What is good about having a pet?

I really don’t know where to start with this one. I’ve grown up with a variety of different kinds of pets, and each one has had their own challenges.

In my mind, looking at what is good about having a pet means considering your relation to said pet. Are you a child in the household with the pet? Are you an adult?

For children, some pets can be a friend they play with, or something like a sibling. Sometimes the pet is a gift from a parent, with the intent that the child learns to be responsible for taking care of it (but let’s be honest, more often than not the parent still takes care of it a lot.)

For adults, some pets are companions. They help with loneliness, maybe not perfectly, but there’s something special about coming home and being greeted by a dog wagging its tail or a cat purring and rubbing against your leg. Additionally they give adults something to care about outside of themselves which can help keep them going when they’re down and times feel tough.

Maybe I’m just talking out of my ass a bit here because I’m not educated in the psychology of pets, but that’s how I look at it.

Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).

There are two ways I’m looking at this prompt that I’m going to try and explain for you all. The first will be more literal, following what I’m going to call the “standard response”, and the second will be focused on an “end result”.

Starting with that standard response logic, I’m taking the prompt to mean the purchased item is a whole and complete object at time of purchase. In this case I figured that my most expensive purchase was my current laptop. I had inherited a laptop a couple years ago, and wasn’t planning to game on it. I had planned to use it for personal work, document processing and writing. That’s all I needed it for. Unfortunately, it was already 5 or 6 generations behind on hardware, and it wasn’t properly connecting to networks. It got to be too much of a hassle, so earlier this year I shopped around for a new one. I went into that process with the mindset of just making it the replacement to meet my original needs and nothing more. It didn’t need anything fancy, and I wanted to avoid spending a lot of money on what would amount to a modern day typewriter for my writing needs. That idea went out the window really quickly. Budget laptops were exceedingly lackluster, and by that I mean they were basically all Chromebooks. For the record, I owned a Chromebook several years ago, and the inherited laptop was what replaced it because Google in their infinite greed and wisdom decided to stop letting Microsoft put their Office apps on ChromeOS (or so I recall, it very well could have been a Microsoft decision.) Either way, I didn’t hate Chromebooks, but they had ceased to meet my needs. Bye-bye budget options. After that, the next step up were laptops that were too small, but if I wanted anything larger than a 14in screen the prices seemed to jump quite a bit because of the higher end components that were packed into them. I eventually lucked out and found a low- to mid-level gaming laptop on sale. So far, best $1,100 I’ve spent on an individual item.

That last bit got away from me for such a simple question, so I’ll keep this part shorter.

The second way I was looking at this question was to consider the purchasing aspect as it would relate to parts of a whole, because my gaming computer (not the laptop I mentioned before) would technically be the most expensive personal item. The current rig I’m running is easily twice as expensive as the laptop, if not a little more. When COVID-19 practically shut down large swathes of the global economy, and everyone in the tech sector went to the Work From Home style of living, they all needed computers. So demand for parts went through the roof while supplies plummeted from low production capacity in the face of pandemic restrictions. When I overhauled my gaming PC we were a year and a half or so through the pandemic and restrictions were lifting. I caught some sales, and AMD was putting out a new line of GPU’s so I switched from Intel and Nvidia. If I had stuck with them my rig would probably have cost me four or five times as much as that laptop…

Gaming as a hobby can be damn expensive, but I love it anyway.

What podcasts are you listening to?

I don’t listen to many podcasts, but the couple I do involve Brandon Sanderson.

I’ve listened (and relistened) to hours upon hours of “Writing Excuses” to help me learn more about the many facets of writing fantasy and fiction. Where I started listening in Season 10 it’s mostly hosted by the same four people (Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal) but they also have guests from time to time. I love the way that its tagline refers to their original intent of keeping it short, and they do! Episodes are typically much shorter than other podcasts, ranging from the referenced “15 minutes long” up to maybe 30 minutes when they really get into a topic. I am very much behind in keeping up with this podcast, because I was going back and relistening to specific episodes several times so I could make sure I caught everything I wanted to pick up, but also partly because I would listen while falling asleep and wouldn’t remember.

I also enjoy listening to “Intentionally Blank” hosted by Brandon and Dan. Less educationally focused than their Writing Excuses days, but still fun and fascinating. They like to provide their opinions on how they did or didn’t enjoy something from pop culture, for example the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They don’t always agree on things, and they completely understand that listeners are going to like things they don’t so they never go on tangents bashing something, but they do provide their own analysis of why they enjoyed something.

