Power of words
Jeff Goins has a great blog post on the Revolutionary Power of Words. Appropriate for Americans on Independence Day!
Squirrel-itis
In the movie Up, a dog with teeth bared moving in for the win could be distracted by the call, “Squirrel!” The dog’s head instantly rotated in search of the new prey.
That problem isn’t just with dogs. My sister and I have been struggling with the same issue.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
I recently had a couple of errands to run before visiting my mother, who is currently living in a nursing home. From the bank, I headed downtown for errand #2 – picking up a part from an appliance store. One block before I arrived at the store, I instead turned right onto Main Street and drove back across town to the nursing home.
Two hours later, I realized I hadn’t snagged the part I needed.
Squirrel!
A few days ago, my teenage son and I headed out on a day-long trip. Before we walked out of the house, I reminded him, “You ought to take a water bottle with you.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said and filled a stainless steel bottle pulled from the cupboard.
Then we got into the car and I buckled in. “Oh,” I said. “I forgot my water bottle.”
I got out of the car, headed back toward the house, and he rolled down his window. “Would you grab mine while you’re in there?”
Squirrel!
My sister is working with an essential oil that is supposed to help with distractedness. I’m calling it squirrel oil and, if it helps her, I may mainline the stuff.
Cleaning out the archive box
I knew things were going to get a little sticky when I uncovered an ink refill for a printer that I don’t remember owning. I had to crack open my archive box and I was finding interesting treasures.
pochette CD.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)“Archive box” sounds fancy, doesn’t it?
My archive box is a plastic box with lid that contains CDs from programs I’ve installed. What a great idea, I thought when I got it. All my CDs were safely stored in one place and protected from dust and stuff.
I don’t know why the ink refill was in the box. The printer must not have lasted long enough to even earn a refill.
I don’t visit my archive box much but my computer crashed and I was re-installing programs.
But opening that box was like a trip down memory lane but without the warm fuzzy emotions. What I felt was confusion.
For example, I uncovered a CD with a big black question mark scrawled on the label.
What in the world? Who labels their CD with a question mark?
Me, obviously.
Although nobody accuses me of being well-organized (well, someone did once but that was before they saw my desk), I took some pride on my box as a shred of planning.
Every program CD went into that box after installation.
I am proud to say that there were no 5 1/4 inch floppies in there. Using my system, that’s a miracle.
So I started flipping through CD jewel boxes for programs to reinstall.
I found programs that won’t run on anything newer than Windows 98. I found programs for pre-schoolers. (Our youngest is 17.) I found a CD from our classical music days.
I’d like to blame this on the kids but they never open the box. They just run the programs and don’t mess with the details.
Wonder where they learned that?
I’m sure there’s a major life lesson in all this. Something about staying organized but those lessons tend to roll off me like tumbleweeds crossing the prairie.
Sometimes simple is better. So here’s what I learned: I’m cleaning out the box.
That way there’ll be room for further archiving.
Online translators: “what?”
Today you can copy text, plug into an online translator, and have yourself a nifty set of words that might or might not make the slightest sense.
Clockwise Trail Access (Photo credit: MTSOfan)
For example, I heard one of a translation of the common idiom: “Out of sight, out of mind” translated to : “Invisible, insane.”
Maybe…
I recently purchased a personal PA system for speaking engagements. It’s one of those gadgets with a wired microphone attached to a small amplifier that you can hang from your belt. I used it last week for a group activity and it worked pretty slick.
But the one-sheet instruction guide must have come from Jupiter because of some of these statements:
- “Features: Lithium battery, long battery life. Loud-speaker works pretty good.” (Since that’s what a PA system is for, I was glad to know that.)
- “To extend the battery life, please charge after the battery is use out.” (I assume “use out” should be “used up” but what’s a preposition among friends?)
- “You can adjust the length of waistband, as shown below.” (Below is the bottom of the page. Flipping the page reveals how to adjust the microphone.)
- “Attentions before wearing the ear-hanging microphone: Before wearing, please don’t turn on the power and volume.” (The ear-hanging microphone might be better called a single-ear microphone but I can adjust. I’m still trying to understand the why of the second instruction.)
- “Don’t change the battery by yourself under warranty. Be sure that the pole is right when the change the battery.” (To change, not to change… well, it’s only a $35 gadget so I probably won’t worry about the pole.)
- “Turn the volume button clockwise or anticlockwise can increase or decrease the volume.” (Anticlockwise?)
- “Decrease the volume to avoid noises.” (But I want volume. That’s why I bought the unit. Maybe my voice is a noise….)
- “Cut in and pull out the plug often may cause the disbad connection between microphone and amplifier.” (And we don’t want a disbad connection.)
I’m a reader and I’m a writer so I read these instructions once, curbed the urge to re-write them, and saved them long enough for this post.
However, I think these instructions fall under the “invisible, insane” category.
My video spinner
My teenage son wants to be a multimedia expert, which has thrown his mother into a bit of a spin.
Can one pay the rent while making YouTube videos and designing websites?
He’s 17 so of course one can.
I suggested to him today that maybe he should have a backup plan. “Maybe you could also learn to repair computers. Or be an IT guy.”
“There’s always a place for IT guys,” he assured me. “That’s a great backup.”
“Don’t you think you should get some training?”
“Don’t need to. Google is my friend.”
Yeah.
But here’s a video he was a big part of and one I helped with as well. Thought I’d share, hoping that Plan A works for him:
Google Plus not dead yet
Google Plus is not dead, although I thought so for months. Maybe you gave up on Google Plus as well.
Then I read an article by Dave Llorens about the future of Google Plus and decided to stir the waters of my account again.
I know, one more social connection to try to maintain.
But the Google Authorship aspect caught my attention. When my name is googled, I want people to find my blog and other connections. Google Authorship ties my photo to my writings and I like that.
The core of the ability to do that is Google Plus.
So I’m giving it a run. I wish WordPress could automatically post blogs to Google Plus like it can to Facebook and Twitter but I suspect that’ll come soon. In the meantime, I have to remember to copy the url from my blogs and paste them in my Google Plus account.
Unlike Facebook, Google Plus members are more focused on business, art, technology and ideas rather than complaints about the boss and the stale coffee. I like that. There are less photos of grandkids but I go to Facebook for those connections.
I scored an information find that I’ll share with you. The chart below came from a Google Plus community, Christian Authors, which is packed with intelligent interaction about writing. As you can see, there’s a lot of help with technology in that community.
If you’re a Google Plus member already, consider adding me to your circle. I’m listed as Kathy Brasby. And if you’re a Christian writer, check out the Christian Writer community.
Now, take a look at the chart about website design and see some content available on Google Plus. Thanks to Tim Young on Christian Authors at Google Plus:
Related articles
- 8 Compelling Reasons to Use Google Authorship (business2community.com)
- Promoting Content with Google+ (socialmediatoday.com)
- Why You Need Google Authorship Now (business2community.com)
