Tag: 2021

December 30, 2021 – Bon Voyage 2021

December 30, 2021 /

Tomorrow is a holiday for me so this is the last post in 2021 and then we will be on to the new year.  As always, there are many things planned for the holiday and the weekend.  I mean this when I say that I am looking forward to getting into the new year and then things start settling down quite a bit.

I have already written about the year in review and my Festivus airing of grievances so I am not going to rehash all of that again.  But, I think it is always good to spend some time reflecting.  In many ways, I think 2021 was more difficult that 2020.  Yes, 2020 was crazy but it was also a new kind of crazy whereas 2021 was the same shit, different year.

I think one of the differences for me was my work situation.  Since I was very driven in 2020 to remodel the apartment, I was hyper focused on that project sun up to sundown.  Driving for Amazon, I had to concentrate on my surroundings, my driving and planning my next steps as well.  For example, I couldn’t really listen to my podcasts while I was delivering because I wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying.  I tried, but it just didn’t work.

This last year, I have spent most of the working days behind a desk, where my mind wanders at times.  I think about what I want to make for dinner, what my project plans should be next, what do I want to write about for the week, how many chapters do I have to read in a week to keep up with my reviews, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate that kind of luxury, but I think it is kind of like being an addict.  You are kind of anticipating your next hit (I mean until work is over so I start on that project).  That mental mindset is different than you are not punching out until all of you packages are delivered.

People that know me, know that I am not emotional.  My wife on the other hand is.  We are yin and yang.  This has been a very difficult year for her, and by proxy myself as well.  There have been times of spontaneous tears, shouting matches as primary caretaker and patient, extended trips away from home.  I have had to play the role of peacemaker and lighthouse as well as Mr. Mom.  I suppose that is assuming the consequences of assuming the role of Patriarch for that half of the family.

Speaking of Mr. Mom, having teenagers has some benefits and a lot of drawbacks.  With all the time that they spent at home last year, they lost a lot of discipline.  Everywhere they are is a mess, meal time is literally almost anytime of the day and their personalities are driving me crazy sometimes.  One child is vegan every other month and the other picks and eats all the meat out of leftovers.  One child leaves for school at 7AM and returns at 8PM, the other selectively turns in assignments.  Neither feed and care for the animals or perform chores adequately or without prompting.  This causes friction with my wife and me as well as the kids.

I am not saying the calendar changing does anything about any of this.  It does allow me to reflect on what I want to change.  I want to be careful, this is a path that can lead back to where I was a few years ago, marching through time not with passion but because you don’t know how to get off the wheel.  It has the sights of deja vu, only I have been down this road before.  

The next logical step is to decide and make those changes.  This is where I get stuck a bit.  I am pretty good a laying out options, but moving forward is more difficult.  I suppose that it is more like you already know that you don’t like the choices so doing nothing is the easiest.  At least you know the downsides already. 

I think about some of the most radical changes that have occurred in my life, many of them were done without a lot of thought.  For instance, when I moved to South Carolina.  The truth is, I really didn’t want to do it.  I was happy with what I was doing and had only been in our house less than two years.  But, when the opportunity came up, I didn’t say no and everything just happened.  In retrospect, that was one of the best opportunities that I could have ever accepted.  There was so much learning and growing that came from it that if I would have stuck to my instincts would have never happened.

If ever there was a personality trait that I wish I had, I wish that I had to ability to know what I wanted and be decisive.  In contrast, I suppose I have the same type of discipline that makes a good scientist.  I want to collect all of the data, then analyze it and finally make a conclusion that the data supports.  What do you do when the data is inconclusive?  You perform more experiments until a clear analysis is possible.  Life definitely isn’t a well defined experiment with finite outcomes, so I am still collecting data.

Looking back to my first post of this year and my goalsetting, I accomplished none of these things.  The truth is, those are the logical steps to move this endeavor from a hobby to a business.  But, the real question is why didn’t I do any of those things?  I can make up excuses like I was working but the real truth is I didn’t want to.  To be brutally honest, I was lazy and didn’t want to put in the extra work that was required to do all of the small things to accomplish the larger goal.  I wanted to spend my extra time building my office, reading 1984 and writing my daily posts rather than I did working on a business plan.

I would liken it to my process oriented brain.  It is very easy for me to see the endpoint and make up all of the logical steps in between.  What is not as easy is to impart the intangible discipline to do it, primarily driven by desire.  Does that make me a loser who wants to live in misery?  A little bit because there is only so much whining people will tolerate from someone that appears chronically unhappy and it seems to be their own doing, especially when they don’t follow their own plan. 

To stave that off, it is up to me to figure out the motivations and do something different with my situation.  For instance, maybe I should spend my time writing a book rather than this blog?  Or maybe I should stop writing for a while and really figure out if podcasting is what I would rather do?  Or maybe I should narrow the focus of this and stick to one subject to build a targeted audience rather than my daily whatever is top of mind? Or maybe I should keep this as it is because I enjoy it and stop trying to wish I was an entrepreneur type of personality?

End Your Programming Routine: I think it is OK to not know what the future looks like as long as you are aware that is the case.  The lucky few know what they want and are doing it.  The rest of us know that something isn’t quite right. I want to be in the subset that keeps looking rather than accepting this is all there is.  That being said, I am going to make some changes in 2022, just not sure what that is going to be yet.  I am checking off 2021 and wish you a happy new year.

December 22, 2021 – We Are On the Upswing

December 22, 2021 /

Yesterday was one of the days I anticipate starting about the first of November.  Since it was the Winter Solstice, all the days from here to mid June start to get longer.  I say this because this is a mental as well as physical transition point.  It is the wrapping up of the previous year and looking forward to starting the new one. 

