Today’s haiku video was created with Canva, a powerful freemium design tool. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend it. The free version has plenty of functionality, and the premium versions are amazing without the high costs of Adobe.
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Spam Job “Opportunity” of the Day
Fandango, a fellow WordPress blogger I follow, regularly posts “Spam Comments of the Week” (his most recent as of this post is here). I was reminded of that by this job “offer”:
My first thought was “do people STILL do this”? Does any company want the liability considering how people have been shot going to the wrong house? I mean, look at this list (3 of 495,000,000 results from Google).
- A South Florida man shot at 2 Instacart delivery workers who went to the wrong house
- Ralph Yarl, teenager shot for going to wrong house, speaks out for first time
- NY woman looking for friend’s house fatally shot by homeowner at wrong address, police say
So, no…NO I’m not going door-knocking…even here in Seattle. Even forgoing the tales of violence, I’m an introvert. The thought of knocking on stranger’s doors is pretty close to my vision of the deepest pits of hell.
Stepping back a bit, I also wonder about the efficacy of this as a marketing strategy. What sort of conversion rate do you see with this work? I doubt it’s out of the single digits. Perhaps it’s not actually “sales” but political doorbelling (tis the season, after all). But that should be clearly disclosed.
Anyway, I’m lucky that all I need to do in this situation is spend a few minutes puzzling, then move along. I’m OPEN to new opportunities, but do not NEED a new job at the moment. And, with that, it’s time for me to move along.
FWOC: Maximum
A blogger I follow, WoollyMuses, posted his contribution to Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Maximum. So, I thought I’d add to that.
the grace of daylight sunlight moves across the sky onwards to the west
The photo above is one I took in Manzanita, Oregon a few days ago. Shot with my Samsung S22.
Cougars on my Vacation
Ok, my headline here is a bit clickbaity, but stick with me. So, I just got back from a family trip to the delightful town of Manzanita on the Oregon coast. It was a lovely time, which I’ll try to explore more in depth shortly. But there was a recurring element that was…weird: Cougars. Not as in WSU grads, but in the American Mountain Lion kind.
When we got in to town, we started exploring things we wanted to do. One of them was hike Nehalem Bay State Park. When I Googled the park the first thing to come up was this news article:
Cougar sightings on the Oregon Coast prompt trail closure at Nehalem Bay State Park
It was mildly alarming, but the State Parks folks closed off a few trails, and we put off that endeavor for a few days to let our furry friend move on to other locales.
But this wasn’t the end of cougars. Another place we wanted to explore was the famous Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach. While there, Haystack Rock was blocked off by parks folks, the police, and emergency personnel. Turns out, yep, a cougar.
Cougar sighting closes Cannon Beach at Haystack Rock
Ok, cool enough. But it gets better still. Once I got home, I logged into Instagram. A photographer I follow had the following images at the TOP of my feed.
So, that’s it for cougars at this point. Maybe there’s some greater, mystical significance. If so, I’ll need to discover it. Otherwise, it’s just a lot of fun coincidences.
Sidenote: the cougar in the “featured image” is a random photo from Pexels, not related to the Cannon Beach kitty.
Grace of Sunlight
the grace of sunlight
dancing in the ocean breeze
the sun arcs downwards
Manzanita Sunset
as the sun descends
day drifting to memory
the birds still singing
Quote of the Day
For today’s quote, I opted for this one by Thomas Merton. His writings have had a profound impact on my life. It seems quite fitting to share something from him.
“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands,
to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.“
Rain
as the water beads
flowing across the petals
rains drift westward
Today’s Haiku Challenge: Jasmine
hints of jasmine
linger in my memory
intense yet hazy
This haiku is my contribution to today’s “haiku challenge” on Twitter.
I’ve been contributing to this for years. It’s one of my favorite parts of Twitter. As the Musk saga devolves, it’s what keeps me coming back. There a delightful community surrounding the challenge.
The image was crafted with Adobe Express using the Lara font.
Ghosts Of My Dreams
these ghosts of my dreams wandering amidst echoes lost in the sunlight
This is my first exploration into Adobe’s Express beta. I think they’ve done a great job with the UI. It’s a smooth and straightforward, to me at least. Express doesn’t go to deep into the Adobe way of doing things, which works fine for your devotees, but is not terribly intuitive for the uninitiated. Anyway, it might well replace my dependence on Canva.