If you are a parent of young kids and you are concerned about how distracted you are around them, then you will find a lot to relate to in this podcast.

Takeaways

As mentioned above, the whole podcast was a little over 2 hours long. Here are some of my takeaways from watching it. Note that most of these are not direct quotes. I tried to capture the idea as best as I can, but I would suggest watching the podcast to get the context and fully appreciate them.

When Matt, the podcast host, mentioned that he no longer gives out his phone number to everyone, and that he now only corresponds with people through email, which he can only do so with a laptop that stays at his office, John Lentz said this (not a direct quote):

What is more loving, giving 10% of your all to everyone? Or giving 80-100% of your all to the people you love?

You have to pick and choose who you want to be able to reach out to you 24/7. By opening yourself up to be interrupted by anyone, you stretch yourself out too thin. And so you can only give so much of your best to people.

By going the email route for correspondence, you actually give yourself time to disconnect. You're no longer expected to reply right away. Now the expectation is, you'll get to their message when you check your emails. You'll get to it when you get to it. People will need to learn to wait for a response, which can be hard in today's world of instant messaging.

Children are like arrows. It's our job to pull the string, point them hopefully in the right direction, then release and let go. ~ Chris Kaspar

A very good analogy of what it means to be a parent.

Most parents usually have a plan on how to introduce kids to the subject of money. We usually go about it slowly. And the lessons progress over time, going through a number of years until we deem them responsible enough to handle money. Why don't we have the same plan for the technology that we hand out to our kids?

Most parents, including me, will allow their kids to use an iPhone or an iPad and call it a day. I see now how that is reckless. We have to teach kids how to handle technology, just like how we teach them to handle money.

We use tech to escape God, but simultaneously, God uses tech to protect and reach out to us. ~ Chris Kaspar

They (your kids) will only be here for a short time. My wife is a gift to me and she will only be here for a short time. I will only be here for a short time. ~ John Lentz

That's a great reminder of what we are losing, when we spend our days distracted with social media or the phone in our hands — we are losing time with our loved ones.

Lastly, an interesting explanation of why the company is named “Techless”. I previously thought it meant “less technology”, which equates to “techless”, makes sense, right?

But actually, the company name alludes to what John the Baptist said in John 3:30, “He must become greater; I must become less.” With regards to the company name, it means “God must increase, technology must decrease.” It's a very paradoxical name for a technology company.

Tags: #Bookmarks #DigitalMinimalism #Parenthood #Parenting #SmartphoneAddiction #Spirituality

Tags: #Reflection #Parenthood #TheSimpleThingsInLife

You might be wondering, where is this coming from? It’s coming from the realization that my kids are growing up so fast. My eldest son for instance, is going to start school this year.

I fear that I'm losing my time with them. That window where they think it’s still cool to play with dad, I feel like that window of time is shrinking every day.

Twenty, thirty, forty years from now, I don’t want to regret not spending enough time with my kids. And let’s be honest, time spent with your kids is never going to be enough. They will grow up and eventually leave to have their own families. You can't hang on to them forever.

I’m sure I’ll have more time to write when my kids are older. Maybe then I can sit down and write blog posts for however long I want. For now though, I need to get it done as quickly as I can, so I can go back to being a dad and a husband as soon as possible.

So, does that mean I'll stop publishing posts on this site? Not exactly. It just means that I'm no longer prioritizing writing longer posts on this site. Instead of carving time during my day to write, I'll just make do with whatever spare time I have left. That means I'll most likely gravitate towards shorter posts whenever possible.

I also discovered during my latest digital declutter, that I hated having a weekly deadline for posts. During the digital declutter, I felt liberated knowing that I didn't need to have something published by the end of the week. Having to publish something on a schedule now feels like a chore to me; it feels like work. I already spend my day chasing deadlines at work. I would rather not chase deadlines during my off hours as well.

And so that means that I will no longer publish a Weeknotes post every week. I'll do one when I have enough spare time, but otherwise I won't be prioritizing it. Even with the new format I just unveiled recently, I still think it takes too much time to complete. It's time that I'd rather spend with my family. I would have to really, badly want to write one, to publish one on this site.

