We’ve been in super-hunker-down-and-deliver mode here at the office the last couple of weeks but thought I’d at least throw out a few things that have pulled our attention for a moment or two.
While most of the news media is wrapped up in whether or not North Korea can fire accurate missiles more than 30 yards, I’m more intrigued with the fact that the women are encouraged by the state to choose from one of the 18 officially sanctioned hairstyles. Shown below in a display on the wall of a salon in the capital. I’m trying to decide between 6 and 7 below for my lovely bride:
I’m not a huge thrill-seeker type of person but I do enjoy cringing and watching other nutso’s do their thing. There’s so many in the YouTube channel of Devin Graham to choose from that narrowing them down to post here was a challenge. The first video below is something I’ll never do. The second is one that I am considering starting a Kickstarter for my birthday just to be able to purchase one of these incredible machines by summer.
With a little one who just turned 3, it’s a constant theme around our place to make sure that he’s not too preoccupied with playing and help him to remember to swing by the potty every now and again. He’s definitely getting better and accidents are now fewer and further between, thankfully.
Sadly, I see myself trending in the other direction for the foreseeable future. Nope, not having issues with forgetting to go but after an unfortunate incident yesterday here at the office, I’m putting it all on hold.
Our office is great. We have two bathrooms, each being single-occupant facilities – always clean, a sink to wash up, and lockable doors. Perfect situation for a guy with PPS.
Prior to heading out for a lunch meeting yesterday, I scuttled upstairs to handle my business quickly. The restroom doors are normally closed in our office, this particular incident was no different. As per my norm, I went with the restroom on the left and quickly realized the handle was locked. No issue, happened before, just a quick spin around and the door directly across the hall; a change of scenery this time around. Grabbed the handle, gave it a turn down and proceeded to take my first step.
It was at this moment – the moment where the door was ajar about forty percent – where I realized that all things were not kosher. It happens, sometimes you find yourself making your way into a previously used restroom only to find that the previous tenant must be reliving a rough night of Mexican food or Indian cuisine. It’s by no means enjoyable but alas, understandable. Unfortunately this was not my fate.
Instead of haphazardly entering the remnant of a previous visitor (which at this moment seems like a dream situation), I stumbled right into the previous visitor herself. Seated. In her glory given by God and her trousers from her pantsuit around her ankles. An image now so firmly burned into my mind that a third degree burn looks like fun.
With the grace of Fred Astaire, I politely apologized, closed the door, walked briskly back down the stairs, and explained to Ryan how we would probably need to be spending the rest of the afternoon looking for new office space.
After re-enacting this situation in my mind more times than I’d like, I think I’ve convinced myself that I’m not to blame here. Yes, I failed to make the common sense and courteous move of knocking but the key element missed here – and probably my favorite feature about our shared restrooms – is that the lockable door was in fact, not locked. Sadly, even though I’ve absolved myself from the blame, I’m pretty sure I’m as embarrassed as the not-so-young administrative assistant upstairs.
Furthermore, it has left me in a situation where I’m at my desk at 11:20AM and have yet to venture upstairs to even try again. I am now holding it. Hoping that I don’t do damage to my internal organs by waiting until I make it home for lunch.
So, Keegan, if this gets archived and you someday find yourself with the opportunity to read it – don’t hold it. It hurts, it probably does long term damage, and it puts you at risk of embarrassing yourself when you have to make a walk anywhere with wet pants. Instead, use the knuckles God gave you to knock on that door every time. If nothing else, It’ll save you having to up your rent for a new office location.
There’s quite the discussion about link-style posts such as these on blogs these days. I don’t have a whole lot to contribute other than the fact that my blog is focused on and around things that interest me. If, like this style of post, are links that I am currently digging or find interesting, I don’t have a problem sharing them. I’ve seen arguments about longevity and posts such as these how they don’t get the traffic over the long haul or bring crazy amounts of search results but that’s not necessarily what my personal blog is for. Sure, having more visitors is nice, but it wouldn’t be that hard to ramp up traffic by just writing about a few specific topics to garner it. The problem is, is that at that point I’ve flipped the script and write/post for you (or whatever audience I’m chasing) instead of me, no thanks.
Chris has moved his link sharing to Twitter and other social media outlets which is great. I have no way of knowing this for sure, but my gut feeling is that my Twitter audience and my audience here aren’t quite the same. When I share links on Twitter that I don’t share here, often times it’s because I feel they’re poignant for that audience. Inversely, there are links I see on Twitter that I’m not sure my audience here has been exposed to yet; I like having the ability to craft and share those and support with context or application as needed.
I’ve got some 500+ posts worth history here and much of the old stuff doesn’t get touched. I’m okay with that. By writing/posting stuff that I’m currently into, it’s created – if nothing else – a place where I can go back and see where I was at certain periods of time; yes, even the link posts. It helps me to see how my interests have changed and hopefully how I’ve grown over time; to me, that’s much more important than some long-tail search traffic.
In short, do what you feel works best for you and your goals. I love the fact that we’ve all got tools to self-publish and we all utilize them differently. If all of us were Gruber’s then there’d be no fresh content to share. If all of us were long-form writers and there were no Kottke’s or Gruber’s, I’m guessing we’d all have a very limited exposure to what everyone else is doing or writing.
Everybody seems to have an opinion on Lance Armstrong this week so I figured I’d throw mine around as well. Here are the following random thoughts I’ve had in the last week or so surrounding the news of his confession. Nothing ground-breaking and in no particular order:
We’re currently a society obsessed with a man who rode a bike for a living. Let that sink in for a second. Now take a step back and remember where it should rank in the grand scheme of things.
We should know this by now but we are a society who loves to build up, tear down, and then build up again [see: Woods, Tiger]. Currently Lance is in tear down mode and after the interview is posted on Thursday, we will begin the process of allowing him to climb to darling-status once again.
Lance was a dummy for taking performance enhancing drugs. Lance was not alone in this endeavor; we turned a blind eye to this fact throughout the entire heyday of this sport. The lives of those who took them will probably be shortened because of it, and if they’re not, there’s a good chance they end up in a situation where they wish it would have been.
You are a dummy if you allowed yourself or your kids to idolize a guy because he could ride a bike really fast for really long distances. Enjoying sports and rooting for athletes is all good & fun but make sure you teach them to value better things.
If Lance has lost any money in this whole banana parade*, it won’t be long until he makes it back. He will write a tell all book and sadly many of you will buy it.
So there you have it, a brain dump of five things that have gone through my head most likely while I was showering. That’s potentially creepy and unnecessary knowledge but at least you know I’m back to showering.
*I just coined and trademarked the term banana parade. I have no idea what it means but it makes me giggle when I think about what it would actually look like. Feel free to use as needed.
