Too long...

Sorry for the huge gap between posts. I guess it's been a busy month. I assume that since I haven't posted in a while, nobody will read this anymore, except the possible few who might subscribe to the feed. I find my free time dwindling, and when I do get some, I'd rather just relax or hang out with my son. There have been countless things I've experienced since my last post that I really wanted to write about, but just didn't pick up the computer. Maybe I'll add a list at the bottom of the post. Anyway, my iPhone is still great, a month later, except that it needs to get charged at least every other day. That's a little annoying. Man, that just reminded me of something else I've been putting off. I have $50 from my birthday to buy music, which I haven't done for 2 weeks. I really need to re-stock my collection.

Ok, so as a recap of the last month (since my last post), I gave 2 conference presentations (that took up way too much time, now I'm behind on my thesis), Linnea was Matron of Honor in Angela's wedding (where Brandon and I made quick friends with bartender Tom, and got free shots for trying a "cement mixer," and my iPhone rocked it out so we were able to keep track of the Illini tear it up against Indiana), We went to a Chinese Halloween party (where Louis dressed up as a horse, and Linnea and I dressed as babies, diapers and all), we had a great birthday dinner for me at a decently cool pizza / arcade place with ok pizza, started going to a bi-weekly bible study / dinner with people our age at church, witnessed the Change (we'll see if I believe in it, but at least the next Pres is a Sox fan!), turned 24, Louis got baptized, Illini football sucked, Louis went to his first Illini basketball game, and most recently (i.e, right now), waching the Bears blow chunks against the Packers. Absolutely horrible. Oh yeah, and I told Linnea not to let me buy Call of Duty: World at War until I finish my thesis. I'm thinking now that that was a big mistake.

Finally, a list of random thoughts that have popped in my head since last time. Why do I see some girls riding their bicycles wearing skirts? Why do people talk on their phone while riding their bicycle, in the middle of the road, almost getting hit by cars? Why do people cross the street without looking, assuming the drivers see them, rather than being safe and waiting for them to stop? Why does EVERYONE constantly talk on their phone while driving? Why doesn't my iPhone have a video camera? Why did I see a girl driving a sport motorcycle with a dress on? Why are people dumb? Is it a stereotype if it's true? And finally, why do some girls ride their bicycles wearing skirts?

One Month

My son is one month old today. If you never got a link to his blog, let me know. That's where all the pictures are. Anyway, I had a bunch of cool stuff to talk about here, but I either forgot about it, or I'm too tired to type it out right now. I've really been concentrating on keeping Louis IV's blog updated so that everyone knows what's been going on and who he's been meeting, so my blog is kind of riding the pine right now. It's really hard too. I don't know how many times each day some random thought pops in my mind, or something neat happens, or I read something amazingly cool, and I just don't have time to write about it. I would say it eats at my insides, but if it really ate at my insides I would just blog instead of playing Call of Duty 4 in my free time. Speaking of that, I'm really kicking butt. I don't know what happened, but something just clicked one day. That's for another post though, that will probably not get posted. Excluding my brother and brother-in-law, I'm pretty sure there's only one other dude who even cares. He knows who he is.

I guess I'll just ramble quickly about some other things since I don't really want to post anything else after this post for a day or two, since I don't want to overshadow a post about my son, even though it was only about him for a second. How about those White Sox? I don't know what to think anymore. Every time they start winning, they just go back to losing (see: tonight). Oh well, hopefully they can hang on until October. It's almost like the collapse of 2005, except that they had about a 16 game lead before tanking in the second half. I remember it well, I was scared for my life. Luckily the game I picked to go to was when they broke their longest (7 games) losing streak of the season by hitting 4 homers in a row against Randy Johnson. That was amazing to watch. That season turned out o.k. though... Oh, and what do you think about that Brett guy? I dislike the Packers greatly, but I've always had a great respect for Brett's playing. Unfortunately this month long stink has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Alright, I'm up for feeding the little dude, hopefully I'll get my posterizer ramped up again soon.

Line cutter!

Kottke posted about a guy who encountered a line-cutter at an Apple store when the iPhone 3G was released. I linked to Lance's site to read the entire entry, and it was absolutely amazing. Not only was it written with a great attention to his thoughts and details, but I started getting mad at the line-cutter myself! This blog entry is probably how I would envision my blog if that's what I did for a living. Unfortunately when I post, I get too excited and try to get it published quickly rather than being patient and adding the details that made that post so wonderful.

