Tim Apple

Defineing oneself

So I think one needs to identify who he or she is and I don't think we always know. But I think it helps to have an idea of what we're made up of. I have been trying to figure this stuff out for some time and I think it's time I put it down on paper, at least as much as I have figured out. I sort of narrowed it down to seven things that make me up. I will delve into each a little bit.

I was a warrior. For about ten years of my adult life I was an infantry soldier in the US Army. It's still a big part of my life. A lot of me has been molded by those years in the army and a lot of my beliefs also. I built things within myself there, loyalty, integrity, ability to serve. These are some of the most important virtues. And I think I would be armed with much weaker versions if not for the Army.

I am a Father and it is the most important job I have. It's my belief that there isn't a more important job and my children mean the world to me. I can only hope that I can pass on some lessons that will help them when they are adults. In all reality though, I think they pass on more lessons to me.

I am a Salesman, not by choice but appointment. I realize with my past experiences, it is possibly the most flexible job I could get with the greatest potential. In other words, It provides the best financial benefit to help support my family with my limits education and experience.

I need to serve. This I have determined after being out of the Army for some years now. I have felt empty ever since exiting. My family is the one thing to help fill that void. I am looking for other ways to serve now. And when I say serve, I don't necessarily mean the government. I mean humanity or parts of it.

I want to be an artist. But I am not one. Nonetheless, I have taken upon myself to learn the ukulele. I'm pretty positive I may not get much further than playing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, but it's art. I will also be working on writing more. I may never get beyond blog posts. We will have to see.

I'm a bit of a fan of the primal movement. And I feel my health is something I need to pay attention to. I find the paleo/primal lifestyle mixed with a little bit of good ole' infantry conditioning makes the most sense to me.

I am a Baha'i. And though on the bottom of this list, it may be most important. It's my faith and I am an awful representation of it. But aren't we all works in progress? This is where I am building my other virtues. Empathy, compassion, kindness and others are all things to work towards.

So in reality, you may see I am a bit of a mess. But this is my mess. One has to take the hand he's dealt. I plan on making the best of it. All these items make me who I am today, and build me towards who I will be tomorrow. All I can do is my very best to move in the right direction.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Changing Course

Been thinking about many things these days. I am and always have been a somewhat very techie fellow. I also have been a very outdoorsy fellow. What a mix huh?

I grew up being marginal at best in school. I find it hard to keep focus for extended periods of time. I only did good in the classes that I had interest in. And sometimes that interest didn't last very long. What happens when you behave like this?

I joined the Army in 1994. I screwed up a few times, but in general, ended up with a pretty decent career. About ten years into that and six days into my second tour of Iraq a bullet decided to put an end to that career.

So what do I do now? Well, actually I ended up being an electrician for a time, which eventually led me to more techie things. Which again I had a knack for. So once set and looking to improve my career, where do I go? Coding? System Administration? These things are the logical path I would think. But I can't seem to keep enough focus to be very good at either. I am more the “ jack of all trades, master of none” scenario. But I just cannot focus on any of it very long. Of course, having four children doesn't help.

This leads to the next issue. This tech interest leads me in all directions and accomplishing not very much, what I would call concrete progress in anything.

So what now? At this point, I'm in sales for a small IT company. And thinking I should just try to grow my strengths in sales and slow down on my overall geekiness. I'm going to settle I think. One operating system, one set of tools, and focus on other hobbies I am interested in and my family a needs a bit more attention. Even get my nasty arse back in shape.

Other hobbies you say? Well yeah. I always wanted to play a musical instrument..well. And I have a ukulele sitting in my closet calling me. A silly instrument in a way, but always seems to bring a smile, so a good choice. The second is the fact that I always dreamt of being some sort of writer. So I think I will dedicate some time to that and see where I can go. Did I tell you I did just awful in English class?

We will see where I go with this. Wish me luck.

Greener Pastures

Been playing with Ghost for a little bit. Though it is pretty and a fairly simple blogging tool, it still is not as nice and easy as Write.as. So here I am back home to bore you all with my not so exiting words. Will actually maybe write something worth reading in the next day or two.

Goings On

So a few days ago I decided to give myself the challenge of using Vim as my only editor option. And this is the first particular post I am composing in Vim. The main reason i'm doing this is to force myself to learn the editor that I have feared for like 20 years.

A couple other things I've been doing. One I fully migrated myself to using Protonmail as my full time email client/service. The other is the fact that I am still testing NextCloud to handle my Calendars, Contacts, and RSS feeds.

I tried NextCloud a couple weeks ago hosting on a DigitalOcean droplet. I gave me some troubles so now I am trying a hosted solution. Well post on progress and what becomes of it soon.

Cheers

Been a little busy this week with the school year started for the kiddos. But been doing a couple new things.

First off, i'm really trying to move completely to Mastodon. I still get a bit of news off of Twitter. Between rss feeds and convincing people to get on Mastodon, i'm getting closer.

Second I started using the Protonmail Bridge. This allows me to use Protonmail through Thunderbird which is nice.

Next up I think I have to get a Nextcloud instance to host my contacts and calendar. Trying to figure the most economical and consistent way to do that.

Till then..

Eeek..Daughters first time going to school. First time I have to deal with carpool lanes. It's gonna be an interesting week.

Nothing to important here. Just testing activity pub to the Fediverse with write.as.

So I've been thinking about apps. By default I have been a fan of the native desktop app. I thought it should be the way to go. Then I had a conversation with my wife about where we may be in the next few years, living that is. And there was talk of somewhere in the third world possibly.

So then I thought.. well computer access could be limited, I could have to depend on mobile a lot. So wouldn't web based apps better? Then I can get on any computer or mobile available and access my stuff, whether it is mine, another persons, or in a cafe of sorts.

hmmm....

So I have come to the realization that I don't have the time or the attention span to learn programming. Of course I can learn a little bit in a hobby sort of way. But I don't think I will ever make a living at it. I think I make a better promoter of OpenSource projects than creator.

I've determined if I wait to write some crazy dramatic post with tons of content I will never use this platform. So I am going to post lots of tidbits..sort of using it like my own personal little thought blaster..for stuff that is a little to much for twitter or mastodon, or that I want to keep in case those platforms ever go away.