This song has been floating around in my head all day today, so I thought I’d share with the crowd.
From 1991, here’s Toad The Wet Sprocket, “All I Want”. When I was a baby DJ on WRCK Rock 107 we played this song. A LOT.
J.P.
Paperless.
One of my goals in 2015 is to have a neat, well-organized office both at home and at work. This is my part of a greater effort to reduce clutter from my life in general, but I figured the offices was a good place to start. With the reduction of clutter, I am aiming to take another step toward going paperless.
I have been on a paperless kick for years. When I worked for DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, one of the goals of the company was to bring the paperless office to fruition. As the second largest computer company in the world at the time, it seemed like they had the might to do it, but they stumbled and the company was eventually scooped up by Compaq, which in turn was scooped up by HP. I did learn a lot about the paperless office and today’s technology has made it easier than ever to achieve this goal.
I have three main parts to my approach. Now remember, I am an Apple dude but I always look for ways to use my tools cross-platform. Two out of three of these tools are able to be used on Mac, Linux and Windows:
After messing around with plain text files, Apple’s Notes and Microsoft OneNote, I have re-embraced Evernote as my “Vault”. If I want to write something down, I put it in Evernote. If I need to give Earl a receipt (as he does the accounting in our merry little household) for a gas purchase, I snap a photo of the gas pump with Evernote. If I find a little tidbit online that I find interesting, it’s in Evernote. All of my meeting notes, project plans and doodling of ideas for work are stored in Evernote. In fact, this what I worked on accomplishing this morning: scanning all of my handwritten notes and such into Evernote. An iOS app called Scannable gives me the ability to scan a document and easily import it into my Evernote and/or share it with whomever I’d like with plenty of sharing options (email, etc). The crumpled up receipt from the car wash turns into a decent looking document using Scannable.
Evernote also let’s me search on keywords, tags or whatever, so finding things is a snap. It takes me about five minutes a day, usually at the end of my workday, to organize everything I’ve captured into Evernote through the course of a workday into my little buckets I’ve created for myself. Approaching my notes at work this way also affords me the opportunity of readdressing my notes as second time, which lends to me remembering things a little better.
Dropbox is my file vault. The application is basically an extra folder on my computer, which syncs with the cloud whenever a change is made. Any computer that has access to that Dropbox folder, including mobile devices, instantly has access to that file. It’s a great way to save backups of your stuff and it’s a great way to access your stuff from anywhere.
Originally I was keeping everything in my Dropbox, however, I decided to favor Evernote because of the improvements they’ve made to the Evernote interface and because I can group similar things together in one document, especially at work, for example, if there’s an attachment on a meeting invite, I can drag that to my meeting notes I’ve typed up and everything is together in one place. I like this much better than using folders in Dropbox.
OmniFocus, the Mac-only application from the Omni Group, is a very robust productivity application. While a glorified “to do” list, OmniFocus’ flexibility is amazing. Based on the GTD or “Getting Things Done” approach to productivity, I’ve been using OmniFocus for a number of years (it was originally a goal of 2011) and I can say that I have been better organized and less stressed since adopting my own spin on GTD with OmniFocus. Anything I have to do, I throw it in OmniFocus and like cleaning out my Evernote Inbox everyday, I spend a few moments each day reviewing my OmniFocus Inbox and curate each item so that I have a clear understanding of what I have to do and what I want to do.
Walking into a clean office has done wonders for my mood and I’m happy that I’ve reached this first part of this goal that I set for myself in 2015. I’m determined to not leave my well-being to the fates this year, and every little step in a positive direction has done wonders for my mood.
Commuted.
Many were surprised when I arrived at the office today. I knew that it was going to be a snowy day, being a pilot at all I tend to be hypersensitive about the weather forecast, and it’s snowy days like today that put me in the mood for a challenge. While folks are standing in line at the local supermarket, ready to hoard bread and milk like they’re stockpiling for an invasion of lactose and gluten free aliens, I confidently drive the roads of Upstate New York, knowing my vehicle, the realistic capabilities of four-wheel drive and my personal limits when it comes to driving said Jeep.
Folks on the Thruway were maddening during the commute this morning; out of state drivers and downstaters tend to drive faster than conditions really warrant. I’m not surprised when I see a car off in the ditch. If there’s no sign of motion around the vehicle sitting in a snowbank, I’ll stop and make sure the driver is alright. I haven’t been shot yet. There were a couple of cars off the road along the commute, which I find odd because the Thruway is clearly (pun intended) the best maintained road in the state. If you can’t drive on the Thruway in this weather, you’re definitely not going to be able to travel on the side roads on the state-maintained Interstates.
I’ve never understood why out-of-staters would want to visit this area in the middle of January, anyway. Are they going snowmobiling in their stylish North Face jacket or something? I doubt that they are, but then again, I don’t really mind this weather even though I bitch about it a lot and I don’t have a North Face jacket. This year’s winter jacket of choice has been a barn hoodie underneath my old and worn Carhartt jacket. I love my Carhartt. It’s something I earned, being a boy from these parts.
It’s suppose to turn wicked cold this evening, with temperatures falling nearly 40 degrees to around 10 below zero. That’s when I’ll want to stay home because I don’t really mind playing in the snow but I don’t like playing in the freezing cold. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take freezing cold over sweltering hot, at least one can bundle up to warm up, but that doesn’t make the wicked cold that much more appealing to me.
New Routine.
I was about to write a blog entry about how glancing at social media makes me crazy, but then I realized that I have written about this on several occasions so I decided not to write a long dissertation again. I don’t know if people read personal blogs these days, but if someone read another post about Facebook on this blog, their teeth would probably fall asleep from boredom.
