I really don’t feel like working on my websites this week. This is the time of year when my mood starts to turn gloomy, and any productivity—or dare I say, motivation—I had begins to wane with the changing seasons of cold and dark. I believe I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which typically kicks in every October and lasts until March. It’s odd, really, because fall is my favorite time of year, and I’m not a huge fan of hot weather, so why should it affect me? But it does. My way of dealing with it? Playing video games. I huddle up inside and game all winter.
This post will be long and ever-changing, as I plan to use it to document my current moods and thoughts throughout this seasonal shift over the next several months. I won’t just be talking about my mood; I’ll also be rambling about whatever comes to mind, just like I do in real life. If you’ve ever met me, you know exactly what I mean. I’m not a people person, and my social skills are either nonexistent or over-the-top. I either shut down and don’t talk to anyone, or I become the center of attention, being loud and making a fool of myself for a laugh. There’s no in-between. However, one-on-one, I tend to dominate the conversation, steering it wherever I want. It’s a major flaw that I’m aware of, but after 43 years, it’s something I haven’t managed to change.
So, this post will be just that: me dominating this one-sided conversation and taking it in all sorts of random directions. It will be an interesting experiment to see how my mood changes week by week, as I plan to add to this post at least once a week. I’ll probably update it more often at first, but as winter drags on, my focus will likely shift to video games, and I’ll end up neglecting this post—and my websites.
Let’s see how it goes. I'll just dive right into my initial state of mind. See if you can manage to follow my train of thought. It's a rollercoaster ride.
Halloween is next week, and part of me wants to go to a haunted house, but I also don’t want to leave my house. I just ate a very large salad, and the leafy greens have made me so gassy that even this house is smelling a bit haunted right now. But seriously, back to my (SAD). I used to think my mood change in the fall was related to the dropping temperatures, but I’m not so sure now. It’s the end of October, and the temps are still in the 80s during the day. It could just be the lack of daylight hours causing it, which does make sense.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my websites lately. I just wrote a rant about Wisedocks getting so much hate from search engines. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch. The problem is probably my constant indecision. Just in the last two years, Wisedocks has changed formats and content so much that it’s no wonder search engines are confused and don’t rank it at all.
Deep down, I know I just need to focus on what I want rather than worry about SEO. Wisedocks has such a broad scope that it may never rank well, but I need to accept that. Ultimately, I want a blog—a place to get my thoughts out.
I don’t have many friends; I tend to keep people at arm’s length. It’s not just friends—it’s family too. People in general stress me out, and ever since my wife left me, I’ve come to love being alone. Even now, living with my girlfriend and her mom, I find myself keeping to myself. My motto at home and work is "Leave me alone."
People need to talk to other people, though. Sharing your problems is a healthy way of processing them. That’s partly what I want to do here: clear my head of whatever is on my mind. Keeping things bottled up can have detrimental effects on your health. If you're facing troubles, it’s best to let them out.
This week at work was a good one. I work in a warehouse as an order filler—I wear a headset, pick products, and put them on a conveyor belt. I really enjoy it—no one bothers me, and I get a good workout. This month, the slowest guy on our shift, who’s always talking about quitting, won Employee of the Month. I thought that was hilarious. The place I work can drive you mad if you let it get to you, but I just watch the craziness unfold and laugh it off.
I’ve been doing this for three years now. Early on, they tried to push me into a more managerial role. I’m overqualified for my current job, but it’s an entry-level position, so that’s not saying much. Based on my experience, I probably should be a manager, but I don’t want to be.
My superiors seem perplexed by my insistence on staying in manual labor. They don’t really know my work history, so I’ve used that to my advantage. Whenever they start probing about moving up, I just act a bit clueless or immature. It’s become a sort of self-defense mechanism.
The truth is, money isn’t a major concern for me. I live simply, and as long as my bills are paid, I’m happy. I have no desire to take on more stress and hours just to make more money. Extra money would likely just add more stress, since I’d probably start buying things I don’t need. Then I’d worry about losing that job and not being able to sustain that lifestyle. Staying at the bottom allows me more free time to do things I actually enjoy, like working on my websites. They cost a couple hundred dollars a year to run but provide me with thousands of hours of enjoyment.
