November 08, 2004 | View Comments (37) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: I wish I had some cool news to tell you. I wish there was a new project launching or something for me to get all excited about. I wish I could explain why many of the blogs in our community...
I wish I had some cool news to tell you. I wish there was a new project launching or something for me to get all excited about. I wish I could explain why many of the blogs in our community aren't getting updated as often. I don't have an answer for them, but I can answer for myself.
I decided to take a step back. I wasn't burnt out or anything, I just decided to pursue some other interests for a couple of weeks that I have been neglecting for some time. It was great. I didn't reserve myself to checking my email every 5 minutes or opening up FeedDemon every 3 hours. I played videogames. Went to movies. Did some shopping. Talked to friends I haven't spoken to in a long time.
Sure I could've been doing this stuff all along, but you know how it is when you get caught up in something, everything else sort of falls by the wayside.
Yesterday I had lunch at a restaraunt of this Greek guy who coaches a soccer team I play on. He asked me what I do and I did my best to explain everything and after I was done he looked at me and gave me a high five. He then proceeded to tell me:
When you are young and you have the opportunities you have make sure you take them now, because everyday you get older and those chances get smaller and smaller.
Great advice. I would sum it up like this:
There is no better time to start than now.
I have been in a job before where I wish I had more time to do whatever. I have that option now. Heck I have been fortunate to set myself up where I am making money even when I am not at the computer. Nothing to buy houses off of, but enough to feed me during the day.
Heh, this entry is going no where fast. Let's see if I can find a point hidden underneath this rambling...
Enjoy your life. Stop wishing you had time for stuff and start making time for it. Work isn't everything so don't make it more important than everything. Go with your friends to the movies or out to a bar. Read a book. Get a tattoo.
And yes we will be returning to our regularly scheduled program now.
ps - Has anyone else been getting a 20x increase in comment spam lately?
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/367
Dito here :-( Must be a hell of a job for you to keep an eye on all your (very popular) sites and keep them "clean" from spam.
I've received a lot of spam from 1 and the same spam bot, I think around 60 a day. One thing is for sure I'm set up for a lifetime enjoyment of pills, poker, mortgage loans, etc.
And BTW, everybody deserves a break ;-)
Veerle Pieters (http://veerle.duoh.com)
Hmmm, interesting problem. Maybe you have to balance the fun stuff with the boring stuff...nah, what you need to do is find a way to make a living off of what you do. Of course there is only so many parts on the body you can tattoo so I don't know how long that source of income will last.
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)
yes, and I really have no desire to reach critical tattoo mass.
I enjoy web development, but we all know there isn't any money in that ;-)
seth
Good point. Everyone needs a little kick in the ass every once in a while.
Try having a kid - that will successfully eat all that free time.
Patrick Fitzgerald (http://barelyfitz.com/blog/)
Yes to the increase in spam, mostly from Mr. or Ms. or whatever video-poker.
As to the question of balance, yes to that too (do more stuff now while you can). But, spread too thin and you'll find it hard to go deep into one thing and sometimes that's necessary.
I like to fold the concept/word "triage" into the balance equation: it's important to know how to redo the balance point on the fly to be in the moment.
We've set up our lives in rural Connecticut so we absolutely have to do firewood, leaves, canning, other fall chores. Those things pull me outside, away from my computer regularly and that's good as it puts this in a different perspective.
Traveling outside of one's country (too few Americans do this) is another way to re-jigger the balance/perspective point. I try to get out of the country a few times a year if I can. Of course, that's not to say I won't check my feeds from the hotel in London, I surely will, but the beer I'm drinking while doing so will be quite different (and most probably better!).
Richard (http://www.richardsnotes.org)
Yep. More spam lately. Much more.
Good to know you're enjoying life. I need to remember to do that more often.
Roger Johansson (http://www.456bereastreet.com)
I think everyone's tired of the minutiae that has occupied blog posts for the last month or two. That's why you're not seeing much in the way of updates. Glad to see you're making constructive use of your time Paul.
And yes, poker and cigarette spam is way up. :(
Vinnie Garcia (http://blog.vinniegarcia.com/)
Been busy kickin ass :P ...
We Greeks know what it's all about, eh? ;-]
Mike P. (http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/sandbox/weblog/)
My comment spam in the last week or so has gotten outrageous: 20 some-odd a day. Bastards.
Dan Saffer (http://www.odannyboy.com)
Definitely noticed an increase in spam. Also getting odd ones like "just found your site on google" but the url the person puts doesn't exist. The URL is always their name, and their e-mail address always has their name in it. I've been deleting them, just in case.
