I’m beginning to think that the years I spent working 9PM to 5AM Eastern on the night crew shift at the grocery store has ruined me. It’s been over a year since I left that lifestyle and yet, in the middle of the night is when I’m most productive.
I’ve always been a night person. I hate getting up early and by early I mean 8, 9 AM. When I start my work day at 7 or 8 AM, I feel like a zombie. By noon, I want to take a nap and if I fall asleep in my La-Z-Boy, I won’t be getting up for a while thereby ruining any chance of getting done early.
The middle of the night is nice. People are gone or asleep and the tasks I’m working on have my full attention. The jams are maxed out in my headphones and I’m in the zone. It’s when I get the (best) most work done.
Is it a healthy work style? Probably not, but damn, it’s productive for me.
The price of success is censorship. We bring it on ourselves, and we enforce it on others with this giant pyramid scheme which we call “life”.
So says John O’ Nolan, the man who founded the Ghost blogging platform. How can anyone with any measure of success not feel the same way he does? I’m not even a celebrity and it strikes a chord with me. As Nolan explains, the little guy, the underdog, can get away with being themselves, speaking their mind, with little to fear. The more success and fame you achieve, the more aware you have to be of what you say, act, and do. You end up having to structure your life in a way that doesn’t piss anyone off. God forbid if you do something in your personal time and or space that reflects poorly on your employer.
Five to six years ago, I was the little guy, the underdog speaking his mind about all things WordPress. I didn’t care about traffic, I cared about what people thought. The Tavern was a place for not only myself to voice opinions, criticisms, and just report on things I found cool or interesting in the community, but it was a soapbox via the comments and forums for everyone else to chime in. The bigger I could make the Tavern, the louder the voice I gave to those who didn’t have one. During the past few weeks, I’ve struggled to figure out why the job I was a natural at is now so fucking difficult. I question how I put myself in this position.
Now that the Tavern is owned by Matt Mullenweg and I’m an employee of Audrey Human Capital, everything I say, do, or act out is magnified and representative of my employer. I’m not the little guy anymore, I’m the big fish in the pond. Now there are huge responsibilities that I’ve struggled to carry on my shoulders. Even if no one tells me to watch what I say or censors me, it’s a natural occurrence because of fear. All it takes is for the fear to be present to alter behaviour. Fear of losing my job for saying the wrong thing. Fear of upsetting everyone for being wrong in a story. Fear of making my boss look like an idiot for employing me. Fear of not being able to be myself because being myself is offensive to people.
Yet, not once has any of those fears been realized. But then again, I’ve never been close enough to determine whether those fears are justified. Those fears are the electric fences that Nolan mentions, I’ve put up around me.
When you have nothing, you don’t fear being torn to shreds by the mob. You stand up and you call bullshit when you see it. But then when you start to do well… when you start to make a name for yourself… when you start to make money or have a certain number of Twitter followers, the spotlight turns to you.
You start to be more diplomatic and politically correct. You start to mould yourself into the shape of what everyone else expects you to be, because if you aren’t that, then the mob is waiting like it’s Lord of The fucking Flies.
Electric fences start to pop up all around you. Issues which you don’t even go near because touching them, in any way, is fatal. You can’t talk about sexism any more, because one wrong move there is career-ending. You don’t call out the bullshit industry awards, because you’re nominated to win some of them. You fail to draw attention to the morally bankrupt venture capitalists and journalists, because then they might not write about you or give you money any more.
So you mellow. And slowly but surely you turn into the very thing that you once rebelled against so strongly in your first album. When you had a voice. When you actually fucking stood for something.
And then you can’t talk about anything any more. The fear has taken over. All hope of the change that you once so strongly believed in has now been lost.
So the advice I get is to let loose, be myself, that’s the Jeff they want to see come through in what I write. But how the hell can I be that Jeff if I’m subjecting myself to so many fears, pressures, and all sorts of other bullshit. Why is writing about WordPress the way I want to write about it so god damn hard for me? What happened over the past year or so to take that Jeff away.
It’s so ridiculous that people can’t be themselves as they acquire more fame and success because of fear. It’s bullshit but that’s the way it is.
Maybe it’s weird but I try to spend some time Friday nights listening to some really good tunes thanks to Youtube. Everything from Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd to Lynyrd Skynyrd – The Ballad of Curtis Loew. Some songs bring back memories that are as fresh as yesterday while others just make me feel good. It’s weird how music can take you back to the place, time, and environment where you felt connected with the music. For example, every time I hear Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, I’m reminded of my Grandpa’s funeral where my uncles played the song on their acoustic guitars.
Other songs like Lynyrd Skynyrd – The Ballad of Curtis Loew take me back to traveling on the highway towards home. This song just has a good rhythm albeit a sad story line. Hotel California by the Eagles makes me sing along no matter where I’m at. Buckcherry’s Lit Up as well as Foofighter’s Everlong gives me a boost of energy when I hear it. Music is a strange and powerful force.
What song overtakes your senses, bringing you back to a time of happiness or sadness?
Let me start off by saying I’ve never gone through a journalism class or have received training to become a journalist. I’ve used various sites within the past 10 years to write about things I’m interested in. It just so happens I took a big interest in WordPress when I discovered how easy it was to publish content and modify themes to make it look the way I wanted.
I started watching the project and would publish my thoughts on the direction WordPress was traveling. I published news articles, opinions, and linked to others in the WordPress community when I thought their article was something others should see. The way I write posts I consider to be common sense. I read a blog post, figure it out in my head and then write what I think, linking where possible. I’m a curious guy who doesn’t have all the answers so I ask questions when possible to those I thought would have the answers.
Somewhere along the way, people began to view me as a WordPress Journalist. I think of journalists as people who report on a story, with all the facts in hand, checking them 50 times to make sure they’re right. They write for the New York Times, Washington Post, and appear on CNN. Journalist is a serious word and I think it carries with it a lot of baggage or responsibilities. Baggage I’ve not trained myself to carry around. I don’t view myself as a journalist but rather, an enthusiast blogger fascinated with the WordPress open source project. That at least sounds a lot more fun than being a journalist, where everything seems to be so serious all the time.
In the age of blogging, it’s been discussed multiple times as to when blogging becomes journalism. When is that line crossed if the line exist at all? I don’t have the answer. I’m just some guy who lives in Ohio, that writes about WordPress because it’s something I’m interested in. I’m not trying to be a 60 Minutes kind of guy but rather, satisfy my own curiosity. If that’s what a journalist is, I guess I’ll add that to my list of fancy titles and live with it.
English is my native language but I’ll be damned if I know the intricacies of writing it, let alone speaking it. I’ve learned a few things along the way but there is a part of me that avoids trying to learn the proper way of writing the English language. Knowing verbs, adjectives, possessive this and that. All the stuff I’ve forgotten from the days of school. I’ve relied on the spell checker in the browser and occasionally, I’ll Google the definition of a word before I use it.
In the past few years of publishing content, I’ve been able to avoid people intent on making sure every grammatical mistake on the web is fixed. Sure, I’ve had the comments where people suggest other words or corrected a typo or two and I’m thankful for those. The thing is, if you can understand the point I’m trying to get across, what’s with all this other crap surrounding the point.
In certain situations, I can see how punctuation, grammar, and the like are important for people to understand points I’m making. The ability to publish things I write the way I speak is fulfilling. But correcting this mistake, that mistake, and seemingly never being able to write something that doesn’t require at least one correction, sucks. Why do I have to subject myself to those rules? I’d like to tell the English language to kiss my ass and let me do things my way.
I guess I should just hunker down and read English for dummies and try to at least obtain some semblance of writing skills. After all, if I can stop making those writing mistakes, that’s less I have to bitch about! By the way, style guides are books used to put people to sleep.
