Well, okay Synovus
I work in the web development and hosting industry, and this error is probably just thrown because I attempted to look at the payment screen, i.e. the screen I would go to if I made a payment. Still – funny.
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Going Real Places; Meeting Real People
If the story of my life is doing too much, today was the story of my life.
I attended a Vantage lunch meeting in Huntsville, then drove down to Birmingham to a “Tech Thursday” gathering in Vestavia Hills. Mexican food for lunch, BBQ for dinner. The food was good both places; time will tell whether the combination wreaks some kind of havoc on my constitution.
The evening event was mostly outdoors. The temperature was in the 90s. There were plenty of tents and liquids, so this wasn’t as bad as it might seem.
In both places I came away with some new contacts, and had some conversations with people that I’d like to get to know better. As I told my wife when I got back: if I hadn’t done a lot of these kind of events over the years I’d be working at a convenience store:
- I met my first ecomm client at a Montgomery chamber event.
- I found a developer for that site, who ended up giving me a job at his agency, from a referral (from another referral) – I’m struggling to remember how I met the person in Auburn who “knew someone local,” but in those days it almost had to be a chamber of commerce contact. Or perhaps LinkedIn. Remember when you could actually meet someone via a social network?
- That in turn led to my meeting the guy who’s hired me for the past two jobs and actually got me on a firm footing working for something other than the family business.
The speaker at the Vantage event talked about acknowledging God in all your ways (Proverbs 3:6). The tie-in here is that what we think of as luck, or chance – if you believe in God, you should believe more in providence and less in “luck.” I consider myself a believer, but I struggle here.
I also struggle sometimes to be energized to do this kind of face-to-face networking, perhaps more so the older I get. I also struggle to finish books, practice musical instruments, and blog. I’m tempted to chalk that up to laziness, but perhaps it’s really more about constantly seeing a kan-ban board in my head of things that need to get done on the day job. And trying to do too much, like doing two such events in one day.
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Knee-Deep in the Hoopla
I keep thinking it would be nice if I got off social media altogether and got back to blogging.
It’s all narcissism; blogging was a different, more early-20th century flavor of it.
Facebook and Twitter you know (used to know?) that there were eyeballs on it; the question was – could you get a few shallow likes, comments, follows, etc. It’s like going to Wal-Mart and running into your friends from high school – not really all that satisfying but reminds you you’re alive.
Blogging is more WORK, for one thing, and even pretty good ones don’t get a lot of engagement relative to even an average Facebook/twitter poster. People have to go out of their way to look for you.
We shall see. I’ll try to check in here.
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Scary Nights
Scary nights thinking about who owns social media platforms these days. I’ve never been the most consistent blogger, but I did a lot better job before Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit ate my brain, or at least the free-time part of it.
I am considering putting up a message on these accounts (Facebook and Twitter, anyway) saying “moved to new location” and referring people here, but I thought I’d post some content here first.
A fun time last night with some folks from church. Costumes say a lot about people’s personality and willingness to explore their creative side. One family dressed as Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, and Peter Pan. My wife dressed as a cat. One son put on a green shirt and tan pants and instantly looks like Shaggy. One son didn’t dress up at all. Me? I wore a jacket from my previous employer and told people I was the ghost of managed hosting past…
Every post needs an image so enjoy the zeitgeist of October 2022, the Spirit Halloween meta-costume.
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Guess that Coworking space
Names and locations redacted to protect the innocent. I was in another city yesterday, scouting a place to hold a meetup.
Coworking space number 1: Delightfully pretentious little coffee shop with coworking space adjacent. Craft beer is also served. Seems to have a little Reformed Christian vibe going, because those Christians can drink beer with the window shades up, but unfortunately doesn’t seem to have a single room/meeting space that could hold 10 people without some of them having to sit in a hammock or something.
I walked upstairs to what I hoped was a better meeting space, only to find myself more or less awkwardly in the middle of someone else’s stand-up, in a room barely large enough to shoot a self-conscious CCM music video in.
Coworking space number 2: After walking in the front door of the building only to find myself in something that might have been a women’s clothing boutique or a used bookstore, or both, I asked where the coworking space was and was directed by the attractive young woman in the bodysuit to go to the side entrance.
My overwhelming thought on meeting her was to resist taking her hand and running, not because she was an attractive young woman in a bodysuit, but because the neighborhood is roughly that of the Bronx in the 1980s. I mean, I literally had to think hard about exiting my car when I got in the parking lot.
After finding the correct entrance, I met up with a receptionist whose overwhelming thought seemed to be to resist coming right out and asking if I voted for Trump (I didn’t). She reluctantly showed me a meeting room, which would actually work fine for our purposes, if any of our attendees survived getting mugged in the parking lot. She informed me, however, that they generally close at 6 pm.
For extra effect, a police SUV came up behind me while I was stopped at an intersection and lit off their sirens and lights because they needed to get around me. Not, as I initially assumed, to get to a shooting, but to a fender-bender a block over.
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iPhone 6S+ – Two Months Later
About two months after getting a new iPhone 6S+, I’ve racked up the following experiences:
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