those same people have put into trying to fill the command with loopholes.

The basic idea of Shmita is that, once every seven years, you let your land lie fallow. Instead of planting on it, or using it as pasture, you just let it... be. Leave it alone. Let nature do it's nature thing with it, before going back to the (quite literal in some cases) grind.

It seems simple enough. The science actually works out too - you don't do that, the soil eventually loses the good stuff on the inside, and in time, becomes worthless. You can figuratively burn out the very land you grow things on. But there's a problem with this concept - What do you do in the meantime? You can eat what's on the land, but you can't sell it, can't optimize the situation.

That's where the loopholes came in.

Some people divvied up their land into chunks. This chunk lies fallow this year, that chunk lies fallow another year. If you can operate effectively on 6/7ths of your land, you can basically do that all the time. Some also owned land outside of Israel proper, because the law only applied to Israel itself. Location, Location, Location.
Some others theorized that the rule only applies to land one owns... so those Jews figured out a way to sell said property to a non-Jew for one year, then get it back. They keep working in the field on the seventh year, because the land is no longer theirs. It's the same philosophy that would have Jewish Businessmen hire nonJews so the stores could still be open on the Sabbath.
Still others viewed the command focusing on you can't profit off of it during the Shmita. Thus, that was the year you tried something crazy that may not work... or, in the case of one vineyard, you give away the wine made from the Shmita year's crop for free (with purchase of wine from non-Shmita years).
The most amusing one I found was the huge investments into greenhouses and hydroponics by the sects of Judaism that follow the Shmita. Because, of course, those won't be using the LAND specifically, therefore no harm no foul amiright?

And I'm sure there are more of these loopholes and workarounds out there... the Jewish people have had literally thousands of years to toy with them, to poke and prod. But each and every one of them simply do not fix the main issue of the Shmita. Which is, of course, to do exactly one thing:

To stop.

In Western Culture, this concept would make even less sense at first blush. We're a society driven by credit (both scores and payments), about maximizing the opportunities at hand. Because of this, we're also a society that's on the brink of collapse, hoping that we won't go over the edge. Businessmen burning out, Pastors with moral failings and losing vision, soccer moms popping pills, a cult of caffeine & coffee, enjoying sports that obliterate their players, suicide rates climbing in certain sectors and certain times of the year. We want to get it done, and now. It's the same demise of the Replicants from the movie Blade Runner - Burn Twice as Bright, but Half as Long.

However

at the same time

in the back of our minds

in the corners of our eyes

Shmita is something that we long for.

Of course, we don't call it that. It's called 'finding yourself'. In some cases, a "midlife crisis", a "seven year itch". Other times it's taking "a sabbatical", or the favorite of politicians and CEOs, "spending more time with their family". Encouraging young adults to hitchhike through Europe, or join the peace corps, or go on mission, or, or, or... That thing so-and-so did that made you go "WOW... that's so interesting/exciting bold... I could NEVER do THAT!". A designer saying "Well, if we could restart everything, using what we know now, I would..." and fill in the blank. That secret desire to come home one day to find your home is gone, up in flames, and suddenly you have an insurance check with lots of zeros tacked on at the end and the ability to start over. You wouldn't ask for it, of course not, but if it happened... would that fresh start be so bad?

We want to be able to stop. We want to pause and let things be, then come back. And once again, in a counter-culture move, we've been downright commanded to do so. Let it be.

I know what you're thinking - for those of us who don't have land that we're farming... what exactly am I signing up for here?

Personally, I view this passage as both literal and metaphorical. Your land could literally be physical land. But at the same time, you could apply the logic to any asset that you use to gain your livelihood. That may be

as simple as saving up a stack of cash for six years, and then going on unpaid leave for a year from the insert-job-here, living off the savings.
If you're not punching a clock, but living off of other things, maybe that means letting them stop for a bit - selling those investments you've accumulated, and then restarting again in a year's time.
Perhaps you decide to spend six years investing in assets that can provide income without the work - maybe dividend/income producing investments, or rental properties, or a book, or web-based product.... so when you let your proverbial land lie dormant, the rent checks, payments and dividends come rolling in to fund your Shmita year.
Maybe you're living an absolute intense life - 80 hour weeks, or multiple jobs, or obsessive consumption of overtime options - and your Shmita means dropping down to an average person's pace. Spend six years with the side gig in tow, hoovering up the value... then taking a year off of that rat race by doing the minimum, and allowing yourself to breathe.

