Hiddennode

It’s been an awkward month. Between starting a new game, dealing with family death, shifts in work schedules, and relationship issues, things have been fumbled. I’ve already mentioned the mystical quest the non-exist posts are on, so the blog really shows a reflection of things as they are.

Despite issues, though, I’m pressing on. There’s been a few hiccups but I’m fixing these holes, at least in terms of the fiction writing. As of this post’s writing, the last entries that have appeared on jsamueldiehl.com was on February 4th. To catch up, I’m post-posting these items, so feel free to check the website on the normal Tuesday/Thursdays for new backlog items. I’m actually reaching into my archives for these stories too, so you’re seeing things that have been around for years but no one has ever read.

I’m determined to keep up with two pieces of flash a week for this year. So far, when I’m lagging behind I’ve been able to catch up. Keep with me, and I’ll make sure to keep these stories rolling.

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So, let’s just agree that I totally made posts between the 8^th and today. The other posts are just, erm, on a mystical quest that they may or may not return from. Let’s wish them luck.

So it’s Wednesday again, which means weight and diet talk. February has been a disaster as far as eating right goes. I’m still keeping count of calories, but as far as keep below my goal I’ve been a mess. I blame my tendency to relax my diet during the weekends.

Also, I need to stop bringing change to work. I seem to be too friendly with the vending machine especially since they just stocked up on my favorite candy. Curse you Raisinets and your tasty flavor!

Food Goal this week: Make it through the rest of the week without grabbing a soda or candy at work.

Exercise has also been pretty bad. I still try with the hula hoop, but I haven’t quite got the knack with it yet. I need to spend time this weekend really learning how to use it properly and get active.

I’m starting to realize at this pace I’m going to cost myself extra money for travel expenses in September. The only person I’ve got to blame is me at this time.

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It’s an early Monday again, the last in a series dealing with me and Raven jumping out into the car at nine, rushing to have breakfast, and dropping me off to work at ten. I say the last because after over a year of this cycle, Raven’s dad is finally done with chemo today.

It’s a paradox of though I’d guess you could say. With my grandmother’s passing last week from cancer and cancer illness to the fact Rodger has beaten his into submission, I’m at a mixture of feeling. They aren’t too far apart in age, with my grandmother being in her late 80’s and Raven’s father being in his mid-80’s. Yet they lived different lives and maybe that’s part of why they each were able to handle their diseases differently.

I really admire my father-in-law. He’s a good man and very sharp. A little rough around the edges but from what I understand he’s mellowed a bit compared to Raven’s youth. Now, he’s a retiree who makes a decent amount playing the stocks, looking after his wife, and doing what he can to make sure his children have a good life. He’s a very good man and I count myself lucky to be able to hear and learn from some of his lessons meant for his children. I love the most the amount of respect he shows to Raven for her hard work, diligence, and treatment of her home business.

My grandmother wasn’t quite that way. She’s always lived with a great deal of stress with much of it generated by her own actions. I dare say when I was still a kid, I didn’t treat her too great. It started to change after I went and came back from college, but truthfully, I wish I had more time to make up for how I treated her when I was a kid. Really wish she had taken up mine and Raven’s offer to have her come move out here. I think she would have been happier here in North Tampa. Away from the rabble and trouble of those houses in Chalmette. Away from family that went back and forth with treatment of her.

Too late now.

I suppose this bit of reflection will help. It’s a rough thinking about my grandmother these days, but besides through text I honestly don’t share much of my feelings openly. Death is one of those things that has encircled my life. From when my mother passed the day I turned five to this recent loss, death and I feel like travelers along the same road. There’s no hatred or love between each of us, just mutual respect.

Death takes, we give.

Such is the price of life.

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Sorry for the delay with posting, certain things kept this from appearing on the usual day.

The last week with dieting has been a mixed bag of success and failure. Primarily I failed on Friday and Monday. Friday happened because of ordering out at lunch, dinner, and having a pastry (which is worse because I turned one down that morning but still had one later that evening). Calorie count for Friday was ~2450. Monday failed at dieting but it was a planned failing. It was my anniversary and I knew whatever we did, wherever I went, I was going to be bad.

