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Showing posts from 2018

Yet Another Phishing Scheme

Got this gem in my inbox this afternoon: Did a quick Google and found a bunch of references to this as a phishing scheme. The poor grammar and funky URL tipped me off. Always be diligent, my friends.

A Bruce Lee Quote For Your Edification

Control your mind. It's all you can control, and will drive your life. 

Top 10 Snohomish County Pumpkin Patches & Corn Mazes

Welcome back autumn! My favorite season. I get to wear my sweaters, the leaves turn colors, and all kinds of charming, wonderful things. I love my family's yearly pumpkin patch outing to the Farm at Swan's Trail , which is my person favorite on this list. The link below takes you to the good folks at Eat, Stay, Love SnoCo . I'm confident you'll find the perfect place to celebrate the coming of Fall. Top 10 Snohomish County Pumpkin Patches and Corn Mazes

MEUTE - UNDERGROUND (Nick Curly/Dennis Ferrer Rework)

As a trombonist and tubaist, I'm thinking it would be a blast to pull some other musicians together for a project link this. Would you come?

Yes, I'll Be Your Neighbor

Now this is a treat! Today's Google Doodle  brings me back to one of the best parts of my childhood: Mister Rogers. His message of kindness is one we so are lacking right now. It was, and still is, a privilege to be his neighbor. They also crafted a Behind the Doodle on this one that's equally delightful. Check them both out, wipe the tears away, and get back to it!

The Chemical Brothers - The Salmon Dance

Featuring a beat boxing blowfish...how can you go wrong? It's weird and trippy....just perfect, methinks! At least for the Chemical Brothers .

Check out this video - Cymatics: Science vs Music

I love how they used video to really enhance the unique qualities of this music, and the underlying physics.

Blogging, Strategy and the Need For Focus

​I love to write. I love blogging. Yet there are challenges. Distributing my focus lowers my effectiveness. That troubles me. And yet, though each site has meaning to me. But each site has costs, economic and otherwise. Every time I focus on one, I can’t focus on another. I haven’t had an objective, much less a strategy on any of my sites. I love to write poetry, about Seattle, about sustainability, geek culture, about so very much. Each site has value to me. I hate the idea of neglecting one at the expense of another. Yet I also hate writing substandard stuff. I prefer to be proud of what I put on the internet. This time in history has so many choices; a blizzard of potentials and possibilities. And I hate letting go of those potentials. Any of them. Yet I know that must be done to achieve ANY of them. How does one choose which baby to let die? Perhaps overly dramatic, but it captured the sentiment I’ve been struggling with.

Seattle's Summer's Starting, And I'm Not Sure I'm a Fan

Being the Seattleite, I have a natural dislike for heat. Pushing 90 is well past the zone of comfort. And, even with the abrupt temperature drop of evening, I find it hard to sleep, even in the low 80s. So I'm looking forward to today, with a not quite 10 degree drop, and Thursday/Friday where we drop back into the 70s.

Your Monday Motivational Quote Of The Day

"All Our Dreams Can Come True, If We Have The Courage To Pursue Them." ~Walt Disney Finding and keeping this kind of courage is challenging at best. So much in life seeks to suck that out, to bring us down and drain our dreams into dust. Pursuing our dreams is often more work than surviving, but it's far more rewarding, giving life and energy.  May you find and nurture that inspires and invigorates you. 

Today's Quote: Another One About Fear

Don't let fear kill your dreams. Plan and act! Focus on hope, on the way forward. Perhaps you've noticed I've been working a theme these past few posts: facing fear, moving forward, pursuing those dreams.

Quote of the Day: Dale Canegie & Fear

It's easy to let fear paralyze us and suck out our effectiveness. But the only way to conquer fear is through action.

From Dune, The Litany Against Fear.

This seems very relevant in these times: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my  fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. [ 2 ] From Dune, The Litany Against Fear. 

Quote Of The Day

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”    ~ Albert Einstein Always strain against the status quo, my friends. That's how to grow.

Ninja Batman

This will either be really cool, or a total farce. Either way, I want to see it. And this t-shirt looks pretty awesome. Just might to dedicate a smidge of my geek fashion budget to getting one. Anyone else looking forward to this?

Setting Goals

This notion terrifies me, in the best possible way.

Just Because You Aren't Where They Are

I've had to remind myself of this quite a few times.

Time To Get Up!

Go get 'em, folks!

It's Not Always Easy, But It's Always Worth It

My motivational post of the day:

The First Day Of Spring

Spring has now arrived Blossoms are now bursting forth Change can bring delights May the new life of spring bring you joy and delight my friends!

Finding Focus, Defining Passion, Averting Risk

What is my direction? I'm pulled so many ways? Is that bad? Or does that tension Make me bigger? I don't which is better For my soul I am challenged by "focus". When focused, other things must be ignored. Such a painful thing, to give up on interests. Yet I see that by diluting my focus, passions get sacrificed. I've searched for passion, just not very well. I'm pulled this way and that. Unsure which way is true. I've spent so much time eliminating risk that I've never truly considered passion, and how that can fit into career. I still have plenty of work to do. 