And it's possible. It's hard, sure, but possible. Just like the commands for tithing forces you to run your life on 90% of your pay, and the commands of Sabbath forces you to run your life on a mere 6 days a week, this command was made for our benefit. To force us to be proactive. To force us to trust in God.

Second Greatest

2016-09-24T12:48:00.002-07:00

The Second Greatest Commandment is this:

I just don't understand why, if you actually do this, that you're labelled "progressive" or "liberal". It's IN THE BIBLE. Theoretically, that should be one of the MOST CONSERVATIVE things that anyone should do. Practically baseline. We even refer to it as the "Golden Rule".

You can't even blame it on Jesus, as Jesus was just quoting Deuteronomy. We're talking about a 6000 year old Jewish concept. And not even an exclusive one - other cultures had "silver rules" that are basically the same thing.

It's "liberal".

I simply don't get it.

Shabbat

2016-09-20T19:13:00.005-07:00

I don't know how to do this. One of the downsides of the way my mind works is that it's very difficult for me to relax. I see open shelves as places to put things, emptiness as something that desperately needed filling.

So the concept of Shabbat, or Sabbath, has always been hard to hold onto for me. I like filling my weekends, even those little corners of time that can be carved out during the week get filled with doing... things. Sometimes it's great stuff that fills those nights and weekends - hanging with friends, going places, getting stuff done, games & movies. But more often than not it's just... stuff. Work. Filling it all. Trying to get it all done, and not feeling fulfilled.

And, to be fair, that's what the world wants. Start a side gig. Join X and meet up with Y. Give 110%. Work hard enough to have to complain about work-life balance.

Shabbat, Sabbath, means cessation, time of rest. To take a load off. To stop. It was commanded 6000 years ago, but it's still counter-cultural.

To just... stop
To hang the hammock and read
To be present
To relax
To enjoy the blessings given
And not feel bad about doing that

I need to focus on this.

Hopebreak

2016-09-15T21:00:00.001-07:00

Hopebreak is not a word.

It's like heartbreak, but instead of a stress or pain due to experiencing an intense emotional longing towards a person or thing, it's stress or pain due to an intense emotional longing towards hope itself.

Hopebreak is now word.

Because I'm experiencing it.

It's been one of those weeks

2016-09-04T19:31:00.002-07:00

When "Good Enough" Isn't Good Enough

2016-07-18T18:31:00.002-07:00

I've always had a very neutral stance on material stuff. I was a "Good Enough" guy. I was happy with hand-me-downs, chowed heartily on leftovers, drove used cars, wear my shoes until they fall apart, you name it. I know a fair bit of that comes from my childhood - my dad made decent money, but we still clipped coupons, had hard limits on gift requests, and eating out was a treat. Frugality is one of many things that got me free from debts - until very recently, my adult life just went from broke college student to broke married father to broke single dad - but that attitude also pervaded the rest of my life. I never particularly cared about my appearance, about my living conditions, or what people thought of me... I was okay with "Good enough". I just need to be 'good enough' - Average to minimum standards achieved, haircut twice a year (if I choose not to start a metal band), keep teeth clean enough so I don't need to worry about dentists, be healthy enough to keep the doctor away and throw my son in the air, get whatever phone happens to be free when it's upgrade time, make sure the dishes get washed when we run out of forks.

None of these are bad things, by themselves, but together, I've made myself very middling. Very... bland. It's like the guy who's answer is "Whatever", the vulture that says "I don't know, what do you want to do?". No opinion, no affiliation, no... passion. I just did what needed to be done, and no more. But that's feeling more and more hollow, lacking in substance, lacking in... everything really. At first I didn't really know what to do, and being in a survival mode mindset didn't help. Now that I've out of the weeds, have control of my life to a certain extent, I'm looking around at all of this and saying... I really don't like this.

It started little. Getting actual, non-folding chairs for the dining room. Splurging for the computer I'm writing this post on. Going back to cooking for fun instead of just getting by. Freeing my schedule to make plans with family & friends, or just, gawdforbid, just take Caleb to his favorite park and chase him around. Like many things that start rolling, it started to get bigger - Gunning for the promotion. Obliterating my comfort zone by going to Haiti. Throwing things out that I've held onto for years. Taking the next step and asking the apple of my eye out on a date (to which both of our respective best friends sighed "It's about time") and subsequently having more fun in 7 hours than I have had in years combined.