One of my goals for 2015 has been to laser in and focus on something. Focus is not something that comes easily to me because I have a tendency to have several thoughts going on at once in my head. During a work presentation not too long ago, I jumped around on a few subjects at once and then realized that I must have been confusing the audience. I stammered out “I apologize but apparently I’m multithreaded (geek term) and it would seem that I’m firing too many thrusters at once right now.”
This did nothing to ease the tension.
I have been trying to get in the habit of avoiding the time sink of Facebook as part of my morning routine of catching up on the day and I think the results are starting to pay off. When I do go onto Facebook my feed is so scrambled chronologically, as Facebook is trying to show me what it thinks is relevant, I can’t make heads or tails of anything so I just give up and move on to something else.
#TBT Repost: Around The World.
I just stumbled across this video clip from five years ago. I have no recollection of making it, but apparently I was having a great time.
Scary.
This morning I stumbled into the kitchen all groggy and blurry-eyed, in search of a glass of water. I just needed one glass of water and I would feel better. I’m not much of a coffee person and I tend to drink iced tea in the afternoon, and because society frowns on beer for breakfast, I just wanted a glass of water.
I noticed that there were a few dishes stacked in the sink. This is odd when I’m around because I do not enjoy dishes in the sink. Dishes in the sink make me crazy. Not as crazy as when I find garbage in the sink, but moderately crazy. I don’t bay at the moon or anything, I just get surly, unless I’m in search of my first glass of water in the morning, then I get surlier.
The dishes in the sink meant two things. A certain someone might or might not be home for a few weeks before he heads off to college in a city that may or may not be windy. It also meant that a certain someone of the married persuasion dared not open the dishwasher because something hideously awful could be hiding in the dishwasher.
CLEAN DISHES.
Now, I know that clean dishes ranks right up there with “whites in the dryer” in the frightful department. I know that sinking feeling when you steal a glance at the dishwasher and you see the “Clean” light illuminated. The feeling of dread has been eased slightly with the march of technology; before the days of the “clean” light there was the “bounce sound” of the detergent dispenser in the dishwasher, its ringing out a startling announcement that the dishes in the dishwasher needed to removed and put in their proper place in the various cabinets that adorn our kitchen.
I’ve never figured out Earl’s system for where the dishes go. The glasses are to the right of the sink when I expect them to be to the left. There are round plastic tubs in one cabinet and square plastic containers over the Radarange microwave because apparently one heats up stuff in a square container but not a round one. The Pyrex bakeware is filed next to barbecue sauce and the brown bakeware is next to the bread machine. Cookie sheets go under the stove unless they’re used for something else then they go on their side next to the Bundt Pan.
The one that might be going to college where it’s windy and the one that could have marital ties to me both avoided the dishwasher during their travels and treks across the kitchen. That is when the fear totally gripped me and I realized that it was 2015 and to stay true to one of my goals, I must face my fear square on and do something to conquer this fear once and for all.
I emptied the dishwasher.
Legacy.
It seemed appropriate to see this reminder of “the good ol’ days” on New Years Day. This billboard stands along the Thruway next near another Holiday Inn billboard that features the new logo the company adopted a few years ago.
As I celebrate my middleagedness, I reflect on a simpler time as denoted by the more familiar logo. The world seemed a little slower, a little happier and a lot less plastic.
New Camera.
One of my Christmas gifts from Santa was a new camera. I did not expect this gift at all, which made the surprise that much more special.
The new camera is a Canon G15 point-and-shoot type affair. Apparently Earl watched me fumble with Canon DSLR enough at places like Walt Disney World and the like to decide that I needed something that was a little more point-and-shoot friendly. My iPhone 6 has a great camera built into it, but I’m not a huge fan of taking photos with my iPhone, even though that’s what’s encouraged these days.
I decided to try the new Canon out for a night shot tonight. The moon was hiding behind some clouds and I thought it made for a somewhat interesting photograph. Here’s what I captured from our driveway about 30 minutes prior to the composition of this blog entry.
Repeat.
One of the things that I don’t enjoy about the holiday season is the barrage of repeats of our favorite television shows. Unfortunately, this trend of repeating material doesn’t seem to be limited to television, as I noticed that some of the politics-oriented radio I listen to has also adopted this approach, repeating the same top 10 or whatever countdowns over and over since before Christmas.
There are bigger things to worry about in the world, but sometimes it’s the little things that capture my attention.
Cinematic Frustration.
Going to the movies is a consistent source of frustration for me. Because I can be somewhat judgmental at times, I believe that adults should conduct themselves in a certain socially acceptable manner whilst taking part in a cinematic experience. As expected, no less than four people continued to use their phones throughout the entire showing of “Into The Woods” this evening, including a pair of women that I dubbed “Aqua Net and The Frizz” who were sitting directly in front of me. The Frizz had her text size cranked up to the largest setting possible on an iPhone 5s. The words “Hello there” took up two lines in iMessage. The woman to her right, a young woman with a strapping young man accompanying her, exchanged messages with a man named Justin. They were having a conversation regarding the New Year’s Eve party they apparently both attended. The young woman doesn’t remember much.
Our local cinema, which shall remain nameless because I don’t want to give them advertising, but they are chain with just one location in New York State, has been around for about 15 years. They no longer use the preview screen in the lobby area because the workers find it too loud. Tonight the popcorn machine was broken, which resulted in reduced popcorn output.
One will note that it takes three people having a good time to make one batch of popcorn per 30 minute cycle.
The only reason I still bear the cinematic experience in general is because I enjoy a nice bag of movie theatre popcorn, but we weren’t about to wait 30 minutes for a bag of popcorn so I settled for M&Ms. It wasn’t the same.
The movie was enjoyable. That was the bright spot of the evening.
