Service Book of Days 6/20/11

Outside my window… (weather, what do you hear, what do you see?) is a beautiful summer night.  I am sitting her feeling the air conditioner blow over my naked skin.  It feels exquisite and refreshing.  my thoughts… are thoughtful

Today’s Quote:   The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.Harriet Beecher Stowe
US abolitionist & novelist (1811 – 1896)

i am thankful for…air conditioning…especially when I move down south with Master.

From my service training…(any skills, training etc; notes you want to share this week) acceptance and realizing what it means to speak the truth in love.

i am wearing…nothing.  It is late enough in my house that I can

my adventures this week…(where are you going this week?)  nothing but maybe want to find some trouble

Becoming well read…(What are you reading this week?) I am not reading or listening to anything at the moment.

i manifest and co-create…(what are your hopes, dreams, and prayers this week) patience weaved with excitement and acceptance of change.  I love the direction my life is going but it is a lot

Today’s Melody…(what music are you listening to? even if it’s just the sound of a bird…)  Kirk Franklin’s…Smile.  The one line that stands out for in this song is when he says that “today is a new day”.  I think we forget with all of our problems and stuff that happens that today we get to wake up to a new day.  yesterday was yesterday…today is new.

Still….life(share a picture you’ve taken OR a picture you found online that speaks to you)  Photo used with permission from:

http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=244517&searchId=074b62fb6c21b84e6b5846e6bb001f67&npos=4

http://www.sxc.hu/txt/license.html

rose book

Want to start something different.  Here are the directions:

Once a week on Monday you will respond to the above prompts.. more is better. Post your response on your blog or website.

Mention the blog (service savoir faire) and offer a link back to the main page of the blog. This way others can participate in the project as well!  www.servicesavoirfaire.blogspot.com

So now that you know how, please feel free to join me. :)

Marriage and M/s (Cohabitation)

So Master and I are finally realizing our dream of moving in together this year. yay

This should be an interesting transition for us.  For me mostly.

The one thing that I will need to remember is that Master is in control.

Thinking about it this should not be a hard thing to remember but reality is different and funny sometimes.

I am the type of person that will do what needs to be done.  Actually that was one of the many things that my parent’s stressed when i was growing up.  Always do what you have to do.  So things need to get done and I want to do them.  No waiting just do them.    Living alone for so long I had no one else that I needed to get input from or to wait on when things needed to get done.  I would find out what to do and do it.

Being able to get things done is both a strength and a weakness for me.  One of the reasons that I am of service to Master is because of this skill.  This skill however is now under his control.  My “get the job done” attitude needs to be tempered to not trying to be in control.  Along with no passive aggressive sulking or sarcasm.  (I have definitely learned that sarcasm is a no no).

So when I say that I need to remember that Master is in control.  I need to remember that the buck doesn’t stop with me anymore and that my word is  not the final word when making decisions in this relationship.

This will take a change in perspective and to learn a new skill of presentation.

Service Book of Days 6/6/11

Outside my window… (weather, what do you hear, what do you see?) is darkness and a nice comfortable night.

my thoughts… are thoughtful and many.   I am making notes on ways that I can serve to organize Master’s house when we move.

Today’s Quote:   Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.Emile Coue
French psychotherapist (1857 – 1926)

Yes, I am…

I am thankful…being able to have people who see who I am and don’t judge me but love me.

From the kitchen…(menu for the week, what are you cooking?)  back to cooking dinners…we have been eating out a lot since vacation.

i am wearing…nothing…it’s late and it’s bedtime and I am enjoying feeling the cool breeze from the a/c move over my skin.