There's more to do, sure. But settling for "this is good enough" shouldn't be acceptable anymore. I want to eat healthier, live happier & cleaner, be a better father, and be willing to step up as a whole person. Carve out a niche. I'm not a meat sack of soul shards any longer. It's time to figure out what greatness looks like for me, so I can plot a course. And engage.

Simple Gifts

2016-06-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

There's a phrase I hear usually twice a day - "If you said something, I didn't hear what it was". I have these neat little bluetooth headphones, which I love. They act as a headset when I'm driving, are small enough that people don't notice if I'm wearing them, but have enough battery to last through a workday. But they have a small problem.

See, as much as I love these headphones, there's a single button that defines their total capabilities. One button to give my phone commands. The same button to pause or play my podcasts. The same button to turn the headphones on or off. Thanks to Apple's philosophy of "This is what you want", in small over-the-earbud fashion. That one button, depending on how long one presses it, does all of those things. So, I try to turn the darn things off, I usually hear that phrase, chirping from my pants pocket. Or I try to pause, typically because someone's talking to me, and suddenly I hear Google helpfully searching for... whatever they just said. Or I actually do want to ask it something, but each time I summon the ear of Lord Google, there's about a 50% chance of playing something instead of listening. All because they couldn't add another button to the silly thing. The excessive simpleness has become a downside.

If you said something, I didn't hear what it was

I've been doing the same thing with my life. I've made sure to keep it simple, barebones, minimalistic. On a certain level, it was a way to get things worked out. Keep head down at work, obliterate the debts, spend as much time with my son as possible. Get things "right" or some semblance thereof, even though I was mostly just in survival mode. But I realized something in the past couple weeks.

I've crafted myself too simple of a life.

Alas, it doesn't end well

Now, don't get me wrong, there's something to be said of being flexible, and it's really useful to not be inundated with excuses or other shenanigans. But at the same token, I realized I really could not say what I normally do OUTSIDE of work, church and the normal being a dad-life. Sure, there's some hanging out, movies, and most recently I'm gearing up for Haiti, but there was never "a thing" that I have going. I'm not locked into a specific game, show, or even book. I've just been kinda... floating.

I don't know what I should fill in. Turning Tuesdays into Movie nights, giving in to my coworkers urgings to jump on the Overwatch train, or maybe just finishing some books. I always thought the idea of a game night (something Caleb's slowly getting old enough to participate in) or some sort of weekly touchstone that I can look forward to, invite people alongside. I've been telling myself that I should take a class, do this or that, but never pulled that trigger because I didn't want that as a scheduled item, a scheduled business before... but i kind of want it now.

I want this metaphorical button of my life to do something specific. Not just anything, not an arbitrary number of things, but something defined, something reliable. To step towards something, instead of away from another. That should be the focus. To dive deep and drink in, or at least begin the journey to the place where I can do those things.

Building an antifragile family

2016-05-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

I'm reading the book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and it's paradigm-shifting. It's really helping me organize my thoughts about what I want to do, the family I want to have and the person I want to be.

A one-line synopsis of myself - I used to be a type B control-oriented person who has recently had my life shattered and family sundered... and, to quote Mitch Hedberg, I still am, but I used to be, too.

While most people are familiar with a type A controlling person (such as bridezillas, high-power CEOs, screaming dads at little league games), type Bs like myself are more subtle - I derived control by first channeling boredom into meticulous contingent planning, and then appeared 'cool under pressure' or 'in-control' by being able to effortlessly shifting from plan A to plan B, then plan C, and even when we hit plan Q, it's still all "part of the plan".

While this approach isn't dramatic as Steve Jobs or Lord Business from the Lego Movie, when those plans run out, it's not going to be pretty. Control freaks aren't good improvising, at having to topdeck (that is, relying on the proverbial top card of the deck that you can't see yet), and thus has some form of genuine flaw. Mine was encountering the unthinkable, those things that I would not think about either by choice or perspective... thus, the infidelity of my spouse, her unwillingness to reconcile, the following divorce that removed her children, my now-ex-step-children, from my life, and finding myself alone in a city I hardly know with my two year old son - that was a series of unthinkables that shattered my life. While that's behind me, and I'm doing well now, it showed me just how my default paradigm is clearly not able to self-sustain in the long term... but I had nothing else to fill it with, so I just kept bootstrapping.

