Week 52: Why I almost forgot to blog.

So, I’m finally at week 52.  This has been quite a year for me.  I did accomplish writing a blog every week, with one exception.  The exception was week 12, and I just posted a short thing saying I was too depressed to write because of all the violence that was happening in the world around me.  I think that was actually an excuse and I didn’t feel like writing for that week.  But other than week 12, I did complete what I wanted to do, which was put out a blog each week for 2017.

For week 1 last year I wrote about food.  I guess that was what was on my mind the first week of 2017.  I know there was a lot of things I wanted to write, but didn’t.  Sometimes it was because I just didn’t want to really voice my mind, and sometimes it was because I was too lazy to put it down in the blog.  There were plenty of lazy blogs for last year.

And now I’ve “resolved” to make videos for each week in 2018.  I wonder how much I’ll leave out of the videos I make?  I’m all set with all the equipment I need, but now I have to figure out the time to film things, and also what to film.  No one wants to see video of me just talking about stupid things.  So what else do I show?  Well, I do live in Las Vegas, and there are plenty of things here to show.  I’ll show what I can when I get time.  I’m not even sure what I’m going to be filming for week 1.  Wow.

I almost forgot to write this final blog.  Why would you forget, Robert?  Well, because I’m up to my eyeballs with flu virus.  Yes, that’s right folks, I’ll be starting out my 2018 with the flu.  Not a fun prospect, but sometimes you have to take things in stride.  I saw someone post something on Facebook the other day that said something like “If you’re sick, don’t go to work, or the store, or the library…etc”.  So what am I supposed to do, just lay in bed and wait to get better?  I don’t get paid to lay in bed, and I’m not rich enough to take too much time off of work.  I would LOVE to have a week to lay in bed and get better, but that’s not going to happen.

It might be fun if I could take some video at work for my first week of video for 2018, but I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement and aren’t allowed to really discuss, or show anything about my employment, so I guess that’s out.  

Anyway, thank goodness for Dayquil.  I can chug down a bit of that and then head to work with all my flu symptoms somewhat gone.  I’ll feel good enough to work.  And since I just sit in a chair and look at computer screens while using a radio and phone, I should be fine.  I hope the dispatcher sitting next to me has some Lysol.  *chuckle*. It really won’t matter.  Once one dispatcher comes into work sick, we all get sick.  There was also someone else sick, so either I caught it from her, or she caught it from me.  Or maybe we both caught it from someone else?  Needless to say though, everyone will more than likely get this.  It’ll just be a matter of time.  And can we all stay home?  That would be no.

So week 52 ends with me being sick.  That’s why I almost forgot to write this blog.  I’ll do the best I can to get a video out each week for the coming year.  If I don’t succeed, blame slow internet.  Until you SEE me next year, ask why all you want.  And let’s move on to video life.

Week 51: Why are people nuts tonight?

Normally I go out to buy some groceries each Saturday.  That’s just my usual thing.  Usually it’s not that big of a deal, I go and get what I need and go back home.  There are always people out, but it’s nothing crazy.  Tonight, it was different.

People were manic out there tonight!  It was like a natural disaster was about to hit and people were desperate to stock up!  I understand it’s the last weekend before Christmas, but damn!  

First of all, it was dangerous just to drive to the grocery store!  People drive dangerously in Las Vegas, but tonight it seemed like people were just out of control.  They were running red lights and stop signs, racing down the road going way over the speed limit.  People seemed desperate to get where ever they were going.

Forgetting the crazy driving, I did carefully make my way around to run my errands.  One stop I made was a store called Walmart.  It’s a large department store that sells just about anything you need.  I just needed a few toiletries and figured I could run in and out fairly quickly.  Silly me!  There were people everywhere!  And not just people everywhere, they were shoving everything they could into their carts!  I saw one guy with ten bottles of shampoo and a gallon of milk.  Is he going to run out of shampoo before Christmas?  Maybe he was giving shampoo away for Christmas and needed a large supply?  It was insane, it was as if people were “hurricane shopping”.  You know, out buying things before a hurricane, or some other kind of natural disaster.  

I quickly found the things I needed and dropped them into my cart (trolley, basket, or whatever you want to call it.).  I figured while I was there I might as well check the grocery section.  Stuff was flying off the shelves there!  The chip (crisps?) section was decimated!  Just like the rest of the store people seemed to be grabbing everything they could.  I decided I would rather fight people at a normal grocery store instead of Walmart, so I paid for my items and headed out, again braving the crazy drivers until I could make it to my usual grocery store. (It’s a place called Winco.). Winco had a lot of people in it, but it wasn’t as crazy as Walmart.  Things seemed a bit easier here.  People weren’t as mainic, but things were still flying off the shelves.  Luckily I did get the things I needed today.  

Another new thing is that I’m typing this week’s blog on a brand new iMac.  So far my experience with this new tech has been spent waiting for it to update itself.  It will take a bit of getting used to as it is different than my PC, but so far I’m loving it!  Time to take a few lessons in Final Cut Pro so I’ll be ready to edit my first video in two weeks!  

So again yes, next week will be the final blog for 52 weeks of Why.  I will have blogged for each of the 52 weeks. Except for one week.  I wrote that I was depressed for one week and didn’t do a blog.  But missing only one week is pretty good I think!  

2018 will be the year of video for me.  I’ll hopefully be recording and uploading a video each week with what goes on in my life.  I’d like to go to a few restaurants, maybe visit a few museums, and show off a few of the things around here in Las Vegas besides the casinos.  Maybe next year at this time I can show some video of the manic people?  Anything is possible.

So until the videos start, keep asking why.  I’ll be back with one last blog next week.

Week 50: Why do I think I need to film everything?

Why do I think I need to film everything?  Well, my life really doesn’t need filming, I guess.  I never did end up getting a new camera.  For now I think I’m going to start out with the cameras I have as I do have quite a collection of them.  Christmas time did eat a bit into my savings this year, so a new camera might be a bit excessive.

It might be different for some people in Orlando, Florida.  I watch videos on YouTube of some guys who go to Walt Disney World, or some other theme park every week.  And it’s fun to watch them, but there really aren’t any theme parks here.  Maybe I’ll have to exaggerate some of my life?  I am going to learn how to do a few special effects while filming.  Maybe more than a few effects.  Maybe I’ll be able to make things fun enough that people might just want to watch me each week?  I’ll have to put some thought into this.

So how do you know what people would like to watch?  Well, I’ll have to go with what I enjoy.  If I like it and think a video is fun, maybe everyone else will, too? I have a few videos I’ve done a while ago, but I think they would be too large to insert here in the blog.  One video has two of me sitting on a couch talking about two books.  I thought it was pretty clever and looked pretty good!  I checked and the file is around 6GB.  I think if I wanted to try and insert that here it would take a couple days to upload it.  And then I’m not sure I can just post videos that large into my blog.  Oh well, maybe I’ll get it out somewhere in another video one of these days.  Old footage sometimes comes in really handy!

I could edit some video from a few theme parks.  I do still have quite a lot of video that I’ve taken back on past trips.  I’m not sure whether my weekly videos should be about what’s currently going on in my life, or maybe show some of my past if that’s more fun?  We’ll see what I can cook up.  From what I’ve been seeing though, if I put my mind to it, I should be able to make some theater quality stuff if I just take my time and learn a program or two in depth.

You might be surprised what people would like to see.  I’ve looked up grocery stores in the UK before and was amazed by the videos I found!  It was thrilling for me to see what shopping was like across the pond!  Should I maybe show where I shop and what it looks like inside?  Would anyone in the UK, or anywhere else like to see that?  I do have friends from all over the world on my Facebook account and that’s probably where I’ll post the links to my videos after I upload them to YouTube.  Hmm, again I guess I’ll just have to gage my audience as I learn film making.

