Do you think I grew up living under a rock? I must have because I am the biggest loser when it comes to music. When people ask me what I like, I can only thing of something like four bands.
My lady and I merged all our music a few weeks back (now that’s commitment). Together, we have 393 albums. I have probably listened to about 10 of them.
If you remember back, by listening to one of her albums, I was introduced to “Days Of The New.” I have since then fallen in love with them.
Last night, I was cruising the albums and I decided to listen to this guy called Peter Gabriel. Of course I have heard of Peter Gabriel, but I couldn’t tell you the first thing about him more than one day ago. After reading his Wikipedia page and watching about 20 YouTube videos, I am well versed in all things Peter Gabriel.
I am digging this guy. Again, I am well aware of my loserishness.
Hey, guess what guys…I finally read Lord Of The Flies. I know, I think I was suppose to do this back in high school. I wasn’t aware of this, so it didn’t happen.
For my birthday, I received the book. I finished reading it the other night and then decided to watch the movie. That’s how it usually works. Of course, the movie is never as good as the book.
So, here’s my review. Both the movie and the book were just okay. I think the author (William Golding) really had an opportunity to create something much deeper, but perhaps he would have lost his younger audience. Also, there are similarities between The Lord Of The Flies and the show Lost, so I might have expected more.
The book touched on some topics more than the movie did. Also, the movie added a few things that never happened in the book. I’m not sure why, because they weren’t relevant to what was going on.
There were some important events that occurred in the book that just didn’t happen in the movie. I would say the two most important events were the defining of the Lord Of The Flies and how the little mini-civilization degraded so fast. The movie skimmed over the scenes of anything having to do with the pig’s head and how Jack’s group found Ralph and how/why they started to burn the island down. It was disappointing because those were major events.
Overall, I think both the book and the movie left me asking why didn’t this happen and why didn’t that happen, instead of really wondering why something did happen.
I haven’t been getting enough sleep and I am afraid that I am getting dumber because of it.
I am sure you know about my fear of Winter darkness. Well, I don’t exactly fear the lack of light, I fear the short days and the being inside way too much for months on end. I fear it so much that my better half got me one of those “Happy Lights” to help me snap out of it. I’ll tell you, I think it may work.
I thought I would try something different this year. Since the sun is up when I roll out of bed, I thought that I would try getting up at the super duper early time of 7AM to get a jump on the day. I figured that if I can get going earlier than I normally do, the day will seem longer. I even have my own alarm clock on my side of the bed to help me. This has been going on now since the change in daylight saving time. Honestly, it’s been working. Getting up at 7AM makes the day seem a heck of a lot longer. We eat dinner earlier and sometimes, when I look at the clock and think it’s around 10PM, it’s really only 6PM. That’s a little treat.
There’s only one problem. I’m a night owl. I do most of my work at night. I get all of my good ideas at night. I usually roll into bed between 1AM – 2AM. This little habit of mine hasn’t changed. What does this mean? Well, it means that I haven’t been getting enough sleep.
I feel fine. I think things go smoothly throughout the day, but I have noticed strange things happening. For one, I haven’t written here as much as I normally do. I have had so many ideas, but right after I get the idea, I say to myself, “Ah hell, I don’t feel like writing. Let all those other champion bloggers take over for a day or two. They know I’ll be back.” Then, a few days go by and then another few…
I don’t think I have ever forgotten to bring my wallet with me to a store in my life. I just don’t do it. The other day, I had to go to Home Depot and then Wal-Mart for some stuff. I got to Home Depot and had all the items I needed in my hand when I was on my way to the register to check out. All of the sudden, a wave of heat came over me…where was my wallet? It wasn’t on me. I left it at the house. First time in my life. I felt so stupid and I was so mad. While I was in the car, I cursed something awful. My muscles flexed and people feared me. No seriously, I was so upset, not because I didn’t bring my wallet with me, but because I actually let myself forget it. It just wasn’t like me to do something like that.
I have also been forgetting people’s names like crazy. I just did that today twice. It’s getting really annoying and I think all this has to do with a lack of sleep.
We talked about it this evening and decided that we need to be in bed and under the covers by 11PM. Sure, I’ll do my usual reading, but that doesn’t usually last for long before I konk out.