Becoming well read…(What are you reading this week?) I am not reading or listening to anything at the moment but i am itching to find something good to listen to

i manifest and co-create…(what are your hopes, dreams, and prayers this week) Action under Master’s direction

Today’s Melody…(what music are you listening to? even if it’s just the sound of a bird…)  No songs today…just quiet peacefulness

Still….life(share a picture you’ve taken OR a picture you found online that speaks to you)  Photo used with permission from:

http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=250106&searchId=fc241ec2669cc09d984b5ce23f71ffca&npos=1&sField=bees&perPage=20

http://www.sxc.hu/txt/license.html

Taken from Hamilton Gardens

Want to start something different.  Here are the directions:

Once a week on Monday you will respond to the above prompts.. more is better. Post your response on your blog or website.

Mention the blog (service savoir faire) and offer a link back to the main page of the blog. This way others can participate in the project as well!  www.servicesavoirfaire.blogspot.com

So now that you know how, please feel free to join me. :)

Service Book of Days 5/30/11

Outside my window… (weather, what do you hear, what do you see?) is a beautiful summer day.  A beautiful tribute by the weather to the men and women who have served and are serving this memorial day.

my thoughts… are thoughtful

Today’s Quote:   Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.  Marie Curie French (Polish-born) chemist & physicist (1867 – 1934)

i am thankful for…lessons learned.

From my service training…(any skills, training etc; notes you want to share this week) Discretion is the better part of valor.  I am learning that not everyone wants to hear “for their own good”…in other words…speak when asked…people will make their own mistakes and their lessons are their lessons to learn.

From the kitchen…(menu for the week, what are you cooking?)  back to cooking dinners…we have been eating out a lot since vacation.

i am wearing…a black tank top and some black harem pants.  Cool and comfort on this hot night.

my adventures this week…(where are you going this week?)  hanging with my daughter possibly in A/C this weekend.

Becoming well read…(What are you reading this week?) I am not reading or listening to anything at the moment.

i manifest and co-create…(what are your hopes, dreams, and prayers this week) Contentment

Today’s Melody…(what music are you listening to? even if it’s just the sound of a bird…)  No songs today…just quiet peacefulness

Still….life(share a picture you’ve taken OR a picture you found online that speaks to you)  Photo used with permission from:

http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=242467&searchId=d86f172d84d391d57c8e570f3b7f68cb&npos=3

http://www.sxc.hu/txt/license.html

 

Daisy in the sun. One of few which are untouched by Photoshop (only rotated with Irfanview.. perfect for those actions). An even better version (flower more in focus, better colour balance, higher resolution and noise reduced) can be f...

 

 

Want to start something different.  Here are the directions:

Once a week on Monday you will respond to the above prompts.. more is better. Post your response on your blog or website.

Mention the blog (service savoir faire) and offer a link back to the main page of the blog. This way others can participate in the project as well!  www.servicesavoirfaire.blogspot.com

So now that you know how, please feel free to join me. :)

The New But Not Improved FetLife Feed

OK, I am giving my ideas about the FetLife feed on my own page.  I have made some changes to the graphics to protect the innocent. (As if any of my FetLife friends are innocent, LOL.) Before I launch into the negatives, lets talk about what they got right.

FetLife Feed, version 4The first thing that I like is that we now have continuous feed. That means that when you scroll down, you don’t have to click to continue.  That is neat and is a big improvement. Speeds up my perving of FetLife.

Status Bar Version 4I also like the change of placement for the upload links. They moved them underneath the status bar. Makes them more handy. More handy means more stuff uploaded.  Might be better if they were a little brighter, but overall they are an improvement over the old one off to the side.

The next thing I like, at least in theory (it is only available to premium paying members so I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet), is the gag feature. This allows you to put friends who overshare, or who wanted to follow you (but you didn’t care if you saw their stuff) in a kind of timeout, where you don’t see their stuff. You can also customize your feed where you may only want to see group activities, or you don’t want to see writings.  Again, this is a pay for play feature, so I have no real opinion on this.

SideBarNow where did they go wrong?  Well frankly this was the ugliest update that I have seen to date on their site.  Normally John Baku shows a great deal of care and love for a site design.  And I did see him try here.  But something went horribly wrong.  The layout of this design reminded me of a Visual Studio design, and that is no compliment.  I particularly do not like the layout of the sidebar, the font size is too small, particularly for us older members.  My eye sight isn’t what it used to be.

