Tag Archives: daily musing

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Day 1: 2025

11:25pm EST – Greetings readers, I hope your entry into 2025 was grand, safe, happy, and all that is positive. Mine was, as I spent a quiet night at home watching 2024 come to a close. I’m grateful to have been blessed with a chance to enter into the new year. Today has been quiet and *mostly* productive, and what’s even better is I have the rest of the week off.

This post is nothing but basically a brain dump and reads like a journal entry, I know, I know. Got my first workout the year in, finally got around to getting an extra filing cabinet and some storage boxes to do a LOT of paperwork filing. Cruised around Bluesky off and all day, and continued to reflect on the changes I’ve started and hopt to continue throughout the year. Oh, I did a small Lego build today (it’s been awhile) – the Mars Rover Perseverance, it’s a small Technic polybag build – I like those because they are quick. Afterwards I ended up connecting with a Bluesky user who is in Lego Star Wars, but is alos a fantastic MOC builder (MOC – My Own Creation). I’ve been into Lego as a hobby for a LONG time as an adult, which sprang from my memories as a child playing with them. I have Lego models at work, and as I type this, there are a few space themed (my favorite theme) to the left of me, on a bookshelf, and two Speed Champion models, a Porsche 911 and Ferrari F40 behind me on another bookshelf. Lego Racing, Lego Technic, Lego System, Lego Space (Classic and Neo) Mindstorms themes have been my favorite for a long time. Building is always therapeutic and I really want to get back to doing more of that. The flip side is it can become a rabbit hole of interest, such that I had to pull back from it. There are immensely talented creators in the world of Lego, I mean IMMENSE, which is why it’s continually enjoyable to partake in.

I just finished Round 4 of #100DaysOfCode yesterday, so that was a good way of closing out the year. I’m continuing my Python studies as well as updating (revision 2) of my low power model rocket maximum altitude/peak velocity at engine burnout simulation code. I’m getting the hang (I think) of object oriented programming in Python, but not enough where I am really comfortable in moving on BUT I’ve already began to update my code to reflect what I’ve learned so far, so that’s a good thing.

Anyway, technically, this satisfies my “at least once a month” goal of blogging. I was up until 2:30am this morning and pretty much only got six hours of sleeping. I feel it catching up to me now, so this is good time to end this. Tomorrow is getting a bit more productive, gotta redeem the time before heading back to work on Monday.

Happy 2o05…oceans of rhythm…

Fresh!

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A Self-prescribed Three Day Weekend

Greetings all…

7:35am, Saturday morning. We’re in the throes of summer here in the US. The first part of the July allowed us to experience some unusually hot weather on the east coast – fortunately most of that has subsided. This post is pretty much a mind dump and a reason to fulfill/stick to my at least once a month habit of blog posting. This block is 17 years old, created way before the onsite of Medium or other ‘made-popular” blogging platforms of today, and I’m glad to say I’ve kept it alive for this long. It’s, in one way, been an online diary of “me” though that was never the intent, but 17 years of posts, well…that would be unavoidable either way. Either way, it’s therapeutic to post occasionally, I don’t care if the audience is large or wee.

As the post title says, I decided, late yesterday afternoon at work, to take a three-day weekend. Work has been busy and productive (note those are not always one in the same). People are taking vacation (normal) and being out of the office for other reasons. Since I have a business travel break until probably September, I decided to take a day off. That day off (like this and tomorrow) can EASILY be filled with things to do, but I’m going to try to make at least one of them a mental day off, a day to do something unusual or different, so I’ll see how that works out. There are a lot of activities (free as usual) happening around town today, some of which I planned earlier to check out, but since I haven’t mad today’s to-do list yet, I’ll need to see if those activities make the cut. As I’m typing this, I’m streaming music from SomaFM’s Def Con Radio channel and having my morning tea, a recipe I adopted from productivity mogul Tim Ferriss. My recipe is below, should you want to try it:

  • 1 bag green tea (rich concentration of ECGC catechins)
  • dash of tumeric
  • 1/2 tbsp. of ginger powder
  • 1 squirt of bottled lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp brown cane sugar
  1. Steep sugar, tea, tumeric, lemon juice, and ginger in a cup of boiling water for 3 min.
  2. Stir, enjoy.

July has been a pretty good month for beginning to maintain certain habits, some new, some not. Two, in particular, have been daily journaling and more core workouts. The latter has allowed me, again, to track my Nike Fuel points as I have in the past. The former seems work well when I choose to do it early in the morning, though my monthly posts show entries timestamped at different parts of the day. Speaking of time stamping, one thing I’m really trying to subscribe to is time blocking tasks. The concept is a no-brainer: lists the tasks to be done and assign a time in which work on them. I admit, I’m still trying to strengthen this habit by attempting to apply Pareto’s Principle and stay disconnected from the net – the work goes on.

In any event, I’ve yet to start the to-do list for the weekend and should get to it, especially based on what I just typed above, so I’ll keep this post short or else the brain dump will continue and make it way longer than it should be. I know they’ll be a fair amount of continuing the music production journey, as I’m definitely trying to solidify and execute some long time plans and goal reaching. For one, I’m releasing a track this weekend, under my artist alias. You’ll hear about it, so stay tuned.

What ever you’re doing as you read this, I hope things are well.

Until next time, take care.

oceans of rhythm,

Fresh.

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Early morning musings: Twitter

It’s Saturday morning. My alarm woke me up to a sunny day and I remembered that have zero tasks or events on my plate for today.

I purposely laid in bed for an hour checking for my usual tech tidbits in my Twitter feed. Being a user for 16 years (an early adapter to, and adopter of, the platform), I’ve amassed over 65,000 tweets. Though I’ve watched Twitter evolve to what many call a cesspool, I find it invaluable as a source of information for things I’d like to learn about regarding certain aspects of our evolving techsphere.

