Life Observations | Life Experiences & Observations

October 22, 2016

Big Media Bully and The Suspension of My Periscope Account

I am still shocked and perturbed about what happen to me on Thursday evening. While I don’t scope often, I have been an avid user of Periscope to watch many other individuals stream content. So on Thursday afternoon, I decided to scope the comparison between my dog and and a cub. Essentially a bear but that bear happened to coincide with a particular baseball team that was playing on my TV while I was scoping. I really wasn’t trying to distribute a Fox Production without their permission. I was trying to be cutesy.

As it turns out, a big media company like Fox is looking to demolish a big bad conglomerate wolf like myself trying to huff and puff and blow down the rules in massive proportions. That is how I felt after essentially reading a cease and desist note that Periscope sent me after suspended my account for 4 hours and stating I was violating Fox’s intellectual property rights. Did I break the rules… well that’s certainly up for debate. What did happen is 26 viewers… yes 26, saw a blurry ballgame on my TV as I went back and forth between showing the TV and showing my Dog. My Dog was much more interesting which caused me to follow my dog rather than continuing to follow the TV. Even the viewers agreed my dog was more interesting. You may need to work on that content Fox! The broadcast ended after a few minutes of filming my dog outside playing.

If I had to estimate, I would say that no more than couple minutes of the broadcast was showing on my TV with a blurry and barely view-able baseball game on. In fact, I would challenge anybody to view the video and regurgitate to me exactly what happened on 3 separate plays in the game. Good luck with that!! Even if you could still see the video content you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell me what happened in the game. This situation is essentially the equivalent of me driving 1 mile over the speed limit in the middle of the night with no cars on the road. Can you imagine if a cop pulled me over and suspended my license for this offense. It would be so ridiculous it would be funny. At what point does intent come into the conversation? Shouldn’t we at least examine if the scenario was egregious? Apparently NOT!! I had no intent to infringe on anybodies intellectual property. Once again, the content shown was almost indecipherable and lasted for no more than about 60 seconds. If you want to know why the world hates lawyers, this is a great example. Yes there are good reasons to have these rules but they don’t exist to stop 26 viewers from seeing one minute of ballgame on a TV that was really just side content to displaying my dog to the world. This is the La Brea Tar Pits of absurdity.

I could understand a warning email but to suspend my account and threaten to close it down forever? C’mon Fox. C’mon Periscope. This paranoid, alarmist behavior, may one day cause you to lose the most important deliverer of your profits…. viewers like myself. Watch Out!! Netflix is chasing your tail!!

I feel better now that I got this off my chest. Do they allow inmates to write blogs from prison? If not, this may be the bitter end my friend. Damn… did I just infringe on Jim Morrison’s intellectual property rights?

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October 6, 2016

I Once Answered “Death” to an Interview Question

This story I am about to tell happened a long time ago when I was returning back to Arizona after finishing college. What got me thinking about this story is the article “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.” It’s an article I read a few times a year just to help me put things in perspective. Who in their right mind would answer “death” to an interview question? Perhaps somebody who doesn’t want the job. Well, the answer is ME and I DID want the job. I obviously didn’t have much interview experience at the time as I thought being as honest as possible was more important than painting a picture that made me look like the most desirable candidate. In hindsight, sometimes both may coincide. In this case, they coincided pretty closely but not close enough to get me the job.

So what was the question? The question was, “What motivates you?” Back then, and even now, death has been one of the best motivators for me. As a result, I can officially say I have one thing in common with Steve Jobs. Yeah ME!! It may sound morbid but when you dig deeper it really makes a lot of sense. Knowledge that life is short and the time you spend on earth is uncertain, can definitely get you up and moving to make progress on your goals. That’s all I really wanted to say today. Another blog post in the books. Now go do something because you will never know when that day comes in which you can’t “go do something.”

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September 23, 2016

Life Rant and What Not – I’m Back

Alright my blog listening peeps. What am I saying? Who listen’s to a blog??… forget that thought.

