You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
I have so many ideas for what kinds of things I could wish for, some in groups because their impacts are contingent on one another. I’m not going to share those, since some of them could be Earth shatteringly important to the balance of the Cosmos.
Instead, here are some fun ones!
I wish I could safely hop in and out of the stories I read so I can experience them as if I were really there.
I wish I could consume any form of media and choose to consume it again without losing the sense of wonder and magic I felt the first time around. So that every time is like the first. I’d make sure it isn’t as simple as “forget the first time so the next one feels like the first all over again.” I would want to remember those previous iterations so I could explore a new direction each time and not feel dwindling returns of excitement or joy. I would be able to play through games like Elden Ring or The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom multiple times and not feel bored or burned out. I’d probably set some rules on this wish so I don’t get stuck in a loop.
The previous wish could be modified for any activity that someone enjoys should they want to feel that same first time thrill all over again, though I would recommend serious consideration of self-imposed rules or restrictions to prevent overconsumption. We are only human after all.
Sometimes I also wish I could live a greatly extended life just so I could read every book, play every game, etc. I have a fascination with wonder where technology is going and I want to be able to see what is made a hundred or more years from now. This one wish I’ve put some thought into and kept in my pocket because depending on how long you choose to live (if you don’t wish to live forever) you will inevitably watch all your friends and family expire. What kind of impact would that have on the human mind? To live so long that you could basically lose your attachment to the world? For myself, I think I could handle it for a couple of generations, but I’d not want to live longer than that.
Anyways, there you go. Did I spark any ideas for you?
Short of the fact that I would describe any of my family members in great detail, I won’t out of respect for their privacy.
I will, however, talk about my relationship with my younger brother.
My two older siblings are roughly four years apart in age, and the same from myself to one of them, so by the time one had graduated from high school it would be the next siblings turn to start. So I never got to see either of my older siblings in a school setting. My younger brother is a different story.
He and I are roughly two and a half years apart, so we attended the same high schools. At various points in our lives, until about part way through college, we would get into the occasional scuffle, else we were kind of just tolerating each other’s existence. We weren’t totally oil and water, but when things got heated the gloves would come off.
After getting through college and into our post-education adult lives things got markedly better. We were on great terms, we recognized and respected that we did actually have the same interests and sense of humor, and more than anything we looked out for each other.
Despite our relatively parallel directions in life, he was much more of a pillar for our family where I was kind of an anchor. Not in the sense that I was weighing the family down and holding them back, but if shit went sideways and someone needed help I could be there to keep things from getting worse (and possibly get things back on track,) but my brother was the one who would be the steadiest. The one we could rely on to be a pillar for the family like our parents. Now the family flocks to him and his wife.
I don’t think any of us could be where we are today without him.
I will freely admit that I need to exercise more. A lot more than I do now. I used to be in a lot better shape! Over the course of my life so far I went from being in okay shape from working with and taking care of horses to being extra pudgy from a desk job. Then I lost that office job and ended up working at Target (As I mentioned previously here) where I got into great shape! From the office to Target, I went from 230lbs down to 165lbs at the lowest but hovered at the 170lb mark. The trick here was that I was constantly on the go for 8hrs every night of work and I would be routinely hitting 20k+ steps in a night (my average step count on my Fitbit being lower because it still figures in my off days). There were many days I would break the 25k mark, and even a handful over 30k steps! Unfortunately, as I said, to get there required a large chunk of time that naturally overlapped with working. So I didn’t need to go to the gym.
These days I’m basically back to my pre-Target weight and I need to be getting to the gym more often, but that’s a time commitment I always fail to achieve.
So, all of this is to say, I don’t really know! My favorite form of physical exercise is probably something I can be doing while I’m not thinking of it as “exercise” which could be something like sports or running around trying to keep up with the nieces and nephews.
There are many things in this life that I would pay a lot of money to do, to see, to experience just once if at all. If it could be afforded.
Going to the moon? Not really top of the list. I’d have to say not even in the top 20.
How much would you pay to go to the moon?
But if I did get the chance?