I do care about search engine rankings because I run minimal ads on the site. More visitors would lower the operating cost. I’m not trying to make a living from my websites, but running them for little to no cost would be awesome.
The reason I avoid stress is that I’ve had extremely stressful jobs in the past and know how much they affect health. To me, it’s simply not worth it. How many people do you know who just want to sell everything and move to the country to homestead? Maybe that’s you. The reason is simple: they’re overwhelmed. Their job is probably a significant source of that stress. If that’s you, ask yourself: is it really worth it?
I don’t think so.
It’s kind of funny—I just realized my last two posts have the word "struggle" in the title, like I’m deeply worried or something. But I’m actually in a good mood today! Just had to point that out.
I did something today that I’ve never done before: I voted early. The main reason is that I’m now in a larger city than I was during the last presidential election, and I don’t want to spend hours in line. So, I got it out of the way. May the best idiot win!
I was planning a trip to the hills today to check out the fall foliage since we’re at peak colors right now. But it’s 88 degrees out—it just doesn’t feel like fall. I think I’ll stay home and go for a walk once it cools down this evening.
I work three days a week at my "full-time" job. It’s great! I cram a lot of hours into those three days, but having four days off is worth it. The extra time lets me work on my websites, although I’ve been feeling a bit burned out lately. I tried playing Farming Simulator 22 this morning, but it crashed, so I ended up watching TV instead.
Anyway, my girlfriend and I work at the same place, but on opposite schedules—she works the four days I’m off. We both enjoy it, as it gives us plenty of alone time. If we want to do something together, we take turns taking a day off. The only downside is that we’re both pretty lazy, though I’m the first to admit it. I like to keep my apartment clean, so I wash dishes and tidy up as I go. My girlfriend, on the other hand, tends to leave things lying around, which means I end up doing most of the cleaning. I try not to mind too much, considering I have more days off.
Still, I have a routine: on my last day off, I make sure all the dishes are done, the laundry is put away, and everything is tidy. But on my first day off, I usually come home to a sink full of dishes and clothes scattered everywhere. Yesterday was no different. The sink and dishwasher were overflowing, so I decided to leave it. This morning, dishes had piled up onto the counter. Whenever I ask her to help clean up after herself, she gets upset and starts making excuses.
So, I guess I’ll be cleaning up again before I go for that walk today. I really miss living alone, lol.
So... it took longer than I expected to clean up the kitchen. I ended up going to Jersey Mike's for a Bacon Ranch Chicken Cheesesteak sandwich. They're so damn good! I couldn’t wait to get home, so I ate it right there in the parking lot, then headed back home and crashed for a few hours. When I woke up, it was already dark outside, so I decided to skip the walk. At least the kitchen got cleaned.
I just checked in on FartDump.com, and I’m surprised it’s still getting traffic. I threw the site together a few weeks ago and shared it on a few Reddit pages. Surprisingly, people are still dropping their secrets every day. I figured it’d be overrun with spam by now, but it’s not as bad as I expected. If you’ve got a secret you want to share with the world—anonymously—go check it out! The small problems I share here feel kind of dumb after reading what others have been posting.
Finally got that walk in this morning. I walked 3 miles around the area and was sweating pretty hard. I had to take a shower when I got home, like I’d just gone for a jog. I still can't believe these high temperatures. Highs have been in the 80s nearly every day this October. That’s gotta be some kind of record.
I have a fifth website that’s private. Even if I gave you the address, you’d just hit a login screen. I mostly use it for my shopping list, but it also has a recipe book. If I want to cook a specific recipe, I can add all the ingredients to my shopping list with a click. It’s set up like an app on my phone, so when I’m at the store, it’s just one tap away. I simply swipe items off as I shop. It’s been a lifesaver.
This morning, I made some updates so that when I add or delete items, the shopping list automatically updates for both of us. I did it because I tend to veer off on my own when shopping with my girlfriend. Now, the list stays updated when either of us grabs something. It’s a small feature, but it took me several hours to figure out. Nothing a little JavaScript function couldn’t handle, though.
