Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

  • I Slept Well

    I slept so well last night! I think it was legitimately because of a high dose of THC. I slept straight through the night. Everything feels so peaceful and relaxed. I know what I did was merely a bandaid for a gaping wound that major depressive disorder is but I needed relief. And I just realized that this is maladaptive. 😬

    I really want to get more of the benefits of meditation so I don’t rely on substances. I know I have to walk very carefully here. I could use THC short term to help with some of the benefits of meditation. I know the ancients experimented with substances to augment or help people struggling with concentration.

    I feel strangely motivated and positive today. It’s a good feeling. Since I feel motivated and I dare say creative, I will tackle some work on the website for my business. Even if I just work with AI to help get ideas, I’ll consider it a success. I don’t need a large bar to success here. I’ll be satisfied with any progress.

  • A Rest Day

    I need a day of rest today. I’m not exhausted but I am tired from working 40 hours in 4 days. I’m not really used to this so I need a recovery day. Concentration continues to be very difficult. I found myself whiling away the hours mindlessly on social media at work yesterday. It wasn’t the most productive day.

    I’d like to get some work done tomorrow morning so I will do that. Time is going by fast and I don’t want a window of opportunity to close. I need at least a minimal launch of my website. I’m finding myself stuck in perfection being the enemy of progress.

    I would like to at least get more organized about the process. Geesh! Here I am in a stuck state. I want to be kinder to myself. I’m so hard on myself that it is a progress blocker. My therapist would advise me to engage in some self praise; find the good inside and bring it out.

    Today will be a self-care day. I will catch up on sleep and be ready for a productive morning tomorrow. I just realized that I have a discussion tool that I can use to ā€œvibe outā€ a website design. I don’t really need AI to help me code out a website. I need help with the design. I know I’m getting into uncharted waters. This is where AI could help me flesh out things like layouts, color palettes, etc.

    The trouble is that AI doesn’t feel natural to me yet. I have to think about how I can utilize the tool to achieve some results.

  • Another Security Shift

    Another day and another security shift. But this one I don’t mind because it is 8 hours of peace and quiet. I only really have one duty which is to sit at the lobby security desk as the building is completely locked down. This will give me freedom and time to work on my business. It is a shame that I don’t really have the concentration to do much at the moment. That doesn’t mean things won’t change later though so I’ll ride it out.

    Right now I feel like zoning out. It’s been a minute since I’ve put in a 40 hour work week at a job so I am feeling pretty tired. But I really don’t mind the site where I am at and the extra money is helpful. I know I want to be able to get a car of some sort again – even if it is a shit box on wheels. Ideally though, I am thinking of a Chevy Bolt EUV Premier. I don’t have to muck with things like gasoline or oil changes. The transmission on those things is a 1 speeder with forward, reverse, and park which means less to really fail.

    At least the coming week won’t be quite as long as I will only be working for 32 hours. That should be more manageable and I will be getting paid this Friday. Pay day is almost always a good day. I say almost because of the amount of taxes being taken out of the pay check. It makes me grumble because the wealthy get away with paying a lot less than the working class do. The opposite should be true, but in ‘murica, that’s rarely the case.

    I want to work on my business but it just isn’t going to happen at the moment. I need some more freaking sleep!

  • Extra Sleep

    I really needed extra sleep today and it felt good to get some. I had an odd dream where I was watching tornadoes go by like a freight train. It wasn’t frightening however. It was kind of fascinating and beautiful. I also dreamt that the moon came out during one of the storms. Again, it was oddly peaceful.

    I spent a good deal of time yesterday trying to understand why I could not, for the life of me, figure out why my self-signed security certificate did not work. I need an internal certificate authority for some apps never meant to be accessed externally. Well that problem was solved when I tried not specifying key usage on the authority certificate.

    Now I’m ready to do some development work. I’ll be more in production mode today and less in troubleshooting. I have created a 10 year certificate authority and issued a whole bunch of certificates for various internal apps/processes.

    I have officially reached the point of top geek for having my own internal authoritative DNS server and private certificate authority. It’s been kind of fun and a lot of learning.

  • I’m Tired But Happy

    I’m tired but happy that I will be going to work at the site that I like. I don’t mind providing security at local government building on weekends. I’m all by myself from 3-11 which means I can relax, take my time, and watch some movies. It will be getting paid to relax.

    I think this afternoon I may work on my business for a little bit. I’ve set up a development environment on my laptop and I’d like to get a basic website designed. Then I can deploy it and check off an item on the todo list. Even if the first version is basically an electronic brochure, I am okay with that. I don’t want perfection to be the enemy of progress.

    I started meditation this morning but couldn’t really do more than five minutes. That’s okay and a good start. Part of the problem was an upset stomach this morning so I couldn’t truly get comfortable. But again it is progress.

    Now if Walmart will simply deliver my food!