Well folks, that’s what I am going to do. I have two minutes to brush my teeth, wash my hands and comb my hair. Then, off to bed it is. All so I can write more for you. By the way, that little saying is something I got from something my mother crocheted when I was younger. I don’t really comb my hair before bed.
I have been sitting back for some time now, watching and listening to people’s opinions of Facebook. They are wide and varied, but lately, I have been hearing some grumbling. I have heard it from friends and I even heard it on the radio this morning. That’s what prompted me to write today.
For those of you who don’t know what Facebook is, it’s a social networking tool intended to connect you with anyone and everyone from your past, present and future. It’s pretty powerful and pretty awful at the same time.
I am going to give you my experience with this website and let you draw your own conclusions.
A few months ago, I opened a Facebook account. I did this with the intention of placing my blog link on the “Info” page, to drive visitors. You know me, I am always trying to hook new readers. At the time, I had been reading so many articles online about the value of marketing your website, business or service on these social networking websites. I really didn’t think it was a bad idea. Now, being a few months later, I am seeing the value of it, but the good comes with the bad.
A few weeks after opening the account, I began getting friend requests. The friend requests were from people that I completely forgot about in my life. They were from all sorts of nooks and crannies…you know, like from that classmate who moved out of town during nursery school. It was remarkable. I started making friends. As time went on, and I made more and more friends, I started reading these little messages that my new friends would type in their profile. It went something like this – “John Doe’s is rubbing his foot” and “Jane Sue smells something weird in her apartment.” It was cute in the beginning, but then as time went on, I started feeling a little strange about reading things from people who I really didn’t know. I began to realize that I might be going down the wrong path by knowing too much about the guy who moved away when I was three years old. First, it was getting annoying and second, it was a little creepy.
I decided to take action. I logged into my Facebook account one night and decided to delete about 25 of my “friends.” I got rid of the people who I didn’t care for all that much, or never actually talked to in the first place. It was like a weight had been lifted off my chest. My life went on.
A few days later I started complaining to a good friend that I was beginning to feel uneasy about the whole Facebook experience. I knew that I was merely trying to market my websites and that I needed to “network” and gain “friends,” but the little voice in the back of my head started telling me that this whole experience was more difficult on the mind than it was worth.
Let me give you some background about my personality – I like to maintain a low profile. You might think that’s amusing because I write so much on this blog. You might ask, “Jay, if you like to keep a low profile, why do you put yourself out there so much?” I would answer, “Because I like you guys. I also get to choose what goes on here and there isn’t much that I don’t have control over.” Also, if there is someone reading this blog that I’m not necessarily fond of, I don’t know it. If I don’t know it, I don’t care about it.” You see, with Facebook, everyone is right in my face and I don’t like that.
I am fairly satisfied with where I have come in life. I’ll admit that when I re-connect with people who I sat next to in my elementary school lunchroom, it brings me back to the not-so-comfortable days of my existence. I’m sure we’ve all had them. It’s when the white milk cost five cents and the chocolate cost six. Those days were strange and hard to remember, but one thing is for sure, I don’t really want to relive them. One of the things Facebook is really good at is offering you the chance to relive your whole past. Since much of our experiences have to do with old friends and acquaintances, Facebook puts your past front and center.
If there is one thing I like about where I am now is that I put myself here. If I wanted to be back where I used to be, I would put myself there. Since I haven’t, I think I am saying something. I don’t want to relive my past. I would actually like to move on from it and never look back. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great childhood and met many fantastic people along the way, but I think there comes a time in life to move on from those relationships to form new ones. It’s called being mentally healthy. Maybe we should call it the “shedding of time.” It’s been going on for thousands of years and for it to stop now is wrong, in my opinion.
If you are a member of Facebook, you might have had some of the same thoughts. They might not be as prevalent as mine, because I am quite sensitive about these types of things, but they may have popped up from time to time. Admit it…you have winced at the computer screen at least once while seeing someone’s name pop up asking you to be their friend. You may have been tempted to write back telling them that, “No, you don’t wish to become their friend because you were actually hoping to never hear from them again. But thank you for the offer.”
For the past few weeks, I have been threatening to delete my Facebook account. I think it might be time for that to become reality. By dumping this reminder of my entire history, I can move on the way I had been for so many years. I mean seriously, if I wanted to be reminded of my life while growing up, I would go put an offer on the house I grew up in, buy it, put down some shaggy green carpet in my old bedroom and live like I had for 22 years. I think you’ll agree, that’s just not cool.
