2018 Summer July 31 Tuesday

65 degrees this morning, no walk, humidity 93%.

Didn’t plan to take a walk this morning due to schedule, but 65 degrees!  I’m not sure if I would have walked anyway, although I’m sure I would have. 

Last day of July, 2018!  

The other day I got my first medical appointment for 2019 and it was a shock to see the date and realize 2019 is less than 6 months away!  Actually I have one medical appointment where they schedule two years in advance (down to the date and time), but that always seems to be so far out as to be unrealistic.  

The computerized calendars have helped, since you (usually) don’t lose the calendar or need to worry about putting in a notation for two years in advance!

Actually it took me a while to adjust to the Apple calendar before I finally started using it on a regular basis.  I tried some other calendar apps/programs, but wasn’t all that impressed.  Sometimes I think the “reviews” of some of the apps are really paid by the app maker, or certainly see something in it I don’t see. 

Actually what makes the Apple calendar so nice is the cloud, so that I can put the appointment in one device and it shows up in all my devices!  

I think now now one of the biggest advances is the ability to write a note, a reminder or whatever on one device and have it show up on all devices.  It sure changed how I used computers, phones etc 

Apple not being proactive in providing a touch screen for their computers is hard to believe, or maybe not. 

I am considering not replacing my laptop just for that reason, and go with an iPad to use instead of the laptop, although I’m not sure if I would be comfortable doing that.  Why they don’t offer a touch screen is beyond me and is probably hurting their sales.  

One of Apple Computers major problems is thinking they know better than the consumer what the consumer wants. 

This really shows in the “digital assistants” etc. like the Echo etc.  Siri actually seems to have gotten better lately, but is still far behind Echo and Google Now in effectiveness as well as in the actual products.  

Both Google and Echo apps work on iPhones and are more useful than Siri on the iPhone.  

I think it is a problem with the lack of consumer responsiveness by Apple’s  management and design teams, too bad with such lack of thinking on what is otherwise excellent products.

However, I am looking forward to buying the iPad Pro and iPhone X (or whatever they call the new generations).  I actually have gotten enough “cash back” from our “cash back” credit card to pay for an iPad Pro, or close enough!  

That’s it for now, Tuesday, July 31, 2018.

2018 Summer July 30 Monday

69 degrees this morning, thunderstorms rain, humidity 95 %

Surprised to wake up this morning and hear rain and thunder!  Don’t recall it being forecast.  

Good weekend, now starting another work week!  Since I am “in the field” today, I hope the rain stops or at least becomes more sporadic.  Actually right now, the rain has stopped although lighting and thunder continue and the radar indicates there is a lot of activity left, but it may be to the south of us (but directly where I am going to work!).

Completed another e-mail “survey” this morning.  I was glad to do it since it was all positive and true.

Many such surveys are honest attempts to improve customer service, products etc.  However some of them seem to have other motives.  

I resent a lot of surveys due the the time they take and the ulterior motives of the companies (or organization) has.  

Some businesses I quickly found, don’t really care what you say in the survey, they just want to get your e-mail address so they spam you with junk e-mail, which is annoying to say the least.  

Many times they don’t even bother to check if they already have your e-mail address and send you numerous same e-mails.  

Of course there is the intimidation surveys where the company uses it to threaten their employees “anything less that a 10 is considered a zero!” type of uses.  

This isn’t an attempt to really determine problem areas, this, in my opinion, is simply mismanagement by managers who don’t know how to manage and really could care less about customer service or quality products, they just want the “numbers to be right”. 

I try not to respond to any such surveys, and sometimes I tend to think I should not respond to any customer service surveys, but I can see the value of an honest response.  

No one if perfect and an honest response can help improve a service or product by pinpointing areas where improvement is needed.  

Sometimes I have completed a survey with a moderate response on an area where improvement may be needed and I do get a response that really wants to determine what is wrong.  That makes it worthwhile to respond to surveys. 