And so, that's my piece for today. I just wanted to get it out there. At this stage in my life, I feel like focusing on the kids, who are growing up so fast, is the right thing to do. Blogging, personal websites, those can wait.

P.S. Once again Cal Newport's “Digital Declutter” proves its value in showing me what's more important in life. I highly recommend giving it a try when you can.

Tags: #Blogging #Parenthood #DigitalMinimalism

This cake not only looks good, but also taste good. What the Harry Potter design hides, is a delicious Ube flavored cake. Yum yum!

One thing that I thought was a great idea, is to take pictures of your kids as they hit some milestones. Then you can use those pictures as decorations for the birthday party, or just add it to a family photo album. It's a nice way to look back and see how much your child has grown.

After watching the horrible ending on the k-drama Iris, I kinda lost my appetite for watching TV shows. However, I still wanted to watch... something. So, last week I decided to watch some anime instead. I'm watching Kuroko's Basketball on Netflix and I'm enjoying it so far.

I've started noticing that I get annoyed at myself for driving aggressively at times. I used to think it was my car, a 2013 Mazdaspeed3, that caused it. It surely doesn't help that it's a fun car to drive. But no, the car doesn't drive itself. I'm the one driving the car. If I'm driving aggressively, it's because of me and not the car. So, I've been wanting to understand why I drive aggressively at times. And so I bought a book...

The book I bought was, “Curbing Your Road Rage: and Other Important Tips for Getting Along on the Road” by Gordon Feinberg. It's a short book; just 41 pages. But I'm surprised at how much it affected my driving.

My driving is very relaxed and peaceful nowadays. So much so that I'm now wondering if I can move on from the Mazdaspeed3 and get into a bigger family car, like a Mazda6 or an Accord.

Luka hits the game winning shot against the Celtics. That was quite a game!

A fellow Write.as blogger, Mike, wrote this entertaining piece, ‘‘Twas the night before tmo. It is obviously a playful take on what was happening on the read.write.as feed then, but was a fun read nonetheless.

Found a great read on the topic of SEO by Scott Nesbit.

Got the link from jlelse's Blog.

Here are some really nice quotes from a book that I'm trying to finish, The Light of All That Falls by James Islington. I'm already 700 pages into the book and there's still some ways to go. I love the occasional philosophical discussion on morality and free will/choice in this book.

“It’s not enough to fight for the right side. You have to figure out how to fight the right way, too. If winning is truly all that matters, then we’ve lost sight of what’s actually right and wrong in the first place.”

~ Davian

This quote reminds me a lot of something I read from Ryan Holiday last year.

“Remember that your past does not define you — no matter the consequences. Choice is meaningless without consequences, and a privilege we do not deserve if we will not face them.”

~ Raeleth

This one is deep. Choice is meaningless without consequences. Let that sink in for a moment. We live in a world where our actions and choices bear consequences. However, most people would rather not think about the consequences of their actions. And that is sad.

Teach your kids to be comfortable with being bored, so that they won't need to rely on gadgets and devices to keep them entertained.

Lastly, I'll end this post with another #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay entry.

Davin: “Mom, I can see the weather... I think it's Thursday.” 😄

Tags: #Weeknotes #Basketball #DigitalMinimalism #Driving #Parenthood #Parenting

It's a work in progress, so there will be changes. In fact, the nature of it means it will probably be forever under construction. When you go through it, don't think of it as a blog. It is not. There are no published dates. There's no RSS feed. There's no email subscription. The URLs to specific notes will probably change every week. It is really a digital garden/personal knowledge-base.

Matt shared this wonderful website on Mastodon. What an amazing find! It allows you to watch, what looks like dashcam videos, from all over the world. In an age where travel and road trips are put on-hold, this website lets you experience virtually driving in another country. It's a mesmerizing and very interesting way to see what other countries/cities look like.

Power outages and water shut-offs all across Texas. People have died in accidents on the road and at their own homes because of the cold. It's extremely disheartening. We've been extremely lucky to not have lost power or water at all. But that wasn't the case for everyone else. Last week's winter storm really showed how the state of Texas is just not ready for this kind of weather. I'm hoping that the state can learn from this and be better prepared for the next one.