I’m currently waiting on some things to arrive.  Once they do, I’ll have to get started and learn what I can before my first video in January.  I’m pretty excited already!  So why do I think my life needs to be filmed?  Because it’s just something I want to do!  And it will be something left behind when I’m gone!

So until video one comes out, keep asking why.  One other thought, what should I call my video series for next year?  52 Weeks of Life, maybe?  I don’t know.  If you have other suggestions, let me know.

Week 49: Why I may go full Apple.

I’ve thought about this for a while, and I may just go full Apple this coming year.  Now don’t get me wrong, it won’t be cheap!  I’ll have to pay quite a bit to do this, but that’s why I go to work, isn’t it?  I’ve got a bit of money saved up.  I’m still thinking this through. 

I had another little “adventure” with my PC today.  It decided it had to download some updates and that’s fine!  I can respect it needing updates now and then.  So I let it do its thing and the download went on for a while.  When it was finally finished, the PC needed to be restarted.  Ok, so I restarted it.  First it was stuck on a “bios” screen and the keyboard wouldn’t work.  Oh no, not another problem!  I forced a shutdown and restarted the computer.  That should fix things, right?  Then all I got was the PC doing something, but nothing on my monitor.  I fretted for a bit and then tried another restart.  Again, nothing on the monitor and the computer seemingly doing something.  Well, maybe if I just went out and got some groceries things would be fine when I returned. 

I was pretty sure that when I got back from getting groceries the PC would still have nothing on the screen and be not working at all.  I checked, and it was fine.  I guess it just needed to install some things before it showed anything on the screen.  That seemed so unusual to me, though. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my PC!  I would have been heartbroken if something else was wrong!  I’ve had it for so long now!  If we go back a few blogs, I’ve even replaced the power supply in it all by myself.  I’m quite proud that I did that, by the way!  But let’s think this through.  I am planning on moving on to videos next year instead of written blogs and Apple products are pretty good at editing video.  A new iMac would also connect with my iPhone and iPad.  Hmm, now that’s something to think about.  My PC is pretty nice, but it really doesn’t connect to anything besides the internet.  I’d still have my PC, but would have something nice to edit video with.  Choices, choices, hmm.

There is something new coming called an iMac Pro.  The small bit of info I found says it will be released in December.  It’s December now.  So when do I get to see the overblown prices?  *chuckle*  Being serious though, I’ve had a MacBook for years and never really had any problems with it.  I still have it and the battery for it is no good so if I want to use it, it has to be plugged into an outlet.  But it does still work.  And it always was really nice to edit video with the few times I did it with the MacBook.  The big concern here is the price.  I’m going to have to probably pay around $2,000 or more, maybe even up to $3,000 for an iMac Pro when they come out.  Would it be worth that price?

Now you can get a “fusion drive” with an iMac.  That sounds so neat!  Does it work better than a regular hard drive?  If you ask Apple people they will tell it does.  I’m very curious about this.  It has to do with “flash drive” stuff.  It all sounds fantastic.  Again, this will come down to money.  Will I be willing to spend a few thousand dollars on something like this?  A lot of my life revolves around computers and electronic things at the moment.  I really would like something like this.  Again, this will take a lot of thought.  We'll see what happens.

At the moment I’m thrilled with fast food places that let me place an order with my phone, iPad, or PC and then just drive over and pick up the food.  And if I decide to buy an iMac I can just drive over to a nearby Apple store and pick it up.  I ordered and picked up my iPad Pro at the Apple store and that was actually pretty fun. 

Lots of thoughts in my head now.  It’s the end of the year and soon it will be tax return time.  That will give me a bit of extra money with my tax refund.  Is it time to go full Apple?  I wanted to buy a video camera with a microphone (still haven’t decided on one) for my videos next year so I could make sure I have good sound on the videos.  Why not make sure I have something that will help me edit things in a somewhat professional fashion?  I’ve been always been told over and over that the best thing to edit video on is always an Apple. 

