Today was a good day. I had Indian food for lunch, talked some good talks, walked a little bit more than usual, and discovered some cool new things about myself and other people.

I had a nice chat with MJ at iFixit at my desk about social media and what I want my online presence to be. She really had some awesome insights into how we all use the Internet for communication and what it can mean for people. She helped me to realize that there are some strategies I want to implement in my online existence; ways of going about working toward a goal (professional or otherwise).

Today was also about clearing up some misunderstandings and clearing things up regarding my job at iFixit. I want to know what is expected of me, and sometimes I don’t. Pretty simple, really. I want to do an awesome job; sometimes the flesh is weak, though, and I fall short. It happens to everyone one time or another. I just want to know I am making a difference. Because if I’m not, I need to try a new strategy. Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity (or so some urban dictionary says) and I’d like to at least attempt to avoid that.

As for my online existence, I’m leaning toward the idea of attempting video blogging. I need to overcome a few barriers:

• Getting comfortable enough in an environment to act naturally and speak intelligibly
• Have good enough content (relevant, helpful)
• Not look like a bum
• Have the capacity for guests (eventually, hopefully)
• Have a workbench and DIY area for projects
• Content – what scope?
• Did I mention content?
• Now this is just ridiculous… content.
• Seriously, though. It seems like all the good topics are taken.
• The ones I really want to write about are too controversial.
• Eh… I’ll start off easy and see where it goes from there.

Okay, so I made a list. These are all concerns I have about vlogging. Did I miss anything else I should be aware of? I want to make this happen the right way. I’m not in it to fail. Just to do it right, which sometimes looks like the wrong way because everyone else does it another way.

Well I’m not everyone else. I’m me.

Get used to me, because I’m not going anywhere.

*Ahem…*

Yes, I’m excited for what’s ahead. Technology is booming exponentially and soon the world will be a much better place. At least I hope it will be. Humans do kinda have the tendency to take something really awesome and turn it into something it’s not meant to be for greed, power, money, etc.

I’m attempting to stop letting those get to me. By taking control of my life, I realize that I have a better understanding of my life and how it’s affected by other people, and how I affect others. I want to have a positive influence on the world so I act accordingly. It’s really, pretty simple. If you want love, you have to give it. Don’t just continue assuming you can keep taking from the penny jar indefinitely. One of these days, the pennies will be no more because you took them all. And now there’s none for anyone else. Way to freaking go.

I don’t expect anyone’s still with me at this point, so I’ll just take a moment to stretch…

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AND we’re back.

Welcome back to this, the first in a series of typed documents involving what’s going on in Ryan’s head as he types.

Takes breath.

So it just hit me as I took that stretch that I can create an audience based entirely on the typed word. It is somewhat of a grassroots idea, but starting with this blog post, I will hence forth be typing as I think for periods of time. Probably an hour or less, but we’ll see what I feel like after I start this. Chances are pretty good that I might do this once, and forget or decide not to do it again. But that’s then and this is now.

So how all you folks doing? Is this thing on?

I have put together a fine speech for you, but unfortunately I don’t have time or resources to make something with a lot of production values (I’m just starting out, for crying out loud). If I get a good response I’ll put more resources into my endeavors. That’s just kinda how I work, I guess. It seems kinda selfish. If I’m thinking about that correctly. I can’t figure that one out.

Anyway, it’s great to be back. I haven’t talked to the entire world in quite a few… moons, suns, stars? OOOooohhh corny joke about me having talked to the world a previous time. Ha ha.

Am I shooting myself in the foot here? Kinda feel like this could come back at me.

Well anyway, I don’t have anything profound to say. I’m just another person. I’m an American, which means what it does these days. I think we’ve lost our way, though. It’s not about Obama, or Bush, or any one person. It’s just the evil that’s been allowed to spread. Not love, or kindness, or help. Just a lot of wrongdoing – major wrongdoing for the “evolved” creatures we are suppsed to be.

The phrase “what sets us apart from the animals” came to my mind a few times recently. It implies the learning of something that requires a higher intelligence to process. We can choose to take the enlightened path and better ourselves, or we can ignore truth and do it our way. Whatever “way” that is, if it’s some way that some person has worked out how to live their life, let ‘em.

There are certain things that come to mind when thinking about the basic infrastructure of what people need to survive (in decent, sanitary, middle-class-USA standard) in this day and age, and I wonder why villages in India have no clean water to drink. Perhaps I’m missing something, but… *having revelation*
OK so that doesn’t exactly makes logical sense. I tried going off on this the other day to my wife, and she asked me (after I had deducted that we have the technology to do so much, why do people still not have drinking water?) how does technology get you clean drinking water [for everyone in the world]?

I didn’t have a good explanation for it. It just seems to me that it should be possible with the amount of resources, (money, land, etc.) we have in the world, to make it possible for everyone to have access to clean drinking water, the same as I do (from an indoor tap in my kitchen, through a Brita filtered pitcher) or with similar sanitation standards. Refrigerated would be nice,  but you can’t have everything (most of the time, anyway).

So yeah. Clean water. And food. That’s a good start to getting human beings on some kind of humanitarian plateau. Think of it: every single person on Earth having access to clean water and food at any reasonable time. Doesn’t matter who you are, you deserve some dignity. Everyone does. What makes me angry is when people believe their basic needs are more important than those of the rest of the world’s population; like they don’t deserve to have clean water. … *another revelation*

Why the hell am I getting so worked up about clean water? I was never predisposed to preaching about this subject matter; it just seems like a good topic to criticize the world about. That’s all I’m doing. Fuck.