JavaScript is my weak spot, but I’m starting to get the hang of it. Here’s a screenshot of the shopping list to show how simple it is.
It’s pretty basic: shopping list, recipe book, and notes. That’s it—the whole app. Simple and easy to use.
Honestly, I just wanted to add a picture here because I also worked on the function that uploads photos in my posts. Looks like it’s working, lol.
My girlfriend took the day off, so you know what that means… Yep, the kitchen sink is full of dirty dishes again. But I digress.
I've been lazy today, watching How the Universe Works. It's such a great series if you’re into astronomy. I don’t think it gets enough love. The show has also inspired some ideas for new articles on StellarHistory.com. Speaking of which, I’ve been trying to figure out why Wisedocks is getting so much hate from Google. While doing some research, I went through search results for all my sites and realized I haven’t checked image searches in a while. Hosting AI images and wallpapers here, you'd think I'd be on top of that, but I honestly haven’t been paying much attention.
Stellar History is actually doing great in image search—I was shocked!
That’s not too shabby. Considering Wisedocks is running on the same custom CMS software as Stellar History, you'd expect similar or even better results, right?
Now, let me show you why I've been trying so hard to solve this mystery. Here are Wisedocks’ search results for the same time period.
Wisedocks has way more content than Stellar History. Help me make sense of this. I use the image description as alt text for AI art and wallpapers here but, I do the same on both sites, so I'm not sure what's going wrong. The images are being picked up by Google but are stuck in "Crawled - currently not indexed." I’m not sure what else to do. I’ll probably give it a few more months and see what happens, but it’s frustrating—it’s like an itch I can't scratch. I should probably just leave it alone for now; any more changes might do more harm than good.
It finally rained! Not a lot, but rain is rain. It’s been so dry here for the last few months that I'll take whatever we get. We have good chances from Wednesday through at least Saturday this coming week. Looks like it might be a wet Halloween this year. This next round of rain is supposed to bring temperatures down to seasonal norms, which I’m okay with.
My birthday is in the first week of November, and it’s usually marked by a blast of cold air. I haven’t had a warm birthday in years! The first week of November has actually trended colder than December over the last few years. Maybe we'll break that trend this year.
Well, I'm going back to watching my show. They are talking about cosmic rays that are ejected from massive black holes. Fun stuff.
I have breadcrumbs on my blog and quote pages, complete with proper schema markup. But I’ve never added them to the AI Images or Wallpapers sections. So, I decided to implement them—and felt like a complete idiot in the process. I couldn’t get them to work the way I wanted, no matter what I tried. At one point, I even took down the wallpapers for an hour while attempting to fix them. It’s still not exactly like the blog, but it’s functional for now, so I’ll leave it alone. I’ve been messing with the code for about 6 hours just for this one feature. Time for a break.
I'm not very efficient on Reddit. I know how to use it as a regular user, but as a mod trying to manage subreddits, I’m pretty lost. I’ve got subreddits set up for Wisedocks and FartDump, but I never bothered with the other websites. Today, I decided to focus on building up the Wisedocks subreddit by showcasing AI images and encouraging users to share their own creations. So far, it’s been a struggle. If you're into AI-generated art and know your way around Reddit, hit me up—I could use the help! Getting traction on Reddit is tough, and right now, I’ve got nothing. r/Wisedocks
I went back to work yesterday, but I barely remember being there. Twelve-hour days just sort of blend together. I probably won't post much until Tuesday. For now, I’m focusing on Reddit since it doesn’t take much effort. I really want r/Wisedocks to gain traction, but I haven’t had any interactions on the subreddit yet. I think I may need some help. For now, I’ll focus on building my reputation on the platform and hope it eventually brings people to the subreddit. I’m in this for the long haul.
If I can create a moderately successful subreddit, it could drive more organic traffic to the website than jumping through all the hoops for search engines.
While working last night, I realized I need to focus less on SEO. I’ll still follow best practices when building the site, but I won’t stress about indexing. If I concentrate on content, that part will handle itself. That’s what Google has been saying for years—make good content, and you'll be indexed well. So many people try to game the system that they forget content is king.