That’s fine if that’s my one day this month. After that, I need to remain good and loyal to my diet. I’m down to seven months left to lose enough weight to reach my goal of needing only one plane ticket to reach dragon*con.

Frankly, that’s the goal. No weight value, no size value of clothing. Just so long as my fat behind fits in one chair in an airplane, I’m happy. That’ll be over $200.00 in travel expense savings over my planned trip budget.

So now I just have to figure out the size of the seats on the plane I’m riding up in and see how many inches I need to lose to squeeze in.

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My grandmother, Christian Dorothy Daigreponte, passed away earlier today. She went in her sleep after eighty-nine long years of life, love, and hardship. Hers was not a peaceful life, as there were always trials and tribulations. She was not the easiest person to deal with during the twenty-six years I had known her, but one memory I will always have is her unconditional love for her children and grandchildren, despite what troubles she may have had in showing that love.

In the wake of her passing, I hope that a peace can finally come over the issues my family has had these past few years. May my brothers and father find some solace between themselves and let a troubled past lie. I know not what may finally come from this, but I do not wish for any more life trauma to come into their lives or my life.

Whatever there is beyond life, may you find peace.

Justin Diehl

Yeah.. there’s a new MMO coming out today and it’s also my wedding anniversary weekend.  FYI, I’m busy for the next few days…

Hiddennode will be updated on Monday though, so check back then.

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We’re almost a month into the new year already and things are starting to take shape. In the past few weeks I’ve found myself being far more productive, focused, and driven than I have in the months leading up to the change of decades. I’ve returned to some old favorite activities and have taken up new causes to change how I act and behave. Anyone reading this realizes one such is the new focus on working on my blog, so I’ll leave that one to rest while I go over some of my other recent changes.

Today, as I discussed in a post last week, I’m taking more strides towards weight management. I haven’t started up the exercise portion of the practice but my changes to what I diet on and when are becoming more noticeable. I started my new efforts to begin the day with a hearty breakfast, and slowly end with a very tiny meal for dinner. I’ve been doing it in reverse and I’m wagering that it really hasn’t been helping my metabolism in the least bit.

I guess Wednesday is my “talk about the diet, health thing” day.

Oh yeah, and thanks to a post over at the F7lans forum, I bought a hula hoop to try to learn to exercise with.

Don’t you judge me.

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The following is a meta post regarding the blog and the status of the blog. Frankly if you aren’t too concerned regarding the details of this blog, don’t worry about this post. It’s skippable. If you’re interested in how I view and manage this site, keep going for some insight and don’t forget to ask questions at the end.

Last week there was a lot of work done on the blog. In terms of content, design, and usability, hiddennode.com has undergone a great deal of change. The new theme and plug-ins I’ve selected have turned this from a project that looked like I did care about it into something that has a little push behind it. The new content I’ve managed to post on a fairly reliable schedule has also increased traffic and hey, we had a few comments show up (hi folks and thanks!).

With all this effort put in it is time to continue my activity here. I’m going to attempt something of a schedule for posting here and on jsamueldiehl.com. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be the days you’re going to see posts here on hiddennode.com. Tuesday, Thursday, and occasionally Saturday will be the days that you’ll see new flash fiction on jsamueldiehl.com. Sundays I’m taking off.

The occasional Saturday posts lie on the fact I’d like for Saturdays to become days I post longer pieces of fiction, not just flash fiction. Because of that, I might just post every other week on Saturday so the content quality will be better. That is until I’m a better writer and know I can do more in a shorter time than I can now.

There’s no perfection to this system. I will miss days. I might even miss a week if things are tight. It’ll happen but once whatever is keeping me from posting is resolved I’ll be back and ready to go.

Going out on a note on the future; in the coming weeks you can expect a review of Star Trek Online (it goes live next week), might actually get to hear a podcast I take part of (if we ever record), and hear about my plans for Dragon*Con (bought my ticket yesterday). I’m looking forward to sharing these with you and hearing your comments.