I am conflicted. Not because I would or wouldn’t want to based on price, but rather because of the risks and ramifications of such a trip.
Safety would be paramount. If I were paying a LOT of money, I’d expect to get there in one piece with no risk of catastrophic failures.
I’d also like to be able to come home. We can’t exactly live on the moon. I’m sure that carries a hefty price tag as well.
How long would we be staying there? Are we just going up there to land, put on space suits, hop around a bit, and then come home? I’m sure with our current level of technology that is still quite the feat and makes for a once in a lifetime experience, but I’m not paying hundreds of millions of dollars to waste a day or two of my life traveling in a rocket propelled coffin just to hop around the surface of the moon for a few minutes.
Now….all that being said….if the trip were free, and there was a 100% success rate of reaching destination but 0% survival rate? I’d probably consider that as part of my funerary service. Just, shoot my corpse up there to rest in peace until humanity decides to build a permanent structure on the surface on par with Mars Vegas from Futurama, or the sprawling city structure of Mars seen in Bravest Warriors.
Maybe by then they’ll have technology to resurrect my dumb ass when they find me again.
What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?
You know how in tv shows and movies they always ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, and all the kids are getting excited and answering? It seems like in every show those kids are like 5 or 6 years old. I was not one of those kids.
I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t start making that kind of decision until high school.
Back then I had the idea that because I love playing video games I should go into that career field. That idea didn’t last long, particularly because there weren’t any post secondary schools that really taught the kinds of classes I thought I would need, except for one in Washington. I didn’t have any clue how I would afford it and the prospect of moving away from my family and being alone was kind of terrifying for the 14 year old me.
Then it was cooking. My high school was able to offer a few levels of Catering classes, and I took the first two. I learned the basics for cooking and baking in Catering 1, then Catering 2 we actually learned more of the business side by catering a sporting event at our school. Unfortunately I needed some kind of permission or recommendation to move up to Catering 3 and higher, and again I didn’t know how I was going to get the tuition and education after high school. Although, this time I did happen to find a school much closer to home that had a program centered on cooking and becoming a professional chef. So I was kind of moving in the right direction I guess?
Two career paths shot down.
Then in my Junior year life happened and my family moved from the Colorado suburbs to the farmland of South Dakota. My graduating class went from 300+ down to just above 50. Very different experiences and mindsets, lots of farm kids, you get the idea. Before you jump to any conclusions there, no, I didn’t consider a career in farming. In fact, my class ended up doing a Shadow day and I had selected Information Technology as my field of choice. We lived only 30 minutes away from South Dakota’s largest city so that’s where we all went. The school had paired me up with the IT guys from a nearby hospital and some of my classmates were paired up with nurses and other hospital staff. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t expect that I would be following a desktop support technician all over the hospital. Definitely an interesting experience, especially compared to my classmates who all said they basically stayed in the same areas all day.
Still, I wasn’t sure that it would be for me. Three career paths down.
Eventually I did make it to college. I figured I would circle back around on that first idea a bit and chose the Computer Science program. I didn’t enjoying computer programming as much as I had hoped, and switched degrees to an Information Management one. I found the business classes and project management stuff a lot more interesting! Finally, something that seemed to resonate with me. So I followed that path as best I could, working through college at various jobs as college kids sometimes do.
Eventually, I got a job doing Software QA Testing. Okay, not quite the information management stuff I was aiming for, but it was fascinating to do manual testing and try to find bugs. Sadly, I was a contract worker through a third-party organization and our contracts weren’t extended because the company decided to offshore our positions.
We’re getting close to the present day, I promise, so if you’re still here reading I appreciate it!
Anyways, I had to find a new job, and I ended up working at “Red Circle Big Box Store” on the overnight shift. Very physically demanding job. Unloading trucks, stocking shelves, pulling pallets, lifting, climbing, hoisting, throwing. I got into great shape, compared to where I started after leaving my first desk job. Worked there for maybe a year and a half before I got the job I’m on now.
