Kind of just opening this up and jotting stuff down as I go throughout my day.  I’ve had snippets of posts forming in my head recently, but have been busy and/or distracted and just haven’t had a chance to write them down.  Hopefully I’ll get some out as I knock out work today.

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I’ve had another realization about blogging, or more specifically about Live Journal.  It’s one of the reasons why I so infrequently comment on other people’s posts these days.  Generally speaking, we don’t want real feedback out here.  We want to have people give us our *hugs* or sympathize with us, but when someone actually disagrees with us or maybe even points out where we could be culpable in whatever it is we’re complaining about we get all bent out of shape and start in with the “it’s my journal and I’ll write what I want” shit.  It’s just not worth it anymore, ya know?  Why take 20 minutes out of your day to write out a sincere and (attempting to be) helpful reply to someone if they’re just going to shut you down with “you’re wrong and you don’t understand.”  If everything you say is going to be completely invalidated if you say anything beyond “you’re right, that sucks” why bother?

I realize that not everyone feels this way, and I’ve seen people take criticism and/or advice in the spirit it was intended, but I’ve also been burned so many times that it’s generally just made me pull back from it in general.  It was different when I was the “go to” guy in places like the Bad Girl Swirl because I didn’t know the majority of those users in real life, but here I know most of you in one way or other, and having stress and/or tension in meatspace because I rained on someone’s parade just isn’t worth it.

Up until recently I’ve tried to live under the “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” rule.  These days?  I’m trending towards “Unless you ask me directly for my opinion I’m keeping my fucking mouth shut.”

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Not surprisingly, I’ve seen a fairly steady drop in the number of folks on my friends list.  Not a dramatic one, but I seem to lose one or two every time I check it with my client.  Generally speaking not folks I’m really close with, but I can only assume my lack of regular posts and commenting makes me less of a draw.  Ah well.

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Things have been relatively quiet at work recently.  Still busy, but nowhere near the frantic pace we were at before.  Although I still get kind of intimidated when I look at the Big List Of Projects we have up on the wall near my desk.  It’s a lot of a work, and almost everyone wants theirs done NOW.  Couple that with the fact that we’re moving over to a formal project management system and…I dunno.  It’s just a lot to deal with.

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Going to a funeral tomorrow.  My friend Caroline Jett lost her husband unexpectedly last week.  I can’t even imagine.  I mean, it’s bad enough to lose someone after a long illness, but to not even have any kind of warning?  Ugh.  What a horrible thought.

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Mother had some tests done yesterday to help find the cause of some headaches she’s been having.  No results until October unless they find something that has to be addressed immediately.  Here’s hoping all is quiet until October.

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There’s a lack of anything truly exciting in this post.

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I want Fall to be here already.  Well, the closest thing we get here in Florida anyway.  I want to sit outside and actually enjoy it.  Of course, now that we’ve quit smoking (mostly) I’ve lost my major motivation to sit outside, and doing so makes me want a cigarette.

Hooray, addiction!