Personal Brand – Page 3 – Improvement Dave

I Can Beach

My word for 2024 is Integration, and I am applying this goal to all of my projects. In this post, I integrate my interests in Podcasting, gardening, home repair, painting, video design, and parenting into a single message on productivity and self-improvement.

Video

I can beach. I can solder. I can paint I can speak. I can tie it all together.

AI Summary

Monica is a free AI assistant that I have added to Google Chrome, and she so kindly offered to summarize my video.

💫 Summary Source

Improvement Dave wrote:

This video drives me closer to having a Podcaster tone of voice so the Video really drives this post. Also, in the post I share that I am slated to be a guest on the “If You Ask Betty” Podcast. This post is about me preparing my setup to arrive at that recording ready to roll. I had an issue recording on my current setup in 4K and then did not have an issue recording after I set my recording to 1080p.

The ways Monica caught my meaning and extrapolated the connections I inferred are amazing. I love how parts of the summary are inaccurate, for example, Monica stated that I will attend the “If You Ask Betty” Podcast and play the role of Ken.

Extended AI Summary

Detailed Summary for I Can Beach by Monica

00:04 Improvement Dave (David Kolmer) is excited to be on a podcast about the Barbie movie and is celebrating by throwing sand on his front yard to practice “beaching” like Ken.

David is a fan of the podcast “If You Ask Betty” and has listened to the Loki series multiple times.
He bought one ton of sand and plans to purchase another ton to create a backdrop on his front yard.
David’s wife is not impressed with the sand on the lawn, but he finds it fun and is practicing for his role as Ken in the podcast.

06:14 The speaker is working on fixing a pipe and plans to solder a new piece in place.

The sprinkler system is still in good condition.
The speaker purchased a piece of 1/2-inch pipe from Lowe’s.
They are using a husky cutter to cut out the old pipe.
The speaker plans to solder the new pipe in place using tinning flux and solder wire.

09:21 The video shows the process of using a torch to melt copper wire onto a snowboard, with some mishaps along the way.

The person lights up a torch to melt the copper wire onto the snowboard.
They accidentally melt the snowboard in the process.
They continue to apply the wire to the copper until it starts to discolor.
They notice steam coming out, indicating a problem with water in the line.
Despite some mishaps, they managed to successfully apply the liquid metal onto the painting.

12:28 The artist is experimenting with melted metal on a painting.

The artist didn’t initially want melted metal on the painting but decided to try it.
Some parts of the painting have liquid metal splatter.
The artist cleans off the discoloration on the painting with a wet rag.

15:35 The speaker discusses a plumbing issue that caused potential damage to their painting, but they were able to fix it by soldering a new piece of metal into the line above it.

The shut-off valve for the water was failing, which could have caused damage to the painting.
The speaker soldered a new piece of metal into the line above the painting to fix the issue.
Some silver tinning came off the painting while applying gel medium, causing concern.

[END MONICA AI CONTENT]

Beach Photos

I can Beach. I bought a ton of sand but I still need to purchase the second ton of sand after it stops raining all the time. I am strong, but there is no reason to shovel sand when it is wet a second time. That gets heavy!

Soldering Copper Water Pipe Photos

Here is a photograph of the old gate valve that stopped working last winter (2023), I simply shut it off and opened the bleeder valve planning to fix it in the spring (2024 / Now).

Here are two shots of the final product with the ball valve I installed in the video.
(I learned I should work on my home improvement instructional video skills.)

Abstract Painting Photos

I have been trying for a while now to find a way to create “A Painting that Moves“. I am still unsure if I have gotten there, but I am getting closer. I have a history of painting abstract waterfalls on flat canvas, but now I am creating a support to drop the paint down where the paint spills as the waterfall. The paint would spill off the support onto the plastic liner so now I am crafting a support that has a 90-degree angle so the “Spilage” can be captured into the final piece.

The excess or runoff pool is quickly becoming my favorite part of these “gravity paintings.” I am spending more time making sure the pool below looks right and adding more color and texture to draw the observer’s eye to that aspect of the painting. These paintings are breaking the 4th wall in a way because they are working into the 3rd dimension and that is exciting to me.

Front View

Top View

These paintings hang “Sideways”, if you want to see more about that I have a video on that here.

I have found an artistic outlet through painting for years now. I really started painting a lot in 2005, when I lived in Lampang Thailand, and broke my foot. I had nothing to do and was not able to get around very well, so I used painting to pass the time and perhaps it aided me in the healing process.

I don’t have a very strong online art presence, but I do have an Etsy shop and a Facebook Page.

KOLMER (FB)

dkolmer.etsy.com

“The reason to make art is to innovate and self-express, show something new, share what’s inside, and communicate your singular perspective.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Building My Sound Booth

Sound Advice

Improvement is something that always sounds good up front. The concept is wonderful, you will end up with something better than what you started with…
Who wouldn’t want something better than what they already have?

The flip side is that nothing worth obtaining is easy to come by.
Value is determined by the scarcity of a resource or the difficulty of learning. Improvement without real work does not add real value.

This post started with a simple video I created about fixing an issue I was having with my new Scarlet 4i4 audio interface recording into only one ear, (which is still how the post ends.)

Basement Office

As I told this story it caused me to work backward into describing all the work I did to build the sound booth I put in my basement. So, to integrate the process I took my time and told more of the story. This increased the quality of this post and I hope it adds more value to the reader. The pictures of me building my sound booth included the work on the bathroom adjacent to the home office/sound booth/guest room, so I included that work because it is part of the same story.

