Thanksgiving Thursday Thanksgiving

With best of intentions I flubbed up again.  I was going to do a Thanksgiving Thursday on each of the Thursdays in November but this is my first entry and as you can see it isn't the first Thursday in November but I at least got one in this year.  You may have seen my attempt to do a Thanksgiving Thursday each and every Thursday on the blog or Facebook or anywhere just to get in the habit of being grateful for the many blessing I have received through my lifetime and to keep myself mindful of the fact that these gifts to be thankful for are not a fluke, not a rarity and not a mistake.  They are truly a gift from God who has blessed me with the people in my life and the experiences I have been able to enjoy.  He has blessed me with wisdom and knowledge from sages past and present if I would but listen.  He has blessed me with opportunities to enrich my life and those around me.  He has blessed me with opportunity to be an instrument in his hands to bless others.

I don't mean to be ungrateful for these gifts and many others.  Its just that sometimes I get forgetful.  The longer the period of forgetfulness the harder life seems to become.  I am one that needs to remember and needs to be ever mindful of the blessings that surround me.

I have heard of others saying that they start the day with gratitude by thinking of three things they are grateful for and then ending the day by review and finding at least three more.  You can see by the number of entries I have made that list of good habits is still a work in progress.  So I will not commit to one a day entries or even every Thursday in November because chances are good that I will forget...again.

But I did remember today...and that's a good thing.

Thank you.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

#thanksgivingthursday 17 November 2016

I am thankful that music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  Music has been with me to lift my spirits up, inspire me, pace my workouts, and console me when I'm blue.  Music has been very personal and sometimes private but at other times it has been something that is shared and celebrated with friends and a couple of thousand other fans.

I am glad that I have had a diverse taste in music that reaches across a pretty wide spectrum of genres and yet there are some types that I just don't care for in the least.  I admit that I can be a bit of a music snob but I am not nearly as much of a critic as I was in my youth.  I think we all have a little bit of music snobbery in us but that is just part of who we are.

There are many times when I wished I had done more with music directly...and I may still.  Never be too old for anything.

I have been fortunate to have seen many wonderful musicians play live and in person and that is amazing to me when I reflect back on all the many groups I have seen.  It is one thing to see an orchestra perform wonderfully the works of a renowned dead composer, but then to take it too the next level and get to see the composers perform their own works of mastery the way they wish them to be known is really special.

And tonight will be one of those nights and my excitement mounts.  A few of my family and I are going to enjoy an evening of music.  And even though the concert starts just before my bed time and even though my ears have been a little plugged for three days from fighting a cold, and the change in the weather is making my joints ache just a little more than normal, I AM EXCITED.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

A new start...#thanksgivingthursday

I know Thanksgiving happens to fall on a Thursday this year but I think it is a coincidence as I had a great idea, especially what with all that is going on all around us. I am going to start my own #thanksgivingthursday and you can join in if you'd like. Every Thursday I will try to make an entry publicly, on my blog or facebook or on a sticky note, as a show of gratitude for something/anything I am thankful for. It can be big or small. It just needs to be something meaningful to me, meant for me, and without consideration of what others might think. (Insert your name in place of 'me' if you wish to try this yourself.)

So to kick things off, I must start with one of, if not the most important things in my life that I am grateful for and that is my wonderful wife. It took me a long time to find her and the powers of heaven to bring it all together but I am so glad it happened. She is the one that adds meaning to life, she is my love.

See you next Thursday.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

They are finally catching up

How long have I been talking about wanting a player that had a variable speed playback option?  A long, long time.  I have found a few since then and have been able to listen to audio-books and podcasts much faster covering more material and exploring new venues and I have been loving it.

I have been wanting the same thing for video and have found it on occasion with the windows media player but you had to download the file and even then it was hit and miss if it would work or not.  Sometimes the picture would work but the sound was gone, sometimes the sound would work but the video was stuttering.  And since it is hard to download a YouTube video there was little chance of having it work there.