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I could stop now. I could be building, instead I’m just criticizing. It’s not something that affects me to the core, but still I want the same standards for everyone else in the world. Is this a worthy goal? I don’t mean to criticize how we haven’t done it yet… I really mean to call out the problem as it is (whatever the hell that really is) and TOGETHER we can all agree about what the problem is and then find a sensible course of action to correct it. No need to get violent or tribal; these ideas are for everyone, and everyone should be involved. Obviously, we’ll have to work out how that with functionally work, but what isn’t possible with the Interwebs these days?

If you’re still with me, congratulations. I would not have had the integrity, or the willingness to read a blog post this long from someone like me. Honestly, this is just me brainstorming. I do it all the time. I just usually don’t type for this long, and I’m typing as I think. Just a natural progression of thoughts as I sit here and type (but do virtually nothing else). It’s the best way to really get some good practice in on typing, too. I’m getting a workout but I have a fairly decent error rate, or so I’d like to think.

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What to talk about, what to say…

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Took a break, and now I’m back. Thought about this as a benchmark. Seeing what my mind is really capable of at this point in time. At least in the form of typing it and essentially vomiting all of my thoughts on several topics right here in this one blog post. The number of which I am unsure of, because I haven’t finished yet.

I would like to, and frankly, the sooner I call it quits for the night and publish this document as it is, I will think back and reflect on it longer still. So I’m really not getting out of this easy. I make multiple attempts to shut off my mind for the night. I watch Southpark, Futurama, and other satire cartoons Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, etc. which make me think even more, and then I try and go to sleep after my bed time and expect to wake up fresh as a daisy. It doesn’t work that way.

On the other hand, perhaps I have some insomnia. But I could just be telling myself that, I have no science to back any of this up. I’m just a lowly serf, trying to attempt to understand this world and my place in it. Medicine is still a foreign concept for me, and I’d like to one day be able to monitor my body with technology. This could be as simple as monitoring my pulse and as complex as identifying the precise location of my three kidney stones as they travel through my body (I’ve never had them, but heard they hurt like hell.

~*Shout out to kidneystone sufferers: I never want to have to feel your pain, but most likely will at some point in my life. I’ve been stung by a stingray, so I know – Not the same thing but it was a really intense pain. Just sayin’. *~

But yeah, monitoring my health, myself, with the Internet to serve as the “diagnostic computer.” Services like WebMD could prove useful if they developed some kind of software for self-health-monitoring with your iPad or some new, more advanced product.

So going with that theme, health, let’s explore the topic a bit, shall we?

Basically, health, water, and food, all fall into a category of essentials that people need to live. Since it is so important, for the purposes of being all-inclusive to a healthy life, we’ll add in shelter and clothing. Water, food, shelter, and clothing on one side of the coin, and health and the other side of the coin that ties all those together (i.e. if you don’t have enough of any one of these things, you’re going to have major issues somewhere).

With that knowledge, one can begin to look at the world as a whole and identify those places where all of those needs are not being met and fix the problem. Identify what needs to be fixed, and fix it. Don’t do other things. Just fix the problem. Not fixing the problem results in people’s time, energy, and resources spent and/or wasted.

Which brings me to another big topic: that of garbage and refuse. What we do with things after we’ve deemed them unnecessary in our space (throwing stuff out is fine to do, don’t get me wrong) is becoming a problem. My place is fairly clean, and there’s always something that could go in the trash, I could take the trash out, etc., but generally speaking, I have an acceptable level of sanitation in my life. I want that same level for everyone. I don’t care what the excuses are. If humans can’t effectively support all the life on this planet, we need to find another way. Because it is possible, I swear to you.

Dignity for all, and all for dignity. It’s not impossible and we need to realize that. We need to wake up in the 21st century and put the pieces together: we made it! All the millenia of living like the animals can finally be behind us. We have reached a common intelligence that allows us to differentiate from the lower forms of life that are not as smart as us.

Greed, …

greed.

Greed seems to be a big factor in a lot of this. Ownership comes to mind. The idea that I worked for what I have, and so what if some dude half way around the world isn’t able to pull a Fiji Water out of his mini-fridge on a hot summer day, I don’t have to care about providing clean water to him. Boo-hoo. Or something like that. And there are those kind of people out there. I know. It’s hard to say, but that’s okay. I guess we can’t all be the best.

Perhaps it’s my upbringing – Protestant as it was – that leads to my compassion without real care. I do care, but I’m not one to roll up my sleeves and get to work. I’m more about taking a year to develop a really good plan and then executing it perfectly. I like to think of it as looking at the big picture. I know other people’s pictures are much bigger and important, but it’s all relative. My big picture gives me a chance to identify larger goals so I know that the stuff I do along the way works toward the goal (whatever that may be).

Well I’m up to 2410 words and I feel like I’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg. Or is that broke off the surface? In any case, my Linux laptop (old VAIO) is almost out of battery, so I’m going to pubish this as it is.

Well, everybody, It’s been real. Really. I mean that. I somehow feel like someone was listening. Which is odd, because in blogging, people read it AFTER you publish, so I’m not quite sure how that works. I just felt a connection with whatever audience I will have after publishing this document.

I hope what I’ve typed has made some sense. I don’t waste my time, and if it’s for no other purpose than to serve as a diary entry for me, I will have at least that. I’ve thought some things through, I’ve made some discoveries, and I will do it again. Until next time, this is Ryan Lutz reporting from Planet Earth.