Seven Things I Learned at Camp this Year...



I am returning to the faceblogoforumtweetbook world this weekend. It's been just shy of two months and it's time to reconnect.

Here's what I learned while on hiatus:




1) My job is not who I am. I decided to resign from my position and leave the organization where I have worked for ten years. I start my new job on Monday and couldn't be happier.




2) Best steak in town is not the best steak in town. It is an empirical fact and I can only surmise that the emotional attachment to said best-steak-in-town causes one's taste buds to lie to one's brain. Still, the company was fantastic.





3) The leaf will fall, and fall, and fall. No matter how diligent I think I am, no matter how many times I fill the green bins with leaves off the front yard, there are always more. Yes, I'm going out there again after this post.





4) Words can be written. No, I didn't finish my first draft of Mighty Quinn. Yes, I did write. In fact, I doubled my words. I'm at about 62,000 right now and on the home stretch. Still hoping to finish before Christmas, but we shall see.





5) Siri interface rocks. Siri functions? Not so much. My new iPhone has Siri, the new voice recognition personal assistant software from Apple. Its ability to recognize what I say is nothing short of fantastic. And it can do some amazing things. When I say "Remind me to write 750 words on Sunday", it will actually remind me Sunday morning to write 750 words. If I say, "Call my wife's mobile," it will immediately call her. But say I'm driving and listening to a podcast and would like to pause it and restart it while I talk to the nice cop who pulled me over. While Siri knows what words I'm using, she apparently doesn't know how to carry out such a simple command.





6) I missed everyone. I'm so looking forward to reading the blog posts of the last two months, the poems, the stories, the humorous observations, the biting satire, the familial anecdotes... all of it.





7) In the end, it's really only about the people I love. It goes by so fast and every minute really does count. (This picture, by the way, shows my 22 year old kids when they were maybe 7? What the heck happened to those 15 years?)

Cheers to everyone!

Thanks for reading. Off to write.

Casey

Comments

  1. Juli3/12/11 21:09

    Glad to see you around here again. Missed you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joanna Jenkins3/12/11 22:27

    Hey Casey, Great to see you back. Sounds like the past two months have been interesting. Changing jobs is BIG! And all that writing-- WOW. Congrats.

    I'm jealous about Siri-- I'm waiting for the "5" version and then I'll make the change. It's got to be the #1 App on the planet. I've only heard good things about it.

    Happy leaf raking! jj

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian Miller4/12/11 18:09

    welcome back man...good job on your book so far...glad to hear you are on the home stretch...quit your job...you are radical man...

    ReplyDelete
  4. bignoseduglyguy4/12/11 19:42

    Thanks for the comment over at my place - good to have you back!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown5/12/11 07:22

    ..... wait a minute. You were lost in Void too? And you resurfaced on my birthday? Ha ha ha

    There is a lot of things to be thankful.

    Thanks for a more reliable internet connection. And be thankful because I got my loyal cat who never left my side since this evening. :P

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fragrant Liar5/12/11 16:26

    Welcome back! It's hard to stay gone too long, as well I know. Congrats on the new J.O.B. Sometimes ya just gotta make the leap and hope the net will appear. It always does.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ♥ Braja16/12/11 05:16

    Wooohoooooo!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

This is where you come in...

Popular posts from this blog

Hotel

Image
I feel like every time I come over to Crescent City I write the same blog post. You know, appreciate my family, wish I was home, like driving by myself, love my wife, want to hug my kids, blah blah blah. So let's try something different. When you are away from home and by yourself: What's on the radio on the road? I've gone through stages for sure. NPR, scanning for local stations, my own iPod music etc. But for the last couple of years it's been audiobooks and nothing else. I belong to audible.com now and get a new book every month for $15. I have a bumper sticker that says, "Shhhh, I'm listening to a book." What kind of crap do you eat? Do you go to a restaurant? My love has no trouble at all spending the evening by herself at a busy restaurant. I'm not made that way. I usually buy some frozen garbage I can nuke in the hotel microwave that will make my tummy ache for the rest of the night. What kind of TV do you watch? Channel 45 for me here, whi...
Read more

Her Cottage

Image
She lives in a one room, cozy cottage she built in the middle of a lush green forest. Her home sits in a grassy clearing, backed up to the base of a fern-covered cliff where in the Spring, sweet clean water trickles down to her waiting barrels. Tiny, baby blue flowers grow amongst the ferns on tender, too-thin stems of pale green. She is young, and happy, and full of hope. One day a pebble dislodges from the very top of the cliff. It’s not much larger than her smallest finger. It tumbles as it falls, briefly touching its brothers along the way. Seeing the pebble’s joy, the brothers break free and join his race down the steep slope. Others join, larger friends, who bring larger friends. And soon they are singing a thunderous roar of glee as they race each other ever faster down. She hears the song and runs out of her cabin, looking up to see them ripping through the ferns, plucking the flowers and consuming all in their bliss. She backs away, then trips. As she hits the gr...
Read more

What Nurtures You?

Image
One of the coolest chicks in the blogosphere suggested that we all come up with twenty things that nurture us. Everyone who has taken this challenge seriously has approached it in a slightly different way, which is one of the things that makes blog communities so cool… the differences within the similarities. For me, I must define. Nurture - to care for and encourage the growth or development of Since really only humans can care for and nurture other humans, what we’re really looking for here are twenty things that inspire us to nurture ourselves. Here we go: 1 – The scents of my woman Which makes me think of the feel of her skin, which makes me think of other nurturing things I will not bring up… 2 – “Hey Dad,” as I walk in the front door at night If those two words don’t ease my soul, nothing will. 3 – Golf The last seven years of my life would not be the same without those long walks and the man-bonding previously missing in nearly my entire adult life. 4 – The smell and fee...
Read more