Category Archives: Paul

February 13, 2021 · 23:40

Question For The Hive Mind

The legendary “internet hive mind” who participate on this site might be somewhat smaller than that in all of Twitter or FaceBook, but hey, let’s throw this out there and see if there’s a response.

I’m looking for a program or app for keeping track of “little notes,” or maybe better described as a “yellow sticky note” organizer. (See, it’s not even like I can describe what I’m looking for.)Does anyone have anything like that, or maybe even a favorite to recommend?

The question comes up (again) because I installed new monitors on my home office desk last week (it looks like I’ll be working from home for the duration, even after COVID lets us re-open our offices, since the lease is up and we’re looking at the opportunity to downsize the office and save some big bucks – time to maximize my efficiency and comfort for the long haul) and in the process cleaned, and in that process I came up with a big stack of miscellaneous sticky notes, some of which go back years. It occurs to me that there might be (should be?) a better way to deal with them.

Some are strictly temporary (“Call dentist on Monday”) while others have been up for years (cheat notes on common ASCII codes to make the °, ü, ©, ™, and ® symbols). Some are very low priority “to do” notes that have been here for a couple of years (“35:50 mark of  01/20/2018 SNSD = Yaz ‘Move Out’ Megamix”) but I still want to get to eventually.

So is there an app/program out there where I can put all of these and then sort, store, prioritize, update, archive? Like a database of yellow sticky notes? Or better yet, also color code them or somehow tag or flag them?

It needs to be a cross-platform application, so I can have it on my Windows desktops on multiple computers, on my laptop, on my iPhone, on my iPad.

It needs to be easy – the utility in the “yellow sticky note” system is that when there’s a thought or a note or a tidbit it can be created in seconds and then I can return to whatever the primary task of the moment might be. If I have to spend 30-60 seconds to break my train of thought, load an app, call up the right spot, and then go through several steps to record and save the note, it will be useless and it will never get used.

Figuring that something like this MUST already exist, I went searching. The two “best” in several recent articles are Evernote and Microsoft Notes, with Evernote being generally much better but Notes being free. I’ve used both in the past, but generally a few years back. (It seems that I wander off on this quest every couple of years.)

Evernote already has notes in it from 2013 and 2015, but not very many. It seems I didn’t get far. Notes has a few more notes, but not that many more. It looks like we also tried Notes more extensively for at least a couple months when I was at Urbatec, several jobs back. (It didn’t stick.)

There’s also a name-brand “Post It” app (or there was, it may or may not still be available) which will let you take pictures of your literal pile of Post It notes (like I have) and then… Maybe it translates your handwriting to text? Maybe it lets you do other things with them? It’s not clear. Has anyone used it?

And ultimately, given the way I think and use the crap out of my “go to” software tool, maybe I could just start creating a big Excel sheet that I can program and customize within an inch of its life? But why reinvent the wheel if I don’t have to?

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Recommendations?

Thanks!

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February 12, 2021 · 23:08

They All Sound Alike To Me

I’ve been watching a lot of the Australian Open tennis tournament in the evenings (it’s background, it’s live, it’s occasionally very entertaining) and it finally clicked tonight what’s been bothering me about one of the ads.

There’s an ad that runs about every twenty minutes for the Melbourne tourism agency, talking about “This Is Melbourne.” It has a male narrator, Australian accent, calm, low voice and every time it comes on the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

Tonight I finally realized that the narrator of the ad sounds exactly like the Australian dude on the Calm app that does the guided meditations. Before COVID sent us all to work from home, we would have a weekly 10-minute meditation session (strictly voluntary, but popular) in which we would listen to one of these meditation sessions. There are lots of variations with different narrators, male and female, all different accents, but everyone seemed to like the ones with this Australian dude the best.

I don’t know if it’s the same guy – I’m assuming that the one on the Calm app is actually some sort of “meditation person.” (I’m sure there’s a word for that, but I’m an clueless old dude who’s way too tired at the moment. Not priest. Guru? A quick Google search doesn’t give any help, but lots of articles and videos on leading your own guided meditation group, so it may well be that my assumption about training and qualifications are unjustified.) I would also think that the person doing the ads is a professional voice actor.

Maybe they’re the same person. Maybe not.

Maybe all male Aussies with that stereotypical tone and timbre (I think that just recently I referred to it as being “like some early 70’s FM college station graveyard shift DJ”) sound alike.

Maybe I’m just an American, and, well…

Maybe I should just turn the sound down during commercials and get on with my life.

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February 10, 2021 · 22:56

Somewhat Inauspicious

I am so much *NOT* a morning person, particularly as we approach the end of our first year in “work from home” (i.e., “live at work”) mode. If I don’t have to be “on the job” until 08:30, I’m not getting up at 06:30 or 07:00 so that I can spend 20-30 minutes commuting.

But this morning I had a dentist appointment.

