Plenty of Internet and Writing Every Day

Last month, I tried to reduced my internet time. To keep it short: It's didn't care. After some days I just saw no point in downloading YouTube videos to watch them offline. I saw no point in deactivating my wifi to read that specific article just from the browsers window without being able to click on a link. I hated it first, Then I didn't give a ..
What I've learned anyway: I am dependend on the internet in a very strong way. More than I realized before. So there's more than one reason for me to speak up for a free (free as in free speech) internet.

So... what will I do this month?
I will work. I will procrastinate. (Heck, I procrastined even writing this article. I played kingdom rush, I talked to my friend, helping him finding some verses from the bible about door-knocking, I showed a comedy video about the struggled of being a woman in our society to my wife, I played some more kingdom rush.) But I will also learn and create.

So here are my rules for this month.

I write everyday at least 200 words.
I write everyday about something you have learned today.
Everthing I write, must be written between 0:00 and 24:00 on that day. Pre-writing does not count.

To help me accomplish this, I will rewrite my BIBEL-lesen Web App to a mobile web app, using *drum rolls please*, AngularJS, Ionic and Cordova. I will have to implement some simple backend service, for user accounting and "cloud" syncronization. I will get bonus points, If I manage to make it work with some more motivation stuff like achievements. I will also get bonus points if I manage to set up a welcome page.

I will get in charted waters with those. But why I do this. It will be horrible. And awesome. Both. But horrible first.

So long,

Lorenz

Spending More Time With Kids Yesterday and Spending Less Time On the Internet Today

So... Septermber, I planned to spend at least one hour a day with my kids.
That didn't work as expected: I did not spend that much time. I did not expect this to be a challenge. But it was.
But at least I tried to be more aware of the time I do spend time with them. And that was great.

It was great to get to know them a little more, like experience their thoughts. A great example of that:

My wife pointed my kids to see the full moon. And then my second son said, that he wants to touch the moon. And thus, he will use a very very very very ... ...very long ladder to achieve that goal. My oldest son said, that he will use a big rocket to get to the moon. And that he will put the moon into the trunk of that rocket. After that, both were debating, whether this rocket with the trunk has be bigger that our car or not.

Wonderful.

Spending time with kids is great. Even if it's short.
This month I will spend less than half an hour each day on the internet for private use.
But there are some problems, I already encountered:

It's not 1999 anymore, where you could clearly distinguish between being online or not: For being online, your computer had to be turned on and you had to dial the internet connection with the modem. If that successed, you were online (and you better use the connection, because you pay per minute). If not, or you closed the connection, you weren't.

Today, I even don't know whether I'm online: If my notebook has an active wi-fi connection, I'm technically online. Do I use it? I don't know. I don't know, whether my browser is upgrading in background, whether windows tries to download some updates, whether my smartphone (which is currently in my bedroom upstairs) is receiving some WhatsApp messages. Hard to decide.

I also struggle with the definition: private use. Is searching something for my friends private? Reading stuff online for educational purposes, which will affect my work quality at my job?

All I can say now, after four days of internet diet: I'm so much more aware how much my life relies upon the internet today. It's almost frightening.

Playing with my new 50mm/f1.8

Wow. I really underestimated how much fun portraits can be with this small lens.
And I underestimated how precise you have to focus to not total ruin the shot.

Here are some of the better shots I made yesterday and today.

My Son. See the blur, starting right behind his eyes.

I really like this one. I looooove the narrow focused area: Only the boys face are focused. The rest lives in a soft blur.

Some pseudo-macro.

Playing. It's kinda hard to shoot moving targets. But when it works, it works greatly.

One more try on macros.

Got a moving target.

Combination of movement and macro

Here, one more marco. What I really like about this lens, is it's great high aperture. Just take a look at this image.

These photos are not retouched in any way. Now compare these photos to the one below, shot last year with my normal 3.5 - 5.6f.

This is from an 3.5-5.6f lens

I just wanted to show how great the difference a low-aperture lens can make in every day.