I have a few projects on Wisedocks that I planned to start this week, but I’m just not feeling it right now. I’m working on a 'back to the top' button for FartDump, which should be fun. Maybe the mood will strike tomorrow, but for today, no big projects.
I was wrong—I still don’t feel like doing much. I played Farming Simulator 22 for a bit, then did some more tweaking on FartDump. Last night, I worked on the backend of Wisedocks for a while. In fact, while typing this, I just found a bug I introduced while working on the code. My heading blocks are missing from the TinyMCE quick bar. That should keep me busy for a bit, especially since I actually have eight different versions running across three domains where I’ll need to make these changes.
We’ve got some rough weather rolling in, and it’s looking like Halloween will start with a bang. We really need the rain here, so I’m glad to see it—just hoping the tornados stay away.
Well, I fixed the quick bar and ended up working on SEO anyway. I keep saying I’m not going to worry about it, but I can’t seem to get it out of my head. So, I reworked how AI Images and Wallpapers are added to their respective sitemaps. I explain it more thoroughly here.
The rain came through and cooled things down nicely. We had some tornado warnings, but thankfully, we came through unscathed. There’s rain in the forecast through the middle of next week—guess mother nature is trying to play catch up.
I go back and forth all the time with my websites. One month, I'll have two up and running, and the next, I’ll be juggling five. I think I mostly do it for SEO reasons—my niche sites tend to perform better in search engines. But honestly, I’d really love to have all my content right here on Wisedocks. This site already has a wide variety of random, chaotic content, so why not just embrace it?
I know this is what I want because, deep down, I've been waiting—almost secretly hoping—that the other sites would start underperforming. That way, I'd have a reason to consolidate everything here. It would make things easier from a coding perspective, easier to maintain, and simpler to advertise and manage on social media. I probably won’t make the move anytime soon, though. I'll likely just let them ride and do their thing for now. However, the articles on Echo Chamber Effect would actually fit nicely on Wisedocks, and I might just bring them over sooner rather than later.
I like the idea of a satire site. When I first started on the CMS, I played around with this concept on FartDump just to get some content going. The articles from Echo Chamber Effect could easily find a place here under a new category. It wouldn’t be difficult to integrate. I’ve learned a thing or two since I started, and now, whenever I get a new idea, I let it sit for a few months. If it still sounds good after that, I go for it. This is the only way I keep myself from making constant changes. Honestly, my mind is all over the place as it is.
I've been craving some Dixie Stampede soup, so I went online and found a copycat recipe that looked promising. I made a trip to Walmart, grabbed the ingredients, some Red Lobster biscuit mix, a rotisserie chicken, and mashed potatoes—everything sounded so good together. I got home and started cooking.
As I was following the recipe for the soup, I was jumping back and forth, trying to time the biscuit mix and get it started just when I needed to add the spices to the soup. And then disaster struck: the onion powder lid fell off and practically dumped the entire thing into the pot, ruining the soup. It was a bust. I'll have to give it another shot sometime, lol.
After eating, I crashed out for a couple of hours. Ever since I woke up, my anxiety has been through the roof. My mind is racing like I’m juggling a hundred things at once, even though I’m just sitting here doing absolutely nothing. It feels like I'm panicking over something I've forgotten or like there’s a mountain of stuff I should be doing.
I think I'll play some Farming Simulator—it always helps me zone out and calm down. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Hee Hee Hoo.
I’ve been having a real “WTF am I doing?” moment this week. My interest in building this website ebbs and flows. One week I’m adding a new feature; the next, I want to get rid of everything and just keep a blog. Honestly, I don’t even like social media, so advertising my websites barely happens—I’m exhausted just thinking about it. What I really want to do is just write. Write right here. Just talk about what I’ve been up to and what’s going on in my life.
What I’m getting at is that I’m back to thinking about dropping the AI images, wallpapers, and those damn quotes that I never update. All of it. Just keeping the blog. The search engines would love me for it, too. Wisedocks does so poorly in search engines because I can’t stop changing it up! But that’s also what keeps me from taking it all down again. When I hit a moment like this, I give it a month or so to reflect. It’s the only way to rein in my constant indecision.
