“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” – Mark Twain
Journal
Gunboat Park Neon
A few more neon signs went up along Route 66 in Tulsa that I meant to capture before work travels and had forgotten. I was reminded by a recent drive-by and had to stop of course.
36.14780° N, 95.98141° W
Click here to find more neon on the photography website.
TinkerFutzNPutz
Over the past few weeks, I have retired the silver fox website and migrated everything over from the last 23(!) years to an Archived website for posterity. I purchased a new domain name (chrisdenbow.website) that matches my own because I had allowed someone else to snatch up the old one (R.I.P. chrisdenbow.website). If you type in the old web address, it will redirect into an Icelandic online betting site. The internet is weird.
Moving on, I built this website here from the ground up. I took some old code, improved it, streamlined that code and made it sexier. It’s just like baking a cake but in this regard, you can add or take out the ingredients in whichever way or order to what makes sense to you. I then uploaded all to my test server, broke it, rewrote and tried again. Success. Then everything was migrated to the Ghost server, imported a few old posts to help get it going, and pushed send. ChrisDenbow.website was born.
After all that futz, it was time to putz:
- Putzed away at retiring the FoxCast and added the Radio Denbow podcast instead.
- Created an e-mail inbox only newsletter because that is how some prefer to keep updated.
- Created and hid an Easter egg somewhere on this site.
- Built in a “Quickies” page for interstitial journaling
- Etc., etc., etc.
- Keep tweaking and updating this site obsessively
Now I think I stop the futzing and putzing after these past few weeks and enjoy.
For the past twenty+ years, I have bounced in/out of different platforms and formats, tried my hand at coding and designing something that made me happy. Because if you are going to invest decades into something you enjoy, it damn well needs a decent platform to showcase it. Those decades were all a learning experience, and it brought me here.
All that to say that this website will be my own small slice of the WWW for a long time.
It’s about time.
Five Years Later
After decades using Windows and Linux operating systems, I had had enough with both of them. In 2019 I decided to go all in on the Apple ecosystem and purchased a used MacBook Air from 2015.
In 2021, I decided it was time for an upgrade to the MacBook Pro M1.
Five years later, and I am finally looking back, thinking those are the smartest technological decisions I have made yet. Here’s to another five years before I want to upgrade again.
On Civilization
Read it and weep.
“Formerly the fewest men wrote books that were most valuable. Now anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people’s minds.
It has been stated that, as men progress, they shall be able to travel in airships and reach any part of the world in a few hours. Men will not need the use of their hands and feet. They will press a button and have their clothing by their side. They will press another button and have their newspaper. A third, and a motorcar will be waiting for them. They will have a variety of delicately dished-up food. Everything will be done by machinery.
They are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires. Formerly men were made slaves under physical compulsion; now they are enslaved by the temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy. There are now diseases of which people never dreamed before, and an army of doctors is engaged in finding out their cures, and so hospitals have increased. This is a test of civilization.
Formerly special messengers were required and much expense was incurred in order to send letters; today anyone can abuse his fellow by means of a letter for one penny. True, at the same cost, one can send one’s thanks also. Formerly people had two or three meals consisting of homemade bread and vegetables; now they require something to eat every two hours, so that they have hardly leisure for anything else.
These are all true tests of civilization. And if anyone speaks to the contrary, know that he is ignorant. This civilization takes note neither of morality nor of religion. Its votaries calmly state that their business is not to teach religion. Some even consider it to be a superstitious growth. Others put on the cloak of religion and prate about morality.
But after twenty years’ experience, I have come to the conclusion that immorality is often taught in the name of morality. Even a child can understand that in all I have described above there can be no inducement to morality. Civilization seeks to increase bodily comforts, and it fails miserably even in doing so.”
Mahatma Gandhi, Civilization 1909
Night + Day
I geeked out just now watching my website switch from night mode to day mode automatically according to when the sun is scheduled to rise. Thanks to my Open Weather api script.
Well, That’s Sorted
While going through all of my files, I discovered they were all scattered across multiple hard drives, backed up multiple times. A mess. I decided to make a master file and import all data into it. Then I started to weed out all the quadruplicates. Now the master archive is backed up and synced to the external hard drives, the file server and the cloud. It only took me sixteen years.
