Just a quick note...
...to let you all know why I haven't been blogging for the past couple weeks.
After many years of fighting with illness, and multiple organ failures, my mother passed away peacefully last Tuesday night.
I'm doing ok, overall, but haven't had much motivation to write. Everything is still very surreal to me. I'm not sure when I will resume writing in earnest, or if I will comlplete the 100 Days to Offload this year. I'm also not sure if I will participate in Writing Month at all this year. (But I don't anticipate a terribly long hiatus, in either case).
I'm currently combing through over 200,000 photos stored haphazardly on an old backup disk (along with some duplicates, which I'm attempting to identify with md5sum) to collect photos of my mom for her upcoming Celebration of Life.
I've noticed one theme over and over again:
She's not looking at the camera maybe a quarter of the time. She was often looking to the side, at others.
The reason?
She was always more interested in making sure everyone else was happy and having a good time than looking pretty for her own photos.
Selah.
Keep Buggering On
Well, today is the last day of Writing Month, and this is my 20th blog post of 20, which is what I signed up for.
My last post was a lot more involved and time-consuming than I expected, so I wanted to end on a high note, with a fairly …
Read More
Laptops: A Romance
As I wrote in yesterday's article, I have a soft spot in my heart for laptops. They exist in this incredibly sweet spot where convenience and agency/freedom converge in the very best way, possible. I bought my first laptop in 1995 with my very hard-earned money, but let's start …
Read More
What We Lost Along the Way
As I was "delightscrolling" (the opposite of doomscrolling) around on the Fediverse yesterday, I came across this toot that perfectly describes how a lot of us are feeling these days:
I loved computers.
I loved what technology promised.
This wasn't that long ago!
Now it just makes me sad and …
Read More
I Miss Palette Rotation
Background
In the halcyon days of 16-bit microcomputers, there was a computer graphics technique used by many demos and some games known as Palette Rotation, Palette Shifting, Palette Animation, or Color Cycling.
Computers weren't fast enough to change the entire contents of screen memory in graphics mode (even relatively low …
Read More
My Odd Relationship with Minecraft
Unlike most young people, and not unlike many of my GenX peers, I haven't played much Minecraft.
I got into it a little bit with my cousin's kids when they were young around 2010, and I even played it a little bit on my own at the time, but the …
Read More
My Every Day Carry, Part V: What's on My Phone?
In Part IV, I discussed wristwatches. In this article, I'm jumping back into my pocket, so to speak, with a look at what's on my phone itself.
This was a rather exhausting article to write, because I have a lot of apps on my phone. I have even been ridiculed …
Read More
What is FOSS?
Note: This article was originally written last December, and was sidelined because I didn't feel it was finished. Reading through it this morning, I realized reason that I never "finished" it is because the next step would've been to write a 1280-word chapter, which is no small feat. But honestly …
Read More
No More Excuses
Tonight was one of those nights were things fall into perspective.
I went to a family friend's birthday party, and it was my first time visiting them at their house in about 10 years, as well as my first time seeing both of his kids (both now grown) in nearly …
Read More
The Joy of Bespoke Hashtags
In Part II, I described the protective function of hashtags. I will now delve into a more entertaining aspect of how they can be used.
Whenever I share a blog post I've just written on the fediverse, I always use the hashtag #rlDaneWriting. It's an easy way for me to …
Read More