Motivational Thing: February 19, 2018

Here's a little motivational thing:

My Most Popular Instagram Post

Rather funny that this little graphic I zipped out has become my most popular Instagram post: Just whenever, you know.... A post shared by Carl Setzer (@carlsetzer) on Oct 18, 2017 at 9:10pm PDT Not a lot of thought or effort went into this. It was just a thought that tickled my sensibilities. 

Flickr and the changing Internet

A friend of mine let me know she's still pretty active on Flickr, so I zipped over there to see what's been happening. Now, I've posted to my page fairly recently, but I haven't been so good about reading other folks' stuff. As I started surfing through my followers, I was amazed at how many of them had gone missing. Some not having posted in years. As I was going through, I started unfollowing those who hadn't posted for more than 3 years. Yes, three years! Seems like a good time to clean house, I guess. It does make me question the viability of Flickr. Yahoo!'s issues over the past few years have, long ago, made me wonder if they would keep the platform going. And Yahoo!'s fate's not getting any clearer. But, it's still here, and there are still photographers posting merrily along. So, as long as it's not gone total ghost-town, I plan to keep on posting there. I do post nearly daily to Instagram , mostly with haiku. Then I post some

The respect of 'why', or Obedient Serfs Don't Innovate

A mediation on today's post by Seth Godin: "The respect of 'why'" . Questionsall was my first Twitter handle, and is the title of my poetry blog, and my very first site here on  Blogger .  I deeply value questioning, on probing. In not accepting things at face value. I believe the path to a great life comes through questions. What do I want to do with my life? What feeds my soul? What makes my heart soar? What steals my energy? My passion? My joy?  Hence, wise leaders accept the value of questioning. Everyone on the team needs to value the mission, share the dream and the goals. Then, and only then, will you have a team of innovators.  Obedient serfs don't innovate!

A Sunday Evening Meditation

Life moves at this blur  Days blend together quickly  Cherish these moments 

A Black History Month Haiku

Tonight's haiku is in honor of Black History.

An Alexa Spotify Issue

A good chunk of this evening was spent dealing with a strange issue. For Christmas, my dad gave my son an Alexa. Connecting it to Spotify has been problematic. We connected it to the Alexa app, but the unit kept directing us to connect a Premium Spotify account. Well, it is such.  At first my research showed issues with family premium plans. But nothing in any official capacity. Neither the Spotify nor the Amazon sites. Thus, I decided to keep exploring.  I noticed that my father's name was attached the Alexa unit. Resetting the unit solved the problem.  So, it had nothing to do with the Spotify family premium account, as some sites suggested. If you're having the same issue, reconnecting your Alexa to your app might be your ticket. 

A Photo, My History With Music, And Seattle's Venerable KEXP

Saw this photo on KEXP's homepage today. This wall of cassettes! OH.MY.GAWD! Ah, the musical history therein. Memories of siting by the play button waiting for my favorite songs, of the awesome feeling once I got a double cassette recorder, so I could create mix tapes. And sharing my tapes with my friends, introducing them to the music I loved. Oh, and crafting mix tapes for those I loved. A custom blend of music as a gift. For someone who loves music, I couldn't think of a better gift. There were groups of my friends that would swap these tapes, with meticulously detailed liner notes. The purpose was to connect friends with music, musicians they hadn't heard before, but would certainly love. The best were getting tapes with great bands that got no air-time. Fulfilling the ultimate proto-hipster delight of knowing a band before they became famous. As for this photo: she is Jen Cloher , an Australian musician. I'm now streaming her self-titled album via Googl

A Sunday Night Haiku

Daylight has faded Yet light's power is still strong Tapping our spirit Well, the weekend is about at is close . I hope everyone feels recharged and ready for another workweek .

Own Your Beauty

Your voice may be weak Singing doesn't call angels You still own beauty

A Nuclear Haiku

Quantum mechanics  With its weird magnificence Lewis Carroll's dream 

Next Week Is February?

February 1st is a week from tomorrow. Anyone else feeling like time is rocketing by?

Seattle Is My Home: A Haiku

This morning's meditation: This place has my heart Seattle's Grey skies call me It's always been home

Albert Einstein on Innovative Thinking

I adore Albert Einstein! And I appreciate the notion behind this. Change is challenging, and critical, and, well, hard.

An AutoCAD Issue I've Been Fighting Most Of The Day

When I change the length type from "Decimal" to anything else, my units on the drawing change dramatically.  When changed to  The line length shifts to  This is driving me nuts. Any suggestions, CAD folks?  Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote .

Some thoughts on the book "Extreme Ownership"

My team is reading Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Just read a line about young SEAL leaders in training who "often try to develop a course of action that accounts for every tingle possibility they can think of".  I get stuck in that thinking, too.  Besides creating a exceptionally overly complex plan that's very hard for everyone to understand, I found that this comes from a place of fear with me. I develop these mammoth plans as I try to build a counter for everything my fears percolate out. Faith and trust in the mission, for me, has always built the simple plans.