Ugly (But Honest) Display of Ignorance

I probably already said this somewhere in the few posts I've already written, but I'm too lazy to go and look right now: I used to fancy myself a competent computer guy. But I am utterly failing at keeping up with technology.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I have an iPhone 6, a computer, and a tablet. In my real life job, people ask me computer questions all the time, and I sometimes get the right answer. But all in all, my general knowledge of computers is quite lacking. It probably always was, but when I was younger I thought I was smart but was too dumb to realize how not-smart I was.

Anyway - I started this blog with the intent to have an outlet for my desire to be a writer. And since any writing teacher with his (or her (or its)) salt says to write about what you know. Well, I know that my life isn't what I'd imagined it to be growing up. I also know that my life isn't really all that special, but I kinda sorta believe that maybe some people will see how badly I'm screwing up and realize they aren't all that bad off the way they are. And I also know that my brain often goes to places that are so far off track that sometimes I amaze even myself. Plus, I like a good story.

So in my not nearly brilliant brilliance, I decided to write a blog about all of those things at once. One blog, many pages. One blog, multiple tangents. One blog, various themes.

I built the blog and added four pages. The idea was I could write a post, and once it was published, I could slide it onto the page that best fit the content of the post. For example, if I wrote about how pathetic my life currently is, and how I dreamed of the glory days when I was young and stupid (even though I thought I was smart...), I could put that on the Mid-Life Crisis page. Or if I was struck by lightening and pounded out a new chapter in my book, I could post it on the Weed's Writing page.

But (here's where I get to the Ugly (But Honest) Display of Ignorance) only after I completed building the blog and attached pages did I realize that a blog doesn't really work that way. Generally speaking, posts all stay on the main page, and the pages are more static and don't cater to having multiple entries on the same page. As such, my brilliant idea wasn't so brilliant after all.

Woe is me. Just another nail in the proverbial coffin on how I'm not nearly as intelligent as I once thought I was.

That being said, I wonder if there is a way to put different posts on one of the non-main page pages. If anyone knows how, be a good World Wide Web citizen and let me know, will ya?

Waah.

Has it really been over a month since I've last posted something?

Uhh...yup. That's pretty sad, isn't it? I wish I had an excuse on why I haven't written anything, but I don't have one. Except maybe just the whole thing called Life: work, eat, family, sleep aaaannd repeat. Oh, throw a little football watching and an occasional movie, and that's life.

I suppose going back to work after having two months off after baby boy No. 2 was born might have had a slight impact on my inability to write a new post.

And then I ask myself, do I really need an excuse? And more importantly, do you even care? Probably not.

The next question is this: what's the point of this post? The answer: I'm not entirely sure (outside of making excuses). Maybe this is just an attempt to delve into the nether regions of my brain and discover why I'm so pathetically NOT a writer.

To use an over-used cliche - if I had a dime for every time I have said I want to be a writer, I'd be rich. Except, there's apparently an addendum to that cliche, one that says I owe a dime for every time I should have written but didn't write. As such, I am most certainly not rich. In fact, I am quite a bit in debt.

Another thing I've said a time or two is that I really wish I could quit my day job and go do a different day job. One that I actually enjoy.

Don't get me wrong! My current job is much better than my former job, and my enjoyment level is much higher than before. However, I am still employed by the same large corporation (just in a different position). And anyone who has spent any time in a large corporation knows how dismal corporate life can be.

I keep telling myself that the problem is I make too much money to quit. I can't keep up with my current bills (or should I say "debt") now, so why would I be able to if I got a job making much less money? Because I'm pretty sure it would be near impossible to find a job that I'd make as much as I do now.

Well..with my current level of motivation, it'd be near impossible. If I found one single ounce of motivation in my pathetic, lazy, good-for-nuthin mind, finding a good job could possibly be possible.

I've often dreamt of finishing a novel, one that went on to be a bestseller. And after I topped the charts, I could quit my day job and write full time. But, as is indicated by the one month hiatus from writing, I'll be 206 before I finish my first novel.

So this post turned out to be a "woe is me" post. I'm sorry to have to put you through that. Although, I don't think I have anything to worry about. Who'd want to read this drivel anyway? But, if for some odd and unforeseeable reason you do like reading this, I do hope to come back and write some more.

Hopefully it won't be over a month later...

What in the World is this blog all about anyway?

So what, exactly, is this blog supposed to be about anyway? Tell me you haven’t asked yourself that question, cuz even though I’m not a betting man (well, I suppose I am once in a VERY great while…), I’d bet you have asked just that. Or at least something similar. This post will be an attempt to answer that deep, dark, mysterious answer. 

