Here are 7 Steps to Better Website Feedback http://bit.ly/9KISwQ (via @Openmotive)
Here are 7 Steps to Better Website Feedback http://bit.ly/9KISwQ (via @Openmotive)
A tongue-in-cheek CMS decision tree (via @siffring) http://bit.ly/9qFg4N (via @Openmotive)
Obama internet ‘kill switch’ bill approved http://bit.ly/ddU1np (via @mparent77772)
Not sure where to go with this. Not sure anyone really reads this anymore, although it’s certainly crawled enough. I was laying in bed talking with Nancy last night about how I can’t seem to figure out how to handle the duality of wanting to own nice things and yet not wanting to be tied to anything. Don’t get me wrong; we have what anyone would consider “nice” things. In fact, I have an amazing life that has taken men down some interestingly unexpected paths. I have all the expected “yuppie” stuff. I own a couple Apple laptops, drive a Volvo, own a condo in downtown Chicago, have an iPhone, large lcd television, etc… I have stuff. But I look around now and realize I don’t really care about much of it beyond a very superficial level.
Right before going to bed last night I had an almost overwhelming urge to take my laptop and throw it off of the balcony onto the parking garage three stories below and watch it be smashed to pieces. I wasn’t angry or upset. Nothing had happened to make me want to “fly off the handle”. I actually felt very calm about it, yet the urge was very, very strong and I had to make an effort not to follow through.
I work in IT. Maybe that’s it. I’m connected every single day yet I’m disconnected from everything and I have absolutely no idea how to extricate myself from this life I have now. I have a mortgage, career, debt. I can’t just walk away from my job and go work on a farm, can I?
A farm. That’s what’s really there bothering me. I want a connection and this is the thing I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’d like to work with my hands again and not just use them for typing all day. I’d like to provide for myself directly, grow my own food, fix my own devices, unplug from the grid. I know I could do it. I have absolutely no doubt that I could walk onto a farm tomorrow with chickens, pigs, goats, vegetables and we would survive. The first year would be rough, no doubt, as we stumbled through things, figured out stuff on our own, made lots of mistakes. But we learn quickly and I know that we could succeed.
But how to get there? How do I transfer away all of my “stuff” and replace it with a few acres, some animals and equipment? That is the true question. I’ve searched the internet for Farms for sale (as if I had the money right now) and most of the ones local to where I live now (Chicago) are unbelievably expensive. More like lifestyle farms than actual pieces of farmable land. The farms even remotely close to being affordable are so far away that there’s no way we could move there any time soon.
And then there’s the job. I’ve read about people trying to transition into farming continuing to work their day jobs and farming at night and on the weekends until the farm income takes over. I work all the time, however, and have no idea where I’d come up with the extra time to actually farm without killing myself, even if I did have the money to get on a farm right now. As it is, the condo we bought for $265k three years ago is now only worth $150k and although we have a little bit of a retirement set aside and accruing, we certainly don’t have any disposable income to put into this even if we cut our expenses down to nothing.
Maybe I’m just whining or putting up walls so I don’t have to do it. I really hope not because I want more than anything to not have to wake up tomorrow morning, or any morning for that matter, and open another email. I would love to never send or receive another email for the rest of my life. I’m not afraid of hard work (I was a working chef for most of my adult life until transitioning into IT) and I know I could succeed for myself on a farm. It’s getting there that’s the great unkown.
HTML5Rocks: A resource for everything HTML5 http://bit.ly/d1bcTO (via @Openmotive)
Okay, that is the craziest warning siren I’ve ever heard.
Servers? Completely moved. Me? Exhausted.
SMACKDOWN: If you are not upset by this, your tea is weak, man Weak.http://bit.ly/anPyMK #flotilla #gaza (via @mparent77772)