The fascinating flow of free stuff from in front of our house

442E4587-C31C-477B-9FB3-9A8187133085“FREE” says the sign pinned to the telephone pole in front of our house. And as we put out items, they usually disappear within a few hours. 

It’s been a fascinating aspect of living where we do in Keene, New Hampshire. We live on a fairly busy cross street, and so a good number of people are driving by. 

And they do stop and take the stuff we put on the street. All of it. 

Maybe it is part of being a college town. Maybe it is the huge number of people we see going to yard sales. Maybe it is Yankee frugality. Maybe it is just human nature. 

But it has been fun – and incredibly useful. Just put it out on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the road… and wait a bit. 

And ALL sorts of things. Just yesterday I put out two plastic shelving units from our shed that had gas and oil stains. I honestly thought I would be bringing them to the dump… but no, I looked an hour or so later and they were gone. 

I will miss this culture of picking up free stuff. Our new home in Vermont is in a quieter neighborhood with very little traffic… so this won’t work. 

Meanwhile, at least for the next few days, I will keep putting stuff out there… 🙂

My 3 Words For 2018

3words2018

Continuing the tradition I started back in 2010 (see past years), here are three words that describe themes I intend to focus on this year. They aren’t “resolutions” as much as areas of activity. “Themes” is a good way to think about them.

HEALTH

Carrying this one over from last year… because sadly not a great amount has changed over the past 12 months. I have let my weight creep up to where I am about 30 pounds over where I should be (and where I was back in 2011). I haven’t been exercising. I have some dental issues to take care of. I want to be around with my wife and daughters for a long time… and we each only have one body. I need to focus on this in 2018.

WRITING

You’ll notice that the last time I wrote on this DanYork.com blog was … one year ago! I have not written on Disruptive Telephony since March 2017 – and that was the ONLY post in all of 2017 on what used to be my primary blog. Only 4 posts on Disruptive Conversations, 0 posts on Code.danyork.com, 1 on Monadnock Curling Club, and so on….   I posted 9 times on CircleID , but they were all short pieces about events, activities, deadlines, etc. And I only published 28 posts on the Internet Society’s blog during the whole year.

The reality is that 2017 was a challenging year for my writing in that I spent an insane amount of time focused on the launch of the Internet Society’s redesigned website in September (which involved work through the end of the year, of course). Everything else got pushed aside – including all of my own writing.

In 2018 I hope to change that. There are a great number of stories inside me just trying to explode out. There are some reflective “thought pieces” about the current state of the Internet that I so dearly want to write. There’s a book I’d like to update. I have several new book ideas I’d like to move forward on.

For me, I write because if I don’t write… the stories build up inside of me until they want to explode like a pressure cooker without a relief valve. Writing is my relief valve. I need to do it.

My work responsibilities will still be significant around our web sites, but I’m hoping that somewhere in the midst of all the madness I can make the time to get my voice out there.

CONNECTIONS

Like perhaps many people, I’m finding that I’m communicating with a large number of people, but not necessarily connecting with people. I don’t mean that in the LinkedIn “I have XXXX connections” form, but more in the deeper relationships and knowledge about other people.  I want to deepen some of the connections I have this year, both with people online and also people locally and “offline”. Some of that is actually meeting with more people face-to-face. Some of that is just carving out the time to have deeper and more meaningful conversations. In the end, the connections we have between us – and the community we have around us – are what is so vitally important to us all. 

That’s what I am thinking about for this year… what about you?

My 3 Words For 2017

2017 3words 776px

Continuing the tradition I started back in 2010 (see past years), here are three words that describe themes I intend to focus on this year. They aren’t “resolutions” as much as areas of activity. “Themes” is a good way to think about them.

HEALTH

I have let my weight creep up to where I am about 30 pounds over where I should be (and where I was back in 2011). I haven’t been exercising. I have some dental issues to take care of. My last physical exam was… (I’m not sure… but I don’t think I’ve ever met the doctor who replaced my previous doctor who retired a number of years ago). In short, there’s a lot here I need to be paying attention to, and so this needs to be a focus this year. I want to be around with my wife and daughters for a long time… and we each only have one body. Beyond the physical health, there is also mental and emotional health. I continue to find myself trying to do too many things… and need to focus on doing fewer things better.

GRATITUDE

Over the last six months or so I have been thinking more and more about all that I have to be grateful for. And I have also been thinking about how I need to show that gratitude a bit more. Combine that with some recent reading on studies about gratitude and how we frame our internal stories… as well as some reading on mindfulness… and, well, I would like to do more in this area!

CREATIVITY

A few weeks ago I made a Christmas gift out of wood down in my workshop area in our basement. When it was done, I found myself so energized by the activity… I had forgotten how much I enjoy working with wood. But as I think about all that I have been doing over the past year, there hasn’t been a whole lot of creativity. Even my writing of blog posts has become more routine, more “reporting” on activities rather than writing something new and different. It’s hard with everything else going on, but this year I hope to carve out some time to do some more creative activities. Maybe some woodworking… maybe some music… maybe just some creative writing. We’ll see what is feasible.

That’s what I am thinking about for this year… what about you?

When This Is All Over…

Giantmeteor

… we will be a nation with a massive divide, no matter who wins.

A nation with a huge difference between the rural and the urban… between those who have done well in the new economy… and those who have been left behind.

No matter who wins, our next task as a nation will be to figure out how to rebuild the connections between us.

Can we perhaps start by being more civil to each other? To respecting our differences?

Can each of us try to treat others more kindly?

I’d like to think so… but I’m not so sure.

Image: a bumper sticker I saw on a car last month.