Read it! You'll be happy.

Chik-fil-a, I mean McDonalds chicken sandwich...

I drove past a McDonald's on the way home today, and the message under the Golden Arches said "Try our southern style chicken sandwich." Now if you're from the midwest like me, you may not have known this, but the great, grand, new McDonald's southern style chicken sandwich is an EXACT CARBON COPY of Chick-fil-a's chicken sandwich! Same bun, same breaded chicken breast, same pickle(s). And did I mention Chick-fil-a has been around for quite a while, so this is nothing new. Did I also mention that McDonald's even newer breakfast chicken biscuit is an EXACT CARBON COPY of Chick-fil-a's chicken biscuit? Yeah, you can google chick-fil-a vs. McDonald's and you'll get a shit ton of blogs and articles comparing the two. IDENTICAL! McDonald's should be sued.

Time management?

Who knew such a thing existed? If you know me, you know I obviously didn't. Below is a piece by Linda Stone (no idea...) via Taylor, via someone else. She doesn't take into account that habitual procrastinators like myself need poor time management in order to start things dangerously close to the time due in order to maximize efficiency. That's my excuse at least...

1. Each evening or morning before you start your day, make a short list of your intentions (the result and feeling of something you want) for the day and by each, write the related to do’s for that day. Try to keep your list to 5 intentions. Consciously choose what you will do and what you will not do. Keep a different list of what you will review for inclusion on other days.

2. List only what you really expect to do that day. As other things come to mind, write them on a separate list. By putting these items on a separate list, you are creating the space to be in the moment with each of your day’s priorities. Review that list as you plan for the next day and determine how they fit in to your plans. Give yourself some down time, enjoy your successes at the end of the day.

3. Give yourself meaningful blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on each intention. Turn OFF technology each day during those blocks and focus on your intentions.

4. At home, be clear about what technology you’ll use and where. Computer in the kitchen? Maybe not. A friend of mine just removed the computer from her kitchen and said she is now far less likely to stop to constantly check email or news. In the kitchen, she pays attention to her family and prepares food. Sometimes they do group family activities at the kitchen table. When she heads into her office to work on her computer, her children know not to disturb her while she works. Untethered technology gives us the freedom to do nearly anything, anytime, anywhere. It can also enslave us - we feel compelled to use it where ever it is. Technology is neutral. How, when and where we use it is up to us.

- Linda Stone — who coined the terms “continuous partial attention” — writes about her tips for time management, based on her survey of successful, busy (and often powerful) people about their strategies for managing it all.

I guess I'll never be a successful, busy (and often powerful) people (as I write this during work). My to do lists are always too long and only get half done at best, and we have a computer in the kitchen. I like point 3 the best though. If I don't have more than an hour to do work, I usually waste time.

Random

Since I only started my blog yesterday, I find myself checking on it about every 3 minutes even though I have nothing to add to it. Some times I look at it just to look at it (I know, it's not that great, but I've only got so much time to make shit look good, and right now it's focused on my back yard). Other times I look at it and add some random thing to the layout (like my new links or my signature at the bottom of the page - I haven't decided if that's tacky yet).

I guess I'm addicted already. I'm not surprised, I have the hereditary addiction gene. Yes, it's an addiction gene. I don't believe in just alcoholism being passed down (which is one -ism I don't have, phew), but a predisposition to be addicted to anything and everything seemingly enjoyable. For example, I'm addicted to golf, gambling, diet coke, Call of Duty 4 (the worst one right now, I can't stop playing), and obviously this blog.

It's too bad I'm not hopelessly addicted to writing my Master's thesis, or that shit would be in the bag already. Oh well. It'll get done, I'm just not dangerously close to that deadline point yet to where my all-star, procrastination-overcoming, last-minute ass kicking comes into play. I guess that's for another post... Maybe I should make a "thesis writing" thread in here, but not right now. I am working on it though, believe me. It's just hard because in the gait analysis world it seems something else that I have to write new Matlab code about always comes up when I think I'm at the point to actually write my papers and be done with the damn thing.

I guess it's back to work on a literature review I don't have time for, for something I just want to skip over and ignore...