I am officially back

Wow . . . a whole month away from the blog, away from Facebook, away from Twitter.  

What did I do? Well . . . wait; this post is mostly me writing about myself . . . unless really interested, do not stop, do not pass Go, and go directly to more enjoyable endeavors.

OK . . . for the three people who are left (I’m optimistic), here’s my April: 1) I read (more on that in a moment), 2) listened to podcasts, 3) I watched some TV (not much), 4) exercised (my usual), 5) had a garage sale, 6) edited my still-unnamed NaNoWriMo No. 2 Novel, edited The Fall of Angels, 7) did repairs on the house (more like maintenance and improvements than actual repairs), 8) scanned and shredded a crapload of documents (more to go), 9) ate a lot, 10) golfed, 11) mowed the lawn, and continued making plans for us moving . . . to where, we know not as of yet.

Let’s take that in order . . . by the way, the photos mostly have nothing to do with what I’m writing.

1) Everyone should read the book Future Crimes, by Marc Goodman. There, you can see the importance of the comma; Marc is not the one doing the crimes. He’s the one explaining stuff to you.

And here’s what I am doing about it:
I plan to sanitize my on-line information. I already cleaned up LinkedIn and Facebook and plan the same for Twitter, Google+, and all my internet accounts. Eventually, this blog will also shift to being entirely under my control. 

Seriously, read the book. At the very least, listen to this TED Talk.

Yes, I will do a future post on just this topic. Meantime, I’m rethinking a lot of what I do in the (virtual) public square, I’m rethinking my smart phone, my internet access, and my connectivity in general. If you want the short answer, assume anything that connects you to the internet can not only be hacked, but controlled, manipulated, and used against you. Sleep well.

2) Everyone should listen to the podcast Common Sense, by Dan Carlin. Hard to describe the material, but here’s what I can say about it. Much like Future Crimes, Common Sense  presents a different way of looking at things we take for granted.

Perhaps because much of what Carlin covers I’ve observed first hand, perhaps because of my understanding of human nature, of power, of abuse, of greed, and everything that makes humans despicable comes from first-hand knowledge, perhaps because of all that, I find his podcast illuminating in helping me navigate local, state, national, and international events.

Mind you, when it comes to the human condition and the current state of affairs, I’ve never been all that optimistic. Well, it turns out I was not thinking as deeply about what it all means.

And what does it mean? Well, let’s just say I am even more focused on living whatever remains of our lives away from the things of man. Don’t know that I can (I don’t own a spaceship), but some of the newfound outlook of the human condition will definitively shape our decisions as to how and where we want to live.

I’ll probably have a post about this as well, but for now, don’t sleep well; there is much you don’t know.

3) I like This Week Tonight with John Oliver. The link will take you to a bunch of YouTube videos from his show. Well worth watching . . . I wish everyone watched this show as opposed to watching the news.

It’s one of two shows I watch each week, the other being The Big Bang. TBB is now mostly crap, and us watching it is more a testament to habit than to enjoying clever writing and plots . . . them two things have not been seen since season three. 

We do watch the occasional movie. Some are movies from last year which I intentionally missed at the theaters. Most are movies we know and love. We’re also watching a couple of the Netflix original shows, but the jury is still out on those. 

4) As some might remember, the combination of me hurting my leg and our December cruise resulted on me gaining a fair amount of weight. “Fair amount” was about 10 pounds as of the middle of last December. It went opposite my intent after that, with my weight sometimes topping the upper 180s.

Not worried, was I. And here I am, just five months later, and in the high 170s. The goal is to keep going and slim down some more.

I should also mention, I don’t worry about weight so much as how my clothes fit and what kind of shape I’m in. I plan to lose a few more inches in places inches have no business being, but overall I’m pleased with my progress. 

The progress is the result of exercise, and not so much cutting my food intake.

5) In preparation for our eventual moving out of this house (we’ve been here 10 years this month), we are making a big effort to pare down. Did I say “pare down”? I mean, significantly pare down.

We held our first garage sale in Mid-April. We did rather well.

Here’s the thing; the day after the garage sale we tried to remember what we got rid of . . . and could not. I mean, we remembered a couple of things, but the majority of the stuff we sold was literally gone from our minds.

