Today is the thirty-first of January, and this month I’ve taken my cue from WordPress writing prompts called bloganuary. I’m using up all available time, and I am behind, so I am getting here with a thought that bloganuary for me might run a little while into February.
I like to exercise my ability to reason, which is part of why I blog. In addition to interacting with other bloggers, there are other things I like about blogging, but writing prompts like bloguanary make me feel like I’m learning from others’ ideas and applying my own understanding to them. I appreciate it, which is likely a similar thing numerous different bloggers appreciate. I know a little about blogging professionally, but I’m not sure I would ever try that. A small hobbyist blog is easier to manage, and if money is not changing hands, there is a little less to worry about.
My love of reading helped challenge my instinct for the intellectual back then, and I enjoyed school because I was asked to apply my own skills to instructional activities, but I don’t think I ever developed the study skills to become an academic myself. As a result of my godfather asking if I would be interested in assisting him with his research, I was able to gain some insight that a ninth or tenth grader might not otherwise have.
I observe these plunges into my own mind to see what I can incite in myself and how I can address it on the page. Bloganuary has been fun this month. As for now, it’s been a strong month for my blog, but I’m hoping to return to my usual kind of “studied foray” in the future. Thanks to WordPress for organizing the prompts.
September is World Candle Month. Established in 2013, World Candle Month joins candle devotees around the planet. I think this year it is helping to remember September 11, as today is Patriot Day in the USA.
Well, let’s get out from under that debris.
In other parts of America, Nashville Tennessee author Jeff Goins retired at the end of the summer this year, having for ten years presented courses online, to get writers blogging. Books by Jeff Goins include his 2015 bestseller, The Art of Work. That book explains many expressions of work, by which to inspire readers.
While I didn’t officially join up with his courses, it is almost ten years now since I partook in the some of the free advice he proffered, like how to brainstorm ideas for your blog. Some of Goins’ blogging strategies I, in fact, applied. I have never made blogging anything other than a hobby, but when I read on Facebook Jeff’s retirement announcement, I was again interested to read what he had to say.
The agreeableness Mr. Goins has fits a way of composing books that is both unique and open. His books include The In-Between and his first book, in 2014, You are a Writer. The title of his first book reminds me of adventure books where the reader assumes the identity of someone else (here it would be… a writer).
Goins was a musician who worked in marketing, before he realized that he wanted to be a writer.
Since 2012, the work I have done has been assisting with the upkeep on the grounds of a cemetery. For years, my father, whose business it is to operate this cemetery, would bring around breakfast, a Cinnabon and coffee. https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited/
Why Cleanliness’s are More Tempting than a Cinnabon
With autumn here I have opted to reflect on different kinds of cleanliness. Seeing the world for its contrasts is a twisted conviction. There are shades of dark in pretty much every circumstance.
Why would I think about cleanliness in the autumn time this year? While usually it is spring when people turn their attention to cleaning, like the contrast of light and dark, autumn needs some cleaning off, too.
Likewise, many people choose cleanliness in some areas and not others. Some people have a knack for cleanliness in most areas; some people have cleanliness in only a few (or even none). I found, on insider.com, an article by a Zoë Ettinger, whom I suspect is very clean.
In case she were to at any point know about me, I am simply attempting to communicate her recommendations.
1
“Fade cleans, without question, everything.” Don’t let the dirt settle. That resembles life settled to pieces, just space-separated. If you sit in the dust, you become it.
2
“Quill dusters eliminate dust.” Let the quill remain, but don’t make it your only tool. My, you could add a candle.
3
“Paper gives the glass without a streak sparkle.” You can’t wipe an unstreaked sparkle on glass. Therefore, why not let the sparkle streak?
4
“Vinegar is a generally useful cleaner.” Vinegar is best for fish and chips, and not for cleaning the table.
5
“Hairspray can be utilized to eliminate ink stains.” Hairspray can make or break a good time! Ink will set unless you take measures to remove it.