As I worked backward from making iterations on my sound stage I realized I hadn’t shared all the work I did on that room to get it where it is today. So I developed this second video as a retro-montage. I cover the steps in this video in more detail in the rest of the Blog post below.

This video covers cutting cement with gas saws, adding an egress window, leveling the floor, adding a jetted tub, and finishing the project. Content on sound-proofing is below.

Adding Value

When I put in the muted office space in my basement I did three things:

I added an egress window.
I “soundproofed” the walls with Mineral Wool & decoupling pads.
Hung a suspended ceiling.

Egress Window

I could have saved some time hiring someone else to put in an egress window but I saved a lot of money leveraging the knowledge, skill, and power of my dad, Mike Kolmer, and my friend (and CPA) Jon Carns.

This is what we had when we started:

I rented a gas-powered circular saw with a massive diamond-crusted blade and made cuts from inside and outside. Unfortunately, the cuts didn’t allow the block to fall outward so we had to knock it out with sledgehammers. Below is what we did ending with the updated egress window.

Why Add an Egress Window?

There are many benefits to adding an egress window into a basement, they are beauty, safety, and, income.

Beauty

It is very nice to have a big window in a basement room because it lets plenty of natural light into the room and makes it feel much less like a basement.

Safety

There is also the safety concern of a fire where people could escape from the window if there was a fire.

Income

This is related to the law around listing a room as a bedroom when renting or selling the property. If you have an egress window that meets local code requirements (a certain height from the floor, a big enough opening to crawl out of, and a certain size based on the size of the room,) then you can call it a bedroom! That will raise the monthly rent you can charge and or the selling price of the property.

What I learned…

…is that if I do this again I will pay more for a cement saw with a mount that cuts at a perfect 90-degree angle. They also have lasers on them, so I would also require that it has lasers, not because that is very important but because it is amazing.

Level the Playing Ground

After putting in the window I leveled the floor with some self-leveling cement. The first step is to paint down some primer rated for self-leveling cement. (Left below) Then mix the cement. (Center below) Lastly, pour and spread with a board. (Right, below)

Words cannot express how satisfying it was to pour very liquid cement
on the floor of my basement and strike it out to level the floor.

After the Egress window was in and I felt better about the dip in the floor, I hung some 10 mil sheet plastic as a moisture barrier with “liquid nails” industrial caulk.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kolmer David (@kolmer5)

Instagram post of my progress

The next step was to put up some stud walls with pine 2″X4″ lumber. I used pressure-treated lumber on the bottom board because those hold up to moisture better than the cheaper untreated boards I used for the studs and the top plate.

Sound-Proofed the Room

So, I am using the term sound-proofed lightly here. I merely dampened the sound entering and reverberating within the room. If I had “soundproofed” my office that would have cost several tens of thousands of dollars, but I will say that my office is quiet and mute, and there are still things I could do to reduce the noise floor of the space.

Rockwool Insulation and Wool Pads

I also filled the walls and ceiling with Rockwool insulation. This fiber made from minerals adds additional sound absorption.

If you look closely at the pictures on the right, above, I also added wool strips between the gypsum drywall sheets and the studs in the whole room, and across the hall on the wall in front of the HVAC. All this was done to make the room mute and dampen sounds from outside.

There are definitely more complicated and much more expensive ways to decouple the drywall from the wooden stud, however, these wool pads worked and I purchased them at a clearance price at Menards. Whenever I upgrade a house I always look for the option with a good value. It’s not the fanciest system, but it did the job well and cost me almost nothing to implement.

Then, after hanging the drywall over the studs we hung a suspended ceiling. Luckily my (then) 5-year-old son had experience with this. He had also wired a few houses by then, which was helpful.

Yes, I am joking, this was his first experience hanging suspended ceilings and wiring LED light fixtures, but it’s never too early to learn how to build sweat equity in real estate, especially in an owner-occupied property!

That brings us up to 2014, and a lot has happened in the room where I am currently sitting, writing this blog post. For starters, I work from home in this room.

Jetted Tub

We installed a jetted tub! So, this has nothing to do with building my sound booth, but the work happened alongside the sound booth work, so it ended up in the retro montage video I opened this post with. This addition was less substantial overall but it is something that I use all the time to unwind and relax.

I have used this tub to take hot Epsom Salt baths, but it has also come in handy for ice water baths for muscle recovery, and a fun bath for the kids!

How I am Improving My Sound Booth Today

Sound in One Ear Using Camo Studio Pro with Focusrite Scarlet 4i4

in the original Video, I shot for this post, I looked further into a complication with my sound setup. It took me quite a bit of time to solve this issue. I wasn’t sure which sound setting was causing my audio to record into only the left channel.

At first, I thought this issue was with the Focusrite Scarlet 4i4 digital sound input. So I was looking at the audio settings in the app interface for that device, and they were not fixing the issue. in the end, I discovered a setting in the Camo Studio application (which I’m using to implement my cell phone as an HD camera), that caused the single audio channel in the final recording.

In this video, you can see me explaining this issue in detail, and I start with how I solved this issue, then I include all of the tests I ran while I was trying to understand why I was having this error. I ended the video with a humorous project I completed for work where I had to quickly put together a video that had sound in only one channel. At the end of this video, the movement of my lips is not synced with the sound, and it is disorienting. Unfortunately, this video was already published to the members of our organization before I realized I had made this error. this clarifies why it was so vital for me to solve this opportunity. #CamoStudioPro #FocusriteScarlet4i4 #focusritescarlett #Focusrite #Scarlet4i4 #Camostudio

Conclusion

This year I am focused on integrating the separate parts of my life. I have many interests and often do not have enough time to allocate to all of them adequately. Integration has become about clearly identifying the things I like to do and spending more time on them, so I can do them well. My interests in sound design, video, learning content, real estate, art, landscaping, and spending time with my family have all contributed to the success of this sound stage that I have built. There will always be ways to make it even quieter and find better ways to increase the quality of my videos. I must not let the idea of those things that I still plan to do demotivate or distract me from things I am doing today.

