*Sorry, This Blog Has Moved*

Sorry, but I have moved my blog to Wordpress

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Thanks!

Have a great day!

-Ryan

"Sorry, I don't use Facebook"

Recently (about two months ago) I deleted Facebook from my phone. I didn't delete my actual Facebook account since me and my lovely, all-knowing, beautiful wife are one of those super cool couples who share a Facebook account. I won't even get into how annoying shared Facebook accounts are. But, all that said, my phone is void of Facebook and Facebook Messenger. 

You may be inclined to ask me why I deleted it, but I'm sure you already know why. Everyone knows. Everyone knows that Facebook and all other social media apps can be extremely addictive, distracting, and time consuming. This is no news to anybody. But, probably because of its extreme popularity and variety of consumers, Facebook seems to have something in overwhelming quantities compared to other sites......... drama. 

Yes, I do believe that each person can more-or-less decide/chose to be a part of the drama or not, but even if I'm not directly involved, I involuntarily have to experience it on my timeline. Yes, I do have the ability to hide it, or block the person, or just ignore it... but I grow weary of having to deal with that kind of thing over and over. 

I'm an avid user of Twitter, Instagram a little bit, and Snapchat occasionally. I haven't experienced this on any of these platforms to the extent that I have on Facebook. Now, it is probably due in part to the fact that I have almost 400 "friends" on Facebook and I only follow 89 people on Twitter. 

One other reason I deleted it is just for the fact of all the stuff that used to see that I didn't care about whatsoever. Sometimes I feel like people don't use FB for its actual use of sharing what's going on in their life and just "share" stuff that somebody else posted on somebody else's page that was posted there from someone who found it on some other person's page. 

But, enough of about why I did it, and now onto the more important question.... Has it actually made any sort of difference in my life?

I would say that it has made a difference. Not really for better or worse. Because, like I said before, all social media is addictive, so I am still spending just as much time on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat as I always have, but I just cut out that one line of influence.

It's like when you climb into bed at the end of the night, totally beat and so ready to fall asleep, but you think you better just check your phone quick. So, you jump on Snapchat and check out the stories. Then head over to Instagram and see what photos have been added since you last check it 2 hours ago. Then, scroll through Twitter for a while and see whats funny, what your few friends on Twitter are up to, and laugh at some Joe and Obama memes. Then, lastly, you endlessly scrolls through Facebook for the next hour before you finally decide to actually go to sleep. Well, imagine that, just without the Facebook. 

At first, it did feel like my phone was missing something. I feel like we get the itch to check all our social media apps at once, one after the next, and I'd get to that point where I would normally check my FB, but there wasn't an app to check it with... and so I was like... now what do I do? I guess I'll put my phone down and actually look at my kid while I'm pushing them on the swing. 

But, surprisingly, that feeling quickly went away. It didn't take long before I didn't even think about the fact that my phone was "missing" something. Although, it did come to pass that I was start to miss information. There's so much that people just assume you know because it was posted on Facebook. There were all kinds of things happening that nobody talked about in real life because all the information was already posted on Facebook, so I was supposed to know it.

This bothered me a little bit at first. But then I decided that if it was something of actual significance and actually meant something in my life, I would know about it. I think most humans are wired to want to be in the know. To know the rumors, or secrets, or just the happenings of everyone they know or have ever known. But, that's what I was trying to get away from by deleting the app, so I had to make myself get over that want. 

Part of the mistake I made is that I still am on Facebook, but I don't actually access it. So, when I totally miss a party and days later the person asks "Hey, why didn't you come to my party?", all I can say is "Sorry, I don't use Facebook." 

"What's the point of this post" you may ask. Believe it or not, I don't really have like an agenda with this post. Facebook is fine. Twitter is fine. They're all fine. But, sometimes we can become dependent on some things (sometimes the wrong things), and I was just curious what life would be like without Facebook. So, that's what I'm doing. I highly recommend it to anyone interested, even if only a week. I don't know if I'll ever go back to using it or not, but for now, if you want to Facebook message me or send me a party invite or tag me in a photo on Facebook, all I can say is "Sorry, I don't use Facebook."

