Changes and LessConf
Hello to all of my new visitors from LessConf and BarCampJax. I had an absolutely amazing time there talking to everyone.
For those that don’t know, LessConf was a conference put on this past weekend in Jacksonville, with a variety of talks for Entrepreneurs and Developers. It was definitely a great time, and I’m proud of Allan and Steve for their hard work putting this together. A complete success, and I’m excited for the next time they have it. Every one of the talks were great.
Every time I go to a conference, I always get that spark of motivation to work on my own projects, or just just feel so much better with the network connections. This time around, with all the talk on brands and what not, and Gary Vee’s very inspirational talk about brand equity and the amount of self-confidence he has really got me going about my brand, and I’m anxious to work on my own brand and side projects more.
There hasn’t been any new updates here as I have been very busy with moving into my new place, as well as out on the job search. So basically my hiatus that I figured was going to come, actually happened a little later than I thought.
I’m finally taking the time out this week to work on a couple things. Blackened Sun will have some changes being made to it, in terms of setting up my about page, as well as a portfolio/resume. So please excuse the mess if you see one.
Also, I’m working on an exciting new project that I have been putting off for far too long. When I am finished enough to have people try it out, I will be announcing it here on my blog. A lot of the LessConf’ers as well as friends of mine already know bits and pieces of what I am hoping to develop and I plan to have something to show off by the end of this week. I think I can do it!
I believe my blog will be changing direction. I’m constantly torn on if this blog should discuss personal things, be a place for me to rant, or keep things professional and only discuss things related to my field of Web Development. I always felt like the blog should stay “professional” but I notice time and time again that I end up going out on a tangent and discussing my life, and other random thoughts I may have about things that happen around me. What are your thoughts on this? Do you like the blog posts I have so far, would you prefer a change?
I am going to promise at least one new blog post a week, though, regardless. I really want to make sure I keep this updated!
Introspection
This blog isn’t what I wanted Blackened Sun to be. It should be my personal “brand” and a portfolio of work that I’m actually capable of showing. The blog was going to be a part of that, not the primary focus. I figured the sooner I can get the site up, the better. The portfolio will come, eventually, especially once I actually manage to create some works that I’m allowed to show off. My current job prohibits that, and I’m not all that proud of my earlier works (I know I could have done them better than I did), especially considering my current works, and how much I have improved over the past 2 years. Not to mention the dark and gloomy aspect of the previous versions of Blackened Sun no longer fit who I am, and I wanted to change that and break away from the colors. I even thought of changing the name, but Blackened Sun has been with me for such a long time already (bought the domain on July 28, 2006, but I’ve used the name since before 2003).
I feel that I have really changed in the last 6 years since I graduated high school, for better or worse (I think for the better) and I wanted my website to finally reflect that change. The depressing “blackened sun” and black colors of the previous versions, which did indeed represent (in some extent) my inner turmoil, didn’t represent me anymore. I have finally broken away (I think) from that, and I have certainly become better because of it.
The past couple of years, due to a few circumstances I shall not discuss, I have really changed in how I perceive myself online. The once insanely public presence I kept online had turned out to be flawed, and I was reeling from it, and I completely shut down my two major active presences online (Facebook and Twitter) to private only. It really made me wonder about my presence on the internet. I cleaned up my presence, and made them public again, at least in part.
A couple months ago I went through my friends list on Facebook and removed all of those “friends” that were simply “oh, we went to school together and I said hi once… FRIEND” and never spoke to. They didn’t care about my life, and I don’t care about theirs, so why keep that connection active for absolutely no reason? I still add some of those, as I meet people, but this is as we expect to talk. In 6 months if the conversation dies down to absolutely nothing, I’ll probably remove them again.
I also decided last week to remove my accounts on a couple of websites. Shutting down the excess that have no effect on my life. I really don’t need all those pointless “What [something] are you?” apps on Facebook. I don’t need my Myspace account anymore (almost every important friend is on Facebook, too). I’m really turning into how I always felt: Cut out the excess that have no true impact, and only worry about the big things. Forget the minuscule, pointless things. It’s stupid to argue over the meaningless.
It’s a philosophy so many people tend to completely ignore. Drama and gossip is prevalent in high school. People complain about the small things, and bitch and moan, and all it does is get them stressed. Unnecessary stress. Even when a big thing comes your way, take it with a grain of salt. Don’t immediately assume the worse… It may turn into a small issue after all. When my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, or even when she was in the big motorcycle accident with her fiancé, I didn’t let it get to me, because we certainly didn’t know how bad it was going to be. Giving up when you’re diagnosed (“oh, well, I have cancer, guess I’m going to die”) is not a way to live, not to mention I do believe in the power of good thoughts, and if you give up on your will to live, you WILL have a higher chance of dying.
Don’t be disappointed that the reservation didn’t happen. Just shrug it off, and go to a different restaurant. Take every moment as it comes. Sure the future is important, and you should plan for it, but don’t stress yourself over it. I keep a good eye on my future, but I don’t plan my present 100% to get to the goals I have set for myself in the future. This allows change, allows you to “so, ok, I guess this path won’t work, and I’ll have to take another one” without freaking out over the fact that it’s not happening as fast as you want it to. Pixar’s movie Up has a great intro that does something like that. It involved a couple of characters saving money for a vacation, but they had to keep breaking into it to afford issues with their house, and life, that got in the way. But they never got sad over it, because “hey… that’s life… c’est la vie”… Sure, it sucks that you can’t do what you want to do, but at least you’re still healthy and alive, and in their case, still happily in love.