The “customer ratings” on a product can be valuable.  I have noted that the most common marks are “A” and “F”.  Customers (including me) tend to overrate or underrate.  I try not to give an “F” just because I am upset.  I do frequently give an A when probably a  “B” would be more appropriate!

That’s it for now, Monday, July 30, 2018.

2018 Summer July 29 Sunday

78 degrees this morning, walk 34:36 minus 79% humidity

Windy this morning during walk, some lightning far off.  Thought about turning back, but finished regular distance.  

Sitting on patio now, watching the thunderstorm come in,  Wind is coming up (rain hasn’t started yet), lighting is getting closer, so probably will go in before I finish this on the patio.  

I can move to a very small portion of the patio and avoid the rain except when it is windy.  (I am now back in the house, the rain started and the wind was blowing the rain right into the small covered portion!

It is interesting to be able to sit and watch the rain come in, I do wish we had a patio cover so I could watch the storm come in and sit outside during the rain.  The wind may have made it impossible.  

Pace was 4 seconds slower than my goal.  I was a little surprised, since my attitude this morning was basically to just make it through the walk, considering the window etc.  

Again, the relatively high humidity didn’t brother me a bit. 

I CATCH (ANOTHER) T-SHIRT

At the AAA baseball team games we attend, during some games they will through t-shirts into the crowd. The t-shirts are “team” shirts and usually fairly nice.  

 Last night I caught a t-shirt!  About 2 years ago, I also caught a t-shirt sitting in the same seat!   

We sit in an area where they normally don’t throw t-shirts much, so that makes it all the more surprising that I would catch two!  

I have never caught a ball, but normally (at least at this stadium) if an adult catches a ball (with the exception of a ball hit by a well down player etc.), the baseball is given to a nearby child. 

The T=shirt bounced off the area above us and then bounced off Aliene and feel right in front of me!  

It is difficult to explain the feeling I get when that happens.  It is a matter of acting fast, although in this case it was simply a matter of picking it up, no one else was even close. 

Anyway, it made for an interesting evening!  

Sunday already!  Somehow when I start a weekend, i think of it as a couple of days with a long horizon, that Monday is far off.  Of course, the time flies by and the weekend is quickly over.

That’s is for for now, Sunday, July 29, 2018

2018 Summer July 28 Saturday

74 degrees this morning, Walk 34:11 minutes 80% humidity 

Overall very pleasant walk this morning.  When I saw the 80% humidity I thought, “oh, oh”, but it didn’t really affect me at all.  Again I saw the moon during my walk, but don’t see it now that I am sitting on the patio.

I will need to treasure the days when I see the full-moon setting from the patio!

I will next need to review how the humidity affects people during walking.  The actual % doesn’t really seem to matter, but I will keep keeping track of it and how I react to it.  

The breathing exercises seem to be having a very positive effect on my coughing during exercise, but it may be too early to comment on that.  (Of course, as soon as I wrote that I started coughing!)

Basically the exercises I do aren’t really designed with the goal of improving speech, but  rather strengthening my voice box.  Hopefully it will prevent or reduce any lung aspiration etc. 

Singing is some of the exercises and I was pleasantly surprised to find I can actually sing in tune, match the pitch and have a wider variety than I thought.  

Pace this morning was 4 seconds faster than my goal, it is good to see my pace return to the other side of my goal (that is, walking faster than my goal rather than slower than my goal).  

Thinking of “Done is better than perfect” some more.  

I agree with this is the person who is doing the project actually cares.  There are certainly many projects I have see where “done is worse than if the project hadn’t been done” or words to that effect when a project is just thrown together to meet a requirement or goal.

I don’t think it is even a fine line, it is a large gap that you can usually quickly determine if the goal is “done is better than perfect” versus “done so I can do something else and get them off my back” type of done!

Someone was talking to me the other day about government, about how some government personnel are helpful, courteous and professional while others don’t seem to care and act like they feel that a citizen is a bother.  

