Most Recent Posts – Page 7 – Quietly Passing By

January 12, 2021January 25, 2021

21 Days of Posts – Day 3 – My Driving Music

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Est. Reading Time: 3 minutes

This is day three of twenty-one days of posts between January 10th and January 30th of 2021. Hello again to those who read previous days, and hello to those of you who may have stumbled across this post “out of order”. You should go back and read from Day 1, for a few reasons. It explains why I am doing this. It is the first one, and I may make reference to something in it in this post or a later one. It also has a list with each day’s post (once they are available) and you can jump to whatever topic you are interested in. Thanks for reading!

I love music. Anyone who has read any of my posts relating to music knows that. I love all kinds of music. I like music to be playing pretty much any time except when I am asleep. Then it tends to bother me…

One place I like to have what I call “my own music” is in the car. I hate being dependent on the radio to provide me with music during my short commute back and forth to work. There is no skip or back button anywhere for the radio. Needless to say, I vastly prefer to have my own music in the form of an iPod in one of our cars, and a USB thumb drive in the other.

Why so particular?

January 11, 2021January 25, 2021

21 Days of Posts – Day 2 – My Current Writing Project

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Est. Reading Time: 4 minutes

This is day two of twenty-one days of posts between January 10th and January 30th of 2021. Hello again to those who read Day 1, and hello to those of you who may have stumbled across this post “out of order”. You should go back and read from Day 1, for a few reasons. It explains why I am doing this. It is the first one, and I may make reference to something in it in this post or a later one. It also has a list with each day’s post (once they are available) and you can jump to whatever topic you are interested in. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to day two! Today’s topic is under the main topic of writing, but specifically about my active project, my fantasy novel.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month happens every year in November, and I participated again this year. I decided to be a NaNoWriMo rebel this year and continue to write on an existing work in progress. I picked my fantasy novel, which had a solid 50,000 words already from two years ago. After adding another 50,000 words to it this past November, I realize it will take yet another 50,000, minimum, to finish it.

January 10, 2021January 30, 2021

21 Days of Posts – Day 1 – Give Me Patience…Now!

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Est. Reading Time: 4 minutes

I’m serious. I want patience now.

Now!

Alright, I won’t get patience now, I get it. Before I discuss that, let me welcome you to 21 days of posts, 2021 edition. I did this last year in January as part of my annual fast. The experience was good, so I decided to do it again this year, with a couple of twists.

I covered a variety of topics last year, from faith discussions to my favorite bands. This year, I am limiting my main topics to these three – faith, writing, and music. Under these main topics, I will have seven subtopics each for a total of twenty-one topics, one for each of the twenty-one days. I’ll rotate through the topics, starting with faith, then writing, then music, then back to faith, and so on.

January 9, 2021March 30, 2022

It Starts Tomorrow…

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Est. Reading Time: 2 minutesTomorrow begins 21 consecutive days of posts on my blog. This endeavor is part of my annual fast. I was successful in this last year, so I hope I will be again. I have determined all of the topics I am going to write on, but not the order.

I am limiting my main topics to three items this year – faith, music, and writing. I will rotate through these topics, starting with faith on day one, then moving to writing on day two, then music on day three, then back to faith on day four until the 21 days are ended. In addition, I am also attempting to journal every day for 21 days during this time, which will be private and not available for public consumption, unless my journal entry wanders across one of my planned post topics. I hope to do 300-500 words for each journal entry, but I am going to be flexible on this, as I am more concerned with the blog posts.

Other items of my fast include refraining from visiting news sites, social media, and similar websites that tend to take up a lot of my time. I hope the time I gain from avoiding these sites is adequate to give me enough time to write my post every day and make an entry in my journal. I am using Notion to write my journal, and sometime after the fast is over, I will write an article on my experience using it. (Note to self – put this on my publication calendar)

Abstaining from the sites mentioned above will leave me somewhat ignorant of current events, which at this point is probably a good thing. The world, our country, and many other aspects of life are in a total mess right now anyway. I know I won’t totally avoid some information and events, but the more I can leave out of my daily thoughts, the better.

Following this course over the next 21 days will leave little time for writing in my fantasy novel, but I hope the time away will help me move forward once I start back at it. I have some daunting tasks ahead of me, including continuing to world build, develop characters, tie together my narrative and make sure that the story moves along and makes sense. I have 100,000 words written in my first draft and I expect to do at least 50,000 more to come close to completing the book. I hope and pray that I can stick with this project starting in February. I really need to finish a book.

I encourage you to drop by the for next 21 days as I post each day. Each entry will be written, edited and posted on the corresponding day, so they may post late in the evening, but I hope to always finish before midnight, so that each day has a post. It will be challenging, fun and interesting for me, and I hope it is for you also, dear reader.

Featured Image: Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

January 2, 2021March 30, 2022

A New Era

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Est. Reading Time: 2 minutesA new era is about to begin, at least in reference to this website. With 2020 now thankfully in the pages of history, I have decided on some radical changes to this site and my web presence.

First, and most importantly for those who actually read this and aren’t here just to spam the comment section, the address of this site is changing. The winsome “quietly passing by me” address is going away in favor of something leaner, quicker to type, and more…representative.

The new address will be QPB.one. That’s right, six little letters (and a period) will get you to the site. Way back when I first picked the “quietly passing by me” address, it was an opportunity to go on the cheap for my web domain. I cost a mere $0.99 for that domain the first year. Of course, it was twenty times as much when I renewed, but it had grown on me, so I kept it.

I liked the domain, it was quirky and fun, but I’ve recently been making changes in other parts of my digital life, so it was time for it to go. It will no longer get you to this page as of February 2021. The domain will probably disappear for a time, maybe to be picked up by some other blogger and author. Who knows?

I was going to go simple and just get the address “QPB.me”…until I saw the price. Apparently, that is a premium domain and the initial cost was $1000. Yep, you read that right, one thousand dollars. Being the budget conscious blogger that I am, I decided not just no, but #$%@ no. This led me to other potential TLDs (top level domains – i.e. .com, .org, etc.) and I came across the .one TLD. Cool. Now my quirky address could be nonspecific. Huh?

My previous address suggested that things or people “quietly passed by me”, but now with the nonspecific “one”, things could be passing by me OR they could be passing by the reader. I still wanted the much shorter “QPB” and guess what? It was available and at a bargain. I am now saving over $10 on domain costs a year, and that wasn’t an introductory price. It will cost the same next year when I renew. Cool.

Second, I am retiring the Security Is site and wrapping the one article I published there into the soon to be renamed QPB site. I have enough WordPress sites to maintain as it is and there is no real reason to put security stuff on its own site. I now have moved that article, added an InfoSec category to my category list, and will begin to use tags to more specifically denote what topics are being covered in a post. So you will see that the KINDLY article I moved here has been categorized as InfoSec and Technology, with a tag of “Social Engineering”. This should reduce my workload and make it easier for you to find my articles, because if you thought typing quietlypassingby.me was long, I’m sure you felt typing securityis.quietlypassingby.me was excruciating.

That’s it for now. Look for an article about my NaNoWriMo victory back in November in the next few days. I hope…

Featured Image: Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash