Blog or Journal….hmmmm

So over a year ago my friend Nixy got me into Journalling. Technically, I technically started two years ago it seems(just check). I tried using Day One app. It worked well enough. Nice to have some social media integration so that things I posted to Instagram would automatically get posted into it. Same for twitter. It worked well enough for what I was doing.

Then I started to want to hand-write things done. The app does not do hand writing. OK, cool, just means I get to buy a few cool books. I did just that and things were going fine. Then I realized I should have different journals for different topics. This was a nice way to organize my thoughts.

Then the next limitation hit…..what if I was out somewhere and wanted to write in a journal that I didn’t bring with me. Well now that’s a problem as I don’t want to always carry 5 different journals everywhere I went.

In comes GoodNotes app. This didn’t have any social media integration, which I was fine with, but it did allow me to create multiple journals for each topic I wanted to keep separately.

Next, hand writing. Ok, so I use an 11” iPad Pro. It’s been running like a champ for the last two years without a single hitch. Now I need a stylus. Nixy recommends an Adonis Pixel stylus (https://amzn.to/3AepQGm). A bit cheaper than the Apple Pencil and has a few more features(like pressure sensitive and multi-function buttons). Sure, I’ll give it a shot and ordered one.

The Pixel wrote just fine. Especially better than any of those ‘rubber-tip’ stylus that are on the ends of pens and such. The one issue I ran into, and kinda one of the reasons I got it, was that the latest version of GoodNotes did NOT support the Pixel’s buttons. How irritating. Really the biggest reason I wanted it was to have a nice convenient ‘undo’ click instead of lifting my arm up each time to click on the ‘undo arrow’ at the top of the app each time I made a typo, and I do a good amount of those when hand writing :D.

Sigh. Fine, it’s still a decent stylus so I’ll work with it.

One day I couldn’t find it. I mean, it mostly fit in this UAG iPad Case that I have, although the spot was designed for the Apple Pencil, the Pixel is notably thicket but with the magnetic flap, seemed to hold just fine. Well of course I lost it one day and didn’t find it again till about 4 days later…..laying on the ground beside my car…..after the snow had melted. :/

Amazingly, it worked just fine. No rust, no odd behaviours…..it just, worked. That’s impressive.

Then a few weeks ago it just…’fell apart’. I mean like literally. Because I wanted to keep it safe, I kept it in my pants pocket. So that it wouldn’t;’t get dinged or majorly scratch from sitting anywhere else. I pulled it out of my pocket one day and it kinda ‘pulled apart’. There was no stress, no banging, no ‘caught on something’. It was weird. Well I didn’t have it a year yet so I contacted Adonit and they said they would replace it. I mailed it back to them, they mailed me a new one and even reimbursed my mailing fee! Now THAT is customer service!

Oh hey….look at that. I’m way off from the point I wanted to make when I started this post. Heh, go figure.

I found myself wondering what the difference is between blogging and Journalling was for me. They are nearly the same really. The only real difference is that I keep some of my inner-most thoughts to myself. Some things the world doesn’t really need to know. Now that does raise a bit of a conundrum. Do I have enough energy for both blogging AND Journalling? Do I have enough time?

I feel that blogging is a bit of a release in of itself but I do need to make time for the deepest inner-work I know I have to do. While I’ve been on a bit of a streak for posting every day (WordPress tells me so!), I’ll have to see what Journalling I’ll end up doing. My last entry in the journal was late August and really wasn’t something that needed to be private. So now WordPress can be considered my ‘public journal’.

Now when should I schedule this post…..don’t need 3 posts in one day ;)

Blog Management

Well, this is fun. It’s a fair bit of work to get this digital asset in order. Especially after mashing 5 blogs into one. I’m now paring down the various categories. Still got 135 ‘Uncategorized’ posts to move into a category and maybe add tags.

As I go along, I’m also finding some of the blog posts that hadn’t survived WP’s upgrade in their backend. Most are related to things I linked from offsite/other blogs. If I can find them again, I’ll update the empty posts, if not, I’ll just delete them. And by all means, if you find one, feel free to let me know.

For the most part, the general posts will just go under the “Stuff” category, cause why not?

40 posts managed, I’ll keep slogging away here.

When you don’t look at. your blog for awhile….

!!!

I found out that they only showed up 15 days ago! Seems WP got spammed itself.

And you can only delete 20 at a time in ‘bulk edit’…..ah well.

My how time flies

So an old WP friend messaged me here on one of my posts, kinda cool.  I decided to check out the 2019 stats as I’ve not really done anything here for 2 years…..boy was I surprised at my findings.

Who knew that my “How to Swear in Korean” post would be so popular?

Maybe I’ll start doing stuff again here.  Won’t be about Korea, unless I go back and visit(which would be cool) but I do plan on travelling.  Keep an eye out.  Might still find some interesting use for this blog still :)

Video Blogging?

So I have been thinking about video blogging.  Just wondered how many here would like it or not.  Maybe just an add-on but not necessarily a main form of content creation?  Please comment on the poll.

Sorry if you got that

It seems that a post might have gotten accidentally sent here.  Sigh, that’s what happens when you are on a weak wifi signal on a tablet.  The app buttons are too close and touching the screen accidentally chooses the wrong button somehow a potentially embarrassing post gets out and  hopefully got deleted before WP’s system was able to send out any notifications :(

How to turn your blog into a book

I moved all my Korean content over to WordPress.com primarily to put it all in one spot with the potential to turn it into a book that many of my friends have been telling me to do.  So tonight I do a quick bit of searching on this process and I come across this post:

How to turn your blog into a book

Some great info but leaves out the most critical step details.

