PhoneBoy Says

She figured out how to use it today. Watch out!

Reminds, I haven't listened to Nine Inch Nails in a while.

Over the past week or so, I started writing on two new blogs--ones that actually pay me some dosh!

• The Gadgets Weblog
• The VoIP Weblog

The pay, which isn't great, is part of the reason I am doing this. The other reason is that I feel I need to learn some new stuff to improve my blogging. Working with an outfit like Creative Weblogging is very useful for that reason, as they provide tips on increasing traffic to your blogs and help when you're stuck.

Over the past week, I've written 20+ entries between the two blogs--some have already posted, others will be posted in due time. That doesn't even count my "personal" tech blog, where I've also started the practice of pre-writing posts as well.

All of this blogging elsewhere means other than a random posting here or there or a photo upload from a phone, my Vox blog is not getting much action lately. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Jaden was using a computer around this age, too!

I'm a little behind in reading my Wired, but today I read something about I Robot getting released in a 30th Anniversary edition. It made me dig up my CD of I Robot, suck it into iTunes, and give it a listen for the first time in ages. The album still holds up fairly well, 30 years later!Meanwhile, it made me think about the days when artists actually built their albums around a theme.These days, it seems the vast majority of artists throw a number of songs on a CD and call it good without regard to any central theme. I'm sure there are exceptions as I don't make a habit of listening to current music. Point them out in the comments.Even if there are artists that actually put together "albums" that are a coherent piece meant to be listened to from beginning to end, the way we listen to music has changed a lot. Instead of popping in a tape or CD and listening to it from beginning to end, we rip everything into iTunes, or Windows Media Player if you must. We "mix" the songs up with everything else, and listen to one "song" after another.While there are individual pieces of music from each of these albums--and damn it, I don't care what they aren't on vinyl anymore, but they're still albums--that one can listen to standalone, there are just some albums begging to be heard from beginning to end. They include:

• Just about anything by Pink Floyd released since 1973, beginning with Dark Side of the Moon. And yes, that includes the post-Roger Waters material.
• Joe's Garage by Frank Zappa
• Amused to Death and The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking by Roger Waters
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John
• Breakfast in America by Supertramp
• Desperado by The Eagles (yes, there was an album by that name!)

People, including my son, got to walk on the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge today. It along with the accompanying toll booth will open to cars tomorrow.

Not in Gig Harbor. This is right next to the Police Station in Gig Harbor.

It said 102 before I got the bright idea to take a picture!

One issue that comes up with this new house we're about to move in: our expenses are going way up. The new house costs more, thus it means a higher mortgage. And we're getting a much less favorable interest rate than we got on the current place. Times have changed.

The long and the short of it is that our family is going to need to make more money. I suspect that, over time, my "normal" job will increase my pay to the point where it will be a non-issue. However, that is long term. More money now will be really helpful in making the ends meet.

One of the things I've been looking at is finding a way to make my passion for writing actually pay.Sure, I run ads on phoneboy.com, but that only goes so far. At the moment, I'm trying to find blogs that will pay me to write for them. There are a couple of places that advertise these kinds of jobs. These kinds of jobs don't pay all that well, but then again I am not looking to make that much extra money. And I'm going to write anyway, so I might as well get paid something to do it.

Today, I applied at a couple of blogs. One of my applications got acknowledged, so at least I know they got it. The other, I did not get anything. We shall see if this pans out. Meanwhile, if you're aware of any cool blogging jobs that might bring in some extra cash, contact me or post them in the comments.

My dad asked me a question today: now that you're old (yes, I celebrated another year of not being dead today), what are your plans? I thought it might make a good blog post. But then I realized, I don't really know what my plans are. Oh sure, I have some vague ideas about what I'd like, but plans?

I certainly have some short term plans. They involve lots of stuff related to packing and moving into a new house. Getting the house all set up so we can live and I can work. But what are the long term plans? I don't really have any.

Planning is one of my weak points, namely I don't do it before I have to. It's the reason why I frequently end up taking the kids to the same places on the weekends. I don't think about it a day or two before. I'm lucky if I think about it the night before, but it's usually that morning when I start thinking WTF am I going to take the children today?

I think what it is for me is that once I have my mind set on doing something, I do it. This is handy when it's something entirely within my control, say eating nothing and drinking nothing but lemonade for 10 days, or writing a couple of books. When I don't do it, usually because of something outside my control prevents me from doing it, I don't handle it well.At all.

The fact of the matter is, most plans of any sort are going to involve things outside of my control. As such, I have a hard time getting to the point of making plans because it's difficult for me to think about planning when I see all these variables that I have no control over or can't reasonably constrain. So I don't plan, or I plan (purposefully) vaguely.

The "good" thing about planning this way is that things go sideways, I can get over it much quicker. Why? Because I didn't have a plan. Furthermore, I don't feel constrained by my "plan" if something different comes along. I can roll with the punches a lot easier.

So to answer dad's question, I have no plans. Other than to try and stay employed so I can support my family.