Close the Loop

There are loops all around us. Cycles that gain power when they are closed loops. All of these loops are connected to other loops and if a loop is changed it has downstream effects. Life itself depends on these loops, and our lives are enriched when we identify these loops and make efforts to close them. A sentence that is only started does not carry a message, but a completed sentence can effectively transfer a thought from my brain into your brain.

Seeds and Butterfly Lifecycles

My mom started a hobby a long time ago of planting the milkweed plant that attracts Monarch butterflies. Every year she purchased more plants and planted them on the path in the backyard. After we had children, I started collecting the seeds of these plants. When I planted these seeds, I completed a loop and now have an endless supply of seeds that attract Monarch butterflies.

In turn, these plants support the procreation of Monarch butterflies and increase the number of these amazing creatures on our planet. This in turn increases the number of pollinating insects on our planet, which I should not have to tell you is a good thing.

Moving Dirt in the Real Universe

This will be like MINECRAFT but in the real world

Minecraft Prelude

My son loves Minecraft, just like most 8-year-olds in 2024. I had heard about the game but didn’t understand how great it was until I went back to school to study Instructional Design. The power of Minecraft is that no matter what mode you are in, be it creative or survival, the game is based on you creating items from raw materials.

The Threat of Death Creates a Loop

Creative mode is much more open and the options are endless, but as my son has shared with me, survival mode is more challenging and proves you know how to play the game. You can’t die in creative mode, but in survival mode, you can.

When your character dies and is born again in a game you have closed a loop. Without that loop, the game is less interesting and less challenging, and as my son explained playing in creative is less impressive. It is more impressive to see a player do something amazing in survival mode because it displays that they really know how to play the game.

Minecraft as More than a Game

Now, for the uninitiated who do not live around children or who have never entered the Minecraft world, I want to open this up a bit. Yes, Minecraft is a video game that can be played alone or socially online. Yes, you can play in survival mode where you have to gather all of your resources and can be killed by “mobs” (that is what you call enemies in the Minecraft Universe).

Here is the part you might not be aware of. The new generation watches others play Minecraft on YouTube more than they play the game themselves. My 5-year-old and 8-year-old know more about Minecraft than I knew about anything when I was that age. Creators are now using Modified versions of Minecraft to create Television Shows. When my daughter was 4 years old she said, “I like that show (Mikey and JJ), I like watching that more than Disney.” This was completely unprompted and it really caught my attention. I mean, better than Disney? really?

Yes, because it is interactive. The players in this show are doing things that the audience can do because the audience is made up of users! Instead of watching your older sister play the game, you can curate playlists on YouTube of your favorite designer crafting things that interest you.

The Metaverse Has Arrived

Many people think that the Metaverse is a string theory abstraction that only high-level mathematicians believe in. If you are thinking of the Metaverse proposed by comic books and action movies then those people are maybe right, possibly. There is, however, another way to perceive the metaverse, a way where it definitely exits, and that is the worlds that we create in online games. We often reserve statements about the metaverse to augmented reality (think Pokemon Go) or even virtual reality (see image below), but on-screen games can be included as well because they are worlds rendered in a virtual “3D” space.

Bust of Apollo equipped with VR headset. Metaverse concept with copy space. 3D rendering

The network of online worlds created by the Minecraft community alone is nearly unimaginable, and that is just on the Minecraft platform. (I tried looking this up but only found that a block in Minecraft is equivalent to a meter, so if you find this let me know!) As interesting as the metaverse is, it is not a place in the real world, and I do not want my kids to live in a mental space where all that they know and love is based on imaginary objects. When you close a loop in the metaverse it does not connect to a loop in the real world. This imaginary universe of unbridled creation and design is beautiful, and part of me wishes I had something like that instead of the locked-down side scrollers of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). There is another part of me that is very glad I did not grow up in the age of Meta-connection.

Pre-Metaverse Games

SAO PAULO, SAO PAULO – BRAZIL – AUGUST 13, 2023: Old NES Nintendo video game, with two-button control Nintendo Entertainment System 1985, 80’s, joystick gamepad console Black Studio Background

I had Super Mario Bros., Metroid, and Megaman, and these were fun games, and they were hard games. It was their difficulty that made them compelling. When you died you didn’t just lose items and go back to the building, you had to start the game over. There was no save and this made the gaming experience different. Indeed, they were not connected to the internet so the term Metaverse might not apply to them.

What makes Minecraft compelling is not as much of the difficulty but the novelty of creation, the beauty of the design, and the sublime ways we can interact with these worlds almost seamlessly. I want my children to benefit from these mind-enhancing experiences, but I also want them to have a solid grasp of the real world. So, when I had a hands-on project in the back yard I told my son, “This will be like Minecraft, but in the real world.”

One way of looking at what I did here is that I was closing the loop. I connected the design ideas of Minecraft with playing with dirt in the backyard. They are very different in many ways, but one could argue that they are more similar than different. Closing the loop is about integrating all the aspects of our lives and effectively transferring skills from one part of ourselves to another. Digging in real dirt has different challenges than digging in the Minecraft Metaverse. You can’t dig straight down to solid bedrock in several minutes no matter what your shovel is made of. (Not even an enchanted diamond shovel will help you in the real world.)

