January 31, 2003
The Month Closes...
Well, it's the last day of the month. This has no special significance for me. Well, maybe it should. I am paid twice monthly... but you know, it's direct deposited and the rent is automatically sent out the next day, so I don't even think about it...
I wonder if I'm missing out on a certain thrill? I was just in our departmental mail room and heard two of the student aids talking about how they were "so disappointed" that today wasn't pay-day... I guess that doesn't equate to "excited" when it is payday...
I guess there is one good thing about the new month... I get to flip my calendars to the next page...
Anyway, Since last weekend was such a loss, I'm in definite need of a productive day this weekend. Probably Saturday... but it will need to be productive in a get-stuff-graded kind of way rather than a get-stuff-cleaned-up kind of way...
In other news, my laptop corrupted itself yesterday about an hour before I was set to teach a class with it. I'm finally running a disk-diagnostic today to try to revive it, but it was really inconvenient... I got to show off how poor my PC skills were for my class (I normally use a Mac to do demos)...
Well, off I go... Probably doing some game-playing this fine evening with friends. I just registered another piece of shareware... That game that I was playing when I missed a day during my "Two Week Experiment"... Avernum 3... I decided to go ahead and register it... It's an enjoyable distraction... But it's making my TiVo jealous.
Posted by Andrew at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2003
Well, that didn't happen.
The lure of dinner and games has caused me to stumble... Off I go. Sunday will be a busy day... I'll be passing on all things Superbowl-related. No big loss.
Posted by Andrew at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
Well, another Saturday...
It's about 3pm and so far, my Saturday hasn't gotten rolling yet. But at least, the furnace is working again... yesterday morning, I woke up to a cold apartment. I had one of my housemates call up service and make a request to have things fixed... when I got home that evening, we had three electric heaters on loan from the apartment complex while we waited to see what was going to happen with the furnace... apparently, a tube that allows condensation to exit the furnace was frozen over and so the system shut itself down as a safety mechanism... So, basically, our furnace stopped working because it got too cold! This seems contrary to good furnace operations. This morning, the 2nd workman from the complex arrived and found this ultimate problem and now we have heat again... they say that on Monday or Tuesday they'll come back and re-route the tube so that it drains into the area below the building instead of the area behind it which should keep it from freezing again. Good.
Last night I visited with friends and learned to play a new board game called "Nautilus"... Good game... longish, but enjoyable and I already look forward to playing it again.
I'm going to finish getting up and around... I would really like to make a dent in my inbox today... right now, my inboxometer reads: 299... I'll report back around 4:30 with an update.
Posted by Andrew at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2003
Amusing... I agree with the final assessment by Lisa Sullivan...
Wired News: Model Linux Geek an MS User Too?
Here are a couple of screen captures, in case it goes away too soon...
Posted by Andrew at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2003
blog. -- "Most Likely to Succeed"
American Dialect Society: Words of the Year
This is a good read... I especially liked last years "shuicide bomber"... but this year's "Iraqnophobia" is pretty good.
Posted by Andrew at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2003
Off to bed...
Well, I am now off to bed. I am tired, and I did get quite a bit more accomplished since my last post... I finished that box, went through my mail, filed away quite a pile of old bills, moved my 4th load to the dryer and got a 5th load ready to put in tomorrow (yeah, I had a lot of laundry to do!)... I feel pretty-well accomplished. In terms of my over-all 'stuff to do' this was mostly busy work and pretty much a drop in a very large bucket, but it does help to get in control of even a small part. My inbox is still haunting me at 300 messages many with 'things to do' in them. I have many more boxes of stuff to go through... I have many files that are disorganized on my computers... I have a lot of old things that should be thrown out (especially in my office)... so... still much much to do. Well, it was an interesting day and I think blogging it helped me to keep from getting too far off-track. I probably could have gotten more done if I hadn't needed to type something new here every hour... but on the other hand, if I didn't have to come back here every hour and fess-up to my progress, I would have probably gotten way off track. Interesting. Well, good night.