A month with (almost) no video

So, I did not watch video and did not play games on the computer all of August. Almost.
I did watch four movies (I allowed myself two cheat days that month), several tutorials, clips of my children, maybe two or three less-than-interesting clips on YouTube, and countless animated GIFs.
I also played about 10 Minutes of 2048, before realizing, that I must not play computer games that month.

All in all, i was pretty relaxed about that challenge this month. But nonetheless, it was a challenge to force myself not to play boring and silly game on my smartphone while sitting bored in the train.

I realized, how much time I do spend with video entertainment every day. I realized how ubiquitous video has become in my life. I realized how silly it sounds to others confessing, that you are avoiding video this month. I realized, that I did not read more books than other months. It watch a lot more images and read more articles in various blogs.

It was a challenge not to just dive into watching some videos all by myself, but to waiting for something meaningful. And by meaningful, I mean making it either educational or making it an experience shared with others.

And so I removed games from my smartphone. And so I do not really have the desire to watch movies (although I would like to watch some episodes of Stargate, fully intentional, just enjoying it with my wife or some friends). I have the desire to spend my day in a more meaningful way.

And hey, isn't that, what life is about? Making it meaningful?

And thus, I am thrilled about this month's challenge: To spend at least one hour of quality time with at least one of my kids.
Yeah, I know, originally, it was scheduled for October, but I know, I won't be able to do it in October, so I'll do it now.

Things will be great.

A Month With Sleep Deprivation

So, last month I tried to wake up before 5:00 am. Oh how I underestimated the effects of sleep deprivation.

It did not work well for long: The first week was great. I achieved my goals and felt great working on stuff I loved early in the morning. It was truly awesome.
But there were many downsides to it, or at least one downside, which sabotaged it all: It does not really fit my lifestyle.

My wife and I use to stay up pretty late, working on some mandatory stuff when the children are asleep. This is also the most valuable time for two of us. We normally stay up to 11 pm. And go to bed pretty tired. During this time, we watch some movie, or talk to each other or do the stuff we could not do during daytime.

All that was missing. Reduced communication to your spouse? You don't want to do that for a long time. So I did not do that and stayed up late, too. But that made it almost impossible to rise early.

Another problem was the reduced performance when fighting sleep deprivation. A few times I plainly decided to sleep long, because I knew that I would have to rise at 7 am anyway and I had to steer the car. I did not want to risk my life just because of a challenge.

So, the bottom line of this challenge? I really liked to rise early. When I did, I was productive, efficient, content. But it does not really fit my current lifestyle. I have to figure it out, how I could make it a better fit.

So, this month I will not watch any video or play a video game for the sake of entertainment.
I will watch educational stuff. I will watch self-development videos.
But I will refuse to play video games or watch funny videos on the internet.

I will play more board games instead. I will read more books. I will use my time productively. At least I hope I will. ;)

No Car for short distances in June. And rising early in July.

So, last month I promised not to use a car for distances shorter than three kilometers. And I kept it.
It was no big deal, since most of the grocery shoping was handled by my wife. There was nearly no rain here in june, so there was not even much temptation to use a car. A fairly simple challenge, that was (to say it Yoda-style).

This month I decided to rise early. This means before 5 am. Some of my friends will say: but you said, that you won't watch videos for entertainment. Yes, I did. And will keep this promise, but not now but in august. Why this change? Because of the FIFA world cup. I just would like to watch some games.

And one more thing: In case of extreme sleep deprivation, I will allow myself of sleeping longer than 5 am. One time. And I have to announce it (at one the night before, at least to my wife).

So... I would like to go to bed. Now. (Yeah, it's only 9 pm, but I want to wake up early.)
I guess, this month will be a huge lifestyle shift from my lifestyle before.

Let's bring it on!

No Coffein - OK. No hot beverages: Not cool.

Yeah, to make it short: Not drinking hot beverages for one entire month sucked. Hard.
Not eating chocolate sucked (It has caffeine in it, too)

And I had almost no withdrawal symptoms.