At first I said it was the Manager or Supervisor that makes the difference, and to some degree I do feel that way.  By the way, I’m not talking about just government, I am talking about all organizations.  

I strongly disagree that “government should be run like a business”, but I do feel many of the management techniques and behavioral concepts are the same.  

I strongly  feel that the Manager or Supervisor does make a significant difference by setting the tone, but the individual still has to accept responsibility and really care about doing a good job and the customer.  

Obviously I could write much more on this and I’m sure I will in the future!

That’s it for now, Saturday, July 28, 2018

2018 Summer Jul 27 Friday

72 degrees this morning, walk 34:48 minutes, humidity 85%.

Walk this morning was nice and coolish in spite of the humidity.  The moon was up, obscured by clouds, but isn’t observable now. 

I now have it in my head correctly that the moon goes around the earth, not the sun.  Of course I knew that  but didn’t think about it as part of why and when I can see the moon until a reader kindly pointed that out to me!  

Pace was 20 seconds slower than my goal.  I seem to trend either way, most recently trending towards being slower than my goal.  

Recently I had somewhat of a synchronicity in reading about the dangers of “perfection” over “done”.

I watch (or have on while reading the paper, lifting weights etc) a music channel with little quotes on it.  

Recently I noted the quote “Done is better than perfect”.  I thought about that and saw the point.  

More times than I care to remember “perfect” got in the way of “done” and necessary projects or activities simply didn’t get done because someone was waiting for “perfect”.

This has many variations, but they all basically entail “waiting for ……..” before we start it, etc. 

Then, the very next day, I pick up an old copy of “Pubic Management” and read an article that mentions the dangers of over planning, waiting for the perfect moment, in other words “waiting for ……”, which of course will never come. 

I always like the premise of “Waiting for Godot”, although quite frankly I never saw it or even read it.  I will try to at least read a summary over the weekend.

The article in PM mentioned that “over-information” can can be a crutch that leads to unfinished projects and information overload, waiting for more information etc. the project never gets started.  

I certainly can remember times when I avoided overanalyzing a project or activity and it was successful and times I over-analyzed a project and tried to be “perfect” and it simply never got done or finished, since the timing or whatever wasn’t “perfect” yet.  

Certainly I am reminded of this in some of my personal projects.  One  minor project, taking pictures of my Hot Wheels is an example.  In trying to be “perfect”, I have avoided doing the project much at all.

This is actually a good example case, because while the pictures don’t have  to be “perfect”, they do need to be an “acceptable” level.  “Acceptable Level” of course is debatable, but I feel there is an absolute “acceptable level” of pictures and I still haven’t found how to maintain an “acceptable level” of pictures.  

I think that is the key, the extreme of trying to be so perfect  a needed project isn’ done, and the other extreme, just trying to “get done” and having unacceptable result. 

More later.

That’s it for now, Friday, July 27, 2018

2018 Summer July 26 Thursday

80 degrees this morning, 53 % humidity, no walk (schedule) 

Sitting out on patio this morning, enjoying the start of the day.  There is a light breeze that makes it nice.  

The other day I was asked the question (at Toastmasters) “what  would i do if I won the lottery”.  This time I didn’t say “I would go into work the next day”.  Although I would, I probably wouldn’t continue for long!

However, the question did highlight how my thoughts had changed since it was first asked about 20 years ago.  

Probably much more now than 20 years ago or certainly 40 years ago, I realize the concept that the danger of possessions is that“things own you, you don’t own things” or words to that effect. 

I don’t know how you avoid that trap.  I know the current fad is renting or “sharing”, and that may even partially be the answer.  However, it is like renting a car, when I rent a car, I miss the car I normally drive because I get used to the car and the little extras that rental cars may not have.  

Probably some of the biggest safety advancements in cars is the backup camera, and the “dead spot beeper” as well as the warning signal when a vehicle or person is approaching when you are backing up.  

I can also see the value of the warning when you are drifting out of your lane, or warnings when you are too close to something at the front or back.  