Otherwise, my post occurences have been slowing because I've been busy... it's hard to keep up the gruelling pace the blogosphere demands! :)
Jonathan Snook (http:///jonathan/)
seth: Time to start jumping out of airplanes ;)
Personally, this has always been my excuse for lack of posts, putting off projects, etc. I'm too busy driving on the race track, skydiving, swimming, cycling, traveling, drinking, and smoking (no tattoos, tho) to get overly wrapped up in my little online world for too long. I think I've got things in a pretty good balance.
Paul Griffin (http://relativelyabsolute.com/)
More comment spam and it seems to have no purpose. It's getting by MT-Blacklist. It's not about porn or sex or anything either, it's weird.
Brian Behrend (http://www.brianbehrend.com/)
This is why I don't really do freelance work, I do enough work during the day, I don't need to come home and work more.
Gotta have "me" time.
Jason G (http://www.jgleman.com)
You guys are lucky, I've been getting spam that is in dutch! I mean, shouldn't they at least make it in the same language much less make it relevant to the topic? My "blacklisted words" section of code sends them to a picture of my middle finger if it's triggered. We'll that is as soon as I find time to take a picture of it :)
And yep, you gotta have that me time. I've not had me time is so long. Although I actually got to play basketball with a few friends from work the other day (originally I was going to skateboard with just one of them). I haven't played basketball since like sophomore year in high school — over six years ago. It was a beautiful day. This past weekend has been beautiful in Tampa.
Of course I finally got roadrunner now, so I'm not getting out much....again. But with school and work, I have my days away from the computer. Of course configuring that stupid netgear card on my desktop will probably take another three hours tomorrow. My god how much easier it is to set up a mac on a network.
Joe Clay (http://www.gra-phix.com/)
Glad to see you back Scrivs, I missed ya for a while there while you were gone. Good to hear you got that me time, I feel like im going to need some soon.. all these projects keep coming up.
Anways, can't wait for more intellectual and informative posts again! :-)
proph3t (http://www.holdem-strategy.net)
I got my first comment spam last week and about 300 more in the last few days, ridiculous.
Derek (http://www.dexlo.com/blog)
If you're doing all the fun things outside of work, shake them up a bit.
I do a lot of mountain biking for instance - but the same old places got boring. So we started travelling further afirled. This year I've done scotland, wales, ireland and the french alps aswell as my native england.
It brings a whole new element to whatever sport you do.
Olly Hodgson (http://thinkdrastic.net/)
Has anyone else been getting a 20x increase in comment spam lately?
*Raises hands*
I for one wish that my work was something fun. Like playing computer games.
Cheah Chu Yeow (http://blog.codefront.net/)
Trying to find balance between work, play, kids, hobby, wife, friends, family, raking the leaves, cleaning the windows, etc is akin to jugging 14 roaring chain saws. Can't... stop... paying... attention... or... YEOWWWWWCHHHHH!
I have a tattoo of DaVinci's Vitruvian Man (you know, the guy with four arms and four legs). I got it a couple of years ago, after my older daughter was born to remind me of the potential I hold. All that business about proportions, beauty, and balance; it seemed like the perfect symbol. I really like it.
I find though, that I'm so busy with, well, life, that I often go weeks without even noticing its there. All of which is to say that getting a tattoo is no assurance of balance!
***WAIT***
Stop this diatribe right here. Older daughter (3) just came up and gave me a kiss. I was just about to get in to the difficulty of maintaining balance while working from home.
See, the balance point just moved again.
Peter Flaschner (http://www.peterflaschner.com)
Ahh, Textpattern, how I love you so. No spam for me.
But as for the other issue, :) absolutely.
Eris (http://www.erisfree.com)
I seem to be getting alot of Poker related stuff - funny, I think of you and Betfest every single time.
Sorry, just kidding. Good to see you're not dead..
BTW, What's a quick way to get rid of the URL mentioned in #17? I've got a good share of those as well.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Glad to see you are varying your life some, I always come back to the daily grind more inspired than ever when I do it. Familly crest on left shoulder but no desire for anything else. Knowledge comes through experience so you need to peel yourself from the keyboard every now and then. Do something that gets you dirty. Do something with a little danger. Go grocery shopping and buy strange things in the oriental aisle. Drink some beer! Anything works, however mundane. Kids don't have the monopoly on climbing trees, find one, climb it, and have a Japanese beer while you are up there! That covers all my other suggestions!
I am pleased to see that you still live.
Like Eris, no comment spam at all due to Textpattern. My wife was getting over 300 a day with an old install of MT and the same again with her regular WP install. She saw that I wasn't getting any so had me get rid of the others and has now had none for over a week. She is thrilled.
