April 2021

5:30 AM.

My body seems OK with getting up at 5:30 AM Mountain Standard Time for my weekday schedule. Truman stays quiet and still on the bed until I show signs of being awake. My husband doesn’t get up until later, but I tip toe around the room, do my business in the washroom, and then throw on yesterday’s clothes so I can tackle the early morning team meetings.

I wonder if my colleagues notice that I’ve showered, shaved, and changed clothes between my first and second meetings of the morning?

My mood has been surprisingly pleasant with early rising. I’m starting to feel this new routine and it’s not a bad feeling. I’m pretty sure I can do this morning thing for as long as necessary.

Someone just hook up a device to my Zoom meetings so I can be jolted awake.

Actually, I’m kidding. The only stumbling block I have with these early morning meetings, other than being unshowered and unshaven, is my speech patterns. Speaking coherently and trying to keep my mild stammer this side of outrageous in the early morning can be a bit of a challenge. Like President Biden, I have little tricks I use to try to keep things running in the same direction, but once in a while my words and phrases and such can go in six directions at once with a repetitive stammer.

I’m like Bob Newhart without the groovy theme song.

Once I get the cylinders firing on all thrusters, though, I’m in my element and not feeling any bad effects from being up so early. I used to think getting up early was a thing grandparents did.

I’m now shocked to realize I’m the age my grandparents were at when I thought these things about getting up early.

Truth.

Work hard, never take anything for granted, and enjoy life while you can. Happy Easter to everyone that has stopped by!

Caturday.

Truman had his first adventure outside yesterday. He’s not allowed outside without supervision and once he realized the rules he settled in on the patio to take in the sites of the desert.

He enjoys watching birds and other movement out back. He sniffed the air a few times and then just relaxed under my watchful eye.

Productivity.

I’ve been messing around with to-do lists, email programs, and other related fun and frivolity in this technological world. As a Mac and iOS user, I tend to lean toward “it just works” and go with stock Apple applications when I can, but sometimes they just don’t seem to be enough.

I’m a little paranoid about online privacy, so anything that squelches tracking is preferred in my book. Apple’s Safari web browser does the vast majority of this with features baked right into the experience, so I like that. However, Apple’s Mail app does not block hidden pixel-trackers in email messages. For those that aren’t aware of these things, many mass email outfits like to put a hidden element in their marketing emails so they know if you’ve read the email or not and confirm the validity of your email address. I never respond to “Wanda has requested a read receipt” prompts, so I really don’t want hidden elements tattling on my email management habits. So I’ve opted to use AirMail on my devices because it automatically blocks this pixel-based reporting back to the sender.

My other struggle is with my to do list management system. For over a decade I’ve used OmniFocus, but I’ve never been comfortable with the locking of data into the OmniFocus platform. I’m relying on their syncing between devices, their file format, and their addition and deletion of features. I like being able to automatically schedule tasks, for example, telling my to do list “I have a flight on Saturday”, and it builds all the tasks, and times them appropriately, for everything that’s needed to get ready for the flight. As I get older, the holes in my Swiss cheese brain get bigger and I rely on my productivity app to keep track of my life. OmniFocus let’s me automate, but it’s not the smoothest experience in the world.

Lately I’ve been bouncing back and forth between OmniFocus and plain text ToDo.txt, which I can control, read, and automate with ease.

The bouncing back and forth takes more personal bandwidth than just getting things done.

I need to make a decision and stick to it. I’ll have to put that on my todo.

Wherever it may land.

No Foolin’

April Fools’ Day is my least favorite day of the year. I’ve never been a fan of the frivolity others find in pranks, lies, and other foolish things to celebrate the arrival of April. Even back when I was a kid I would dread the day because it just seemed unnecessary.

Now, this is not to say I haven’t found anything associated with April Fools’ Day to be amusing. Way back in the early 1990s, a local radio station started running ads and announcements that the United States had converted to Metric Time. They had ads from businesses announcing you could bring your microwave or VCR in to be reprogrammed for Metric Time. I thought that little campaign was clever. There’s probably been a couple others I’ve found amusing over the decades but since the Internet destroyed took over the world it seems like April Fools’ Day has just ramped up and amplified stupidity and idiocy.

I always look forward to April 2.