I am somewhat puzzled why at least the backup camera isn’t required on all vehicles, probably the other safety items also. 

Eventually the trend of “renting” or “sharing” could lead to not owning anything, but renting or sharing everything, but then the question comes up as to who will own the items we rent or share!

Another dream I wanted to mention.  I am remembering fewer and fewer dreams for some reason, but it does seem to go in cycles, perhaps my sleeping patterns change .

Tuesday July 24 2018

Dreamed Aliene and I were using a house we were trying to sell that the Agent lust us use it when we were in town.  Strange, but this was a dream!

Appeared to be a house I used to live in years ago, but it was set in a small town near where I grew up.

We unpacked and Aliene went somewhere.

It was summer, but the heat came  on somehow and it got real hot. I thought it was broken, but it cooled when I set it.

A woman came out, I asked her if she had been sleeping and she said, yes, she lived there now.  She didn’t appear to be surprised to see me or see the suitcases etc.  

At that point I woke up. 

That’s it for now, Thursday, July 26, 2018.

2018 Summer July 25 Wednesday

71 degrees tis morning,  walk 35:19 minutes, humidity 75%

Walk this morning was cooler, saw the moon setting during my walk, already set by time I am sitting on the patio.

Pace was 38 seconds slower than my goal, which is starting to make my goal look kind of unrealistic!  Such a slow time is unusual and hopefully I will speed up in future walks!  

Hard to believe that the American people and the U.S. Congress are willing to stand for a lying, coward, pervert, racist lunatic who is destroying the country and the world.  Meanwhile Congress stands there with their hands out getting “donations” from the  donor and lobbyist “dark money” enriching themselves at the expense of the people they are supposed to represent.

instead they are kowtowing to a pervert lunatic who is attacking the Fed with his coward tweets, attempting to bully the FCC to let the Sinclair Broadcasting attempt to brainwash the public (while i am sure, getting a lot of money from them in “donations”  for the extortion attempt) and get a monopoly on news. 

Not “the news”, but “their news”, exactly what the law is supposed to prevent, some extremist nuts controlling the news.

Meanwhile, Sessions who is supposed to be Attorney General but is so scared he will be fired he even encourages children to scream “lock her up” and repasts  it himself.  This idiot pandering lunatic  is supposed to be  a leader?  Lock him up as the criminal he is!

I am totally disgusted with the lying, coward, delusional pervert racist lunatic destroying the country and world, shoveling tax $ to his donors and lobbying and stealing billions for his own company while taking away benefits from the low and moderate income persons, attempting to rape Medicare and Social Security to shovel more tax $ to their donors and lobbyists.

Meanwhile, our Senators and Representative kowtow like the cowards they are and cowardly endorse the criminal acts of the lying coward pervert racist lunatic without even looking at what they are supporting.  

Now, after he has destroyed the markets with his insane and illogical  tariffs etc, the lying coward pervert racist lunatic wants to shovel $30 billion dollars to “farmers” to try to make up for his errors!  

Of course, he isn’t talking about the “family farmer” we all think of, he is shoveling our tax $ to corporate farmers, like the kook brothers, who have already made billions off government contracts and lack of enforcement of laws.

Meanwhile, this the lying coward lunatic cowardly makes threats in capital letters yet, in a tweet!  This has really gotten insane to say the least!  

Not what I intended to write about today, but I think the situation has really gotten to the point of insanity.  What I say won’t really make any difference, but at least I will say it!

That’s it for now, Wednesday, July 25, 2018.

2018 Summer July 24 Tuesday

75 degrees this morning 65% humidity, Walk 34:59 minutes

Walk this morning was good.  No breeze and the moon still isn’t up, but it was ok.

Pace was 20 seconds slower than my goal, so need to keep working on keeping up my pace.  

I was rather startled to suddenly realize that August of 2018 almost here!  While “summer” as far as “summer weather” continues until usually mid-November (well if we’re lucky, sometimes mid October), it still means the basic concept of Summer will be over in a month!

