Tag Archives: blogging

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Data Transfer (aka brain dump)

morning infusion

7:35am – 07 Feb 23

Greetings all, I hope this reading finds you well. This is my first blog post for 2023 and, while I have nothing specific to blog about, it’s one of those occasions where I just felt the need to post a brain dump of sorts.

It’s my second of two scheduled work from home days and I like to get up and relax, with some tea, in the quiet of my home before the workday has to get started. I was perusing Reddit after taking out the trash this morning (as it is Tuesday) and happen to come across a post in the r/fieldrecording subreddit that described a user’s website that caters to the sounds and soundscapes he’s recorded, globally, over the last 6 years (or more). What caught me eye about the site (which should be the approach for a well designed sites) is capturing the viewer’s attention, prompting them to stay as long as possible. By the way, the site is Mindful Audio. I got interested in field recording a few years ago and, after some research, picked up an entry-level Tascam DR-07X. For the type of field recording I do (which is no where near a professional level), it’s served me well so far, allowing me to add a nice sound effects to my library, especially foley that may be useful for original music composition for film (it’s still referred to as film today, right?) In any event, it was actually the presentation (and listening to a few of sound libraries) of the Mindful Audio site that urged me to post this blog.

As for the day job, things are starting to get a little busier as opposed the workload in the last quarter of 2022. I’m pretty much splitting my time between work on two NASA planetary missions and the biggest thing is to manage my time and maintain focus on the work needing to be produced on schedule. I won’t make it any more complicated than that. Working from home is massively convenient (I don’t miss the commute of 45 to 60 min one way), but at the same time, provides more distraction. I make it habit to review a collection of visual productivity quotes I’ve collected via IG posts of the years and it does help. The main thing I know needs to be done is to exercise discipline and consistency like I exercise my body – discipline is a muscle too.

On the tech side of things, how about that ChatGPT? Definitely the massive buzzword in 2023. I’ve read my fair share of articles, but just like DALL-E(?), Lensa AI, and the like, I have no desire to use it. There is no doubt that it is an invaluable tool, even in it’s infancy stages, but I prefer to sit back and quietly watch its development. I’m back to my Python coding journey and the goal is to complete Round 3 of the #100DaysOfCode challenge. That primarily involves finishing the remaining chapters I’ve chosen in the Python Crash Course, Volume 1 text (yes, Volume 3 is now out, but the differences don’t warrant me jumping to it until I get a good grip on the basics taught in Volume 1).

Lastly, Twitter. I mentioned to another long time friend, tech/podcasting brother, DarrenKeith, that Twitter seems far less “Musk-ified” these days, BUT, that could only be because of the paths/actions I take (which provide avoidance of certain things). I kind of new, all along, that Twitter wasn’t going to crash and burn, despite the initial doomsday posts about such and seemingly massive exodus to Mastodon. I did establish an account there just in case, but haven’t been back to visit for quite some time, mostly likely because my tweets are crossposted there via a tool suggested by fellow blogger and Twitter maven, Clay Lowe.

In any event, time to begin transitioning into the workday. Thanks for reading, I hope your day (or whenever you’re reading this) is all you need it to be.

oceans of rhythm,

Fresh!

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30 of 30 straight days: blogposts

Well, the challenge has been met. Thirty days. thirty blogposts – done. I knew it wasn’t going to be a difficult challenge. If you go back to my first post of this challenge on November 14th, you can read about the origins of this challenge and how it started on a whim via a discussion between Clay Lowe, DarrenKeith, and myself. So, what have I learned by reaching this challenge goal?

Two days ago on December 9, I published a post about accepting challenges and how I look at the ROI to determine whether going through with the challenge is worthwhile. I summed it up by just that, the ROI is a very important gauge to assess as a catalyst in moving forward. As mentioned in the November 14th post, I’ve been blogging officially since 2007, and it’s been pleasurable when I have. After 15 years, the blogging scene has changed a lot.from monetization purposes to more of a huge push in audience growing (the latter always being a desire to any blogger), but it just seems like it’s become more commercialized (like podcasting).

What I have seen, is that I’ve never pushed to grow my blog reading audience as it’s always just been a pastime to engage in self-publishing from my own digital garden (as DarrenKeith says). With that comes a circling back to audience growth. If growth is what you want, especially from your own platform where you make the rules and are not subject to algorithms and the like, you have to put in the work to increase reader. This is where the ROI comes in for me. Theres not one person I know that doesn’t enjoy readers engaging with the content they publish, but when you do publish from your own space, it’s imperative that you put in the work to, at least, increase the reach of your blog to the masses. The easiest (read most convenient) way to do this is to crosspost your post links to the huge social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, IG, TikTok, etc. Once that occurs, you’ve done just that BUT that doesn’t guarantee engagement (comments) on your post. Perhaps another way to achieve that is blog on sites like Medium or Tumblr but, again, the work needs to be put in.

My takeaway based on my ROI for this challenge, is this: reaching the goal of this challenge will NOT cause to blog on a regular basis because the desire is not grow readership based on the work it will take to do so. Conversely, I’ll just go back to enjoying the desire to blog when the whim hits me and engage with anyone who chooses to leave a comment or comments. I like it that way,

For those who have commented on any of my posts during this challenge, I highly appreciate you sharing your thoughts on my topics. Thank you!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Fresh.

