Music: Obsessing over Magic Slim’s Born On A Bad Sign Blues album
Reading: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Part psychology and part mythology.
Podcast: Imaginary Worlds, features a new science fiction story every 2 weeks
Food: Tracy’s quesadilla casserole and my prize-winning Thanksgiving chili
Time to evaluate my progress for my Groundhog Resolutions, the 10th
annual attempt at creating life-long habits for myself. I’ve discovered
that right after the end of the year holidays I am not mentally or
physically capable of sticking with resolutions for the upcoming new
year. I need a break so I take the whole month of January off to reflect
and plan and start on 2/2 instead of 1/1.
I’ve got one more month (12/12) to wrap all this up until Groundhogs Day 2019.
Fun-
Get another tattoo: Coming soon
More camping: Waiting on warmer weather
More skinny dipping: Think I’ll have to skip that this year
Learn Spanish more fluently: Downloaded the Duolingo app for practice but haven’t used it. Will work with the MissAdventurer
Join a book club: No decent bookclubs around town.
50 Books a year challenge: According to Amazon and the library, I’ve read 46 so far. I’ll share my reading list next month.
Snail mail friend: Fail mail
Volunteer: Who’s got the time?
Fitness-
Kickboxing: The gym offers one class…during the day. One day a week. Fail.
Self-defense: Can’t defend myself. Fail
Yoga: Almost daily. Is it supposed to hurt when I stretch?
More 5 & 10k obstacle course racing: I finished the Warrior Dash again. Next year I want to do a minimum of 3
Consistent training: Working out with Tracy is mutually beneficial. Accountability may be the one thing I needed to maintain this.
Consistent nutritional training: Really been enjoying more meals at home. Eating out is becoming frustrating and disappointing. This is making my decision to eat in easier
Hashing: I’m done for this season. My foot injury sidelined me.
Hiking: I want to explore more but again, foot. Time to hit some light, low elevation trails.
Geocaching: I want to find at least ten more caches before year end. Will I renew my premium membership? Lets find out.
Meditation: Ommm… this has been beneficial but not consistent.
Creative-
Complete my book: I have been enjoying the process so far. It won’t get done this year. There is too much I want to include and that involves more research. Besides…still working on an ending.
Photo essay on a topic I am passionate about: Cold, crisp nights will help me round out my Tulsa After Dark series for the year.
Video log every month: This is so easy and yet it hasn’t been done.
Leave inspirational notes everywhere:
Year in photos album: Cannot wait to see what 2018 memories I’ll have at the EOY.
Shoot more film: Film is a precious commodity. A costly commodity. Sure, the Fuji camera is fun but at almost $1.50 a sheet? I am convinced that I will buy a Canon 35mm soon though. It’ll be cheaper
DAM: I have all the DSLR photos organized into yearly folders. Finally. Now to sort the wheat from the chaff. Oh, and since I shut down Google photos, I need to organize and integrate all these mobile pics from the years too. I just doubled my work!
I’ve recently re-discovered the app MindNode, an app that helps diagram ideas and thoughts in a visual way.
Here’s an example of what a basic mind map structure looks like:
Just a simple diagram I generated about mind-mapping and why I use MindNode instead of other similar apps.
Maps can be used in a variety of ways of course. I have used mapping for
productivity, goals, notes, brainstorms, problem solving, book
summaries, task management, video summaries ( I take notes while
watching TED or podcasts). Here lately though, I have been using it to
map out plots and story ideas for the novels yet to be but on paper.
Here is a sneak peek of one of them:
Redacted of course! Can’t give it all away just yet.
So this just happened. After making the decision to close both of my Google accounts back in April it is finally finished. I am no longer a Google user.
This is a great blend of both budget and premium features. A $1200 phone for a $750 price. This has almost everything I want into an iPhone like a big, end-to-end screen, the A12 Bionic chip, dual sim card capability, augmented reality, great camera, long battery life, Face ID and of course, Animoji as seen below.
The XR has a 12mp camera with f/1.8 aperature and smart HDR tech. Video is 4k quality. Portrait mode has advanced bokeh and depth control that can be edited after the snap. The front facing camera is 7mp quality with f/2.2 aperature, portait mode and portrait lighting effects.
The best part? I upgraded and ended up paying less for more.
The end of the year is almost here and there are some last minute addendums to be made to my Groundhog Day Resolutions.
NO donuts
NO eating out all the time
NO drinking all the time
Absolutely, positively NO Whataburger
I’ve lost five pounds this week and I need to stay focused to maintain that and other goals/resolutions. I suppose it is time to detonate atomic habits.
I’ve discovered a new, Windows only writing tool called Atomic Scribbler and it is PERFECT for my needs. It rivals the over-priced Scrivener in features and cost. Just in time for NANOWRIMO next month.
Click here to be redirected to the new place
I am decommissioning my Misadventures.me website and coming back here to ChrisDenbow.com. It was an attempt at a fresh start but then I realized I didn’t want to go that direction. The web domain expires soon and I am not renewing it. It is for sale if you want it.
The transition is smooth so far but included challenges like transferring my two domain names away from Google as well as my email hosting. Now I have to change my account settings to everyone I do business with as well as friends/family. “Hey, I moved!” Want to connect? Send me email to hello@chrisdenbow.website
I picked up this handy little tool yesterday to help manage the images on my iPhone and iPad.
This is the SanDisk iXpand 128gb Flash Drive. Once it was done copying over all 10gb of images off my phone I saved them onto my laptop. Sleek, beautiful and a great way to preserve storage space for all the photos I take.
Long-form writing has been overwhelming lately so I’m trying short stories. I didn’t know that there were even shorter stories out there called micro-fiction. 100-word stories. And believe it or not there are even 50-word stories. I’m not ready for that, especially since they read like Haiku. Anywho, here’s my take on micro fiction. To be developed into a proper story in the future.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public works program developed in 1933. It was created so poor and unskilled younger men would have the chance to earn a wage while helping to re-build the country. Sonny Fisher just saw it as his meal ticket.
If it wasn’t for the CCC he’d likely starve or be shot. Either way, he’d be dead if he stayed back home in Ohio. Here he was in Texas bustin’ his ass for pennies a day and good food.
While digging he struck an iron pot. Sealed with worn leather and covered in mildew. Gold coins?
Long-form writing is overwhelming so I’m trying short stories. Guess what? There are even shorter stories out there called micro-fiction. 100-word stories. Believe it or not there are even 50-word stories. I’m not ready for that, especially since they read like Haiku. Anywho, here’s my take on micro fiction. To be developed into a proper story in the future.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public works program developed in 1933. It was created so poor and unskilled younger men would have the chance to earn a wage while helping to re-build the country. Sonny Fisher just saw it as his meal ticket.
If it wasn’t for the CCC he’d likely starve or be shot. Either way, he’d be dead if he stayed back home in Ohio. Here he was in Texas bustin’ his ass for pennies a day and good food.
While digging he struck an iron pot. Sealed with worn leather and covered in mildew. Gold coins?
How I figure things out
Get an idea.
1. Read, hear or experience something inspiring.
2. Obsess about it.
Research the hell out of it
3. Find several books at the library, in the bookstore
4. Look online.
5. Watch videos.
6. Take a field trip.
Document your findings
7. Take notes.
8. Take photographs or screenshots.
9. Sketch.
Apply what you’ve learned
10. Make something
11. Show someone. Let them know what you’ve learned.
Something else catches your eye.
12. See step 1
