A personal look back at 2017
I will be doing my usual look back at the The Year in E-Books (this will be the ninth) and The Year Ahead for 2018, but I wanted to do something different here.
While I do certainly share my opinions and some of my interests here, and from time to time, talk about my life (Bufo’s Life ), I don’t feel like I say all that much about myself.
That’s on purpose.
I always want this blog to be able to help as many people as it can. I don’t want it to be that people of one particular opinion or another or driven away from it because of disagreements with something that doesn’t have to do with the topic at hand.
I also want it to be a safe place, a place where people are judged not by their inherent characteristics or broadly by their lifestyle choices, but by their thoughts and feelings on a topic. It may be silly, but I feel like if I talk about things like my age or gender, it makes other people feel like they should do the same…which may intimidate some from sharing on topic thoughts.
I should be clear: I don’t do it that way in life, or even in my other most active blog, The Measured Circle. Oh, I still don’t say much personal in TMC, but I do use gender-specific pronouns. 😉
Why am I doing it in this post?
I’m not sure. 🙂
One of my concerns for my “performance” in 2017 is that I haven’t been writing enough narrative in this blog. I’ve been doing the daily “Bookish Birthdays“. That means I am publishing a post a day, which I hadn’t been doing, and I’ve gotten some good feedback on them…but it doesn’t say much outside of the facts.
ILMK had its lowest ranking since I’ve been recording those this year, and I suspect that may be part of it.
I get why it’s attractive to me. It’s similar to the “collector’s instinct”. I like a challenging routine, it feels good to me. Producing a daily post which takes work and judgment gives those “micro-rewards” that make me want to keep doing it. It’s like the joy of alphabetizing; I think I’ve told this story before, but I had a videostore employee approach me after I’d been in the store for maybe 45 minutes moving movies around (slightly). The employee trepidatiously asked me what I was doing, and I explained that I was alphabetizing the movies. “But they’re already alphabetized…” Me: “Oh, the ‘As’ are in the ‘A’ section, but they aren’t alphabetical within the section…I’m fixing that.” (That’s approximate from memory).
I’m currently writing three daily posts…one for work, and they take more than an hour. I sleep a relatively small amount (I’ve checked that with my doctor…seems to be okay), so I do have more time than most people. However, I like to say that “Work expands to fill the available time.”
I do know how to manage time: in fact, I teach others to do it, and I know I’m effective. I train medical people, and I had one case with a doctor who was regularly leaving the clinic a few hours after it closed. Charting (writing down what happened) is essential, and takes time to do properly. Doctors also get a lot of communications about things, both from inside the organization and from the people they see.
I spent about an hour with that doctor talking about time management techniques (there is some overlap with technology, but that’s not all it is).
About three weeks later, that doctor was leaving about an hour after the clinic closed, which is about right. It took three weeks to clean up and to ingrain habits.
However, just because you understand how to do something doesn’t mean that you consistently do it. 🙂 Do you think Steph Curry’s shooting coach is a better shooter than Steph? It’s not necessary to be the best at something, or even particularly good at it, to help others get better.
That’s not to say that I’m bad at it, either. 🙂 I haven’t written a narrative post on this blog in several days, but our adult kid was visiting, and we had a lot of family things to do. I love writing this blog and interacting with you, but family does come first (and my Significant Other and adult child support that).
Speaking of which, let’s do the first revelation…
I’ve mentioned that we have a big lifestyle change coming. My Significant Other is going to retire, starting January 12th. There are certain implications around retirement, so I didn’t want to say that was the change. In this post, though, I will.
We can do it, but it will be very different…and it is purposefully uncertain right now as to details. My SO has been in the same industry for decades, and has worked many twelve hour days. The time had just come.
It will cut our income roughly in half (we make about the same salary, despite doing very different things).
As you can imagine, that’s a challenge.
We did some things to save some money: one was closing out a storage space for which we’d been paying. Those boxes went in the garage for now (which we don’t use as a garage anyway).
I sort of tried to do this earlier this year, and it didn’t happen…but I’m going to use our neighborhood website to organize a “Giveaway Day”. For it to work, it will have to be promoted, in a way similar to our neighborhood garage sale (which is sponsored by a realtor, since it brings people into the neighborhood.