The Moment I first Uttered “Close the Loop”

I was still digging around in the backyard, and my kids had completely lost interest because somehow digging real dirt is more difficult and less rewarding in terms of instant gratification than in Minecraft.

My first idea was to dig out the area of our backyard in the far back. We have a rough makeshift firepit that I threw together with blocks that I found digging around our various beds and gardens of our 1-acre lot. My plan was originally to dig out a half-circle from the berm right next to the fire pit so that people could effectively sit on all sides of the pit. (I soon realized that this plan would not work because I had the current make-shift pit on an easement and I don’t want a permanent firepit in a space where the sewer company may dig, but that is a story for another post.)

Where to Throw the Extra Dirt?

The original question was where should I place the dirt I have removed? The answer was to place the dirt on another part of the berm that stretches across the back property line of our yard to make a ramp that we could ride bikes on. This idea of taking dirt from one project and placing it in a way that benefits another project was to me “CLOSING THE LOOP”. Instead of placing the dirt where it did not benefit another project I was benefiting two projects with minimal additional work.

Fires of Wood

The fact that this project is for a fire pit offers another example of closing the loop. We purchased the house right next door to my parents, so between the two families, we have roughly 2 acres of land, with a LOT of trees. So there is a limited supply of good hardwood for our indoor fireplaces, but an almost endless supply of wood to burn.

This is why I cobbled together this rough fire pit, to burn off the extra wood. We could pay someone to haul away the wood, but instead, we burn the wood off ourselves. This gives us a nice place to sit in the backyard (and pretend we are camping), but it also gives us free fertilizer for the yard.

The ashes from the fire, also called “pot ash”, are very rich in phosphorus, which is a vital nutrient for the roots of all plants. So keeping the wood, burning it, and laying it in my yard completes that cycle, it closes the loop.

Carpe Diem Dicey Bones

The events of this post happened at the end of October of 2023. During that Halloween season, I went to the pop-up Halloween Spirit store and bought a lifesize skeleton to hang on the spiderweb in our front yard. I named this plastic replica “Dicey Bones”. The skeleton is a universal symbol of death.

This was October when I was gearing up for No Shave November.

Death is our final destination and death is the final loop we will close in our lives. We can choose to dwell on the negative aspects of our mortal existence, we can focus on how our days are numbered. Or we can celebrate the days we still have. We can seize the day, suck the sweet marrow out of life and live our lives to the fullest. To do that this year I am focusing on integration, I am closing as many loops as I can to integrate all of my selves into a single unified drive forward. As the Japanese say “Zen Roku Wosusogu” or Focus your energies. Less I fall victim to a non-eventful life. To laying on my death bead and thinking “I would feel content if I would have…”

Conclusion

So, to summarize, this post explores the concept of “closing loops” in various aspects of life, and how the closed loops benefit from other closed loops. Trying new things is great, but closing the loop is about completing tasks that you have already started. By recognizing and completing these loops, we enrich our lives and create meaningful connections. Through examples like planting milkweed to support butterflies, playing and integrating Minecraft concepts to enhance our understanding of design thinking, and repurposing dirt efficiently for simultaneous backyard projects, I have attempted to shed light on the interconnectedness of our actions and downstream effects. Embracing the concept of closing loops becomes a way to celebrate life, recall the importance of seizing the day, and integrate all aspects of ourselves.

Being Integrated

I am choosing a word for each year and this is my post for 2024.

The ending of 2022 was about Honesty, mostly with myself but also with other people.

Then 2023 was about Consistency. I spent the year building up the consistency in my visual brand, teaching myself to model in 3D, and posting what I learned while I learned it in a 30-day 3D Model Challenge. In August I consistently posted for St. Jude charity with my Push-Ups for St. Jude where I did 50 pushups a day and they were not always pretty, but I posted all the videos anyway and raised over $537 US. Then in September, I went cycling as frequently as I could and posted as many videos as I could for my Consistently Cycling More often in September 2023 series. I received feedback from my English-speaking friends from the UK that biking is not used for the act of cycling in proper English so as to not confuse my English friends and colleagues I changed the title of those halfway through, so the early ones have “Biking” in the title. That was not very consistent of me!

Sprinkled around the year I posted about my health journey and even summarized the whole thing in my final post of 2023 Consistently Well.

Throughout the year I learned a lot about consistency. About what it meant to post to my blog consistently. How to consistently show up for my kids and my family. The main thing I learned was that consistency was less about a 30-day challenge, or posting every day on a blog. Consistency was about finding my true self and being that authentic person all the time. It is funny how it just tied back to my first annual word of honesty in that way.

And at the end of 2024, I knew I wanted a word about being complete… Something about completing things, Completing the cycle, or Closing the Loop. However, the word complete itself implies too much desire to finish a specific task. It implied so much around the idea that things are not just complete the way they are, that I am not complete as I am. That is not where I wanted to take this discussion. So, later I came up with the word connection or connected and I liked that word. That is until I remembered we are building an intranet at work and probably calling it Connect or Connections, so I wondered if my subconscious had just picked up that language from that project, and wanted this project to be separate from that. …So, it was New Year’s Eve and I still didn’t have a word I liked.

Then on New Year’s Day, I did some YouTube Yoga with my wife. We like to practice 30-day Yoga challenges with Yoga with Yoga With Adriene. While doing yoga Adriene called out the word of being integrated. Having the movement, the breath, and the mind all integrated, and at once I knew that was my word for 2024.

May 2024 be my year of integration.

Integrated

Improving my process

Improving the equipment I use

Connecting with my family, friends, and colleagues on a deeper and more meaningful level

Connected

Connect with my craft, my interests, and my Dad by creating learning content around real estate and not only why you should get involved in it, but how you can get started.

