“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” — John De Paola
Well fuck me again. Here I am, 22:18, writing the last post of the month. The last post of February. On the last day of February. Last minute.
“wRiTe It eaRLiEr,” is what I was thinking I’d be doing.
I did not.
“pOSt tHrOuGHoUt The MonTH,” I thought too.
I did not.
And here I am, last minute again. Starting a new post rather than pruning or editing or doing whatever needs to be done to finish one of the 70 other posts I started. Sometimes, oftentimes with me, it’s easier to go forward and just do something new rather than go back, figure it out, and finish it.
ADHD. That. Right there. “It’s easier to go forward and just do something new rather than go back, figure it out, and finish it.” Huh. Well. Yikes. Apply that to my current approach to some of my more intimate interpersonal relationships and just… fuck me with a chainsaw. That is ADHD too. A moment - something to do - freezes in time in my mind.
Even though there is quite a bit to go back to. Quite a bit to edit. Quite a bit to prune. And quite a bit to fill in too. Maybe, another day in the future, I’ll go back to the past and figure some shit out.
And then probably post it with the date I started it on because I think that’d be funny. Dunno.
I have managed to do 3 posts a month though, all of which were wildly different than what I thought I might post.
ADHD.
Which is what I’ve wanted to do, and it’s what I’ve done so far, and it’s what I’m doing right now. 😃
I have, however, not kept up with the daily TikTok with digits of pi being read goal that I still have. There’s an interesting story there as well in terms of how people treat ideas, I have put that on pause temporarily because I got stuck on something silly, which is:
How the hell are people going to upload videos to me?
And then I went down a rabbit hole of figuring out Formaloo. And then a little bit of life happened, work fires flared up, and my emotional well has run dry again. It’s still pretty dry at the moment. Pretty sure it’s been dry for quite a while.
I’m sure I’ll be fine in the future. Says past me to future me because future me is already reading it because I’m writing it right now then reading what I wrote. Therefore, future me has just read this. I have to be sure I’ll get through stuff and be fine. Is it the kind of fine that I want? Well… hopefully… Once that well has filled up and leveled out.
Yeah. Gotta figure out how tf to get balanced. Posting last minute is untenable. Even though I’m pretty proud of myself for putting it out there without too much though, minimal editing, and somehow performing that last minute with no preparation and just kinda winging it.
Much like most of my life. I have no clue what the fuck I do, or what I’m going to do, until I’m doing it or after it’s done. I mean… I do sometimes… But I don’t. And sometimes I don’t wanna. It is a questionable tactic to take when approaching life. That’s for sure.
Balance. Pretty sure that’s gonna be some sorta theme of the year.
So yeah, I’ve managed to make 3 posts a month since November 2022. I’m feeling pretty good about that. And I’ve hit a few other milestones that I’m pretty proud about too.
I’ve walked over 10,000 steps a day for a year. And as of right now, February 28th, 2023, I’m now at 392 days in a row.
I’ve logged 308 fasts in a row as of today. Mostly 16:8. Some 18:6, Some OMAD. Some extended. And some your standard 12 hour circadian. 308 in a row though. Pretty happy with that.
I randomly decided to take a break from any sort of drop of alcoholic drink starting on May 5th, 2022. Because I thought that’d be a funny day to not drink on. I never said never to myself. I said, “This is no longer benefiting me… I think it’s time to take a break.”
So I did til the 19th of this month. I remained alcohol free even though my Dad died in October. I thought I’d have a drink on the year anniversary of taking a break… because I thought that’d be funny too. But plans change. Only always. And expectations do too.
Especially when you don’t want them to.
I had a couple of drinks with some friends I haven’t seen for a while on the 19th, then decided the next day that I’m still pretty much past having alcohol play a recurring role in my life and am back to taking a break.
And I’ve written 972 journal entires of some sort over the past 289 days… in a row! Today is 289. I think that’s pretty cool.
I’da nevera thunk. Especially given I’ve acted the punk in the past. Pretty sure I still sometimes do. Mostly inadvertently.
Huh. And TIL advertently is a word. I figured it was… but who the hell says, “They advertently peed in the well.” versus, “They intentionally peed in the well.” I pee with intention.
But this post isn’t really meant to be about that. That was all pretty much a tangent to this.
Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been usually leading weekly Jackbox Games sessions — over the reality condom that is Zoom-like services — at work, so that me and the rest of the team, have an opportunity to play together. After a bit of that, I realized that the way I was hosting the games can be replicated by other people.
Engineers play with their tech toys all day. It’s nice to play with people too.