Enter this book. The basic concept is a recognition that the word in the title doesn't actually exist - Taleb realized that, when asking anyone what the opposite of Fragile is, they would give the wrong answer. Ask your friends, family, and people of the street, and they'll give you the things you're thinking of: "Robust", "Solid", "Steadfast", "Immovable", "Permanent", et cetera. But that doesn't work, precisely. While fragile is fairly easy to grasp - something that is thin, breakable, must be handled carefully as it violently reacts to the smallest change, "Handle With Care" - the opposite is less so. Those things we think usually are things that cannot be corrupted or impacted, those things that shrug off any change or attempt at change... which isn't the opposite, it's more of a neutral, untouched state. So, Taleb coined the concept of "antifragile" - something that reacts positively to small changes. Something that has definition, but is able to adapt, to flex, to strive in the presence of new stressors. "Please Mishandle" rather than "handle with care". These aren't foreign concepts - you can undoubtedly think of things that fall into that category, like ecology, capitalism, the idea of vaccines, even how your own body grows.

Taleb uses themes from Greek mythos to drive the point home. Fragility is the Sword of Damocles, where something that is life-ending is present, and will break, with the only question being WHEN it happens. Solidity or Robust-ness is represented by the Phoenix, which can be killed, only to be reborn from it's own ashes, exactly as before. Lastly Antifragility is the Hydra - Hercules' second trial, where even a cutting a head off just inspires two more heads to appear. Antifragility is the single word that encapsulates "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" that appears in our inspirational posters, pop music, Marvel comics and social media feeds. But how does one apply that to reformatting my type B control freak mind? How do I apply this attitude to my family, so my son is raised in an antifragile manner?

The first step, as oft is the case, is admitting there is a problem. Be able to take a step back from any aspect of family life, of my own life, and say "Is this fragile?". In this world of carefully crafted Facebook feeds, the sheer concept of searching for and highlighting the crack's in my life is not something comforting. We are a people of facades, a population that is struggling to show their greatness at any moment and on all sides, in case of a viral explosion of fame, or the equally possible possibility of public shaming. Some of these are going to be really huge shifts in thinking or behavior, but most will be subtle, personal, and hidden.

As I read this book, I'm more and more interested in taking a hacksaw to various aspects of my life. Some things, I have realized that I have already made antifragile for unrelated reasons. For example, realizing I could change WHEN I made dinner - that is, after he went to bed, the night before the meal in question - was a choice I made to spend more time during the week with my son. The original and quote "normal" dinner paradigm, of rushing home to whip up something, just shatters frequently in a single-parent household. My selfish desire to spend more time with my son just so happened that it also allowed our weekday evenings to be more flexible and stress free. If we want to spend time with friends, ride bikes, have a post-school splash in the pool, or run an errand, we can do that without sacrificing the homecooked meal.

Other things, like how I determine what I'm doing for lunch, what my morning routine (or lack thereof) is, what I focus on when I have "me time", how I discipline and help teach my son... these are all things that I need to take a long, hard look at. I look forward to taking this self-audit so I can help us enjoy those bumps in the road, to grow instead of crumble.

The Next Page

2016-04-26T20:50:00.001-07:00

I normally don't post small things, little tidbits. I normally save that for the ease of the Facebook feed. Here, I prefer to curate topics, have accompanying visuals, et cetera. That's also, sadly, why I tend not to post much. Each desire to post is oft met with the thought "Is this the best use of my time?"... And then eventually discarded for what very well could be a worse use of time.

But tonight, I want to poorly transcribe what I'm feeling. Even though words can't describe the elation, I just want to right down the words for relatively no one to see.

I'm debt free. I don't owe a dime to a soul outside of my chosen bill set. It felt like it was a long slog for my dealt hand, but I've got a life ahead.

I have a good feeling about the interview I did today. I really think it went well.

I'm staggeringly excited to get to go to Haiti this summer. I'm looking forward to that impacting every aspect of my being, smashing my perspective and resetting priorities by focusing on serving devoid of distractions.

You see, I ended the last week on a low. Seeing my best friend in his version of the life I had initially thought I'd've had at this age, so happy and blessed. I get home to find my life group disbanding for the "summer", and the news that someone from my adopted son's previous giant mess of a family was sniffing around. I just wanted to crawl into a cave.