That begged the question . . . why was it in our house to begin with?

Anyway, we plan a few more garage sales, and I’m also gonna hit eBay hard.

My collection of Magic, The Gathering cards (I have a lot more than I thought), all my Analogs (some going back to the 40s), my eclectic collection of books, knick-knacks collected through the year, electronics, old cameras, unused Nikon lenses . . . if I’ve not looked at it in the last year or two, it’s going.

I mentioned we don’t know where we are going . . . but we did narrow it down to the Northern Hemisphere. More specifically, somewhere in the area bounded by Hawaii, Alaska, Maine, and Florida. So, nearly there in the decision tree.

6) That’s right! . . . I’m an editor I can almost see some people cringing halfway around the world.

I edited the NaNoWriMo novel for spelling, grammar, content, plot, continuity, and other important editor-words that escape me right now. Some parts I went over multiple times.

I’m now letting the novel sit for a bit, and then I plan to submit it to the Kindle Scout Program. I have zero hopes for that, but that seems quicker than sending it to agents or some slush pile where it will sit unread.

Besides, the turnaround is fairly quick. In contrast, if I send something to an agent or publisher, I may have to wait months for an answer, and meanwhile I can’t submit the manuscript anywhere else. I can cut that down if I stroke some egos, attend a few conferences, and in general beg for the friendship of important people. Kindle Scout it is, then.

I also extensively edited Fall of Angels. I intend it to be my second quarter submission to Writers of the Future. Again, I have zero hope for anything to come of it (I’m told it’s a difficult read). Unfortunately, with all the other stuff I’m doing I’ve had little chance to write anything. As I always say, it’s better to have a plate of pasta’s chance in my house than no chance at all. The Fall of Angels is what I have that fits the submission guidelines. As a bonus, I’ll probably also submit it elsewhere.

Eventually, soon, I’m applying myself to submitting my stuff right and left. Maybe even center front and back.

7) 8) 9) 10) Yup . . . I lumped all them things. Repairs/improvements are little things like replacing light fixtures, painting, redoing window coverings, beautifying the yard and deck, and so on. As for shredding . . . I have financial records that go back to the 80s . . . I have records from when I owned a company . . . I even have some things from when I was in college. All are going. Some, I scanned. The main reason for scanning is that it makes the transition from having a physical thing and not having a physical thing a bit easier. By the way, shredding takes time. No worries, though. No paper cuts . . . . yet.

Eating and golf. I should say there has been a lot more of the first. Cookies, bread, pasta, things I don’t remember, but I enjoyed. One thing, I now try to concentrate on what I eat. Usually, I just grab something and wolf it down as I’m doing something else. Now I walk away, go sit at a proper table, and enjoy the food. Food be good.

Golf also good. A friend moved back into town, and we’ve been golfing once a week. Don’t look so shocked! . . . I do have one non-family, no blood relation friend. An honest-to-goodness person, walking and breathing. He even thinks he can play golf.

11) That’s right . . . I mowed the lawn. About a month earlier than usual. Some flowers are out, also a month earlier than usual.

Notice the photos . . . all of them from my camera phone. I think I snapped a few photos with my Nikon, but not many.

I tried to capture the lunar eclipse, but it was friggin cold out, and I only had a half-hearted desire to snap photos.

In fact, I’ve not had the desire to go out and shoot. That will change as I start selling stuff on eBay. One needs photos, one do.

Meanwhile . . .

. . . the Samsung Note II has been called into service more than ever.

And that, boys and girls, is one heck of a boring update.

I should point out that I’m still fairly busy, and I don’t have thirty posts queued up for publication as I’m busy doing something else.

I plan to post regularly because I enjoy and have missed this blog, but the rest of this year will be chaotic at best. Che será, será.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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Astute persons might have noticed these doodles, and correctly surmised they hold some significance for me, and perhaps for humanity at large.  

If you click on the doodle, and nothing happens, this is the link it’s supposed to go to: https://disperser.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/palm-vx-and-i/.

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Note: if you are not reading this blog post at DisperserTracks.com, know that it has been copied without permission, and likely is being used by someone with nefarious intention, like attracting you to a malware-infested website.  Could be they also torture small mammals.

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. . .  my FP ward  . . . chieken shit.