There will be several things on this blog, some with a point, some without, and some with something somewhere in between. Obviously, there are a few pages, and as you can tell, some are specific, and some are definitely not. Wood Works, for example, will be — well, tell you what. I’ll do one of those indent/bullett point lists. Here you go:

• Just for the Heck of It - I’m thinking this is pretty self-explanatory. These posts will be random ones, without any real place in the greater design of the other pages on Weed Works. They could be anything from a dissertation on book to movie adaptations (yes, I have a very strong opinion on those…), to my thoughts on how I stinking hate virtually anything SEC football related. They can go toot their own horn in another galaxy for all I care, and the college football world would be better off for it. A post could also be about those little quirky things in life that I often see. For example: ever notice how people line up to get onto an airplane - even if they have assigned seats? “Quick! Let’s do the line-shuffle for half an hour before we actually sit down again! How exciting! I can’t wait!” You’ll probably also see Christian specific posts here too. I often get a hankering to write about something I heard in a sermon, or read in the Bible, or any other epiphany type moments related to God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and that whole religious thing. 
• Mid-Life Crisis - Since I’m 42, married with children, in a stale job, finances are in a shamble, and life is generally not what I had expected it to be, I could make the argument that I’m in mid-life crisis mode. So every now and then I’ll write about how my life sucks, and how much I want it to change. These type of posts will land on this page. (editorial note: my life doesn’t really suck, and I do love my wife and kids (but not so much my job - I mean, it’s okay, just not what I really want to be doing), so these posts might be more tongue in cheek style…more on that later)
• Wood Works - as I mentioned before (which you hopefully read…) I am an amateur woodworker. I almost always seem to have one project or another going. Now that I have a blog, I’ll try to take pictures of my projects and tell you all about them. This page will mostly be about my trials and tribulations in the shop, and less of a step-by-step on the projects. There are enough of those World Wide Web-wide that I don’t need to add to them. 
• Writing Works - I like the fantasy genre. Not the adult-type fantasy, but the swords and magic and elves and fairy creature fantasy type. That’s about all I read. Often I read a book that makes me think “if this person can write this kind of garbage and get paid for it, I could write similar garbage and get paid for it too.” However, the number of books and short stories I have started is far greater than how many I have actually finished. I do have one story line all outlined out, from beginning to end. It also includes multiple character sketches (the written kind, not the artsy kind…), location sketches, and various and sundry other items. What I hope to do on this page is publish the story as I write it. Maybe if I have an audience who is waiting for the next page-gripping chapter, I may actually write said next page-gripping chapter and post it. 

So that’s it! Yes, I’ve thought about writing separate blogs for each of the topics, but since I’m just getting started, I’ll keep them all on one blog. If one or more get simply too big for this blog’s britches, then I’ll look into starting another blog. 

Greetings Part II

I'm surprised you made it back, so welcome! And thank you. Given the relative length of the first post, and the fact that our world has an attention span of about a millisecond, I know my first writing was too long. Psst! I'm going to let you in on a little secret: almost all of my posts will be long. So there. Deal with it. And get used to it. What can I say?

By the way - if you haven't already, you might want to read Greetings Part I. I might help this one make a little more sense (duh...).

My posts will likely be longer because I ramble. Since I too have an attention span of about a millisecond, my mind likes to wander here, there, and yonder. As such, so does my writing. I do, however, like to believe that my writing does eventually come back to the point of the post. So don't worry -- I may ramble, but you should be able to understand what the gist of the post will be.

As such, here's the topic of today's post: Greetings part II. If you didn't figure that out, then you can ask yourself if you really deserve to continue reading. But who am I to judge? Keep on if you really want to. Or even if you don't, I don't really care.

So, where was I? I think I left you with an explanation of the blog. So go ahead and call me Weed. I won't mind. My bro's and sis still do, and my nieces and nephews all call me Uncle Weed. The students in youth group at church call me Weed too. Even some of the adults do too. Primarily the ones who are still in the extended adolescence stage of life, but I don't mind. My wife only calls me Weed when she can't get my attention otherwise.

I haven't figured out how to have my boys call me Weed (should it be Daddy Weed?) but I guess just plain Dad will be fine for now. Their friends, however, will be a different matter.

First random tangent: I'm sitting at a cute little coffee shop called Olympia Coffee Roasting Co. Cute, simple, quaint. I ordered a mocha, and asked if they had any caramel.

Nope. But we do have a in-house made vanilla.

Sure, I'll take some of that!

I gotta tell you, I like the fact that they don't have caramel, or a six foot by six foot cascading style wall display of countless different flavors like most coffee shops do. Keep it simple, no complicated decision making required.

Have you ever noticed how many different kinds of bread there is at the grocery store? A person can go into brainiac arrest trying to decide which kind of bread to bring home. Come on guys, can't you keep it simple for us poor pathetic souls who shop at your store? Kind of like Trader Joe's. I like that place too.

Second random tangent (or not so random...maybe it's the point of this post, I'm not sure yet): You'll notice that my blog still has one of the generic Blogger template designs (given that you are reading this before I figure out how to change it. If not, then this post may not make too  much sense. oh, well). Plus, the font is pretty generic too. The problem with it? I used to consider myself somewhat technologically savvy. In my youth I would have said "advanced" instead of "savvy," but, then, in my youth I woulda said I was going to play in the NBA. And no, if you search for my name in the NBA archives, you won't find it.

