Yvette Keller's Blog, page 22

Geek Cred -4: Blade Runner 2049 +.5

Let’s get this out of the way up front:

I’ve never seen Blade Runner all the way through. I was nine in 1982 and it wouldn’t have been my thing. (My thing that year was probably Grease 2 or Annie. I was taken to see E.T. and I didn’t like it much.)

Nor have I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  because the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel was not in my parent’s SF collection. That’s it. If my parents had a copy, I read it. If they didn’t, I missed out.

Despite a lack of access to the origina...

Finnemore Fridays: Messengers out of Sync

This week my kitchen remodel Project Manager put the lead carpenter in charge of “day to day” for my kitchen remodel. At first, I thought this would be great. The guy doing-the-doing would be the guy organizing what gets done. No middleman.

But that isn’t how it worked. The Lead would have a conversation with the PM and would ignore something he said, and I would remind him, and then he’d have a conversation with me, and then the PM didn’t seem to know about it, and maybe the electrician was...

Finnemore Fridays: Topical Political Humor

I love words. Especially precise words. In light of the fact that I find myself agreeing with the clever translator of a little, old-fashioned, family run place, that The U.S. President is a dotard, here’s a Finnemore Sketch.

Fast Forward to 23:00 minutes.

 

Finnemore Fridays: Interesting Job

In light of yesterday’s post, I thought I would share that I apparently have the Most Interesting Job in the World as an Audiobook Narrator. Seriously, it is great fun telling people that is what I’m doing for a living. People are fascinated. That never happened when I said I was an Education Services Manager for a SAAS PLM company. I wonder why…

At 13:32 minutes you can hear Finnemore’s take on the real problem with asking someone what they do for a living.

 

 

 

The Unasked Question: Emily Randolph-Epstein Asks Why

It seems the safest question to ask when you meet anyone new: “So, what do you do for a living?” Did cocktail parties of the 50’s give us this dreaded question? Because I wish it would die already, or become as much tongue and cheek as “How about those Dodgers?”

I do so many things.

Do I talk about how I make money today?

Or the thing that I’m studying that I plan will someday be the way I earn a living?

If I tell people about my last career or my current actual consulting business their fac...

Finnemore Fridays: The Human Condition

Identifying habits is hard but rewarding personal work. For example, I know I can be irritatingly stubborn about things I “know” are “right.” I recognize this is a bad habit, but it makes me feel safe. At a young age, I felt that no one listened to me or believed me when I had an opinion. I watched my parents make some (I thought) bad decisions. I saw them suffer, so I stubbornly avoid certain things.

Knowing what my faults and failures are, gives me a chance to change them. And as a writer ...

Finnemore Fridays: When in Rome

Impostor syndrome has me down today. Worry that no one will ever like anything I write, because I’m not a real writer (or not a real good one), and everything has been done, and I should bin it all and get a ‘real job.’

As the sketch points out, Rome wasn’t built in a day. So when my dog took me for a walk, I asked myself, as I often do, “If you decide to have fun, and enjoy writing very bad stuff, that never ever gets sold or published, for the rest of your life, will you be happy?”

My answ...

The W-X Factor Part 1: Writers and Peers

TL;DR (aka executive) Summary: Episode 2.29 of Write Right Podcast spurred my thoughts about how the Writing Excuses Cast and Staff got it right and created a learning community on the WXR Baltic Cruise. From modeling, to clear agreements, and creating safe space, they facilitated strangers becoming a team, and ultimately, peers.

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In my goals list for September is a note that says, “Blog about the W-X factor, the most interestin...

Finnemore Fridays: Procrastination, Anyone?

Ahhh, procrastination is such a useful tool for getting everything done except what you should be doing. Here’s a funny little song to enjoy as you head into a weekend full of chores that need doing (so you’ll probably binge-watch something great).

 

 

Melanie Marttila: The Writing Excuses Retreat, part 3

Melanie lapped me again on the track of travel blogging, so I’ll share her version of Part 3 to keep your appetites whetted.

Some things were different for me:

I didn’t wake up at stupid o’clock because I spent two days in Vienna, adjusting to the time zone shift. I thought the gorgeous islands on the approach to Stockholm looked like Lake Tahoe, and suddenly comprehended, deep in my guts, why one of my favorite historical sites, Vikingsholm, was given that name. Melanie held back on the in...