Aside from those two, I don’t listen to many others. The next one I occasionally listen to (when I remember or see something that reminds me) is “A Hotdog is a Sandwich” hosted by Josh and Nicole from the Mythical Kitchen YouTube channel. That can be a fun listen if food is your thing because they occasionally like to analyze the background and history of food in culture while sharing their controversial opinions about food and flavors.

Any other podcasts I listened to until now have been little onesie-twosie bursts to check them out or because they had a specific guest. On “Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People” he had the chance to talk with Kelly Gibson who was one of my high school teachers from when my family lived in Colorado. (Wonderful episode, you should all go listen to it!)

Outside of that, I prefer to just listen to music.

What was your favorite subject in school?

I haven’t thought much about school in a long time. At least, not in the positive sense. Bad memories and experiences tend to stick with people and overshadow the good ones. Still, I look back and think I have an answer, however it varies by age/grade.

The younger I was, thinking back to elementary school my favorite subject was probably art or gym. Very little structure or expectation applied to those. Music classes followed at least some kind of structure, and I distinctly recall a moment when a friend and I were excited to play a particular instrument and the teacher humored us. We played something we had been practicing as part of the class, and I know we did alright but I could tell our teacher was giving us the look of “okay, great, let’s move on.” So yes, art and/or gym back then was my favorite.

Moving up to middle school I leaned more into the tech and science classes. Anything to do with the computers or experimenting with things like the little robotics stuff or the CNC machines. Those were fun times.

High school I was all over the place. Freshman and Sophomore years were more science. We blew stuff up and did the egg-a-pult capsules, things like that. Oh, and geometry. I wasn’t fond of math classes, but geometry was a different case. I was one of the few students who did well with 3-dimensional geometry and I treated those problems like fun little puzzles. Junior year I loved physics. It was also the year I moved from the Colorado Suburbs to farm country on the Great Plains of South Dakota. Senior year in ag country was interesting. Favorite subject was probably welding! Something I don’t think was even remotely offered in Colorado, but I wouldn’t know for certain since I didn’t get into Shop class.

So there you have it!

How do you manage screen time for yourself?

These days, technology is prevalent in our everyday lives to such a degree that we (those of us who were raised in the 80’s and 90’s) often forget what life was like without it, and most kids growing up these days will never know different. Screen time, whether that is from the cell phone I’m typing this on or the various computers and laptops I may or may not use throughout the daily work routine, is impossible to avoid.

So how DO I manage my screen time if it’s basically in front of my face 24/7? A couple different ways.

At work, I can get up and go for a walk. My office has space where people can walk laps (not originally designed for that purpose but it was bound to happen) so all I have to do is put on a short podcast or just listen to music, and walk for 15 minutes or so. To help me stay consistent with that, though, I also have calendar reminders in my Outlook two walk twice each day.

Outside of work is a different story altogether. My primary hobby is video games, so how the heck do I balance THAT? Well, I also like to cook, so occasionally I just set my phone down to make dinner and just whip something up on the fly without looking at my phone. See what I come up with and make enough for leftovers.

I also love playing Magic: The Gathering, and I have several Commander decks I’ve built, and my roommate and I will work out a time for a couple of our friends to come over and we’ll sling spells for a couple hours. The same group of us also play tabletop board games, and we had a regular cadence going for a while to play Gloomhaven, but we’ve been done with that for a while so now we’re just working out time to dig into Frosthaven.

I could come up with other ways to reduce my screen time, but those are the ones that come to mind as the most consistent. Walking, cooking, and non-digital tabletop games.

Do you need time?

Simple question? Simple answer.

Yes

I don’t think anyone would say no to this question. We all need time. Some more than others.

We need more time in the day to get things done. That applies to both Work and Life. If I had more time at work, projects wouldn’t feel like they’re under a major crunch. If I had more time outside of work for Life kinds of things then I could probably feel less drained and do more. You know, get a little more sleep or have time to take naps when I need them to help recharge.

I need time for family, too. I try to spend plenty of time visiting on weekends, but my nieces and nephews seem to be growing up so quickly that I’m missing out on their sporting events. I managed to get out this summer and watch my one nephew in his soccer games.

The problem is that time is limited, so we have to prioritize how we spend it. Juggling priorities is a pain in the ass.

