Jay's Journal

Hey, it's me again. Yup, after another absence of a few weeks. Time really does fly. However, I've been busy working on a personal project that became more than what was originally intended. In the IT circles, this is called "scope creep", and at work it's something I loathe with every fiber of my being. But, when it comes to a personal project of mine, eh, it ain't so bad. The "decimal" part of this story begins with a blog post from a fellow Listed.to blogger called "Anklebuster". Great blog,...

Today is Father's Day, 2021. And to all the father's out there, may you enjoy a blessed and peaceful Father's Day. This year is quite a bit different than most years, and I think it'll help if I write down my thoughts and feelings on a day like today. This will be raw and uncensored, and is just one man's view of life and the world. I'd mentioned earlier on that life is good, and it truly is. But I also said it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Well, today is neither sunshine nor rainbows, but ...

Coming back to Listed has been very refreshing these past few days. I noticed quite the aesthetic refresh for our Listed blogs, and it looks great. The default theme is still very light and loads very fast. I can't say enough about Listed and Standard Notes. I'd like to highlight the efforts of Mo Bitar who's the founder and creator of Listed and Standard Notes. He's created a killer app that puts privacy and security first, while also making intentional choices around his product. Listed is a...

The rumors around my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I'm here, I'm alive, and still doing fantastically after leaving that toxic Hellhole. I took an extended break because without the burden of all that unhealthy existence, my mental, physical, and emotion load was freed. It hasn't all been sunshine and rainbows, obviously with a pandemic and all. But I'd like to come back and share with you what I've been up to, what I'm doing these days, and how my experiences post-Hellhole have continu...

It's been an interesting couple of weeks to say the least. Seems like a whirlwind of good fortune has smiled upon me. And yes, this means the end of the suffering that is my current job. My offer came through today, after an easy 3 interviews. I'm beyond excited, and humbled, too. Turns out my former manager, who's departure from this company I'd lamented for weeks, even months, was looking for someone to fill a spot on his team. I made it known that I was interested, and that with no suppositi...

Working for a large company, and having done so for most of my life, I've noticed that the quest of any organization's IT group is to find the magic suite of products that give you a "single pane of glass". Usually that means several products bundled together, and managed via one centralized interface. So, if you want to insure everyone's getting anti-virus, but also full disk encryption, you'd buy a suite from a single vendor that would bundle those both and allow you to manage the entire orga...

I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal, and it completely articulates to the masses what I've been saying just about forever. It essentially asks managers to get out of their people's way. BOOM. Simple. And yet, the article points out that this is probably one of the hardest things for most managers to do. And after reading some more, I think I know why. Ego. See, a lot of managers think they're where they are because they're WAY better than anyone else on their team. That belies ...

Lately at work, I'm finding myself in a lot of unfamiliar territory. It's mostly around the new products my employer purchases and then expects those of us on my team to become instant experts as whatever this new (to us) product is. Naturally some catch on quicker than others. In many cases, I do, but not all. And that seems to be the case with a certain product I'm struggling to get configured correctly. At one point it was working fine, but then another team blew it all away, requiring us to...

And here I am. Back to the world of the living. Well, I was living during this latest absence, just not living online or writing much. Last month was my birthday, a milestone year, so my wife and I took a trip out of state to visit some very good friends and celebrate. The trip was fantastic, and very refreshing. On my last day of work before leaving, of course some drama unfolded just an hour before I was set to log off for nearly two weeks. It's been relatively quiet at work for weeks on end,...

I know it's been a while since I last wrote. I'm in a much better place since the last time I wrote. This does happen from time to time, I'll slip into a mild depression and all the trappings that come with it (anger, guilt, frustration, etc.), then it's gone for a while. However, since the last time I wrote, something positive did happen. I was able to land my first paying writing client. So far it's been everything I'd hoped it would be. I was able to get the client's vision of what the conte...

It was bound to happen, right? I mean, you're putting along in your own space, not bothering anybody, and then something in the universe has to throw a pile of shit your way. I'm feeling that way with work right now. I've made a very conscious attempt to not let things at work bother me, this way I can have less stress while embracing a Stoic philosophy. Now, in that conscious effort, I've been choking down a fair amount of shit. But, trying the let it roll off, making that effort to not let t...

Well, I'm making it official. I'm declaring my 100 Day writing challenge a failure. In my last post I mentioned that I'd make 100 posts, but not in a row. Then, I didn't make any posts after that. Now, if I missed a day or two then posted, it would be one thing. But, in the way I approached this challenge, I didn't take it on as it was meant, and therefore missed out on the potential of growth from it. So why continue the charade? It didn't work, and that's ok. Because in the time I haven't bee...

Quick announcement: I'm dropping the weekly accountability as a regular feature. Mostly because I'm not moving forward with my goals at an agressive pace. So, each week, even though I'm doing things I enjoy and even don't enjoy for the sake of work, I just see goals every week that don't move forward. I thought that by writing down my goals, I'd be compelled to rush toward them because they're out in the open. Turns out, that's not really how I operate. So, experiment tried and failed. On to t...

Well, it's been another busy week, but all in all I don't mind. Mostly because it's been "busy enough" without being crazy or chaotic. So that makes me wonder, is it because it's really not, or because I'm coping better? This week I've had sit downs with two people that know my story and my struggle. One thing I was able to share with both of them is this profound sense of contentment I'm feeling these days. I attribute it mostly to my adopting some of the Stoic principles, and it's been refres...

Ok, I'm back. Took a few days off as a mini-sabatical, mostly to take care of work and home projects, as well as consolidate my email accounts. I'd been wanting to consolidate for a very long time, but I found that over the years, I'd spread my emails across several different services. Some I'd paid for, others not so much. I don't mind paying for email, but some of my earlier accounts were purchased based on their usefulness and not so much their privacy as well as security. So, having become ...