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I spent the morning fidgeting with my phone again. Did I mention I have a new phone? It’s the Motorola Droid, running Google’s Android operating system. Let me tell you, I’m loving this device. So much that I’ve stopped carrying around my iPod touch completely.

Just a quick review of what the Droid is before we start: The Droid with Google Android OS is part of the growing trend towards smart phones for consumers these days. There’s an app store, touch screen capabilities, and many other useful functionalities. It’s available through Verizon for $199.99 with a two year contract.

Last year I made heavy use of my iPod Touch (purchased 10/08 for $200.00 for 8GB at Best Buy) but while the PDA functionality and app store were great the lack of consistent internet was annoying. I wanted an iPhone but I did not want to switch to AT&T. Had the iPhone been useable with Verizon without all the jumping through hoops and jail breaking, I’d have happily bought it (and by proxy probably more Apple digital products). And not to use the ad campaign, but the Droid does do what I need it do. Would I rather an iPhone? Right now I’m either/or. Both are great but the Droid is on my carrier. iPhone isn’t.

The apps I’ve found so far in the android market have been great. Lots of useful tools and services. Additionally, there’s a number of great games I’ve found, both native as well as rom emulators. I’ve started using Gmail and other Google services even more because of the easy integration. I’ve signed up for Google Voice and Google Reader. Even started listening to the Gmail podcast because of the new tools I’m using.

My only complaint regarding the Market is the lack of a certain app I want. Where’s my Kindle app Amazon? Maybe I need to look for another reader app. All I’ve heard is a lot of public domain books and similar items available. That’s nice and all… but I want NEW books to spend money on. Older or public domain books are great, but most of the content I want to read isn’t free.

Now there are some things about the phone that make me go “bleh.” The sliding screen gets annoying when it moves when I want it to stay still. The back of the battery case comes off often enough for me to have to check it each time I get up or sit down. The lack of native multi-touch on most apps (The droid can do multi-touch, Google just didn’t build the functionality into most apps).

The Weight is also very noticeable. This thing really stands out in weight compared to my iPod Touch. I’m used to it but it’s still awkward. Not a problem in normal use, but when the phone is opened to reveal the keyboard, the weight is quite noticeable.

Also, the OS has a habit sometimes of “locking up.” Typically if I’m closing or opening a new program, but it’s still a hassle when the only way I can use my phone is after pulling out the battery and rebooting. Even when I jail broke my iPod touch, it never locked up like this.

There’s still many more features I’m learning and getting used to, but more and more I love this device. Admittedly I’m hesitant to call the device a phone. That’s probably the least used feature of the Droid I use. In fact, if Skype could hurry up and make a full version of their App, I’d be using that as well for more services.

Despite the flaws, I love the phone. Probably would love any smart phone really, but I’m happy with the one I have, so much that we’re considering getting one for my wife when she’s up for a discounted renewal late this year.

Obvious question is obvious: So do you have a smart phone? Which one? How are you using it? Have any cool apps you’d recommend?

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I was looking through some of my archive this morning, and noticed a post I created back in August (Living and writing). Five months ago, I had apparently been really focused on exercise and it was having a positive impact on both my health as well as my writing. In fact, I notice over the last five months at least a third of the posts have related to health or being active in some major way. So it’s on my mind a lot and with this being the new year, maybe I need to actually get myself into gear with all of those great plans.

Thinking about the writing when looking at the archive, I also notice most of my blog posts are about two-three weeks apart. One wonders why the readership here has never really “sparked.” Perhaps I can change that. I can make enough time in the morning to exercise and write if I actually go to sleep when I’m supposed to. There isn’t a single thing that should keep me up past 12am on any given weeknight and that would let me wake up around 7.

So maybe that’s what I have to do now. Write and exercise. It’s a good combination and I think it’ll lead me to a more fulfilling place in terms of my desires. Now, mind you, I won’t be writing a blog piece every weekday. There is only so much I can write about without focusing more on reporting on things. Yet, there are pieces of flash fiction I could write every other morning, posts to write over at TDC, and projects tied into my game creation work. There’s always something to work on available, so I frankly don’t have a viable excuse to not do something creative each morning.

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