{"id":781,"date":"2015-09-04T08:11:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T13:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=781"},"modified":"2017-01-30T23:27:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T04:27:53","slug":"the-good-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=781","title":{"rendered":"The good things…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I complain. Okay, I complain a lot.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not in a bad mood all<\/em> the time. Today I thought I\u2019d list a few things I\u2019m happy about this week. It\u2019s been a stressful week, so it\u2019s good to look at some good things, too.<\/p>\n

First: my arms actually aren’t hurting for the first time in ages. So there’s that!<\/p>\n

Today is a Friday, and I\u2019d normally be preparing for our weekly Toastmasters meeting, but with the holiday we\u2019re taking a week off. Our corporate club has been incredibly welcoming and encouraging over the last three months. I\u2019ve learned so much from all of you!<\/p>\n

This afternoon is the start of our autumn Aikido seminar with Donovan Waite Sensei; he\u2019s an awesome teacher, and I get to spend time with everyone at my dojo, all of whom have graciously welcomed me and helped me learn over the last year. September 2 was my first anniversary.<\/p>\n

September 2 was also my 17-year anniversary with Wells Fargo. That\u2019s pretty amazing for me; it\u2019s more than three times longer than my longest previous job. I had a couple of difficult days this week at work, but my manager and my team backed me up and helped it get better.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in September will mark my 20-year anniversary of when I first got sick. Cancer isn\u2019t something to celebrate, but surviving<\/em> cancer for 20 years certainly is. I was fortunate that I had\u00a0an excellent surgeon who kept working on my case when the early test results were confusing. I suspect that I would have died without his determination and skill. I\u2019m also thankful for the friends who supported us during that time, and my lovely wife, who worked, cared for our animals, and spent every spare moment at the hospital with me. Thanks!<\/p>\n

I appreciate everyone\u00a0who has helped me be a better person.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I complain. Okay, I complain a lot. But I\u2019m not in a bad mood all the time. Today I thought I\u2019d list a few things I\u2019m happy about this week. It\u2019s been a stressful week, so it\u2019s good to look at some good things, too. First: my arms actually aren’t hurting for the first time … Continue reading “The good things…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"status","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-status","hentry","category-philosophizing","category-toastmasters","post_format-post-format-status"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-cB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":752,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=752","url_meta":{"origin":781,"position":0},"title":"My first Toastmasters speech: The Icebreaker","author":"Jorah","date":"August 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Note: when making a speech to a Toastmasters club, you have to open and close the speech in prescribed fashion. The \"icebreaker\" speech is the standard first speech in the Toastmasters program, designed to get you talking in front of an audience. I procrastinated writing this speech until 10:45 on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":771,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=771","url_meta":{"origin":781,"position":1},"title":"My second Toastmasters speech: Heroes","author":"Jorah","date":"August 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Below is my second Toastmasters speech, built on the requirement that I had to organize my speech properly; with a clear beginning, middle, and end. This is still in the form of the notes I spoke to during the speech. I'm planning to re-write it to fill in the blanks,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":794,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=794","url_meta":{"origin":781,"position":2},"title":"My fifth Toastmasters speech: Getting physical","author":"Jorah","date":"November 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The assignment for this, my fifth Toastmasters speech and with the project name \"Your Body Speaks\" was to express myself physically as I gave the speech, so I walked when I described walking, bowed when I described myself bowing, etc. My uniform is a simple pair of trousers, the legs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=769","url_meta":{"origin":781,"position":3},"title":"My third Toastmasters speech: A moonlit highway long ago","author":"Jorah","date":"August 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Below is my third Toastmasters speech, given as my entry in a humor contest on August 28. I was made ineligible for the contest because I went over the time limit of seven minutes, but I count it as a success because people did laugh, and I did manage to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":730,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=730","url_meta":{"origin":781,"position":4},"title":"A hard lesson to learn: trying to be a better me","author":"Jorah","date":"May 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I was reading a book on Aikido recently. The author of the book mentioned how nearly everyone he met in Aikido over the years had been a decent person. I have had an interest in Aikido for over thirty years, and finally got a chance to join a dojo last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":74,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=74","url_meta":{"origin":781,"position":5},"title":"Cooper: Well-designed products","author":"Jorah","date":"July 31, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dave Cronin A common affliction plaguing many of us interaction designers is the propensity to complain and kvetch about every piece of software on our computers, cell-phones and cars. And it's true -there is a lot of bad software out there. To offset this sometimes irritating tendency to critique\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}