I Did!
In true teaser fashion, though, before I get into what I got from HIVE for Christmas this year, I'd like to show you what I got from my family and a family friend first.
Shirts
This is pretty much a staple gift of mine every Christmas. Not just shirts. A lot of times there are pants, too. Every once in a while, something else, like a jacket.
This time, it was confined to shirts. Some pretty snazzy shirts, though, if I do say so myself.
The one on the left is a BYU shirt, in case you didn't recognize what the Y stands for. No, it's not Yale. I guess they have a football team, but they cancelled their season. BYU didn't. BYU stands for Brigham Young University, a privately owned church school of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
My youngest son is a big BYU fan, and while I am, too, I tend to lean more to the Oregon Ducks (mainly since they've done more with their program of late). Anyway, I like the way the colors fade to white.
The one on the right is cool colored, too. I like the combination. It's probably the comfiest of the three. Yes, I've tried them all on. It's kind of a tradition to go debuting the clothing within a short period of time of receiving them.
The one in the middle are Marvel superheroes, if they were gingerbread men. And gingerbread women. Both. Equally.
I'll leave you to guess which ones.
I'm a big fan of Marvel Comics from way back, so yeah, I like this shirt. I'm not so much into running around as a walking T-shirt advertisement for anything, even my favorite teams, but that clashes with my occasional oddball need to wear something that's either somewhat outlandish and loud, like a Hawaiian shirt, or something that might be considered immature or not within my age range.
Yeah, I have a Captain America shirt, too.
"Wireless" iPhone Charger
My wife and I finally got new iPhones. The ones we've been using are from the 6s class five years ago, and we've been talking about upgrading now for at least two years. Even with the uncertainty of our finances thanks to layoffs due to COVID-19 restrictions, we finally decided to do it.
We may be selling them later to buy groceries, but I am hopeful we'll make it through this economic rough patch, just like every other rough patch in our nearly 32-year and counting marriage.
My oldest son knew we were getting the phones, so he and his wife got me this "wireless" iPhone charger. I put the quotations around wireless simply because it's not truly wireless. You still have to plug a wire into the wall. You just don't have to plug the other end of the wire into the phone.
Whenever technology finally gives us wireless charging, i.e, no wires, then I will drop the quotation marks.
I've used it once so far and seems to charge pretty quickly. It is cool that you just have to lean it into the stand for it to work without trying to fit some plug into the bottom of it. I may end up splurging for a mag safe charger so that more than one device can be charged at one time. For now, we've still got the other wired chargers we can use.
Hot Chocolate and Dunking Spoons
I'm a fan of hot chocolate, and I do like Swiss Miss (among others). I have to share these with my wife, though, as they were a mutual gift from a friend. The caramel ones are pretty good, and we've yet to dip into the marshmallow ones. The problem is, there aren't that many bags to a can. That's right. Instead of just filling the cans with the tasty hot chocolate powdery goodness, Swiss Miss went cheap and bagged them up, and then didn't bother to squish in like a dozen or more.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to consuming the rest. That is, if my wife doesn't give them away. The peppermint flavor will most likely end up with my daughter-in-law (if she manages to take it home) and the fourth can, not pictured, has already been re-gifted. It was plain hot chocolate, which we apparently have plenty of from a box my wife bought from Costco a few months ago, so the new, rather stylish can had to go.
Now, these dipping spoons are intriguing. I haven't really looked to see what they're all about, but maybe I'll share the experience later if I actually manage to try them before they get re-gifted.
Christmas Mugs
Or maybe they're just winter mugs. There's a star on the tree, though, so I'm going with Christmas mugs.
At any rate, what good would it be to have hot chocolate without having something to put it in? Okay, it's not like we're mug deprived, but any mug that you could probably use as a cereal bowl too, I'm a fan of.
I'm not sure what the volume is in these cups, but I put a taller one along side for reference. I'm pretty sure I put in quite a bit more water into the newer, fatter mugs than I did in the taller but thinner one.
I haven't tossed in some Captain Crunch yet, but the idea of hot chocolate and Captain Crunch is amazing, even if the reality of the sugar overload is not.
We'll see if I get brave enough to try it.
My HIVE Gift
Okay. if you're still around waiting to read about what HIVE gave to me, I'm finally done making you wait. I don't know about you, but I like the build up. It's kind of like Christmas. You have all of this anticipation over weeks if not months, and then it's all over in a flash and a flurry of wrapping paper. Seems hardly worth it.
