Making It Up As I Go Along #696

Read an article, this week, that questioned the long term viability of Facebook.  I’ve always been torn about Facebook.  I keep up with some people primarily through it.  But I must admit that there was a touch of excitement within me to think of Facebook’s demise.  The only thing I’d miss about the platform is the dozens of photo albums I have on there.  All those pictures are saved elsewhere as well.  But they’re neat and tidy and easy to share sitting there on my profile.

Everything else? Burn it to the ground.  I’d much prefer to keep up with friends goings on via email.  It’s personal.  It’s advertisement free.  It’s more or less secure.  Facebook is a community newspaper of advertising.  Maybe, within the thirty pages of community paper analogy, by page sixteen I see something interesting about someone I care to know about.  But from pages one through fifteen, I’ve been flipping through suggested purchases, fictional news and pictures of dinner plates.

I’ve already almost completely ditched Instagram.  Yes it’s still on my devices.  But I go weeks… sometimes months… without looking at it.  For me, Instagram died when they removed your ability to simply view the things you follow chronologically.  I don’t need some algorithm deciding for me that I’d rather see someone’s selfie from three weeks ago before seeing what someone shared an hour ago.

Snapchat? Please.  I don’t need to add bunny ears or a dog nose to my picture.  Nor do I have any interest to see someone else do it to there’s

Twitter gets a bad name.  And it amazes me that news organizations are quoting world leader’s tweets.  But I find Twitter can become what you want it to be.  If someone is posting too much about something that doesn’t interest you, unfollow them and it goes away.  And if you search out and find interesting and smart people, your twitter feed becomes interesting and smart.  Or if you suddenly see several people tweeting about the same thing, you get a good hint to go google what they’re talking about and you can find all kinds of stories about it.

That all said, I’m often tempted to subscribe and pay for my news.  I’ve already done it with sports… subscribing to the Athletic.  I get commercial free articles from people who know what they’re talking about.  Now I think about doing it for news.  Facebook can’t be trusted to give you an actual view of the real world.  And news websites are usually bombarded with advertising.

Who knows, I may end up buying newspapers at this rate.  The internet is the greatest invention of my time, and here I’m considering going back to newspapers.  It’s a shame that the greatest invention of my time has been wasted on self indulgence and personal point of view spin.

I guess what it boils down to is I need to read more.  It’s a strange world I live in from a reading point of view.  I have many books currently sitting in my house, or on my iPad, all ready to read.  I want to read each of them and am interested in what they’ll say.  But I have very little reading time in my typical week.  It’s largely the fault of shift work.  My four days of working, there’s no time to read.  I’m at work for twelve hours, in bed asleep… or trying to sleep… for another six to eight hours.  That leaves me with four to six hours for driving to and from work, eating, and just relaxing.  Then, for my four days off, I’m too foggy to read and retain anything on day one.  And my focus is more about trying to get outside hiking or snowshoeing while also doing errands or work around the house during the other three days.  Plus there’s the new curse of the memory foam mattress.  Over the last several weeks, it’s not uncommon for me to be in bed either sleeping or being very lazy on the iPad for ten to twelve hours of my days off.

The answer will have to be scheduled reading days.  Maybe my third day off will be a minimal TV day.  Something like that, where I know I am not to go get distracted by other things.  I’m also looking forward to taking some time off in February.  It’ll be nothing time off.  No work needing to get done around the house.  No hopping a plane to someplace else.  Just twelve days of battery resetting.  Puzzles… snowshoeing… reading… all free to do for a while in the middle of winter.  Who knows… maybe I’ll have newspapers to sift through then too.

Making It Up As I Go Along #695

Times are busy and tiring.  Working alone for a few blocks and catching up on sleep during my days off.  Two of my last four days off, I was in bed for between 11 and 12 hours.  Not asleep for the entire time.  But likely sleeping 7-9 hours and surfing the ipad for the rest of the time.

Second snowshoe of the season is under my belt.  It was better than the first from a fitness point of view.  Was out for an hour rather than forty minutes and able to go harder at it.  Likely went twice the distance in that extra twenty minutes of time.  The type of snow helped too.  First time out was soft and fluffy and, despite having snowshoes on, I sank halfway up my shins.  Today, the snow was harder.  For most of the time, I sank no further than ankle deep.

The nice thing about nature in the winter.  You are more able to get hints of the animals than in summer.  Wasp and bird’s nests appear from their leafy hiding.  Mouse and vole tracks can be seen in their little territories of shrubs and ground.  Coyote and fox patrol routes come into view.  You’re left with a real hint of their lives… even when they are out of sight.

For the first time, I was able to view a beaver from my front window.  Looked out one day this week and saw the beaver on the edge of the nearest pond.  Even got an ok shot of him with the camera zoom lens.  He climbs up the bank at night and grabs a small tree from the edge of the forest.  Then slides back down to the hole he’s made in the ice and pulls the sapling down under with him.  Good ol’ Beaver.


What Will They Think?
What will they think in vole town?
To pop out of their crisp grass burrows
And see their interrupted pathways.

The soft network of voley footprints
Barely disturbing the softly fallen fluff.
Now invaded by the crunch of snowshoes.

My giant stomps cratering the virgin white
As a four lane highway
Blasting across their peaceful country path.

I turn back to examine their tracks.
Seeing how they lead this way and that.
But always returning to that small gap in the brown field grass.

Like a cowardly parking lot dinger of doors,
I decide to scurry away before they come out.
Hoping they won’t notice the paradise damage
Until I’m miles away.

Making It Up As I Go Along #694

Another long layoff from the blog.  Lots of goings on that distracted from the writing habit… or left me too tired to want to try.

The first Christmas ever with the seven closest family members.  The last time Edena and family were included in Christmas, Claire (about to turn 19) was not yet born.

It was a nice time but frigid cold during the sister’s visit.  Not a great deal going on outside with temperatures pretty well staying at or below -20.  Many days had a windchill below -30.

Mom and dad’s condo is finally under control and feels like a home.  It’s nice having them nearby.  There’s quite a difference between visits and meals with family when you live in the same place as compared to week or two long visits.  The visits are never leaving room for ordinary life.  Everything is a scheduled event fit in to the timeline of the visit.  This is more casual and natural.  Perhaps Edena and Duff will have to retire east one of these days.

I’m not sure where to put the snow.  December was both cold and snowy and my driveway is already bursting at the seems with snow clearing.  My lawn is already a four foot mound of snow and we still haven’t gotten half way through January.  With 30 to 40 cm of snow due this weekend, I’m actually wondering if I’ll have to leave the car out of the garage and no longer worry about clearing the snow from in front of there.  I’ve never had to consider this kind of thing in the six years I’ve been living here.  I guess we’ll see.

You know you’re getting tired of the constant fight and insults of social media when your two favourite twitter feeds are one that shows images of the covers of space Lego sets from the 1970s to 1990s… and, a bear.  That’s right, I follow a bear on twitter.  And the space Lego memories often bring a smile to my face.

Mom and dad have a great view of nature from their condo.  A large cedar bush wall sits outside their windows.  Juncos, chickadees, a pair of cardinals and three rabbits all call the area home.  They’ve got a 55 inch 4K TV in the living room, and I’m often back on to it hoping to get a good look at a cardinal… or watching the goings on of the rabbit clan.

With that, it’s time to catch up on the other thing I’ve done much less of lately… going out for a walk in the woods.  Perhaps this will be the first time with the snowshoes this year.  Time to explore wildlife tracks in the snow.  Rabbits, coyotes, birds, squirrels and smaller rodents… I should be able to get a glimpse of their daily activity.  The great benefit of lots of snow.