I do a lot of reading pretty much every day of my life. I run across so many things and sometimes some of these things are interesting.
I know I have mentioned some ideas for writing good blog posts in the past, but I want to share a great post I found on the topic just a few minutes ago. It’s called, “10 ways to get regular content for your website or blog.”
The article has some pretty good ideas in it to keep the ball rolling on your blog, as well as keeping your readers interested in what you are writing about. As we all know, that is very important.
PS – Actually, I was just reading a few more posts on this blog (Content Writing & Copywriting Blog) and I want to give big kudos (one of my corporate jargon words) to its author. There are tons of great ideas over there.
I just wanted to let you know that I have been jotting down ideas for some pretty great blog posts. The only problem is, I believe these are going to be those “long” ones. You know, the ones that take 6 hours to write.
I am fully aware of the winter slowdown with blogging. Trust me, it’s eating me up. I want to write just as much as you want to read (I hope). Unfortunately, these things take time. If they are going to be anywhere near worth reading, I need to get all psyched up for it.
When I got in the car this afternoon after playing tennis, I was surprised to read this coming from the car computer:
“Low tire pressure. Stop carefully. For Run Flat tires with “RSC” symbol, you can continue driving with max. 50mph (80km/h).”
Also, there were a few warnings near the gauges…
2008 BMW X5 3.0 gauges with low tire pressure warning
This caught me a little off guard, because I didn’t think anything was wrong with the tires. They looked fine. I drove a little bit and started to get concerned. After a mile or two, I pulled over and got out to check the tire again. Apparently, the computer was telling me the front, driver’s side was low. I looked at it and gave it a kick. It was fine. I chalked the reading up to the cold weather causing the lower pressure. I guess the computer is quite sensitive.
I drove for a few more miles and made a right into the first gas station I came across. I saw the big “Air” sign, so I pulled over close to the air machine. I hopped out and did my thing…unwound the air hose, pulled off all the air caps and put my 75 cents into the machine (did that go up?). I started to put air into the first tire, when I realized the gauge on the air filler upper thing was broken. Okay, I guess I wasn’t going to be able to check the pressure in the tires. I wound the hose back up, got back in the car and drove way, cursing the gas station. What’s the sense of filling the tires without checking the pressure in them?
For the remainder of the ride, I kept thinking that I should go to the store to get myself one of those small air compressors. I would also need to get an air gauge, because after looking everywhere in the car, I couldn’t find mine.
When I got back to the house, I found my air gauge and checked the tires. The air that I was able to put in the low tire had filled it up just enough and the others were fine. I decided against buying an air compressor because I am trying to be cheap again and I really don’t think I need more stuff. As long as I have my tire gauge, the gas station (working) air machine will be fine.
At this point, in front of me was the task of resetting the tire pressure warning system. I knew it was in the owner’s manual, but I looked online anyway. When I couldn’t find it there, I looked in the owner’s manual. I reset the system and it now works fine.
Since I couldn’t find out how to reset the tire pressure warning system online, I decided to place a snippet of the owner’s manual here for you, just in case you were looking.
I have often said that my life has turned into one big blog post. That’s either really good or really pitiful. Depends on what kind of mood I’m in. I would say that it is good more than not.
You know, it’s not easy waking up every morning thinking of things to write about. It’s a snap during the spring, summer and fall. I mean, during those seasons, I have dozens of things to discuss. I think my record is 7 posts in one day last summer. To me, that’s exciting. To other people, that may be a bit absurd, but still, I think it’s fun.
During the warm months, I am outside all the time, either working or driving around. Flowers are blooming and everything is growing. We start walking in the woods again and we go to all sorts of exciting places.
Just this afternoon, we were discussing all the adventures we would like to have this summer. Laura wants to go whale watching. I keep saying, “What? Whaling?” I give a little chuckle and she belts me one. I really should watch what I say more often. Okay, seriously, we’ll probably go whale watching this summer. I also want to find a cheap canoe on the internet for sale. Either that, or we’ll rent one. Whatever happens, I want to go canoeing too. I just need to find the best spot to go. I sure wish someone would come out and tell me, instead of us driving all around looking. “Hey Jay, go over here. That’s where everyone goes.” That would be nice.