If you tried to read through my whole blog, you wouldn’t really know what’s been going on. The posts bounce back and forth between ideas, making little sense. But I have a vision in my head for what I really want to do. It would be fun to completely revamp the theme, go with more modest colors, and give the site a “book-like” feel. Off-white or tan background, black, easy-to-read fonts, and style it all like a book, complete with chapters.
That’s right, folks. I’m mulling over yet another overhaul. This would be the fifth or sixth one in the last few years—I’ve honestly lost count. I really do need to simplify the site. A simple blog is what I truly want, a place to just post about my life. The AI images and wallpapers? Pretty pointless. The quotes? Dumb; they can go. I could just keep the blog and improve it. Maybe even add comments. I’m on the fence, but it could be fun.
And if I get a wild hair to add something new, I’ll throw it up on FartDump. That’s what that site was originally for anyway. A more personal touch could be just what Wisedocks needs.
So, six hours later, I decided to go in the opposite direction—I built a dark theme. I started working on a book-style, light theme but quickly realized that bright colors were hurting my eyes. I work on this site with a 65-inch monitor, so yeah… bright lights are a no-go! Currently, logged-in users get the dark theme while I'm still tweaking it. So, if you’re curious to see what the site looks like in dark mode, sign up! Log in, and you can check it out.
I have to head back to work today, so I’ll finish things up next week. I’m not sure yet if I’ll roll it out for everyone or keep it exclusive for logged-in users. It might be kind of cool to make the site look better for members as a perk for signing up.
Quick rant: I work 11-hour shifts with only two 20-minute breaks. Working 3+ hours between breaks, especially while doing manual labor, can be a bit much. But when daylight savings hits, they bump us to 12-hour shifts with the same two breaks. That should seriously be illegal.
On the topic of unfair work practices, I’m working on a blog post about my time as a water operator. It’s going to be another long one, similar to this post. Very few will read the whole thing, but for those who do, it should be juicy. Speaking of which, if you've made it this far, thank you! You're the real MVP.
When I'm at work, I often daydream about building websites. I dream big, right? Well, I do, and I think about what I want Wisedocks to be quite a bit. I've written several blog posts about my vision and how I keep changing my mind. This post right here is as close to what I think I want as I’ve ever been. Maybe not this long, but you get the idea. I like to write about whatever’s on my mind—sometimes it’s silly, and other times it may have some value for the reader. But it’s almost like a form of therapy for me.
Tonight at work, it clicked that this format might keep me the happiest. I need to embrace the randomness of my thoughts and just post whatever’s on my mind, on my own timeline. I’ve tried this before but quickly burned out trying to post every day. It’s easy to run out of things to say when you’re trying to follow a strict schedule.
So instead, I think I’ll slowly start moving everything besides the blog into the background. There’s no reason to get rid of it all; I can just link those sections in the footer. This way, the main menu at the top will focus on the blog categories, and I may add a few more to help organize my messy thoughts a bit.
The rest of the content—like the quotes, AI images, wallpapers, and small tools—will find a home in the footer. I might leave the wallpapers on the homepage somewhere to add a bit of pop! But the blog will be the main feature. I tend to hide my identity a little, but who cares? I should just embrace that this is Jason Wiseman’s website—a blog about whatever the hell he feels like talking about that day.
I’m really liking the new darker theme. It’s not quite ready yet, but I’m already using it and prefer it. I’m still debating whether to add a toggle at the top of the site so you can choose your theme or just make this a dark-themed site by default. The jury’s still out on that one.
This new format should probably start soon, as this post is quickly turning into a never-ending story. I started adding to it two weeks ago, and it’s already approaching 5,000 words—a bit of a long read.
I'm planning to use this format for weekly posts, where I can share my thoughts in a seven-day bundle. Most days, my musings aren’t quite enough for a full post, so a weekly roundup might work well. I'll still write separate posts on other topics that catch my interest, but this new weekly category should help keep things organized.
One more day of work, and then I'll get started on it.
Update: So... tornadoes were in the area when it was time to head to work. Since it’s my birthday week, I treated myself to a day off. Solid choice, I think. Now, it’s time to wrap up this marathon of a post. I've added a new blog category for weekly entries like this one, so keep an eye out for those! Thanks for reading!