I know you believed that I would never post again but I am proving you wrong right NOW!! Trust me, I know how you think. Technology has utterly failed me over the last week and a half but I am not even the slightly bit downtrodden. OK, so I am but I won’t let it get to me. Because I do understand that despite its troubles, our technology today is unbelievably amazing. The smart phone you are using right now is infinitely better and more powerful than the super computer we used just a decade ago. So I am feeling fine about my technology frustrations because our technology works 98.1567461537516% of the time. Maybe soon I will get my iTunes up and running and the backup loaded onto my slick new iPhone 7. Although how slick can it be if it can’t access my backed up data? Not real sure about the answer but that’s something for you, my readers, to contemplate.

The other thing I have been thinking about, although not really ranting about, is my lack of international travel. I am itching like a flea inflicted dog to go somewhere out of the country. The city of choice has been narrowed down to Beijing. That decision was etched in concrete when i realized that I can travel there round trip for $535!! I am blown away that I can fly to China and back for this price. Will it happen? That remains to be seen, considering all my commitments at home. You just have to hope that I don’t meander away again from my blogging adventure. Hang with me for a few short months. Travel to China is only cheap in October, November, and December so if I truly want to go it’s time to get off the pot. Plan now or die trying. Until next time.

P.S. What does the bones picture have to do with the blog content? Nothing!! It just looked cool.

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April 6, 2016

When Everything Connects

Do you ever have a few days in your life where a theme runs through and connects much of what you are experiencing together? Right now I am experiencing that with an autism theme. Nobody in my family is directly impacted by autism but my daughter has other special needs and often displays various autistic tendencies. We also know many children with autism as a result of many of the activities my daughter Sophia participates in. It started late Friday night when I was looking for a movie to watch on Amazon Prime. It is not uncommon for me to watch movies late on Friday night in preparation for my 3 X 12 graveyard shift that starts Saturday night. Staying up Friday night helps me to get prepared for the week ahead.

Well it turns out, I came across and decided to watch the movie Temple Grandin. Coincidentally, it was also National Autism Awareness day. Ok, one connection… not that surprising. After watching the movie and being drawn in like worm in quicksand, I decided to watch some video interviews with Temple on YouTube. Well much of the content she expressed really hit home for me as it relates to my special needs daughter Sophia. She was talking about the need to focus on an individual’s strengths and not focusing on the weaknesses. Specifically she called upon parents of autistic children, which I expanded to special needs, to broaden the fixation out. This was in reference to many of the fixations I have seen from children with special needs. My daughter, being one person, who also displays them. By doing this, a parent could ultimately find the best career for their special needs child. Hopefully, this would allow the individual to find a way to connect with the world through work and life. Temple also discussed the different types of thinkers. She is a visual thinker but she also discussed word thinkers and explained it as those who are focused on all the words associated with all the things they are interested in. This basically hit the nail on the head in describing Sophia.

Fast forward to this evening. I happen to get on Periscope to watch a singer that I follow named Clare Means. In turn, she was also discussing a band that she will be playing with in Seattle by the name of Xolie Morra and the Strange Kind. I looked them up and really liked their music. Miraculously, Xolie has Asperger’s syndrome which is a mild form of autism. Is the connection complete or will additional connections continue over the next few days? Only time will tell. I know this is most likely just random occurrences connecting together. And my mind is probably gluing them together, even further, to make it feel magical. Either way, I found these connections both fascinating and inspiring.

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March 18, 2016

The Shortest Blog Post Ever!!

It’s been too long since my last blog post. So here it is. All done!!

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January 13, 2016

E Coli Burrito – I’ll Take Two Please!

It’s funny how people freak out by the media shock stories. In this blog post, as you can tell from the title, I am talking about Chipotle Mexican Grill. Sure there were people who were infected with E. coli and got sick. But think about it. It was approximately 500 patrons. How many people do you think go eat at Chipotle every day? It’s definitely millions. And once the scare was out in the media, you got to believe that the restaurant chain got vigilant with their sanitary efforts not to mention shutting down restaurants temporarily as a precautionary measure.