One of the greatest feelings I experience in life is looking up to the heavens on a cool, crisp, clear night when the stars are easy to see. I take deep breaths in the cool air and somehow, it seems to rejuvenate me. Looking up at the heavens, wondering many things. Reflecting on life, questioning if we’re alone within our universe and what the future has in store for me. Looking up at planets, stars, and galaxies reminds me how small and insignificant I am in the grand scheme of themes.
Just when it seems I’ve arrived at a Eureka moment, I notice the dog is ready to come back inside. I let her in and continue on with my meaningless life.
I’ve had the privilege to use a Macbook Pro free of charge for the past few months. Decked out, retina display, the works. I’ve owned an iPhone since the 3GS and it’s been a wonderful device. The Macbook is the first Apple computer I’ve ever owned. I used the opportunity to learn the quirks of the Apple ecosystem. Instead of control C it’s command C. The mouse I tested in the Apple store has one button with no way to right-click. I’ve learned by using the Macbook Pro that it doesn’t improve my productivity at all, it slows it down.
One of the biggest pains in the ass with a retina display is when I take screen captures, the resolution of the image is doubled. What would normally be a 500 pixel wide image on my desktop is a 1,000 pixel wide image on the Macbook. So far, I haven’t found a way to take screen captures in non-retina display resolutions. Speaking of Retina, I don’t see what the big deal is. Things look nice on the screen but they look pretty damn good on my LED monitor as well.
So far, I’ve yet to do anything with the Mac Book Pro that justifies its cost. I’d never be the owner of a Mac Book Pro now that I’ve had the chance to use one the past few months. I’d rather use a decked out 15 inch Windows 7 Home Premium notebook. This way, I could use the same exact programs and workflow I use on my desktop. My mouse would have a right click button and I can go back to using Control-C instead of a command key. I’d be more productive and happier overall.
I’m back from the 22nd annual Ohio Bigfoot conference held at Salt Fork State Park. The weather was perfect for squatching and the conference wasn’t that bad either. My fiancee and I didn’t get in until late Friday evening so we didn’t attend the meet and greet. On Saturday, the day of the conference, we grabbed a pair of seats in the back at about 15 minutes after three. Considering the seats were general admission, it was good to get seats early rather than closer to the starting time of 4PM. I did that one year and practically had to stand the entire conference. However, Don did a great job accommodating those who could not fit into the room by simulcasting the conference to the large TV just outside of the conference room. Don Keating who is the one who puts the Ohio Bigfoot conference together told the audience that at last count, at least 550 people were in attendance. This continues the trend of each conference becoming larger than the last. In fact, the Salt Fork State Park lodge had every room booked during the weekend.
One of the biggest changes this year that I noticed is that the gift shop located within the lodge carried some bigfoot related merchandise which included a hat, a T-Shirt, some key-chains, books, and a doll of the hairy creature itself. I ended up purchasing two key-chains and a hat. The hat is black with a white bigfoot looking creature on the front with a foot print located on the side. Pretty cool to wear out in the field to let other people know you’re crazy. The other big change is that there was no guided tour on Sunday. Due to safety concerns with respect to an event that happened the year prior where someone lost their life not directly related to bigfooting, Don decided to just cancel the tours. However, he told everyone where they could go if they decided to venture out for themselves. Despite it being dangerous, the Hosack’s cave area has a rich history of sightings. Definitely don’t go anywhere near the trail once it hits dark or you could very well end up getting yourself killed.
As for the conference itself, Dr Jeff Muldrum had an interesting presentation on his research into the Asian variation of Bigfoot. After Jeff presented, Tom Yamarone played one of his bigfoot inspired songs to the crowd which sounded pretty good. I’m thinking about picking up his CD which contains four tracks. After the song, the moment I think a lot of people in the audience were waiting for happened when Bob Gimlin took the microphone. It was an honor to see Bob make it out to the conference and the crowd let him know by giving him a standing ovation before his presentation. Bob recounted the events that took place the day Patty was filmed by Roger Patterson. Bob came across as a very sincere man and I didn’t smell any signs of him participating in some sort of elaborate hoax. If I am going to believe anyone when it comes to the PG film, it’s going to be Bob since he was there as an eye witness. Everything outside of the scope of what Bob has said is speculation and speculation has harmed the bigfoot community more than helped. After Bob presented his story, he received another warm standing ovation. Bob stuck me as a down to earth, incredibly humble man who feels as though he has done nothing special. I told him that he was the most famous Bob I knew and he replied “I’m just Bob“. The guy had a great sense of humor and a smile that was great for pictures, as you’ll see below. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get any better in the bigfooting world than to be in the presence of Bob Gimlin unless of course, I’m in the presence of an actual Sasquatch!
