What a BuzzKill

Wow, it’s a new everything!

Life has changed considerably for me since 2011 began. I was laid off in January and then moved in with Dawn a couple of months later.

A little over three months along and everybody seems to have adjusted to all the changes. Rece is in a new school, still struggling with staying on the right path, but otherwise doing well. I’m keeping an eye out for business opportunities – making the best of all the free time I have without the 9-to-5.

Short blog post for now. Maybe I’ll try posting more often again.

_{This entry was originally scribbled in crayon.}

I love my Google Voice service. The tools it provides in managing phone calls and message alerts is incredible, considering it’s a free service. One nice thing that it does is translates voice mail into text, then sends it to me as an email to my Gmail account and as an SMS Text message to my phone (breaking it into multiple texts, if longer than 160 characters).

Every so often I’ll get a message that proves to be a challenge for Google Voice to translate properly. Incidentally, it seems to have this problem with the same people leaving a message. I thought I’d share the latest voice mail-to-text message, as I found it quite perplexing …

“Hey Dave It’s wrong that I hey Canada capacity as money and not And I need everything over into a folder called old email, and I want to gmail. Like mail the on Dot Com and i are tied on my own messages and I just needed all of You know my older contacts in Bernie my old emails women archives front about how it works or whatever, so I’m not sure I would think that maybe I would just check in with you again and it doesn’t look like it’s doing and I sent some test from my work email to my personal email so if you can. 8 call me just definitely yeah. So anyway, I’ll look forward to hearing from you get when you get a chance talk to you soon bye bye.”

I’m not exactly sure, but there seems to be some sort of problem with Canada’s capacity that I need to resolve. I’ll see what I can do to fix that.

_{This entry wants Dave to know that he can’t do that.}

I have to say that there is a heck of a lot of change going on in my life right now. At times it can feel almost overwhelming. Most of it is good, which is nice. You’ll have to settle for this vague post for now. At some point all will be revealed.

_{This entry is shifting daily.}

Well, it appears that I’ve gotten myself involved with too many outlets and not enough time (or inclination) to do them all. So with my 365 days of photos project, my time spent playing LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) with friends, hanging out or talking with friends, and just spending time to myself, I’m finding that some things are falling behind – this blog especially.

One thing that I’m currently having a difficult time in staying focused on is my 365 days of photos project. With the exception of just 2 or 3 days, I’ve been dutifully snapping at least one picture a day and then posting it online on a regular basis. The part that’s sometimes frustrating is that my motivation to do it is sometimes lacking — sometimes for days at a time — and I end up taking some lame picture just to get it over with. Then there are the times when I feel like I’ve been bit by the shutterbug, but due to work or other engagements, I run out of time – or the opportunity passes.

So this post seems to be mostly to whine about having too many fun and interesting things to do and not being able to get to them all. I guess I’ll leave it there.

_{This entry is spinning, spinning, spinning!}

Beware of people who are untrue to their words. Do not put up with dishonesty. Your word should be like iron. Others should come to learn this through your constant example.

Material things are temporary. The old saying “You can’t take it with you” is true. Spending more than you have is inviting disaster and risking enslavement. Save some, spend some, and then enjoy the rest – in that order.

Good friends are extremely hard to come by. You’ll be lucky to find one true friend in your lifetime.

Stand up for yourself, without threatening. A bully will usually back down when they suspect their mark might be more trouble than they thought; they are usually weak in spirit themselves.

Think. Then act. The reverse will get you into more trouble than you’d like.

Laugh! Laugh from the bottoms of your feet, up through your legs, into your gut, and expel it all through your lungs. Be blinded the tears of joy and revel in it.

_{This entry sits in a cave, high up the mountainside.}

Found this photo on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com:

It made me laugh. Lots.

_{This entry likes funny photos.}

One of my friends is a recruiter. She matches people with companies looking to hire someone for a specific role. She forwarded me a funny email exchange she had with somebody who was interested in a medical writer position she had posted.