“The first step is to make two lists: possible posts and possible concepts. You might discover a book concept that’s strong,”

What does he mean by ‘possible posts’ and ‘possible concepts’?  My only concept that I can think is ‘wanting to share what I see and experience’.  This includes every post but later the author writes that you most likely won’t include every post.

If anyone has such an experience, or knows someone who has, please point them my way so I can see what needs to be done to really do this.

Oppression

Given the amount of oppression that exists in online speech in South Korea, more than you think but not ass much as
North Korea (of course, you have to HAVE Internet to have an online voice….), I thought this was worth restating this here.

The Networking Nerd

Just when I think I’ve just about run out of things to write about when it comes to blogging and independence, the real world goes and gives me a nice topic on a silver platter.

For those that may not have heard, there was a bit of an issue at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).  At most of these shows, the various media outlets that cover the event will look at the gadgets or products that the vendors are showcasing and pick a few to win “best of show awards.”  Most of the time, this involves writing a little bit about the product and giving it some press.  CNET does this for the CES every year.  This year, one of the products they were going to give an award to was the multi-channel commercial skipping DVR from Dish Networks called Hopper.  According to a few reports, this was…

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2 weeks and here we are

Me: Hey Virtual Christian Dumais.  Guess what?

VCD: Umm, can ya wait, changing a baby diaper here.  Not exactly a multi-tasking event.

Me: Oh, sure.  Go ahead.

15mins, the odd scream, some disinfectant spray where an ‘accident’ happened, later and VCD was good to talk.

VCD: Ok, what’s up?

Me:  Well, it’s been two weeks since my departure of FaceBook and I feel fine.

VCD: Good for you.  Do you want a badge or something?

Me:  Ohh, like some sort of FB-AA meeting right?

VCD: Sure. Here’s a nice shiny piece of plastic.

Me: Hey, this is just a handi-wipe lid!

VCD: Look inside.

Me: Says made in China.

VCD: There you go, even the Chinese approve of your 2 weeks of abstinence!

Me: Tell me you don’t try things like this in your stand-up comedy routine.

VCD: Nah, I only use the good stuff for people who matter and are paying.

Me: But you are virtual.  You don’t get any money any ways.

VCD: Hmm, true.  Still, suck it up.  It’s all I got for you.

Me: Sigh….methinks I chose the wrong muse for this endeavour.

VCD: Maybe but if you think someone else can do a  better job,  then why are we still talking.

Me: Well, I am hoping you, the real you, might find this somewhat amusing.  And besides, it’s an interesting way for me to talk about my life without having to kinda lecture people on a somewhat boring existence outside of the words I write here.

VCD: <shrug> if you say so.

Me: For a muse, you don’t seem to be very inspiring.

VCD: Don’t make me ang-

Me: Oh no you didn’t!  You already used that line!

VCD: I did?  Damn.  I’ll make it on my giant chalk calendar…

Me: Wait…did you say chalk?

VCD: I did.  Something wrong?

Me: Nope, just making sure I heard that right.  Personally I thought the whole dry-erase thing is kinda dumb and overly expensive.  Yet I did see a goofy automatic chalkboard eraser mechanism at a local University here.  Seemed over kill.

VCD: Really?  Now that’s a juxtaposition of technology.

Me: Hmm, well this rambled on a bit now hasn’t it?

VCD: Yeah, kinda.  So if there is nothing else, I got things to do, tweets to make.

Me: Well, thanks for….well….no real inspiration today it seems.  Maybe next time you’ll help.

VCD: Or maybe not.  It’s not really me so I don’t really have much of a choice.

Me: Huh, I guess not.

 

The plan for this blog

In case you did read the about page, I’ll explain what I will try to do here.  Although this may change over the course of time but hey, that’s part of the fun :)

At this moment, I have two categories for my blog posts.  One is Content, which will contain the real story and adventures I have had in South Korea/my life, and the other is Context, the underlying structure of how things are going and general discussion of the more technical aspects of writing, and my discussions with Virtual Christian Dumais.  This blog is in no way endorsed by him at the time of creation, heck, I might even have to take him out all together once he finds out but for now, I’ll have some fun with it.  I’ve put his blog link on the site so you can read his stuff too.

I have been told many times that I “should write a book”.  I was being lazy by simply allowing my personal blog to track all my experiences and one day hopefully turn that into a book.  The problem is that since it is a personal blog, there is no real focus exact on ‘stuff I like’, which rarely coincides with anyone else.  In fact, I have zero followers on that blog and after  nearly 10 years and various incarnations, I still have zero followers, I think it’s time I tried something new.  I’ll still keep the blog but I don’t want that to be any focus to take away from this blog’s efforts.  In fact, I suspect that it’ll be nearly dead for 30 days of me focusing on this blog.  That is why you won’t see me referencing it or linking to it just right now.  Maybe in the future though.

So, this is really my attempt at organizing what I have here in a presentable format that might just amuse a few people.  If not, won’t change why I’m doing this any ways.  Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

Also, since it will take some time for me to get all my old posts here, it may seem odd that I will have current and past posts showing up in the pain page.  You will really need to go through the archives to follow along chronologically.  Archives are at the bottom of the page.