Tag Archives: work

Well It’s Full Speed Baby in the Wrong Direction

November 19, 2008 – 1:56 pm

Every have hours or weeks, or months you feel like this?  To borrow a term from my wife and her knitting friends, they call it “frogging”.  That refers to when you knit row after row after row and suddenly realize that you messed up 20 rows ago and have to rip all those bad rows out (can’t remember why they call it frogging but I am sure someone will let me know) and start over before the place that had the error.

Anyone else love reading lyrics?  I could do a blog post centering around just about any song I like once I read the lyrics.  It makes me wonder what the artist was thinking at the time, where they are in their own life, what meaning they wanted their listeners to take away from the song and so on.  This line (well it’s full speed baby, in the wrong direction) came from a song called Mary Jane by Alanis Morisette.  It got me thinking about many different things in my own life like my family, friends, work, faith… and what direction I am going in each.  What areas do I neglect, and which ones am I just totally going in the wrong direction and how do I recognize those areas before to much damage has been done (i.e. time wasted).

Deborah Fillmer

Time wasted has to be the enemy’s biggest weapon.  Occupying our time with worthless and meaningless things so we can accomplish nothing of significance is just what (to me) wastes the most precious resource God has given us.  How much time do we spend doing things we don’t need to be doing, or that doesn’t make any difference?  Unfortunately we can’t just spend our time doing nothing but meaningful things.  We have to do the mundane and repetitions of life, but sometimes we can just feel time wasting away for no good reason.

The photo I took of Deb above is one where we spent time together creating a memory.  I don’t remember what in the world I was doing before or after that, something on the computer I am sure, but spending time with your spouse is (usually, haha) never wasted time.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , , , | Comments (3)

Work From Home Rainy Day and Some Pumpkin Carving // Friday Feet

October 24, 2008 – 5:58 pm

Today was a cloudy, cold, rainy day, something we haven’t seen here in what feels like years. It was a great day to stay inside and get some work done, so eventually, I went outside to take some pics for my Friday Feet post.  If you are not familiar with my Friday post it is just a simple photo of my feet, wherever I happen to be on Friday.  Today, I went for a walk around our house (in the rain) as I usually do later in the afternoon and took this photo below.  I like simple photos.  Photos with only 2 or 3 elements and 2 or 3 colors.  The pine needles have started to fall in large numbers now and these bright tan needles were all over the place.  It gave me a photo with two colors and two subjects.  You can still see a lit bit of green grass beneath the needles hanging on to the 70 degree weather we have had as of late.

If you have a blog, and a camera (doesn’t have to be anything super duper, even a cell phone camera will do) join me in the Friday Feet post.  Just post a photo of where you are and include your feet, then just link over here or leave a comment on this post so we can see your post as well.

Yesterday Deborah and I did our annual carving of our pumpkins.  I won’t tell you which one is Deborah’s but I will say that one of her degrees is in Political Science and she likes to do these fancy jobs.  I am more the fly by the seat of my pants pumpkin carver and just get out the knife and start chopping away.  Anyone else carve a pumpkin recently?  Let me know so I can check it out.

Pine Needles in Fall

Carving Pumpkins for the Fall in Alabama

There is another busy weekend planned starting tomorrow and Sunday.  On Saturday I will head out with ARM (Alabama Rural Ministries) to work on a house and then on Sunday our church is hosting their annual trunk or treat.  Have a nice weekend everyone.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Eternal Purpose in the Mundane Activities

July 24, 2008 – 12:46 pm

This morning as I was going through my email I came across an email someone sent to me with a devotional message that he found relevant to his day and thought I would like it as well. Most of the time it is just something that is forwarded to me that pretty much gets treated as spam but today, it was a message that really spoke to me and I wanted to share it on The Damascus Blog.

But I said, ”I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.” ~ Isaiah 49:4

While I have read the book of Isaiah it is always refreshing to read what struggles the prophet Isaiah went through in his life. I am not sure if this was a result of comical relief from reading my resume on my other blog or not, but this pretty much hit the nail on the head for me.

Mundane Activities for Eternal Purposes

Have you ever felt like you’re spending your life using your talent for nothing? Life is often spent doing mundane activities that seem to have little eternal purpose. The great prophet Isaiah was struggling with his own purpose. He knew he was chosen to be a voice for God, yet life became purposeless for Isaiah. We all go through periods when our purpose seems to be clouded with the mundane. We see little meaning in life. On the other hand, Isaiah didn’t stay in this place. We read in this passage that he knew the truth of his existence.

