February : 2024 : Kelake

Buckets

I’m working on trying to change my mindset. A mental hack perhaps. I am trying to put certain aspects of my life into mental buckets. When there is time to devote to that “bucket,” I’ll take the cover off and devote whatever cognitive capacity I have at that moment to that bucket. Perhaps this is called mindfulness, or living in the moment? I have yet to really look into the proper labels. In a way, it’s related to not taking your work home with you.

What I have found is that I have a tendency towards workaholism in the sense that I cannot disengage from work-related problems, likely due to some underlying issues like anxiety or perfectionism. I tend towards rumination – I dwell too much on problems, primarily in our business.

I think the underlying anxiety I feel is related to age and the question that Sheryl once asked, “If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing?” A question I don’t have an answer to. There is also a tinge of anger towards the source of many of our problems, something I will write about later.

I recently shared with Camren one of the methods I was taught many years ago, related to musical performance. Often, problems creep into your playing as a musician, or perhaps there is a particular music passage that you always play poorly. Sometimes it’s stage fright. These issues become even more acute the more you focus on them, and it can get to the point that you can hardly function at all.

I was taught early to be a systems thinker. What are you doing holistically? What process to being better are you taking? Almost universally, when I focused on the process, the problems went away.

That’s the approach I am going to try to take again. The first step is to stop this incessant focus on the problem and just try to be good (which is good enough) at what I want to do.

Podcast rankings

Do these real meaning? I have no idea. This is our current rankings for the US in our categories. Our other podcasts don’t rank as high.

Usually I look at these to see who is spending on promotion and to get a sense of what other people are working on. These ranking also illustrate that there are very few independent producers left.

Decision made

I don’t remember having my future laid out so early, but this seems to be the norm for Camren and his classmates in IB.

We started talking about university in a more serious fashion at the start of the school year. Camren had his schools of interest narrowed down to about five, plus one in the UK, and I suggested a couple in the States.

My opinion was that in Canada, at least, with some exceptions, the undergraduate education you get is going to be of an acceptable standard, no matter the school. As long as the courses he wanted were offered, he should be fine. But, my life experience has been that the farther you venture from home, the greater the discomfort, the greater the potential for wonderful memories, learning and experiences.

He agreed, but in the end, it came down to two choices: Victoria University, which we visited earlier this year, and Mount Allison University. He chose Mount Allison and will continue to swim competitively with the varsity swim team. He is very excited and happy.

Obsolescence

Does your hammer lag when you wield it? Your paintbrush stutter across the canvas? Or does your pen simply stop accepting ink?

My Mac is simply a tool I use, and sometimes I believe the online nonsense about planned obsolescence. Then, when I go to Apple.ca, I look at the prices and think that perhaps I should use a different tool, like a typewriter and reel-to-reel tape.

I won’t change. It’s too ingrained; I’ll just suffer through a laggy cursor and a myriad of other issues that creep into my workflow (like increasingly crappy user interfaces) until I break down and enter my credit card number.

Unnerving

I took a few minutes to try Pi.ai by Inflection AI this afternoon. Just a short conversation, the kind you might have with a stranger, though perhaps a bit more honest. I have no deep analysis other than to say I found it unnerving. I had the audio piped through studio monitors and I could hear the breathiness in the playback’s voice, telling me to get more sleep, and if I had trouble sleeping here were a few techniques she recommended. I felt like I shouldn’t be talking to this female Entity alone in my office, so I tried it again with Catriona present, where she gave Catriona detailed advice on why she shouldn’t be drinking so much tea and eating so many carbs.

If the voice didn’t resonate with me, would I be more receptive?

Like ChatGPT, this isn’t intelligence, but 90% of all conversations you have with people you don’t know aren’t that intelligent anyway. I’m curious how this progresses.

The AI companions you can have conversations with

Weird Apple

It’s nice to be recognized by Apple, but I can’t understand why they couldn’t have thought a little bit more as to where Sleep Tight Science was placed on their list.

Decisions

At the start of the school year, Camren sat down and mapped out all the universities he was interested in attending to begin the application process. The top of his list has always been Mount Allison because it has excellent coaching on the swim team, and it was a school he was most familiar with.

His list included Carlton University, University of New Brunswick, Mt. Allison, University of Victoria, and Aberdeen in Scotland, and I threw in Brown University and Stanford University for fun.

He applied to all of the schools except for Brown and Stanford. He discounted Aberdeen as too expensive early on.

What is interesting to me, as an observer and advisor, is how his decision is being shaped. All of these schools, except one, have regularly contacted him during this process. UNB and Mt. A reached out with personal emails from students offering help. The coach at Mt. A has checked in as well. There is genuine and sincere interest from these schools in seeing him attend.

He has had zero communication from the University of Victoria, which, after we visited, he was convinced he would attend. But since then, he has lost interest, with emails unanswered and zero effort from the swim team coaches.

A little communication goes a long way to shaping his (or anyone’s) decision.

There is no right or wrong here. His final three choices, U.Vic, UNB, and Mt.A, have sound academic programs.

U.Vic will offer greater personal growth, UNB’s swimming program is superbly funded, and Mt.A has a good mix of sound academics and the chance to compete (it has also offered scholarships).

We are both quite underwhelmed with U.Vic’s recruiting effort, especially after all the work he has put into attending there. Many university programs are highly competitive, but that competition works both ways, and unfortunately only some universities recognize that.

Fredericton

I’m spending a couple of nights in Fredericton. Camren is attending a UNB swim team recruiting event, and it made more sense to stay instead of making two trips. It is also a chance to experience a different environment for a few days, something which feels necessary.

I’m staying at the Carriage House Inn, and the first descriptor that comes to mind would be ‘quirky.’ The innkeeper who lives onsite is extremely friendly, and if my limited interaction with her so far is any indication, the main reason the business continues to exist.

This isn’t a holiday, so today will be spent trying to keep on top of my writing. A local coffee roaster is nearby, so I will visit there to work for the morning, grab a bag or two of beans, and spend the afternoon in the dining room here at the Inn.

Fredericton looks similar to every other Maritime city, with the same architecture and the same dearth of activity downtown. Close your eyes, and UNB could be UPEI or Mt.A.

Hoping for good weather for the drive home. I’m not the winter driver I once was.