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30 Day Blog Challenge: 14 Nov – 14 Dec 2022

Greetings all.

I hope this post finds you well. Recently, via Twitter, a discussion ensued between me, Soulcruzer, and Darrenkeith, about our long love for blogging. The discussion started after DarrenKeith posted a recent blog and mentioned how much he enjoys blogging occasionally. The three of us have been blogging for quite some time, in various capacities.

My blogging started prior to me joining the microblogging platform we know very well as Twitter. I first began posting daily entries regarding my used of the Apple Newton MessagePad PDA back in 2001, on a website I hard-coded in HTML that was hosted on Geocities (talk about a throwback). Thanks to the good folks in the Newton MessagePad community it is now archived at the United Network of Newton Archives. My site, Newtonium-62: The Newton Messagepad Nanospace v1.1, can be found here, with a link to the blog, here.

After that pretty much folded, I started “officially” blogging back in 2007 when I purchased my first and most active domain, Vibes & Scribes (named after the prolific album by Incognito, Tribes, Vibes, and Scribes). The intent of this blog was twofold – daily postings of my musings and song/album reviews, the latter of which never really took off because of the work involved. Later on, the site also became home to my podcast, The Sunday Soundtrack.

As Darrenkeith and I often speak of, blogging is something that was never really commercialized for a very long time, it was more of your own space, your own digitally walled garden to do with what you please, without being subject to the rules and regulations of a social media site you signed up to. Once again, monetizing blogging was never a thing when we started back in the mid-to-late 2000s but, as we know, it has shifted to that and then some. This is obviously the same path podcasting has taken, which is a discussion for another blogpost.

As Darrenkeith says, I still enjoy self-publishing without rules and constraints…it’s liberating and I can change the facade of what I bring at whim, so it’s nice. Of course, everyone would like an audience but to obtain a regular one, it takes work, work meaning pushing your blogpost to larger platform mediums, using word of mouth, etc. It’s really no different than any social media content creation today. Therein lies the whole story in 2022.

I have tons of posts dating back to 2008 here, I hope that you take the time to enjoy them at your leisure and, as always, feel free to leave a comment.

Oceans of rhythm…

Fresh

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“It’s been a long time…”

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

Greetings all. It’s 7am on a rainy Saturday morning. I’ve been up for an hour in a quiet house, The title of this post is part of a bar (lyric) from one of my favorite hip-hop rappers, Rakim. It’s the first lyric from the track I Know You Got Soul – Eric B. and Rakim.

It’s been five months, today, since I last posted a blog, so this will be kind of a “brain dump, journally” type of post – reminiscent of a Twitter follower and one I follow, MrTramuel, does. I’ve been blogging (though I’ve lost some early posts) since 2007 (see the blog roll to the right ) and have always enjoyed it and really would like to get back to it from my own “garden” here as DarrenKeith Wyatt likes to say.

I won’t get into the various impacts of the pandemic we’ve all had to endure, as I believe we’re obviously not out of the woods yet. It appears that things are moving slowly back to a semblance of how things were, pre-pandemic, and I guess that can be looked at a s good or bad thing, based on your personal view point. A new US Presidential administration is in place, spring is here, and a long weekend (for me, anyway) has started.

Work has been pretty busy, with three interplanetary missions in various stages of development. I’m definitely not mad at that, but it has shown me how much I still don’t know and how much ahead of me there is still to learn. I’m thankful to have to the opportunity to gain that knowledge and work with a great set of colleagues. The entire work experience has shown me about my capabilities and the necessary paths to take to increase them. Much of that has nothing more to do with than focus, discipline, and time management – two things I’m constantly working on improving.

The music production front – that is an area which I’ve stepped back from but it wasn’t planned. Producing music (like many other continual paths to reaching goals) is not something that manifests itself out of pure motivation, the driver is really discipline. Motivation is always nothing but “good feels”, its only discipline that moves one forward, and that discipline never is driven by external factors, but internal gumption, So, yeah…I’m not telling you anything you don’t already, but there have been studies that show writing things down help cement things in your brain, so here I am – repeating “on paper” the thoughts I’m trying to solidify.

Memorial Day is Monday -a day commercialized with sale after sale after sale. I saw some news posts (online and TV) alluding to the fact that America has watered down the meaning of Memorial Day as such. I even so a tweet this morning about the USO asking folks to sign some petition by midnight about remembering and recognizing the sacrifices that our military has made. Upon seeing it, I said…”Wait, but…”, then I began to read comments saying the USO is essentially confused. This holiday is to remember and honor those military soldiers that have fallen in the line of duty. Veterans Day and Armed Forces Day are really what you mean. Truth.

Anyway, I *love* quiet mornings before this house gets buzzing, and it’s rainy out still – that’s a plus for focus and introspection, but now, it’s down to the recording studio to get some work done, mug of tea in tow.

Have a good Saturday, as well as a good long weekend (for those of you that can take advantage of it)…and remember and honor those members of our armed forces that made the ultimate sacrifice.

Peace.