Always Blame The Tools, OK Seriously Do Not Do That

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I wrote previously about my motivations or lack of motivations on writing.  With all that I wrote being true an added issue was recently writing was just harder to do.  I do a lot of my writing by dictating to Siri.  Previously to that i was using Dragon Anywhere and Dragon Dictate by Nuance to dictate.

Since I write when i have a spare moment that often is when i am away from my computer.  That means I leveraged Siri a lot.  I wrote about why I went with Siri vs Dragon Anywhere.  For a while before i wrote that post I was really not using Dragon on my phone.  Siri was working great so I couldn’t justify the costs.  I am not sure if it is my location (London wireless is as good or better than NY) or issues with the newer IOS versions however Siri isn’t as good as it was when I wrote that post.

Around mid May I decided to sign up for the Dragon Anywhere trial again.  I was able to blast out the bulk of what would be my first blog post really quick.  I was also able to write a detailed journal entry for the day I downloaded the app.  That was enough for me to be happy to pick up the subscription again (for now).  In the end i could have just used the dam dictation software I pay for on my Mac.  It is much less convinenentq than having it on my phone.  It happens to be better to use.  Just not that much better to make me sit down at a computer worth my while.

With the real or perceived obstacle of not being able to dictate out and about removed I am hopeful I can continue my fledgling writing/dictating streak.

Facebook Fail

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Apparently I have been posting new blog entries for a few weeks now and no one can see them.  Oddly I see them and they say viewable by friends however they do not show up.  There goes the fancy way of posting from WordPress to FB.  I am back to the old school way.

What I Did Last Night

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To remember my dad last night I found a bottle of Godiva Liquor and M and I had a glass of it while watching an old MASH episode.

My dad was the person who turned me onto the chocolate liquor and he loved MASH so I thought that was appropriate.

I Miss You Dad…

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Today is my dads birthday. He would be 75 today. I am assuming this day will get easier over time, however it’s not today. I miss you dad. I will randomly think of you most days.  I have to try not to cry.

I am grateful my kids think of you and talk about you.  They know when they bring you up, that I will cry.  They ask if I will and I of course say yes.  I hope they remember you as much as they do now in a few years!  They say they dream about you.  That makes me smile and cry at the same time.

You are still loved and missed very much.

Floor vs iPhone

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M had a showdown with the floor of the pool vs her iPhone. Her iPhone lost. It happened on day 2 of our vacation so no phone until we can get it looked at.

I am not sure if it is worth the screen replacement cost to fix an iPhone 6 (or 6s, not even sure) that is at least 3 years old and 3-4 generations old by now.

Mr Whippy vs Mr Softee

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Being a New Yorker I default to the stance that Mr Softee would kick Mr Whippy’s butt in a throw down. That being said Mr Softee is a cheap bastard and doesn’t offer a Flake (for 30 pence more).

For the uninitiated a flake is basically a stick of chocolate that goes into your ice cream that if you choose to you can scoop your ice cream with. Of course we (the girls and I) just eat it.

W Sister Shorts – Holiday Candy

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When is it okay to eat kids holiday candy? I don’t consider myself a monster or anything however after a while it becomes apparent that kids are not going to ever be able to eat your Halloween candy hall or Easter candy in any reasonable amount of time.  In my view Easter candy right now should be fare game.  We shouldn’t have to even mention Halloween candy this time of year.  if we still have it you can do what you will with it.

My wife and I disagree on timing of when we can touch the candy.  I feel two weeks is good enough.  By a month no question.  Thoughts?

Daylight at 9:20PM?

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I am still getting used to the higher latitude in London. I never realized how much of a difference it does make. It i mid May and it is after 9:20PM and it is still twilight out. I woke up at like 4:45 AM this morning and it was the same. I wonder what it will be like in late June

The Story Of My Returned Motivation To Write

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I am not so sure who “they” are however “they” say to start at the beginning. For this post thinking about where that beginning is has been murky. When I moved to London I had over a dozen different drafts of things I wanted to write about. I still have most of those drafts and would love to write about those topics. The realities of the move were I had little time to write when we first arrived. In early January when we arrived that was not a problem since I had a backlog of 4 to 6 weeks of written material to use on my posting schedule.  I just depended on how many posts I wanted to schedule per week. At one point I had 3 posts scheduled a week and I was able to streach things out by going down to two.

Then everything changed in mid-January. I  got the call that my dad was dying.  It wasn’t a surprise.  It was unexpectedly so soon.  He had been sick for a while.  The whole situation unfolded much more suddenly than I had thought. By the time I went back to New York and returned back to London I was focused more on getting back into my routine dealing with our shipping container that writing.

At some point I want to write a lot more about my dad’s death however not ready to do that yet.  In any event I still had all these ideas about writing, I just didn’t want to. Over the past few months I posted quick blurbs that I’ve thought about however nothing substantial. This also translated into not really journaling much privately either.  That was something I really enjoyed doing.  I ended up simply logging where I had gone with hopes of going back and writing some blurbs later.

Besides the lack of motivation, it was very challenging to find time. On one hand it is easy to say I was busy.  I have read enough to know that busy is a terrible excuse.  If something was important to me I would simply find time. The reality of the situation was I was depressed about my dad and tired from trying to adopt a new routine.  All I wanted to do at the end of a day when the girls were in sleep was to relax. In recent weeks my wife and I have both felt much more at ease that we are finally settled in. That has helped in getting me to journal more in recent weeks.

Now I feel like I am in the right place to start branching out into blog posts. That brings me to this post. I didn’t need to write all that, however as with much of my writing it felt therapeutic to write it.  And that is why I am writing about this topic as my first full post in a while.