Funny enough, I’m back in Software QA! Going on eight years now! And in the IT department of the hospital system I shadowed at my senior year of high school!!! Now listen…. I’m not a big believer, never have been, couldn’t recite a Bible verse to save my life from eternal damnation in the pits of Hell…. So either this was some wild coincidence or The Universe was like “Lets give the guy a break.”
Having worked in my current position for almost eight years now, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many different teams and departments in the system. I’ve worked closely with the people from the Project Management Office the entire time. A couple of them have said “pssst, hey bud, we got an open position, you know, in case you’re interested.” To which I’ve said thank you but no, I like where I’m at and don’t want to play egotistical office politics. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all nice people, but you’re living with your eyes shut if you don’t see the office politics.
So, this post turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated! If you’ve read all the way through and made it down here I really appreciate you taking that time out of your day to do so. Thanks again, and stay awesome!
Cooking is one of those things that people either really enjoy, loathe, or simply tolerate. My family loves to cook. We like the sense of adventure one can get from trying a new recipe or just throwing stuff together to see what we can create.
If I had to pick just one thing to say is my specialty, then I don’t know that I could give a strong answer.
That being said, baking is a different story. Baking is more measured and “scientific” than cooking because every ingredient in a baked good needs to be precisely used and balanced to reach the desired end result. Cooking you can just “go with your heart” and disregard a recipe when they say 2 cloves of garlic (to which I say fuck that and toss in 5 or more because I love garlic.)
So, in the realm of baking I would say my specialty would be cookies, although lately I’ve gotten better at making homemade pizza dough.
I love the kinds of cookies that aren’t too hard, not super crispy and crumbly. The outside and the edges can have a bit of crispiness because that texture adds to the experience, but I like somewhat soft and chewy cookies. If you all want I’ll gladly share my secret for these cookies. Super simple modification to any cookie recipe. I mean it, just about every cookie recipe I’ve followed and applied this trick to has come out amazing.
All you need is to pick whatever recipe you like, add a box of instant pudding mix and an egg to offset the additional dry ingredient. (So if your recipe calls for one egg and you add the dry pudding mix you’ll want to add a second egg.)
The fun part here is you can try different flavor combinations! I have two favorite flavor combinations for these cookies. One of my favorites has a white chip orange creamsicle kind of flavor and the other is a minty Grinch cookie.
Regardless of which recipe you follow and instant pudding flavor you choose to go with, my tip is to mix the instant pudding with room temp softened butter at the very beginning.
So for the white chip orange creamsicle flavored cookie, you can take a standard sugar cookie recipe or box mix from the store and add a box of vanilla instant pudding (I sometimes use the cheesecake flavor) then add an additional egg along with 1 to 2 teaspoons of orange extract followed by some orange food coloring or a mix of red and yellow to your desired shade of orange. Be careful with the orange extract, it can be more potent than vanilla extract in a baking recipe. When the dough comes together fold in about 2/3rds to 1 Cup of white chocolate chips. Most cookie recipes probably say to bake them for like 8-10 minutes, but because of the pudding mix and extra egg you’ll want to keep an eye on them and make sure they bake properly. I’ve had them bake for 9-13 minutes depending on the oven.
For the minty Grinch cookie I take a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, add a box of Oreo Cookies and Cream instant pudding mix and the additional egg, as well as green food coloring to the desired shade of pastel mint green. Then substitute mint flavoring extract for the vanilla, and if you have them you can substitute Andes Mint pieces for the chocolate chips. The same tip for bake time applies here.
And that’s it! Perfect chewy cookies with a light crispiness to the edges.
Since I started digging into writing again I’ve been giving myself time to think and research various things related to blogging and writing as a whole. Well, yesterday while I was sitting at work, a thought flashed through my mind.
What if I rebranded my blog?
Why would I do that, and if I did what would that look like?
One of the original reasons for the blog was to serve as a space for the things that came from my streaming on Twitch, so naturally that’s where I sourced the idea for the name and icon. The thing is now, though, that I’m not streaming regularly and I haven’t for probably more than a couple years. Life happened and I didn’t have the same drive for it anymore. I might still do it on rare occasions but it is no longer the pillar of my life it was back then, and I’ll still work on the backlog of requests from my streams because I owe it to my friends and viewers who put them in.
