The Mental Office

I’ve been trawling through some old text files of mine. I came across a note from 2012 that I initially thought was my own, but now recognise it as the work of Shawn Blanc. Shawn’s post highlights issues relating to working from home. He references a podcast that I used to enjoy listening to — the Home Work podcast, hosted by Aaron Mahnke and Dave Caolo1 . I can’t find an active link for the podcast.

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Politics

Day 30 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. You thought religion was a dangerous topic? No, I’ve left the really dangerous one until last. Today, let’s talk politics. My origin story I’ve been interested in politics since I was 12 or 13 years old. Perhaps influenced by my conservative parents, and having grown up in an Australia where for the length of my memory Labor had been in government, I felt Labor were taking it all for granted.

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Microblogvember: Over the past 30 days I have been able to integrate the Microblogvember prompts from @macgenie into my daily blogging routine. These micro posts run in parallel with my longer Blogvember posts.

Religion

Day 29 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. My life has always been connected to religion and it has played a formative role in my upbringing. Baptised Anglican, and the son of an Anglican minister, I remember sitting through interminably boring sermons and church services that seemed to go forever. I also remember visiting the church with my Mom and sitting on her lap and steering our car through the parking lot while she dealt with the pedals.

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Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2019 SaaS Deals Harmonizely is 50% off your first payment. It’s a good WhenWorks alternative. @macgenie

I took advantage of Apple’s Black Friday deals to buy a new Apple TV 4K. Then discovered I was only on the Netflix “HD” plan - not the “UHD” plan so had to give them more money. Meanwhile, Apple TV+ and Disney+ offer UHD by default for less than the basic Netflix plan! 📺

Microblogvember: 29 days into the challenge; 1 day to go. Fantastic!

Hope

Day 28 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. I hope my children have a good future. Challenges confront them large and small. Some of my immediate hopes include: they don’t fall in with the wrong crowd. they develop deep friendships - the type where you can trust the other with your deepest secrets and fears. they don’t fall down a drug vortex. they find fun in their childhood.

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Microblogvember: Prices of property in Perth went through the roof a few years ago as we experienced a ‘mining boom’. They’ve settled down again now but houses are still way more expensive relative to income than they were a few decades prior.

I’m falling down the rabbit hole of encrypted internet services. First Keybase for messaging, then Standard Notes for notes and now Tresorit for file storage and secure sharing.

Loss

Day 27 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. I get frustrated when I lose something basic, like keys, glasses or my wallet. I have a designated ‘home location’ for these items. Despite that, they still seem to have a tendency to disappear from time to time. It is the most frustrating kind of loss, because I know they have to be around somewhere. But that somewhere could be anywhere.

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Microblogvember: I may not be rich but at least I have my health. (Glass half full, glass half full…!)

Shoes

Day 26 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. I’m not a sneaker head by any means. Though there was a period when I was a teenager that I did pay a little more attention to the shoe world, and basketball shoes in particular. Basketball Shoes This was the era of Reebok Pumps and the original Air Jordans. When shoes were big and high tops were really high.

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Microblogvember: I enjoy reading my micro.blog feed because of the interesting mix of people I get to interact with.

A fresh look for your Microblogs, Twitter and Facebook Feeds – Inoreader

added a custom parser for Micro.blog JSON feeds extensions.

Awesome that Inoreader is specifically adding support for micro.blog. @manton

I watched the first episode of See and liked it. Not sure why it was so heavily criticised? 📺

I bought a UPS for my iMac today. The hardware seems fine but the software is some janky Java thing. I’m pretty sure I have to have it running to enable auto-shutdown though - there’s nothing standard built in to macOS, right?

Money

Day 25 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. I’m all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack Money, it’s a hit Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit I’m in the high-fidelity first class traveling set And I think I need a Lear jet Pink Floyd, Money Money is the great enabler. Its presence enables people to climb out of poverty.

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Microblogvember: I am glad our kids feel safe and secure in their home. It’s sad that many kids must not.

Infrastructure

Day 24 of Blogvember. A full list of prompts for the month is available. Many years ago I was employed as an Advisor to our State Government’s Minister for Planning and Infrastructure. This followed previous work in the State Department of Transport and for a large grains cooperative which built, managed and utilised transport and logistics infrastructure. Infrastructure is often taken for granted It’s reasonable to suggest that’s when infrastructure is working at its best.

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