I don't know where the change from dark to light fell. Being able to sit and talk to said friend about what the Lord's doing in my life; swapping tales and excitedly muttering about "this girl I like" (which sounds juvenile in prose, but actually is worse when spoken); starting the work week with some much needed overtime and an interview scheduled; some great news of an aggravation maybe moving away soon; actually making the final payment in the credit card, kicking it out of my life; having a delightful meal with my pastor's family & watching Caleb interact with the kids like they were his family... The list of blessings pour out.

I'm excited for the next page. And the page after that. And so on.

Preventative Contemplation of Sovereignty

2016-03-23T20:59:00.005-07:00

I've been through a whole lot over the past two years. I was held together, even though I didn't understand how, or why. I thought it was the pure heart of my son, and my love for him; perhaps it was the moral framework instilled in me by my parents and my beliefs: my church family, my friends, some amalgamation of all. I couldn't really put my finger on it... and like many things I can't place, I pushed it aside. Forgot about it all.

I found out what held me together tonight.

Tonight was a fairly normal Wednesday night service for the Wednesday before Easter, what used to be called "Holy Wednesday" or "Spy Wednesday". The pastor hit the normal things you do before Good Friday, Matthew 26 and the corresponding passages from the other Gospels, Isaiah 52-53... I'm not going to lie, I nodded off or phased out for a bit. I had heard it all before. Until pastor said something that I hadn't heard before.

He said, that we need to contemplate God's Sovereignty... before we enter the dark times. It's like what doctors tell us - they say you need to eat healthy, exercise, not just when you're sick, but when you're fine, when you're well. We are taught the value of preventative medicine, putting the right things into one's body. This allows you to heal faster when you do fall ill. This concept bleeds over multiple avenues of one's life - that in times of trial, we'll fall down to the level of our training, that we'll never fly higher than our five closest friends.

Basically, we need to know what we know before we need to know it. In the same way, we need to figure out what we believe about God's sovereignty before we enter the darkness. That concept of Those questions of who is really in charge, what do I really believe... those questions that plague us in the darkness.

I got through all of this, because I knew. The infidelity that fractured what was once my family, the separation, the divorce, picking up the pieces with a small child in tow. I didn't have my foundation on my (now ex) step kids, nor my marriage, nor my job or family. My foundation, my belief, even when shaken, was that God was sovereign, that:

all things... every one, those I liked and disliked

are under God's rule and control... while we Americans don't like to use the use "rule", we understand control. We don't like to give up control, nor do we like to admit that someone else has some.

and that nothing happens... not a thing, even the worst of things.

without His direction or permission... This is hardest to swallow.

I'm not saying I have everything sorted... Far from it. There are many a day where I don't want to believe in a God that would allow myself and my son to go through that kind of repulsive excuse of a relationship, a God that would demand those things of Hosea, a God that watched as Bathsheba's husband was slaughtered by his own king. But that desire didn't make the reality any different, no more than if I honestly & steadfastly believed I could drive to Oregon by driving south from Miami. God's story is bigger than mine, more direct than mine, and maybe, just maybe, the only way he needed to get me in a particular place at a particular time was to have me experience a farce of a marriage... but one that resulted in an abandoned child finding a home, being granted a new name and a father that loves him. Or even that the story isn't about me at all, but rather Caleb, who watches my every move. Maybe it's longer than that, Caleb's best friend in third grade, his college roommate, or his future child.

I don't know, nor do I pretend to. That desire to know, that is what has been pushed aside now. To allow the future of God's grace to overwhelm the past of mankind's indiscretion, including my own. And that, finally, has given me peace.

What are you listening to?

2016-01-17T19:25:00.003-08:00

I often am seen with headphones on, jamming out all by myself. This leads to the inevitable question, and then I try to quickly explain it. There's a reason for that... I'm listening to podcasts. Not just a certain podcast, or a series of podcasts... I listen to 40 podcasts. That's right, 40. Some aren't updating anymore, while others are constant. Note, that I tend to listen to my podcasts at an accelerated speed, 1.5x speed at the slowest, but usually 2x speed on a random day and up to 2.6x speed if I have headphones on and are allowed to focus on listening.

This is a comprehensive list, but I'm not going to link to everything because sadly there's no one-stop location for podcasts. Of course, if you're stuck in an Apple iPhone you are shoehorned into iTunes, but for everyone else with an Android phone, there's a whole lot of options - Pocketcasts, Downcast, even I'm told Google Play is getting into the game. I personally use BeyondPod Premium, but do with that what you wish. Onto the list!

