This blog is a zombie -- you can't kill it. But this isn't a zombie post.

I feel like a zombie right now, but that's because I've been getting up early every day, either to get ready for church, or to go running, because I'm excited for college football (#GoCougs), or because the kids are awake.  I've got a lot of little projects that I keep cycling through during my free time, this blog being one of them, so I keep track of what's going on with Slack.

Slack is a program (kids these days would call it an app, but I'm old enough to remember when Windows 3.1 was what there was) that is designed to consolidate messaging between members of a team, like at a company or business.  I've taken the features available on the free version and turned it into my own private version of Facebook. See my previous post.

I wanted to show you how I use Slack, and invite you to join our Slack if you're interested.  Right now, the Slack is really centered around the things that I think are important, but you can help make it even better.

First of all, you should know that you can create more than one Slack "site."  So, on the left-hand side, in the green oval, you'll see that I have 3 Slack sites that I'm a part of.  One of them is from work (we mostly use it to share YouTube videos with each other, so that we can do research and not miss out on the nonsense that happens in the office), one is a personal one for my writing projects (like this blog, the novel I'm working on, my atrophying podcast, and my social media presence), and the third is my "public" Slack, which I'm hoping to use as my mini-Facebook.

Inside the red circle are the main channels within the Slack.  A channel is like a page within Facebook.  Kind of.  They're more like chat rooms.  All channels have to be in all lowercase (this is a stupid limitation) and begin with a #.  #announcements is the main channel on the Slack.  Everyone who will ever join the Slack is automatically added to #announcements.  We use it for... well, announcements.  Things like announcing new channels, welcoming new people to the Slack, explaining rules that are particular to our Slack, reporting on the progress of my other projects, and meta discussions about the Slack itself.

The other channels I have set up are mostly centered around discussion topics:

• #cfb is for college football, including the Top 25 ranking I do throughout the season (see my Twitter feed @gkthurston for more details).
• #photos is for sharing pictures that I don't want to be as public as they are on Twitter/FB.
• #pkmngo is for talking about Pokemon Go, mostly posting updates about which Pokemon we've caught.
• #politics is for political discussions.
• #running is for updates about my running activities, and to help keep myself motivated to run.
• #scripturestudy is for sharing insights that you find while reading the scriptures.  It helps me me even more motivated to study the scriptures.
• #sports is for discussion of all sports, though right now I just have a bot adding college football scores as they happen.
• #random is for discussions that don't fit anywhere else, like sharing funny videos.

I also have a series of channels that are location based.  The idea behind these is that when group members travel, they can post in the channel belonging to that area, and the Slack members who live there can give them advice about places to see, things to do, where to eat, and even set up a meet.  I'm currently subscribed to all of the location channels, and I'm the only one that really uses them.  But it's a good way to remind people of where and when I'll be.

You'll see that a lot of these things aren't information I want to be available to the general public, which makes it hard to decide who to add to the Slack.  So far, the problem has been solved by a lack of interest from others.  But I think a good minimum standard is people that I've met in real life and had a significant interaction with.

The last thing I'll write about is keeping up with the Slack.  It's designed to be a messaging program.  It's not very effective if people don't check it often.  But with the low amount of posts, it's not very rewarding to check the Slack constantly.  The best solution is to download the app on your phone (available on both Android and Apple as far as I know) and let it notify you when things happen.

Anyway, if you want to join the Slack, you have to be invited.  And you have to contact me to send you an invite.

Welcome to Slack

I don't know how many of you have heard of Slack. It's a platform designed for teams to work together on projects. I found out about Slack because they help sponsor a podcast I listen to.  After about a month of hearing ads for it, I thought I would just check it out to see what it does.  I made an account and now I'm using it as my own little personal version of Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Reddit.

A few of examples of projects I've been working on via Slack:

1. Writing a novel. I'm currently at >5000 words and my goal is ~50,000 words before I'll be ready to edit, fine-tune, etc. Slack has been useful for organizing my thoughts, and my brother has left me valuable feedback on Slack too. It leaves the Google Doc clear of meta discussion clutter, focusing only on editorial suggestions and the story itself in Google.

2. Running goals. I've been using it to help me keep track of my run times and distances. It's really nice to have a space where I can post stuff like that, and I know that my wife will see it.  And it keeps me accountable to my inner circle of friends and family.

3. My new fantasy football pick 'em league. Slack makes it really easy to survey people, on their own time, as well hold discussions on different topics, like college football.

I think that my favorite part of having a Slack (I actually have two now) is that I can post the things I want, without worrying about what people might think.  There's no pressure to like anything, I don't have to add people I've met once as friends, and people are free to join or leave any channel or discussion they want.  In this way, it's a lot like Reddit, except that I can control who gets to enter.  I can keep out all the crass language and not have to deal with it.  So, maybe it helps me be a dictator of my own little world. 

Anyway, after testing out Slack for a few months, I think I'm ready to let more people into my own social media platform and join the discussion I'm currently having with myself.  If you want an invite, please send me a message, tweet @gkthurston, or otherwise get a hold of me.  Give me an email address and then check your spam folder, since the invites come directly from Slack (there isn't another way to do it) and might look spammy to your filter.

Ye Olde Podcasting

Like I mentioned, I thought I would try my hand at podcasting.  So, here it is!  Just remember that you were probably going to waste these 6 minutes on Facebook anyway.

Here's to hopin' that there ends up being an Episode 2!  Enjoy!

I tapped this post out on Internet.

Hello friends.  It's been a while.  And the Blogger app still sucks.  Wish someone would get around to fixing that.

I guess I'm just going to write and let you read what I write.  No thinking, just writing.  Or "typing" in this case.  What do you call the way people input words on their phone? Maybe tapping is a more appropriate word. My name is Glen, and I'm a tapper.

We (relatively) recently went to Virginia for Spring Break.  The Mrs. served her mission in Virginia, so it was fun to visit some of the people she taught as a missionary.  Toddler Thor's favorite part was the water, both at the beach and at the temple. 

The most dissonant thing of the trip was coming home.  On our last day, we went to the beach and enjoyed the 80 degree weather.  We came home to snow, and it's actually snowing right now.  🌨  Being from Utah, you would think that I would be used to the extremes on weather, but I've found that there is thing called Spring that I'm rather fond of.

I'm trying to satisfy my desire to write, which is odd, since I've spent a large part of my life trying to avoid writing.  I think that I really just want to put something out into the world that could make someone's life better.  I'm trying to leave a lasting mark, so that people, besides my family, will know that I was alive and did awesome things.

The latest stressor in my life is being on student council.  I guess the political bug is going around our family, or maybe it's just been lying dormant.  In any case, I thought it would be a good idea to run, mostly because I hate segregated fees.  The frustrating part is that most of the money goes to things that don't benefit me.  And the increases in seg. fees are usually fueled by the Chancellor pushing some of the costs back into the fees, instead of cutting something from her budget.  So, my goal is to at least have them lower for graduate students, which is apparently a novel concept.  We already have separate tuition rates, so why not segregated fees?

Well, if you've made it this far, I guess you deserve a report on the novel I'm trying to write.  It's still going. Slowly.  Mostly because I haven't put much time towards it.  But I'm trying to put more time towards it.  Maybe over the summer after I'm done with classes (forever!) Also, I recently started listening to a podcast (I'm trendy!) which made me want to try my hand at it.  And for me, the planner, that means that I have to write a script beforehand. This incorporates more writing into my life. I guess my high school English teachers were right when they said writing was important.  For me, it's mostly another experiment in expressing myself.  So, look for that in the coming days (or years). 

Keep being awesome! 💂