I just watched David Blaine skydive from a experimental aircraft bundle of balloons from 24 thousand feet!! The whole thing went according to plan, and David returned safely to earth.

Now I’m updating software on the server that runs my blog.. I’m not focusing on one thing at a time.. that live stream and odd start to the day has got me scattered!

When I have some time, I am going to upgrade the server that my blog runs on. It’s been going for a few years, and I’m seeing errors when I try to upgrade via apt. I know the PHP version it’s running is old, as well as the distro itself (18.04), so I think it’s time to just back up the blog and start over on a fresh installation of Ubuntu.

It’s a similar deal to the issue I was seeing with my laptop– it’ll be faster and more painless if I simply reformat and reinstall the OS.

As far as my daily progress list goes, today is a slow start to this morning. No eBay sales, no walk to the mailbox. I sold a stock this morning when I got a notification that it had appreciated 1.1X.

Today I’m going to focus on sbtp-loyalty. I haven’t been seeing the progress on that project that I would like. Yesterday I worked through a dependency conflict caused by gatsby-compose package.

Oh shit, the stock I sold was worth $63. I was expecting it to be closer to $6. I guess I have some reinvesting to do! I’m going to take care of that right now.

I invested in

• TLRY
• PVH
• URBN
• ROST
• TJX
• BURL
• CTRN
• TLYS
• GES
• ANF
• TM
• NSANY
• PLAY

$5 on each one, except for the last one where I put my remaining $3.81 of available funds. I’m grateful for fractional shares via Robinhood which allows me to purchase less than one share!

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So yesterday when I walked packages out to the mailbox and saw a brown SUV stopping at the mailbox– that was USPS! I missed the pickup because they came a little earlier than usual. It was no big deal, I ended up cycling the packages down to the post office on my way to the grocery store.

This changes things! I may have to adjust my shipping time to account for an earlier arriving postal carrier. Or maybe I don’t worry about it, and instead I plan on cycling more outgoing packages down the post office? Nah, that’s not efficient. I’m supposed to be setting up a machine which earns me money (a business) and that machine needs to be well oiled and smooth!

There’s also the issue of convenience for my customers. I’d like them to get their product fast, and that boils down to me getting orders to USPS as quickly as I can. There’s gotta be a good balance between efficiency and speed.

I think what I’ll do is I’ll keep an eye on the USPS pickup/dropoff times. It could be that I just saw an uncommon event which is where the delivery driver got here much earlier than normal. It could also be that their daily routine changed, and now my house is earlier on their route. I won’t make any rash decisions, I’ll observe and collect data before I change my routine.

Y’know what? I think I’m skipping CBT today. Ehh, that’s probably not a good idea. Working on myself is very important! Ok here’s what I’ll do. I’ll skip CBT but I will do CoDA instead, since part of my daily goal is to do one or the other.

CoDA 30q #22

Read the section “how do I learn to trust?” on page 123. Did you learn early not to trust?

Uh… I guess? The book kinda just filled my head with that sentiment. The sentiment being that my parents could have said, “I love you” but their actions were not loving.

But here’s the thing. My dad never said, “I love you.” Love and feeling was more of my mom’s department. My dad was always the judging, scary one who would get called if I disobeyed my mom.

I guess I could say that I learned to distrust my dad. The most memorable interactions between he and I are overwhelmingly negative. He was never the person I could go to for help, because his reaction was almost certainly to be an angry, impatient one.

Have you been overly trusting?

I dunno? I haven’t really thought about that. Who do I trust right now? Pretty must just myself. So I guess I’d say no that question.

What is appropriate trust?

Appropriate trust? I suppose that would be when each side of the party has set their own boundaries and those boundaries are respected.

I think that it’s also important that both parties are trusting each other equally. In the context of codependency, equality as individuals is essential.

Why is it important to learn to be able to trust ourselves and our Higher Power first?

I think that’s so important because that’s how codependency is avoided. If I have a problem and I immediately go to another person and put all my trust and my faith in their solution to my problem, I’m suddenly back to square one of codependency where I can’t function without that person.

I have to be trusting in my Higher Power and myself before I go to other people. I know what’s best for me more than anyone else in the world, and it’s up to me to fend for myself and not just stand on a foundation placed down for me by another person.

I have to be okay on my own, and trust that my decisions and the support of my higher power are going to get me where I need to be.

I think the healthy order in which I place my trust is the following–

1. My Higher Power
2. Myself
3. My support group

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CoDA done.

Now I’m going to finish writing, then I’m going to jump into code. I have an apollo client to set up!

I was thinking to myself that I think a weekly stand up meeting would be a really good thing for me. Heck, I might as well make it on Wednesday because today is a Wednesday and I really think I need to put a sprint list together which will help me keep on track.

