Eloy Zuniga Jr.

Moments

eloy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:00:50 +0000

Forgive me for sounding spiritual. I’m actually trying to sound logical.

Life. Is made up of moments.

That’s it.

Most of the time we get caught up in responsibilities. We get caught up in those expectations assumed by others.

Showing up to work on time, meeting deadlines, paying bills, budgeting, watching what we eat, going to events that we’re expected to go to, visiting people we’re expected to visit.

Then you wake up and realize you haven’t done any of the things you have want to do.

Only you never bothered deciding what exactly you wanted to do. You never bothered because there wasn’t enough time or there wasn’t enough budget.

Life is about moments. The stuff you do in between are just a vehicle to your next moment.

Try to have more moments and spend less time driving to that moment.

Why someone might Broadcast

eloy — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:30:51 +0000

Recently someone asked me “how do YOU use Twitter?” Do you sputter out whatever comes to mind? Do you tell everyone where you are? Do you try to be funny?

Honestly. My favorite flavor of tweet to share is links and images. A photo that might make someone say OoOo where’s that at. Or a link to a post that interests me.

I share things that interest me [as I'm sure most do] and I guess that’s the key to it all. If people stick around for the mundane things I post it’s probably because they’re interested in those mundane things as well.

What I like about this, is the natural filtering of followers that starts to happen. The people who stick around are those that are interested in the same things you are. So before you know it all you’ve really done is formed a nice little news stream of information that matters most to you. To you, this is signal … not noise.

I guess you could say I use Twitter to broadcast so that I can get a following fully optimized to my interests. My own personalized feed of people who like the things I like. That’s something worth celebrating.

Facebook is somewhat the same, but I tend to use it more for activities. Posting an entire album of photos, checking in to places, or sharing music. With Facebook’s new Timeline feature it’s more of me documenting history than anything else. When you’re able to scroll back, weeks, months, and years at a time you’re giving a wonderful perspective that’s next to impossible to find anywhere else.

Facebook is my book of memories and it paints a beautiful picture of where I’ve been and where I’m going.

When it’s all said and done I broadcast to get closer to those things that I care about. It turns into more of a funnel that flows with things that interest me and people I care about the most.

Choose your Distractions

eloy — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:30:40 +0000

In a world filled with distractions at every turn it’s easy to veg-out on almost everything. If you’re in front of a computer this post is especially aimed at you.

Twitter, that’s about 30 minutes. Favorite blogs, another 30 minutes. Facebook, 2 hours.

What about that phone of yours? Messages, apps, notifications.

Never mind the emails you get from people you know, consider bulk emails; there are discounts/sales to ogle, group discussions to be read, newsletters to be skimmed, and — what’s this — more notifications.

You have a list of things you want to do. You have it there, stored in your head patiently waiting for the right time to come. News flash; that perfect time is about as close as it was yesterday if not further.

Finish something on that long list of yours by distracting yourself with it. Want to blog more, then visit your website before going to Facebook. Want to work on your auxiliary business consider doing that before visiting YouTube.

Everything is a distraction [this includes that long list you've been meaning to work on].

A distraction is simply something you spend your time on. Choose your distraction before someone else …. squirrel.

Now stop reading this [letting me distract you] and go work on your list.

Limiting the Time Spent on Routine Activities

eloy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:30:06 +0000

This is going to sound lame because it probably is. My girlfriend recently moved in so I ended up moving some clothes. We’re not at the lame part yet.

I decided to put all the articles of clothing I wear in one drawer as opposed to separating them. So boxer-briefs, socks, undershirts, jeans, and belts all go in one drawer. My dress shirts stay in the closet, because they’re ironed and I prefer no wrinkles. Beside my drawers are my shoes and my bed bench. This is where I sit and comfortably do a Mr. Roger’s to get my shoes on.

The idea is; after showering, brushing teeth etc … I only have to open one drawer in the morning, shoes are at arms reach, and then just choose my dress shirt. The dress shirt is furthest from everything, it’s as close as I could get it without going extreme and looking a bit psycho. Not that this blog post is helping that case any.

In summary I spend less time getting ready in the morning and I appreciate that. If I could, I would skip that part of the day entirely.

Routines I would enjoy skipping: taking out the trash, checking the mail, fixing the bed, driving, cleaning, putting up clothes, taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, small talk, paying bills and some parts of my 9-to-5 work.

Now because I can’t comfortably skip the majority of these routines I find ways of shorting the time I spend on them. I’ve never actually written this list out, but it might make it easy for me to attack them one by one. Go me.

I mentioned driving but wouldn’t skip driving if it involved going faster than 90; at that point it wouldn’t matter where I was going — weeee! Yes, that’s exactly the sound I make.

My Goal for 2012

eloy — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:50:55 +0000

With the new year just around the corner it’s time to set some goals for 2012. I say goals but I’ve honestly been setting one goal a year and doing great with just the one goal.

