Transition

Many things have happened in my life since my last blog post. Which is the primary reason for my lack of posting.

The biggest change is that my father died in a motorcycle accident on September 11th 2009. He was 60 yrs old. I am 40yrs old.

My dad and I were good friends. Over the last 23 years, after I came to live with him in High School, I have come to understand and accept my dad and our relationship. It has always been a struggle for me being from a family with many dysfunctions but my dad's long stint with recovery from Alcoholism was a major influence on me as a young man and began a life long process of change that I continue through today.

When I was in seventh grade I went to live with my dad in Salem, OR. He was newly sober after realizing that he was addicted to Alcohol. A sobriety that would last until his death. I believe that it was this time in my life which gave me the clarity and sobriety to avoid alcohol addiction. Thank you dad for getting sober early enough in my life that I could learn from you prior to embarking on my adult path.

Over the remaining years of my child hood I would come and go from different family arrangements and eventually I came once again to live with my dad. He had divorced and remarried in the 4 years that I hadn't lived with him. So as I entered 11th grade I settled into what seemed like the first Father-Son relationship of my life. Of course neither of us were skilled at being a father and son and we had a lot of baggage to overcome but we did reach an understanding and developed a relationship that would last the next 23 years of my life.

It was this relationship and the lessons I tried to learn from my dad's mistakes that have propelled me into adult hood. I was little D and he was big D. Although in many ways my dad never was the kind of father I want to be he was a good one. He tried his best. It was with this acceptance that I found great peace in my life around this relationship.

However, on September 11th I became big D. Gone from my life is the person who my mother said I was just like. Gone from my life was a man I never saw achieve the things he wanted. My father taught me many things, but the lessons I've learned the most from him were things he learned the hard way.

I am not really anything like my dad. Physically, emotionally, and personality we are very different. There were some similarities in mannerisms but beyond such affections we never set our sail the same way.

My father was content at being a mechanic for nearly 40 years. While he wanted more for himself he never took the risk to strike out and go for it. As I strive into the future I will look back upon the life of my father with love and fondness but also with a resolve. A resolve that my life is not a reflection of his. I am not limited by my belief structure. I create and modify my beliefs to reflect an ever growing understanding of truth.

My father loved many, many people. My father was a great man and he will be remembered by the hundreds of people he loved. My life was enriched by him and I will resolve to life my life in a way that would make him proud.

--Religious Note

As you may or may not believe in an afterlife this portion of my blog post may ring true or not.

In my life time there are three people who I know are watching out for me from the afterlife. My grandfather Kester, my grandfather McLeod, and my father. I know that they are part of a long chain of ancestors who I am connected to through god.

As a spiritual being I am connected to them even after death. I know they will always be with me.

Focus back on Self-Care

Well all, its been a very busy month. I can't believe how much I've been enjoying life through spending time with my wife and kids, working hard, and learning.

So this post I wanted to point out some tools that I have found usefull in not only getting through my days happy but actually being spiritually fullfilled.

1. Spend as much time as possible enjoying nature. This is something I'm just learning to do and I dont' do nearly enough.

2. Spend some time each day taking stock in the little things that need doing in your environment. The little things bring a lot of joy.

3. Spend some time each day in prayer or meditation. Relaxing your mind from the "figure it out" rat race by just connecting with god creates ripple effects in your life.

4. Study something. Increasing knowledge and exploring new topics is always inspiring.

5. Be careful with your words and monitor your emotional state closely. The more you learn about how your feelings are really determined by your own thinking the more you'll likely realize that saying things and trying to fix problems you percieve from an emotional place really don't get you want you want and create conflict and strife.

I know for me the daily activities can get me off my track and they surely have over the last few months. But I realize now more than ever its vital for my mental progress and health to practice good self care.

Dave

Twitter Management

As some of you may know I started a few months ago connecting with people through twitter.

My goals of this were simple. Connect with people of similar knowledge, skills, interest, and objectives as myself.

I realized quickly that this was a hard task. With thousands and millions of people out there finding the ones I was interested in seemed harder than I expected. And also, it was time consuming to manage.

Pretty quickly I figured out I wanted to automate many of the tasks I was doing manually. The problem was I didn't have the time to develope the tools and still do everything else I need/want to do. I was a customer looking for a solution. :)

My requirements were simple:

1. Automatically follow people who tweet keywords I'm interested in.

2. Follow back real people who follow me.

After days of playing with different tools I didn't find it. And then one day my friend Ray Levesque says, hey check out Tweet Spinner.

The problem with Tweet Spinner is the UI. The simple layout hides the powerful functionality. In addition it isn't intuitive how to configure and setup the options.

But once you do have them setup its great. If you like to Autofollow people you can do that but unlike other features this one allows you to filter out people based on keywords they use. It doesn't eliminate ending up following bots but it reduces it a lot.

But the feature I like best is the Follow On Keyword. Tweet Spinner monitors the public domain and if someone tweets about something I'm interested in I can follow them.

If anyone has other questions about Twitter I'll be glad to answer if I know something about the question.