Complete

Complete posts I started on in 2023 that I wasn’t ready to create. Posts that belonged in the year of integration, not the year of consistency. Posts about the process, about art, about creation.

Complete art:

“If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

It is NOT OK to Not Be OK, Unless…

A lot of times you’ll go out and you’ll see someone with a bag or a shirt that says, “It’s OK to not be OK. “I really like those shirts and I think that they’re great and I could understand how some people would maybe see them and say “What the hell does that even mean?” or “Hey why don’t you go F&$@ yourself!?” And I feel those are pretty reasonable responses to these types of T-shirts.

Is This Half Baked?

I would say that maybe they deserve another phrase or sentence, That would be: It’s OK to not be OK as long as you say, you’re sorry if you flip your top and lose your marbles. That’s what we call not being in control of your emotions. That’s what children do… Period, but, shoot I did that this morning and I’m 43 years old. I yelled at my kids because I got emotionally involved and I felt overwhelmed and I just lashed out and yelled. I lost my shit and I yelled at my adorable 4-year-old and 8-year-old.

Me the supposed “calm” dad. The same dad who promised after he started working out and meditating that he would never yell again. We celebrated that moment, my children and I. We jumped up and down in joy that I was committing to making the promise of not yelling again… but that promise is completely empty if this story ended when I lost control of my emotions, flipped my lid, and yelled at my children.

The Story Did Not End There, Nor Should it Ever

You better be damn sure that not 30 minutes later, I said I was sorry, I gave my kids a hug and I took a deep breath, then we made up and everything was cool. We were back to normal, talking about cheese-heads and joking about stuffed foxes eating flowers.

If I hadn’t admitted that I was wrong, then my children would still be in a state of shock, they would be unhappy. As Gabor Maté MD, instructs us, the moment a child does not feel safe in coming to speak with us, we are building a separation from them, and they are living in a state of trauma.

Two children quietly look outside as a flock of black birds fly away.

When I child has been yelled at they feel like they are not living up to whatever they are meant to be. When we: yell at them, or ignore them so we can look at our phone, when we insist that they eat a food they dislike. When we force them to do something that we want them to do (when it really doesn’t matter either way or safety is not an issue…) When we control them just because it feels better to be in control, we are lowering their self-worth. We are smothering their creativity.

We are taking away from their confidence that they are good enough. This is not a victimless crime; this will come back to haunt them. This will return as an addiction or a compulsory action they will not like later in their life. They will find a way to fill the void we created when we communicated that, “They are not good enough.”

Just Say The Words, Say Them Soon

The sooner I said, “I’m sorry that I yelled” the sooner we could start to recover from the disorientation and the painful ping of craziness from Daddy having a momentary inability to control his emotions. It doesn’t matter that you lost your shit as long as you pause (like stop everything) and say you’re sorry. It isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card…

AdobeStock_408427987_Editorial_Use_Only

…but if you really mean it, and then explain where you are and why you lost control then you have a moment of humility and generate yourself a second chance. It still matters that you let your emotions get the best of you, but if you own it, then you can start building emotional credit again.

Conclusion

If you FAIIL to acknowledge the moment that “You were NOT OK”, then you start building a rift. The moment you don’t own that “You were NOT OK” then it is no longer “OK to not be OK.”

Special thanks to Kyle Stockman for being a good accountability partner, for keeping me thinking, for calling me a guru that one time, and for giving me the idea of adding a hook to my featured image. Let’s get some sushi soon, Kyle… like tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

David Kolmer is an Instructional Designer who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and a Master of Science in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. Sometimes he shaves his beard and other times he does not. Usually he does not yell at his children and other times he does yell at them, but when he does you better be damn sure he owns that shit and says he is sorry.

linkedin.com/in/kolmer

Nothing For Her Birthday 🍰

If you have seen any of my November posts you might have heard me say that I was consistently not shaving my beard for November. It was No-Shave-November over here and my wife and my daughter were none too impressed. My daughter pretended to think it was cool but my wife was very open about how it made me look old and she thought it was not lovely.

This post should have come out at the beginning of December but I spent more time than I had anticipated on my last post: Long Rich Life of Novelty.

Dave at Target to buy minty beard balm with his adorables

Why did I have a beard for November? Well, I am not going to lie, I like having a beard. However, the movement is about more than just doing what you like. I have a good reason to shave my beard, my wife hates it. No Shave November is actually a movement that recognizes men’s health. It is a statement to open the door for discussions around types of man-specific cancer and mental health. When a person struggles with their health they often lose some or even all of their hair. No shave November is an opportunity to grow out the hair, appreciate that you have health, and be thankful that you are healthy.

A Simple Birthday Present

Luckily, my wife’s birthday was at the end of November, so I could shave the beard just in time for her birthday present. Unfortunately, for my wife, I still had the beard for our wedding anniversary but I think we look distinguished.

Dave and his wife, Jeab at the Ritz Carlton St. Louis

Dave and his wife, Jeab at Oceano Bistro, Clayton, MO

I Had Options

I do not have any pictures of after me shaving, to see that you have to watch the video of me shaving my face for my wife’s birthday.

In this video, my son documents my act of shaving my face

I did have options, but when I was searching around on the internet for beard knowledge I found pictures of other options I had. I found these images that I probably do not have the rights to use on this blog, but they are also probably a FaceBook post from an Instagram post from Reddit, so they have gotten around at this point.

