The Renegade Coder – Code First. Ask Questions Later.

Welcome to the 41st consecutive week of updates by yours truly. This week, I want to talk minimalism. After all, I've been removing a lot of physical things from my life. Now, let's talk digital clutter. Social Media Clutter For awhile now, I've been simplifying my life quite a bit through minimalism. In fact, I'm pretty much just down to a handful of personal items now which is great. Beyond clothing and furniture, I only own a computer, some Pokemon cards, a handful of records, and a few yearbooks. In the latest load of material goods, I donated all of my Tae Kwon Do equipment including all of my belts and gear. Don't believe I used to practice Tae Kwon Do? Check out this photo of my Junior Black Belt: Maybe this will show up as a trivia question when I'm famous. :) In addition to the material cleanup, I've also been using minimalism to simplify my digital life. In the latest list of changes, I've decided to deactivate my Instagram. Honestly, I barely used it, and all the photos are backed up. In fact, I actually deleted the app a few weeks ago but just recently decided to follow through with the deactivation. My goal moving forward is to continue to eliminate social media from my life through the power of minimalism. I eventually want to get down to a single social media stream, but I haven't decided which one just yet. Unfortunately, it's looking like Facebook despite my immense hate for its community. All anyone does on that site is spout their bullshit on repeat. It gets old, and I'm at my wit's end with it. That said, some of my friends are from outside the US, and I like to keep in touch with them over Messenger. However, I think I can use Messenger now without Facebook. So, I plan to deactivate that next - after my birthday, of course! Next Steps Moving forward, I'm working on scanning all of our hard copy photos. I figure there's really no point in keeping them around. Instead, I've decided to digitize everything. In fact, I'm planning on digitizing my Pokemon card collection before selling them off. After that, I'll be almost able to live out of a suitcase. How's that for minimalism? I'm a bit uncertain what I want to do with the yearbooks. Part of me wants to simply scan them and throw them out while part of me wants to hold onto them. Honestly, I never look at them, but Morgan keeps mentioning how we can show them to our kids someday. I doubt those yearbooks make it that long! :) A few other things that we're struggling with includes items that have to be stored like camping supplies and holiday ornaments. If we end up going the TEFL route, we're probably going to have to donate all that stuff. I'd like to do that anyway, but it's probably frowned upon. The Minimalists In addition to the obvious downsizing, I've also been working on learning about what I really value. That process is a result of starting to listen to The Minimalists podcast. Whenever I'm in a rough patch, I tend to put them on and reflect on minimalism and my life at the moment. It's a fun exercise that has kept me off of social media, so that's been nice at least. The Minimalists have come in clutch lately since I have a lot of changes happening in my life. For instance, I'm getting married on March 18th, changing my last name, leaving my job at the end of March, throwing a wedding party in June, then moving on to something new. As of right now, I'm not sure what I'm doing. That said, I did get accepted to a PhD program already! :) Unfortunately, that complicates things a bit, but I suppose that's a good problem to have. Now, I have to figure out if school is even right for me. I started looking at resources online, but I find that a lot of advice is rooted in societal norms. That said, I think a PhD is my next move. I want to have a bit more stability over the next few years while I try to figure out what's next for me. Travel would be nice, but there's always time for that - I hope. VirtualFlatCAD Before I forget, I want to shout out my friend's new website, VirtualFlat. It's still in its infancy, but I figured I might try to direct some traffic their way (not that they need it!). You might recall me mentioning them before, but we used to work together on an old website. Now, we both have our own websites, and they still maintain a YouTube channel. I'll link one of their nerdier videos below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zxHfX_qTpU Who doesn't love Luma?! No Longer an Amazon Affiliate If you check out the song of the week, you'll notice I didn't link to Amazon. As it turns out, yesterday my amazon affiliate account reached the 180-day maximum without a sale. As a result, my account has been deactivated. When I went to reapply, they provided me with a different affiliate tag, so I've decided to minimize that service as well. Oh well, I can't say I didn't try it. Oddly enough, there were several products purchased, but none of them seemed to qualify. Whatever, that reduces my work load quite a bit, and I can focus on what I really care about: content. That said, it's too much work to go back and edit all my posts, so I think I'll edit my 6 ways to support me post instead. Song of the Week I dug up some Modern Baseball for everyone this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W95u98wMlXo The song is Pothole, and you should take a listen. Coming Soon to The Renegade Coder! I'm not sure what's in the plans for now. I do want to try to get a new product in the store soon. I've been thinking about starting a series of Python labs related to the time I did a program for Engineering Day. Beyond that, I only have a post planned for my birthday. At that point, I should be fully downsized and ready to start devoting more time to the site. Of course, I should have plenty of time to work on the site by March.

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