He could look past his present circumstance and know that his real reward and purpose would be revealed in eternity. He knew that God was just and fair, so he placed his faith on this truth. When life appears to lack meaning and purpose, remember that if you devote your life to the purposes He has for you, the fruits of your labor will be manifested in due time.

The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it (1 Thess. 5:24)

Welcome To Wherever You Are

That about sums up my “very specific” chosen career path, expressed from a very early age, of wondering and hunting for what in the world God would have me do. Over the years I have come to a realization that it isn’t what we do that is important, it is how we do it.

God has put each of us where we are. While some of us are quite well defined in what we do, like a race car driver, doctor or lawyer, others, like myself, are career freelance workers (which is about as defined as a “consultant”), but the eternal purposes of what we do are still not defined by us, but by God.

It reminds me of the lyrics to Welcome To Wherever You Are by Bon Jovi that go like this:

Maybe we’re all different
But we’re still the same
We all got the blood of Eden running through our veins
I know sometimes it’s hard for you to see
You’re caught between just who you are and who you wanna be

Welcome to wherever you are
This is your life; you made it this far
Welcome, you gotta believe
That right here, right now you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be
Welcome to wherever you are

A great way for me to start off the day today, thanks.

By damascus | Posted in Faith | Also tagged , , | Comments (1)

Boxes and Boxes of Books for Amazon and Charity

May 2, 2008 – 6:30 pm

Friday was a book moving box lifting day. Today was order day and we processed and packed up all our current orders to ship out. This includes moving all the boxes to the car and then taking a visit to our book warehouse to lift more boxes of books, which is the photo shown here.  We usually collect all new books, clean them up, organize, and then stock them on the shelves both here at our business and here.  Today was hot, and required a lot of heavy lifting.  It is quite a work out to move 50-60 pound boxes every day for a good part of the day, but it also gets very tiring physically.

boxes of books

I took this quick image with my phone on our way out, these will be left for another day. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular blog, one of our Internet businesses is dealing in books. Deborah and I have sold books on Amazon for quite a while now and part of our daily routine is a lot of heavy lifting of boxes and boxes of books. It can be quite exhausting being that both our offices are up one full flight of stairs and each and every single book has to make its way up, then down.

Everything Else

Some new music did arrive today from my trading buddies over at LaLa. On this list for today was Robbie Williams, The Ego Has Landed (which arrived broken in half), and The Bravery with their self titled album. It was an exhausting day and I am looking forward to the weekend where there should be plenty of grass to cut.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

The Lopi Wood Burning Stove is Running, in April

April 30, 2008 – 7:50 pm

Wow, today was a busy day of work. I usually wear many “work” hats throughout the day, today was no different, but there was a lot of heavy lifting on my part, mostly from boxes of books.

lopi wood burning stove

It started off by my normal reading of all my email and feeds from other blogs and as it would happen sometimes, I came across this really cool idea that ragamuffinsoul had about doing a time lapse of your day, A Day In The Life…. Of course, I had to give it a try. I have to say, nothing like his, but it was pretty cool. I may just use it as my “welcome” video I have been putting off doing over and over.

A Fire in the Stove, In April?

The morning was quite cold for down here in the south, almost 40° when we woke up, cold enough that Deborah requested I get my act together and get a fire going in our wood burning stove. Yep, last day of April (in the far south no less) and we had a rip roaring fire. The exhaust temp got up to about 1,000° and the stove top temp about 350°, just about the same as dead of winter. We had the house built with a Lopi Wood Burning stove and we never have to run the heater.

Everything Else

I managed to get in a bit of practice on my E blues scale. I am getting a little faster at it but my bent up little finger on the end is having a hard go at the A blues scale. I am supposed to stretch it out, we’ll see. I was able to learn a nice little accompaniment to Hootie and Blowfish’s Michelle Post. All done pretty much with the g-chord, not to hard. After all that I still managed to get in about a 4 mile walk around the property before I was ready to collapse.