But apparently I'm not as savvy as I thought I was. Case in point: I still have a generic template look and basic fonts. If I were actually savvy, I would've fixed that before I had posted my first post.

Back to the coffee shop. (See - random...). Store hours: open until 6 pm. Okay - I get it - people generally don't eat coffee (or drink it either...stupid brain!) in the evenings. As such, coffee shops generally aren't open that late. But wouldn't it be cool if they were? I mean, for poor saps like me who struggle to get out of bed each morning just to make it to work at 8 am. Getting up early enough for a cup of Jo outside of the house is not something that is going to happen for me.

I like to go to a coffee shop so I can write. I know - I know, cliche and commercial-ish, right? Common looking man sitting at a tiny table with a steaming mug sitting beside a laptop (or tablet), quietly and calmly tapping away. But give me a break, it's pretty cool. If for no other reason that the distractions are a lot easier to filter out than at home (no offense Honey...but I know you get it. If you could take your art stuff to a coffee shop, you would).

But remember that I mentioned getting up (or failing to do so in a timely manner) to get to work? Well, I do work 8-4:30, and then I go home for dinner and the common, run-of-the-mill try-to-cram-life-into-a-few-short-hours-before-bedtime-with-the-family. As such, if I wanted to go to a coffee shop after the kids go to bed, they are all closed! And the alternative places that are open late? 1) I don't drink alcohol a lot, and 2) you don't see commercials of a guy sitting next to a frothy mug of beer calmly and quietly tapping away at a laptop (or tablet), do you?

Don't get me wrong Mr. Olympia Coffee Roasting Co. owner. Maybe I can carve a bit of time on a Saturday morning to come by for more of yours. (By the way - I have the day off today, that's why I'm here in the am...).

Anyway, I don't think I ever got to what I thought I'd get to in this, my second post. I remember thinking it through last night as my mind wandered from the waking world into the pleasant and intellectually stimulating world of dreams last night (I had some doozies! Maybe I'll open a page about dream recaps. That might be fun!). But those thoughts must have disappeared much like the minute details of said dreams.

Well, as I mentioned before, this is a longer-ish post. I'm not going to apologize though. I think what I meant to write about was what you will find on this blog. Perhaps this post will give you an idea (i.e.: nothing in particular...). But maybe Greetings Part III will tell you. It might start that way, and hopefully it'll end that way too. See you later (hopefully...).

Greetings Part I

Hello, my name is Matt. I’m 42 years old, going on 16 at times, and 85 at others. I’ll explain that later. I’m married with three kids. Two boys and a girl. I’ll explain that later too. I have three older brothers and a younger sister. Mom’s still around but Dad died about eight or nine years ago. Whenever it was, it was too soon. I’ll talk about that more too. 

I work for an insurance company. More to come on that later also. My family goes to Mountain View Church of the Nazarene. I try to act like a Christian…or at least what my idea of what a Christian is. Whether or not I succeed is another story. You’ll probably hear more about that too. 

My hobbies include weekend woodworking (my signature style is “slightly off square”), reading, writing, and watching football (and sometimes baseball). More on those later. I’ve always enjoyed nose-picking, but I don’t think that’s really a hobby. It’s more of a disgusting habit (at least according to my wife). 

You might be asking yourself “why all of the laters and mores?” Well, if you haven’t noticed yet, this is my first post. I could tell you all about my past life in this one post, but it would be a really long post. So instead of one gripping, page-scrolling, can’t turn off the computer post, you’ll get multiple ones. Plus, as an added bonus, ones about my current life too. 

I will, however, tell you something right now, at this moment. Not later.

Where did my name come from. Well, it’s kinda a long story. You see, when I was born, my birth size was smaller than my brothers. Thus, my dad called me “the weedie-beedie-boy!” One of my brothers decided to call me “weed” instead. The name stuck. Growing up, I was called Weed. 

A few of my friends picked up on it, but it didn’t really take off until high school. I went to Salem Academy and I played football. We were good. Real good. And since we were a small school, we dressed everyone down for the Varsity games, from senior to freshman (and probably the water boys too...). And since we were so good, it was quite common for us scrubs to get into a game when we got far enough ahead.  

During one of those games, I got in. My brother Tony (who was a junior) and a couple of his buddies started chanting “WEED! WEED! WEED!” as I ran onto the field. The rest of the team picked it up, and then the crowd (at least the student section anyway…) picked it up too. From that point on, I was commonly and affectionately known as Weed. It carried on into college, and even peeked into one or two of my jobs later on in life. Not the insurance company though - that’s way too stuffy a place for something fun like calling one of its employees “Weed.” 

As I went through life, and dreams about my career started blooming, I wanted to include Weed in the name of whatever it was I was going to do. However, as is the case with a nickname like Weed, almost everyone assumes that I’m a druggie or something like that. Believe it or not, I’ve never used weed, nor have I ever used any kind of recreational drug.