Posted by Andrew at 04:18 AM | Comments (0)
12:15am update
box from top of green trunk is now empty, but some of the materials from it are now on top of my desk in sorted piles... still going through the mail that I got over the last week... stupid Publisher's Clearing House is making me slow down... Hey... I really can't pass up a chance at Ten Million, no matter how much I hate going through their flyer...
but continuing to make progress... will update again before bed.
Posted by Andrew at 01:19 AM | Comments (0)
Before and After on box by desk...
So here are before and after pictures of what I'm working on at the moment... this takes just a bit more work than actual progress, so I probably will cut back on the images (sorry, fabulous friend)... Next, I have a stack of mail to go through plus the rest of this box. I'll let you know of my progress around 1:15am.
Posted by Andrew at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2003
Desk is clear...
Here's the desk now. I think my next target is that box on the top of the green trunk to the left of my desk... This box will probably take me longer to go through than I imagine... but I'll show you how far I got through it at 12:15am... Sometimes I fear, though, that I'm just 'moving stuff around' rather than getting things done... but I guess it's a start...
Posted by Andrew at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
Goal Met.
Here's my desk... here's the clean area on the right. That speaker will stay there. You can see that the CD's there were there are now in the wooden rack directly behind the iMac. now to the left-hand side. Will be done by 11:30pm.
Posted by Andrew at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
10pm update
Working on a goal provided by "just call me a fabulous friend or summin'"... to clean off the 1/4 of my desk closest to the wall by 10:40pm... working on it right now. (just folded and put away my 2nd load of laundry...)... 3rd is in dryer now... 4th is in washer.
Posted by Andrew at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)
9:30pm... sigh
The anatomy of distraction. So, I started thinking about who would be able to find my blog, so I went to google to see if wheeland.com was in their index (surprisingly, it is)... so I went to see where it would place on a search for "Wheeland"... third (after two of my own other sites) -- I clearly rule this particular combination of 8 letters online. So I looked at my main page again and went to my Wheeland Family Reunion area... At this point, I thought to myself... Hmmm... I wonder where that big family tree chart I made last August... found it... thought... "hey, I wonder how I'm going to get that online (which I said then that I'd do)... so I fired up a couple of applications and messed with thim... decided to go with "ConceptDraw"... Then realized it was 9pm and decided that I was wasting time (thanks to this blog)... So I got on IM and told my friends that I wasn't going to be able to come over because I really wanted to get more work done... Then... while on IM, noticed that someone else was listening to a song that I liked (it was displayed under their name on the IM system)... so I sent them a quick message and then talked to them for a while... Now it's 9:30pm... aaugh. This is my life. Too much distraction. I need a white room with nothing else around me to be productive, I think... :)
Posted by Andrew at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
8pm update
Had a little dinner. Talked a bit with housemates... Started to go through today's mail... didn't get much else done... better check on the laundry, though. Got an invitation from friends to go play some boardgames later... might take a 2 to 3 hr break to do that... It's just such an enriching experience to play games... I haven't written much about my love of board games yet... perhaps on another day.
Posted by Andrew at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
7pm update
We have about $40 in unreturned returnables! Check out our front entry closet... couldn't fit it all in the frame!
anyways... sorted out some old cans to add to this collection, put in laundry load three and finished sorting the stuff from the truck... still nothing new on the surface of my desk... but getting there. :)
Posted by Andrew at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
6pm update
Sorted most of the stuff from my truck... about to start yet another load of laundry... a little less productive this time. Need to kick it up again a bit. Did check my e-mail and answered enough to keep my inboxometer at 300. Watching this week's StarSearch on the TiVo... Amusing ending on Wednesday nights with the tie and Arsenio Hall not having a clue what to do. heh.