Applicant:

From: [wannabe medical writer]
Subject: Fw: medical writer

> Hi
>
> Am a health care worker who is also a writer
>
> Have been writing for many years.
>
> Have a post grad degree in pharmacology (Phd)
>
> Have over 700 health related articles
>
Have attached two of my writing samples
>
> Reliable and punctual.
>
>
> [name removed]
>
> below are some medical sites that i have written for.
>
> [links to sites removed]

Her reply:

Dear [wannabe medical writer],

Your message below does not have any complete sentences nor correct punctuation which does not demonstrate to us that you have strong writing abilities.

Best of luck in your search.

Applicant:

u are a first class fool

punctuation, stick it up your arse

This applicant is also quite eloquent, it seems. Needless to say, he’s not going to be considered for the writing position.

_{This entry wants to stick some punctuation up its arse!}

Updates and ramblings …

Nam, the other tech at my office, is on a much-deserved vacation. The week before he left it was rather slow, but it seems that all hell broke loose the day he hopped on the plane. The first few days were a hectic mess of working on multiple projects/problems for clients concurrently. I’m not begrudging him for taking a vacation, but I have been rather swamped for the last week. He  won’t be back until next Tuesday. I may give him a big hug when he walks through the door.

My 365-day photography project is still coming along rather well. I did sorta mess up and failed to take a picture one day – but I did take one about 30 minutes after midnight of the next day (before going to bed) to make up for it. Christine says that it should still count, since my “day” doesn’t typically end until around 12:30 a.m. anyhow. While I see her point, I’m going to try and not repeat the minor infraction.

I still get occasional calls from creditors looking for Melissa Hayes, the person that previously had my work cell phone number. It’s down to just one, maybe two, calls a week. I finally got a live person to pick up on one of the automated messages so I could tell them that it was no longer her number.

A few weekends back I took off to Big Bear by myself. I needed a break from people and felt like clearing my head. It was a much-needed trip and I came back feeling a lot better.

Christine, Sam, and I enjoyed going to the Renaissance Faire not long ago. Sam was the only one of us who dressed up, but we had a good time. I’ll definitely consider dressing up the next time I go to one.

I’m looking forward to this weekend. With as busy as I’ve been – and another 3 days more of it – it’ll be nice to end it with a 3-day weekend.

_{This entry does that … it just keeps talking …}

The owner of our shop finally got around to getting us (his technicians) some mobile phones. This is a good thing, as I am hesitant to give a client my personal number. This proved to be the correct way to go after giving out my number to just 2 clients that ended up calling me on evenings and weekends a few times.

On the very first day I got the phone I received 4 calls. All of them from different collection agencies looking for somebody named Melissa Hayes. I let each one know that this was no longer her number and they said that they’d take the number off their contacts list. Lather, rinse, repeat … It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’ll still get at least one call a day from some new collection company trying to reach Melissa.

The worst of these calls are the robo-callers that just leave a number to call back between certain days/hours. It’s too much of a pain to try to call them while I’m at work so I can tell them that this is no longer her number. I have a few times, but this is just getting ridiculous.

Thankfully, the calls have subsided. If they had continued at their original pace, I would have insisted on getting a new number.

_{This entry doesn’t owe money to anybody!}

The first month of my 365 Days of Photography project has flown by rather quickly. I’ve learned so much and have enjoyed pushing myself. As expected, I wasn’t always feeling inspired or particularly motivated, but I did as promised and took a picture of something every day and posted it to the online gallery.

Here are a few of my favorites from the past month:

Messing around with googly eyes and a chip clip.

Veggin’ out in the kitchen.

OMGWTFizit!?!?

Death of a mannequin.

As you can see, I’ve tried a lot of different ideas. Some of the ideas work out well, some don’t, and some just need more work to get right. Hopefully this becomes easier for me to deal with so I can start writing about things other than this crazy project!

_{This entry wants you to tell it a story.}