Thanks for reading!

-Ryan

ps. Yes, I do appreciate the irony that you probably came across this post on Facebook. But, how else was I supposed to get you to read it?

It's been awhile

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since I've posted here, and I KNOW you all have been eager for a new post. Since it has been such a long time, I'm gonna kind of throw a couple of things together here.

I wrote a book!

A lot of you probably already know this and it's not like "new" news, but I wrote a book this past year, and I'm still excited about it. It's a short book... like 28 pages. But, that's not so bad, since it is a kid's book. Its called "I love you too, Little Monster" because "I love you, Little Monster" was already taken. 

I got my inspiration from our daughter, who refuses to go to bed. I'm not really much of an artist, but after reading some of the books that my kids have, I thought "well, I can draw better than this", so I took a crack at it. Plus, I'm drawing monsters... so it doesn't really matter what they look like. What're you going to say... "That monster doesn't look real!!"...? 

The story revolves around a Little Monster who does anything she can to avoid going to bed. Snack, bath, brushing teeth, singing a song, etc.. Here's a preview of the first couple pages:

And the pattern repeats until Little Monster finally falls asleep. It was a fun book to write and draw. I published it through CreateSpace, who made it pretty easy through the whole process. It's nice to publish stuff through them too because once its published, you choose a price and they sell it on Amazon.com for you. It's not a bad gig. I didn't really make it to sell, more just as a fun book to read to our kids, and our kids love it. I also really enjoy hearing from other people that their kids enjoyed it as well :) So, if you're thinking of writing a book, I would say to use CreateSpace, and if you're thinking of buying a book, I would say buy mine here! 😀 

And, if you want a book to read....

Something Worth Reading
If you're looking for an exciting new series to read, you gotta check out the Red Rising trilogy. If you haven't read these books, I really do feel bad for you!

Up until this point in my life, they have to be the best books I've ever read. Well, maybe I should say they are the most enjoyable books I have ever read. I'm not a huge book reader, but I couldn't get enough of these books.... just ask my wife (our marriage relationship may have suffered slightly). 

I guess I would classify these as a Sci-Fi Thriller, but I hate to put that kind of label on it because that kind of categorization will definitely limit the people who read these books. It does take place in the future, like most good books as of late, it seems. It's slightly reminiscent of The Hunger Games, in the fact that there is a group of oppressed people rising against the elite. 

Without giving too much away, the main character, Darrow, is a miner (on Mars) collecting Helium-3 to make the planet of Mars inhabitable for the overflow of people living on the resource-lacking Earth. His ancestors have been working for many years in the mines with the hopes that one day they can have enough to terraform the planet into a livable planet and then they will be praised for their many years of work and toil, and will be held in high regard among the people living on Mars. BUT, unbeknownst unto the miners of Mars, the planet is completely inhabited and the elite race of Golds keep their existence hidden from the low class of Reds (miners), so that the Golds have slaves to do the hard, dirty, dangerous work.

Of course, Darrow finds this out. It then becomes his mission to upset the corrupt system and free his people of oppression. But, it proves harder to do than he ever expected.

When I first was told about this book, I wasn't that interested in it because it sounded like a Hunger Games wannabe. But, once I got a few chapters in to the first book, I could already tell it was going to be way different. So, why did I actually like the book? I would say because it is about two things: fighting for something you love and that it's not about who you are but rather about what you do. The book deals with a lot of race inequality issues, and it's interesting to relate them to real life and think about how, even though in the book the issues seem extremely exaggerated, that we as humans could actually end up in a similar state, if we're not careful. I also like it because there's a ton of action, thrill, suspense, futuristic stuff, and a cool main character.

But, for more information... just read the book. Or listen to it on Audible. It would be a sweet one to listen to I think. If you need 'em, lemme know.... I can lend them to ya. 

Anyway

So, thats just a little update for ya. Somehow its November and this is my first post this year.... not sure how that happened. I hope to be more diligent about posting going forward. I recently got a certain smart watch that I believe will merit a little review, so stay tuned for that. 

Otherwise, family is good, work is good, and God is good.

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

-Ryan