6
A candle will melt if you leave it lit. Let the ink stain, perhaps, become found art.
“You should wash everything on cold.” To remove a stain, start with cold water.
Boiling water can set stains, like milk, egg, or blood. It cooks the protein. Boiling water works best on slick stains, like mayonnaise.
8
“Deodorizer helps clean the air,” an aroma. Lighting a candle would achieve the same end.
9
“String mops are the best approach.” If it is not too evident to say here, a string mop requires a bucket.
10
“You should finish wood regularly.” Finishes shield wooden surfaces and show up more.
Wood finish is not the same as painting, for painting subtly conceals a wooden surface while a finish completes it. Philosophical point.
11
“Vacuum, then, at that point, dust.” The vacuum will contaminate considerably more than you.
12
“You can wash your sheets like clockwork.” A more natural routine can deliver better results.
13
“Your dishwasher cleans itself.” Plain and simple, it doesn’t.
14
“Your clothes washer cleans itself.” It doesn’t.
15
“All green cleaning items are protected to utilize.” You need green cleaning as much as on all the other things you ensure.
From the standpoint of being a professional, in being green for your buyers and representatives, and also when creating your business’ impression, green cleaning is held to decrease contaminations. It doesn’t always cause the same medical issues brought about by non-green cleaning.
16
“Using more laundry detergent is always better.” An excess of cleanser will leave buildup.
You’re welcome to like the post, to follow, or to comment.
I am ending with the band Deerhunter’s video for their 2018 LP Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? That’s Bradford Cox singing, with very few close-ups in the presentation. Reputable indie rock. Enjoy World Candle Month.
Fandango is a blogger who I consider every once in a while a nobleman, a savvy. At one time WordPress would give prompts to urge befuddled bloggers to get a post distributed, yet since the official prompts have finished, Fandango has volunteered to give day by day prompts that are incentive to remember prompts that were, and prompts which are truly useful.
The word for the nineteenth is dial, of which I think, immediately, the instruction to the telephone to ring out to someone with whom you wish to speak. The dial could likewise allude to a check that illuminates how much a measure is accessible, or valuable. However, I think immediately of dialing the telephone, to talk to somebody.
I recall dial is a brand of soap cleanser, as well. This could perhaps be applied to the phone to keep it clean, or, taking it further, to clean the individual with who you wish to speak!
In some cases, I can envision that for appearances, one using the phone to arrange business would appreciate a telephone kept up for neatness, as opposed to a unit that is open to all. I am not sure the caller would always want to join the party for cleanliness, but common sense informs me that consistent measures to keep clean are best put in place, rather than, as my dad might say to me, letting myself go. I remember a high school science experiment of trying to effect a bar of soap, from scratch.
I am trusting with this post to add a sort of punchline to my post yesterday, as it didn’t charge well with my latest, fairly baffling to note. That said, perhaps a variation in my method will help me return to the dozens of readers I could reach, rather than the scant few who availed themselves of me, yesterday. In any case, you are welcome to like this post, to follow me or to leave a comment.
Thank you to Fandango, for the inventiveness of thinking to continue daily prompts, in the same fashion as WordPress did daily, not all that long ago. I hope your troubles continue to be manageable, sir, and that you have a splendid winter ahead. I’ll see you once more, I’m sure.
In December my brother and his wife and kids gave me an unusual gift, a puzzle celebrating The Beatles’ music on The White Album.
The Beatles
The puzzle is unusual mainly for the fact that the cover of The White Album is entirely the color white, which makes the puzzle an exercise in assembling puzzle pieces all the color white. It is as if the wrong end of a game of chess game came down on you.
I have ten reasons I’m suggesting that success like what The Beatles enjoyed is actually a weak link in terms of what it means for individual success and how it is misleading. Four are presented here.
