Tag: lifestyle

Personal style choices

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Why do you dress the way that you do?

a reddit thread from a deleted user

My choices of clothing aren’t anything wild, and I don’t dress in any stylish fashion belonging to a specific group like goth, punk, emo, or country (or some mix of two, as I’ve seen before on Instagram). I’m primarily a t-shirts and shorts/jeans kind of guy, with the exception of when I go into the office where I typically wear polo’s and black slacks.

As for WHY I dress the way that I do? Well, I don’t feel the need to put in an exceptional amount of effort into what I wear. I want to be comfortable in what I’m wearing, and I want to be able to just throw something on and go without worrying if it looks good. Again, exception being for work because it is a casual business office environment. However, I still follow a similar philosophy there, because I make sure that when I buy a polo to add to the rotation, I pick a color that will go with the black slacks. I do have some other pants options these days, though, since they backed off the restrictions a bit in our office. I can wear jeans, so I have picked out some polo’s that I can now wear with a couple of my pairs of jeans and a pair of brown/khaki slacks (which I found a hole in the other day, and they are now out of commission until I find a suitable replacement).

So, yeah, nothing crazy in my wardrobe. I just like being comfortable and looking okay enough to not stand out (for better or worse).

Technology makes a difference

Taylor Burian1 Comment

How has technology changed your job?

Growing up I always watched my Dad leave for work in the morning and come home in the evening. After I finally graduated college, I was doing the same. Leaving home for the office in the morning and returning in the evening.

Well, until the pandemic happened. It’s the same story as a great many people. Technology had come a long way in the decades preceding the pandemic to allow millions of people to work from home. In my Dad’s case he lives in the country and has fast enough internet to do his work and stream Netflix. Myself, after restrictions in my State were lifted, I chose to go back to the office because I don’t have an entire house to myself to make an office and I didn’t want to feel locked in my bedroom all the time again.  Well, after a couple years of that, I more or less went hybrid, but only based on need. That is where technology has changed my job.

I have a work laptop set up at home near my normal computer and hobby space, and a desktop machine back in the office. On the days I work from home I can remote into my desktop and take advantage of its better hardware and processing power, and then minimize that window to use my laptop properly for other things. It’s a little awkward, having a pseudo four monitor setup on a laptop screen and one spare monitor, but it works. The days I choose to work in the office I just need my desktop and the three monitors I already have there, no need to remote into a less powerful laptop.

That’s about the gist of it lately. I know it’s one of the biggest topics in the last few years but I don’t use any sort of AI tools so I can’t talk about how those may have changed my job. So we’ll leave it at the remote telecommuting for now.

Loss of interest in a hobby

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?
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Thankfully the prompt is automatically at the top of the post or else I would feel the need to start with “Nobody panic, I’m not losing interest in a CURRENT hobby.”

Now, to be honest, I don’t have an exact answer because I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but yes there are definitely activities I’ve grown out of over the years. As a kid, I used to love riding my bike all over the place, playing with LEGOs for hours, probably some other things that kids typically lose interest in as they get older. Moving the clock forward to college, there used to be more alcohol in my life. More parties with friends. Not anymore, though, because I had a great (negative) role model about alcohol and I came to realize that I didn’t like the way it made me feel. All of those things are activities or hobbies I outgrew or lost interest in, although I really should consider getting a bicycle again and just riding the bike trail that loops around my city.

Funny enough, there is one hobby that I “outgrew” that ended up coming back. Pokémon cards. Unfortunately, when you’re a kid you don’t have a disposable income, so I couldn’t feed that cardboard crack addiction of buying booster packs. I didn’t come back to the game until more than 20 years later when my niece and nephews started to get into it. I don’t actively buy packs for that game these days, so I guess I still sort of outgrew it, however I do collect and play Magic: The Gathering instead so I would say I came back to the hobby eventually. Just in a different way.

It’s interesting how life changes like that.