Oakland A’s starter Mike Fiers

Some dude who is not famous like
Oakland A’s starter Mike Fiers

I don’t know what you call that type of curly “G” shave but I got some flac when I posted it on my social media. Then there is this guy who is all over the internet with his spiral beard but I can’t seem to find his name

Spiral Beard

OK I Lied, I Do Have a Nice Shot of Clean-Shaven Dave

We were fortunate to go to the Missouri Botanical Garden Light Glow with our good friends, the Prechtels, this year! Yes, I have friends. What? Why are you looking at me surprised like that?

You see!? Real friends, I have. I didn’t even pay them to hang out with me.
…Well, I bought the tickets but they paid me back on VENMO right away.

In conclusion, I feel that there was some friction around growing a beard for health awareness in men, but nothing that would deter me from doing the same thing next November 2024!

Thanks for reading!

David Kolmer is an Instructional Designer who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and a Master of Science in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. Sometimes he shaves his beard and other times he does not. When he chooses to not shave his beard he always insists on keeping his beard well trimmed and adds minty beard balm from Target that his daughter says smells very good.

linkedin.com/in/kolmer

Thanks to my Friends at TechSmith

In this video, I highlight the progression from using my computer’s built-in web camera and microphone to using suggestions from connections at TechSmith (Andy Owen and Matthew Pierce) to using my iPhone 12 mini as a camera via the free version of Camo Studio.

V2 of this video.

Camo Studio is Great

I am impressed that I can use Camo Studio by downloading respective apps on my Windows PC and Mac iPhone 12 mini. The free version is limited but really does more than I expected. The only limitation I see is that I can only record in 720p and not 1080p resolution. While working on this post to make sure my thumbnail was the right ratio I received information from TechSmith and there was Andy Owen again. So, thank you two times Andy Owen!

He looks surprised that he is being so helpful. Don’t be surprised Andy Owen, you are always helpful, and so are you Matt Pierce, you guys rock.)

Honestly, it might’ve just been another message for you, another part of your day, but it meant the world to me. It helped me move forward.

Microphone Improvements

I also updated my process by using the Microphone I obtained when I purchased the Comica CVM-VM10-K. In the video, I call this microphone a powered condenser microphone, but I don’t think it actually is. The microphone is simple a High-quality cardioid microphone. I am questioning if this really improved the sound quality of what My phone already has, but at least the mic is pointed at my face!

More on Mics

The MXL-990 condenser microphones

I also owe a big thank you to my friends, Caleb Willitz, who is a well-known audio recorder in the Chicago area. He has given me a measurable amounts of advice on how to build a better sound booth. Also, my very good friend Ted Schaefer has confirmed much of Caleb‘s advice, and then also recommended a pair of infamous condenser mics, that are known for high-quality at a reasonable cost.

I have purchased 2 phantom-powered condenser microphones but do not have my Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 compact audio studio hub, so more to come on my sound clarity! Not to mention my lighting, which I do mention in this video. Special thanks to my friends at Articulate for the free light, I won’t stop using it, but plan to add more lights.

Music

Polo & Pan – Ani Kuni (CC)

John_Kensy_Music – Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

Grateful to be Alive

I want to share that I have lived a full life. I have sucked the sweet marrow out of life and lived life to the fullest. I should have died multiple times but I did not die, and for that I am thankful. I love that I am alive.

Thanksgiving

This is a big holiday in the United States. It had never been my favorite. The staples are glutinous action and binging American football. Oh, and we pretend that we did not euthanize the native Americans. These are not things I hold close to my heart. Give me Halloween and Christmas all day long, but I can leave Thanksgiving at the dinner table.

When the Puritans and the first white people landed in the American nation we had basically no plan. I say “we” here because I am German/Hungarian and therefore caucasian, but I do not adhere to any of the Puritan doctrines. (Idealistic Christian beliefs that included spreading hate and fear of those who who ar not white and heterosexual.)

The first white people in the Americas were lost and afraid. They probably ate corn and some deer with the Native Americans in a desperate attempt to stay alive. This has evolved into a gluttonous feast around pumpkin pie, sugared cranberry, and Turkey. I mean, Turkey is a superfood so I am totally on board with that part, regardless of the historical inaccuracy.

In fact, we had such a poor plan that the first white British colony resorted to cannibalism just to survive. and then there is the fact that we wiped most of the Native Americans off the face of the earth. Not no real reason to celebrate in my book. In spite of all of this, I am still happy and I am still grateful.

If you disagree you should listen to this masterpiece by Avery Trufelman

https://archive.curbed.com/2019/5/30/18644531/nice-try-curbed-podcast-jamestown

I am Grateful because IT IS THE WAY

Thankfulness is a buzzword. Let’s just call it what it is. At this point, it is a painful offshoot of the frenzy of consumism by the most successful capitalist society of all time. But the US needs to watch out because China is closing in on us for such a prize.

That is not what I mean in this post. I am talking about being grateful for the benefits of gratitude. Now there is plenty of research on how this act of being thankful decreases the stress hormone cortisol, and I am an avid listener of the 10% Happier Podcast, but I am going to fall back on Headspace in my content curation here because Headspace is the BOMB.com. If you are not using Headspace then where have you been!? You need to get on that, BOSS!

What is one thing you are thankful for today!? Be mindful of being thankful for what is good. The delight will overwhelm you and the fact that we have systematically disenfranchised the women and people of colour in this world will start to matter less. Or at least, they will not overwhelm you with guilt as they tend to do for me on this dreadful holiday of denial of history.

Move Forward

I got dark here. I got a bit too real for some. If this is too real you need to grow a pair (testicles or ovaries, however, you identify.) If you live a life of privilege you need to own that shit and live up to it. You need to capitalize on that shit so that you can empower those who have been disenfranchised by the very systems that empower you.

