On the heels of the previous thought*, I picked up a copy of a book that was recommended several years ago.
You should read it. No, really, read it. Don’t worry, it’s not a long read — more of a short essay. It’s incredibly meaningful in anyone’s lifetime, and a reminder as we review our own lives and space around us:
Particularly relevant to me, now, as I sift through my father’s house and the belongings he had acquired throughout his life.
—
*Many, many thoughts have occurred since then.
Is what you’re holding on to worth the space that it’s taking up?
Alternate title: “Old Dog, New Tricks”
With age, it becomes difficult to learn new concepts, methods, techniques — new tricks. We often become very set in our ways and that’s reinforced from our own interpretation and acquired experiences.
It makes it rather awkward to absorb new concepts.
I have decades of experience driving cars, trucks, motorcycles and sidecars of all types and sizes; with and without trailers of highly various sizes; manual transmissions, automatic, even semi-automatic. I have driven countless miles across varied terrain, weather, and traffic — and, yes, motorcycles in heavy snow, at night, during rush hour in Denver.
So, yes, it is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.
But I’m happy to say that this old dog has indeed learned a few tricks. I’ve recently obtained my Class A CDL and learned to drive large trucks — 18-wheelers, tractor-trailer trucks. That also requires no restrictions, so I’m qualified to drive anything with Air Brakes and Manual transmissions.
Why? Because I wanted to.
Can I work in trucking? Maybe. My schedule for school eliminates the possibility of working Monday through Thursday. But it’s certainly a possibility should I find something tolerant of my schedule commitments and that’s local or possibly regional.
Next Spring, I’ll see about adding endorsements for Doubles/Triples and Tanks.
I’m clicking around on Canva for no reason in particular. It does seem that I’ve been here before, but I couldn’t recall when or why.
Oh, look — there’s a login function and it does appear that my Mac keychain has stored a username and password that I’d used on here before, so we’ll give it a go.
Well, that worked.
Hey, look, there’s also a “All your designs” section. I wonder what’s there…
…and suddenly it all became a bit more clear, about why I had memories of having been here before. I was trying out this new “Canva” thing and seeing if it would have any value for our team or for presentations. In fact, I could even say with absolute certainty that it was on December, 20, 2017 — just days before The Fall.
Apparently, I was trying out a humorous visual aide for a talk that I was planning on giving at the end of Christmas when the teams returned at the beginning of the year and that I’d include in a discussion with onboarding of the Noida team.
Probably only really meaningful to maybe two or three hundred people around the globe.
I certainly do miss being involved with the motley crew of most capable and admirable designers, developers, and engineers.
“Soylent Green is people!” — Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston), Soylent Green, 1973
I honestly thought that the Soylent product line was a joke by somebody playing the long-game… a very, very long game from someone familiar with the historic concept of Soylent Green.
It turns out that it is (presumably) not a joke and that Soylent Green does indeed exist:
the rest of me 