Posted by Andrew at 06:08 PM | Comments (0)
5pm update
That was a much better hour. I started cleaning up my desk and found a form about my car lease being up that I needed to send back to Nissan... so I filled it out and wanted to put it in the mailbox. I also remembered that I had a little slip of paper telling me there was something too big for the mailbox that we were supposed to go pick up at the post office... So I got my coat and stuff on and went outside to get the mail in our mailbox (over a week's worth! -- this is because we have one key for the box and my housemates wanted access to it, so we kept it inside, but they never check it and it's a pain to go inside and then go back out to get the mail... so it doesn't get checked. I've decided to take the key back and keep it on my keyring... The mail will get check more often this way and if they really want another key, they can take it and have a new one made... :) )... anyways... so there's yet another new slip in the box for something to pick up, so I take the trash from inside the door and throw that in the dumpster as I drive off to the post office... unfortunately, it closed at noon, so no such luck there, but after getting back, I carried several loads of StuffToSort(TM) from my truck into the house and switch my laundry to the next stages... 2 loads are now in process... back to dealing with the stuff I brought in from the truck and then back to the top of my desk... next update at 6pm.
Posted by Andrew at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
4pm update
Got dressed, started 1 load of laundry... a 2nd is ready to go in. Did a little bit of cleaning, but not quite enough. Watching some TiVo at the same time... it's slowing me down a bit... might need to turn it off... let's see how the next hour goes. Going to focus on the top surface of my desk during this hour.
Posted by Andrew at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
Before Picture 1
So, this is what the computer desk in my bedroom looks like right now... I would like to clean at least the surface of the desk up as well as get some laundry started... I'll let you know how that went.
If your curious about the picture, here's a little more of a caption: Starting at the middle and going clockwise from "noon"... My iMac (17") with my Blog up on it. above it is a copy-paper box from work with lots of stuff in it that needs to be sorted out. going around to the right there are some old posters and things for the walls (notice I have nothing on the walls... I'd like to change that, too)... some piled up CDs on the desk, my desk chair... my bed is to the right, you can just see a tiny bit of it in the corner...then, on the platform pulled out from my desk we have a couple of remotes, one is for the TiVo, one is for the DVD player that I just got, and one for the VCR... above that, my red hairbrush, there are some boxes of CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Below that is a white wire rack with things that need to be filed and a bag of potato chips, next to that is a mostly empty green trunk that used to belong to an old girlfriend. On that is another BoxLidOfStuffToSortThrough(TM)... you can see the box for my digital camera in it. Behind that is a big yellow piggy bank... which held around $500 the last time I sorted it out... it will probably never get that full again. Above that is a wooden rack that my dad built and right now its holding a fan and some CDs, but they're all strewn around and hard to find... there are more on the floor on the other side of the rack... See that space beyond the rack... that's the "scary quarter" of my bedroom where stuff has just gotten piled up... this could be referred to as the QuarterOfMyRoomToSortThrough(TM). Anyways, on the top of the rack is a grey 3D puzzle... the kind you build in layers of a womans head... on it are my 2000 glasses and a CCC baseball cap. To the right of that is a rack of writing implements on the top and EXPO markers on the bottom. If there's anything in particular you're curious about... ask me in the comments... We'll see how much it's changed by later on...
this is my 3pm update.
Posted by Andrew at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
I'm up, I'm up.
Okay, it's 2pm. That 11am wake-up didn't work. I would up hitting snooze MANY times and here it is, 2pm. I can live with this, I guess... Next step, shower. I'll update at 3.
Posted by Andrew at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
A Productive Day?
It's 4am... I'm now going to bed. I'm planning to get up at 11am... that'll be 7 hrs of sleep. I'll blog throughout the day tomorrow (today actually) with updates on how incredibly productive (or not) I'm being. BTW: ibo[299]
Posted by Andrew at 04:01 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2003
Last day of the Two-Week Experiment
Well, it's been two weeks now and all that I had planned to write about has not yet been written, so I'll be keeping this blog around as a part of <www.wheeland.com>... adding to it with regularity, but perhaps not daily... I may make occasional one or two-week long "blogging commitments" to do daily posting now and then... I think it would be my best way to really make sure that I keep it up. I need that sense that it's something I "have to" do, or it would probably get pushed down too low on my to-do list and I'd drop it.
This may be my last post for a couple of days, but not many... I will definitely be back, and if you don't hear from me again by the 18th, please start to e-mail me and accuse me of being a slacker!
God Bless!
Posted by Andrew at 05:22 PM | Comments (1)
January 13, 2003
One last thing...
