Month: August 2024

An admirable profession

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What profession do you admire most and why?

Teachers.

Teachers do so much for the world, and yet they often don’t get the respect or support they deserve.

While parents are working to earn a living and “chase the carrot” of promised success, teachers are tasked with preparing the next generation for the future.

More often than not, teachers (and coaches or musical instructors, as some teachers wear multiple hats) will spend more time with a child than their own parents, which leads some parents treating them like glorified babysitters. If we look at it from that angle, teachers are massively underpaid, especially when they have to deal with unruly children who think it’s okay to tell their parents that a teacher was being mean and causing the parents to angrily confront a teacher because they believe their child can do no wrong. (Okay, that probably doesn’t happen TOO often, but it happens often enough that it’s a problem.)

Teachers have to go through a lot of work just to get started, and once they’re working, their job doesn’t end when the bell rings at 3:00PM (that’s when school typically ended for the day when I was growing up in Colorado) because they have to make sure they’re ready for the next day. They grade papers and do lesson planning. They work long hours. If they’re coaching on top of that then they sometimes work late into the night. All so that they can try to educate the next generation and prepare them to the best of their abilities for what is to come.

Print and paint shop idea

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If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

Painting miniatures was only the beginning. I started spinning this idea around my head after I started delving into the world of 3D printing, but it didn’t really solidify until last year.

In my annual search of homes for sale I stumbled across an interesting listing. The house was being sold with the small business building next to it. Two lots in one! On top of that, there was a third building that spanned across both lots, a detached garage for the house that was connected to a garage shop for the business building. The main business building included a small shop with a single garage door in the back.

When I shared this find with my sister her first thought was a dark room for her photography stuff. My first thought was getting a bunch of 3D printers running and selling both painted and unpainted prints.

I could have used the front of the shop for the main business, but there wasn’t much parking (and the driveway was shared between the house and business.) I probably would have just done something on Etsy and used the business building for storage.

Well, that was the idea, anyways. I still need a lot of practice with painting if I want to justify the business plan. Nobody wants a shoddy paint job on their minis.

Modern must haves

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What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

With the way technology has developed, I’d say a smartphone has become the most important thing to carry. Provided you have enough battery life and good signal you can basically have the world at your fingertips. All the information you need in one tiny package that fits in your pocket.

My family and I recently went on a short road trip vacation, and having access to a map that could automatically give you directions while trying to find the optimal route is life changing. We also have access to an app that lets us track each other’s positions (we were driving two separate vehicles.) Absolutely handy little devices.

Personal impact on the world

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What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

This question feels like it could cause some very telling responses from people.

Does someone’s response give the impression that they might have delusions of grandeur? Or that they might be too humble/lack confidence?

Personally, I’m more realistic. I know for a fact that not many people read what I write (but for those of you that do, I greatly appreciate it!) but that doesn’t mean I can’t harbor a little bit of hope that someone will stumble across my words and find something meaningful or inspirational. That kind of positive impact is all I could ask for, even for just one person, because sometimes one person is all it takes to change the world.

The Alternate Universes of  me

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Describe your life in an alternate universe.

If current theories are correct, then every decision point in our lives leads to the creation of alternative universes for each possible choice we could make.

I just got home from a family vacation to Colorado, so in an alternate universe I made my brother start driving this morning instead of just having myself drive the full 12 hours home. The reason? So I could have written a different answer to this prompt in the morning like I usually try to do. That obviously didn’t happen, so here we are!

Expensive cheap meals

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What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

The most money, technically, that I’ve spent on a meal was during COVID.

Damn DoorDash and GrubHub.

I probably spent $80+ on a delivery order just for myself. Maybe more? Sadly, I don’t even remember what the meal was!

Was it worth it, though? At the time, definitely! In retrospect, nope. Not worth it at all because I could have probably just cooked it for myself if I had just gotten groceries. Oh well.

Confidence and gullibility

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Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

Rather than direct readers to a specific article or mention names, I’ll do my best to describe the contents of the news article. Additionally, I typically don’t give these articles a second glance because they all have something in common.

The article, in its most simplest breakdown, is one of those “success stories” where someone is sharing how they got rich, retired early, and want to share their tips or tricks.

As for how it connects to my life? Well, technically, it connects to just about everyone who works for a living and wants to earn enough money to retire someday.

Why I don’t usually care to read these articles? Because the tips make sense, but the success can’t be easily replicated. They also are sometimes accompanied by some sort of grift in the form of “buy my book and you too can be rich and retire early!”

The reason the stories can’t be replicated by just anyone is because there is always some sort of special fiscal circumstance that they try to gloss over or avoid mentioning. This usually is in the form of some kind of inheritance from a relative or some other family connection, or an awesome severance package. The reality is that not everyone is going to just have $80k sitting around to invest in stocks, or reach the level of employment where they can receive a six-figure severance package.

This all makes the articles entirely uninteresting to me.

Happiness in 30 things?

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List 30 things that make you happy.

I don’t know that I’ve got quite that many things that will come to mind. I’ll try, but no promises. Whatever I list is not necessarily in order from greatest to least or anything. Just whatever comes to mind first.

  • Food, and more specifically:
    • Burritos
    • Tacos
    • Tortas
    • Philly’s
    • Fried cheese curds
    • Homemade buttermilk ranch (to go with the curds)
    • Fried chicken
    • Red beans & rice
    • Fried rice
    • Teriyaki chicken
    • Egg rolls
    • Cake
    • Ice cream
    • More that I can’t think of off the top of my head
  • Magic: The Gathering
    • Buying fresh booster packs to open
    • New decks
    • Playing the actual game
  • Video games
    • Single player games with solid stories really get to me. I’m not ashamed to admit that I get emotionally choked up by some of them. Tears have been shed.
    • Multiplayer games with friends
  • Books
  • Anime and manga (I’ve been a sucker for the Isekai/spirited away/reincarnation themes for years now)
  • Music

Can’t think of anything else at the moment. It’s kind of a busy Sunday and I’m a little distracted, but hopefully this list will suffice for now.

Joyful habits

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Describe one habit that brings you joy.

I have one particular habit lately that I will freely admit brings me joy because it stimulates my mind and strokes my ego just a tiny bit.

That habit is playing the free New York Times games (Wordle, Connections, and the Daily Mini Crossword) and then comparing the results with friends. Solving them provides the mental stimulation as a personal challenge to see how well I do, while sharing results with a few friends is the piece that strokes my ego (I usually do well with Connections compared to them) but also helps push each of us to do better.

One of my friends has been relatively faster than the rest of us at solving the Daily Mini, but she wasn’t at first. After about a week she really started to kick it into high gear and started to kick my ass. Which is great for me because it means I don’t get too big of an ego over something that is rather trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it also provides her with something small to prove to herself she can compete with the rest of us. Just a little boost in confidence, you know?

Which, honestly, helping my friends ultimately brings me some joy as well, so it all adds up.

Forever curious

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What are you curious about?

Everything.

To a certain extent, anyways.

I don’t like not knowing things, and I try to make note of everything around me. I probably look sketchy to some people every once in a while but I like to be conscious of my surroundings as much as possible. On top of that, if something interesting catches my eye then I’ll look a little closer to learn what I can.

Similarly, I sometimes enjoy falling down the Wikipedia rabbit hole (or specific wiki’s for anime/manga series that I want to dig into more) and end up learning all kinds of things.

YouTube is also a good source, typically, for finding information on how to do things like working on cars and motorcycles. I like to watch all kinds of videos because there are so many skills you can learn tips and tricks about from people all over the world.

I really do like being curious about everything.