With that, and all the impending doom many predict after Elon purchases it, I’m adopting a “wait-and-see” attitude. I’ve taken actions to make my feed enjoyable to read and will only exodus Twitter if those actions become OBE beyond my control.

Have a good one.

Fresh!

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…and the beat goes on.

There’s tea in that cup (as I don’t drink coffee). I’ve learned to deal with a non-coffee lifestyle, which is unusual I know, but it has seemed to work out for me. Not going to say it’s easy to get a jumpstart without it, but I prefer not to rely on it.

Was chatting (well, tweeting) with one of my followers (and vice versa) about this morning’s weather outlook. He was sitting on his porch, viewing a light rain, and working on writing his latest book. Me, I got out of bed at 5:30, prayed, showered, had my Bible devotional and prayed. Followed by a bagel with cream cheese, a quick check of the socials, some bill pay, and a notice that my first meeting of the morning is being pushed back thirty minutes. No complaints there.

it’s overcast here, as we had some rain overnight. I really like overcast mornings – there’s a certain type of tranquility that lends itself nicely to them. To the right of me is a double window that overlooks my backyard and my neighbors as well. It’s been a constant view for ten weeks now, working from home.

Today will be another quiet day. Outside of work tasks, there are somethings I’ve timeblocked on today’s calendar. I hope to accomplish them.

That said, I’ll hop off here for now. I hope your day is prosperous, safe, and in the midst of all that’s continually going on in this world, a lot that’s seems so heavy, I also hope you day is enjouyable.

Peace.

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POTD – 22/365

“Does anybody know what time it is, does anybody really care?” – Chicago

I love that song by Chicago – the music, the lyrics, the arrangement, just a really great pop song, the kind you really don’t hear anymore. I remember first hearing it in regular rotation on NYC’s WABC-AM, with DJ Cousin Brucey! LOL.

It is mad cold today!

Time, so elusive, yet it can seem to drag on and on anytime you don;t want it to. I always seem to want more, but the old and factual saying, “We all get the same amount each day – 24 hours”, all boils down to how you use it. Is that right, or am I missing something??

Best,
Fresh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qssWO8NSq0

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POTD – 21/365

There is an old saying, that I pretty much wholeheartedly subscribe to: “Failing to plan means planning to fail, so plan the work and work the plan” Planning, to me, is not a difficult task at all, I do it well, frankly. Working the plan, that last part, in the midst of unforseen (and sometimes seen) circumstances can become most difficult at time. It’s that part that I truly try to focus on, but not always successful. Then there are some that succeed in just winging it (for lack of a better phrase) and generally succeed. Which category (if any), do you fall into?

Thanks for the read.
Fresh

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POTD – 13/365

*Definition of a throwback*You really know the meaning of “throwback” when your childhood friend, same guy who was the bass player in our neighborhood R&B band in the day, texts you a picture of the original lyric sheet of the very first original song the band played, co-written with him and the band’s trumpet player. “All I Need Is You”. Music composed, arranged, and recorded by five teens just starting to do gigs around town….mannn! ✨✨✨.

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POTD (2/365)

Greetings all…

It’s January 2nd already…where is the year going?? LOL

The photo below shows a repeatable one, of sorts, that I’ve seen regular during a span of four years – 2014 to 2018 to be exact. This bridge sits at the end of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and can be seen from Adler Hall. More about it can be learned from the reference link below.

I often drove over this bridge heading from SCAD back home to DC. I shot this particular photo, with my iPhone 7, from the front passenger seat early one overcast Sunday morning as something meant to be abstract. Again, not originally black and white, I think the final image caught the essence of what I was looking for. Hope you enjoy it.

Peace,
Doug

References
1. Talmadge Memorial Bridge – Wikipedia

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“It’s called The Walk, The Walk….”

Greetings all,

Welcome to September and the last quarter of 2018. Time flies, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I’m a fan and user of the Apple Watch for fitness tracking and what Apple occasional does is create various badges and awards in its Activity tracking app to help users stay motivated to exercise. I’m also an admin of Facebook’s Apple Watch Fitness Fans Group and walking is one of the many workouts I log as an exercise in the app. On ! Sept, they issued the National Parks achievement for any user that walks or runs for a total of 50 mins, minimum, and logs it as a workout. I took them up on the challenge, got up early and went for said walk at 7 am that morning.

It was a cool morning, perfect for a walk during that time of day. It included an uphill walk (don’t know of the elevation got recorded by the watch and/or phone) part of the way, as well as through two paths that joined adjacent streets. The workout data as well as the achievement award, are shown below.

As I had just started the round trip, another walker on the other side of the street approached me. We gave each other the obligatory good morning wave, and kept stepping. What I noticed is, instead of treading on a perfectly constructed sidewalk (as I was doing), he chose to walk in the street. What I *never* understood is why people do this when a sidewalk is available.

Granted, I’ve seen a group of people do this, but I only think this happens because a sidewalk is too narrow to accomodate discussion between all involved, so to spread out by the curve in the street makes it easier for all to talk and hear each other, instead of pretty much walking in single file. I can’t see applying that logic to a single person walking.

I have come to one deductive reason, which may seem cockamamie but here goes: People who do this may have grown up in rural areas where sidewalks were not prevalent, only roads, so they are forced to do so and are used to it. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Thanks for the read.
Fresh!

PS: For you fans of the band, The Time, get the blog title 😉

References:
1. Apple Pay and Apple Watch help customers celebrate America’s national parks.

NP: Birds Of A Feather|Philanthrope