Photographer:
Suzy Hazelwood MONOPOLY FOR MILLENNIALS MAKES NPCs CRY The YouTube channel Geeks + Gamers fascinates me. When Jeremy announced that he had fallen prey to a phishing spoof six weeks ago, I wanted to describe the problem in this post. Jeremy was distracted at the moment and made a rookie error, surrendering control of Geeks + Gamers for seventeen minutes until he could get it back in order. A second oversight occurred, when Jeremy neglected to secure his Google AdSense funding for the channel after the spoof. When he realized that an entire month’s worth of monies designated for Geeks + Gamers was stolen, he finally revealed what happened: My YouTube Channel Was Hacked, Money Lost – Learn From My Mistakes I’d been paying attention to Geeks + Gamers because I feel it protests and dissects conventional scholar on media. The Geeks + Gamers team typically tackle major film projects like the DC universe on film, or more often the Disney Star Wars trilogy, as though the success, usually financial, of studio film output speaks to the conclusion that if a film is not fun, that if it doesn’t “work” in terms of being appealing to an audience, the film is not so much a radical success as it is a weak link.
It didn’t matter to Jeremy that The Last Jedi is another splendid blockbuster in terms of the money it made for Disney; it was to him a complete letdown and something that was a disservice to the favorite films that remind him of his childhood, the Star Wars films. Disney Has Concerns About Star Wars After The Last Jedi It is interesting that while ostensibly the financial success of a film doesn’t mean the film is magical for Jeremy, when it comes to his YouTube channels, Geeks + Gamers and others, it is certainly a problem when a month’s loot is stolen, by cyber-crime means. I wish Jeremy and the other members of Geeks + Gamers hadn’t had to go through that.Halloween with Geeks + Gamers was interesting for the fact that Jeremy argued that very bold criticism of what he does with Geeks + Gamers had been declared, criticism that included the idea that “code words” were being communicated to Geeks + Gamers subscribers that subscribers should launch literal hate and violence at targets which Geeks + Gamers usually defame, a video you can watch here: NPC Star Wars Writer Continues To Lie and Spread False Information Jeremy responded firmly that Geeks + Gamers is in no way is supportive of violent attitudes in any situation, and further that Geeks + Gamers made no attempt to “boycott” the recent Star Wars film Solo, a position I’d heard Jeremy take before in a discussion how Solo ws lacklustre in terms of box office returns.
All this keeps me quite rapt about what this YouTube channel is saying about the Star Wars films–Geeks+ Gamers plays a role in backlash concerning the Rian Johnson Star Wars film The Last Jedi.
For Geeks + Gamers to become a successful YouTube channel, it meant starting from basics and building a subscriber basis and becoming a success, with people watching the videos and comment and so on. If Geeks + Gamers were reviewing music, instead of films, and it was fifty years ago, perhaps they would have spoken about The White Album. Instead, they are speaking out, frequently, about The Last Jedi, in a way which makes it completely clear that they regard Episode VIII of Star Wars as rubbish.When I watched The Last Jedi when it arrived on Netflix, I enjoyed it and even felt moved. The mods of Geeks + Gamers had no such experience. Instead, they despise the film and regale in making that clear rather than taking a positive spin on something that’s an extension to something they loved in childhood.I would guess that Geeks + Gamers take such a broad interest in film criticism that they feel they can succeed with a successful YouTube channel. The idea of success they have is different from the idea of success that’s reflected in something like the fiftieth-anniversary of The White Album, or in the success of the blockbuster The Last Jedi.
The mods of Geeks + Gamers don’t seem to see The Last Jedi as a success at all because they despise it so much. Their YouTube channel extrapolates messages like that Star Wars has been mostly reduced to rubbish, or that the DC comics universe could similarly face a death grip in the cinema. I believe I had misunderstood Geeks + Gamers with my belief that Geeks + Gamers doesn’t desire or see any value in success at the level of the “blockbuster”; instead they expound on problems in entertainment which is compromised by identity politics in the entertainment that they criticize. Now that I understand some more about Jeremy’s point of view, it has me feeling a touch more informed about how identity politics show up in entertainment.
To them, The Last Jedi is a weak link. They wouldn’t aim for that kind of success in their own lives, for example. It is notable, having learned of their misfortune with a phishing spoof, that their success has been compromised by their own position as a good-sized YouTube channel.