The restaurant is clearly in a damage control phase after the E. coli break out to avoid a further media meteorite shower. So, would I eat Chipotle at this point in the time horizon of the outbreak? Absolutely, one hundred percent YES!! In fact, I would argue that it’s probably one of the safest restaurants in the country to eat at currently. I need to finish up this post because my stomach is growling and Chipotle is calling my name. Yum, E. coli tastes good!!

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September 9, 2015

Obama’s NOT your Scapegoat – Man Up!!

Political discussions are usually not my specialty. Maybe because I am so centrist that I piss off both sides like an unmanned garden hose wildly drenching both sides of the green grass on the other side. But today, I can’t help but get political on your ass. Everywhere I turn, these days, I want to be the proverbial monkeys that can’t hear, speak, or see. Everybody is blaming Obama for everything! And when I mean everything I mean everything!! Don’t get me wrong, I am far from an Obama fan especially during the days of the present. But is he really responsible for you not be talented enough to find a new job? Is he really responsible for the war in Iraq? Is he really responsible for the violence between white police and black men? Is he really responsible for all of the government’s debt problems? Is he really responsible China, the Middle East, your divorce, the drug war, or your grandmother’s death? It seems absurd but that’s what I am hearing.

I believe the reality is that there is a lot you can control but not everything. And usually, the things you can control have nothing to do with the President of the United States. It’s your role and your conviction that is necessary to blaze a path to a new destiny. It is your responsibility to control the way you react to things that are TRULY out of your control. Ok, I think I have gotten my point across even though I feel this blog post sucks. But I do know one thing about this sucky blog post… it’s not Obama’s fault.

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February 25, 2015

Practice Makes Improvement and the Power of Consistency

Last night, after my blog post, I was reading through a bunch of my previous posts. I know this sounds corny, but I was actually impressed with some of my earlier work. The most impressive pieces were written in April of 2014 when I was trying to challenge myself to write a blog post everyday for a month. Coincidentally, this was also the month in which I receive the most blog views. In other words, consistency brought more viewers to my blog. Sensical?? Of course!! I also like to think that my improved writing was a factor. Looking back, there was only one month that was even close to April 2014 in terms of views. That was September of 2013, the first month I started by blog. That part seems kind of strange, especially since the first month should be the hardest to get people to view and read your posts.

Many people think that one of the keys to viewership is promoting a blog. I have not done this as of yet and my blog is like a mask that is glued to my face. I am not ready for the big reveal. Therefore, the popularity of viewed posts can’t have anything to do with promoting. All this leads me to believe that there is one additional factor outside of consistency and improvement. That factor is basically, the early hype. Not sure how this early hype can happen with an unknown blog but I kind of think of it as the “Grand Opening” affect. The grand opening brings in streams of new people to test out the new concept and then the hype just trickles away.

What does all this mean. It means I am going to try to be more consistent in my blog posts. I don’t expect you to share this with others, but if you do that would certainly make things interesting. Especially if it disproves everything I have said up to this point.

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February 24, 2015

How Can I Provide Value?

Everything I have been reading these days about successful companies and blogs boils down to providing value to their customers or readers. I struggle with this concept since my initial reason for this blog was to blow off steam and get things off my chest. Especially this particular blog which has always been more stream of consciousness bullshit. I guess based on this, my value is to provide entertainment to my readers while simultaneously blowing off verbal steam. But maybe my viewership and/or follower base is still small because my posts are dull. Maybe its because my posts are now sporadic and not once a week like they used to be.

Well I will let you in on a little secret… I hope to one day use blogs for my future business, but that can’t be done while I am currently employed in the corporate abyss. Once that black hole fails and ultimately spits me out rather than swallows me whole, you will get to see what I am talking about. The real value then, will flow like the Yangtze. Until that time, you will just need to settle for the entertainment train or get off at the next stop. All Aboard!!

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Category: Life Observations