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

I wasn’t even sure where to start at first. Then I had an idea. My manager loves to send an email every Friday with that day’s Holidays. So I decided to check. Just a few words to see what wouldn’t come up so I could build something up.

So, after a few minutes of this, I landed on “Cheat on your diet day” because I know that there are some people out there who struggle to accept that it’s okay to have that treat once in a while. And all you would have to do to celebrate is skip the salad, the boring, unseasoned chicken and rice, and pick up a cheeseburger or a brownie or something. There’s nothing wrong with having a break from routine to enjoy life a little bit. Celebrating it is not mandatory, and for people who struggle with falling off the wagon then it is 100% okay if you skip it.

For those of you that don’t like the above holiday I did come up with an alternative.

“Recognize/Celebrate a Streak Day” where you recognize something you’re having a consistent streak of progress. For example, Snapchat (which I don’t frequently use) has streaks of daily snaps with your friends. Or in my case, I could celebrate my streak on Duolingo. Today is 215 days in a row! Get the idea now? Celebrate your consistency and wins. Easy.

What are your favorite websites?

In the age of Streaming, Social Media, and Influencers there is so much content being made and uploaded to the internet. It can be so time consuming just LOOKING for things to enjoy that some days you end up not finding anything. Reddit filled a void where searchability met functionality that made it an amazing place to live online.

Up until the controversial API changes and subsequent fallout I would spend a minimum of an hour each day just browsing Reddit. Afterwards? Not so much. I removed the apps from my phone, I stopped actively visiting it at home, and whenever I would search for something I would try to avoid clicking links to reddit threads.

I never got into TikTok, which amuses me because some of my friends use it and will share links from there. Knowing what it is and relatively how it works I made the conscious decision to avoid it. I don’t click their links.

Instead I started to use Instagram more frequently, and flipping over to Facebook more often than I did in the past.

And of course, given my past with Twitch and the friends I’ve made through streaming, Twitch is another site I spend a lot of time. Even if I’m just lurking in chat.

Back to Instagram for a moment. I’ve also been trying to get back into painting miniatures for tabletop games, so I’ve occasionally posted pictures of my work over there. If you’re curious about that you can check it out here, and maybe I’ll start sharing those pictures here on the blog too!

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

Oddly enough, I’ve put a lot of thought into similar questions. And the ultimate answer is mostly “No”.

What are the constraints of such a thing as “Re-live an age or year of your life”? Are you back in your body from that time? With your current memories intact? Or do you truly get to re-live it, no memories from the present, so you can experience the exact same things all over again in the way they happened?

If it is the latter, is the “re-living” limited to just that window of time and then you go back? Do you retain the memories and feelings from this “second round”, thus amplifying/restoring the memories and emotions from the first time? This setup might be okay for when we’re getting older and forgetting things. This gets a “maybe” from me.

If it was the former, and you basically get your mind sent back in time to inhabit the body of your younger self, then this would be a solid “No”. The reason being you wouldn’t be the same person. Even more so the further back you go to “re-live” a part of your life. In every case, you would have extra knowledge to work with over others around you. But in some cases, especially for those of you who think “Yea, I’d go back to high school and do that over!”, you are making that choice because you want to do things differently, armed with new knowledge and experience that only comes with time. You really wouldn’t be the same person. And the further back in time you go to reach that era of your life, the weirder it gets. You’re an adult inhabiting the mind and body of your younger self, but you’re still an adult. There would be risks, based on your objective. And I’m not talking about just the obvious “bet it all on Google/Amazon and let it ride until it’s worth something” but also alienation.

So sure, let’s revisit high school. Your teachers are going to wise up to your sudden increase of maturity, your ability to work, your sudden lack of interest in things your peers are doing. Your high school love interests would be children, and your level of maturity would (I hope) lead you down a path of showing more interest and attraction to the adults because you realize that romance at that age was incredibly limited and boring. Everything would add up. You’d be putting yourself into a situation where you aren’t “re-living” it so much as you are “re-building” it. And if you weren’t careful, you would be re-building a lot and losing friends along the way.

You can take the same basic logic from the high school example and apply it to just about any age or year you go back to re-live. The further back in time it is for you, the weirder things can get. So just don’t do it.

This thought experiment led me to the conclusion that instead we should make changes to our “here and now” for a better future. That’s why my answer to the initial question is simply “No”.