I finished reading How to Take Smart Notes – One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens last week. Here are the last set of my literature notes for it:

It is not possible to think through things deeply, without writing down your thoughts. — page 95

Connecting thoughts and ideas to other thoughts and ideas can help us remember them in the future. Again this is what the Zettelkasten forces you to do. Which is why it can be considered a tool for thinking and learning. — Page 103

Ahrens says to add links to other notes, or links on other notes to your new notes when adding a permanent note to the slip-box. I guess this means you can edit existing notes to add links to new notes. — Page 107

Great ideas develop over time. They don’t all of a sudden materialize inside our heads. We would have to have been thinking about a problem and been trying to solve it for a good amount of time, before a good idea dawns on us. — Page 121

When writing down permanent notes, don’t forget to ask questions. Try to see what’s not there, what’s not covered. — Page 126-127

The fewer choices you have, the less decisions you have to make, the less mental resources you have to consume to make a decision. — Page 130

One way to enforce one idea per note is to make sure the contents of a note fit on a screen without having to scroll. — Page 130

When writing, keep a second document open where you can put text that you’ve cut out of the draft you are working on. This allows you to come back to them later if you need to use them. At the same time, it allows you to continue working on your draft without worrying about the parts you cut out because they didn’t have any function in the draft. — Page 145

One thing people don't seem to mention about trying to build a digital garden — it is a tough mental workout. A lot of the things you do as part of it, elaborating and writing notes in your own words, then connecting them to other permanent notes, requires a lot of thinking. And yes, that's the point of the Zettelkasten, to make you think and consequently learn and possibly gain new insight and ideas. But I'm just pointing out, that doing so requires a lot of mental stamina. And when you do it at the end of a long work day, when your brain is already fried, it's tough.

I believe in the end it is still worth it though.

I'm thinking of creating a new blog (yet again) just for sharing photos. Like an Instagram replacement, but as a personal blog. I want to keep Above the Earth and Seas as just a photo-blog for sky photos in the future.

I would have just gone with Instagram for this, but they made some changes that really annoy me. In the past, I could block all notifications on the app. But now, they've added notifications for people or accounts to follow. And I cannot seem to find a way to block those notifications. It is annoying and I don't want to deal with it. There's also the likes/hearts component of it that messes with my head. That said I still use Instagram to find great content that can only be found there. I just don't want to use it to post new photos.

Yes I know. I keep telling myself I need to cut down on the number of websites I have to maintain, but I also keep wanting to try out new ones. I've been trying to find a replacement for Instagram for some time now. And knowing myself, my brain won't shut up about it unless I try... something.

A personal blog can be thought of as another form of a notebook or paper to write on. It allows you to dump down your thoughts, so you can think through them.

Faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith is openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite. It should be obvious that in dealing with the infinite and all-powerful personal God, we are never in control.

This is why we say that faith goes beyond reason. If we can figure it out, calculate precisely, predict with complete accuracy, we’re in charge—and by definition, we are not dealing with a person. Would you use any of those descriptors in talking about your relationship with your husband, wife, or best friend? Instead, you enter into an ever-increasing rapport of trust with such people.

One of the most fundamental statements of faith is this: your life is not about you. You’re not in control. This is not your project. Rather, you are part of God’s great design. To believe this in your bones and to act accordingly is to have faith.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

A great definition of faith.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”

~ From Matthew, Chapter 6

I have always wondered about this in regards to praying before eating meals in public, like at a restaurant. Yes I know we should give praise to God for the blessing of having food to eat. But shouldn't we do it in a way that doesn't draw attention in public? Because otherwise, are we not like the hyprocrites, “who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them”?

Fasting is normally associated with food. But I think it can be applied to digital activities. In which case, isn't digital minimalism just another form of fasting?

Finished watching Spenser Confidential. It was a great movie. Hilarious at times and action packed. Love that a lot of the fight scenes were hand-to-hand combat. Looking forward to the sequel, if they ever come out with one.

Warning to the parents out there. It is a rated R movie, so definitely be wary when watching around kids.

Listening to a My Chemical Romance track and still loving it after all these years. I'm reminded of the time back in 2005-2006, when I was on an mIRC channel chatting with some friends. You know how you could share what song you're listening to in the public chat? Yeah we used to do it then. Someone on the channel noticed what I was listening to and told me to check out My Chemical Romance.

