Month: November 2019

Thoughts on the Impeachment

I’ve been watching the impeachment testimony every day and I’m thankful the Republicans pushed this to be a public hearing. I love watching it and I find the chess match between the two sides in this exhilarating. So far I’ve stayed away from talking-head commentary and only watched the proceedings through my own lens and I wanted to share my thoughts after Sondland’s testimony yesterday. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch the night session so I’m not sure if they had a lot of other new information.

In his opening statement, Sondland threw everyone under the bus and it was damaging to the defense. He said everyone knew what was going on from the POTUS, the VP, and down, and there was definitely a quid pro quo. It was a bombshell.

Really the only recourse the Republicans had was to discredit him and he’s had a lot of changing stories, so it shouldn’t have been very hard. However, I think the Republicans made a huge mistake when they didn’t allow him access to the transcripts of his calls and meetings. Yes, he should have taken notes, yes he changed his story, but for me holding these back had the reverse effect. It gave him more credibility and made them look weak.

In the end, none of this really matters. It will be a party-line vote and he will be impeached, then nothing will happen in the Senate. I think the same happened to Clinton if my memory is correct.  People will scream about fairness, witch hunts, and moving goalposts, but it’s just noise. The impeachment has been decided and they have the votes.

Night Mountain Biking

His description of this was so perfect and I was nodding in agreement the whole time. I haven’t done a lot of night riding and I just did my first one of the season last week on trails that I know. It was a ton of fun, but not sure I’d be comfortable taking a beginner. Although, they would have some great stories from the adventure.

Due diligence

Someone I follow on social media shared a quote this morning and I disagreed with it.

Instead of quickly replying with my smart remark, I researched the quote, found the book it came from. Then, as luck would have it, I had a free Kindle credit so I bought the book and read the entire chapter to get the complete context. Now I agree with the quote.

Local Mayor wins re-election

I honestly don’t follow politics too closely, and I don’t know much about political science at all, but I found my local mayor race this year eye-opening.

The race came down to two men, the incumbent and the challenger. The challenger had signs on every street corner, he sent me 3 or 4 mailings, his name was everywhere.

I had a suspicion he was going to win handily based on signs alone. Yet, I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday and the doctor and I started talking about it and he said that he heard they were spending all their money online.

That seemed pretty wild to me because to be honest my city isn’t the most tech-savvy. So I’m assuming it was all Facebook ads. I was actually very surprised to see the paper this morning and see that he won re-election.

If him moving to online to get out the vote really worked I have to say I’m impressed. My gut reaction was that would be a bad move on our small local level. Now I’d love to hear how it was really done and see if they just hired a firm to handle the online stuff or if something more grassroots.

At any rate, congrats Mr. Reid on your win!

Press Releases

Justin Tadlock writing for WP Tavern about the importance of Press Releases:

On occasion, I get a message that says something along the lines of, “Hey, you’re giving the big businesses too much coverage. How about throwing the smaller folks a bone?” That is a fair question. However, what is often the problem is that this news by a smaller company may not be on a particular publication’s radar.

Enter the press release.

This is where smaller companies should sneak a peek at larger companies’ playbooks. Large businesses often have entire public relations (PR) or communications departments. Sometimes they only have one person in that role. What those PR positions are doing is getting the word out, and they are making sure the publications within the WordPress realm know about their news.

Individuals or small companies need not hire someone for communications with the press. However, at least one person should serve as a representative and handle this role.

There are many things happening in the WordPress world on any given day. Even with a press release, there is no guarantee that WP Tavern or another publication will publish your story. There is a guarantee that they won’t if they do not know about it.

The whole post is worth reading especially if you are a small business. Just like Justin, I want to help your product if it’s in the Laravel space, and I can’t guarantee that I’ll cover your launch. However, your chances greatly increase if you can send a press release and the earlier the better. I honor embargo’s and knowing before the release gives us time to put your news in our weekly editorial calendar.

NaNoWriMo

It’s November which means it’s time for NaNoWriMo again. Every year I say I’m going to blog something everyday for the month of November since I’ll never write a novel.

Considering today is November 2nd and I didn’t publish anything here yesterday I’ve already failed, but I’m not going to let it deter me. I’m still going to try and publish something everything for the rest of the month. It could be anything from sharing links, to photos, to ideas.

If you’ve been wanting to start blogging more now is as good time as any. Hit publish with me.

AirPods Pro

airpods-pro.png

I bought the original AirPods on a recommendation from someone I trust, and it’s one of the best purchases I made. Those little things are amazing and I’ve gotten so much use out of them. When I first heard that they are coming out with a “pro” version I ordered a set and they arrived this week.

The first thing I noticed was how awesome the noise canceling is. This is my first headphones ever to have this and it’s a game-changer. If I knew noise canceling was this good I would have bought a set of Bose or something else many years ago. I was literally sitting at my desk listening to music and didn’t hear my family come home. It wasn’t until one of my kids tapped me on the shoulder and scared me to death that I knew they were in the house.

The other neat feature is the transparency mode. It allows sound to pass through but it’s almost like a sound enhancement. You can hear better with that mode turned on than you can any other headphones I’ve used. I like to ride my mountain bike while listening to audiobooks, and this mode allows me to still hear things going on around me better than the original AirPods did. I’m impressed.

Now, yes these are expensive, you can’t replace the battery, and whatever else people are saying, and I’m not an audiophile. What I can’t say is that other headphones aren’t as good because I haven’t tried other brands of noise canceling. But after just a few days I’m confident in saying these are the best headphones I’ve ever owned.

If you do want to get a set, you can save about $14 ($234.99) buying from Amazon.