The Life and Times of Elliot Pike

This article from the New York Times about the contraction of the blogosphere caught my eye. It’s relevant because, well, how many times have I written that “wow, it’s been a year since I updated my blog!” entry.

Some really quick thoughts:

• Part of the reason for me is that life gets too busy to prioritize blogging. Thus the brevity of this entry.
• My life has “seasons” that span years where I go from being busy to having free-time, from having a new passion about a new topic to being listless, from wanting to enthusiastically share my life to wanting to lick my wounds in private. Some of these “seasons” lend to blogging than others. Part of my recent “quiet period” is being in a long-term relationship for the first time.
• One of my recent curiosities has been SEO optimization and web site development strategy, and this smells like opportunity. I just don’t know how much. It would be interesting to know how Google’s always-changing algorithms detect and adjust-for abandoned content.

I just read a great article at A List Apart called Managing Werewolves I just had to mention. I’m working the corporate job at a pretty decent company (top 100 best companies to work for, supposedly) and my one-year anniversary is 8 days away.

Something about myself: I jump from “drinking the kool-aid, enthusiastic team player” to “disillusioned, glum guy with a storm cloud over his head” too quickly. I admit it, it’s a failing, but something I’m working on. Anyway, the article is light and tongue-in-cheek, but it really has a point: office politics is real; it is a game; when played for what it is, one not only increases the chances of winning, but probably increases the chances of having fun. It’s a game, after all, isn’t it?

I was looking over this old site and blog and came across a little post I did in September 2009 about a new boyfriend. Well, we’re about a month away from our two-year anniversary, we have a dog, and he officiallly moved-in about two or three months ago.

Since then I’ve gone from being hopelessly unemployed to working the worst job of my life to working maybe the best job of my life. (The verdict is still out on that one!) He has gone from being hopelessly unemployed to building a promising and growing business, Studio Scroggie. We’ve shared many memories together over these “short” two years. Let’s hope for many more to come!

I was hanging with my Cousin Bruce in Seattle, and in the midst of conversation he gave a great quote:

God gave us family so we would know how to choose our friends.

I don’t have an exact source. Bruce mentioned a Minister Groff from his childhood. Maybe someday I’ll look to see if the source can be tracked down. Anyway, when I get organized I should add it to my database of quotes.

Well, my Apple troubles are still going on with new unpleasantness every day.

• My iPhone still wont sync calendar items; and now if I make an appointment on the iPhone not only does that appointment not show up on my Mac’s iCal application, but the appointment vanishes from the iPhone as well next time I sync it.
• My iPhone unexpectedly decided to power itself down last night after I went to sleep. The disturbing thing was that I had set a wakeup alarm right before going to bed. Needless to say the phone didn’t wake me up at the appropriate time. (Fortunately, I have a freakishly-accurate clock in my brain, and I woke up on my own 3 minutes after the alarm was supposed to go off.)
• Last night my Wacom graphics tablet decided it’s driver was going to stop working. I get a crash message upon boot-up. Tried reinstalling the driver but to no avail. The only relevant system change is I installed the recent Quicktime+iTunes update a day or two ago. Anyway, the tablet had a mouse that came with it that I liked, and now I can’t use it so I had to pull out an old leftover mouse until someone comes up with a fix.

I’m not writing to suggest that Apple makes buggy products as much as I’m reaffirming the conventional wisdom: unless you are an early-adopter computer professional, never upgrade your Operating System (Windows or Mac) until at least the first major patch is released. Actually I’d suggest the first major patch or four months, whichever is later. In other words, I wouldn’t recommend people upgrade to Leopard until about Valentine’s Day next year.