Man, that guy changed my life as far as my musical tastes go. I didn't even know that guy personally. He was just another regular on that channel. I'm so grateful that he took the time to tell me about an emo rock band back then. I wonder where he is right now? I hope he is doing well and still rocking out to My Chemical Romance.

Caleb is now getting better at walking by himself around the house. He's growing up too fast! It happened exactly like what was said in this post. Our baby/infant is gone. He's now a toddler.

When your child says, “Dad look at this”, what they really want is for you to notice them.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLc_d8wpSD9/

I'm finding that Instagram can be a surprisingly good place to find parenting advice.

I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.

Yup, that's Caleb standing and playing by himself. Like I said earlier in this post, no longer a baby. Now a toddler.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #DigitalGarden #Music #Parenthood #Parenting #Spirituality #Writing #Zettelkasten

Last week I remembered why I chose to go with pen and paper for my bullet journal — it was to give my eyes a break from staring at screens all day long.

My only issue with this analog approach to journals, is how to digitize the text that I wrote so that they can be searchable in the future. Sure, bullet journals have an index for tracking down specific topics. But let's face it, that doesn't even come close to being able to search text digitally.

I previously tried to get around this by publishing journal entries on this site. As part of writing those posts, the content from my bullet journal would end up in a text (markdown) file when I download a backup of this site. This benefit went away when I decided to stop writing journal entries.

Now, I'm doing a similar thing with these Weeknotes posts. This time around though, my journal entries end up in my Obsidian vault. I still have to manually type them in though. This is the part I'm trying to streamline. But I'm not sure that's even possible. It's either I ditch my analog bullet journal and go straight to digital journal apps, or just continue what I'm doing — write on my bullet journal then migrate (type up) my notes into Obsidian sometime later in the day or week.

If you have some thoughts that are stuck in your head, write them down so that you can get them out of your head. This frees up your brain and allows it to think about or focus on something else. Like you know, what you should be working on instead.

An idea: Instead of creating a “microblog” to house micro/short posts, or creating one as a social media replacement, how about creating one to hold micro thoughts (or atomic notes) on a specific topic? I'm thinking more of a digital garden here versus a Twitter replacement.

I started trying to build a digital garden on Are.na using excerpts from my journal entries. This also solves one of the problems I've had for awhile now — how to take excerpts out of my Weeknotes posts and put them into their own stand alone posts.

I actually think Are.na is better suited for displaying excerpts, than it is for building a digital garden. But we'll see how it goes. The alternative to it would be another Write.as blog. One using the Novel format, which means no published dates on the posts.

For now though, the use of Are.na is free, at least until I hit the 500 block limit. So I'll try it first and see what I can come up with.

It doesn't do back-links like Obsidian does, but it is possible to connect blocks to a channel. I wish they would allow connecting a block to another block, but they don't. So I'll just try to work with what it can do.

Some great reads last week were Brandon's post about “Home” and Scott Nesbitt's take on digital gardens.

Regarding digital gardens. Scott mentions using Write.as to build a digital garden. I have thought of using Write.as as well, but so far have not figured out the best approach to it. I believe that once Write.as allows a custom static homepage, then it will pave the way to being able to use it to create a digital garden. Until then, it will look more or less like another blog.

This is also another reason why I elected to try building a digital garden with Are.na first.

Found this new site, habitica.com. It seems like it could be used to help accomplish some self-improvement goals.

This was a photo that the wife sent me last week. I definitely agree with that!

Content moved to... Basics of Using Git from the Command Line

Last week I managed to solve my first ever React issue. The React developer in our team had the day off, so I tried figuring it out on my own. After getting the location of the source code from a team member, I was able to figure out why the app was taking us to another page. I am not a React expert, but apparently I can understand it enough to figure out the issue. I'm so proud of myself. The work that I've been doing with trying to learn React is not going to waste.

The song “Where I Belong”, which features Simple Plan, State Champs and We The Kings is such a good song!