Yes, I've been known to drag out gift giving over several days.
Right. The gift that HIVE gave to me, sometime between 10 PM Christmas Eve and 10 AM Christmas morning was:
Drumroll...
Ta-dah!
Okay. No, HIVE did not give me a rather weird looking cake with candles in the shape of a seven and a zero. Pixabay gave me that.
HIVE, or more specifically, many of you, gave me a 70 Reputation Rating!
Yeah, I know. Anti-climactic. You were expecting something else. I thought about telling you that HIVE flash mooned at, oh, $25 and then crashed, you know, something sorta kinda but not really believable, and that I managed to get 1,000 HIVE worth out before it fell back to Earth, but, well, frankly, that would be lying, and undoubtedly, someone wouldn't realize I was just having fun and pulling all you all's leg and call me out on it.
Thus, you're all stuck with my 70-rep, which I think is totally awesome and mega cool, and something I've been waiting to accomplish since I first realized 70-rep was supposed to be a big deal. You know, before the bots, the circle voting, and the self-voting and whatever else basically made it less than what it really should be.
Except for those of us who feel like we've taken the harder road and put in the time, the work, and the grind.
I'd hoped to get to 70 way before this, at least three months ago if not earlier, but I kind of like the idea of a Christmas gift from HIVE, though. I wish I could pinpoint which upvote put me over the top, but it came within a flurry of curangel and ocdb curation trail upvotes on a couple of my latest posts.
As it is, curation trails and the occasional big whale upvote (not the 0.5-2% ones, but something in the 25-50% range like us smaller accounts tend to give), moved my rep meter the most, along with the literally thousands and thousands of much smaller upvotes that came post after post after post.
I haven't attempted to do the math, but I think I can say this with reasonable authority: every upvote— large, small and in between—got me to the 70-range, and I am happy.
Now, I know that 80 rep is the new 70, but can you at least let me bask in my false and totally made up glory for at least a second before you go tearing it down?
Sigh.
Okay. Well, since I'm self-congratulating and all, I feel like I now deserve to make a few made up demands now that I've reached this new rep.
Maybe a bigger trailer would be cool.
No, let's make that an oceanview villa with plenty of private beach.
Somewhere tropical.
Okay. Better yet, I'll settle for $25 HIVE.
Make it so.
Engage.
Hit it.
Seriously, and with much sincerity, thank you, one and all, who have decided to throw an upvote or two (or many more) my way over the last nearly three years. You all contributed to my HIVE Christmas 2020 gift, and I am grateful.
All images (except the last one) courtesy of Glen Anthony Albrethsen. Last image, Pixabay
Congrats! No matter what people say, rep 70 is a BIG deal. I know many say rep is a bit redundant, but if you worked hard in Hive, it's a testimonial of all those years of work.
The earlier decades are easy to achieve and often we don't take much notice of it. But its a big and long step from 60 to 70, many develop themselves and grow their network during this period. Its a well deserved celebration!!
Hey, @livinguktaiwan.
Well, thank you. I appreciate the well-wishes and the sentiment.
I'll have to go back and dig up when I made what since I did keep track of all of those things. There have been different dynamics going on at different times during my time on STEEM/HIVE, and so the meter moved a little faster or a little slower in places depending on those dynamics.
Muse, at its shortlived height, was very good for my rep (and stake building), and then, incredibly, the change away from the linear curve and the 50/50 split helped for a quite a few months after that.
So, getting through the 60s seemed a little easier, although I know each new number and series of numbers becomes increasingly harder to achieve.
As you say, though, if nothing else, the rep generally can be considered a measure of one's longevity and stick-to-it-ness. Not always. I don't think it happens so much anymore, though, since a lot of what I mentioned that plagued STEEM doesn't seem to affect HIVE as much.
I guess we'll see what happens if they end up changing the vote window and other various and sundry payout deals.
I do have to say, though, going from a minnow to a dolphin was a much bigger party. :)
Congrats on the rep rating, good call on the number candles. That would've been a lot of candles otherwise. Bout 70.
I just had one of those hot chocolates a few days ago. Trader Joe's makes a similar spoon with a chunk of chocolate like that. It has marshmallows, though. I was expecting a preserved, not so chocloatey hot chocolate. I was mistaken—good enough I wish I had another one right now.
Happy holidays sir!
Hey, @dandays.
Well, thank you. Seems like you're approaching the vaunted 7-0 yourself, so good on you for that.