My idea is to have lots of things out on the street where people can just pick them up. Why not sell them? Some items just don’t fit that profile. I don’t know that we’ll get any tax deductions, since organizations probably won’t leave receipts. Also, I’m well aware that professional resellers (garage sales pros, eBay experts) will come by and get the high value items.
We’ll set it up so we have one of our twice a year extra garbage pick ups the next day. I think that will work well.
We also need to cut back on spending: fewer trips, for example. We may not buy as many gadgets, although hypothetically, when I buy a new Amazon gadget and write about it, that can be an investment. When people buy gift cards from the link at the end of this post and then use them at Amazon, that really helps.
We are looking forward to this. I don’t have plans to retire for at least five years: I’ll be the income and the benefits. I also really like what I do. My SO asked me years ago what my retirement plan was, and I said, “I plan to die at work.” That didn’t go over well. 😉 I am now convinced that I will retire at some point…which will mean writing more.
Regardless, that’s a change.
Revelation #2: I’ve mentioned having a chronic condition and walking with a cane, but I haven’t said what it is. I have an arthritic hip, and it’s a deteriorating condition. It simply won’t get better, and function will continue to get worse. When I first got the cane, I had someone ask me if it was for show. It’s obvious now that it isn’t. I have quite the “rolling walk”…my left leg is effectively now quite a bit longer than my right one, and that also continues to increase. When I stand (which I can’t do for very long), I have my left leg bent and my right leg straight.
The obvious question I get is, “Aren’t you going to do a hip replacement?” I have no fear of an operation, and I did meet with an ortho surgeon this year for an evaluation. The interesting thing is that I have no chronic pain with it. It just doesn’t work very well, and I will get acute pain…changing direction suddenly, getting bumped, putting on my sock or getting into the car: those can all cause pain, but I don’t have it just in normal routine. It also doesn’t last long.
I was told that the purpose of the hip replacement is really to relieve pain. It doesn’t fully restore function. When people get a lot of function back, it’s because pain was stopping them from doing things.
It’s also better to wait if you can, apparently, since the hips wear out. Waiting longer might mean fewer surgeries.
When I get my annual check-up in February, I am going to ask about getting a disabled sticker for the car. I haven’t done that before, but my ability to step up on a curb and that sort of thing has gone down. It’s not so much distances; it’s stairs, curbs…places where I need to raise my leg and therefore engage my hip. The special parking places are sometimes the only ones which don’t require a staircase, and they have ramps for wheelchairs.
There have been times I’ve thought that having a wheelchair would be easier…even cool. 🙂 As you can tell, I don’t have a lot of ego about my appearance. A wheelchair would now make me significantly faster when I go those distances. I’m not there yet, but that might be in my future.
My condition has also reduced the amount of aerobic exercise I’m doing (my physical therapist basically banned quite a bit of my daily routine). I had a pretty good weight intake/outgo balance (I had lost about forty pounds ((18kg)) at one point). I’m refinding that, but I’m confident in it. I may have put on ten pounds or so again, but I’ll get that back off, and I’m not gaining out of control.
This coming year, then, I’m likely to see deteriorating health…and more time with my happier SO. Pluses and minuses. 🙂
Okay, have to head to work. I have a lot of writing to do in the next couple of weeks, plus I’m still working on the book, Because of the Kindle. Things will get easier when I’ve “lapped the year” in Bookish Birthdays (I think that’s in September), and when I’ve done “On This Date in Geeky History” for the whole year. Some things I want to get written soon:
- Popular pre-orders for January
- The Year in E-Books
- The Year Ahead
- My monthly Snapshot on January 1st
- My annual Snapshot
- I want to do a summary of “Geeky Good-byes” (and catch up the listings) on the The Measured Circle blog
- I have maybe another three posts to write for TMC
Oh, wanted to mention: we got two new SmartPhones! We got Galaxy S8s, when they were buy 1 get 1 free. My SO needed a new one (the current phone goes back to work, and we don’t have a landline), and my screen had developed a flaw…and for the first time ever, I dropped my phone and cracked the screen.
Two surprises came with that: I hadn’t realized it had a new power cord connector (meaning I needed adapters for places I have cords), and my Samsung Gear doesn’t work with it. I’m replacing the Gear (I do a lot in VR and some in AR) with the new one…that’s really a holiday gift.
Hope your year was a good one, and next one is better! 🙂
You can be part of my next book, Because of the Kindle!
Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!
All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. 
Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
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