It’s a pretty simple process to get things setup. Like really fucking simple. It’s just some people don’t know how at first, nor know they can, nor know where to go or what to do. Until you tell them. Which is a poor word. Teach them. Or suggest.
In the case of Jackbox Games, the process is this:
- Setup a Steam account.
- Purchase Jackbox Games Party Packs.
- Start or join a video meeting.
- Share your screen.
- Quickly stop sharing your screen.
- Move the content that’s questionable for anyone other than you to another monitor.
- Share your screen.
- Launch the Jackbox Games Party Pack that you want to play.
- Pick the game you want.
- Press play.
- Have everyone open up a web browser, go to the website it tells you to, enter in the room code it tells you to, then…
- Start playing.
That process can actually be streamlined down to about 9 steps. Probably.
And because it’s a repeatable process, I realized that this is something the organization can purchase, operationalize, and provide as a benefit to others within the organization to use for team bonding and cohesion building events… that are pretty fun. Because they’re kinda like game shows.
Knowing what I know about organizations that are growing their bureaucracy, I knew that if I wanted to make this happen it’d be a bit of a mind-numbing process. I’d basically have to get my managers approval, then I’d have to go to my director. then my director would have me justify it, then I’d have to go through some sort of software approval process.
Knowing that this silly system would have to be traversed, in 2020 I wrote an entire wiki page that did a cost breakdown of how this would work. For basically $125 of fucking games. And I also did a cost analysis on how much money it would to actually run the games on an AWS EC2 instance.
But I knew that it would take a bunch of energy and followup to shop this through a silly system. Just so other people can play games. Because I don’t want other people to have to pay for licenses for games that they’ll only use at work. That’s stupid. Gotta suggest and sell to the organization that it’s in its best interest to approve, and pay for, games.
Because wHaT bUSiNesS dO gAMeS hAVe In tHe WoRKpLAcE?!?!?!
I just knew it’d be a pain in the ass. So I just sat on it. For two years. A wiki page just hanging out in a sea of pages in Confluence called “Jackbox Games.” Out there for everybody to see for years.
“It’s easier to go forward and just do something new rather than go back, figure it out, and finish IT.” Sigh. That implies that finishing things is more challenging. Yeah. It is
Last year I decided that I wanted more attention. I love attention. It’s so great. It’s so much easier to work with people when you have their attention. So yeah, I love attention.
And, if I’m going to get attention, then I have to do something attention worthy. I setup a Jackbox Games meeting… then sent it to a mailing list we use to communicate with the organization about what we’re working on. It hits over 400 people. I invited all of them.
Then I did it again in November.
I haven’t done it since.
But in December, of 2022, a colleague came to me and asked me how they can do it too. So, I shared my wiki page with them. That made them laugh.
Which… a cost analysis to justify fun in the workplace… and I wrote it 2 years before she asked me how to do this. 🔮
And after I shared with them, I decided to trigger the Software Acquisition Management process. Without telling my manager or director. Knowing which one would chime in and say, “No.”
“No,” is not what is actually said. That’s the raw sentiment behind some sort of business speak like this: “Before we do this, we need to make sure we fill out the business justification paperwork and provide a list of alternative options.” That is a fucking “no” if I’ve ever heard one. I am, however, omitting that I believe any sort of answer is a decision based on the information available to them at the time. This means a “No” is not a “No” forever. It is a “No,” not right now. You never know the future. You can predict. You can be wildly insanely inaccurately off too.
I quickly got a, “No.” And then I responded with something like, “I can go ahead and work through that sometime early next year.” Then let it sleep.
Remember, I am now going through a process that requires business justification for FUN.
Until someone commented on the ticket and asked if this was still a valid request. I replied to their comment with, “You bet your fucking ass it is.”
But it was actually worded something like, “Yes, this request is still active. I’ve been very busy, so I’ve been unable to drive this forward yet.”
I think, “… … … I’m not going to fucking justify fun.”
I decide it’s time to kick off a little chaos. All of that conversation, the comments, the little back and forth. The initial request for the software. All of that has been happening through Jira — the ticket tracking software.
I take the link to the ticket and start spamming it in some of the Water Cooler teams, soliciting people for their comments on justifying fun, and 10 people helped out. Some actually left rather lengthy comments justifying the value in buying $125 of games.
The comments requesting justification continue, and it’s suggested that the request is going to have to go all the way up to the CTO for approval.
So I did what I do.
I sent the thing.
And I’m abruptly ending this post now cuz it’s 23:53.
To be continued.