Spring has flowers, summer has lawns, autumn has leaves to write about. What does winter have? I really try to do my best, but sometimes I get “blogger’s block.” I just made that up. Okay, wait a second. I just typed “Blogger’s block” into Yahoo! and a whole bunch of sites came up. What’s with that? I guess I didn’t make it up. If you are battling blogger’s block and want some tips to get over it, you can read here.
One of the things I try to do to get over my block is to go for a walk. That usually loosens my mind up. If I just sat at the computer all day, I would have zero ideas. By getting outside and walking, I look around and do a lot of talking. The things I look at and the conversation I have usually bubbles something to the surface that I can bring inside and share with you. That’s good, but there are still those days…
I have had strange ideas of traveling, simply to write about it. I think of how weird that would be, but then I think a little harder and realize that people do that all day long. It’s called being in the newspaper and magazine business. I am sure I could do it for myself, but if anyone ever held me accountable, I think I would fall apart. I’m no good with creative pressure.
I’ll make you a deal; as long as you keep reading, I’ll keep waking up, thinking of things to write about. If it ever gets really bad and I can’t think of something to write, I’ll start taking suggestions. Until then, hagoone’.
We did it. We really did it. For the first time in our lives, we didn’t exchange Christmas gifts. It was a bold (and more difficult than expected) move, but one that we thought we needed to do.
If you haven’t noticed, the exchanging of Christmas gifts has…well, lost something throughout the years. I notice it more and more as time goes on. Throughout each year, we seem to take quite good care of ourselves, which leaves little to be desired towards the holiday seasons. Instead of falling into the cyclical trap again this year, we decided that it would be best to enjoy a relaxing evening together. No presents, no stress, no guilt. All we wanted was to go someplace nice for a quiet dinner to talk amongst ourselves.
That is exactly what we did.
Last night, I decided to make this one of those really long posts. When I woke up this morning, I felt the same way. There really is so much to write. As I sit now typing away, I think I am going to cut it short. The reason I am going to do this is because I have quite a few pictures, and I don’t really want to dilute my message; the message about our dinner. Perhaps I will discuss our trip through Southbury, Woodbury and Washington another day. I’ll still include the few photos I took of those areas in this post though.
Okay, so we took off around 4PM for our 6PM reservation at the Mayflower Inn in Washington, CT. Washington, CT is probably most famous for the Mayflower Inn and the Gunnery. The Gunnery is a private 9-12 private school and is located across the street from the Mayflower. When I look at the area on Live Maps, I always confuse the two, because of the similar architecture of their main buildings.
The ride was pretty non-eventful getting out of the Hartford area. One thing I did notice was a ski mountain that I never knew existed. It’s right next to where 691 intersects with Interstate 84. I’ll have to find out the name to that one. We made it through Waterbury and got off the Southbury (Rt.6) exit.
Now, this drives Laura absolutely nuts. A long time ago, we drove over to Southbury, CT to check out a motorcycle I thought I wanted to buy. It was dark outside, but the location has been festering in my mind ever since. The area was really nice and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. We drove around a bit last night, but I could tell that I was boring my lady, so I stopped the search. This all happened on our way back, so we were probably more interested in getting one the highway anyway.
Either way, the Southbury, Woodbury, Washington area is really fun to drive through. Woodbury is antique central and offers those great sidewalks that sit back from the road. It’s a great walking town and is truly New England. It sort of reminds me of Ridgefield, CT. Washington is situated so far back in the woods, it actually hard to find. If you are wealthy and privacy is your middle name, Washington is your town.
We have been to Washington many times, but have never taken Washington Road from Woodbury to get there. Let me tell you, it was quite the trip. At one point, I didn’t think the mountain we were climbing would ever end. It doesn’t matter which way you get there (from New Milford, Brookfield, New Preston or Woodbury), you are bound to drive through some pretty tight roads. The darkness of winter doesn’t help much. The good part about the trip is that when you finally arrive, it is usually a pleasant surprise. It never gets old and there is always something new to discover.
We pulled in the parking lot of the Mayflower Inn at about 5:20PM. I snagged a sweet parking spot right up front and we climbed out of the car to head inside. The first thing I did once we got out of the car was to pull out the camera. I took a quick shot of the walkway going up to the spa.
