Silence is Deafening

If you had a chance to just sit for 30 minutes without technology, reading material, friends or family what do you think would happen? I had an opportunity to do this the day before Thanksgiving. At the busiest time of the year I gave myself a 30-minute time out that I thought would be a much-needed respite. I had visions of calm and peace and a Zen like ideal half hour. You know like the Lotus Position yoga pose you see on a scenic mountaintop. Being still seemed like heaven on earth. A gift of 30 minutes of sweet solitude and silence.

   

Then the ideal and the real collided.  I set my timer and sat on the edge of my bed. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and waited for the blessed serenity I had envisioned. Then the unthinkable happened. My mind started racing! My mind could not stop thinking of all the upcoming tasks. The thoughts were slow at first and then became rapid fire. Thoughts of the next days Thanksgiving dinner and preparations, Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, homework, Church, our show and housecleaning. I tried to focus on nothingness to get the noise out of my head. While I wasn’t speaking, listening or doing anything the sounds in my head could not be turned off. I started yelling in my head to myself to stop. It disobeyed the command and became louder. The to- do list in my head became overwhelming. I started just checking the boxes on an imaginary paper in my mind. It was anything but peace and tranquility. I reasoned with myself, surely in 30 minutes it would slow down or I would get to the end of my mental task list. While I was thinking this the timer went off. I was frazzled and not one bit calm and rested. My 30 minute mountain top silent Zen experience became a loud unrestful lesson in futility. 

Say Cheese!

I've grown quite fond of my usual social media sites. Each have a different purpose & people group with their own world views & cultures. Here they are in order of importance: Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn & Google +.  In the past few months however I have noticed something interesting. I find myself gravitating towards the stunning visuals of Pinterest & the brief pictorials of Instagram.

While I enjoy microblogging I prefer taking photos and uploading them to my iPhone and letting friends, family & loved ones share in the experience. A great pic and an appropriate hashtag on Instagram & I am off to the races. I have linked my Instagram account to my Twitter and Facebook account so I am still sharing it on those sites, but my go to ap has shifted to Instagram., Instagram is the name of an online photo sharing social Web service that lets you share your life with friends through a series of pictures captured with a mobile device. I love the simplicity of Instagram. I don’t have to think of something to say just something to show. There is a lot of beauty in the world and I notice it more then I want to talk about it. Instagram affords me that.

But late at night when I cannot sleep, I find the visuals and creativity of Pinterest to be fluid and soothing. Pinterest is a web and mobile application company that offers a visual discovery, collection, sharing, and storage tool. Users create and share the collections of visual bookmarks (boards). Boards are created through a user selecting an item, page, website, etc. and pinning it to an existing or newly created board.

Pinterest connects me with the creative world and I am inspired by how talented and brilliant people are. The built in filing system lets me find the things I have pinned and I can revisit them simply and intuitively because I get to create & label them. I even have a board on Pinterest labeled: Brilliant

Each social media site is a platform & comes with a perception these are my personal perceptions of the sites I use. 

Instagram:  Photo Journal

Twitter:       News & Megaphone

Pinterest:    Collective Creative Brain

Facebook:   Neighborhood & Family Diary

LinkedIn:    Executive Happy Hour

Google +:   Exclusive Inclusive Circles 

In each site I am still Jayne but I am aware of my personality in the sites and post accordingly. I see a not to distant future for me, where everything is connected to one site, that site is Pinterest. Pinterest is consumer driven and creative. It is not as cluttered with sales and marketing mavens as the other sites are. Maintaining several sites takes hours of time. If they all flowed out of one that would make life simpler for me. I still believe in the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words” and with Twitter I can only use 140 characters. True I can add a photo, but it is a different vibe & feel. I prefer to be a part of a Collective Creative Brain site. If all the above mentioned sites started to charge me for use. I would choose Pinterest. 

Ten years from now there may be a new social media site that I find delight in, but I believe for me, as long as we have mobile devices there will always be a photo involved. Say Cheese!