Adrian Rinehart-Balfe (http://www.boogenstein.com/)
Another thumbs up for textpattern from me! No comment spam to speak of (yet...)
Peter Flaschner (http://www.peterflaschner.com)
So I guess that means I've been really successful in enjoying life this year, right Paul? ;) I sometimes find myself wishing that I didn't have so many outside interests (meaning, non web-related) so I could spend more time blogging, IM'ing with 'net friends, experimenting, designing for fun, etc., but the fact is that I decided this year to spread myself around a little more, and enjoy everything I am involved with to the fullest. I can say that I've been almost 100% successful in that goal, except for a few nasty bumps in my personal life along the way (nothing's ever perfect, eh?). I'm spending lots of time working on music for and with my chorus (running a choral group is really a full-time job, I just don't get paid like it's one :) and my quartet has been in the recording studio for the last few months working on our CD (not to mention the competion circuit that took up March through July), and I've been back on the Masters team at the Swimming Hall of Fame since late March, getting back into shape, and it all takes so much time that blogging and other online interests end up sitting down in the back seat (for instance, this week, chorus rehearsals are Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, with a show on Thursday, then quartet rehearsal on Saturday, in the studio on Sunday -- poof, there goes my life :)
And I'm turning 27 this Sunday, which is likely part of my reason for focusing more on everything, rather than a few things. The older I get, the more what your Greek friend says rings true...
As for comment spam, mine has been decreasing lately -- a few months ago I was getting 20 or 30 a day (annoying for sure), now it's more like a few each week. Then again, SB isn't as highly-visited as it was earlier in the year, which I'm certain has a lot to do with it...
Dan Rubin (http://superfluousbanter.org/)
Wow, I could have posted that to SB and just used trackback :) I think I'm posting comments on other sites more often than I'm posting to my own...
Dan Rubin (http://superfluousbanter.org/)
Paul, did you try Guild Wars during the WPE? You have to play that, or at least try it. ;_; must wait so long til it is released.
Zelnox
Good to hear you have some extra time... I'm still waiting for this quarter to end... I've learned the hard way taking a full load of classes and working 25 hours a week at a web firm and finishing up some freelance projects and working on a couple of personal sites and attempting to have fun with friends now and then was a bad idea... I can't wait until next quarter...
Good to hear you're livin' the good life because of us surfin' your sites :) Although, I must say I've missed BMT lately...
Kyle (http://www.warpspire.com/)
500 dollar bounty to that mr poker online asswipe. I really want to see him strung alive. i need pictures dead or alive i could care less. if anyone else wants to pitch money into the hat i am in. he hits all my wp powered sites about 5 times a day. luckily i have figured out how to stop him for good but i still hate it. i hate him. he sucks.
good idea take some time off. wish i had the time.
david krug (http://powervisitors.com)
Hi everyone,
my way to get balance.
Sport! I use my bike to get to work (every day 40 minutes) and one time in the week i go Aikido (japanese material art). Its not only combat an enemy, it also has some kind of mind/spirit training for you. You learn to hear on you body/mind... very nice and helpfull.
I enjoy the little things. I love to cook and eat together with my girlfriend.
$0.02
Rene
Rene Grassegger (http://www.grassegger.at)
Have a kid. Now have another one. And another one.
Now try to remember what "me time" is. Or 'friends'...
Matthew Pennell (http://www.thewatchmakerproject.com/)
I don't have any comment spam now that I installed the MT plugin to automatically close comments on posts with no comments for the last 2 weeks. Works quite nicely. But if you get a lot of comments on older entries, it wouldn't be an option.
Derek (http://www.twotallsocks.com/)
Aaah comment spam. Those bad-*ss &%€#! I don't have a problem with 'em, since one has to log in in order to comment. This stops both comments spam and people who just want to say "you suck" dead in their tracks, because they can't be bothered. Referal spam on the other hand, hoo boy has that evah increased! Totally pointless as well, since the only one who sees the referers is me. Thanks for messing up my real data in the referer logs guys. Thanks a lot. I actually thought the idea would die when Wired gave it bad coverage a few years back, but noo, quite the opposite. Seems to go in equal waves as comment spam though as all my friends are suddenly deluged with the latter. Spammers suck.
Dabitch (http://ad-rag.com)
Yeah, uh, I don't use MT, I actually quit using it due to comment spam as a huge problem, but I'd imagine if you changed the name of the script that's used to process comments, that would probably eliminate most of the problem, being as I'm confident it's a computer program that does the automatic spamming.
Anyway, I read books, watch movies, and have a tattoo, and my problems haven't dissapeared yet.
Jimmy (http://www.scallion.sp00fed.net)
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#1
Right on. And yes, I've seen more spam.
Keith (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/)