Mayflower Inn walkway
What’s very nice about the Mayflower is the service. I don’t think we have ever been there and haven’t had the front door opened for us. Although, all of the “Hello”s, “Merry Christmas”s and “Can I get you something”s puts me a little on edge. It is really very welcoming, but being the home town boy that I am, I am just used to doing it myself. It’s still hard for me to let anyone do anything for me, even if it is their job.
Since we were a bit early, we decided to head straight for the library. I mentioned my love for the library in one of my previous posts. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I’m sure the fireplace, warm colors and cozy seat below the large window helps. I took a few pictures of it, since I knew you would be just dying to see what I am talking about.
Mayflower Inn library
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My favorite seat - under the window
Me, looking all spiffy
Looking in the library from the porch
Mayflower Inn library
It felt great to relax in there for a little while. The best part was that no one in the entire inn came into the library when we were there, before and after dinner.
After checking out some books for a few minutes, we wandered over to the bar area, where we ordered a Samuel Adams Oatmeal Stout and a Victory Donnybrook Stout. I liked the Outmeal Stout, while Laura enjoyed the Victory Stout. That may have been because those are the ones we chose.
We sat and talked for a while and decided to do a little exploring. We got up and walked out to the porch. It’s a bit odd walking around on a completely heated porch in the middle of winter, but really cool at the same time. The inn encased the entire porch in double paned glass to keep it heated and cooled year round. There were tables and chairs set up for the entire span.
Mayflower Inn porch
Mayflower Inn porch
After we wandered around for a little while, I decided to go back up front to grab a few quick shots. Dinner was about to begin, so I had to put the camera away. Here is what I got.
Mayflower Inn lobby, staircase and Christmas tree
Room leading to the library
Mayflower Inn staircase and Christmas tree
Sitting and relaxing room
Okay, I got that out of the way, so we were ready for dinner. We walked in the to main dining room and sat at our usual table. It’s the one in the right, rear corner. During the day, you can look out the window at the garden. At night time, you face the seats so you are looking at the rest of the dining room.
I am not going to say much about dinner, except the fact that it was delicious. The only complaint that I had is that I couldn’t have another…everything. The dessert was especially annoying to finish. I kept scraping the plate with my spoon in an effort to get every last bit. It was good. It’s rare to find food that good, it really is.
About an hour and a half later, we left the dinging room to head back to the library. Once we got back in, Laura spent her time browsing the walls for some good books to flip through. My eyes kept wandering around to see how the fireplace worked and how everything was put together. At one point, I picked up a few books myself. I found a set of really neat books called, “The Historians’ History of the World.” These books were very thick and very ancient. By ancient, I mean 100 years, not a million. I decided that someone should buy me the set of these; they looked very interesting. It would make for some good bed-time reading.
If you’ll notice, I didn’t drink a glass of Scotch. That might be because I haven’t found my flavor yet or because I didn’t want to smell like a bottle of liquor while driving down the road. Either are good excuses.
After a while, we decided it was time to head up to Washington and take a little tour. We got in the car and made a right out of the parking lot. We made it to the top of the hill and didn’t see a soul. It’s a very quiet and well behaved town on Christmas night, I suppose. We made a quick left, when I thought we should turn around. As I was turning, I looked to my left and saw an enormous church. I had to take a picture of it, so you would see what I am talking about.
The First Congregational Church, Washington, CT
Now, this is a serious church. They aren’t messing around. This is like the “center of town” church. I thought it looked really cool, especially being that is was Christmas night.
We continued down the hill to pass the entrance to the Gunnery…
The Gunnery, Washington, CT
After that, we made a few wrong turns, but eventually made it back out to the main road.
I’m almost done, but there is one other photo I took that is pretty neat. On the way back, we passed by the Woodbury Ski Area. Now, you know me and I can’t pass up an opportunity to take a picture of something so lit up as this. Here is a shot of some night time skiing.
Woodbury Ski Area
Well, there aren’t many people skiing, but I am sure you can imagine what it would be like if there was.
That’s my Chirstmas post. I hope you liked it as much as we liked living it. Till next time…
The notice is that I am currently working on a post that will completely wrap you up and make you wonder about a pretty strange incident that happened to me a few days ago. While I can’t get into it right now, let me just tell you that my phone will be ringing the minute you finish reading. Actually, I would be surprised if you were able to keep your jaw from hanging while you are making your way through what I am in the middle of writing.