I found a reason And suddenly I'm not so alone I'm finally breathing Like I never could on my own Start the countdown, let's get it on Scream our lungs out to our favorite song 'Cause this is where I belong (This is where I belong)

Could listening to music possibly reduce the stress levels brought about by work? I think it does. I was getting stressed out at work and then “Uh Oh” by Junior Doctor started playing. I immediately felt this sense of relief come over me. I felt much more calm and settled. So yeah, I think listening to music while working does help lower stress levels.

Just noticed Davin going over a YouTube video on how to build a tower in Minecraft. He then tried to mimic what he saw in the video and build the tower himself in the game. I thought that was pretty amazing for such a young kid. And amazing that a game fosters that kind of learning and creativity.

The hardest part of raising an infant is the countless sleepless nights. You're not going to get any sleep until your infant is asleep.

And for this week's installment of #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay:

Me and Davin were in another room. I was on the PC, while Davin was reading a book. We heard Baby Caleb cry and then my wife called out.

Davin: Dad, Mom is calling you. Good luck!

***

Davin was trying to color Thor in his coloring book.

Me: Davin, Thor’s clothes should be colored dark blue. Davin: That’s not dark blue, that’s black blue!

I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #BulletJournal #DigitalGarden #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay #JuniorDoctor #Parenthood #Minecraft #Nutrition #PopRock #PopPunk #SelfImprovement #SimplePlan #StateChamps #WeTheKings

One day God gave me a gift . . .

My newborn was the love of my life. I almost couldn’t pull my eyes away from his perfect face. I knew every cry and exactly how to comfort him. I fed him and changed diapers and breathed in the sweet scent from the top of his head.

I never knew this kind of LOVE existed!

Then one morning I picked him up from the crib and found a chubby baby. His bright eyes danced at the sight of me, and his dimpled face broke into a drooly grin.

My newborn was gone.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Link: Dear Son: I’ve Loved Every Stage With You and I’m Never Ready to Say Goodbye

I got a link to this post from Coney. It was written by a mom, for moms. But, even as a dad, this post still tugs at my heart strings. You'll never know when your child grows up and moves on from one stage to another. Today he might still sleep in your arms, tomorrow he will sleep on his own bed. Today he might still be a toddler, tomorrow he might already be a preschooler. You'll never know if today was the last day you got to carry your kid. This is why I've started recording on my journal the days that I got to carry Davin. I want to remember the last day I got to carry him. Eventually, I will do the same thing for Caleb when he grows older.

Also as parents, we should take more photos and record videos of our kids. The point is not to share them online, but so we have something to look back on. I don't remember what it was like to have Davin as a newborn or as an infant. I can never go back to that time when he was that small. I can never go back to that time when I could carry him in my arms, and walk around the house to get him to fall asleep. I'm at that stage with Caleb now, but with Davin, it's all just a memory. And memories are all we have of the past. This is where photos and videos come in. It can help flesh out our memories so we can relive them better in our minds.

That said, taking photos and recording videos shouldn't take priority over actually spending time with your kids. If it comes down to recording a video, or spending time with your kids, choose to spend time with them. Ideally, the parent who is not engaged with the kids at the moment should be the one taking a photo or recording a video.

I'm writing this as if I'm giving advice to other parents. But really, I'm writing this to myself. To remind myself that time is something I can never get back. So, I need to make it count. I need to make as much memories as I can with my wife and kids. Because the day will come, when Davin and Caleb will leave the house and it will be just me and Coney. I hope that when that time comes, we'll have lots of memories to look back on.

Tags: #Bookmarks #Parenthood

Link: Podcast #119: Why Fathers Matter With Paul Raeburn

Children of older fathers have an increased risk of having down syndrome. Children of older fathers have an increased risk of having schizophrenia.

All this time the focus is on how old a mom is when they get pregnant. Turns out, would be fathers should take notice too.

One of the things my wife always gives me a hard time on, is when I don't understand what my son is telling me. She always says, “hinde kame tan entendihan”, that we don't understand each other. Turns out, this might be beneficial to my son. Me talking to him, trying to understand him, using words he is not used to, forces him to expand his vocabulary and better understand how best to communicate with people. Apparently this sort of thing helps them do better in school. Anyway, listen to the podcast, it is an interesting one.

#Bookmarks #Parenthood #ArtOfManliness