Duck Sign (a blog entry on "Real Live Preacher")
One last post before I get the rest of my work done for the evening. I've been reading this particular blog now for the last month or so... It's from a anonymous pastor who has been blogging about his life as a pastor and he has posted some really insightful messages (note that I don't fully agree with all of his messages and comments, but if your mind is open, the entries are quite good). This particular message is bound to put a smile on your face for the rest of the day... Go ahead... read it before you decide it some intolerable preaching... it's not.
Posted by Andrew at 01:12 AM | Comments (0)
A Picture of My Cat
Just testing out the MovableType interface for how to upload and add an image to a blog entry... Wow. This is easy... If it works. (Oh, and by the way, this is a picture of my cat, Folly. She has been a subject of several exam bonus questions over the last year or two. I'm very much a 'cat person'). (I'm also a parenthesis & ellipsis person...) oh, and: ibo[200]
Posted by Andrew at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)
Truth in message dating...
Okay... I'm pathetic. I actually edited the date and time posted for that last message by four minutes... I started it at about 11:45pm and it came in at 12:01am... And I couldn't bear to have anyone think that I was sitting around waiting until after midnight just so that I could post the message on the next day and make it potentially my "post for the day"... So I went in and changed the time on the entry.
But of course, now it looks like I typed up a quick entry and raced against the clock to post a message "before the deadline"... Sigh. I'm clearly a mental case.
After this two week dealy is over, I'm just going to be posting whatever I want whenever I feel like it... hopefully I won't let it die like so many other blogs out there...
Posted by Andrew at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2003
That makes a BIG difference...
Am I Right - Misheard Lyrics and Song Parodies
Okay, here's an amusing site... A fun way to spend a little time when you have nothing better to do. This particular site lists mis-heard lyrics which some of my friends are prone to do. It's amazing how one wrong line can change the whole character of a song... But at least I wasn't alone in mis-hearing the lyrics for that Mandy Moore "In My Pocket" song... Little black whats!? Where?!!
Posted by Andrew at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
Arrrgh! I missed a day!
Oh, no! I missed a day! But I spent pretty much the whole day playing an adventure game... The above link shows which one, but I'm actually doing it for a semi-legitimate purpose. I'm working with a team on a grant proposal that would include a great number of school kids collaborating to build an adventure game. So, in a way, today was spent 'researching' that style of game. The last time I seriously played an adveture game with a party of characters would have been Bard's Tale! (between then and now, however, I've been a big fan of all three versions of Myst)...
Posted by Andrew at 02:46 AM | Comments (2)
January 10, 2003
Odd Late-Night Craving...
Man. I would really like some Coney Island Hot Dog flavored Potato Chips from Snyder's of Hanover. I discovered these a few weeks ago while waiting for some service to be done to my (gasp) SUV... They were in the vending machine at the car dealership. As part of my craving I just now went around the net looking for these chips. The problem is, they only come in the little bags that you buy in vending machines... you can't buy a large bag of them. You can only buy 1 oz. bags, 60 per case!
On the bright side, I also discovered that Lays is planning to release their own version of this flavor as part of their "Tastes of America" series... at least, I hope so...
Maybe I should just go get a real hot dog.
Posted by Andrew at 03:15 AM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2003
Hey! Shouldn't I be offended by this?
The Detroit Project - by Americans for Fuel Efficient Cars
Hmmm... I drive an SUV... shouldn't I be bothered by this? Well, maybe a bit... I think it's kind of offensive when people lump all SUV drivers together. I feel that I have a use for my SUV, although I think I'm changing my vehicle in the summer. I haul around sound equipment, board games, and people on a daily/weekly basis. I also want 4-wheel drive. My needs are for a larger vehicle with 4-wheel drive. I have yet to see a mini-van with 4-wheel drive, and other vehicles with it are smaller than I need.
I certainly don't like that it consumes more fuel than most smaller vehicles...
...and if it didn't, I'd be quite happy with that. I believe that a large reason why our vehicles consume a lot of fuel is because the oil companies WANT us to buy it. I've seen advertisments and products that show that we could get MUCH better gas mileage from our vehicles, but when they try to sell these products or make them available, they meet resistance from oil companies.