Photographer: Rawpixel.com In addition, an example of underhandedly reacting to what’s been said on Geeks + Gamers is the shout-out they gave Mike Zeroh after film director Rian Johnson mean-spiritedly called out Zeroh who is devoted specifically to exploring what’s going on in Star Wars. The Mike Zeroh channel is Zeroh’s speculation about “behind the scenes” in Star Wars. In the initial days of shooting Episode IX of Star Wars, Johnson, reflecting on Twitter about what he was accomplishing with his Star Wars film, referred to YouTube’s Mike Zeroh as being a zero, although Johnson later apologized.
It is the same kind of weak link that exists when Geeks + Gamers tackles Star Wars because for all the enthusiasm Mike Zeroh puts into anticipating Star Wars, Mike Zeroh has personally explained that he feels The Last Jedi is a poor effort. Mike Zeroh Vs Rian Johnson… Thank you Rian Again!!!
I was amused by The White Album puzzle game I got from my brother and his family. I am also grateful for the opportunity to share these opportunities. I am glad if you have read this. You’re welcome to “like,” to “follow,” and/or to comment.
“let us remember that ending poverty is not a matter of charity but a question of justice.”
— UN Secretary-General, António Guterres
A few weeks ago Facebook faced a big data breach, which isn’t helping, I understand, in efforts to keep people’s trust invested in the social media platform.
I probably shouldn’t have overlooked the existing structure for receiving donations when I published this post this summer. I meant to say that the volunteers who run Maple Lawn Cemetery, where I work, don’t presently ask for donations on Facebook, because we are only a small page and we don’t have the budget with which to work.
Perhaps in the future, but admittedly unlikely, we could bring onboard someone younger to help with carrying out our operations with the help of Facebook, but at the present I am aware of the mess Facebook has run into owing to its exposed dealings with Cambridge Analytica and what that has done to Facebook’s credibility as a social media platform and to its use for small business (and in recent news the data breach). I want to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt that they will continue to improve their situation and remain effective as a tool for small business. I am optimistic that it will remain a good idea to publicize our work on Facebook.
Now is almost certainly not the best time to try to begin raising funds on Facebook, as the bad publicity is undeniable, I feel, but with Giving Tuesday still ahead in November I do want to keep my hand in the game in case the situation changes for the better. A little more money could certainly serve our needs. I am more concerned that Facebook will continue to grow to mean that the business page for our not-for-profit remains useful… https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited
I am involved with a small business. We operate a cemetery which otherwise has no one to care for it.
This blog is nominally tied to it. I believe blogging is an opportunity to be involved with others who are similarly inclined to write blog posts.
I am the junior employee, and I help with grounds keeping. I also assist work inside the disbanded church which is on the grounds of the cemetery, and provide some of the cemetery’s presence on the Internet (on Facebook, and also here: www.maplelawncemetery.org).
Peter and Linda
The senior employee is Peter.
Occasionally volunteers lend a hand with the maintenance work. We have had work done by my nephew Mack, by family friends Bill and Gerard, and by my father’s brothers Paul and Dave.
We began in 2012, six years after the church closed its doors for the last time. The cemetery is small.
To write this post, I researched federal Canadian controversies over nonprofits. LIVE WELL, DO GOOD‘s David McConkey has provided specifics about giving or receiving charitable donations.
What he is saying on his website inspired what I thought about making donations.
One of the reasons that we see ourselves a little like volunteers is that, although typically we would accept donations, we are not a registered charity. In Canada, it is my understanding that only donations to registered charities qualify for an income tax credit. This means that there is less incentive for parties interested in what we do to bestow us with any kind of gift.
This isn’t a big problem, as there isn’t a lot of overhead to go with maintaining a cemetery of this size, but it does make campaigns such as November’s annual Giving Tuesday affair somewhat troubled waters. We can’t return the favor of a donation with an income tax deduction.
