So it has been a while, and there are lots of reasons for this that I would like to discuss. First, I’d like to discuss a timeline of everything that has happened in my life within the last couple of weeks.
On July 3rd, me and Lillian headed up to Dyken pond for a little bit of a vacation and to hang out with my mom. We arrived midday on the 3rd and we socially distanced ourselves from most people there (namely my sisters 6 friends that were up (Jul. 2 - 7th)). We spent a lot of time on the water, swimming, waterskiing, relaxing in center Berlin and doing porch coffee.
The 4th of July this year was spectacular, as it got darker, and the camp rowdiness was at peak, me and Lillian went for a paddle on a one person kayak out to the middle of the lake to enjoy the fireworks. It was quite trecherous because of 2 people being in one seat in a small kayak as well as for other unnamed reasons but once we got out to the middle of the lake, we got an awesome show. The brown house by the dam (or near there) did a fireworks show that lasted 13 minutes and probably costed upwards of one thousand dollars. After an awesome finale, and somehow without tipping and taking on water, we slowly made our way to shore.
When we got back, I helped Peggy Carter set up her tent that she had brought and the the cot for inside. An accident down by the dam happened that night. A 91 year old man had an accident by the dam after hitting the ditch on the side of the road and having a heart attack that prompted a ambulance, police department (maybe also fire dept.) response, so the sky went quiet. This added a little bit of chaos to the night but by the time we went to bed around 12ish, all was quiet. Early next morning, there was a lunar eclipse at around 5:30am, I was fast asleep.
The next couple of days consisted mainly of me and Lillian enjoying being away from the hustle bustle of Duxbury. She finally understood what I meant by the feel of Berlin and how I liked it better, away from all the white suburbia and ‘Karens’. It is refreshing being out there and it is something that I sincerely enjoy. I spend a good amount of time that week creating a better system for the rope swing. Cooking and helping prepare for our camping weekend. Helping out with various chores around the house. After Hailey and her friends left, me and Lillian headed up to sleep at the Dyke rather than the guest room in Center Berlin.
Towards the end of that next week, my mom, Lillian, and I went on a camping trip up to Lake Placid to explore the Adirondacks a bit. On the way, we stopped at Ft. Ticonderoga and got to see many beatiful vistas and looming mountains. When we arrived to the campground, I realized that I kind of forgot what camping at a campsite was like. They had all the amenities and we parked our car in our site. We settled in for the day after having a bite to eat from the Dack Shack and unpacked all of our things and set up our tent. I am more of a purist when it comes to camping. I like living off of granola and insta-cook meals on a portable camping stove. Wearing backpacks in and not having any power/cell service. The ‘glamping’ was nice but not what I picture in my head for sure when I thing about camping. The next day we woke up and started heading to Mount Jo for a nice hike with great views. Whiteface would be too difficult of a hike for us to jump into easily and would be strenuous. Mount Jo was the right size and at the top we got a great view of Mt. Algonquin and Mt. Marcy in the distance with the Adirondack Loj below (great history there, worlds largest log cabin before a fire in ~1903.) We headed back down the mountain so that we could find a good spot for my mom to get cell service as it was a friday and she had a conference call to attend.
We drove back towards Lake Placid and took a quick pit stop look at the Olympic ski jumping complex on our way. It was closed unfortunately, so we couldn’t get up and personal with it but it was still massive from the parking lot. We headed back to town for the day to let my mom catch up on work and just walked around the campsite and nearby public swimming area. By now it was dinnertime and we had a camping classic, grilled chicken and rice with tobasco sauce, my favorite. Me and Lillian did most of the cooking and it came out pretty good, nothing burnt and the rice cooked just right. As it came closer to night and after dinner, we all had some of the banana bread Lillian and I had made 2 days before and played some Yahtzee!. We cleaned up site for the night to leave tomorrow morning and were fast asleep by 10:30pm.
We left the next morning at about 8am and zipped on out of there. It had rained the night before but we had packed everything already which made the morning much easier. I drove us on the way back and we passed by some beautiful spots. One spot had a large waterfall that was viewable from the road and was very pretty. When we got back to Dyken Pond. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were leaving the following monday.
Sunday - After a great weekend we did a little bit of work on the front step to get it more stable and safe before we left the next day. Me and Lillian enjoyed a relaxing night next to another one of my fires (which I got roaring every night I made one, the coals would last until the morning).
On monday, we left after lunch ~4ish so that we could enjoy route 2 all the way home. I was a great drive with some funny moments closer to home, especially when we tried stopping in Lexington. It was back to the grind though when we got back, I wanted to get to work and get back to the office.
This is where the personal development part of this story comes in. I temporarily lift the youtube ban from the 13th till today. I watched many creators and videos and honestly do not want to know how much time I spent on the platform. This behaviour of bingeing after I had missed out on over a month’s worth of content was not what I should have been doing, hence why I am reinstating the ban. Youtube, and its ability to easily eat up my free time and boredom quickly impacted my work, sleep, and even this journal of mine in ways that I dislike deeply. I am making a commitment to myself that for me to continue using that platform as it contains many creators that I am interested by, love, and enjoy, I have decided that I must program an automatic video downloader and only choose my favorite creators. Using this method, I circumvent the most difficult part of youtube to me, the recommended videos sidebar (this, I have determined, is what sucks me in the most). When I run out of downloaded videos, I will have to move on to something else instead of clicking on the Youtube video in the top left corner and starting again with a whole new set of recommended videos. So far I have determined a few people that consistently deliver content I am interested in. Here is my short list of youtubers and reasons why I have decided them.
The List:
Hopefully this will limit how I interact with the platform in a beneficial way while also maintaining interaction with subject I am interested in. My idea is to have a program that checks at around 9 every day to see if there are any new videos from these creators, download these videos on to my PC, and send me a text notification if this is the case. Youtubes subscription and notification systems are terrible in my opinions and play to the ‘recommendation’ algorithm instead of being what they advertise.
These past 2 weeks has been a little disapointing to me as I have slipped back into old habits that I am trying to get rid of. Last week, I was extremely unproductive trying to work and failed on multiple occasions to hit my hour goal for the day while not being efficient with my programming. I procrastinated the free time I had and depressed my mood. I have accepted this now and have accepted the damage is done with me coming back to the youtube algorithm. I want to change this for the future so I avoid my bad habits, grow more as a person, elevate my mood, and grow my productivity.
This week has been exciting to me for other reasons though, and I am in much better spirits now then last week. I have come back to the office space finally at AirCycler (on Monday Jul. 20th). I forgot how much I enjoyed it here with the dogs, my co-workers, and my boss. It is a great environment to work in and I am grateful I have it. My productivity has been much higher here than at home and I am prouder of the work I have generated.
All in all, this has been a wild two weeks and in the next span of time, there will probably be more frequent and much less lengthy posts on what I have been doing.
Signing off, Jack