These kids ain’t stupid

TicTok. YouTube. Snapchat. Day in and day out, our children are rotting their brains staring at these stupid-making apps. What is the world coming to? Is it as bad as their grandparents might think? I would argue no.

The other day I was hanging out with my 16-year-old in his bedroom because – well, he’s 16: if I want to spend time with him, I go to him. I don’t wait for him to feel like coming to hang out with me. I would never see him. My son likes to play video games on his tv while simultaneously watching YouTube videos. On this day, I asked him what he was watching. He said, “Oh, it’s just some video about Satan.”

Wut?

Instagram stories: Life on the prairie

I like Instagram, but I’ve found that I don’t particularly enjoy following people I actually know. I’m friends with most of them on Facebook, and many of them automatically share their Instagram photos to Facebook (including myself). It gets old, after a while, seeing all the same photos twice. I have considered unfollowing all the people I know on Instagram and following only complete strangers.

My latest Instagram posts are photos from a long bike ride out on the Central Illinois prairie. The corn is just now cropping up, but before I know it, I’ll be riding my bike through green canyons of corn.

Human beings are weird

Human beings are weird. We spend our whole childhoods learning not to be our weird selves, and then we spend most of our adulthoods trying to find ourselves.

So why not cut out the middleman and just let our children be who they are? Go be your Weird Self. What if that’s the only thing standing between you and happiness?

#beyourweirdself

Writing is your business: justify the investment

Zemanta offered this image up in response to my blog post. I love it! Could anything (even writing) be more fanciful than selling balloons on the street? How is that somehow more acceptable than investing in a writing business? | BALLOON SALESMAN ON SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO’S 47TH STREET MANY OF THE CITY’S BLACK BUSINESS OWNERS STARTED WITH… – NARA – 556217 (Photo and description credit: Wikipedia)

Did you know 50 to 70 percent of small businesses fail within the first 18 months? I am curious as to how that statistic stacks up in the entrepreneur–writer world. How many would-be writers give up within the first 18 months?

Have you ever considered taking time off work to write? Did you then decide not to because you couldn’t “afford it?” How do you justify the time spent on an activity that may or may not pay out in the long term? Well, let me ask you this: How do most small business owners justify the time and expense sunk into the more than half a million small businesses opened in the U.S. each year? When you consider the odds, how can anyone believe they can afford to open a small business?

And here’s my boring blog post for the day

I’ve been busy with work lately and haven’t had much time for blogging. I’ll be back next week once I’ve settled into this new semester a bit. Until then, I am piggy-backing off The Bloggess today and showcasing pictures of my office, which is way more messy than hers is!

Here’s where the magic happens. Yes, that is the obligatory cat sitting in my office chair. There’s another cat around here someplace, but who knows where. She’ll jump out and attack my feet after I sit down.

I do my best blogging at the coffee house

The view from my comfy chair at Cafe de Arts in Waukesha, WI proved to be inspiring last weekend.

I love blogging while sitting in a coffee shop. Whenever I meet my writer friend for a day of coffee and writing, I always end up putting my intended work aside to write at least one blog post. At our last session, I ended up writing three different blog posts before the afternoon was done.

Maybe I should just plan on going out to a coffee house once a week to write all of my blog posts. When I blog at home, my blog posts often come out concise, professional, and utterly boring. At the coffee shop, I get creative ideas and write posts I think people might actually want to read (I hope.)

Do you wanna write a guest post for my blog?

Do I look busy to you? Nah, it’s nothing. Really.

I’m teaching six courses this semester and writing a thesis. So yeah, I’m a little busy right now. I want to keep my blog going too, so I’m wondering: Would any of my writer friends and readers be interested in writing a guest blog post or two this semester?

I’m a starving artist (well, not literally, I just stuffed myself on Chinese food at dinner tonight,) so I can’t afford to pay you. But, if I publish your guest post on my blog, you’ll get a by-line and a link to your blog from mine. So, that’s something, right?

Anyway, if you’re interested,

Dear potential employer who just asked for my Facebook password,

Image via CrunchBase

Dear potential employer* who just asked for my Facebook password,

I am going to do you a huge favor and deny your request. You see, it is illegal for you to ask me in an interview how old I am, if I have any kids, what my religion is, or whether I like boys or girls.

Did you know you can easily access all of this information about me simply by reviewing my personal Facebook profile? By complying with your request to log in to my personal Facebook account, I would be opening you up to a huge lawsuit that would likely ensue once I realize that you considered my age/religion/sexual preference when deciding whether or not to hire me. 

Blogging from my phone

This is what my computer is doing this morning while I am working from my Android phone.

I’m blogging from my phone this morning because I think my computer has a virus, and I’m running a scan in safe mode as I type. So, forgive me in advance for the many typos you’ll likely see here today.

Anyway, my main project for this week is writing syllibi and lesson plans for the courses I’ll be teaching this semester. This is my last week to get it done, and I have a lot of work to do yet.

One of the courses I’ll be teaching this spring is communication technologies. I’m really excited about this course as it includes blogging, social media, and even a few technologies I haven’t had a chance to try yet myself.