Drone video of Monadnock Region shows why we love to live here

Do you want to understand why we love living in Keene, New Hampshire, and the surrounding “Monadnock Region”? This video taken from a drone shows the beauty of our area (and it also really makes me want to buy a drone with a video camera!)

Kudos to the folks at the Monadnock Shopper News for creating this beautiful video.

P.S. Our area is called the “Monadnock Region” because our tallest mountain is named Mount Monadnock.

A Crazy Day of Curling (Across Generations)

Today was a CRAZY day of curling! It began at 9:00am when our 7-year-old took to the ice at Petersham Curling Club (PCC) for her first day as a member of the “Little Rocks” youth program (ages 7-12). It ended with me going on the ice back at PCC at 8:15pm to play in the Mixed League (men and women) until after 10:00pm.

In between those times, our 14-year-old daughter was up in the Toronto, Canada, area playing with her team against 15 other highly competitive Canadian and US teams. Her team had two games – 11:00am and 5:00pm – and wound up winning both of them… but with extremely tense and nail-biting endings!

I think I gained a good bit of white hair today… and that was just from watching the website and getting updates sent by messages from one of the parents up there in Canada!

It was a great day! From the boundless energy and enthusiasm of our 7yo, to our daughter’s team winning their two games… to my team squeaking out a narrow win (it came down to the final stone!).

A crazy day… but a good one!

A Crazy Day of Curling (Across Generations)

A Crazy Day of Curling (Across Generations)

A Crazy Day of Curling (Across Generations)

Still Struggling To Write Consistently…

I will write a blog post 776px

As a writer, it is incredibly frustrating when you find yourself NOT writing. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a kind of pressure that builds up inside you. It keeps building and building and building and BUILDING… and if the pressure is not released through writing then it comes out in other ways. The way you treat others. Your health. Depression. Frustration.

I’m in that state today – if you look at my danyork.me site pulling together all my writing and audio, the number of days I’ve been actually writing or creating audio is a bit sparse:

Danyork blogs oct18

This post will only be my second post – in the entire 18 days of October!

Across all my blog sites, including my work sites… where I am paid to write!

And yet… I have no one to blame but myself.

I have a loooooooooooonnnnnnnnggggggg list of topics I want to write about. There is no end. In fact there are several series of posts I want to get underway.

But it’s that effort of putting words on the screen. It is starting the writing – and not being distracted. By appointments. By meetings. By email. By social media. By… life.

It’s also the finishing of the writing. I have all sorts of blog posts that I have started, but I haven’t made the time to go back and actually finish the posts. (And sometimes that means just saying they are “good enough” and hitting the publish button.)

It is the act of focusing. Of being present.

If writing is to be a priority for me, by my own choice – then it is the act of prioritizing writing.

This is not a new problem for me. I’ve in fact been writing about this issue for many years. Here’s a sample:

And even though I write those “self-help” posts, primarily as a reminder to ME, if I’m honest about it… I’m still struggling with it.

We’ll see.  And hey… with this post at least I’ve written something today!

In Praise Of Mountaintops

Mountain landscape

There is something about a mountaintop. The view all around you. The freshness of the air. The wind whipping against your hair and body. The exhiliration of making it to the top after a grueling climb.

There is something about a mountaintop. The smiles and joy of some people there. The agonized expressions of those who just barely made it. The mobile phones as selfies and panoramas get taken. The sometimes sharing of food.

There is something about a mountaintop. The sense of wonder and awe. The pointing down to the bottom. Is that where the trail began? Is that the city we know? Whose house or field is that? We are so high up!

There is something about a mountaintop.

A Seriously Bad Mistake

Book stack

I made a serious mistake last night. One that had consequences for my sleep – or lack thereof. It caused me to not do anything else this morning. It caused me not to get up and want to make breakfast. I wanted to ignore everyone else around me.

It was seriously, seriously bad…

What was it?

I opened up a book.

Not just a “book”.. but a really, really GOOD book!

And now… all I want to do is sit there and read the remaining 600 pages… 🙂

Responsibilities call… things need to be done… activities need to be planned… but… all… I… want… to… do… is… keep… reading….

A Nice Interactive Map of Visited Countries (That Doesn’t Require a Login or Tracking)

Visited countries amcharts oct2016

Recently a friend on a social network posted a map of the countries where he’d traveled. Being someone who loves maps, I had to check it out. Created by the people at Amcharts, presumably to showcase what their Javascript libraries could do, what *I* like about it is something very simple:

Using the map doesn’t require me to login or deal with any tracking info.

All that is required is to add the country codes on to the URL. Here’s what I mean – this is my list of visited countries (as of August 2016):

https://www.amcharts.com/visited_countries/#AT,BE,BG,CH,CZ,DE,DK,FI,FR,GB,IE,IT,ME,NL,PL,UA,RU,CA,CR,GL,MX,US,AR,BR,CO,DJ,EG,MA,ZA,CN,IN,SG

You can see there all the country codes.

But that’s it. I can bookmark that URL. I can copy and paste it. I can modify it.

There’s no other login or anything required.

Over the years, I’ve tried a few other map sites like this one, but often they seem to require you to login to copy the map. Or they had a cryptic URL that basically made it so you had to post it to Facebook using their particular code … or something like that.

(Now, this site does have sharing buttons out to social media, but I can choose NOT to use them and just share the URL directly.)

Kudos to the Amcharts team for making this available – and making it easy to have a URL you can use and share.

And yes, clearly you can see that I haven’t visited a whole lot of the Southern Hemisphere …

P.S. They also have a “Visited (US) States” map, but mine would be boring as I’ve been to all 50 states…