Daily Podcasts -That's right, I listen to these every single weekday. These are the bread of my daily podcasting sandwich

Tech News Today - Exactly what it says it is. Nerd news. Nerd will be a recurring theme.
APM: Marketplace - More normal news, but news that impacts the wallet. I work in the finance industry, so I like keeping tabs on this stuff, as I don't actually watch the news.
The Dave Ramsey Show - There's actually 3 hours of this that is sent out as 3 podcast units each weekday, but I only listen to one of them unless I absolutely know I'll need stuff to listen to on long trips. Caleb's second favorite show, because he loves celebrating with people screaming "We're Debt FREEE!"
The $100 MBA - This is actually Caleb's favorite show, because he loves Omar Zenhom's voice, and brighten's up when he hears the HEY-OH at the beginning. The 10 minute episodes are about being an entrepreneur, which I am not, but would like to be. Also airs on weekends. That's right, this dude pumps out 7 podcast units per week... and it's not even his main job. Brilliant & Bite-sized.

Finance

APM: Marketplace Weekend - It's the weekend edition of the above studio. Slightly more longform than the weekday version
Motley Fool Money - While I don't believe in the style of investing, I enjoy the discussing of investments that the Fools do.
Planet Money - An interesting look at how the finance industry impacts random parts of our lives.

Longform Articles - These are not actual articles, but they are constructed the same way as you would expect a headline article in a magazine.

Freakonomics - The art of economics applied to non-economic things. Hysterical and thought provoking. I've also read all the books from these guys.
Futuropolis - From Popular Science. Very farsighted and varied.
Radiolab from WNYC - A quintessential public radio style show about a whole lot of everything
Hidden Brain - A breakdown of psychology and neurophysiology for the common person
The Art of Charm - Not always interviews, but an interesting look at sociology or behaviors that deal with interactions with other people.

Games - I told you I was a nerd.

Gamers With Jobs - Game news, reviews, and an interesting look of gaming from a non-adolescent point of view
Trinity Force Podcast & Four Wards - these are League of Legends podcasts. The first is a news & analysis, while the latter is more of a training/basics podcast. It's only the largest online game in the world.
It's a Long Story - A twice-weekly Pathfinder game, turned into a podcast
Drive to Work - The lead designer of Magic: The Gathering, Mark Rosewater, muses over his creation, and game design in general. Unique from the others as they post 2 units, both on Friday of each week. I always listen to this at 1.5 speed, just because Mark naturally talks very fast, and moreso when he's excited... which is almost all the time.

Interviews

The Art of Manliness - If Ron Swanson listened to podcasts, it would be this. Also, he interviewed the actor who played Ron Swanson.
Triangulation - Leo Laporte of the TWiT network interviews people who are important to the tech world.

Comedians

Wait, Wait... Don't tell me - NPR's hysterical weekend game show, featuring comedians pretending to do the news. Not to be confused with...
The Daily Show Without John Stewart - The comedians that ACTUALLY do the news. This is no longer running since Trevor Noah took over, which is sad
The Smartest Man in the World - Greg Proops, the guy with curly hair and glasses from Who's Line is it Anyway?, has a very interesting views about things. I don't always agree with him, but I enjoy not agreeing with him.

Comedians doing Interviews

WTF with Mark Maron - Became more than internet-famous when he interviewed Barack Obama, this comedian and audiophile interviews other comedians, musicians, producers and artists
Truth and Iliza - The adorable Iliza Shlesinger interviewing other comedians, musicians, producers and artists. Not currently producing episodes, which is sad.

Seasonal

Serial - Probably the most famous podcast ever. The first season is basically like "making a murderer" before Making a Murderer was a thing, while the second and current season is digging into the story of Bo Bergdahl
Invisibilia - First season is over, not sure when the second one starts. Digs into things that are usually invisible but impactful in our society
The Message - A fictional story about a group of people listening to an extraterrestrial broadcast. I don't actually know if it's a one-off or a seasonal thing.
Codebreaker - A critical look at different aspects of technology. The first season asks the question of each technology: "Is this evil?"

Weekly Tech podcasts - I heard you like nerds, so I put some nerd in your nerd.