I actually started this post yesterday, intending to also post it yesterday. However, I found myself staring at a blinking cursor throughout the day. I guess it could be that I had nothing to say or share. If anybody knows me, they'd know that to be a very rare occasion. But, there I was, sitting and staring at a blinking cursor, with my mind blank. I was going to write down some of my frustrations about work. But after reading article after article about shitty bosses and toxic leadership styl...

Dammit, it happened again. I missed another day of posting. I knew I was putting off writing for "later" as I was involved in work and doing some research for my own intentions. Next thing I know, my wife and I are heading to bed to rest up for a very busy Tuesday. Someone who I admire very much suggested I write first thing in the morning, so that I'm not scrambling to get my thoughts down before bed. That is really, really good advice. Advice I should take, but yesterday I didn't. So, I'm w...

Well, looks like I’m not going be able to write much tonight. I’ll write more tomorrow. Have a good night. ...

This is going to be real quick as it's been a pretty full day. Took my wife out to an early dinner at one of her favorite restaurants. While we were eating, we decided that we'd go to the grocery store for a "few things". After buying $300 worth of groceries, I think we've covered all the basics. After we came home, went back to relaxation mode where I worked on getting my media servers updated and media organized. Since my media servers are Linux based, I was able to roll up my sleeves and get...

Well, it happened. I missed a day by not posting yesterday. The thing is, I didn't even realize until I was already in bed ready to go to sleep. I'd actually considered getting up and going to post at least something. But, I wanted to avoid an argument with my wife before it even started, so I settled in and went fast to sleep. Today required me to really think about what missing a day of posting meant. First, it meant not keeping my word to myself and to anyone who may be reading these posts. ...

Today was my first day back after a very welcomed 5-day weekend. I didn't dread coming back like I usually would, mostly because I'm in a rhythm at work. Not a lot of weird surprises, and just enough people are resisting the necessary changes I'm bringing on them, that this project is dragging out several months past the original deadline. No fault of mine, well documented via email and weekly status updates, so I'm feeling pretty good about all this. And honestly, I tend to wonder if any proje...

Great day, today. Slept in again to enjoy my last day of an extra long weekend. Celebrated our wedding anniversary today with a big breakfast we helped each other make. Chilled out and just relaxed. Nowhere to be, nothing to have to do. Back to work tomorrow, but also back to exploring thoughts, feelings, and realizations. For now, I’ve enjoyed this extended period of relaxation. It’s helped clear my mind and give my spirit a really nice break. See you tomorrow. ...

Today was another pretty easy day. I did get a sort of a workout in as my wife and I went to her parents house so I could help my father-in-law remove a busted fridge from their house. It wasn't their main one, it was an overflow fridge elsewhere in the house, and it was older than my marriage. Taking it out was fairly easy, but they had a spare one in their garage that they wanted to move into the old one's spot. We tried to bring it in, but it was too big to fit where the other one was, so w...

Just spent the day relaxing and spent some quality time with the wife. We also spent a good part of the day doing our own projects around the house. Then we watched a movie, which just ended, and now I might watch one more before heading to bed. Overall, it as just aother lazy day of several in a row with no stress, no worries. Not hatin' it. Not hatin' it one bit. Good night. ...

Let's see... last night I stayed up and slept in big time. Got up around 10:30am. That's living the good life in my book. I need to keep a notepad by my bedside because everytime I wake up, I've got ideas in my head that I want to explore. But, by the time I sit down to write, the ideas have escaped me. So, yeah, I need to either write down, or better yet, use Standard Notes on my mobile phone and capture my thoughts as soon as I wake up. Today was great because even though I slept in late, t...

Today was a pretty good day overall. As luck would have it, I got a call from my team at work this morning. It was at least late enough in the morning that I was already up after sleeping in. So, about 30 minutes of work today to put out the fire at work, then resumed my rest and relaxation. My wife was supposed to leave early today, but instead, drama erupted at her work and she ended up leaving an hour later than her usual time. It's almost like there a force out there that senses the energy...

I made it. I got through the short week, and today was by far the busiest day I've had in months. So much to do today to insure a guilt-free 5 days off, but it all got done. Well, there's always a chance I missed something, but since I don't know what that is, it's guilt-free because I won't know until I got back to work next Wednesday. It was a huge relief to be done for the day. Usually, the day before a vacation or a holiday weekend, people cut out a little early to get a head start on thei...

Not sure what I want to reflect on today. A pretty uneventful day, and believe me, I'll take it over a chaotic one any day. Was able to get my most difficult meeting of the day out of the way pretty early. Not first thing once I log in (which I can't stand), but a good hour and a half after starting work. That works great so that I can read my emails from the night before, and settle into my day. After the meeting, I had nothing else on my calendar, so I was able to complete a majority of my w...

Not sure this one will blow anyone's socks off, but an overall good day. Was busy with work projects the first half of the day, then was done with my work by lunchtime. So, I spent the afternoon reading up on ideas for soundproofing my home office and TV room. Found some semi-affordable options that are already done for me, or I can DIY them myself and save some money. Thing is, I don't really have any tools (except computer repair tools), I'm not very handy, and I don't really like doing that ...

Aaaand, I'm back. Yesterday was not the best day for me to write. Mostly because I got so engulfed in working on mailbox encryption and decryption for all my devices, and spent some time working on my eventual writing business. Next thing I know, dinner's ready, and right after that, Game of Thrones. My wife and I were pretty happy with the final ending of the show, and it sort of redeemed itself for so many missed opportunities to tell a much more powerful story in the previous couple of episo...