Category: ComPosts

I reached up to adjust my visor so the sun wouldn’t blind me and send me careening into oncoming traffic. This seemed like a good idea. But as my hand grasped the visor’s edge, I heard a soft click and felt a slight give under my thumb. I was miles from home. I knew the device I just pressed only had a range of fifty feet or so. But for a split second a feeling of uneasyness came over me. What if, by some fluke of radio frequency transmission my garage door had actually opened?

I’ve had that feeling before. I’ll probably have it again. It’s like the feeling that you left the front door unlocked or the stove on when you left home. You’re uneasy until you get back and can make sure everything is alright. There’s alway that what-if question in the back of your mind. Even though it seems improbable or impossible, there always seems to be a chance.

The internet of things has begun to solve this problem. Garage doors can now be controlled via the internet using phone apps. IOT door locks and security suites can check and alert you if you leave something open or closed or off or on. So we’ve taken all of these low level, improbabe but nagging worries and we’ve condensed and distilled them into one, ominous fear: What if the WiFi is down?

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus Christ’s arrival at Jerusalem at the beginning of the week before he was brutally killed on a cross. What a difference a week makes. On this day he was welcomed as a political savior. A few days later he was crucified as a spiritual savior.

Nothing has changed in the years since this happened. We still expect politics or some other complex human-centric institution to satisfy our need for lasting meaning and fulfillment. At the same time we reject the simple and free offer of eternal freedom, joy and satisfaction that politicians very obviously can’t provide.

Our human institutions just keep letting us down. But every political cycle we turn to them again with the same outcome. It’s said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. That certainly seems to define a lot of what I see happening today.

For some reason while I was drying my hands in the bathroom at our library today I got to thinking about how blow dryers used to be the hot thing in bathroom drying technology. I know, I know, I think about weird topics at weird times but what can I say, that’s just me.

At one time it seemed like dryers were the future and that paper towels were soon to be non-existent in public restrooms. Blow dryers were touted as “green” because they didn’t use paper (a renewable resource) and they were considered more sanitary because you didn’t have to touch anything. Of course blow dryers use electricity which is often generated by burning coal(renewable if you wait long enough). And with towels you only have to touch a clean piece of soft paper but with the early blowers you had to push a button.

Lately I’ve been noticing a distinct shift back to paper towels. Some bathrooms have both a blower and a towel dispenser but in large part the towels are making a big comeback. I have no proof of this. These are just my own limited observations.

But I digress. I was standing there drying my hands when I started wondering just how clean the air was that was blowing down on my newly washed hands. Surely it must be just as clean as using a towel, right? After all it’s a mechanical blower. It doesn’t get touched by human hands.

There was no one else in the room so I quickly squatted down and looked up at the air outlet. I was disgusted with what I saw! The outlet for the air was caked with brown and black grime. It blows down but somehow the dirt had blown up! The worst part is that I had been blowing that crud all over my clean hands.

From what I saw, it’s probably more sanitary to not wash your hands at all than to use some bathrooms. Maybe I need to start carrying around a little bottle of hand sanitizer. Or maybe I should just stay home. If I become a recluse I won’t have to worry about public blow dryers anymore. This must be how psychoses begin. I’ve got to stop thinking so much.

I had some batteries from Amazon delivered the other day. After opening the box that’s probably 4x bigger than the batteries themselves, I noticed the sticker on top declaring “Frustration Free Packaging”. It was definitely low frustration but I was still annoyed to have to go get something to cut the large tape label that held the box closed.

The label also makes a big deal about using no wire ties or clamshells. Personally, I’ve never worried about wire ties or clamshells. But I guess these things really frustrate some people.

The question I’m left with is how does packaging get certified “Frustration Free”? Is there actually a process? Do Amazon vans snatch people from the streets and force them to open taped boxes while monitoring their brain activity? That last one is just hearsay.

And what recourse do I have if I do get frustrated? There probably is none. Amazon’s probably just counting on the fact that nobody actually cares what the box looks like or how many pieces of tape are holding it closed. They just want their batteries.

I’ve always loved overcast and rainy days. Hot, sunny days often sap my strength and leave me lethargic. But when the sky is gray and dark I feel energized and more creative. I’m also able to concentrate on things better like reading or learning something new. My wife loves rainy days for me because I’m more likely to finish up lingering projects or clean the bathroom.

I’m not sure what caused my attraction to dark weather. Maybe the comfort of a wood fire on cold and rainy days while growing up made me appreciate them. When I was in grade school, rainy days seemed special because we had to eat lunch in the classroom and play games like heads up seven up instead of recess.

Whatever the cause of my gloomy super power, I’ve learned to recognize it and harness it. I try to accomplish things I’ve been putting off. I try to finish books I’m only half way through. Sometimes I get inspired to start new projects like the six panel comic thank you note zine I started writing this morning for my friends.

Gray days have turned out to be one of the best personal life hacks I have.

This isn’t one of those posts where the author says “sorry I haven’t been posting much lately but now I’m back and plan to start writing more”, although I haven’t and I do. Those posts are usually written in a burst of inspiration or guilt followed by never posting again. The post I’m writing now is happening during a semi-ketogenic stupor so it must be genuine and long lasting.

Over the last seven years I’ve been blogging, I’ve waffled about why I was writing in the first place. I originally named the site RyanRandom because I had so many interests and wanted to share them with others. I didn’t want to be tied to a single topic. However, I later felt compelled to write primarily about geographic information systems (GIS) because that was my profession. All the blogs about blogging tell you to be consistent with your subject. Pick one niche and stick to it so your readers won’t get confused. This way you’ll establish yourself as an expert in your field.

The problem is I don’t want to only write about GIS or programming. Those things are still important to me and I’ll still write about them. But what about art, poetry, fiction, photography, gardening and design? I certainly don’t have the time and energy to create separate sites around every interest (although I might change my mind tomorrow). For now, this site will be the central place for all my work. I’m just not that interested in followers, shares or Google rank.

What I’m trying to say is that going forward I’m making a concerted effort to blog my passions rather than just my profession. And instead of a consistent subject, I just want to be a consistent writer. I probably could have just said that in the first place and made this post a lot shorter. But then it wouldn’t have been at least 300 words which the SEO gurus say it should be to establish subject authority.