Category Archives: opinion

App Addiction That Lead To Procrastination

First, I would like to say hello to everyone and Happy Belated New Year!

I finally fulfilled one of my long-time wishes and that was to purchase an Apple MacBook. In this case, I chose the MacBook Air which I received in May 2020. I figured that since I would be keeping this machine for a few years, I would order an upgraded version with a better processor, more RAM, and more storage. I know this model has already been replaced by a newer faster M1 version, but that is neither here nor there, I’m happy with what I have.

Anyway, I have been wanting to return to consistent writing again by continuing to write poetry and by starting on a novel, but I find myself procrastinating as I endlessly look for the “best” writing software for the Mac. I have to admit that it has been kind of fun, but totally unproductive. I have installed and uninstalled many, many apps and have kept a few, namely Ulysses, Pages, Word, and Drafts. I know that any of these are more than adequate, even the lowly default text editor supplied with macOS would do, but that hasn’t stopped me from continuing to look for just the right app anyway.

In the past, I did all of my writing in Google docs since it seemed to copy and paste pretty accurately into WordPress and I could use it on any PC that I chose. I suppose that I could just as easily do that now and I would be perfectly happy, but coming from a lifetime of Windows PC use I have found the Mac and its apps to be quite intoxicating. 

Well like all good things this too must come to an end. It is time for me to put my procrastination behind me and move on. I’ve decided that I am going to settle on my writing app(s) this week and get down to being productive. As a matter of fact, I wrote this in Google Docs and I have to admit that it felt pretty good, at least I am writing something.

I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem, but if you have what did you do to break out of your cycle of procrastination, I’d love to hear about it.

Until next time, stay safe and stay productive.

Dom

Thirty Years Married (Tanka)

Embed from Getty Images

Thirty years married

Five weeks working together

Under the same roof

We haven’t killed each other

It must be true love

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My wife is still working from home, likely until the beginning of next year. I am back in the office now as of May 4th. It is a small office with lots of room between each of us for social distancing. The poem is light hearted as my wife and I get along very well and always have. As a matter of fact, since I’ve gone back to work, I’ve received a couple of messages telling me how much she misses me. It was very nice to hear even though we knew the time working together would only be temporary.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~~ Dom DiFrancesco ~~

If…

If a tree falls in the woods…,
Do we hear it?

If a boy cries wolf,
Do we reprimand it?

If politics contradict science,
Do we believe it?

If a lie is told over and over,
Do we ignore it?

If a line is drawn in the sand,
Do we cross it?

If we won’t think for ourselves,
Do we deserve it?

If we refuse to learn from the past,
Do we repeat it?

Question authority as a thoughtful man.
Trust the facts when facts support,
For ignorance can never replace truth.

Pandemic (Acrostic)

Pain and suffering, black verse white
Another reason to divide us
No one is immune, young or old the death toll rises
Denial won’t make it go away
Eventually, it will strike home
Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends everyone knows someone
Ignorance is not bliss
Crises are real as the mass graves reveal.

 

~~ Dominic DiFrancesco ~~

Brother Against Brother

Brother against brother,

Sister against sister,

Words that divide.

Idealogues and pundits

Preaching their truths;

Do they profit from their lies

Or are they blinded by delusion,

We will never know which.

This does not excuse us.

Aren’t we obligated to discern,

Isn’t this what it means to be informed?

It appears we’ve forgotten,

Submitting to partisan experts,

Who feed what we want to hear

To our otherwise deaf ears.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Awash In The Swamp

Awash in the swamp, he’d supposed to drain

His promises proved lies now shown;

Oligarchs and thieves fall down as the rain

Your hopes and your dreams turned to stone.

 

We told you, we told you not to believe

This carnival barker cloaked in Versace;

Give it some time as I’m certain you’ll grieve

With your tears as they spoil your latte.

 

Prepare for the change that will turn back our time

To an age where our rights had no rights;

It’s you that will suffer for your ignorant crime

My greatest hopes’ that you lose sleep at night,

 

You’ve sold out our country with no care for her souls and left it in the hands of a jackal.

I hope you are happy as he rakes us o’er the coals while he and his ilk writhe and cackle.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

The Election Is Over …Thank God!

I wanted to say hello to those of you who follow this simple blog and let you all know how much I truly appreciate it.

I have been very absent over the past few months for a number of reasons, some of them health related while others have been more emotional.  I allowed myself to take our election here in the United States personally.  I know this feeling was not solely felt by me, but by many on both sides of the political spectrum.  I will say this, I was not and am not a supporter of Donald Trump or the Republican Party.  This is no longer the party of Reagan (he had his flaws as well).  As conservative as Ronald Reagan was, he did not display the ugliness of Donald Trump, his campaign, nor his surrogates. President Elect Trump’s campaign was filled with racism, prejudice, misogyny and outright hate.  Essentially he is the living definition of a sociopath.

This being said, there are a number of things that I have been seeing from the Democratic party that I  believe to my core are the wrong things to do to affect change in both the party and the country after this historic and bizarre election.  

First, I have received numerous emails from the Democratic Party in the state which I reside to do everything we can to “fight” Trump.  This is just what the Republicans did to our current president, President Barack Obama.  This attitude does nothing but feed the division within this country.  This does not mean that we should not fight policies that are in opposition to our platform, but we must also mold policies that are being promoted by Trump and the Republicans that can be made to fit at least some of our agenda.  We can not spend the next four years opposing every single policy proposition just because it was proposed by a Republican…this is what the Republicans had done for the last eight years…it wasn’t right then and it would not be right now and ultimately serves no positive purpose.  Secondly, we must work harder to detail and explain to the American people what our policy propositions are, how they will positively affect us and how we will pay for them.  This election was not won on policy at all, but instead on personal attacks.  The person that was better at promoting their negative message ultimately was the person that won.

I will say that although I am disappointed in the American people both for who they elected and the low voter turnout numbers, I will hope for the best for this nation, for short of violent overthrow, Donald Trump will be America’s next president.  

In the end, I will respect the office, but hold his feet to the fire to make him prove that he can be the President of all the people…including me.

Thanks for hearing my not so eloquent rant about the state of America. I have so much more I want to say, but I’m sure you all have your own problems and definitely better things to do.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

200 Word Commentary – State Sanctioned Hate

** NOTE: Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this opinion piece.  This post is a bit of a departure for this blog, at least in the form that it is taking, but I feel strongly that this country is taking a giant leap backwards. What is going on here in America is reminiscent of the 1960’s civil rights movement, which I had hoped we would have long been past…clearly I was wrong.

Maybe “I’m beating a dead horse” here, but it seems to me that some Americans have a nasty habit of proactively making a problem exist that has no basis in fact.

We have a number of states in our most imperfect union that have decided to use transgender individuals as their scapegoats for passing discriminatory legislation against the LGBT community.  My belief is that this is being done in retaliation for a recent Supreme Court decision ruling in favor of the LGBT community.  Personally, this whole issue seems juvenile and without a doubt, hateful.

These very same states are screaming that the federal government is infringing on their rights by withholding funds because their law is illegal under the civil rights act, but in the same breath have no problem asking for taxpayer money in the case of a natural disaster for example.  

Now one of these states, North Carolina is suing the federal government over it just to keep their state sanctioned hate law in effect. Guess what folks you can’t have it both ways, discriminating against some Americans because you don’t like them and expecting their help when you need it.

Welcome back to the good old 1960’s.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~