Random Thoughts
I'm just a guy living in northeast Texas. I love talking about sports. So much so, they pay me to do it on the radio and ESPN+.

This blog is all about my journey from there to here and beyond.

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I did what Apple wouldn't do!

Backstory here. In 2012, Apple introduced VIP's for mail at WWDC. The premise was simple. You could assign a VIP status to certain contacts. What this did was allow different notifications to be set up for those people. For instance, notifications such as badges could be turned on for VIP's. Maybe you wanted those emails to show up on the lock screen while others remained silenced. The great thing about this was it could be fluid. In other words, you could turn VIP's on for certain projects. Then when those projects were finished, you could turn that VIP off. Meaning...
July 26th, 2026

Stop doing and start...doing?

Wait! What? That doesn't even make sense. Or does it? Ok, now I'm even confusing myself. Let's see if we can unravel my thoughts here. First off I've mentioned before (here as well as other platforms) that I am guilty of running to the next "new" thing. Usually this involves apps for my phone and/or iPad. I've tried multiple apps for todo's, food tracking, note taking, social media posting, journaling and a host of other categories. I'm ashamed to think of the amount of money I've spent on different apps and different ways to track daily functions (oh yeah....habit tracking...
June 6th, 2025

My journaling workflow

I wish I could say that I’ve been journaling since I was a teenager or when I started college. I wish I could but I can’t. I always thought of journaling as “Dear diary”. I didn’t know better. That’s the way my brain worked. I bought my first journal in 2017. I was about to travel to Columbia on a missions trip with the church. I wanted to document the experience. After I got home, I put the journal away and didn’t pick it up again for a long time. I started messing around Day One at some point in...
May 25th, 2025

A decision was made....

For a very long time, I have been in the Apple ecosystem. The first iPhone I bought was the iPhone 4 and I haven’t looked back (currently rocking the 13 mini…sidebar, the best iPhone size ever). I’m also on my second apple watch. I’ve had multiple iPads and a MacBook Pro. For those who have kept up with me, I have been iPad only for a long time. My MacBook Pro was getting older and Apple decided to stop allowing it to be updated to the newest OS (that is a topic for a different day). I decided to use...
May 24th, 2025

The pocket notebook post

I am not sure exactly when it happened. I’m also not sure why it happened. I think I remember. But I’m not 100% on it. What am I talking about? The pocket notebook and carrying it around every day. I remember watching a video by Peter McKinnon that talked about how he started using a pocket notebook to capture tasks. Around the same time I was going through this phase in my life where I was bored with task management. I had tried every app imaginable. From Apple reminders, Tick Tick, Todoist, Things 3, Omnifocus, Google Tasks, Todo, and the...
May 24th, 2025

Time: the resource you should be paying attention to.

This is a topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately: time. Not necessarily the time of the day. It is 7:06 a.m. central time for anyone wondering when I’m writing this. That’s not necessarily the time I mean. Well, I guess it kind of is. But it isn’t. Let me explain. Every person on this planet has exactly 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. It’s the same for every one of us. That’s 1,440 minutes every day. Or 86,400 seconds every day. It’s the one resource that everyone has exactly the same amount. You can’t...
March 16th, 2025

Another journal switch

For the two people that have read this blog on a consistent basis, you know that I’ve started journaling more consistent over the past couple of years. I like writing in a physical journal but, as I’ve stated before, I don’t feel like I’m as open and honest in a physical journal. I tend to hold back. I think I watched too many TV shows as a kid where someone stole the journal and read everything to their friends. I was excited when Apple introduced the journaling app for the iPhone. It was great. A journal that’s always on you....
March 16th, 2025

Beta testing a new app

Ok, I need to preface this post with something. Recently, I started writing down my power list on a daily basis. If you’re not familiar with the power list, here it is in a nutshell. (Btw, I cannot take credit for this concept. I heard about it from Andy Frisella). Basically the power list is simply this: a set of critical tasks that you complete everyday that will push you forward in life. For instance, if you’re trying to get in shape, then working out is probably going to be an item you want on your power list. Frisella talks...
March 16th, 2025

A.I.: Is it time to embrace this technology?

All this A.I. talk has had me kind of leery. I mean we've all seen the movies. The ones where some machine goes off the rails because artificial intelligence wants to take over. From Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning to Terminator to I Robot. We are fascinated with the idea of artificial intelligence. And, like the movies, there is always a chance for something to happen. There's always a chance for someone to do something that is out of the ordinary and cause A.I. to be used for bad. And, as I said at the beginning of this post, that's always...
January 24th, 2025

Winning 2025: My yearly theme

It’s crazy to think that 2025 is upon us. It’s been 25 years since the dreaded Y2K fear. The world was going to reset and we were going to go into some kind of Great Depression. Looking back, it is kind of funny to think about. Here we are though. Another year and another round of new year goals. Another round of resolutions. Promises that people will make to themselves that they will eventually break. It’s a vicious cycle. People will start back to the gym on January 1 only to quit by January 20th. People set out to read...
January 5th, 2025

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year….?

Christmas is over and for a lot of people they are happy. One of the more common phrases you hear around this time of the year is “I’m just ready for the holidays to be over.” And to me that is sad. There are some genuine reasons why people feel this way. Some may have lost loved ones around this time and the memory is too painful. But the majority is something different.  The majority of the holiday dread is due to the constant business. We have parties and shopping and decorating and cleaning. It’s hard for people to sit...
December 27th, 2024

The Journaling Paradox (or something like that)

Open up any browser on your computer and type the word “Journaling” and you’re going to get a plethora of different links. Links that tell you how to journal, the best type of journals to buy, the different methods of journaling and a host of others. Go to YouTube, type the same prompt and you’ll get the same type of videos all over your screen. I know this because I just got done watching several videos on journaling. This was by accident too. I didn’t even type it in my YouTube search bar. They just showed up in the algorithm...
October 3rd, 2024

Climbing out of a rut

Ok so I've been a rut lately. I can't quite explain it nor the reason why. All I know is that right now I'm not really excited about any area of my life. I take that back. My workouts are going really good as well as tracking my eating. I'm starting to see some progress there. But that's about it. And I'm pretty sure its 100% me. Nothing is going bad in my life. I'm just not content. I'm not happy. But, there again, I cannot put my finger on what it is. I'm not sure how to fix this...
August 21st, 2024

Don’t be a journal snob!

I read a lot of people bashing on Apple’s Journal app. If you’re a hardcore journaling person, I get it. You’re used to Day One and probably pay for it. Or you write in a notebook everyday. Look, I get it. And I am not here to bash you for either of those things. What I am here to do is ask you why? Why do you feel the need to be a journaling snob and look down your nose at someone else who is trying to better their life by journaling? So they don’t journal the same way you...
August 3rd, 2024

I went to see Deadpool & Wolverine (no spoilers)

Went and watched Deadpool & Wolverine on Thursday night. I’m going to say it exceeded the expectations. I wasn’t sure how they were going to make it work but they did. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman were great! And, of course, in true Deadpool style there were so many Easter eggs in this movie. As the title suggests, I will not give anything away. I will say this, however, this was my favorite of the three Deadpool movies. I’ll probably go see it again.
July 27th, 2024
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