Baby Knowledge, An Important Concept In Being Understood
When we moved out to our ranch, my wife had to impress on me that horses were not merely big dogs that we could ride. Wagging their tail does not indicate pleasure at seeing you. Rolling on the ground doesn’t always mean their back itches and yawning certainly doesn’t...
Writers In The Field, I Wish I Had Known About This Earlier
It was a dark and stormy morning. No really, despite sounding like the start to a bad novel, it’s extremely appropriate given where I was headed and what I was facing. I was supposed to be one of many lecturers at an event aptly called “Writers in the Field,” a...
The Art Of Communication, Let Your Audience Dictate How You Say It
There are times when my wife is so frustrated from trying to talk to me that she wonders if I’m an idiot savant with the emphasis on idiot. Why? Communication. Exchanging concepts between two people is difficult. Throw an engineer into the mix and it’s almost...
If You Want To Become A Better Writer, First Become A Better Listener
Six years ago, when I started Opinionbypen, I had a goal to become a better writer. Somehow I assumed that the constant practice provided by weekly posts would miraculously improve my writing. That’s certainly not the first thing I’ve ever been wrong about. Think...
Death By PowerPoint, Together We Can Prevent This Dreadful Disease
We’ve all heard the term, Death by PowerPoint. If you work in an office environment, odds are you’ve come to hate PowerPoint presentations. Surprisingly, I’m not going to attribute this to Microsoft. No, the blame for this hatred lies solely...From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
I’m Retired, So Why Am I Still On LinkedIn?Long before I retired, I created an account on LinkedIn. It seemed like a good idea—you never know when you’ll need contacts to look for a new job. Still, I refused to play the numbers game. The people I linked with, by and large, were people I had worked with …
SEO, How You Got Here Without Intending ToDespite the title I’m not going to tell you how to improve the SEO on your website. If you have a website, you really do need to understand SEO but I’m not the one to tell you. Instead I’m going to tell you what SEO is and how it affects …
An AI Assistant Comparison, Alexa, Google and Folgers?Once they hit the market, it was a given that sooner or later I would acquire one of the AI assistants on the market. The only thing holding me back was bandwidth and cost. When Google dropped the price on their mini and Amazon dropped the price on their Dot. …
How Did My Website Get Hacked?Getting hacked was not one of the new experiences I planned for my website in 2016. True, when I went to Rome’s Porta Portese flea market, I carried a spare wallet just so I could say I’d been pickpocketed but that was an experience I was planning for. I’ve already written …
Amazon Explore, Or Where In The World Is My Wife Tonight?I thought I was having a very productive weekend until I saw what my wife had accomplished. Not to brag but I replaced fence posts, repaired fences, did some major tree trimming and repaired a bathtub faucet for my Mother-in-law. Not bad for a weekend’s work, right? Then I made …