The population needs to start noticing the things that matter, and focus on the things that really deserve their attention. They need to understand that those small things are so minuscule compared to the larger picture, and aren’t worth fretting over.
I certainly think I have moved beyond that. I may have moments where I do get frustrated over the small things. If that ever happens while I’m around you… Please smack me and point it out. It’s so weird to put things in such a perspective where you realize that half of the stuff that you do on a daily or weekly basis truly have no impact on who you are and who you should try to be. You realize that you really have been wasting your time over such simple things.
Aaaaaand I’m sure this turned into another rant that makes no sense. Comments about this are appreciated!
Temporary Hiatus
As I have been packing, painting, and cleaning for the move to my new place, I simply haven’t had the mindset (or the ideas) for new blog posts. I have been working and fixing up the place every day for the past 5 days, and it’s not slowing down yet. I am exhausted, but it must get done. Therefore, it may be a little while until I update this again.
I set out for the goal of updating this twice a week, but I always struggle to come up with things to talk about, especially considering that I want to avoid directly talking about my personal life (well, perhaps at the most keeping it vague).
So perhaps this “hiatus” may simply mean less frequency with my blog posting. *shrug* It certainly didn’t help that my blog went down for that week I was on vacation, and it still hasn’t fully recovered (you might notice that the earlier blog posts are still missing images)… It’s frustrating when your code goes down and there’s nothing you can do about it. Watch, as soon as this post is made, it won’t actually mean anything and I’ll find random stuff to rant about and post on here.
Be forewarned, my blog posting may have less frequency. Though this post gave me the idea for another entry, which will be up later this week 
A Collection of Thoughts.
Well. I purchased my first home on Friday. A nice two bedroom townhouse in North Tampa. Man, do I feel overwhelmed though, now that I’ve spent a couple days wandering around the place. I’m looking at what needs to be done, what needs to be fixed, where I need to paint (uhh… EVERYWHERE, almost?). I’m just realizing how big of a job I have ahead of me. I really have no motivation to do it, and that’s my problem so far, lol. I should just take the next month off of work (wouldn’t that be nice) and start taking care of everything.
I noticed that one of the toilets doesn’t work (the stopper when the toilet is refilling isn’t cutting off the water flow when it should be.)… and that I have a ceiling fan in the living room that is running for the foreseeable future until I get a step ladder so I can actually stop it…
Walking through the community on Sunday, however, I’m definitely very happy with my purchase, though. It’s very nice! I think I’ll get along well with my community, but we’ll see I’ll need to socialize! *gasp* I spent some time around the community pool with my cousin, he was my first “guest” to the house, even though it’s still empty. Hanging around the pool was great.
My trip to Canada and Massachusetts was absolutely awesome, and relaxing. Canada was so much fun, and so beautiful (I really do love Magog, just a small quaint town that’s still large enough for my tastes). My time in Massachusetts was basically read my books all morning, then go out during the afternoon/night. It was definitely relaxing, and much needed, especially since as soon as I got back into Florida it was running around while I closed on the condo and went to work. All over the damn place!
I really did have to go Cold Turkey when it came to technology while I was up in Canada. There was no way I wanted to accrue international charges. At first I was going to turn off my phone for the entire 3 days. But then turned my phone onto Airplane mode so I could at least play with the games on it, lol…
Of course, the running around is only getting worse as I realize everything that I have before me. I still have to make sure multiple places have my new address, not to mention some of those places I don’t even think have my new phone number (changed that like a month ago)… My old job in MA never contacted me back about my 401k, which is annoying, so I’m not too sure what to do there. But I guess it’s something I don’t need to fidget with right away.
I’m very relieved to finally have this blog back up and running, and I don’t believe any of the styling is out of place anymore. We’ll see how it goes. I HAVE noticed that the images from the previous blog posts are missing, so I know I need to figure out how I want to upload those again to make sure everything is back to normal.
So… How about them Red Sox? I am absolutely appalled by the sudden disastrous loss to the Yankees (we were SWEPT in a 4 game series???? WTF!)… What went wrong? What is Francona doing to remedy the situation? We need a turn around, and SOON. I could not believe the Sox went from 8-0 vs the Yankees this year, to 8-4, so quickly… JEEZ.
Guess that’s all I have in my mind for now.
Testing New Feature
This is a test of my Wordpress publishing to send a blog update to Twitter. Just to see if it works.
Keeping this short and sweet!
UPDATE 10:20 – Damn. Didn’t work. It appears that the bit.ly conversion didn’t work for some odd reason. My Twitter shows the post, but not the link…
UPDATE 10:32 – Did a second test, verifying the bit.ly login, and it worked. However, I deleted the Twitter posts for both blog entries and deleted the other blog entry as it was pointless to have redundancy like that for testing purposes clutter either site.