Jay's Journal

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...

This one will truly be short. Watched Game of Thrones finale, quite a few things to process. More tomorrow. Good night. ...

Just a quick reflection of the day before I settle into a movie or something. Been working on my desktop computer all day today. I got some new entry level studio monitors for it, and a DAC (digital audio converter) a couple of weeks ago. I had set them up when I got them, and enjoyed some tunes, but after that day, I was mostly using my laptop. Today, I spent the day on my desktop listening to tunes on the new speakers and DAC, and just soaking it all in. Wrote some emails, did some online res...

Ok, 10 days straight, and today I'm pushing to write this. Mostly because it's been another busy day of getting shit done. Making progress on my work projects, so enjoying the busy right now. I've gone over 25 days in a row my April challenge to post every day for the month, and missed my full goal by two different days when I didn't write. However, I wrote for a total of 27 days for that month. WOW. For someone who used to make writing an "event", it's now a daily thing. Sure, the quality wil...

Another busy day, but again, it was a good busy. I'm enjoying a lull in the action right now, but things could pick up at any moment. It's a really nice day today so I drove my roadster to work. When I leave the office, the top is going down and stereo volume is going up! Since I haven't had a chance to enjoy my little sports car in a while, I'm glad I get to drive it today. This morning as I was getting ready for work I was thinking about a couple of instances where I thought I knew someone, a...

Just a quick post to keep my commitment, but to also reflect a bit on my day. Coffee with my buddy this morning was great, it's always good to catch up with him. Work was busy again today, but once again, it was a good busy. Slight frustration over people who just refuse to do what they're supposed to do. All it does is force me to raise these issues with my manager, who raises it with their managers, and they end up having to do what I originally asked them to do in the first place. But not ...

Busy day today... probably the busiest in a while. But, it was a good busy, not a chaotic busy. I was able to make some good progress with my project team, and my focus was sharp today. Met up with my wife after dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant, and while they're always pretty good, they were ON POINT today. We like to meet up after work sometimes and just have a date. I fasted since Sunday night, and dinner was my first meal since then. I wasn't ravenous when we sat down, but once we...

Not much to share today, but I did spend most of the day learning more about Git and how to use GitHub and GitLab more for my daily tasks. I've also been reading more on how to use Git's version control for writing projects, and I think this is going to be pretty cool. The more I learn the more excited I get. I only had one meeting during normal hours today, and it felt great. Allowed me time to work on my work projects as well as my personal ones, too. I do have a meeting this evening with ou...

Today is Mother's Day, and my wife and I celebrated with her parents. We went to eat, got there early, right as they opened, and before hardly anyone showed up. By the time we were done eating, the restaurant was full, and there were people inside and outside the restaurant waiting for a table. We planned the timing and we do this every year. We've learned how to adjust our schedules to try to avoid the crowds and chaos that comes with them. It's sad, actually, that we have to adjust our schedu...

It seems that whenever I stumble onto something 'new', it's not really all that new. Which means that more times than not, I'm late to the party of the whatever I discover to be cool. Sometimes months late, but sometimes, decades late. Some examples include, but aren't limited to: Linux Minimalism Stoicism Outsourcing Rockabilly (fashion and music) Intermittent Fasting Internet Privacy and Security Inbox Zero Dynamic websites while sticking to MS Front Page, then using dynamic websites like W...

Well, it looks like the Universe isn't without a sense of irony. I just got word that the position I was a candidate for, and so conflicted about, is a no-go. It could have been a number of things. My salary requirements were too high for their liking, I came off as a know-it-all which may have scared them off, all or none of the above. This has truly been an up and down roller coaster, but, as I was good with it before, I'm still good with it now, although quite a bit of time was invested with...

I'm kind of an asshole. Well, not kind of, I am a full on asshole, especially when people who know they're wrong continue to push the issue as if they'll somehow be right, when the evidence is clearly stacked against them. So, the asshole part of me is that when a management decision comes down that basically vindicates my original and unwavering position, essentially shoving all the things wrong with the other person's argument down their throat, it makes me smile. It makes me smile big. When...

I just saw a post on the Listed blog called the '100 Day Writing Challenge' today, and this is so good, I must participate. In order for me to do this, though, I'm going to need to post to my Listed blog without images. This way I can focus on writing and posting, and not hunting for the perfect image to reflect the topic of a specific post. This should help streamline everything, plus, with this challenge, I can take the gloves off if you will. I can write whatever comes to mind, which I usua...

Part of how I 'relax' on any given day is to find new products and services that can help enhance my online privacy and security. And, when I find an online tool that isn't necessarily privacy focused, but would like to see if any privacy focused alternatives exist, I love going to AlternativeTo and seeing what privacy-based alternatives might exist. That's actually how I came about Standard Notes, and Listed. And now, I use both of these tools every day. However, in this case, I was resear...

Photo by picjumbo.com from Pexels Unplanned Update The below post I'd written most of earlier in the week. However, today I had an interesting turn of events. The potential employer who wasn't willing to entertain my salary requirements has contacted my recruiter to say "they'll do what it takes to make it work." I was surprised, stunned, even shocked. I asked the recruiter what changed, and he said that the CEO said that no matter what ideas he had, and what he tried to do to move forward ...

It's been a crazy week, full of ups and downs, and it's only Thursday. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a nice quiet day. I've only got a few meetings scheduled, and things are usually pretty slow on Fridays. Of course, last week, as soon as I logged in for work, I mean, the very moment I was online, I walked into a shit-storm. Way more drama than I needed on a Friday. So, I'm really hoping this Friday's going to be chill. In any case, this week I'd had a potential job fall through during s...

Sometimes I feel like Bruce Lee. Not that I can do flying roundhouse kicks and do pushups with my thumbs, heck, I'm not even in shape to do any kind of pushup. But, when he created his own martial art, Jeet Kune Do, he did it out of necessity. He felt that all the current martial arts were too rigid in their structure, and that rigidity was a weakness. So, what he did was take the best of several martial arts (including fencing and boxing), discarded what wasn't useful, and incorporated all ...

First off, I kind of cheated this weekend. I didn't write anything Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. On Friday and Saturday I'd emailed my subscribers an already written article from earlier in the month. And Sunday, I was working on other projects and gearing up for Game of Thrones, because priorities. In the strictest terms, that meant I failed in my commitment, which was to post every day for the month of April. And I was so close, too. Part of it was because I didn't have a topic readily come ...

Again, I seem to be taken back to random memories long past, seemingly for no reason. This time was the Christmas of 1985. I really need to stop sharing how old I am with the world, don't I? At least I'm single spacing. Ok, back to Christmas of 1985. I was a sophomore in high school, and I loved music. Still do, actually. My younger brother and only sibling was in middle school at the time, and he somehow got it in his head he wanted to be a programmer. At that time, there were nowhere near...

Photo by mali maeder from Pexels As I was proofreading yesterday's post, I noticed that one of my sentences had no space between punctuation and new sentence. It really stood out as being weird. And, instinctively, I put a single space between them. This, however, goes well against my ancient teachings of how to use a near-extinct machine that pre-dates the computer, laptop, and smartphone. I'm old enough to have needed to use a typewriter as my only word processor. Yes, that ancient relic t...