Netflix from Steam to Stream

I have a vague recollection at being mad at Netflix. It was 2011 and they had the gall to change the way I had been watching movies for years! You see I was a loyal Netflix subscriber. I would exchange DVD's though the mail on a regular basis. I would select a movie watch it when it arrived and return it for my next selection. Imagine my shock when they increased their pricing and added streamlining at an additional fee. I was steaming about the price I would have to pay for streaming! I was not the only one. Netflix customers took to the Internet and social media and voiced their disdain loudly and often. So much so their stock went from 299.00 a share to 53.00 a share. It became a public relations nightmare. It was a company and customer crisis.  

When the company issued an apology I was unmoved. I boycotted Netflix for a year. I however grew uneasy not being able to watch movies from home in the way I had grown accustom to. I capitulated and signed up for the more expensive service. Perhaps I had been unfair. After all the company was changing with the times and they have an overhead and employees to pay. Maybe I should have thought about how much it cost to physically mail DVD’s back and forth. The one thing I had not considered was I have grown very attached to my smart phone and I can now watch anything from anywhere. I also no longer watch live television as I DVR most of my shows. I also now bingewatch shows. Currently I am hooked on "Once Upon A Time." I can't remember the last time I actually have watched a DVD!

I believe many have felt the same way. "Netflix increased at the fastest rate among the Top 100 measured brands over the last two years (2012 to 2014)  Netflix went from zero to hero in just a couple of years. They did it by being patient and winning back support by providing excellent programming. Perhaps in hindsight they now value that people have a voice and presence on social media that cannot be denied. 

Geo Tag You Are It!

Am I the only one who feels that Geotagging can be dangerous? Don't get me wrong. I love checking into locations and tagging exact locations with beautiful pictures or moments of great delight. I understand it is a useful and helpful tool. Especially when I need assistance with GPS. There is comfort in knowing that a big satellite in the sky knows my whereabouts. However, it is something I like to do myself and to be in control of. I do not like when it is done for me. When the pop up appears and states would you like to make your location known? I often times deny access. If you want to take control right now you can. It is an easy fix really, just disable your Location Services in your settings under privacy. I have allowed a few apps to allow location access but most of them I have disallowed. The ones I do use, I have checked the appropriate box that states: allow when using app only.

Please do not tag a photo or post information without being with others. I have at times even tagged myself in a location after the event. There is one moment in my tagging history that still haunts me. It happened about 5 years ago. I was eating lunch with my husband and I checked in and liked the locations page. I even tagged the location and the food I was eating. Imagine my surprise when someone I knew showed up and said hi. I said "Fancy meeting you here? Their response "Oh I saw you were here on Facebook so I thought I would stop by."Yikes!" The word that came to mind is stalker. This made me take a good hard look at who had access to my every move. Do people really need to know our every whereabouts? This is not a real game of tag. Does anyone really need my latitude & longitude? Unless I go down in a plane or end up missing I think not. This can especially play into when you are traveling. Could say a savvy thief take the opportunity to rob you blind? Good thing I hire house sitters and I have three dogs.

With our information available to everyone at all times it is important that you understand Geotagging and control it  and manage it appropriately. By the way, I wrote this blog in my car at a remote undisclosed location.

Me Phone 6

I admit at the start I am an Apple product junkie. I have purchased Apple products from the beginning and am a loyal customer. I received my new iPhone 6 about a month ago and I am delighted. I love the bigger screen and I am even a fan of iOS 8 operating system. However, there was one interesting phenomenon that occurred while using my new phone. When I text I use one hand, my right. The screen was a little larger and I noticed a pain in the palm of my hand towards the base of my thumb one week into operating the phone. It is fine now but it did affect eating, as I couldn't use a knife to cut my food. Has anyone else experienced this?

 I am amazed at how connected I am to my phone. I don't even use it as a phone as much as I use it as my personal computer. I mostly use it for Google searches, texts, e-mails, social media, banking, bill pay, news, GPS, photos, video & music. It keeps me connected to my family, friends, work and the world.  I believe the smart phone has made me smarter in some things, but memory is not one of them.  I don't have to remember much I just need to know where to go to find what Im looking for. I can't even remember the 90s when I had to actually remember a persons phone number and go to the library for research. I love the immediacy of information and contact. It is perfectly tailored for my ADD. I know they call it an iPhone but I prefer to call it a Me-phone because it has in part become an extension of me.