“When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect towards others.”
The Dalai Lama

If You Ask Barbie:

What we can learn about learning from the Barbie Movie.

Writing prompt courtesy of Betty Dannewitz.

Pink Barbie logo on the big TV screen with neon colorful background on wall. Dark room in home with TV screen playing Barbie trailer or movie. Realistic vector illustration. NY, NY-USA – July 9 2023 – Adobe Stock

Accessibility

The Barbie movie is accessible to all viewers. It is both a Hollywood eye-candy musical and a deep tragic world art film at the same time. It lives in both worlds simultaneously. In the same way, good training is accessible to all learners and offers differentiated content for both advanced and novice learners.

Accessibility is a bit of a buzzword in the Training and Development industry right now, but it is something we should have been talking about from the beginning and it is not something that will go away. Humans are all very unique and a one-size-fits-all was never the right choice and moving away from that approach has countless benefits.

The real way to do Accessibility is before design or development starts. Accessibility is not only adding a PDF transcript to be available with a video, it is about designing learning content to be easily consumed by a variety of learners right from the beginning. If you develop content that works for the visually and hearing impaired using simple language that we all can understand then it benefits us all. The content is easier to understand and we have more than one way to get the information into our psyche. Not only does this decrease concerns around Cognitive Load and Cognitive Overload but also offers the benefits of content repetition by consuming the content in multiple modalities.

Change is Difficult

Classic Barbie (Margot Robbie) slowly develops as a character and realizes her worldview is a facade. She is terrified and must learn that it is OK to feel not OK. The movie does not go out of its way to make Barbie look great. At the end of the day what we get is an honest portrayal of not only how children view the Barbie world but also how that can cause problems as we mature and enter the real world. Learning is hard. In fact, learning can hurt. It is not fun to admit you don’t know something. It is uncomfortable to change but in the end, it is usually best.

Buenos Aires, Argentina; 08-03-2023: Barbie the movie. Thematic horizontal background of a woman’s hands holding a cell phone that represents the success and fury for the Barbie movie. -Adobe Stock

Think back to a time when you failed at something. Think about a time when you didn’t make the grade. When you thought you had it all figured out and then when you stepped up you didn’t know what to do next. Maybe it was with a stranger on a bus where you missed the beat and offended them. Maybe it was with your significant other. Maybe it was with your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. Maybe it was at work. Maybe it was something you tried to patch up with your children and failed. We have all been there, and if you haven’t been there then you are telling yourself lies.

“To err is human; to forgive, divine,” is the famous phrase from An Essay on Criticism BY ALEXANDER POPE. We all make mistakes babe, It’s OK. Forgive yourself and find a way to move onto a better path. This is how we take a step closer to clarity, to actually understanding the universe.

Own the Fail, Gain Credibility

The Barbie movie has a high E.Q. (Emotional Quotient.) The film is transparent as well as aware of its own brand. (Not unlike The LEGO Movie (2014).) These new “META” or self-aware type of brand-based movies embrace the failures of their past.

Tambov, Russian Federation – February 24, 2019 Lego Hard Hat Emmet and Lucy minifigures against Apocalypseburg background. The Lego Movie 2. – Adobe Stock

The pregnant Midge, Allan the “non-Ken”, the absolute pain of stepping on a LEGO block with bare feet; the potential sexist views of past products are not swept under the rug and ignored, they are discussed and explored. The fact that Barbie has not cured sexism and defeated the patriarchy is a core theme of the film. In the same way, we build credibility with our learners by owning our mistakes. Talking about misinformation we have provided our class in the name of clearly communicating the truth.

I trained people at a call center for a few years. I would train night classes of 30 to 40 people at a time for 3-week training cohorts plus a week of hands-on application. That is 120 hours of class time per class for a month. I was training people on the credit industry and how to use a proprietary data entry platform that was designed and developed by our employer.

Laws change, banks change their terms, and computer programs get updated. I had to live in a constant state of acceptance if I wanted my learners to trust me. I had to say things like, “Oh, thank you for clarifying that.” and “That is not how that worked last month.” Stay in the flow, and keep things real, people like that. If you are rigid in your knowledge and do not accept change easily people will learn that you recall things incorrectly because you can not update your perspective.

Cali, Colombia – June 6, 2023: “Barbie” movie on TV screen behind a bowl of popcorn and a remote control.
– Adobe Stock

This is all about modeling our instruction as a mirror against reality. When Barbie (and in fact Mattel) own their mistakes transparently, they are creating a platform that transcends where we were, where we are, and generates a vision or maybe even inspires us to dream of where we could be… A world of true equity.

Am I Kenough to Change You?

Improvement Dave dressed as Ken while his daughter watches him pretend he can wail on guitar. – Dave’s iPhone Mini

The fact that the movie was banned in Kuwait and Lebanon for promoting feminism shows that we have some room to grow as a species.

South Korea ranks last in gender equality among OECD countries. Even the president himself, Yoon Suk Yeol, defined feminism as a movement “that wants to criminalize men”.

Just some ideas, they might not be Kenough to change your worldview if you disagree.

The LEGO movie did not contain the word “LEGO.”

We Traveled to Savannah for Work!

Back in September of 2023, I took a lot of videos about all the fun I was having on a work trip. It took me a while to get to a point where I wanted to work through that video footage and share it. In fact, I grew a beard for no shave in November and have since shaved it off for my wife’s birthday. So here we are a whole beard later.