Statistics Canada has found that almost everyone (ninety-four percent of those fifteen years old and older) makes charitable donations. Sometimes these can be valuable art items.
Abstract expressionism
Despite not being able to provide a tax break, I imagine we would consider accepting donations. While we are a touch cautious about the possibility of a federal audit, I will probably make some noise again about Giving Tuesday come November.
I don’t like to spin my wheels, but nothing good comes easy. Perhaps by repeating an interest in Giving Tuesday, I will start to unlock chains that keep us out of what works about Giving Tuesday. We’re working at a cemetery, which demands solemn thinking and which is literally a retreat for visitors who miss their loved ones.
Statistics Canada has found that donors who plan ahead give more than others. As we are involved year-round with people choosing their final resting place or the resting place of their loved ones, perhaps this is something we could investigate if we were looking at how to raise funds for the cemetery. That being said, to date we have not had a problem caring for the church and cemetery, so we are not under any pressure to need to strenuously keep up the maintenance of the place running smoothly.
CanadaHelps.org is a registered charity that facilitates online donations. They work with thousands of charities. They issue receipts and forward your donation to a charity you specify, less a three percent transaction fee.
David McConkey found inspiration in the pages of Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, by Bill Clinton. Three points specifically raised that David McConkey emphasizes are explained below.
Most people on Earth live in a democracy. Bill Clinton emphasizes that involvement in civil society is quite accessible to more people now than ever.
Globalization and technology have made the fortunes of powerful millionaires and billionaires, Clinton writes. These same individuals are frequently prominent philanthropists.
The Internet is certainly steadfast in the opportunity to make civil action. Together, small donors can have a huge impact.
Although my dad is a senior citizen, I can foresee us working until any set point in the future. I really don’t know at this time how far into the future we should project, but as helping with the cemetery is the best bet I have for autonomy and independence, I will do the best I can to keep working at caring for the cemetery and for the disbanded church. I also intend to keep an active presence on Facebook, and here on WordPress.
Bill Clinton’s book helped inspire David McConkey’s thoughts on income tax credits and how to take advantage of them. I invite you to visit us on Facebook. You may also ask any question you might have of me here on WordPress, over on Quora, or on Twitter.
Photographer: Ylanite Koppens
If you have a question which I might possibly be able to answer for you, I would be glad to help. I appreciate that you took the time to visit.
To visually illustrate this post, I have included a couple of shots taken myself, and in addition a couple of stock photos intended to better illustrate some of the information, without being verbose. Thank you for bearing with me.
I struggled to find satisfaction in a post I wrote June 15, 2017, although by now I’m better at the task, I feel.
The WordPress Daily Prompt for that day was the word “Total,” and what for me was the “total” mind-blowing news was that Twitter was undertaking a major step on route to what a lot of Twitter users hoped would mean success for the social media platform. That sounds dramatic, but Twitter did become visibly different. As German social media and blogging expert Susanna Gebauer reported again, on February 28, 2018, it could have meant the end of Twitter, or instead improved chances of success as a social media platform. (Last updated: 2019/11/26) In short, I wonder will it turn out like Myspace, or Yahoo!, or will it keep its status as an enjoyable user service.
I am obviously on Twitter and I enjoy it. Look here:
What’s more, I am sharing links both to an article which explains the change which happened, and also to Susanna’s post which explains where Twitter was coming from with the change, on the twenty-third of March, to restrict Twitter users with several accounts from automating the same tweet more than once.
I myself slowed down on how I was tweeting by dramatically slowing down how often I would twee. It would be a gigantic bummer if Twitter failed, and I continue to hope Twitter stays alive and well.
If you’re not on Twitter, maybe you should consider joining. It can be a lot of fun. I am curating this post to improve its accuracy, to provide Susanna Gebauer’s February 28 blog post, and because if you do find this note relevant, you’re welcome to, “like,” “follow,” and/or “comment” this blog post.
Thank you for noticing, and all the best to you in your personal life, and in business.
Photographer:
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 