Much thought will go into this as I continue to order Christmas things on Amazon.  I love ordering things online!  Until I figure all of this out, keep asking why.

Week 48: Why I love cameras and wings.

I need a new video camera.  Ok, that’s not really true, I already have quite a collection of cameras that can take video, it’s more like I WANT a new video camera.  I’ve decided that I want to do a video a week instead of a blog for 2018.  52 Weeks of Life.  How does that sound?  There are a few reasons for this.

One reason is that while growing up and even into adulthood, my father would always tell me stories about his life.  I loved them.  I would hear about his time in the U.S. Air Force, bits about when he was in high school, and how he grew up on a farm.  I loved the stories and still remember quite a few of them.  My father passed away back in September and now I don’t get to hear the stories anymore.  Anyway, back before he passed on I asked him if I could set up a camera and he could tell some of his stories.  I got a resolute “NO!” to that.  He didn’t want to do that at all.  It was his choice and I respected that.

But now I’m in my 50’s and writing a blog is nice, but you don’t really see anything that’s going on during the time.  You just get to read whatever I write.  Now granted if I do videos you’ll still only see what I want to film, but still the visual medium is much more fun than writing sometimes.  When I was pretty young I knew my Great Grandmother on my mother’s side.  I even used to write her letters (She lived up in Montana, far away from where I was at the time.).  Imagine what it would be like if I could sit down now and watch videos of my Great Grandmother when she was in her 50’s.  That would still probably be back in the 1930’s or 1940’s!  I know there are some old reel to reel movies, but I’m not sure who the people are on them and they don’t have any sound.  Not as much fun without sound!

Ask yourself what you did last year.  Do you remember what was going on in each month or week last year?  I may not if you ask me, but I can go back to this blog and select any week of the year and after reading what I’d written know how I felt, and what was going on at the time.  Imagine being able to go back when I’m in my 60’s and watch, or even show someone what was going on in my life in 2018 with videos!  I can’t pass that opportunity up! 

And this will not only teach me about filming and editing, I’ll hopefully learn more and more each week about how to edit and process videos.  Will I be much better at filming by week 22 next year?  Who knows?  But I think it’s still a fun thing to do. 

So why do I need a new camera if I already have a bunch of cameras that could probably easily do the job?  I’ve decided I want one with an attachable microphone.  It’s just something I want.  I probably don’t need it, but I think sound will be an important part of the videos.  Maybe a new camera that I can screw some kind of lens on if I need it? (What the hell would I need a different lens for if I’m just vloging?  *chuckle*)  Being honest, if I’m going to do this, I should do it to the best of my ability.  I don’t want to just post crap on my YouTube channel.  Well…maybe it’ll be crap, but hopefully it’ll be good crap.  *chuckle* It can’t possibly be worse than some of the other crap that’s on television now!

I’ve looked at some cameras tonight in a shop called Best Buy and they are outrageous.  Anywhere from $400 on up and those are without attachable microphones!  I’ll check a few other shops next week, but I’ll probably end up ordering something from Amazon.  They have some very nice looking cameras with microphones starting at around $110.  I’ll see what I can find and hopefully be ready for all of this on Week 1, 2018!

Moving on to wings, I love chicken wings!  There is a place near where I live called Wing Stop.  They pretty much serve two things: chicken wings, and French fries.  There are all kinds of flavors of wings and one of my all-time favorite thing about this place is that I can order and pay online and then just drive over and they hand me a bag with my order in it! 

Now it’s not just the convenience of ordering online that I like (that’s actually really fun! *chuckle*), the wings are always fantastic!  The people working there smile and greet me happily.  I love the place!  It’s a bit on the pricy side, but still I do think the food there is well worth the price.  You can take a look at my order right here:

I ordered 15 mild wings and they smell wonderful!  A very nice treat for my weekend.  So off I go to eat my wings and finish up relaxing before my return to work.  While I do that, everyone keep asking why!  And think how nice this will be next year when I don’t just write about getting wings from Wing Stop, I'll actually show some video about it!  *chuckle*

Week 47: Why Black Friday and Saturday didn't seem black to me.