I hate going to the dentist. I’ve had colonoscopies – would prefer them to the dentist. I’ve had kidney stones – okay, maybe that one’s a toss up.

So when I drag my sorry ass out of bed a full two hours early to go someplace I REALLY don’t want to be, this was the view out the back window:

Yeah, nothing threatening or inauspicious about that!

Is that a lens flare or a wisp of fog off on the left side at about the ten o’clock position? Or a massive solar flare that’s about to roast the entire inner solar system and reduce the Earth to a molten, smoking cinder?

If it’s “B,” does that mean I can go back to bed and blow off the dentist appointment? Or do I need to be incinerated with a shiny, bright smile?

Inquiring minds, don’t you know!

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February 4, 2021 · 23:47

Efficiency Strategy

Sometimes to get more done, and to be able to get more done in the future, even though you’re on tight deadlines NOW, you need to back off and do something else to make yourself more efficient. It might seem counterintuitive if you’re tightly focused on the goal and the methods you have to get there, but it’s a lesson to be learned about not losing sight of the bigger picture and being open to opportunities.

Case in point – it’s now been almost a year since the pandemic hit and many of us, myself included, ended up working out of a spare bedroom or odd space at home. When that crisis hit, and one crisis after another, we had to simply deal with it with the tools at hand. In my case, while I have a company laptop here for connecting to the server and accounting software there, the laptop with a single, smaller screen and fixed keyboard and trackpad isn’t the best form factor for me to get volume work done. It can work – it’s just not the easiest or fastest way to work.

However, I have my personal desktop computer here that is quite capable, has dual monitors, a full-sized keyboard, trackball, and so on. So I’ve worked out ways to get a lot of my work done on that computer, simply because it’s so much easier to work on.

But one thing I’ve noticed in the handful of times that I’ve gone back into the office is how much I miss my big 27″ monitors at work. The ones I’m using on my home desktop were picked up when my former office shut down about nine years ago, and while they were pretty cutting edge then, they’re small by today’s standards. They’re also slightly mismatched, different manufacturers, which is a little bit crazy-making in a dual monitor setup. But the price was right (they were being thrown out) and they work fine for what they are, so I’ve gotten used to it.

Earlier this week it struck me – I can do better. Those 27″ monitors today are about 1/3 the price of what those much smaller monitors were ten years ago. And I could use that extra screen space to get much more done, faster, easier…

The new monitors came in today, and while I’ve got deadlines, I took several hours this evening to NOT be working on those Excel files and deposit coding and data entry, and instead rearrange and clean my desk, move the old monitors out, and get the new ones in. It’s like a weight has been lifted, one that I didn’t even realize I was carrying.

Onward and upward! Work smarter, not harder! (Insert totally inappropriate non sequitur platitude here!)

 

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January 18, 2021 · 23:54

Today Was A Holiday?

Yeah, just like this was a weekend…

There’s an Adam Savage video recently where he talks about skills he picked up or developed while making “Mythbusters.” (One of the finest shows ever!) The short version is that he got REALLY good at unconsciously knowing how to pace the work so that they could always just get done on time.

This time of year when I’m juggling three or four critical deadlines at a time with more waiting in the wings to jump in (think of it as a fresh set of legs coming out on the power play to kick my ass) I’m in the same spot. I don’t think I’m as good yet as he was. I’m more like “hitting deadlines…ish.” Nothing fatal (yet) but it would be nice to have a bit more slack built into the system.

But not fatal.

Yet.

(And it’s 39 hours and counting until…)

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January 16, 2021 · 23:58

Not At The Finish Line

I was thinking earlier about how drained and exhausted I feel on the one hand, while on the other hand being pretty satisfied with getting a LOT of things accomplished and done, while on the third hand being stressed as hell over some looming deadlines that are just kicking my ass.

My first thought was about the accomplishments, and I thought, “Huh, at the end of the actual marathons I’ve always felt at least a certain sense of success for having met my goals. I wonder why that’s not happening now.”

Then I realized that we’re not at the finish line. I can see it from here, at least in a certain sense. We’ve (almost) survived the horrors of the last four years in general and the last year in particular – just four more days to go. And I’ve met a LOT of those goals and deadlines – but I’ve got those others still to deal with. And as soon as those are met I’ve got a couple more lurking right behind.

So this is more like the 20-mile mark when you’re through Beverly Hills and Century City and past the UCLA campus and you’re just coming into Santa Monica. “Hitting the wall.” I sort of hated that.

But I always kept running. And tomorrow I’ll continue again.

Stay safe.

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January 8, 2021 · 23:45

Buckle Up!

Wow.

I’ve still been busier than God all day – running an accounting department for a non-profit with an eight-figure annual budget means that this time of year is juuuuuuuust a bit hectic to begin with. And then the news alerts keep coming in making my phone sound like a pinball machine…

Here’s something I read from someone I trust (over on the social media side you’ll recognize her as someone I’ve been following and re-posting for about five years or more) and it explains a lot of what’s going – it’s an Extinction Burst.