Yeah, didn't need to create a fire hazard. :)
Sounds like I better crack out the spoons before they're given away. :)
Let me know what you think when you get into them. I want another right now, again. I wanna know how you rank them.
Nice work. I have that charger for my iPhone and it’s been great. My family is split between USU and BYU fans. So we always get shirts and hats from those schools.
Hey, @dkid14.
Utah State, eh?
I went to a BYU-USU game in Logan with my wife and youngest son during the Taysom HIll era. USU was actually pretty good during that time and Hill kept getting knocked out of their games with injuries. Or at least that's what it seemed like.
Now does the rivalry get pretty heated, or has your family managed to keep it friendly? I know there can be a dislike for BYU because of the attitude of people who go there (and probably more), but not living in Utah and not being a part of that situation day in and day out, it just seems kind of odd that it would get so intense. :)
Need to throw the Utes into that mix, too, I guess.
Yeah we have some heated rivalries but we all stay friends after. I think it’s ridiculous how heated it get in the stands. I don’t follow football too well but love basketball. I actually cheer for all the Utah teams when they are not playing each other.
I live in logan. I hope you liked your visit for the game. It’s a good place.
Well...
I can't say this one visit really gave us a good idea of what it's like there. I messed up with seating, which meant we ended up without seats and had to stand around the top of the stadium, and then Hill got hurt and BYU got blown up, and there were people wearing some rather derogatory T-shirts...
So, anyway. It wasn't a fun time. But we did run into a very nice lady that let my wife and son sit next to her. :)
We didn't see much of Logan since we were late getting to the game. Didn't account for all the traffic there would be in the last couple of miles. I think we were staying in Salt Lake if I remember right.
One of these days, no doubt, we'll wind up back in Utah and we'll have to make a more proper visit to Logan. Maybe during the late spring or early fall. :)
Hahaha that was pretty funny. Merry Christmas it looks like it was a beautiful Christmas time for you with awesome presents.
I was wondering what Hive Christmas gift I missed out on from hive. Thinking maybe they were doing a 1000 coin give away. A $25 hive coin would be wonderful. But I would still Hodl and continue to grow my account. Hopefully one day Hive will peak to $100 a coin!
Hey, @melbourneswest.
Wouldn't that be great! I look at all the other tokens floating around on exchanges and it's always, "What the...?" There's got to be some real fast talkers, some movers and shakers out there to get what they get and we just don't have that many here. They were all ran off of STEEM long ago, and then Sun took over. :)
We did have a good Christmas. Merry Christmas, to you, too, and Happy New Year.
I just like watching what every one else gets. The grandchild got stuck on one gift after opening it and didn't seem much interested in anything else. Opening presents are too much work!
You're not that far from a 70-rep mega cool totally awesome made up power up yourself! Hopefully, though, you won't be waiting until next Christmas to get it. :)
Yeah, I'm a bit of a serial poster 😃 I enjoy using hive. I've run my power level down and need to reboot a bit 😰 so much great content. Alot better than what Steem was.
Yeah, I've pretty much invested in my acct this time around. Waiting for Hive PUD to power up and move into the realm of Dolphin ranking. I'd like to oneday become a Whale. But who knows.
I'm not sure how the ranking system works, is it based on upvotes?
Yep. Totally and completely. As far as I know, there's nothing else involved.
I agree. HIVE has been doing a better job, especially within the last few months, of getting a greater variety of content up there. We still are little HIVE or crypto-centric, but I guess that's the way it's going to be while we're waiting for "the masses."
I'm not quite halfway to Orca, and that still looks a long way off. Like you say, though, who knows. I didn't think I'd be this far now, but a new blockchain later and voila. :)
I can totally relate, I struggled with Steem and it was like drowning. On Hive there have been a few awesome communities establish and a few support groups and I've gotten involved and I've seen some good help in regards to engagement and encouragement.
I do alot of travelling and have also exercise. Actfit has been a good little thing to get involved with. Doesn't provide much but it's a good community.
Alot more range here so that's the good thing. Steem was very niche.
7-0 great number congratulations
Hey, @farm-mom.
Thank you, thank you. Very much appreciated. :)
You're getting there, too, so we'll both have something to pat ourselves on the back for.
So far, I've managed not to twist my elbow doing it, either. I've had plenty of practice with a great many things over the years, though, so you could say I'm a self-congratulatory professional.
Oh, wait. You need to be paid to be a professional.
Expert?
Hmmm. Maybe that's better. :)