At the 45th parallel, sunrise is 7:48a and sunset is 4:34p . That means we have a little over eight hours of daylight.  I noticed it acutely last year when I was delivering packages for Amazon when daylight was precious and made a huge difference in productivity.  Of course, I notice it now because I am alive and observant.  I will say that I start work around 5AM most days so I still get a couple hours of daylight most days that seem to make a big difference on feeling like it is dark all the time.

I thought I would take a look at the year that was and look ahead to the year that is coming today.  There were probably two themes within my control that dominated the year, those were restarting my career and basement cleanup.  Those two things seemed to go hand in hand as I built my office in the mess of the basement.  As I end the year, the cleanup job is finally done.

Ironically, I think the death of my father-in-law and the estate clean-up as much as it interfered with what I wanted to do, it also helped.  The cold, binary function of keep/toss was just a task.  Loads to be donated and to the dump were combined and executed.  

As the rains come each winter, I often haphazardly move items around to get them off of the floor.  That behavior often leaves things more disorganized than they were before I started, protecting my junk.  This year, I had one small area that I finished last week to make room on my bench so I could wrap presents.  Now, the basement is as organized as it will be and protected from the flooding that is possible each year.

I talked a lot about my office build throughout the year.  I still have things that I want to do but for all intents and purposes, that is done.  So, that was two major things that I accomplished this year. 

I did have other plans before my new employment, like I was going to build a wine cellar space in the basement.  I wanted to build a front yard garden, that never got started.  I wanted to spend more time developing this platform and a business plan, that never happened.  I only got a fraction of the range time, hunting, fishing and outdoors time that I wanted.  Those were some of the things that I thought I was going to do, but didn’t like build a new table for the kitchen area which is now a TV lounging area.

Looking forward to next year, there are things that will carry forward.  I think the wine cellar and front yard garden of some sort are some of them.   For sure, I am going to spend time exploring podcasting.  Part of my audio insert yesterday was getting started with that. 

New and easier things… I want to build the sofa table for my office so that I can move the stereo back into the office.  I want to brew some beer and optimize the keezer for fun.  I have a chainsaw that I want to get running and then get rid of.  I have more antenna designs and testing that I want to explore.  

End Your Programming Routine:  I heard a very insightful comment last week.  That was, the danger with a roadmap is that people take it as a promise with a due date.  I do believe that publicly stating is a form of accountability.  I did a great job of stating goals last year, but a poor job of following through.  Goals and purpose change, at least my life did last year.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t want this to be a growing concern, but I need to find my own way through it.  

January 4, 2021- AltF4.co Looking Forward

January 4, 2021 /

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I know that I look forward to getting back to the business as usual and that starts today. For us anyway, school starts again tomorrow and my wife is back at work.

There is a lot said about New Years and resolutions. It seems like a thing that people kind of do half-heartedly. I remember reading a newspaper story one time that said something like 50 percent of smokers set quitting as a New Year’s resolution. Of those, ten percent succeed.

This is not a commentary on the validity of peoples desires but I go back to my short series in November with the comment “You have to Want It”. Setting meaningful goals requires effort. It also requires a methodology to succeed. We can call them resolutions if you like, but for the last five years I have set yearly goals in January.

Here is a tip, set goals that you think you can achieve. Also, look for activities that will make you feel good at the same time. For instance, I like to set (rifle) range goals and then I plan out each month. Last year was an abysmal on my success rate because I only got to the range three times instead of the twelve that I would have liked.

My strategy is to pick one personal item, one business item and one hobby item. If the particular item can be done in less than a year, I set more until the year is filled up. Here are some examples of goal that I set in in the past.

  • Learn to reload cartridges
    • Month 1, pick a recipe, watch YouTube videos, read the manual
    • Month 2a, shop and buy components
    • Month 2b, clean and prep brass
    • Month 3, make first cartridges
    • Month 4, test fire at the range

All of that could have probably been done in one week. But by spreading the work out it sort of extends the fun and makes it less likely that it will get dropped by interruption in the one week sprint to do something. For instance, when I started building the reloading bench, I spent a heavy week in the shop only to have the cat have kittens in the shop and it took two years for me to get restarted on that project. When I got back into the work, it probably took me another heavy week to complete. Meanwhile I was moving wood out of the way for years.

Since I was off all of last week, I really didn’t spend the time to formalize my goals yet this year. That is part of what I am doing now. I would have to say that this is a go-no go year for AltF4.co. As much as I enjoy doing this, it takes up to three hours a day to write. That is time that I may or may not have when I have inevitable re-employment. It is sad to say, that I wanted this to be my job but as of now, it makes no money. As much as I like writing, I also like working in the yard and the shop, my son has a car that he would like help with, I like to hunt and fish and all that takes time.

Here are my goals for 2021

  • Q1 – Solidify branding and develop a marketing plan for AltF4.co
  • Q2 – Develop and implement a membership program
  • Q3 – Replace at least one blog post with a podcast a week
  • Q4 – Generate positive revenue

My goals for 2020 were a little less structured.

  • Practice posting routinely, determine if I wanted or liked that sort of commitment.
  • Move from free WordPress to my own domain
  • Don’t get stuck in the Toolbox fallacy

Accountability is part of being successful at goal-setting as well. You guys will be able to see my progress as well as I can throughout this year and then you will be able to judge whether I am going to make it or not. In the end, I may just decide to throw it all out and keep doing things the way I do them because I like it. But then of course, I won’t make this my profession.

A real forward looking and self-aware person knows that failure is part of success. Failure allows us to reassess our skills and desires into the most productive and happy person that we can be. I have to admit, that I thought that I would get traction quicker than I have, that was more about naivete than anything. One of these days I am going to figure it out.