I also have a major functional issue with the new group listing to the side.  The groups you lead, as you will notice in the picture above are all nicely laid out, like the old feed was.  But now the groups you are a member of are all in a scroll bar.  Why John, why?  I am in soooo many groups.  They all do not all show up on one screen, and it is almost impossible to use on a mobile device.  I have noted a lot of complaints from Blackberry users in particular.

One more glaring mistake is the omission of the link to support FetLife.  For some reason, they have decided to replace that with links to services that only paying members can use. Instead of seeing a friendly message asking for a support, you get a “Fuck you you non-paying bastard” feel every time you click on gag, or one of the other symbols (like the @ symbol at the top).  John, please put back the nice message. Stop turning me off with those links.  I understand that FetLife needs to make a buck. Servers don’t run on free.  And John Baku and company need to pay rent, buy food and buy remote controlled cars. But seriously, you think that annoying your users is a good way to make that money? Stop it.

OK, those are my thoughts. But I would love to hear what you think. Let me know, in the comments.

MV

Update

James and John have sent me some feedback based on this article.

From James:

 @JamesGolick Tweet

@JamesGolick Tweet

@JamesGolick Tweet

My response was pretty simple to James. The continuous scrolling has to go.  I mean besides crippling groups on my home page, what if I want to read the stuff at the footer?  I have to go through how may hours/days worth of material? Or I have to leave the home feed.  Not a good solution.  Back to the drawing board with this one.  I suggested that they could replace the click (or at least add to it) a mouse over to the area you used to click, and that would solve the issue for everyone.  the feed wouldn’t be continuous, but it would be usable.

From John I received this message:

@JohnBaku Tweet

I suspect that that he may have been referring to the “What’s popular” feed that launched this week. Meh, not that impressed.  Still don’t see the need to screw with people’s feeds like they did to add it.  Could have easily been added as another tab.

And the tech support thread has been screaming with people having issues with the new feed.  Too much Java script for older machines and buggy code for others (probably more to do with mobile devices).

Yep.  Great planning to put your customers through the “Madness”.
MV

Service Book of Days 5/23/11

Outside my window… (weather, what do you hear, what do you see?) is a rainy Monday.

my thoughts… are happy thoughts.

Today’s Quote:    The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke, “Technology and the Future” (Clarke’s second law)
English physicist & science fiction author (1917 – )

i am thankful for…vacations.

From my service training…(any skills, training etc; notes you want to share this week) Nothing new at the moment

From the kitchen…(menu for the week, what are you cooking?)  more healthy cooking until it is a habit and nothing unusual.

i am wearing…my “Got Kink” t-shirt and some grey workout pants

i am creating…(crafts, sewing etc;) Nothing new at the moment

my adventures this week…(where are you going this week?)  no adventure this week as I just came back from spending time with Master and the family on vacation.  I always have much to think about when spending time with him.

Becoming well read…(What are you reading this week?) Master and I are listen to this scifi book series on audible.    The author’s name is Peter F. Hamilton.  I am almost finished…two more chapters. 🙂

i manifest and co-create…(what are your hopes, dreams, and prayers this week) Happiness

Today’s Melody…(what music are you listening to? even if it’s just the sound of a bird…)  Can you stand the rain by Boys to Men

One of my favorite things…taking a bubble bath 🙂

further plans for this week…no plans this weekend

Still….life(share a picture you’ve taken OR a picture you found online that speaks to you)  Photo used with permission from:

Want to start something different.  Here are the directions:

Once a week on Monday you will respond to the above prompts.. more is better. Post your response on your blog or website.

Mention the blog (service savoir faire) and offer a link back to the main page of the blog. This way others can participate in the project as well!  www.servicesavoirfaire.blogspot.com

So now that you know how, please feel free to join me. :)