GTD Blog...

OK so I'm biz casual today as I'm going to an all day GTD seminar. The weather is wonderfully mucky. So as usual you can expect me to spout off groupie GTD shit for a while.

I'm sure you can deal.

Let's start now:
How many items are in your inbox? How good would it feel if there weren't any?

Blog is back up

Obviously, right?

I had to go reboot the server. No biggie, as my friends who host it were out of town. It's um snowing here. So I really didn't want to pull down their driveway. They live at the end of a shared drive with like 4 or 5 other houses. So I pulled into it and drove right up to the ice which was at the top of the hill part leading down to the house. I stopped and an assclown who also happens to be their neighbor asks me if he can help me. Be aware I'm not blocking the drive at all. I'm off to the side. I tell him that I am doing a favor for (I named my friends by name here so he would know I actually knew someone here) and he tells me I can't leave my car where it is. I tell him, "I literally have to push one button then I'll be right back out."

I get back, "My wife is going to be home any minute" (I thought of a bunch of shit to say here and please be proud that I didn't say any of it.) So I ask where to park and he tells me I have to park on the street. OK fine. Then after I pull out he pulls out and parks on the street as well. I walk all the way down there and punch the button. Walk back out.

Message in a blogger: If you're that ass clown, well then you sir are in fact an assclown and I hope your remodel takes at least 30% longer than you planned, so there!

Note: "Assclown" is not in the blogger spellchecker... it should be.

It was like en passant but not in french and I wasn't playing chess.

"OK That's my break." Dude looks to his team captain and the guy is nodding like any Texas preacher at collection plate time with the oil execs sitting in the front row. By the look on my opponent's face I had already won and the balls had yet to be broken.

Once in high school Jeff Stein during a chess match (yes I am that geeky, shut it.) was put in a position where he could execute en passant. He did. The guy challenged the rule and of course Jeff was right. Dude folded.

If you fuck the break up twice it goes to the other player. I had just lost so we were 1/1 and the guy was really wound up. He double hit the cue not once but twice. Hence my break. The guy didn't know that rule. So when his coach confirmed it he was not happy. I only had to win one more and I flustered him the last bit by taking the break away from him. When I broke the rack, he was really wound up. I don't want to say I easily beat him, I didn't. I don't want to say my win was pretty, it wasn't. The guy was better than I was, but he lost his cool and that was the little tiny edge I needed.

Stop putting crap on my porch!

So can I just say: Fuck yellow pages. Recycle it now. If you can read this, you can search the web. Kill that medium. Newspapers are going fast, too. Better yet we wouldn't need to recycle if we used less paper. I found the yellow pages the other day on my porch. 2 minute task: recycle it. Don't wait, just do it. Paper isn't dead. Well OK it is a dead tree, but as a medium paper isn't dead. Would you ever consider buying an encyclopedia on paper at this point? If you answered yes then please check out wikipedia. Maybe lookup something or something else.

You know what interests me about paper? What do you write down? If you had a really great notebook, what would keep in it? Comment or email me and let me know. My answer is geeky as all hell. I keep the work I do in math or physics books. All my actionable lists and stuff and notes are kept electronically. So in my Moleskine is problem solving. Tell me, what do you write in there?

But first, seriously, recycle your yellowpages right now. It won't take more than two minutes.

More dreams...

OK so jamming an entire season of BSG into my head in just over a day wasn't maybe the best idea ever. The images are totally in my dreams. I was up at four this morning for a little while convincing myself that I am, in fact, not a cylon.

OK not really, but I did wake up a couple of times.

I'm OOOO K

I am in fact not injured. I didn't get use many of my tools. Just the hammer. I beat in a stake for a while with it and then got a small sledge instead. Worked with a ton of great people. Ate some really yummy rice and beans. Poured concrete. OK, I didn't pour or even spray it. I shoveled it, and I carried buckets of it around. I tried a little finishing, but other people were much faster at it and I found that I could be more help in the 5 gallon bucket department.

Some tips when hauling concrete buckets.

You will quickly learn that one scoop too many is too god damn much.
Try to avoid the actual concrete as it sticks and will never come off. Ever. Well, that's what they tell me about my shoes anyways. I don't care how kind and giving you are if someone (me) drops a bucket 1/2 full of concrete near you, you will be pissed. Yes, I'm pretty sure any saint would have used that word when I dropped that on the form. A shovel to the thumb hurts. Yes, that one wasn't my fault, just a pure bucket slip while somone was scooping into it. (Again no injury, I'm fine.) Figure out who is on paid staff, and listen very carefully to them. Yes, I got that one right.