But today I stumbled on a training video on a google site and the setting icon which is usually just used to set the resolution also had a place to adjust the speed of the playback.  I got so excited I just had to come over and share the news.

I don't know if this is for all YouTube videos or not but my fingers are crossed.  There are a lot of good videos out there with a lot of great knowledge to be had but there are a lot of times I wish the presenter could just speed it up a little and now maybe they can just for me.  I really can't wait to see if this trend is a reality for all or even just for some buy I am psyched to try it out.

Now I wonder if the same playback option will start to show up in other video places.

Whoever got this to work, high fives, mega kudos and just plain way to go.  THANKS.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

A click of support

19 Nov 2013
There is a favorite little family owned and run fish and rice shop I really like to go to for lunch.  I used to go at least once a week but a job change added a good deal of extra distance between me and my fish and my lunch break did not increase time wise to allow for the extra travel time so sadly I do not get to visit as often as I would like.

The building is an older one that used to house a Kentucky Fried Chicken (it was not KFC back then) and was something else for a short time before it was converted to the fish and rice shop that it has been for probably the last two decades.  Even though I have driven past it often over the years it wasn't until the last decade that I discovered it myself.  The fried fish might be a little 'greasy' for some but I love it.  Fresh and made to order it really hits the spot.  Add the egg roll and some of the best fried rice I've eaten at a price that makes a  Big Mac combo meal look like an extravagance and you have the makings of an addiction or at the very least a happy habit.

I think I know where I am going for lunch today.  Just thinking about it is making my mouth water and I wish they were open early enough that I could stop there on the way to work and have lunch for breakfast.

Some mornings are like that.

What I am trying to get at is this, I, like many of you, have found that small food shops often offer up better fare than the big franchise chains.  There is a simple honesty and personal integrity that is added by those that really care about their craft that is often missing in the large corporate boxes run by disconnected employees.  When I find a place like this I like to support it.

That is not to say I am anti corporation.  Far from it in fact as there are many things that big corporations have figured out how to do, and do very well and I support them for that.  But there are the smaller businesses that also get it right and need the same support and recognition for a job well done.  I can do that by doing business with them.  This is not charity as in the course of doing business with them I am gaining something of value in return, the very definition of business.

So what does this have to do with 'A click of support'?  There are probably trillions of web pages out there now and many of them are the big boys and they do there job quite well and they are rewarded with the many 'web hits' or visits that people make to their sites.  They have ways to convert those visits to revenue and as a business they must cover their costs with those revenues or they will not stay in business long.

But fighting for attention are many small web sites, some trying to make a go of it and some doing it just for the love of it.  These are the ones that are still providing a worthy product but lack the same level of attention that the loud sites get.

We all have run across these sites in the course of cruising the web and most times don't give them a second thought.  That is just the nature of web surfing.  There are sites that I have used over the years that have provided me with everything from entertainment to information, and I was wondering what the best way was to show my support and appreciation for their efforts.  The easiest, lowest effort way I can think of is to click on an ad found on the site.  No commitment, no form to fill out, no spam to sign up for, no outlay of time other than a momentary click of a mouse that will be a sign of support.  It is a way of being mindful of another and expressing gratitude that goes a long way both for the giver and the receiver.  In my mind you are casting a vote that you want the producer to continue to produce that which you have enjoyed.

I have been mindful of the efforts of others and have sometimes gone out of my way to do this.  There are podcast that show up in iTunes that are free to download and enjoy (and I have) and I have gone to their web site with the intention of finding out additional information about the podcast and the people that produce them but also to click on their ads to give support.

Keep in mind that most of these ads are driven by the ad provider, not the content provider, and relate to the ad providers perceived demographics or user profiles.  In my experience, they may or may not get it right for me individually but that doesn't seem to be as important as the act itself.  Then I remember that those paying for the ads are people too so I try to give them due consideration.

Maybe it does take a little more effort to care...but it is worth it.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farr West.