Archive
124 To 858
When a friend recently pointed me toward hupso.com, here’s what I discovered:
As you can see, the Hupso.com and the WordPress.com stats aren’t even in the same ballpark. Since I believe my wordpress stats are more accurate, the bulldozer.com “franchise” is potentially worth $431 per year; or $36 per month (LOL!).
Oh well, I guess I can’t quit my day job. But that’s OK. Despite the anti-corpo rants I hoist on this blawg, I like my day job and I like the people I work with and I like the people I work for.
In any situation one finds themself in, it could always be better or it could always be worse. But when one only thinks in terms of “it could always be better and can never be worse“, then there’s likely to be trouble on the horizon.
Stirred, And Then Unstirred
When a cock-eyed idea for a blog post appears in my discombobulated mind, I sometimes write the post to completion and promptly place it in the publication queue. At other times, I simply toss a link, some sentences, and/or a quick picture on the page and store it away for future elaboration in my “drafts” folder. As a result, I have over 100 drafts stored in the underground catacombs of this site. The oldest one is dated back to 3/10/2009!
Every once in awhile, when I’m suffering from writer’s block, I browse through the drafts pile in reverse chronological order to select my next earth-shattering post. However, since for me writing is all about emotion (positive or, most likely negative), I often find myself chucking many drafts into the trash. For those drafts, the second time around is just a dispassionate “meh“.
Since all emotions naturally ebb and flow, it makes sense that what stirs me today may not stir me tomorrow – and vice versa. But that’s a wonderful thing because when emotions stop changing, life sucks the big ‘un. When I “successfully” force emotions to stay longer with me than nature meant them to stay with me, I tend to get myself into trouble. Does this apply to you too?
You May Be Wrong
With the frequency and ferocity of attacks BD00 foists upon the guild of institutional management in this highfalutin blog, you might think BD00 is a miserably unhappy and vengeful malcontent at work. If you do, then you’d be wrong. BD00 knows for a fact that his boss’s boss reads this blog “religiously“. BD00 also knows that his company’s CEO has stopped by to sample the waters at least once. The CEO even discretely and unjudgmentally referenced an idea from this caustic blog in a large gathering (for which he received a free BD00 T-shirt).
Do one thing every day that scares you. – Baz Luhrmann (Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen)
In three-plus years of blogging, BD00 has never received a peek-a-boo visit or been directly rebuked or threatened by anyone in his company’s leadership chain for exposing his wacko, close-to-home thoughts in writing. If you wrote a similar, self-exposing blog, could you confidently say the same about your management ?
Call For Artists!
Are you a fledgling e-artist who wants to show off his/her work and earn a few bux? If so, then BD00 wants to partner with you in a book project. Like Elton John and Bernie Taupin did with music and lyrics, we can do with graphics and words.
The majority of posts on this site fall into the “management” category. Thus, I’m gonna try to write a self-published e-book that showcases my utter lack of understanding and unparalleled ignorance of the subject. The biggest hurdle I have to overcome is the fear of being sued by Microsoft, and perhaps others, from the commercial use of their graphics. Thus, I need someone to draw up legit replacements for the icons I plan to use in my so-called work; and to be on standby for others that I might need during the effort.
Here’s a categorized collage of images that I need to be redrawn:
If you’re interested, please give me a shout out in the comments section so that we can get the business negotiation process started.
Searching For A Title
Look at the e-mail gift that BD00 recently received from a shy cohort in crime:
I’ve been searching for a title to the book that I probably won’t ever write. TEWKTHN seems as good as any. Got any other suggestions?
The Berkun Process
Scott Berkun’s brilliance never ceases to amaze me. In the video below, which runs at 30X real-time, we see a 1000 word essay that took 3 hours to write being created in 5 freakin’ minutes. While the footage whizzes by, Scott explains what he was doing and thinking during the creative act.
Like Gerry Weinberg does in his “Fieldstone Method“, Scott carries a notebook around wherever he goes and jots down notes/ideas as they appear in his head out of the ether. This crucial practice prevents the dreaded “blank page” syndrome from manifesting when it’s time to sit down and write.
BD00 collects “fieldstones” in much the same way. He also sketches out dorky pictures for future enhancement and refinement in Microsoft Visio.
Self Made Myth
Western societies, especially the good ole USA, revere the myth of the “self-made” man. Even though many people might consider some of my greatest influencers; Seth Godin, Leo Babauta, Hugh MacLeod, and Scott Berkun self-made men, all of them depend on what Godin defines as “tribes” for their livelihood. And they’ll all humbly admit it – which is why I’m a fan.
I recently listened to Leo interview Seth on the subject of tribe-building for writers. Here are some tidbits of sage advice served up by Mr. Godin:
- Don’t get upset by the fact that you don’t have a vision and can’t tell what’s coming next.
- The core of any worthwhile, enduring business is not about maximizing profit.
- You’ve got to embrace a willingness to fail.
- Get that voice out of your head so you can do your best work. (D’oh!)
- Don’t write for strangers – you don’t need a huge “tribe“, and thus, you don’t have to dilute your message.
- Forget about writing “how to” books anymore. People just look it up online.
- People hate reading, so keep it short.
The first four bullets are not just applicable to aspiring writers, no?
The BD00 Process
I believe that human beings love personal stories and direct experiential reports. Thus, even though it’s highly proprietary and super secret, I’m going to expose the somewhat repeatable “process” that I use for whipping up dumbass blog posts.
Here’s how BD00 does the dirty deed…
- Every morning, after going to bed between 8-9 PM, I wake up between 4-5 AM.
- I fire up a pot of coffee and then sit down at the computer.
- I navigate to the wordpress.com BD00 dashboard.
- I mine “fieldstone” writing ideas from: my “gym notes“, my quotes pages, an interesting interaction or tainted observation at work, random web surfing, my kindle highlights, a twitter post.
- I wait…..
- A freakin’ miracle occurs!
- I start writing words or drawing a picture, or both.
- I chaotically jump back and forth ‘tween writing and drawing – iteration city.
- Sometimes, I write some words, draw a picture, and then finish the words.
- Sometimes, I write all the words first and then re-scan them for drawing ideas.
- Sometimes, I draw a partial picture, write some words, and then I finish the pic.
- Sometimes, I draw a complete picture first and then I write the words that go with it.
- I iterate over the words + picture combo multiple times until…. I say “WTF, I’m done!“
Of course, even though the BD00 process is expressed as a nice and tidy bulleted list above, it’s not a procedure. To highlight the non-sequential nature of the process, here’s the UML state machine diagram model:
Note the numerous initial entry points and that every state has an iterative transition “to self“. That’s because I Am A Strange Loop.
Writer’s Block!
After aimlessly doodling with my ad-hoc clipart pallet for awhile , I concocted this monstrosity:
Surprisingly, I drew a blank when I tried to conjure up a delusional story to bind to the drawing. This must be what writer’s block is. D’oh!
Can you please fill in the void for me? Think of it as a creative writing assignment.
If You Want To Write
Brenda Ueland’s “If You Want To Write” is not just about learning how to write. As Guy Kawasaki has noted, it’s a moving tribute to the human spirit and the innate ability to create that resides in each of us.
If you’re not into spirituality, you won’t buy into what I’m going to say next. IYWTW impacted me like some of the best spiritual works that I’ve read; but without using explicit, spiritual terms like “enlightenment, awakening, surrender, non-duality, universal consciousness“, etc. The best spiritual works are hard to describe and summarize in words. They must be felt and experienced via graceful tingles and enveloping shivers down your spine. They can’t be understood by the rational mind. IYWTW is one such work.
If you want to explore spirituality from an unusual and different point of view, then you may want check out IYWTW because it contains much more than its title suggests. The book brought, if only for a few brief moments, “the peace that passeth all understanding” to me, and it may for you.
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
My BTC Address
Bulldozer00's Blog 