Category Archives: blogging

Sep 27

Updates on my Uncle Walt and other family news

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It’s been a little while since I shared updates about my Uncle Walt Mitchell, who for the past month or so has been in a Cleveland hospital for serious complications related to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (illustration of normal heart vs heart with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). Below is the text of recent emails my Mom sent out with updates she received from my cousin.

The first one is from September 25, 2007:

Ken just called. Walt is going back in for surgery tommorow. He has fluid building up around the artificial device they have to drain. His blood pressure is low, his white blood cell count is high, and he has a fever. His kidney output has decreased again.

Ken said the surgeon said they think he may have something called cardiac capanoid (not sure I’m spelling it right). I don’t know what it is or what is done if you have it. Before he could say much more about it he got a call and had to go.

Ken said he just doesn’t have a good feeling about this. He is really scared for his Dad. This is the first time he has ever sounded less than upbeat about his Dad’s condition so I am concerned.

He said something really nice about his Dad. He said his Dad is his hero for all he has gone through and has never felt sorry for himself and given the best fight he could. Makes me proud of my brother too and I know he has what I’ve always called “the Mitchell determination”.

Continue to pray and when I hear more I will let all of you know.

This update came in just last night (September 26, 2007):

Ken just called. Walt is out of surgery. The surgery took about 3 1/2 hrs.

He had about a litre of blood pooled behind his artificial heart, and they found the source of bleeding and tied it off. Ken said he was already out of recovery, back in his room and tubes removed but was still asleep.

Keep the prayes going, it looks like they are working.

If things continue to do well for him, he may have the transplant within 2 months.

Love,

Margie

PS- I talked to [my oldest sister] Pat and she had talked to [our sister] Mary, so Pat updated me on [Mary's husband,] Uncle Dave. Dave had surgery last week, and he is healing.

This has been going on with him for some time now, and it was important this was successful, because if not, it would have affected his quality of life for his future.

Let’s hope he continues to do well and life gets back to normal for him.

Amen. Thank you so much for keeping my family in your thoughts and prayers. As you can see, it’s helping.

In a related e-mail from this past Sunday, my Mom asked if I could help start a Mitchell family blog, as a way for all of us to provide updates on stuff. I’m looking into that as well as setting up a private call for everyone over at TalkShoe.com.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm

Sep 15

Todd Van Hoosear and Ryan Stiles – Twins Separated at Birth?

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ToddOrRyan
Originally uploaded by tvanhoosear

You be the judge.

It’s so funny how we get to certain places on the web.

  1. Yesterday on Twitter, C.C. Chapman encouraged people to take pictures of themselves at work, upload them to Flickr, and tag them with “slackershots“. He even registered www.slackershots.com to point to the tag page for it.
  2. One of our fellow Twitter friends, Todd Van Hoosear, uploaded a picture of himself.
  3. I browsed the gallery and remarked on Twitter that his picture resembled Ryan Stiles of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
  4. Todd then posted the picture you see in this post and mentioned it on Twitter.

Todd and I have never met in person, but I sure hope we get to at some point.
What’s that? You want to know what picture I submitted? I didn’t have my camera with me yesterday, so I resubmitted my picture as a Home Fry Speed Demon.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind, journeyinsidemymind, jimm, daniel+johnson+jr, , , , , , , ,

Jun 06

The new media playground is like jazz

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Mood: upbeat
Listening to: Managing the Gray: Every Day is a Good Day
Reading: Learning XML, Second Edition
Eating: an apple

I checked my Bloglines and noticed that C.C. Chapman mentioned my name on his latest episode and the Journey Inside My Mind Blog in the shownotes, specifically with an audio comment about how the new media playground is a lot like jazz:

“Do not fear mistakes; there are none.” – Miles Davis.

A lot of jazz music usually involves improvisation within the boundaries of a chord progression. The song starts off, usually with the melody. Then different instruments take their solos, which usually fall within the same chord progression as the melody. Eventually everyone comes back together to wrap up the song.

I’m probably grossly oversimplifying things with that description, especially when you consider trendsetters like Miles Davis, who through constantly reinventing himself, created new boundaries and genres of jazz music (Check out this post from 2003 for more information: Paving the Milestones).

I like to think that’s what it’s like with what we’re doing with new media.

ABOUT DANIEL JOHNSON, JR.

I suppose I should share a bit more about me, in case this is your first time here.

I’ve been blogging since January 2002 and podcasting since August 2005. I now have more blogs than I care to count. Here is more of me, in case you’re interested:

And of course you can find me on MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social media networks. I’m always open to connect; just let me know how you found me.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Apr 17

More frequent posting now on Twitter

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I’ve realized that my enthusiastic use of Twitter has meant infrequent posting over here. Who knew that I could limit myself to 140 characters or less?

This is all to say that I don’t mean to neglect you. If you want to see what’s going on with me more frequently, follow me on Twitter. I will still post things back here and my other blogs from time to time; namely

Apr 16

Breaking Technology Addictions

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Mike Schaffner points us to an eWeek report on a recent poll by Reuters that discussed how Blackberrys and laptops are blurring the distinction between home and work life.

He recommends the following useful techniques:

  1. Take action to reduce the number of unnecessary emails that you receive
  2. Prioritize your actions – take control of when you check and respond to email

He also recommends going into your Blackberry and turning the new email notification off so that you’re not tempted to check it every time a new one arrives. The key to remember is that laptops and Blackberrys are not your jobs; instead they are tools to help you do your jobs.

Here are the comments I left:

You hit a nerve in me with this one, Mike, on a couple of levels.
  1. I am totally for getting information when it’s convenient for me. I consume most of my media on-demand these days. The idea of watching a program at a specific time is something I’m growing out of. The same with online media (blogs, podcasting, and the like). I’m learning to consume it on my schedule.
  2. Having said that, I’m also a guy who checks every email that comes in and who also spends so much of my time lately watching what’s going on with Twitter (http://twitter.com).

I have recently found out how to change the notifications for Outlook and GMail, but I could do a lot better with Twitter.

What about you?

Apr 05

What’s a Meme?

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I didn’t really understand what a meme was until about a year ago. Jason asked me what it meant, and that forced me to look it up at Dictionary.com, who defines meme:

A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

In my early days of blogging, I participated in a number of quizzes, personality tests, etc., most of which I’ve included in this blog (Journey Inside My Mind Blog: memes).

As I look at what we’re doing on the internet five years later, I’m beginning to think that anything we share can become a meme.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Mar 16

Brands, Sub-brands, and stuff

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I’ve been thinking a lot about branding lately, both on a personal level as well as on a company and employer level. I have often thought about reorganizing my blogs under one domain and making them subdomains. I do, after all, have many of them.

Today I read this article on Ask Pud saying that sub-brands haven’t been that successful. He’s got a good point.

Related tags: journey+inside+my+mind journeyinsidemymind jimm daniel+johnson+jr

Feb 26

New Look for the Journey Inside My Mind Blog

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Howdy. Last night I upgraded the Journey Inside My Mind Blog layout to better make use of the good stuff from the latest version of Blogger. I’m not finished, as I need to get my Twitter stuff on here, and I want to present the labels in a cloud, instead of the alphabetical list you see now.

Update: I have implemented label clouds on all my upgraded blogs; namely

Look for more warm, juicy goodness in the near future.