A Few Updates … Or, “Meaningless Words Thrown Together To Have A Post Today”

I have been pretty horrible lately providing ample humorous content to my many loyal readers. By “lately” I mean the last year or so and by “loyal” I mean the 5 or 6 of you I pay to read my blog. While today’s installment may not be the most entertaining piece I have ever written, I figure that I better get something out there since I added ‘blog writing’ as a skill on LinkedIn. So, as I was driving home, listening to Tangled for the 273rd time (it is Tori’s newest obsession), I decided I would visit a few past posts and give updates on things that apparently mattered to me at the time.

Diabetes

I had a couple of posts on this. While I don’t want to make this a medical blog, I want to assure all of you that I am not going to drop dead anytime soon. I didn’t disclose my numbers before, but 3 key numbers I had to get under control were: A1C = 10, Fasting blood sugar 210, Triglycerides = 489. YIKES! After 3 months of meds and diet I am at the following: A1C = 5.7, Fasting 103, Triglycerides 217. Still need to work on the Tri # but … HUGE improvement! And I have lost over 20 lbs.

 

LinkedIn

I DID add a number of “skills” to my LinkedIn profile. I haven’t had any new connection requests, you can still connect if you would like, and I haven’t had a whole lot of endorsements for my new skills. I am still waiting for those and the numerous job offers to roll in.

 

Hedge Fund

I am up to $22.37. Look out Google!

 

Andy Rooney

My eyebrows aren’t any bushier. I did have one wild hair the other day though.

 

2013 “Fun” Celeb Death Predictions

So, I guess it might be a little late to get this one started. I will do better for 2014

 

No updates on, but I will eventually get to, some OLD items such as my Chopped Challenge and something else I am sure that were so long ago I can’t even find them now.

Well, that’s about it. I just realized it is hard to give updates on posts when I haven’t written that many.

To make up for it, her is a video of the youngest voice, Alex, dancing.

 

 

 

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Recommending Endorsements

I am on LinkedIn. I have a number of connections. I have also joined a few groups. I occasionally browse the jobs because, you should always be looking for the next great opportunity. Other than that, I don’t do much on LinkedIn. I have recommended a few people, and my resume is up there and job history, the usual LinkedIn stuff.

A while ago, LinkedIn added something called “Endorsements”. Maybe it is called something else but, basically, you list what skills you think you have and people can endorse you for those skills. Now, when I joined a group, I wanted contacts because I was looking for a job at the time. I have a lot of contacts that don’t know me other than the guy who said “will accept all contact requests”. Even these people can endorse me for skills. And they have. Without knowing me. At all.

There is no way to verify whether or not someone actually has the skill they are saying that they have. To go along with that, there is no way for someone to verify that the endorser knows if the endorsee actually HAS that skill or not. People are endorsing people just so that their name goes into as many places as possible. I personally am endorsed for things that I didn’t know that I knew … I think. I don’t think I have endorsed anyone for things that I don’t know if they can do. I might have … just to get my name out there ya know.

I am not sure if LinkedIn is reputable for that or not or if people even look at that, other than to see if their name is out there. I am going to have a sense of humor about it. Kind of like I do about most things. I am going to put skills on there (you can make up your own for cryin’ out loud) and go from there. They will be actual skills. Maybe not business related or things that others consider “marketable”, but they are skills none the less.

You can find me on LinkedIn here. Feel free to connect with me. You can even endorse me if you would like. I can’t guarantee that I will endorse you though unless it is something I know that you are good at … like endorsing people on LinkedIn.

  Bubble Guppies in one messed up show. I’m just sayin’. I mean, how the hell does it rain    underwater?!?!

An Open Letter To Facebook

Dear Facebook,

I would like to formally congratulate you on the good sense to just bow out and let Google+, Twitter and Linkedin win in the Social networking arena. Your “improvements” are non user friendly, and it is wholly unprofessional to not have an opt-out or customizable option. I do however appreciate the fact that your latest “upgrade” will more than likely increase the value of my Google stock.

I can emphatically say that you have no idea what stories or updates are of interest to me, you have no way of knowing who my close friends or coworkers are, and if you want to decide who I see updates from, then you should also decide which of my bills you should pay for me.

The scrolling updates bar on the right side of the screen proves that you do not know who I want to see updates from. It is distracting and there is no way to easily see the entire conversation that a comment was posted about. To use industry terms … YOUR UI SUCKS ASS!

Mark *uckerburg, in the spirit of  you not being a dick, I expect to have a formal apology from you, posted to everyone’s wall, by tomorrow morning. This should state that you screwed up, the constant screwing with our lives was a mistake, and that you are splitting the company up into at least 3 different entities.

I, along with many other bloggers, investor groups, developers, cat hoarders and out of work cartoonists, have been adding pieces to the full page newspaper obituary for Facebook for some time now. We do appreciate the fact that month after month you make it easier and easier to write. The only thing that we ask is that you formally change the name of your company to Fecesbook so that it matches our obituary.

I hope that this letter finds you buried ass deep in complaints and that you die a quick painful death as a Social Site.

Cordially,

The staff at Voicesinmybrain.com

P.S. If you find it in your heart to sue me for anything, I welcome the publicity and notoriety.

Am I Becoming Anti-Social?

Up until a few years ago, about as “social” I was on line was going into the occasional geek chat room to talk about the latest Stargate episode. Then I got roped into joining Facebook for the new job I had. I started requesting friends and liking things. I had no clue why I was doing this. It wasn’t long before I was Tweeting, Foursquaring, Digging and whatever else I had to do for my job at the time. Now there is Klout, Google+ and god knows what else.

I don’t have time to do all of these. It is hard enough trying to be on Facebook alone. I am not sure I would be able to tweet if my blog wasn’t automatically posting there. I am not sure what the hell Klout is about or why I have any or what to do with the Klout I have. I don’t think I have dug anything for quite a while and I am not sure where I am supposed to check in on what service so that I can have a political future in a coffee shop.

I don’t really want to join Google + but I am sure that I will end up on there eventually despite my better judgement. To me it is just social overload. There is a car commercial right now, actually a couple of them that reflect my sentiment PERFECTLY! They both have a younger person talking about how they are worried that their parents aren’t social enough. The one commercial has a girl on her computer mocking her parents for having 16 friends while she has over 600 or some nonsense. They then show her parents being out and about biking with friends and then getting into their car. It may be a little different than I am relaying but you get the idea. They are making fun of how people think “being social” is about being online all the time.

I don’t want to be social only on the computer. Yes, I keep in touch with friends and have made new friends because of the computer, however, I can’t golf with some of these friends, I can’t go to dinner with most. I don’t want to attend a virtual something somewhere. I still want to have a real life.

I hope in a few years people still actually will se each other face to face occasionally.

Gotta go, I have a virtual thing to go to in 42nd Life.