Mandaris26. Are you retired or working? What are your plans for retirement?
I am currently working and having this constant dread that I'll probably have to do this until the day that I pass away.
Life has a lot of twist and turns. A lot of restarts and some plans that had not materialized.
So, I’ve moved all my available resources into making sure that my children have everything they need in order to succeed.
25. Is there a special food from your region or heritage that you a particular appreciation for?
I'm in California and there are a lot of different foods in our area that I get to sample. There are two foods that I find to be special and that I make for myself time to time.
The first is hot dogs and beans. I like to class it up a little bit by using lil smoky sausages that I pan fry before adding the Bush’s baked beans. Now, these are both processed foods and probably have the total amount of sugar for a whole week contained in one serving. I shouldn’t admit it but no one is going to read this and respond, but I eat the contents of both the package of sausages and can of beans in one seating.
The family finds out soon enough.
My second food is a pan fried baloney sandwich. There is definitely an overlap when it comes to the meat
that I’m eating in this situation and I’m ok with that. I usually get the baloney from my local deli and then place a piece of cheese on top of the baloney.
24. Write a review of your favorite album. What lyrics mean something special to you?
A LOT of people love Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's got a lot of big hits on it and the title track is a halloween dance favorite. My favorite album is the one before it, Off the Wall.
I find myself really enjoying the entire album. It starts off with a bang with “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” that really gets the energy up. I feel that it’s more of an anthem at that point as it tells the listener not to settle.
Although, I do have a confession, I never knew the lyrics to that first song. I just groove with the vibe and I have that feeling about a lot of my favorite music.
The second song, “Rock with You”, starts off with a quick drumbeat and then a steady beat that contains some of my favorite lyrics of “relaxing to the beat”. I think this is a great song in that it highlights how you can be uptempo without having to be full force.
“Workin’ Day and Night” wasn’t a track that I understood until I was much older. It’s not so much of a song about getting out there and working as it is about why we do things in the “real world”.
I feel that “Girlfriend” is the embodiment of what it means to be “the other guy” in a relationship. Well, technically, not really in a relationship. Usually, you see this situation in media as someone feeling betrayed or hurt. In this one, I feel a sense of longing and hurt. If the roles were reversed and placed in a movie, you would hear a line like “oh, he’s just waiting for the right moment to tell his wife”. That hope that you just need to hold on for a little long and that person will be yours.
“Burn This Disco Out” is the last track on the album and it’s somewhat a wake up call to pay attention because after this moment, you’re going to have to start the album over.
23. What words of wisdom would you have appreciated from your younger self?
Sometimes I don't think I've become any wiser in my years. Just a little more patient in some areas and less in others.
But, if I could say something to my younger self it would be that I should be more present with the time that I have with those in my life. I would try to tell him about what things matter and what things don’t.
I would also tell him to buy bitcoin and get a state job as soon as I can.
- Have you been to a memorable concert? What made it stand out to you?
My first memorable concert was the [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells Tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles#Concert_tour).
At the time, my school had a reading program where you could get a personal pizza if you read a certain amount of books. As a kid, these were my two favorite things pizza and reading! I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that PizzaHut had tie in with the Ninja Turtle tour and that you could buy the sound track with the purchase of pizza.
I remember listening to the soundtrack on cassette a lot when I was a kid. I think this is the first time where I would listen to an album and want to skip to the next song. I don’t think I was allowed to do that at that age would have occurred sit through it.
I only remember one song from the cassette called “Tub-in” that I really liked but don’t really remember from the concert. In fact, I don’t remember a lot from the concert except that it was pretty loud and kind of slow in some places. I do remember the Shredder singing a song about hating music. That always stuck with me and I remember sharing a dorm room with someone who said he didn’t like music.
We weren’t roommates the next year.
Coming Out Of Their Shells was a studio album, and subsequent live musical tour that occurred from 1990 to 1991 (in 1992, it toured overseas). The tour was endorsed and sponsored by Pizza Hut. The very first showing of the tour was broadcast live on Pay-Per-View. A VHS recording of the broadcast was made released, as well as a "Making Of" direct to home video. The tour is generally lambasted for its terrible costumes and wafer-thin plot. The band featured Donatello on keys, Leonardo on bass guitar, Michelangelo on guitar/lead vocals & Raphael on drums/percussion/tenor saxophone/vocals. Guest vocalists include Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and The Shredder.
Well, we’re at the end of the month and I did not meet my goal of having a post every day about mental health as I had set out to do. If anything, I probably posted less this month than at other times this year.
Apparently, I need to take the break from posting.
Still, there were a lot of great posts that came from this and would like to thank everyone who wrote or read a blog to think about joining communities like indieweb.org or adding themselves to Blog of the Day.
Blog of the Day is a small project created and maintained by James and Joe. I’ve been seeing them in various IndieWeb meet ups and they seem like pretty cool folks.
My favorite part of this whole experience was seeing posts from other people. The small ones, the long posts. Things that were sitting in a drafts folder and even the posts with a simple “I’m only writing this to continue the streak”. I didn’t read everything but it was cool to see what options were available.
For my own writing, I come away with a feeling a little more confidence about posting links from other sites. People like HeyScottyJ and Leon, pushed me to get over the barrier of feeling like an imposter and that the value of me taking the time to find the links and adding my two cents is important as well. I’m not taking credit, I’m pointing the way.
Yes.
Part of my posts were highlighting the importance of mental health and I do enjoy publishing things on my blog.
I feel that next year, I’ll include the entire blog instead of just a category and I might draft a couple posts in advance so that I can stagger the publication.
I’ve been thinking about the different projects that I’ve got going on and some of them have been sitting around needing some time. I thought I would share a couple links about how to restart a project.
Today, was the second to last day of a losing season of volleyball for my family.
It’s been tough.
There have been lots of dropped balls and random issues here and there.
When we lose a game, I like to go through the following steps.
Above all, I avoid complaining about other players. It just makes the losing worse as you keep on dwelling on what you can’t go back and change PLUS you start fighting with the people you have to play with in the next game.
Exercise is a great stress reliever for me. I know my day will be better the next day if I spend at least 20 minutes working up a sweat. I can focus. I’m smarter, funnier, and better looking after working out a couple days in a row. Maybe that last part is because of the confidence I get from the feeling of accomplishment.
But, I’ve been having trouble getting back into a routine.
So, I thought I would tell the internet that I’m having trouble and write up the things that I do that encourage me to exercise regularly.
Tomorrow, I plan on doing 5 pushups as soon as I get out of bed. Promise!
Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and you see companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google post about how they are making things more accessible for their users1.
It’s good to see major companies doing this as it helps everyone. I just wanted to take this time to remind you that you can do your part by making your website a little more accessible.
A good place to go is WebAim and looking at the page on accessibility for designers. After reviewing the guidelines, you can checkout this page of accessible website examples.