Damien Riley HQ

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Tell us about a time when you should have helped someone… but didn’t.

Source: Sorry, I’m Busy | The Daily Post

This past weekend I felt like a lazy lout when my wife went Saturday with one of our daughters to shop all day for her siblings and then the other daughter on Sunday. My wife is great, she knew I was doing some extra detailed research for my lesson plans so she didn’t even ask. I want you to know I don’t take her for granted though. I should have been there shopping along with her and each daughter. My son was out of the equation because he was  working.

I made it up to everyone though. I went out in the morning and got my wife and I Starbucks. Then for lunch while she was out with one daughter, I got the remaining kids Subway. For dinner, I even went and got Chipolte. So don’t write me off as totally selfish. I do think next year I want to take more of a role in getting gifts for the kids.

 

Walking down the street, you encounter a folded piece of paper on the sidewalk. You pick it up and read it and immediately, your life has changed. Describe this experience.

Source: Everything Changes | The Daily Post

The paper I found this morning that changed my life said:

Dear Traveler through life and time,

1. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
2. Most people are just as scared as you are, don’t be intimidated.
3. Love all people.
4. Focus on your passions and do them as much as possible.
5. Don’t ever feel ashamed to follow your dreams.
6. Remember as other give to you, to give in like fashion. “Pay it forward.” and finally, again:
7. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

 

We have the usual traditions in our hoe like getting the tree together at Christmas and Thanksgiving with the relatives but there are some deeper, more urgent ones we truly value and make sure our kids experience throughout the year.

If you have children, what traditions are you trying to instill in them? If you don’t have children, what is a tradition someone passed along to you?

Source: BlogHer Writing Lab December 2015 Prompts | BlogHer

There are a few things my wife and I try to instill in our children as traditions: College and education, celebrating individual triumphs, and traveling. These might be considered more “values” than traditions but the things we do are memories I have of what my parents did and ended up being positive traditions.

We’ve taken our children twice now to Cal State Fullerton to breathe in the atmosphere, get a bite to eat, and walk through spectacles like the multi-tiered library. If you’ve ever been to a University library, you know that smell of books. I want them to have a multi-sensory impression of what college is.

When someone in our family gets a certificate or other form of milestone or recognition, we make a point of going out to eat. I love these memories I have from my childhood. I want my kids to know we are proud of them and thus, we do this tradition in our modern family.

Finally, traveling. We have been so many places with our children: from San Diego to Hawaii, we’re slated to go in June of this year. I also have amazing memories of travel and I want my kids to feel and recognize a broader existence than just their local vicinity. My father told me travel is broadening and I want my kids to feel that breadth of like, traveling somewhere at least once a year. My job as a public school teacher has made this possible since I work only 184 days a year.

 

The idea that the weather and people’s moods are connected is quite old. Do you agree? If yes, how does the weather affect your mood?

Source: Climate Control | The Daily Post

A childhood dream may reveal that you are driven but a grownup choice shows what you have to do when you meet that fork in the road.

When you were 10, what did you want to be when you grew up? What are you now? Are the two connected?

Source: Ballerina Fireman Astronaut Movie Star | The Daily Post

I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. All my relatives and close friends would buy me doctor’s kits for birthdays. I remember all sorts of them. Once I even got a real stethoscope. I liked the idea of helping people. Plus I felt official with my doctor’s kit. The dream began to change once I hit about 6th grade and then middle school. I saw a few filmstrips and tv shows with blood, real blood. That made me a little gun shy. The career that once seemed all about helping people made me realize I might not be strong enough to help that way. In the early days of cable tv, there used to be medical channels that would show open heart surgery. I think seeing that was the clencher. From there my career choice started to go blank for a while.

Playing music in the 4th grade talent show got me thinking I might like to perform for a living. I played and sang Kenny Rogers’ “The Coward of the County” for the school. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsI got a little taste of the attention and the limelight and that created a hunger to entertain that would continue throughout my teens, twenties, and even thirties. Now in my forties, I’ve had my fill of that. My present career as a teacher happened more or less my accident. Upon finishing my BA in 1995, age 25, I still didn’t know what to do for a career. I was working two food service jobs and had never made more than 12,000 dollars a year. I decided to be a college professor because I thought the female students would be hot. I was single, what the hey.

I applied to a graduate program and started subbing K-12 to make a little more money. I had no intention of teaching kids, college English teaching was my focus. One day I walked into a School District lobby to apply for Summer teaching. They liked that I spoke Spanish, I had studied it in college and even spent a Summer in Guadalajara studying as a foreign exchange student, and they liked that I was about to have earned an MA. They offered me a 5th grade teaching position on an emergency credential, this was 1997 during a time of sever teacher shortage. I would have to attend night school for almost 3 years to clear my teaching credential.

Those were challenging days and nights, teaching in Santa Ana. I remembered my childhood desire to help people and heck, it would be nice to finally pay some bills that were stacking up. I believe my first teaching position paid 35,000. Now, in my 17th year teaching, I make around $80,000. I’m not sure the exact number because my wife handles all our finances. Teaching fit me and in a way it is connected to my childhood dream of being a doctor. More than my pay however, the chance to be a dad to 3 wonderful kids and a husband to the most amazing woman has been the real payoff. Teaching is 184 work days a year. It’s a wonderful job for being with your family and that’s been the best part of my life since that first job in 1997 at 27 years of age.

I think every day I write at least one thing I think is cool and return a few hours later to find no one had liked it or even had read it. I guess that’s my humble pie. I’m a “reach out” sort of person but it seems so many blogs out there just don’t see blogging like I do.