In 2009 I told myself I’d purchase a home and I did.

In 2010 I told myself that I would budget more than I ever did before. Did that as well. Although this is more of a lifestyle change than anything else.

In 2011 I told myself that I would workout more and eat healthier. I’m doing this as well. I’ve been going to the gym an average of 3 times a week for 1 hour since April. A lot of thanks go to my coworkers, they make it easier to keep up with this goal. Taunting helps a lot. I’ve also been eating oatmeal for breakfast since January about 5 times a week. As well as apples and nuts because apparently that’s good for guys.

In 2012 I’d like to start developing applications. I’ll admit that I’ve built some on my local machine but never had the drive to actually push them out into the public. We’ll see how far this goal goes. See you on the other side.

I Pay Rent, It’s Called Interest

eloy — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:50:24 +0000

I own a mortgage, yet I still pay rent. ”How can this be!?”

My form of rent is sneaky and travels by a different name and that’s interest. Interest carries the same qualities of typical rent. It’s money you’ll never see again, it’s money that’s being charged to you because of your homestead.

There’s a silver lining though, if you own a mortgage you have influence over how much rent you pay. The question is, how quickly can you pay down your mortgage aka lower your rent?

Spotify Got Me

eloy — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:09:16 +0000

After about 3 months of commercial induced agony, I finally sacrificed my hard earned $5 bucks for a month’s worth of Spotify. I am now 9 days into my purchase with no regrets. I’m somewhat rooting for them, wondering if they’ll earn my cash next month.

My justifications are as follows.

Discovery

They make it easy to find new authentic music. None of this half uploaded music or music that has someone’s echoing voice-over for the first 5 minutes of the track.

Between their large database of available music and Facebook friend suggestions I am set.

You can argue that there are web based music streaming services out there, but do they have the same music collection size or quality that Spotify does? I’m open to suggestions. I would go back to GrooveShark if Spotify did not exist.

Spotify is targeting people who pirate music and they just might win. Although there is something to be said for “ownership.” A feature that is not included in Spotify.

Desktop Clients Matters

Spotify did a wonderful job of creating their desktop client. Their desktop client allows for making music available offline in case you have a slow internet connection or foresee being disconnected in the immediate future. You might just like the songs that much and refuse to sacrifice your precious bandwidth.

Web based browsing has a couple of flaws associated with it. I’m not a fan of having to visit the page to let it know that “yes, I am in fact still listening.” I’m also not a fan of tip-toeing around my browser tabs avoiding the accidental “oops I closed my streaming music again.” I’m a web developer and web browsers get started and shutdown all day for me.

Music Timeline

This point might travel hand in hand with discovery, but it’s worth it’s own heading.

Spotify keeps a log of the music you’ve listened to, as I’m sure most of these services do. The difference is, they share this music history with their customers.

Earlier I talked about finding new music through Spotify by following your Facebook friends. I’m not sure how the negotiations went down, but if I had to sum it up. I would say they went fairly well for Spotify.

The native music app that comes with Facebook tracks your friends music making it easy to browse what they’ve recently listened to.

On top of this, our new profile pages [coming soon to all users] include a timeline of all the music you’ve ever listened to. That’s just a nicety in itself. I’m a big believer in music being my portal to nostalgia and having the option to go back to birth to find out what kind of music I liked is a plus. Not that I have birth music.

Facebook Music Profile Page

Get List of Facebook Page Likes

eloy — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:32:52 +0000

If you’ve ever had a Facebook Page and you’ve wanted to raffle something out to your fans (people who like your page) you might find it hard to find such a service. Well this evening I found out why there is such a shortage.

Facebook makes it impossible to get list of people who like your Facebook page. I’m honestly under the impression that they’re protecting their investment and less of the idea that it’s some illusive bug.

I read several forums and api comments but I’ll leave you with these two links which are fairly credible and recent enough to believe.

Django Dash “Import Brew” Team

eloy — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:12:50 +0000

Django Dash is coming up this Saturday and Sunday, the 30th and 31st. A 48 hour competition, were we build a Django based application. We’re registered and you can keep up with our code commits at our Github repo (repository). I’m assuming most of our activity can also be viewed from our Django Dash Import Brew Page.

Our Team is made of up

I’ll keep you posted on our insomniac weekend.

Speeding Tickets Reevaluated

eloy — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:00:38 +0000

Girlfriend went to the court house for a speeding ticket yesterday. I often wonder if the process you’re dragged through is the punishment for speeding.

Having to wait for the court date, go to the court house, pay for parking, pay for court fees, an also pay for your driving course costs. All while missing work; aligning it with the courthouse schedule.

Would it be a horrible thing if the accusing officer could just swipe your credit card at the time of the offense.

Maybe save the economy the wasted hours spent not making money.