So the next couple of weeks, i.e., the next eleven days in particular, could get very “interesting.” And by “interesting” I mean that there’s a chance that it could get “dangerous.” Even if it doesn’t come to that, it will most certainly be stressful and there will be moments when our lives might fill up with anxiety.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other.

Be smart. Be safe.

Breathe. Drink water. Get some exercise.

If you find yourself getting sucked into the crazy, it’s okay to turn it off. Listen to some music. (Probably not “Hamilton” or “Le Miz” right at the moment, if you know what I’m saying.) Read a book. Bing “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” (There’s probably crying involved with that, but it’s the good kind.) Watch the Chiefs march toward back-to-back Super Bowls.

Oh, yeah – wear your mask. Stay home whenever you possibly can. Isolate. Wash your hands. Don’t forget that in addition to the attacks on our brains and our psyches, there’s a pretty significant attack on our physical wellbeing going on.

I want all of you here, healthy, probably happier, on February 1st. And December 31st. And onward.

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January 7, 2021 · 23:18

Hair

Because I’m still too irate to speak rationally about yesterday’s events (i.e., the attempted coup at the Capitol by the “President” and his cult) to speak without massive amounts of screaming and obscenities (which I prefer to keep off of this site and use on social media instead) I’ll instead blather on for a few seconds about something else that’s been catching my attention the last few days while my brain is trying to revolt and not hear any more horrors.

Hair.

Now, one might think that given my preferred hair style, i.e.:

…and the way I accomplish it in these now nearly ten months of quarantine and lockdown:

…that hair wouldn’t be that big of a deal. After all, how hard could it be to just buzz it down to fuzz? (“BUZZ FUZZ!!!” Sorry, Paul’s brain is experiencing issues…) You cut it all down to one uniform, short length and it all grows back and stays pretty uniform and then at some point you repeat the process.

Right?

Apparently not.

There are either some assumptions in there that I’m not figuring out or my cranial follicles are conspiring to make me insane. Since the rest of the Known Universe is demonstrably working to make me insane, I suspect the latter.

But, what in hell am I talking about?

Well, first of all, let’s talk about the hair around my ears. (And you thought this was going to be boring!) That’s usually my number one indicator of when I need a new haircut since when it gets long enough it starts to tickle and bother me. Now, just a couple of weeks after a haircut, when I was very, very careful to buzz everything down to a uniform length, the hair above my right ear is long enough to be tickling and bugging me – but not my left ear or anywhere else. In fact, it’s still pretty short everywhere else.

Then there’s this SPOT up near the top of my head where out of nowhere in the last three or four days it’s had some kind of bizarre growth spurt and it’s about three times longer than anywhere else. I know for a fact that it was all cut when I last conned the clippers but now out of the blue it’s just almost freakishly long in this one little patch.

WHY? I thought that the pace of hair growth would be pretty uniform, but that’s apparently wrong. Or, again, conspiracy plus Universe equals insanity.

And don’t even get me started on my eyebrows. I believe it was John Scalzi who once referred to his as the “Thufir Hawat starter set.” That’s the track I’m on.

Is it an age thing? Am I doomed to spend the rest of my years unexpectedly sprouting in odd places?

Whatever. Maybe I’ll just start shaving it entirely again. I tried that once and found that it was bizarre (particularly the part down at the end, the incident with the towel) and too much work to maintain. But faced with this madness, it might be the lesser of two evils.

And why are there always only two evils?

Wasn’t this better than talking about politics?

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January 6, 2021 · 23:53

Did I Miss Anything Today?

Just yelled an obscenity as I realized it’s 23:52 and I haven’t posted today. I’ve been hunkered down with year-end and month-end deadlines from Hell.

Did I miss anything today? Anything exciting going on in the world?

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January 5, 2021 · 22:59

Supersaturated

It’s been a day. And a week. And… Just keep expanding out from there, I guess. Between the holidays and work and the hangar and feeling like I’m being nibbled to death by ducks and ***LIFE***…

Breathe. Slowly. Relax…

Those meditation apps like HeadSpace and Calm want you to get into your zone and feel a golden light filling you, as you’re present with every muscle and bone and fiber in your body, the light filling you up from your toes to the top of your head and then your being feeling as if you’re being suspended from a golden beam of light coming out of the top of your head…

There are days when all I can think about is how much I wish that golden beam was a twenty terawatt laser so that I can start melting things to slag. I’m not sure if that means I should give up on meditation those days, or if I need to spend eight or nine hours doing it. Could go either way.

Now I know how a supersaturated solution feels.

I’m sure tomorrow will be better. This, by the way, was not AT ALL what I sat down to write.

Go figure.

(Video from North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics)

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