When you see a concrete truck pumping concrete, be in awe. Seriously. Awe. It's an engineering marvel and according to one of the americorp girls, "Looks like two dragonflys mating!"

yeah...

Got Tools?

I went shopping this morning. Yes I went to the hardware store. Yes I got myself something sharp. Yes I did. Kurt said this morning to me, "No good can come of this."

That is exactly what will come of it. We're going and working at a building site for a six condo unit for Habitat for Humanity. Yes I know they kinda-sorta-christian, but whatever. I heard about the particular family we're spondsering and it's good.

If Penn thought registering to donate bone marrow (you should get this done right now by the way. Talk about saving a life.) was sexy. Going out and working a full day in the driving rain to help pour the footers for a six unit condo building... that's off the chart.

If you want to support our particular project we still need funds, ping me. We've donated/raised $30,000 and I hear the project is funded through framing. You could be sexy too and you wouldn't even need to put on work gloves. Think about it.

I just feed the fish

I feed my coworker's fish every Tues, Wed and Thursday when I'm around. So today being Thursday I went to go feed his fish. Right? Tablet for the bottom feeder and a pinch of fish smelling fishy food for the rest of them. I think they are canibals because the fish flakes smell as if they are in fact made of fish. So they aren't just fishy fish flakes for fish, they are fish fish flakes made for fish by fish and profiting fishing industries everywhere. Yeah so?

The blinds are drawn, office dark. So I turn the key and unlock the door. Hi Rob.

Freaked me out. He's sitting right there. Seems it's hard to telecommute when your computers at work are shut down...

I had my freak out on the inside this time instead of the outside. Either way you count it I'm a freek. For fish, by fish and freaked out by fish?

Then and now...

Today was a big day for me. I guess it kinda snuck up on me, but really when I started backtalking I started working on what would become Windows Vista. I kinda wanted the blog to be a comparison about then and now.

Really this blog has seen my life change in many ways. Please don't think for a minute I'm complaining. I'm happy to be where I am. Very happy.

It isn't much of a comparison anymore.

And hey my teeth are straight...

Don't believe everything you read.

So I'm in traffic this morning. I spend a fair amount of my time in traffic. This morning a tanker truck ahead me had a warning diamond on it. Normally this wouldn't even make me look twice. Flammable. Corrosive. Danger! Biohazard (I guess that one is full of sewage? Blood? What? Ok no I haven't seen a tanker truck with biohazard on it. See? The title? Don't believe everything you read.

This one I did believe. The tanker truck had in on it's warning shield: Inedible.

Excuse me? I mean seriously there isn't much that could come out of a tanker truck that I would eat. (I don't consume much milk.) Do you really have to warn people not to put that in their mouths? I mean really. Oh honey pass me the hose from the tanker truck I'm thirsty. I wouldn't trust fucking water coming out of it for sure and maybe if it was pure milk chocolate flowing from the tanker into a lovely choc-o-falls in the shape of Snoqualmie then and only then might I venture a taste.

As a rule if it's coming directly from a tanker truck, fuck it I pass. I'm not that hungry/thirsty or even that stupid.

I don't even know it's there

It's not a growth, it's not a cyst and no it's not a tumor.

It's my ID for work. I affectionately call it my zippy clippy. Which might somehow be related to laffy taffy, but not being hip I have no idea.

Why am I not hip? Apparently because what is dangling from my lack of hip is my work ID. Yes all the time. Is it dorky? Yes. There is, however, a reason behind my geekyness.

If I wear it, I don't forget it. Then I don't end up doing a huge cartman imitation in the parking garage in the morning. God damnit you bastard mutherfuckerzipppygoddammmmclippy. Christ!

Then I have to call someone to let me in. Um thanks, Kurt. Then they have to listen to my further ranting. Sorry, Kurt.

The idea is to keep it with something I always have with me. I have my pants with me. All the time. Amazing. So when I move my wallet and my keys in the morning from one pair of pants to the next I move over Mr. Clippy as well.

In this small way I managed to get into work every day. The small price is people have to look at it at social gatherings on the weekend or in the evenings. Some people find this offensive. Last I checked there were no neo-nazi symbols on it. It just sits there quietly dangling off of my hip. I've seen greeting cards more offensive. Most greeting cards are more offensive. Well OK my photo is on it. So maybe those touching greeting cards that shrill out the tune, "Sometimes when we touch... the honesty..." is slightly less offensive than my face, but again I digress.