This Week in Tech - The original tech podcast. Literally. It's been going every Sunday for over the past 10 years. It's awesome.
This Week in Google - Google (now Alphabet?) news, as well as anything that is directly impacted by Google-like services
All About Android - Focus on the Android phone, accessories, and news
The New Screen Savers - A weekend tech variety show.

Sermons

Let my People Think - A series of talks by Ravi Zacharias, the Indian Christian Apologist. These are less sermons, more like speaking events at forums and universities.
Truth for Life - The fantastic Scottish pastor Alistair Begg.
Watermark Church Tampa - An in-depth look at scripture, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. How in-depth? They don't mind taking the time to dig in deeper than the typical sermon.
First Baptist Church, Jacksonville - I don't go to our downtown campus, so this allows me to hear what happens on Sunday Nights and Wednesday nights.
Radical with David Platt - While he is no longer actively preaching as much due to being the president of the IMB, his church at Brookhills in Birmingham, Alabama
Xenos Bible Fellowship: Dennis McCallum - There's actually 6 Xenos podcasts, based on this series of distributed house-churches in and around the Columbus, Ohio, area. I'm almost done with Dr. McCallum's backlog so I can dig into the other five.

Random

Welcome to Night Vale - This Semi-Monthly podcasts is equivalent of a community radio broadcast from a small town snuggled in the Twilight Zone. It's fantastic, mind-bendy and addictive.
PRI: To the Best of our Knowledge - Used to be in the longform segment, but they've changed the format to a sort of random variety of interesting topics of varying lengths.
Sincast - The guys from the Youtube Sensation CinemaSins made a podcast.
99% Invisible - a tiny (usually ~ 5 minute) look at sound, architecture, design, and the interactions therein

And that, my friend... That's what I'm listening to.

2014-10-08T07:12:00.001-07:00

Sometimes anything is better than what you're doing right now.

Publication Truncation Information

2014-07-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

League of Yordles is going to be restarting soon. However, it has gained a new home at League-Of-Yordles.blogspot.com. The posts have merged, the images are soon to follow, but if you're looking for the focused, in-depth info that the LoY provided, but have not seen since 2013, that is where you'd like to look.

This blog, the Crumbling Sanctuary, will also be starting again... instead of classy, metaphorical name that has geek throwback cred, my life has decided to imitate my art, and is now eerily fitting.

App Happy

2013-06-08T07:48:00.003-07:00

Everyone has apps that they love and adore, that they use daily and are integral to their lives. Here are mine:

Quiet Time and the Countdown Timer Widget- Quiet Time is an Android App that simply puts your phone on silent... for a defined period of time. I found this through my father, who uses it to make sure he isn't rudely awoken by emails from his international business, but I use it to make sure it doesn't chirp at work, church, during movies, et cetera... but will ring after that period is over. The countdown timer works in a similar way, giving me a one-tap way to track my breaks, the pasta on the stove or how long that child has to eat her vegetables before they get into trouble.

Google Voice - Simply the best voicemail management system, even if you don't actually use your assigned Google voice number. This allows you to call or text, from your phone or computer. If you have multiple phones (such as mobile/home/office) you can make a call to YOU ring all of your phones, or only certain phones depending on the person calling or time of day. Similar to Quiet time, there's also a "Do Not Disturb" feature, where you can make sure you receive no calls or notifications for a set period of time.

Feedly - Google reader is dying, and Feedly is replacing it. It has the new Flipboard/Currents/Windows 8/Google plus style of things where pictures are big. It's on Android, may be on iOS, and is available as an always-on Mozilla or Chrome Extension.

Dropbox - I've used this for years, but seldom had a great use-case for it. Then I got married. My wife tends to use whatever computer is closest to her, and Dropbox has made going to graduate school an absolute breeze. We also use it as the repository of all of our online receipts, so it's easy to track what we've paid, and the pictures that we take, so nothing is ever truly lost.

Bank of America & Mint.com - These track our money in an easy-to-access way. Mint provides automated budget tracking across all accounts, which was really useful when we had accounts with Regions, BoA & Amerifunds. It allows us to see that we've spent more money on groceries than we budgeted for the month, or that we've spent less money on restaurants then we normally do. You can say what you want about Bank of America, but it's been great to me (Full disclosure - I now work at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, but they have been great to me since I started the account in high school). Now that we've both upgraded to smart phones, we don't even have to go to the bank anymore. Compared to the other banks & credit unions I've dealt with, BoA is up-to-date, in-touch, and accessible... although the fact they have no branches in Mississippi still boggles my mind.

