Idoru.us

So its time for my once a month (or so) update of whatever is actually going on in my life that gets rarely read by anybody (including myself). On the other hand I own idoru until December 2020 so its a good way to pass the time. Speaking of domains I own, next month TCBR and 8feet.me will both expire. I considered renewing 8feet but as I am not using it very much anymore and I don’t feel like spending $20 a year for it I think its time to let that go the way of the dodo. Which is just as well I suppose, I can free up some space on the server. Hopefully nobody will miss it, but after checking the logs I am not that concerned(see inset). Its obviously a huge driver of, well, nothing if I am honest with myself. That said it did a fantastic job of doing what I wanted it to do and if it was $10 or less a year I would strongly consider renewing it (especially after just discovering that my host has increased my storage a great deal even though I was in no danger of running out).

Regardless, on to other things. Work has been going awesomely lately. I have earned a lot less overtime money than I earned last year yet I am overall not terribly worried about it. My raise when i took this job was large enough that I am already making more and I am actually doing well at this job. Thats a huge boost for my morale and my general sense of feeling like I have a future in employment. Plus I just discovered that I am apparently in the top 3 for my department and one of those three is moving to a new position in roughly a month and a half…. room for advancement here I come! There are certain monetary rewards that come with that as well which will come in handy in the near future. In the meantime, suffice to say that my work life is pretty darn great.

In terms of the condo… I have been very slow. Not that much of a surprise to people who actually know me. I tend to do things in a flurry of activity and I see a flurry coming up with some of that new found money. Counter stools (yes, I still haven’t gotten more), ceiling fans, closet organizers, wall art, light fixtures…. god I am so domestic I make myself sick at times. But I learn to live. The only actual major project I have planned (as in I might need to hire it out) is to redo the master shower at some point. Oh and adding a backsplash to the kitchen but that one is easier. And painting I suppose but thats really DIY. Still I am really overall happy with this place so 6+ months on I am still thinking it was a good deal.

Speaking of 6+, I think i have finally settled on getting an iPhone6 for my next phone. I wanted to wait until the Nexus6 came out (which it did) and unfortunately it is just as dan big as the iPhone6+ which is too large in my mind. I have a 7″ tablet, I don’t need a 5.5″ phone that I can only sort of put in my pocket. That left it to the year old Nexus5 and the iPhone6 and since the N5 is apparently discontinued its become an easy decision mostly. I can honestly say that apple pay holds only barely more interest to me than CurrentC which holds literally no interest. I will be curious to see if google is able to turn google wallet into an actual contender in that fight though.

I went to see a concert a week or two ago, which is something I hadn’t done in a long time. I went and saw M. Doughty at the Dakota and it was a great experience to actually go see a show again. It as also kind of sobering to realize I really enjoyed going to a show where I could sit on my duff at a table in the balcony (the entire venue is sitting room only) and hear everything clearly and just enjoy the show. I am also going to 2 nights of the Doomtree blowout later this month. The Friday & Saturday night shows at First Ave which will be about as far opposite as possible. I am looking forward to that in a very different way.

Beyond that, I haven’t been doing that much actually. Getting back into regular gym habits which i had long neglected, reading some (although i have at least temporarily abandoned my re-read of the Wheel of Time due to the slower middle books), mucking around online, playing some steam games (Escape Goat is surprisingly fun FYI), drinking beer a little too often, planning home improvement stuff, just generally taking things a bit slower as we slide into winter here. Or crash headlong into winter, whatever. Trying to tackle some other, miscellaneous, projects and maybe plan a vacation or three. So in other words, yeah my life is that boring. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion though. At least not currently.

As seems to be more or less the standard for me, its been quite some time since I actually put anything here. It ties in well with something I have been thinking about lately: the past. Years ago the majority of my social interaction happened online. Either through IRC, instant messenger, blogging, or even online gaming (although I was never as hardcore about the last one as many of the people I have known). But as time continued to pass all of those happened less and less frequently. I know that I am not even close to alone on that front, but the majority of people migrated to Facebook or similar services and, as is my nature, I resisted. Oh I adopted some, such as twitter, but overall I prefer to keep my online identity at least a bit separate from my … irl identity for lack of a better term. As I have continued on that path I have been less interested in my previous methods of communication, simply because there is less communication occurring there.  So, long story short, I tend to update this less and less often although I do try to update it at least sometimes.

There hasn’t been a ton going on lately, thats for sure. Its been a year with a great deal of change, which is fine, but the change has largely settled down and I am not complaining about that. There was a trip to Florida about a month ago and a staycation this week that has, so far, involved a lot of beer. Lots of random little bits of productivity as well, but I can manage to survive through that. As a matter of fact today I managed to finish off the last thing I needed to get done during this little break so who knows whats going to be next. Maybe more beer and reading.

Speaking of reading I started a re-read of the Wheel of Time series while Iw as in Florida. That was a stupid idea and I seem to be a burnt out on fantasy after re-reading all of Harry Potter immediately prior to that trip. So instead I might power through some sci fi or something lighter to give myself a break before I continue on with the Wheel of Time. We’ll see I guess, but I am just not certain that I have the gumption to make it through all of that series right now.