If you want to drive it to me at work on Monday morning at 8:00am or so, then and only then will I remove it and put it in my jacket or my car where I will forget it. How do I manage that? I have two cars, two jackets... I always manage to pick the wrong one for whatever reason.

So this morning when I moved my wallet from one pair of Old Navy blue jeans to the other I also moved my cash and my card key. My zippy clippy and low and behold I'm in the building.

I have a system.

I'm sorry; What?

So I took Sam to Jillian's today to start teaching her to play pool. She's very excited to learn and Max had a party to go to so I thought it would be a good time for her to shoot and I could concentrate on her.

Deonn lives down that way and met us there for the lesson. They sent us upstairs and we were going to have dinner while we played. We're right next to an area roped off just for Texas A&M fans. I guess they have to rope it off because those Texans go straight for the lethal injection anytime anybody looks at them sideways.

Anyway they were loud. We told Sam she could do one of her signature ear splitting screams if Texas scored again. They didn't.

No server. OK they didn't see us. I'll go flag someone down. I said, "Hi, we're at table 19 and we we'd like to order something." Now sometimes when you're shooting you don't really want food just a drink and you don't want to be bothered. Usually they come by though and ask. We really wanted food and so I thought I'd let them know. I wasn't snotty at all. I'll quote it again, "We're at table 19 and we'd like to order something." There were 3 servers all hiding at the computer which was who I asked because I didn't know who was our server. "So would a lot of people!" I'm sorry what? I must have looked like I had a brain the size of a legume. The other one said, "I'll try to work my way around to at some point." I'm sorry what?

So then Deonn tried. They apparently shrugged at her when she tried to tell them we actually wanted dinner. She was pissed. It takes a lot to get Deonn pissed at a server.

We left. When they said up front how was everything we ratted on them. The front desk woman gave us our pool for free and apologized profusely.

We went to bonefish where Deonn got this fucking song: "Sometimes when we touch..." stuck in my head. The only problem? I don't know the words so it isn't that annoying. I mean I sing the first 2 lines and then it just kinda mumbles out....

Sam did do really well and I need to get her a shorter stick to use...

I crack myself up.

This habit can be dangerous. For instance. In a large meeting where they are talking about changes moving forward, being on the same page, in synch, and with synergy. OK it wasn't *that* bad... but still. I'm sitting there at the table just trying not to laugh. What am I in 4th grade again? Did Mrs. Frost just lead us in another rousing rending of "Onward Christian Soldiers"? Yes people, that wasn't during my catholic school incarceration that was the *public* school in my town.

I'm sitting there trying so hard not to laugh because all I can think about is Casey Affleck in Good Will Hunting as Morgan saying, "Management was restructuring and now I'm fucked again."

I had to write it in my notes so I could stop laughing. I had to post in my blog so I could start again.

OK go on... trick me.

So I took the kids out trick or treating and I left a bucked of "don't TP candy" on the porch that Sam labeled "Take one, please." Um yeah. Right. Kids got cold pretty fast and they got a respectable haul quickly so we headed home. So when I got back that particular bucket (Or in this case holiday shaped cauldron) had been flung into my shrubs and was empty. So OK no problem I have back up. I filled it up again and the kids answered the door a few times and we promptly ran out. My fault. I didn't explain the pace we needed to hold to make it last.

So I turned off the light. The jack-o-lantern looked pretty cool so I left it on. Couple more doorbell rings and I blew it out. Fucking kids. I'm OUT.

One more ring of the bell. I opened the door and said in a friendly voice, "Didn't you see the universal sign for 'we're out of candy?' as in the porch light was off?"

Teen girl: "Uh no." (Actually I'm being kind, the uh was more like uhhhhhhhhhh as if she were trying to decode the English I had just presented her with.)

Me: "OK so we're out."

Them: Blank stare. (I guess huffing glue in 9th grade is still in style.)

Me: "So..."

Them: More blank stare. (OK... maybe "D.A.R.E." isn't working.)

Me: "Do you have any eggs?"

Them: "No" (I didn't believe they could look more puzzled than before. They managed.)

Me: "Good" and I shut the door.

Max goes after I shut the door. "Maybe we should turn off *all* the lights."

Me: "Yeah..."