Spotify & BeyondPod - I used to spend an absurd amount of money on music - I love music - but I don't have an absurd amount of money to spend any longer. Instead, I use ad-supported Spotify Free on my computer to jam out to anything I want. Sure, I still use Pandora, Slacker Radio, and my personal music collection is on Google Music, but Spotify's desktop and web clients put those to shame. On my phone, I use BeyondPod to keep myself sane on my hour-and-a-half commutes to and from work. Yes, that's 3 hours a day. Yes, I have a lot of Podcasts.

Roku & Sony Media Remote - I have children. So what I don't have, is the remotes that stay in the same spot. Thankfully, I am able to control either television from anywhere in the house with my phone with these two apps, and THAT remote is safe in my pocket. One thing to note - Both have to be connected to the wireless network for the remote to work, so you cannot use an Ethernet connections, which limits the speed of your streaming video. Speaking of which...

Netflix & Amazon Prime - Netflix needs no introduction - if you're a cord-cutter like me, it is, hands down, the best investment. Amazon Prime is next, in my opinion. Free shipping on most things you buy, coupled with the OTHER streaming service, as well as an video rental & purchase system is well worth the $80 a year... or $40 a year if you're a student or a new mother (free shipping for diapers is a big deal). Seriously, it's a fantastic price, and has some other little perks as well, such as giving you the video free for streaming when you've purchased a physical disk, until the disk arrives, and the Prime Lending Library for Kindle owners (I'll talk about that later). We do have Hulu plus occasionally - It is good for what it is, but I dislike the ads (there are ads even when you're paying for the service) and it doesn't have a lot of shows my wife enjoys (it will now that CBS has joined, but I won't tell her because I'm cheap). I actually don't use these on my phone, as they suck battery, but we use them almost daily in our house.

Waze - It's one of those apps that seems silly that you haven't thought of before. Although I love Google Maps, Waze adds a social layer to mapping. You may hate the social-ization of everything, but Waze makes it incredibly easy to have an actual dudes drop a note saying "hey there's an accident right here" or "I'm going 8 mph on the highway!" with a single button is infinitely more useful than waiting for the radio to spot it or hope that it gets uploaded to Google Now. Waze is interesting because instead of being made to find things, its focused on your commute - helping you find alternate routes when your going to the same place you go everyday when the traffic gets bad.

Airdroid2 - Allows you to control your basic phone functions from your computer while on wifi. Because having to put down a computer to interact with your smaller pocket-sized computer is dumb. AirDroid2 allows you to check your calls & pictures, read & send text messages, take screenshots, manage SD card data, and even turn on the camera (I see a sink... I must have left it in the bathroom. Or the kitchen. But definitely near a sink.). I personally would prefer a fully interactive way to have the screen of my phone show up as a window on my computer, but for a free app, this is fantastic.

Life360 - Introduced to me by a friend who uses it to keep track of his teenage daughters, my wife & I use it to make sure we know where each other are. Life360 allows us to find the other, or indicate that we are "on the way" with a single button. It also indicates the locations of nearby doctor's offices, domestic offenders and recent emergency vehicle calls (for things like fires). It auto-updates every 15 minutes, so I can also tell if and where my wife's phone has died (3 hours ago in South Jacksonville. And she's the one with a car charger that works!). In addition to the listed benefits, it also fits with my idea of "peace through transparency" with my spouse.

Tumblr.com - Blogging redefined. I use Tumblr as my one-stop shop for internet interactions, as I can push out each post to my twitter feed (and back when I used Facebook, there too). The reason tumblr is taking off is because it's so simple to use. My personal favorite feature is the Queue. I don't get to spend a lot of time on the internet, but by queuing posts so that they post automatically 2-4 times a day makes it SEEM like I'm online ALL THE TIME.

Goodreads - This is something I actually do all the time. I'm not really into audiobooks (although I have used them in the past for long trips), but thanks to my Kindle 3, I have an entire library with me at all times. And I do mean a literal Library, thanks to The City of Jacksonville's Public Library having a massive online collection. Goodreads is there to flawlessly track everything I am, have, and will read. There is also a huge social component to the site that I almost NEVER use, but for inventory management, it's great.

What are your favorite apps and online tools? I'm always open for suggestions.