In other, odd, news there is the potential of some more job stuff changing soon. I’m not going to go into the details as I don’t know where its going (or if it will proceed any further) but having a headhunter recruiting me is kind of a neat experience and we will see whether the interview paid off. Either way, it was a pretty low stress experience since I already have a job I enjoy. As with all things, time will tell.

I am also in the midst of deciding what I am going to do with my cell phone. I mean my phone works and shit but it is totally an iPhone4 and showing its age in all sorts of areas. Well technically I have 2 iPhone4s (not 4S) but they are both showing their age. I am looking at the new 6+ and the nexus 6 and going ‘Jesus thats a physically large phone!’ I just don’t really want something that large sitting in my pocket. Point of fact: it wouldn’t fit comfortably in all of my pockets and that somewhat defeats the purpose since I won’t do the phone holster thing. Whats the next option, going back to JNCOs? So the 6 and the nexus 5 (even though its a year old) are possibilities but I am jut not sure yet. The other side of the coin though is that I finally took a hot minute to update one of my iPhones from 4.3.3 (jailbroken) to 7.1.2 (which is the latest available for that model) and went ‘Ohhh that is some nice deign work on the UI.’ I was absolutely an initial naysayer but I came around pretty quickly, if for nothing else the increased functionality is great. Its al the shit that I jailbroke for back in 2010 when I bought the damn phone in the first place. I am trying to decide whether I want to update my macbook to Yosemite but I have a feeling that I just might. I actually like mavericks but I … curious. And there is nothing mission critical on this laptop anyway.

Really there is nothing mission critical anywhere anymore just because the missions have been scrapped.

But back to design, UI and so forth…. I received the notification this morning that 8feet and TCBR are both up for renewal. As I did absolutely nothing with TCBR that one is an easy decision: let it lapse, don’t care. 8feet is a harder sell for me though. On the one had it has served its purpose and doesn’t really get used now. Letting it lapse would make sense and I would save money both on the cost of owning domain and on the storage space (although, space is cheap). On the other side of the coin, I rarely let a project ever go completely & its not as though there was a definite end point when I started 8feet (except for possibly: get the fuck out of the house). Plus it would let me continue the general project as well as give me a chance to redesign it with a bit more an eye towards both usability as well as appearance. I will freely admit that none of my domains are that visually appealing right now but thats the only one I would be likely to revise anytime to soon…. Especially since I still rather like the design of idoru.

Decisions decisions and none of them that important. What a great feeling.

Lets go ahead and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps here ok? As I mentioned previously I somewhat randomly bought another domain a week or so ago and like so many people before me I realized I needed to put something there so I turned to bootstrap and Monstra. I have always viewed bootstrap as something that is basically a really terrible cludge. Not as powerful as having an actual knowledge of CSS/PHP/HTML/Etc. And that is absolutely true, however with a working knowledge of those things you can turn something halfway decent out using bootstrap in record time. It basically exemplifies the whole ethos of ‘Move fast & break things’ which, by the way, is a terrible ethos.

That said, its also an effective ethos to have. I just needed to throw something together, it didn’t need to be fancy, it doesn’t need much in the way of content, it just needs to exist more than anything since the main reason I have it is to further distinguish my online identities (more on that in a minute). And for those things bootstrap is fantastic. Its a great method of just getting shit done rather than making sure that its done perfect. There is something to be said for making sure that something is done rather than sitting there waiting for endless revisions and trying to make it perfect. Its not an ethos I want to make my own but I think that I can take aspects of it and make it work for me. I did with 8feet after all.

Regarding separate identities, I was thinking after the whole fappening incident (which I have quite a lot of views on, I can go into them if people for some bizarre reason are actually interested in those) about how we portray ourselves online. Combine that with Facebook and google both moving towards enforcing real names and its a somewhat depressing time in a lot of ways. We have given up so much freedom in the name of convenience online that its more depressing than anything else. And while I have no illusions that the NSA (for example) doesn’t know exactly who I am, I still see no reason to make it easy for everybody to have easy access to my entire online life. In more and more ways I have started separating the two. I rarely use credit cards online, I don’t do social media for the most part, I tend to keep a very low profile…. Maybe its just remembering the ‘good old times’ when we really could be all anonymous online. Of course than again I still generally practice good netiquette so…. make of it what you will. That said, thats the reason that I bought that other domain, to further separate my online identities from each other.

I started visiting a personal trainer. Mostly because the lady bought me 5 sessions as a bit of a surprise. I will freely admit that at the beginning I was extremely skeptical but I am totally all in. Maybe not as much as I have been going this month (3 times in the past week and a half really) but I fully intend to continue going and seeing him after these 5 sessions are up. Its yet another area where I need to revise my views I suppose. This is going to start getting stressful!

Overall life is otherwise pretty awesome. I am still really enjoying my new job, I have been taking on the role of trainer already which is something I am actually quite good at surprisingly. I have also started to actually get the hang of the job which is rather handy as well. I think i see the potential for actual advancement within my position which hasn’t been true for quite some time unfortunately. On the other hand I have mostly stopped dwelling on the past and instead just focusing on the future. I have also been continuing to enjoy my new home. Its crazy how much really does change things now that I have a home that I can call my own. Renting was great but I am glad I took the plunge.

I think that covers most of the news thats fit to print. I have other things going on in life but nothing so substantial that I really need to write about it.