Too Much Input
My appetite for well-written novels and articles in genres and on topics that I’m interested in, and the availability of all of those, are more than the time I have to read it. I am already staring up at the tower of books now.
Regarding Reading
1. I will make lists of books I want to read for the upcoming year as a guide and promptly ignore it in favor of following wherever my heart and brain take me instead. 2. The books on the nightstand and shelf will eventually be read, if only I stop
Chris Denbow
Click here ↑ to enjoy this related article and ↓ for another
Bookshelf
Reading is a lifelong habit for me. I enjoy reading for pleasure as well as knowledge. The book log below is not an exhaustive one because I have not kept up with it so I’ll be filling it in slowly as I go and re-reads will be with an
Chris Denbow
The pile of physical and digital books I want to read grows far more rapidly than the pile I have read. The list of articles I have saved in my read-it-later app is just as extensive, but they are more easily digestible.
DVD Archives
A long time ago I created a website for my daughter to document her growth. Over time, though, it was neglected and shelved. I came across an .xml file containing a few posts but not all of them so I built a new website archive, added some images from the photo archives that didn’t migrate over and boom, it’s back.
I regret not keeping up with this among all of the other regrets.
So for now, her early works are back and hopefully in the future we can build a proper, modern telling of her beautiful story.
DVD – Daphne’s Archives
Obsession
“Lastly, if there’s anything I can convince you of: you should build a personal site, you should obsess over it, you should meticulously document it, and you should have quite a bit of fun doing so. (It’s worth it.)”
– Justin Duke
Text Is Best
While migrating old web articles I have published in/out of databases, there are standard formats that should be universal or compatible with others. The issue I am having is that when exporting old data from a .json formatted document, I run into a long string of data objects that are not readable. Other examples or .xml data that is difficult to convert as well.
All of that to say I am having difficulty migrating old writing into my Archives due to incompatible file formats. This is why I prefer .txt files that are easily readable and future-proofed. Meaning, the file will be compatible for generations after I am gone. But noooo…we have to use .json and .xml with no easy way to convert them.
So now I have to parse each article, cut/paste into the Archives one-by-one manually. There are 374 of these. Damn.
Systems Diagnostic Check 3.3
It is March 3 (3.3) and time for a check-in to see how I am responding to my own goals for the year so far. This year it is in a language I can understand, such as considering my body, mind, and soul as a personal operating system. So, how did I do last month? It isn’t going well.
“Version 2024″ type”: “node” “request”: “launch 2024.03.03”, “name”: “Launch Program”,”skipFiles”: “<nodeinternals>/“, “program”: “${workspaceFolder}\app.js”
Bug #1: Lack of physical fitness. To maximize system performance, I need to focus on the overall health of the personal operating system, and that is to stay physically fit. As of February 19th, I am no longer working, and that means I am no longer working outdoors and staying fit. And due to costs, I have dropped the Apple One Fitness+ plan as well. Two fails. Time to access the walking and yoga sub-routines. These should both be done daily. Yoga in the morning to stretch out, and purposeful walking for cardio. I may have to subscribe to a gym membership soon for inspiration and weight lifting.
Bug #2: Nutrition is a crucial component to all of this because I have not eaten well the last quarter of 2023. I should be mindful and seek healthier food options. But this hasn’t happened yet either. Some cooked meals at home, but mostly eat out. I think we are waiting on something to happen here that will assist in a lifestyle change. Frustrating.
Bug #3: Smoking pipe tobacco and drinking alcohol is inserting bad code into my system. I have not worked towards debugging those substances to enhance my personal system performance. In fact, these nasty bugs may be multiplying.
Each month, and the corresponding day, I will run a systems diagnostic and report on either the overall performance or list any bugs that may still need to be addressed.
Inputs
Other applications will be used to maintain the mental health of my personal operating system, such as:
Reading
Creative writing
Journaling
Meditation
Overall, these benchmarks for analyzing and evaluating overall performance will help maintain my personal operating system for years to come.
The next systems diagnostic check is scheduled for April 4 (4/4) and hopefully with better results.