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The drifts are strong this year in our neighborhood
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Product Review Search: Time frame
When searching for information on a product or service, it would be nice to filter by how long the reviewer has used it. Everyone with a new car loves it. Everyone with a new kitchen appliance thinks it is great. Everyone with a new phone knows they made a good decision. And if those things…
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My Heart Attack: Joyce’s Story
Below is Joyce’s account of what happened the morning I had my heart attack. She was a rock for me that day and I did not know she had all this turmoil going on inside until she told me a few days later. And this doesn’t even cover the story of how she went all…
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Fear of Copying
Seth Godin makes a great point here about florists and photos. I think it also applies to the writer’s fear of stolen ideas. The bigger threats to new writers are not finishing and anonymity after publishing. Most writers never finish and there are many that finish but never get discovered by readers. Very few (relatively…
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Ladyslippers @Itasca State Park
The picture above is from Lake Itasca in the summer of 2022. It is a nice break from winter. Here are some more…
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Merry Christmas!
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How are you doing?
I get that question a lot. Friends. Family. Coworkers. Every visitor and phone call. Every text and email. When people started using it after my heart attack last week, it seemed like the social lubricant “Hi, how are you?” we all say to start conversation. Except it isn’t. Normally, we use it to start conversation,…
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I almost died the other day
Seriously. Heart attack while shoveling snow. The surgeon told my wife that if we hadn’t called 911, I wouldn’t have made it. I had the widowmaker heart attack. Named in the days when they didn’t think women had heart attacks, this occurs when the artery feeding the left ventricle (the big blood pump) gets clogged.…
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An amusing Comic about the Internet
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weinersmith Yes, there are a ton, but this one makes an interesting connection with old-school opioids. If you don’t know this comic, I highly recommend him. He is also a great Twitter follow. I’m not embedding it here because you will likely want to see more of his stuff…
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Short Story Dispenser Kiosks
When my dad and his wife visited last month, they came across a cool thing. A printed short story or poem dispenser. You pick genre and length and it prints out a poem or short story on thermal paper (like cash register receipts). Below are some pictures. From the website above, it appears that the…
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Wakanda Forever: Some storytelling thoughts (spoilers)
We went to see Wakanda Forever (a.k.a. Black Panther II) tonight, and I was impressed by how they handled the death of the main character. Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Challa in the first Black Panther movie and showed up in other MCU movies, passed away in 2020, early in the movie development. As I have…
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Starting Requires Continuing
It is easier to start something than to maintain, or continue, that something.
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Open Source Concerns
https://future.com/securing-the-software-supply-chain/ Open Source is a great way to quickly develop applications and services for IT departments. The software supply chain refers to the process of writing and building software, including all of the open source that goes into it. Open source isn’t without risks. The risks around using software you don’t know is not hard…
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Small World: Crex Meadows
http://saintpaulbybike.com/2022/05/20/sylvan-sights-around-a-cemetery A buddy of mine, Wolfie Browender, is bicycling the entire city of St. Paul, writing about it on his blog: St. Paul By Bike. The above link is the latest post. In it, he refers to a Crex company and talked about it’s history. I recognized the Crex name as Joyce and I visit…
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Cemetery Cleanup Day
Yesterday was cleanup day at the cemetery. This cemetery is in northern Minnesota and is connected to my wife’s family church. We are camping nearby for Memorial Day weekend, so we went over to help. I didn’t have any gear so I was put on blower duty. Several others had weed trimmers and I followed…
