This week’s topic is Social Media. 

In the modern world, a good social media presence can bring definitive success to individuals and companies alike. Anyone hoping to market themselves or their business cannot have any significant impact without social media. 

But, different social media sites can be very different mediums, and it’s important to consider what content is best for which site. Twitter, for example, is great for short, insightful comments. Meanwhile, Facebook is good for staying connected with friends, and LinkedIn is great for business needs. 

This week’s topic: Music streaming!

With Apple revealing their own music streaming service this week, it is clear that the music streaming market is an important, and emerging one. The well-established prowess of Spotify is finally being challenged by Apple Music, Pandora (in the US) and Google Play, among others. 

Jay-Z’s Tidal is still clinging on to it’s waning popularity, but it does not seem prepared to go the distance. Will Apple’s music streaming service provide some true competition for Spotify? 

What do you think?

It wasn’t til bng101 hearted my last post that I remembered to answer this, even though I got it bright and early yesterday morning and sent one back to him.  (If you didn’t get it, Tumblr ate it.)

Most people say I have a pretty wild imagination.  I come up with stories, make my own characters, draw out everything even if I feel like it’s not a great drawing, (sometimes) come up with new and interesting ways to solve problems, and will give you strange answers to questions I don’t have a real answer to.

I, on the other hand, feel like I have no imagination at all.  I often take things too literally, and have trouble visualising anything in my head.

When I think of imagination, I think of people who can sit down in a chair and envision themselves as the captain of a spaceship and their keyboard is the control panel and they can SEE all that stuff in their head.  

I can’t see that stuff.

I CAN see animals in the clouds, faces in chalk dust, dogs in the furballs that Kiwi leaves behind, people in water spots…

I was pretty amazed when we went to Mt. Saint Helens and seeing all of the destruction to the forest that was still there 30 years later.  All the trees were cut off at the same point and there was still a lot of black and ash.  But you could also see baby forest things trying to grow up out of the mess!  I don’t have any pictures.  I don’t even remember why I didn’t bring the camera.  Either I forgot or no one told me what we were doing that day so the camera wasn’t prepared.

More recently, I was amazed by the Getty Villa.  Everything was worth looking at.  Ceilings, floors, walls, and of course the actual art and antiquities on display, and the lovely gardens.

(This is the point where I find Tumblr won’t take my pictures for some reason.  See pictures from the Getty Villa here, here, and here…oh, and this guy too.)

Even after being here ~6 years, I am still amazed every time The Mountain is out.  I often wish I could stop traffic to take pictures.  (That’s Mt. Rainier for those of you that don’t live here.)

I was really amazed the first time I went to the Spring Fair and saw fairs are at least sort of like what I’ve seen on TV and in the movies.  I totally fell in love with the fair now and am still kind of upset that we didn’t get to go to the Spring Fair last month.

I am often amazed by just the sky and find myself looking up every time I let the dogs out to see if there’s anything worth taking a picture of out there, even if it’s not pictureworthy, it’s still pretty and vast and who knows what’s up there.

Oh, I am late today!

I don’t have a lot of general advice.

Save money, both long term and for things you want/want to do.  

Keep your finances in order.

Rescue a pit bull dog pet.  (They’ll probably rescue you too.)

Drink lots of water.

Eat a balanced diet.  (I struggle with this myself, but I’m trying!)

Make time for things you want to do.

Don’t be afraid to do things by yourself.

Go outside.  Even just for a few minutes.

Before we get started here, I’m glad to see these are back.  If you didn’t get one from me, tumblr ate it…AGAIN.

Okay, so cars:

As most of you know, I can’t drive.  The chances of me ever learning grow less and less as now even if they fixed my eyes, my right leg can’t do the thing…and they tell me eventually my left leg won’t be able to do the thing either.  So maybe after eye surgery when my retinas eventually detach and two hip replacements, I will finally get a license, you never know.

So cars have never been a thing for me.  Even when I thought I would drive, I was never interested.

You know how some people can’t recognize faces?  I have a very hard time recognizing cars unless they’re very distinctive, and sometimes not even then if there just happens to be another similar car in the lot.  Jerome has an older car that’s not a common color…so that’s okay unless it’s dark.  Mom has a purple VW bus…which is mostly the only VW bus in the lot.  My friend has a black small SUV.  I will walk to every similar car in the lot before finding her.

Springtime for Hitler!

Okay, but for real…

This spring so far has been mostly full of Spring fever.  I want to go places and do things (and take pictures of it all)!!   …but we’re broke and I can’t walk too far on my own.

We did make it to the park the yesterday.  You can see the signs of spring in my pictures here.

Next week I hope hope hope we go to the Spring Fair.  It’s free on Friday the 11th for military…but Jerome has to switch a shift.  I love the fair so much.  Animals and random things to buy and weird sideshows and crazy fair food!  Not that we can buy anything this time, but it’s a fun place to take pictures and walk around…plus there’s loads of benches so I can go all day if we time our benches right and everyone is patient with me.  (Here are the pictures from last year!)

Springtime in my area means lots of daffodils!  Last year my friend K moved away, so I guess I won’t be going to the Daffodil Festival/Parade this year.  (More pictures from last year.)

Jerome and I have a first date anniversary coming up on the 18th.  That will be seven years.  I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything this year though, aside from being broke, he will be preparing to leave for annual training.

At the end of spring is Kiwi’s birthday!  She will be 5 this year!

I am not good at keeping track of actors and actresses…I only in recent years started learning more than a handful of names.  I feel like I would probably be better at remembering actors if we saw more live theatre, but that never happens.  (*dramatic hint sigh*)

Despite living in the LA area for the majority of my life this far, I have only seen John Travolta getting out of a limo once, briefly met the green Power Ranger (I never even watched the show…but my class was on a field trip and they filmed at that location that day) and I’ve really met met Jeffrey Tambor at a friend’s family function and he was really nice.

No wait, I lied.  I also met Wil Wheaton briefly at w00tstock!  (And Adam Savage and Hank Green.)