Small clip of Bob Telling His Story. Apologize For The Sideways View
Second Small clip of Bob Telling His Story.
Between 7PM and 8 was the scheduled amount of time for dinner. My fiancee and I generally eat the buffet which is at a reasonable price. This year, they had turkey, ribs, potato and macaroni salad, salad, corn bread, green beans, mashed potatoes, and moose for dessert. Now I’m not sure what the heck caused it but soon after dinner, during the 8PM presentation, I felt something that I could only describe as a bomb being set for detonation in my stomach. The next 20 minutes of my life were agonizing as I thought I needed to dial 911 because I was going to die on the shitter. After that was over with, I found out that my fiancee vomited at about the same time I was in the bathroom. This has me thinking that we encountered some mild food poisoning. We both ate the same thing. Macaroni salad, turkey, salad, some mashed potatoes, a few green beans, some whole kernel corn, and I had a chocolate moose while she had a pink moose. My suspicion is that we received the food poisoning from the macaroni salad but I can’t confirm this. If you attended the conference and ate at the dinner buffet, I’d love to know if it had the same effect on you.
From left to right: Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Bob Gimlin, Larry Lund, Tom Yamarone, John Horrigan, Don Keating
All in all, Don Keating put on yet another great conference filled with interesting speakers. I’m not sure how you can top a bigfoot conference after having Bob Gimlin present his side of the story other than having an actual dead bigfoot on display at the event. I joked around, telling Don that Tom Biscardi could help out with that which generated a good laugh from those around me at the time. My fiancee and I enjoyed our time at the lodge which we always use as a mini vacation throughout the year as the rates on the rooms are fantastic, especially for the conference. We saw a red-tail fox, a large number of deer, hawks, a few toads on the trail, but no bigfoot. Maybe next year!
Thanks to my girlfriend, I’ve become absorbed into the Facebook culture. One thing though that really annoys me about their user interface is the publishing of videos. When I come across a cool video on YouTube that I would like to share, my immediate instincts tell me to click on the Video icon in Facebook. However, this is only for recording a video or uploading a video, I can’t link to a video. Instead, in order to link to a YouTube video I have to take the YouTube video URL and use the Facbook URL icon to share the link. This is annoying to say the least as it confuses my natural instincts and I always catch myself clicking the video icon before I click the link icon.
I’ve been working at the grocery store for over 10 years now and I’m still trying to find a way out of that place. Trying to turn retail into a career is a waste but so is working hourly at the store. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever be able to make a career out of something. Right now, the best thing I’ve got is my WordPress enthusiast community in which I seem to be building my own career from the bottom up. The first year brought in a total of around $4,000.00 which is below poverty level. However, I’m already on my way to shattering that amount this year by introducing more affiliate reviews into the site and doing some other things.
What I worry about though is whether I can actually pull this off. That is, with a wife, a house, and bills to pay, can I work part time at the grocery store and eventually make my enthusiasm for WordPress a full time job. Since I started the project in March of 2009, every stat related to the domain has increased. I wonder if I’d be better off getting a second job somewhere other than the grocery store or finding a job that has a career path. But those jobs that have a career path are few and far between. Plus, my lack of education kills me. Also, since I’m only into my second year of the project and momentum is on my side, it would be foolish to give that up now.
Just thinking about all those people who have careers that pay $30,000 or more per year while I only made a total of $18,000 for 2009. I hope this is the year of the big payout so I can keep doing what I enjoy doing.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 