I’m going to go ahead and do that once I finish writing in my journal, and create a Github project for this week.

Heck, I might as well do it right now in my blog, because I’m mentally locked on that topic and there’s no better time than the present!

But first, a 5 minute yoga break, because my pomodoro timer tells me that it’s time for a break!

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Welcome to the standup meeting for the week of September 2. This week, my focuses on sbtp-loyalty are the following

• Implement Apollo client to enable strapi graphql mutations
• Enable the Settings.js component to get and set the darkTheme field on the user object
• Enable the Profile page to update all the other fields on the user object

Once this Apollo client integration is complete, I’d like to set up the prize pool. The prize pool workflow is as follows

• The administrator (me) creates a product in the database
• The administrator assigns the product to the prize pool

Later, a customer redeems a prize redemption code, which randomly selects a prize from the prize pool, and assigns prize ownership to the customer.

The prize ownership can be transferred to another customer, or discarded.

Goddamn, this is a complex system and I’m getting pretty confused as to what part handles what.

I think I need to brainstorm a bit, before I write about it.

Brainstorm time!

/me gets up and paces back and forth

Ok I think I have come to the conclusion that I’m getting ahead of myself My sprint list for this week is

• Apollo client integration
• Settings Page alpha status
• Profile Page alpha status
• Customer Inventory alpha status

I’m not sure how I’m going to to inventory. Is it going to be separate from the shopping cart? Do I even need a shopping cart?

I want the customer experience to be somewhat familiar and intuitive, so that’s why I’m thinking of using a shopping cart. I also want the prizes to be redeemed as coupons which expire, because I don’t want customers holding up a product that they don’t want.

Ok I’m going to write about something else now, because I’m really getting confused about this project. I don’t need to think so far ahead. Right now, I have those four bullet points above which I can focus on, and the order is very important!

I should switch it to an ordered list instead of bullet points. eh, then I’d have to change what I wrote about it. META!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m feeling sleepy. Is it time for my afternoon siesta? But I haven’t even worked yet. Argh!

I received two rolls of adhesive vinyl and one roll of transfer tape. Now I’m just waiting on my Silhouette Cameo 3, and I’ll be off to the races! I have a handful of sticker designs at this point just ready to print out. Here’s what I got.

This one is inspired by a phrase my brother B. likes to say. I sketched this out in a notepad last night as I was watching Melody masturbate. That’s pretty good inspiration for a sticker that could be perceived as sexual in nature, right? 😆

I brought this photo into GIMP where I rearranged everything, tweaked the brightness/contrast, and traced the outlines.

I traced the outlines in GIMP and filled them in with black, which in hindsight might have been easier to do in Inkscape.

Anyway, I imported the image into Inkscape and traced the bitmap, and I was left with a svg suitable for printing.

That’s a pretty big document size. I think it’s 8.5×11, ready to cut out on a letter size vinyl! IDK the best way to go about sizing for printing just yet, so I just assumed that I should have a document size that matches a common media format, so I can better relate to it and estimate it’s dimensions.

It’s all a work in progress at this point!

Here’s another sticker design.

This one I found via creative commons image search. I gotta credit this author, but it’s cleared for commercial use.

Tracing the bitmap on this one was a little tricky. Some of the buildings in the background were just dark enough to make it into the trace. It was an easy fix though, I just had to delete a few extra nodes.

I removed the towel thing that are under this woman’s feet, because I don’t think it translated well in silhouette form. It might just confused the observer because it could be mistaken as a part of the foot.

I also minimized a ruffle in the shirt, made the gap under the knees a little larger, and altered the back of the shirt to have a less rigid look. I’m pretty pleased with the result, and I think this could make a really nice sticker.

One more design– Sailor Moon! As I upload this, I notice some issues with the earrings, and some speckles along Usagi-chan’s twintails. I’ll have to revisit this one before I cut it out.

I’m grateful for the weather we’ve been having here lately. Today was sunny and warm.

I’m grateful for the state sponsored meal of peanut butter and 2 bananas that I just ate.

I’m grateful for my friend J. who often invites me to play Jackbox games with various streamers on Twitch.

I’m grateful for Ironmouse and Melody!

70. I am a derivative of god.
71. My hard work is already paying off.
72. I am thankful for life.

Little by little, I’m getting more organized and I’m getting this money-making machine set up. Today I paid for another package to be shipped out to me from Buyee. Shipping cost $102.

Still no update on any other in-route packages. After today’s package ships out, I’m going to have four packages in-route. 63 days in transit on the first one. Again, I just have to exercise patience and know that there are a bunch of variables which are going to be causing delays. I also have to remind me that 60 days was the estimate, and we’re only three days past that.

It’ll be any day now! I have plenty to do until that package arrives.

Excelsior!