Facing Forward, Pursuing Progress
sunset through the waves sunlight sparkles upon the surf fading into night
On Twitter, er, X, the user @Bleu_Owl posts a daily prompt “Haiku Challenge”. Today’s prompt is “wave”. The above is my contribution. I hope you enjoy it!
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
the grace of sunlight
dancing in the ocean breeze
the sun arcs downwards
as the sun descends
day drifting to memory
the birds still singing
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.“
as the water beads
flowing across the petals
rains drift westward
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.