In a way I know Summer is essentially over when the Crepe Myrtle’s flowers wilt and quit for the year.

That emphasizes the importance of “experiencing the moment”, whether it is good or bad, Summer or Winter, it is what we have.

Waiting for the new “full moon”which should be here on July 27.  

We are investigating the abilities of the Echo (also called Alexia) by Amazon.  It has some amazing capabilities.  I am surprised Apple hasn’t come out with something similar or better.  

Of coups, the Amazon product also has an amazing capacity to try to sell Amazon products also.  I wish they had used those efforts on making a better product instead of trying to make a machine that shamelessly pushes Amazon products.  I have decided  I will never order over the Echo or take any of it’s recommendations.  

As part of our “video doorbell” purchase we get a Google Assistant, so we can test it out and compare them.  

Since we also have  iPhones, we can also test it out with Siri, although it isn’t really a equal comparison 

For some reason, I haven’t had many dreamsI remember lately although I have had a lot of dreams:

Friday July 20, 2018

Dream, relatively long dream, I was in an area on a beach, I think.  I was driving a yellow Volkswagen  convertible (the “bug’), and I parked it.  

For some reason I went back and there were people sitting in the car.  In the dream, I didn’t think  anything about it, but got in.  The car started driving and there wasn’t person sitting on the seat, the car was driving itself.  

I tried to put the transmission in park when I woke up. 

I have no idea what that dream means.  Hopefully I can start remembering dreams long enough to write them down in the future, sometimes I feel they have something important to tell me.  

That’s it for now, Tuesday, July 24, 2018. 

#MyJourney18

2018 Summer July 23 Monday

75 degrees this morning, 73% humidity, no walk (schedule)

Didn’t walk this morning due to schedule.

Sitting on patio, wonderful morning, slight breeze, almost too cool, but still in the “perfect” range.  

Thinking about aging this morning (I try not to think about it too much, but it is there anyway).  I read an article (probably on Facebook) about scams on Senior Citizens and then I realized the article was a scam itself, trying to sell something. 

That started me thinking about how people (including me) tend to stereotype people, especially based on age, as well as other physical  characteristics.  For example the article was assuming that older people wouldn’t see right through their scam, which was so obvious it was laughable.  

I thought this morning about how a person I knew always said they never wanted to ‘get old”.  Of course, “old age” is always defined as older than you currently are!.  I have found that in my 20’s and 30’s, and probably early 40’s anything above  55 and certainly  60 is “old”.  In my late 40’s and 50’s, probably  late sixties become “old”.  Now, I think of “old” as at least the 80’s!  

My thought was that it doesn’t really matter if I appear old (of course I do to someone young), I don’t really “feel” old and certainly don’t think of myself internally as “old” in the sense that many people stereotype it.  

By the same token of “stereotyping”, I try to avoid stereotyping people based on age, whether it a child a teenager, or persons of any age.

I think that is why I get so disgusted when I read articles with broad stereotypes (of any age) that try to stereotype behavior.  Much of the behavior articles say is the norm for certain age groups,  I never observe at all.

As I have observed before, ever since I was a teenager, up to now, I have always observed that I read articles that say I behave or believe a certain way, and my thought has always been that the article is wrong!  Such are the dangers of stereotyping!  

I did do some brief research on the moon, and discovered that the reason I don’t see the moon sometimes (such as the last several weeks) is because it can’t be seen!  I don’t recall the exact reason, but somehow it is behind the sun and so we simply can’t see it.  I need to refine my research on this.  

I have found that the best way to learn something (or to find out you don’t know something very well) is to try to explain what you know!  Obviously I don’t understand about the moon, and why you can’t see it as well as I thought I did!  

Anyway, the moon will be returning to my view again about July 27 (probably there is an exact date and time, these are never “approximate”!  

Start of another workweek, the weekend went fast!  

That’s it for now, Monday, July 23, 2018.