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Tell us about a time you found out after the fact that you’d been mistaken and you had to eat a serving of humble pie.

Source: Humble Pie | The Daily Post

Ok, I’ve read a few of the reactions to this prompt and I have a reaction to those. First of all, I recognize that not a few of the WordPress.com community are authors and that is why they come here to blog. Personally, I am an author but of another sort. I wrote a blog about my life up to age 43 and self-published it. I have no delusions it will ever sell many and I’m satisfied with my work for what it is. I have a wife and kids and a 9 to 5 job as a fourth grade teacher and that is the end all of my fame. Anything else would surprise me. Now, back to the “authors” among us. I came to this community to let peers know I have a blog, not to get the to read my book. I write something SMALL every day not to usually exceed 250 words.

There’s a reason for this: I don’t have time to read much more as I blog hop. TBH, very little out there is worth reading beyond those 250 words. But I digress. I think some of these authors stating the progress of their books etc. might do well to get a slice of humble pie. Here you are just bloggers. I think every day I write something I think is cool and return a few hours later to find no one had liked it or even had read it. I guess that’s my humble pie. I am just another one of the teeming throng calling itself a horde of writer on WordPress.com. I only wish there was a way to get “in” a circle with like-minded bloggers who share and share alike, comment and comment alike and try very hard to stay humble and not appear precocious. It’s weird to be in the blogosphere, you have to know what success is because if you think it’s in subscribers, money, or traffic, you’ll probably never be successful.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

I think every day I write at least one thing I think is cool and return a few hours later to find no one had liked it or even had read it. I guess that’s my humble pie. I’m a “reach out” sort of person but it seems so many blogs out there just don’t see blogging like I do.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Tell us about a time you found out after the fact that you’d been mistaken and you had to eat a serving of humble pie.

Source: Humble Pie | The Daily Post

Ok, I’ve read a few of the reactions to this prompt and I have a reaction to those. First of all, I recognize that not a few of the WordPress.com community are authors and that is why they come here to blog. Personally, I am an author but of another sort. I wrote a blog about my life up to age 43 and self-published it. I have no delusions it will ever sell many and I’m satisfied with my work for what it is. I have a wife and kids and a 9 to 5 job as a fourth grade teacher and that is the end all of my fame. Anything else would surprise me. Now, back to the “authors” among us. I came to this community to let peers know I have a blog, not to get the to read my book. I write something SMALL every day not to usually exceed 250 words.

There’s a reason for this: I don’t have time to read much more as I blog hop. TBH, very little out there is worth reading beyond those 250 words. But I digress. I think some of these authors stating the progress of their books etc. might do well to get a slice of humble pie. Here you are just bloggers. I think every day I write something I think is cool and return a few hours later to find no one had liked it or even had read it. I guess that’s my humble pie. I am just another one of the teeming throng calling itself a horde of writer on WordPress.com. I only wish there was a way to get “in” a circle with like-minded bloggers who share and share alike, comment and comment alike and try very hard to stay humble and not appear precocious. It’s weird to be in the blogosphere, you have to know what success is because if you think it’s in subscribers, money, or traffic, you’ll probably never be successful.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

That prompt is “stuff.” Simple, right? Ehh, maybe, maybe not. You could go direct: literal, basic. Stuff as a thing is pretty ubiquitous. Or you could go all metaphorical, even symbolic …

Source: The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 28/15 | Linda G. Hill

From my left to my right as I’m sitting on my couch, there is a lot of stuff. That’s about 180 degrees coverage. I shall now describe the “stuff 180.”

1. A wooden buffalo box for storage that I usually store nothing in.
2. Sweet Frog frozen yogurt coupons.
3. A retractable bear claw back scratcher.
4. The wrapping and packaging for my Nook Sarah bought me.
5. A lamp.
6. The tv remote. (of course it’s by me).
7. My extra large navy colored coffee cup.
8. My iphone portable charger battery pack.
9. Glasses cleaning handi-wipes.
10. My Nook 🙂
11. My iphone 6 plus.
12. A framed photo of all three of my kids holding signs they made for me for Father’s day about 3 years ago.
13. The Family Rules.
14. Our gigantic TV playing “A Christmas Story.”
15. The fireplace with framed photos of all of us above it and a wall decal that reads, “Family is Forever.”
16. My “WHO” award and trophy I was awarded by the teachers union.
17. My daily supply of firewood.
18. A lamp.
19. My wife. My son.
20. My older daughter on the floor.
21. My youngest daughter on the couch next to me.
22. And of course, back home to ME.

In response to this prompt, I decided to write a micro-story about one lucky guy who blogs, and his enchanted history made possible by his wife, the un-imitable Sarah. 🙂 I could never have wasted as much time without her! Seriously, blogging has become an amazing hobby for me. Here’s a “quip” of the long story. Enjoy.

Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop: #5. Write a story in exactly 101 words.

Source: Writer’s Workshop: Books of 2015 (Part 3) « Family « Mama’s Losin’ It!

Once upon a time in 2005, a 35 year old guy named Damien wanted to start a WordPress Blog. He had dilly dallied on Geocities and Blogspot but he wanted a self-hosted WordPress blog like the ones he had seen on so many of his online friends’ domains.

One day when he got home from a rigorous day of teaching, his wife surprised him with a brand new laptop. It was shiny and smelled like electronics. He bought a domain, rileycentral.net, and installed WordPress software on it. He read, sought forums, and blog circles, growing to love blogging as his finest hobby.