I'm really terrible at this whole blogging thing. 😕
Anyway, a lot and a little has been going on since my last home automation project overview. I have been really busy with odds and ends over the last year and a half although, only a little has been spent in any meaningful additions to my sub projects - save one!
Have you ever had one seemingly trivial issue open up a torrent of "opportunity" and possibly may have saved your life? I believe we may have.
So, I have two years of projects and ideas behind me. With all of the fits and starts, labored undertakings and successes and failures, what does the next year hold?
January 1st at 12:01AM I went through the process of deleting my Facebook account. It's pretty straightforward and easy but FB gives you a 30 day cooling off period in case you didn't really mean it and decide to go back. They are hoping that during this withdrawal period, you'll get too fidgety and will come back to get your dopamine hit. I made it though - 33 days and counting!
It's a funny thing - what you find when you start a project you think you know something about. If you're doing it right then you'll likely discover that you're not as slick as you thought you were. I suppose that is why I love these projects and goals so much. They make me stretch. On the flip-side, scope creep is real thing and not every project can be a voyage of discovery. So, this is my self-imposed roadmap for the first two phases of my overall home automation goals.
I've been noticing that I spend a lot of time online. I don't have a lot of social media accounts to manage but nonetheless I've been feeling like the time I've spent wasn't worth much. Sure, I've started some discussions on topics I think are important and I've learned a lot from other's point of view, but what has the net balance to all of this online perusing been? Did I really gain anything or add to the world in any meaningful way?
Jay Napier is Mr. IncredibleIt is so easy to take everything for granted. Let's take for example, turning on the TV. Next to none of us give this simple task a second thought. I have had days when I came home from work so distracted that, after a few minutes of scurrying around the house, wondered if it was actually me that turned on the TV.
When you enter a room, do you make much of a mental exercise out of turning on the light? I don't. It is like breathing, I just do it. What about turning on a fan or changing the thermostat if you're too hot or cold. All of this is pretty simple stuff and most of us don't give it a second thought - that is, until you can't do it anymore.
It is amazing how easy it is to get sidetracked on a goal or project. Sometimes the cause is small, for example needing to run an errand during your normal workout time. Then the next day rolls around and the "need" to run more errands in that same stretch of time becomes easier to justify. Finally, that time somehow switched from workout time to errand time.
Other times there are legitimate, longer period interruptions such as illness, changes at work, or other lifestyle changes that alter the way you spend your time either for long periods or permanently. Not much can be done about these events except how we decide to RE-prioritize around them.