At the last minute I decided to join a small blogger group on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s that should be good, if I can find the time, and that post is over on d.amasc.us at Vagabond Blogger Small Group, I’m In.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Learning Music History Again, Trying to Pick the E Blues Scale

April 29, 2008 – 7:13 pm

Tuesday’s are busy days around our place. We usually take all our orders from over the weekend in to USPS, which we did today. Deborah packaged up all the book orders, I did all the eBay orders and we made it into town in time for my guitar lesson.

What’s in an E Blues Scale Again?

We found a great deal on a beginner Fender Guitar a month or so ago, and I started taking lessons each Tuesday. This was only my second lesson, but I learned today that I was not holding the pick properly (or using the proper pick), looking in the correct spot, plucking the stings in the correct way, and I lost track after that. It wasn’t really that bad but I have never picked up a guitar prior to my last two lessons so the learning curve seems high to me, especially when you have a day job and can’t practice all that much. I did continue on with the open E Blues Scale, and will try to use some proper technique for next week. At least I can play and still feel my fingers.

New Music Added

I received a few new CD’s from my trading pals over at LaLa again today, and few from Amazon. I have been trying to get a better collection of blues guitarist and these will fit the bill quite nicely.

  • Santana - The Essential
  • Santana - Supernatural
  • Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - The Sky is Crying
  • The Killers - Hot Fuss
  • The Killers - Sam’s Town

Everything Else

We finished our work today rather early and went out to dinner at a favorite local place in town called Locos. Usually a college hang out but we arrive well before any of the wilder bunch arrives and we had a nice relaxed meal. By the time we got home it was still light enough outside to take a short walk, only about 2 miles today.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

More Work with Books Today and a Little LaLa Music Trading

April 28, 2008 – 7:47 pm

Monday, April 28, 2008

Well, its Monday, so back to work we go. It was a series of moving boxes of books in and out and off to make all kinds of various stops in town. Had to get in a little guitar practice, Tuesday is my next lesson and I think I should know some of what he was trying to teach me. I have done pretty good on the E Blues Scale this week.

New Music Arrivals from LaLa.com

I trade music CD’s with the people over at LaLa.com and today I received three CD’s to add to my collection.

  • The Unplugged Collection - Volume One
  • Roger Waters - Amused to Death
  • John Mayer - Room for Squares

This was my first album by John Mayer and this particular one was really good. I knew quite a few songs on the album already but I will probably get his other two. I also didn’t know he was a “local” to the south. I also found a new artist, Matthew Perryman Jones, that I will have to check out. His demos I heard on his website sound great. Deborah also received her set of CD’s for the upcoming 2008 National Polka Festival in Ennis Texas. We go to this festival each year and to get going, she received 7 different polka CD’s for her birthday.

Everything Else

Our 15 year old Bassett Hound, Blazer, now has to go on some kind of outrageously expensive arthritis medication (Previcox), which I was informed after the fact was going to be $11 A PILL. Great, just added a $300/month expense in a 5 minute visit.

Nature in View

Our two (what we call) Fox Squirrels came over to check out the pile of pecans I put out for them. Didn’t take long for them to devour most of what was a 5 pound bag of cracked pecans.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , | Comments (3)

Working For the Gulf Beaches and Playing the Guitar

April 24, 2008 – 6:27 pm

Today was another day of work here at the home office without having to go in the car anywhere. We are leaving for the gulf coast tomorrow morning so we had to get all the orders processed and packaged, and pack, so we can leave first thing in the morning.

Blogs and Twitter

I did my normal daily blog posts for the morning. I have been trying to get the hang of Twitter and finally did a blog post about it on my freelance blog. It has kind of thrown me for a loop the last few days as I have been trying to figure it usefulness out, but the more you use it the more you get the hang of it. For information on that, just see the other blog post called Is Twitter Really a Useful Tool?.

Elance Will Continue

I didn’t win the bid on the project that closed today, but, I wasn’t even the slightest bit close either, so hey, I guess I will try it again. The winning bid was some ridiculous fee of $50 and I was way way way over his bid for sure. I looked at a few more postings today on Elance, saved a few, bid on one. There are so many projects, and they range so much in what needs to be done it is hardest for me at this point to find something and go with it. As with everything else on the Internet (or anywhere I guess) it just takes time to figure it out.

Bags are Packed, We’re Ready to Go

Well, not really, still having to get everything together to leave tomorrow for the beach. We usually pack a few minutes before we leave so I still have a few hours to finish packing. I hope to have some time to update the s/v Island Zephyr blog once I get down there, since that is where the s/v Island Zephyr is located.