Are work trips always fun, well, not really, especially if you have to travel all the time for work. I have done that and after a few months, it gets old. However, there is a secret weapon that I plan to explore further and it threatens to be a theme for me moving forward. That concept is the one of Novelty. Specifically how novelty can increase your lifespan, or at least your perception of your lifespan, which to be fair is the same thing… more on that later, but for now, let’s talk about how amazing this short work trip was. I flew out to Savanna with a layover in Nashville on Southwest Airlines on a Wednesday morning. That night we had dinner with the whole team and on Thursday we had our big meeting. I could have flown home on Thursday but I snuck in a bit more novelty by hanging around Thursday night and flying home Friday morning.

I do not want to downplay the Pirate Nature of this work trip. So look out for the pirate themes… Not sure how ya could miss it ya
SWAB! offen’ ya goes ta swab Vee starbird bow. Make Haste! A.I. review shared that I jump around aimlessly from topic to topic here and do not have a point. How else should a good Pirate behave?

AdobeStock_467304940

Savannah Was Great

So, off to a good start on this business trip. We were in a fun town. It’s not easy to have such a novel experience when you are stuck in the belly button of Newark.
Luckily the video below starts at the Savannah airport and quickly progresses a restaurant called The Pirate’s House – ARGGHHH.

Travel for Work or Pleasure?

…

Yes.

Well, why can’t it be both? With a bit of intentional effort, it usually can.

Although the reason for this trip was to capture feedback from our talented SMEs on the EPEC training content provided by NAED, the footage I captured had very little to do with that process. This is in part because I simply didn’t think to capture that video of us working, but also because we were discussing learning content that is developed for sale by the National Association of Electrical Distributors, so I didn’t feel comfortable doing so.

In hindsight (Which is normally in 20/20 they say) I should have captured more video of us actually working on the training project itself. It is not exactly exciting, (unless you are a learning nerd like I am or an electrical products nerd like our SMEs,) but it is nice to see how passionate our reviewers are about being factual and transparent in presenting the landscape of the electrical distribution market. Moving forward I think our Marketing team would enjoy having that sort of content on hand, so I might make an effort to start capturing it.

What We Did While Not Working

Now I have only been on two of these trips, but from what I gather we normally find time outside of working hours to just walk around. This time we were tipped off by one of our talented SMEs that there was a Prohibition Museum within walking distance of our hotel. So we definitely hit that up, and that is definitely represented in the video above. My leader, Kitty, found a fantastic restaurant to dine at called The Pirate’s House – ARGGHHH. (I would like to point out that this “ARGGHHH” was not added by me but by the top Google result for the restaurant’s home page. So, yeah, that says a lot about how cool this restaurant is.

What Does Adjacent Really Mean?

Also, while wandering around we ended up in the Adjacent hotel lobby …or the Hotel lobby that was adjacent to ours. Actually, I am not sure if it was adjacent or what would even make it adjacent, but I do like the word adjacent a lot. It makes me sound smart-ified.
That Marriot Hotel Lobby which was adjacent to our Boutique hotel lobby was filled with Geode Gemstones. I will say, that I did read some of the words found on signs in this location. This was done to make me look more smart-fied in front of my Boss, Kitty, pictured right. While doing this reading of words, I learned that most of these GEODES are the largest samples of such crystals in all of the globe. That is laden with novelty!

Picture of Improvement Dave (David Kolmer) and Kitty Lasinski, (Dave’s boss) in front of the largest of this type of Geode known to the human species in all of the known meta-verses.

Geodes are really cool and fun to look at. I definately did NOT touch them. … well, not all of them, I mean.
Improvment Dave

Geodes for Days!

So, when I exported these images from iCloud to my PC laptop running Windows, they exported as HEIC files. Normally they do not do that and I am still not sure why they did that this time. I have seen HEIC file format when I export original files from the Mac “Photos” app to my Mac computer, but I have never seen that working on my PC.

At any rate, when I loaded Mac format images into ADOBE Premiere RUSH to create the video they all imported inverted (or upside-down for the uninitiated.) Maybe, I was holding my phone upside-down when I took this mess of selfies and my phone auto-rotated them? I normally only see this file suffix for images I have edited…

Color me Confused!

…and in awe of this ginormous silver Dinosaur skeleton!

So, I say all this to explain, that there is a group of photos I opened as a batch in my Microsoft image viewer and attempted to export as a batch but the batch export didn’t work. I still had to export them one at a time to convert them to PNG files, but at least they were not inverted like in ADOBE for PC.

Now, I could have probably used the HEIC files on my V-log here, because WordPress and the internet are both awesome! …but let me tell you I have had more problems working with these HEIC files than I can share here. I can’t submit them on government web pages, and they never work on the apps for my kid’s school, and that is being done on my iPhone that created them. So, I tend to go out of the way to avoid using the HEIC file format. Yes, Apple, I said it, your format stinks! It smells of wet lettuce. I am sure it is great for all these groundbreaking early-adaptor reasons that I don’t know about. Like some layered spectral benefit that will most likely never benefit me. Mostly they just make me wish I didn’t have an iPhone, and that says A LOT, because I love my iPhone, but I am a simple man.

For example, this is the largest GEODE of this chemical format in the world and it looks like a certain part of the male human anatomy which I will leave unsaid and unwritten at this juncture! Heh! it doesn’t even fit in the shot!

So, either way, many of the exports that I opened as a batch had the tint all messed up, but those are actually kind of cool! so I will post those now to add a dramatic effect to how cool these GEODES were! …I guess the tip was broken off. Oh Well! It’s still the biggest! Does size matter? Not when you are the biggest!

Kind of reminds me of something. It’s on the tip of my lip…

There was a gigantic skull in the floor! (Grammarly wants me to say “on” the Floor. No, Grammarly, NO, bad A.I., it was IN the floor, under glass, lying on a bed of sand… and some rocks and shells and such.)