Thursday, February 7th

February 7, 2019
Although today started out a little rocky, it finished well. The blue team group meeting was run efficiently, I thought. My plan was to then go into my PD and do some additional tweaking on my blog. I was pretty happy with it, the way it was, just wanted to add a few things. When I first logged in, it looked completely different than I left it yesterday - themes and color schemes were not what I set up, and looked absolutely awful! I tried several things to try to correct the problem, with no luck. I thought at that point that my only option was to delete the whole thing and start over. Even though it felt like hours of looking at this horrible looking thing, it was in reality about 15 minutes. I logged out of Google, then logged back in, and it was as I left it yesterday. I have no explanation how it happened, but it was such a relief to know that I didn't have to start over.
So then I got to work, adding the items that I wanted to add, and it all went pretty smooth. Part of the changes involved some self-evaluation of my blog, and realizing that some of the elements just didn't look as good as I had hoped, so I made some changes. 
My next frustration involved wanting to change the background on the main page of the blog. I just was having no luck changing the background to look the way I wanted it. It all related back to a conversation during our morning meeting, in which Jake mentioned that sometimes when you copy something from another source and paste it into your blog, it doesn't necessarily work the way you want it to. That was the case with my blog, which I confirmed after a phone call with Jake. So between clearing the data that was copied and pasted, then clearing the existing formatting, I was able to get it looking the way I wanted it. So satisfying! Maybe still not up to the standard of a professional website, but not bad for a 47 year-old who's new to the blogging world!
Regarding our group, I couldn't feel better right now than I do about the crew I'm working with. Jake seems to have a pretty good handle on the technology end of things, and is very active in checking in with the rest of the team. Shaun is obviously a very driven and intelligent guy, but has no problem asking for help when he needs it. Mike B., I think, is in about the same situation that I am - some tech knowledge, but not quite enough to get him through a project like this without help. Paul is just a stereo-typical yooper - good old boy, but completely down-to-earth and cares about his team in a big way.

How did the day's activities relate to your real-world work situation?
The only similarity I could point to between today and my day-to-day work situation, is occasionally at work I'll run into a situation that I'm not familiar with. To figure out a solution, I'll consult department general orders or Michigan Compiled Laws, or whatever information source is applicable. Today I referred to several resources to solve my problems with my blog - starting with my group, a co-worker, and my wife. A combination of all those resources led me to the solution.

What could you have done differently that might have impacted your performance?
I think following the old "trial and error" would have eventually gotten me to where I wanted to be. I should have been more willing to explore the various options within blogger to try and learn their functions.

How will your real-world behavior change as a result of what you learned today?
This was a good lesson to me - try different options to see what result they lead you to. When you're working on a computer, usually you can revert back to the original version if you don't like the result. I will be more independent and exploratory in learning how these things work, and what result they achieve.