But where do I go from here? I’ll need to think about it more. The whole “rebranding” idea isn’t unreasonable, but if I move forward with it I need it to make sense for the things I’m doing with my time.
This question almost feels like it could be interpreted a couple of different ways. Are we talking about events we remember learning about, or events we remember happening in our lifetime?
For me it’s the latter. My initial reaction when I read this question was to recall the memory of where I was on September 11th, 2001. Being 13 years old at the time, I was in school. I was early, the first bell hadn’t rung yet, and I was in the library. A friend’s older brother was there helping part time for credit or something and we had been talking with a teacher when a tv in the corner switched over to playing the initial broadcast of the news coverage. All conversation immediately stopped and everyone watched in silence as they replayed footage of the second plane colliding with the tower…
What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?
There are two things that I have wished I could do for a living. Streaming full-time, or becoming a full-time writer putting out books for the rest of my life.
Some people look at streamers, particularly the most popular ones that make a lot of money every year, and think “all they’re doing is playing games all day, that’s easy, I could do that!” I was one of those people at first but before I jumped in to try my hand at it, I made sure to connect with smaller streamers (some of them I’m still friends with even after I stopped streaming) because then I could get better interactions and responses to understand what they were doing. I could see the toll it takes on some of them (when they publicly shared that information) and saw the way their faces could light up with a shot of instant gratification when someone would donate/tip or subscribe. The things I’ve learned along the way tell me that if I really wanted to do it, I would have to put in so much more effort than I could muster to try and build everything up, from the equipment to the audience, just to even be able to take the risk of quitting my job and making that leap. So for now, that’s a back burner hobby that I don’t do very often anymore.
So the other option is writing for a living. By comparison, this one is much easier to accomplish long term because it would be less taxing mentally and emotionally. Where streaming would require tons of “on” time for being engaging, writing can be done at my own pace and will have sporadic levels of engagement with other people. That being said, writing DOES cone with its own problems. It’s a much more “solo” enterprise if you consider that when you write you’re doing it by yourself. You’re in your own head, typically without interacting with others. Streaming is kind of the opposite because your head and mind are in a different place, and you have constant interaction with tons of people who are all yelling (typing) to be heard and seen, cheering for your wins and laughing at your digital hardships. With writing you sometimes have to be your own cheerleader. Nobody will laugh or jeer in real time to the things you’re doing. Which is okay! Aside from all of that, the risk with writing is that you can put in so much effort and not see any sort of return for years, if at all, while trying the different publishing routes. I wouldn’t be able to quit my job to shift to writing full-time unless I had landed a publishing deal. Which I obviously don’t have at this time, but maybe someday!
As I get older and reflect on the things I’ve done, I see the increasing number of experiences and accomplishments but I can’t really say I’m “proud” of any one thing in particular. That’s probably because I don’t look too deeply at the details surrounding things like that, and I don’t usually attempt anything I would consider grand in scale to everything else in my life.
This question is making me reconsider those little achievements and accomplishments, looking at them deeper, isolating the elements that make them important to me and then comparing them to the rest of the details of my life at that time.
I can’t pick just one thing though. For many people just graduating college should fit this question. College is tough! Especially these days when the cost of living makes it hard to attend classes and hold down a job that makes enough money to survive. My college experience lacked some of those hardships (though I did have others) but maybe I should still be proud of it.
Other things that come to mind: so many smaller things on the day-to-day scale. Catching a stubborn horse, figuring out how to build something that wasn’t made of LEGO’s, getting my motorcycle running when I needed to rebuild the carburetor, managing to get a small Excel Office Script working with a Power Automate Flow. Most of those are actually fairly recent, but they’re similar to other things that have happened over the last 15 years.
Suffice to say, I can’t pick just one thing to be most proud of, because I don’t assign such a great value to those moments. They weren’t things I invested years of my life working toward accomplishing, but they’re mine all the same so I guess that should be enough for me to be happy.
The Dragon's Grove 