This tree impressed me with its dedication to the season. What a beautiful red!
Autumn done right
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Category Archives: Personal
My perfect office soup bowl/mug
Just a quick one today, pretty much unrelated to anything. 
It is getting colder, as Autumn is losing territory to it’s rival, Winter. That means soup should be the lunch of choice here for a while at the office. There’s only one problem.. I have no bowl.
I ended up ordering this:
It’s perfect! A handle so I can easily carry it back to my desk, but big enough to handle soup cans of all sizes, and homemade soup as well.
You can find it Here on Amazon
I don’t control all the communication
Does this ever happen to you? You get an email or text from someone you haven’t heard from in a while, with a message of, “Hope all is well, haven’t heard from you in a while.” Or something similar. What is even worse are the ones you hear it through others, where someone says, “Bob Balaw wanted me to tell you he misses you.”
The older I get, the more this irks me. My main gripe with it is this: Communication goes both ways. It isn’t my responsibility to always initiate communication. If someone misses you, why don’t they contact you? At least with something more than a, “haven’t heard from you in a while”. Because that means that I haven’t heard from them in a while too. But the implication I see there is that it is my responsibility to contact them, and I haven’t. Which really, if you think about it, is manipulative. Some emotional blackmail, that. Especially if they use a parent or someone you really care about to convey the message.
I guess my point is this: if you want to talk to someone, or miss someone, initiate communication! Don’t send guilt-laden messages.
This post is in no way is a result of recent life events.
Voltaire introducing me to some new words, ideas.
I’ve been reading selections of Voltaire’s work. Namely, a group of short essays, jots (dare we say blogposts) called ‘Selections’. It’s been good for me, I feel like my mind is getting a little more active. My plan to read more is paying off.
I’m stumbling across all sorts of wonderful words, and rabbit trails to new things to research. I’ll be sharing them as I go along. Here are a couple new words:
- Voluptuary: n – a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit and enjoyment of luxury and sensual pleasure.
- This reminded me of San Francisco. I know people in SF who aren’t like this, but it seems like the majority of people there are.
- Calumniate: v – to make false and malicious statements about; slander.
- Manichaeism: n – the system of religious doctrines, including elements of Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc, taught by the Persian prophet Mani about the 3rd century ad . It was based on a supposed primordial conflict between light and darkness or goodness and evil. (See also the wikipedia article)
Network connectivity issues, a baby, and books
I have spent all day at work troubleshooting a network issue on my machine. Finally have it working, though my method of fixing it isn’t exactly the best.
So frustrating to lose an entire day to a problem like this.
And tomorrow, a large portion of my day will be spent moving to a new cubicle. Doh! Well, maybe next week I can get some things done here at work.
Regarding personal projects, they are at a standstill at a moment. The arrival of our little boy A has been wonderful. It also requires a lot of work! It’s a delight to be with him, and watch him observe more of the world around him. The pooey diapers are just a bonus.
I have been doing a little reading. I finally got around to reading “I, Robot” by Isaac Asminov, and I enjoyed it. Encourages me to work on my short stories, since that is mostly what that book is comprised of. Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing!
Now I started “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. About 60 pages in, and it’s making me want to play Transport Tycoon. Also, there are portions of her philosophy that I can agree with.