danblog

PROJECT: BetterMe

// February 3rd, 2010 // View Comments // Health, Rants, Thoughts

  There’s a saying, that if you don’t use it, you lose it.  More and more I fear this is becoming true for myself.  My job isn’t particularly satisfying mentally; most of it is computer gruntwork, and there is definitely no room for creativity in it.  To prevent my creativity glands from completely shriveling and falling off (in a suitably cartoonish fashion) I’ve been working on my own personal project to write things, create things, and publish them to my little cubbyholes on the internet.

As some have noticed (hi Adam) I’ve been writing on dancatchpole.com every day the last few days.  My goal is to write *something* every day, at least four hundred words. That’s 2.78 tweets a day [it has come to my attention that I’m retarded and words =/= characters] I think it’s a modest but achievable goal, and we’ll see how that goes before upping the required wordcount.  In addition, on smarthero.tumblr.com I’m planning to post one photo that I’ve taken, be it on my camera or my phone, and posting one interesting link to a person or place, every day, and hell, why not, one interesting video. In addition, I’ve begun a new fitness program to start feeling a bit better about the state of my body.

Modest goals, yes, but my glands, they are underdeveloped, let me ease into it.  Lately I’ve just had the feeling that I’m not doing *enough,* not contributing anything and slowly becoming this amorphous, uninteresting grey blob of a person.  So yes I’m kind of cheating for today’s entry by using it to explain what this is and why I’m doing it, but so what, it’s my damn space and I’ll do with it what I please. 

  To my tiny troupe of readers, I may need a little help.  Encouragement is nice.  So is a bit of scolding, too, if necessary.  If you don’t see anything here worth reading, we’re both wasting our time.  Criticize, comment, and cajole me.  Kick me in my metaphorical butt if you don’t see anything posted by ten o’clock eastern time each evening.  Keep me honest.  It’s a work in progress so it may evolve or change over time, we’ll have to see.  I apologize for rambling but I wanted to get all of this down while it was fresh in my mind.  I promise it will get better, at least, in theory.  I’ve already got a good idea for tomorrow’s entry already and this one is just about wrapped up.

Word Count: 403

Home Away From Home

// January 22nd, 2010 // View Comments // Rants, Thoughts

Okay, so as anyone who visits here with any regularity would know (why would you do this to yourself, anyways) I don’t tend to update this site as often as I’d like. It’s something I’d like to improve, as suggested by a buddy, Adam. Starting Feb 1 I’m going to do my damnedest to throw something halfway decent on dancatchpole.com every day and see how long I can continue the streak. I can’t say it’ll all make sense or be particularly interesting to you (or me, for that matter) and it’s entirely possible I’ll expose myself as an intellectually bankrupt horror, but I guess you’ll have to tune in to see.

In the meantime, I do have a few places I update with far more regularity: Twitter and Tumblr. Twitter is, obviously, where I whittle away my spare moments at work, chatting with folks and keeping up with other peoples’ toots and such. My Tumblr site is where the little one-off and short bursts of ‘stuff’ I find/create wind up. Think of it as the red-headed stepchild of dancatchpole.com. Give it some love, why don’t you.

A Little Birdie Told Me

// August 14th, 2009 // View Comments // Rants, Technology

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that’s been around for several years now, wherein you ‘tweet’ status updates, thoughts, complaints, etc. I’ve been using it mostly to chat with friends, get advice from other users, and keep up with news on various products and projects I’m interested in.  Lately, however, I’ve found a wonderful new use for it:  Customer Service.  After having issues with both UPS shipping and Comcast cable and voicing a few idle complaints, their Customer Service staff, @ThomasAtUPS and @ComcastBill, respectively reached out to help.  Within a few minutes both had supplied me with email addresses to their CSR team and I was able to get my issues resolved within hours, without having to listen to hold music or navigate phone trees.  Many claim Twitter is ‘useless, and only good for the vapid and the vain’ but I’ve found it’s a great way to get information and help.  Hopefully more companies will follow in UPS and Comcast’s footsteps and start helping their customers out, 140 characters at a time.

Keep on truckin’

// September 8th, 2008 // View Comments // Entertainment, Rants

Anyone who knows me is aware of my job history.  I worked for UPS for three years while going to school, and while it was a tough job, it was a lot of fun and started me on the path of getting in shape.  As such I’m a bit partial to the company, so seeing this little bit on CNN.com warmed the cockles of my heart. A driver hit his millionth mile in his delivery truck on his 22nd anniversary with the company.  How’s that for an accomplishment?

Yes, my cockles.

You want to touch them, don’t you.

Scribefire. . .more like. . .Poopfire

// July 30th, 2008 // View Comments // Rants

Scribefire, a very excellent blogging tool I’ve been using for some time seems to have borked when it comes to interacting with WordPress.  Spent most of the afternoon, as well as the past few hours searching for a solution.  Keep getting the error:

“The server returned a malformed response.  Please check that your blog and API URLs are correct.”

So yes.  That’s annoying, as one of the nicer feature of Scribefire was the ability to post entries to multiple sites simultaneously.  Looks like I’ll have to bug Phil to give me a hand with this one.  I’ll likely be buying a few books on beginners web dev, so if you have any suggestions, they’d be appreciated.