Practice Makes… Well… Noise

Scott Practicing the Guitar

Any guitar players out there? I did manage to get in some practice to day and I now can say I know my first scale my memory, the open E blues scale, as my instructor has named it for me. The tips of my fingers now burn like I stuck them flat on an open fire but I can play the scale.

There is so much information about the guitar on the Internet it is hard to absorb it all, but I did find a good post on a variation of the E blues scale, E Blues Scale Variations that looked pretty good but far beyond my learning right now. We are really looking forward to getting back down to the gulf, should be a nice weekend, even if it rains all day.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Work, and a Little More Work then Onto Logan’s Restaurant

April 18, 2008 – 8:35 pm

Today was one of those days with a list a mile long that would take 48 hours, trying to cram it into 24. A little more hectic of a day when we have to plan to go to town and take care of everything that needs to be done.

Work, Work, Work

I got up extra early this morning (4am, that’s REAL early to me) to try and take care of the normal daily items I knew were going to have to get done before we left. I did manage to get a good bit a work finished before we left, just not enough.

Orders, Dinner, and a Little Trimming

We usually go into town two times a week. This was one of the two days this week so Deborah is busy packaging up all the orders while I am trying to get everything together we need to take with us. Today, we had a request to pick up a new push trimmer from Sears, so we added that to the list of things to do when we drove into town today (the list is very long at this point). It works GREAT. Makes me wish I had waited one more day to do the trimming. We went through all the normal stops we have to make, the post office, mail box, our regular volunteer work in Opelika, Sears, and of course, we had to fill up the gas tank. I only say that at this point because it is becoming a big deal now. It was almost $70 to fill up our car, and it wasn’t totally empty.

Dinner was nice. My parents met us at Logan’s Restaurant in town and had a good meal together. Watched a little more of the Braves game before we both crashed. Tomorrow is a day for nothing but yard work. This is the end of the my first full week of writing this journal. So far, seems pretty routine. Next weekend, at least, I will be writing from the Gulf Coast.

By Scott Fillmer | Posted in Journal | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Lifting Books for Amazon and Some Clear Cut Logging

April 16, 2008 – 6:26 pm

It finally warmed up a little bit, just in time for me to do some heavy hauling. What I felt like I did all day was carry boxes up and down the stairs, that’s about it.  It is a real workout to carry 50-70 pound boxes of books up and down a full flight of stairs all day, but that is what the work requires right now.  My legs have grown much stronger (and more tired).

A Day for Boxes and Books

Today was a day for moving boxes and books. We finally picked up our last load of book/boxes and did not have the energy last night to bring them into the house. So, after going through my daily email and minor work items (and some food) it was off to unload the trailer. Probably about 1000 pounds in total, which I brought up our flight of stairs to fill the landing area, the last bare spot in the house.

Boxes and Books and more Boxes

The house is now completely full of boxes of books. Probably over a years worth of boxes to go through and list, sort, sell, shelve, and so on. It was a great blessing to receive such a large supply but also an eye sore that will be with us for a while now. Deb can only go through and list about 50 books in a day, twice a week, it is just a very time consuming thing to do. The other days we have to package and ship said books that have sold. At least as far as inventory goes, we are greatly blessed.

Images Transfer Continues and Blogging

I am still trying to transfer over all my stored images on disc, to my large HDD. I can only do a few a day but I am cranking through them when I have time. I have about 75-100 CD/DVD’s in total, which is I guess about 250 GB’s of images to be moved over. I started working on the blog for my mother in-law, Georgia, which is where this journal blog got its start. I posted the first journal entry, Sunday, June 2, 1991, which should go through 3-4 years of posts, if I can keep up with it. I doing one journal entry per post, when I get a chance. Suddenly I have way more things to do than I have time to do.

A day I was finally able to get in a full walk about. I got in a full hour of walking at about 5 miles (and a little hoops as well). My daily walk, once around the beautiful trees of green now has the view below. I think they are finished clearing this one area, must be, not much left. They are supposed to replant at some point.

Logging for the Mill

There is Work To Do Too

Of course, my daily routine of work items continues each day. This varies from day to day but I finished up some consulting work and hopefully will start to bid on some projects on Elance.

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