This weekend was what is called “Black Friday”.  The day after American Thanksgiving is usually a madhouse at the stores.  People have to get the Black Friday bargains!  There are usually fights and stampedes and all kinds of chaos!  I wanted to see all of this for this year.  I can remember wanting to go to the mall last year, but there was nowhere to park.  Every single parking space was taken the Saturday after Black Friday last year!  I couldn’t even park my car!

This year was different.  I went to the mall today and there were plenty of parking spaces.  I walked into the mall to look around and there were people all over the place, but most of them didn’t seem to be buying anything.  Most of them were just standing around and staring at cell phones.

I didn’t find much to interest me at the mall.  The place also had a really strong smell of incense, soap, and perfume.  Maybe there were other scents, but it seemed to me like those were the prevailing scents.  It would have been nice to smell cotton candy, or maybe cinnamon, or something a bit more Christmasy, but no, just the strong soap and perfume smell.  Almost enough to make you sick.

And so I moved on.  I figured maybe people were in the huge department stores like Target.  So I drove to a nearby Target.  Plenty of parking spaces and again lots of people inside, but the cashiers didn’t seem busy at all.  I picked up some almond M&Ms and used the self-checkout lane without waiting in any kind of line.  Lots of people in the store, but again no one buying anything.  Just a lot of people staring at cell phones.

Maybe the people were all at the grocery stores getting food?  Nope!  I drove to two different stores to get my groceries and didn’t have to wait in a line to buy anything.

I think online shopping is more popular than ever this year.  People will go out and look in the stores, but don’t seem to be buying.  I’d rather stay home and hang out than go out and stare at a cell phone in a mall!

Moving on, tomorrow is my birthday.  I’ll be turning 51 years old.  I’m fat, old, and cranky now.  You can say “No, 51 isn’t old, it’s middle age”, but I think you’d be wrong.  I really doubt I’ll live to 102 which means I’m past “middle age”.  I’m not totally unhappy, though.  I’ll have to work for my birthday night, but that won’t be so bad.  I think it will be better than if I was unemployed for my birthday.  I’ll hopefully be thrilled when I’m retired and don’t have to go to work for my birthday, but by the time I have enough to retire on, I may be too old to do anything, or go anywhere!  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

So for week 47 I wonder why this Black Friday didn’t seem so black.  Is everyone really buying all their presents online?  As Alice would say, “Curiouser and curiouser”.  Down the rabbit hole we go!  Time to celebrate my birthday a day early this year and watch some movies and play a few video games.  Until next week when I’m officially 51, keep asking why.

Week 46: Why I'm happy with nothing!

This weekend I finally had nothing to do!  Absolutely nothing!  And I was really thankful for the nothing!  I also seemed to have caught the flu, so it was the perfect weekend for nothing.  For weeks now I’ve had things to do on my days off, doctor appointments, getting my driver’s license renewed, work cards, fingerprints, it was never ending.  Finally though, a weekend of peace.  And I didn’t mind having the flu very much because I was able to just stay home and rest!

Even though I had nothing to do, there still seemed like so much to do.  I blame that on all the technology I have now.  Back in the 1980’s if I didn’t have anything to do I could just sit around and watch whatever was on television, or maybe play the radio, or take a nap.  Now I can watch things on Netflix, play with my computer, or iPad, or even work on finishing some video games that I’ll probably never finish.  So many choices!  But they’re all at home!  I don’t have to go anywhere!

I did stop off and pick up a few groceries, but for the most part I just stayed home and enjoyed not going anywhere.  Traffic is horrible and it’s not even Black Friday yet!  Next week will be Black Friday.  I’ll stay home and watch on television as people kill each other for a “deal”!

As for some unnamed relatives annoying each other with Christmas decorations, you rock!  As for me, I’ll go back to enjoying my nothing.  I won’t question it, either.  But you all can still keep asking why.  Until next week, bye!