At any rate, my next vehicle will likely be something between a full-sized SUV and a car. I plan to look at the following list of vehicles: Pontiac Aztek (as ugly as it is), Nissan Murano (high on my list), Buick Rendezvous, Saturn Vue, and I'll even look at a Subaru Forester again... but last time I considered it, I didn't care for it. Are they any I'm missing?
Posted by Andrew at 01:10 PM | Comments (2)
January 08, 2003
Ah... Evaluations...
So I got some Course Evaluations back from Fall quarter... I got the usual good book, bad book, too much work, too little work, didn't like the assignments, liked the assignments kind of stuff... Nothing conclusive, really, but what I find most amusing are some of the other comments... Here are some of my favorites... all from students in one particular class (These are 100% real):
- The instructor's laughing was annoying, but I got used to it after a while.
- [...]everything was explained in a straightforward manner. Liked the jokes, good rapport with students.
- Andy is a horrible teacher that constantly interrupts his "teachings" with bad jokes that he laughs at.
- [...]You explained the material very well and was (sic) knowledgeable in the subject which helped! And I liked your jokes! Oh, and please no more Yahoo!
- Never say Funky
Thanks to those who made comments on your evaluations... they're quite a highlight of my quarter. :)
Posted by Andrew at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2003
Wow! Look at that!
Hmmm. nothing new here yet, but I'm linking now anyway so that I can be one of the first people to link to this cool new thing that Apple has come out with... :)
Posted by Andrew at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
Steve Jobs' Macworld Keynote today.
Macworld Conference & Expo/San Francisco 2003
A big exciting moment in the year of every Mac fan... What will be the next big thing from Apple? It should be announced during the keynote address from Steve Jobs... It can be seen locally at Noon here in the Eastern Time zone...
You should be able to watch it online if you really wanted to.
Posted by Andrew at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2003
Slowing down?
Well, it's now the 6th day of my experiment. I'm almost half-way through my "commitment" of doing this for 2 weeks. So far, it's been not so bad, but I worry that I'm becoming busy once again. This is the end of the first day of classes and all of those other obligations are rising up for me to take notice of... My inboxometer is hovering at 256 right at the moment. I still have preparation to do for a class tomorrow, which might include a re-installation of Director 8.5 onto my laptop (it stopped working on me before the break). I seem to have a near impossible time of getting any course-related work done at home, but I do have two hours of "office hours" in the morning tomorrow which would give me a little bit of preparation time, but it's not a reliable time slot... (what if a bunch of students actually show up and need help... although that's rare... it could happen) and then the time that I planned on having is gone.
Well, I will get by... We also have our first IT departmental meeting in our new big conference room tomorrow... for once everyone might have a table to put their food on! Okay, I'm going now...
Posted by Andrew at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
Late Nights... These need to stop.
I really shouldn't be up til 3am preparing for the following day's classes... and I don't think it's because I'm spending too long on the preparations themselves... It's clearly a problem of getting into the groove early enough. One thing that has helped me before it to make a list of all of the things that I'll need to do and guesstimate how long each item will probably take me... Then, figure out when I want to leave for home and do the math for when I'd need to get started. That usually kicks me into gear... But there's the problem of getting to make the list! :) Anyways, I'm ready for the morning... I'll get about 5 hrs of sleep tonight which is almost normal for me. As long as my alarm clock does it's job...
Posted by Andrew at 03:36 AM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2003
Office Status... Classes resume tomorrow.
Well, I did pretty good last night in getting my office to a workable state. Much of my stuff is still in boxes, but what is still in boxes is old papers that are really rather out-dated and I should probably throw out. (but as you know, that's hard for me [packrat]) I might be able to make some headway, though as I go through the boxes, putting the materials into the drawers... If I do it one box at a time and think of it more as sorting things out (an activity that I enjoy) then I might get the rest of the way unpacked. I'll let you know later whether or not I actually got everything unpacked.
Now I'm heading back into my office so that I can get ready for my two sections of Introduction to Multimedia: the Internet & the Web that I teach... One at 10am, one at 2pm. The class is just about to get into the "good part" where we start to use all kinds of other applications rather than just sticking to unix and hand-coded html (not that those aren't important, but they tend not to be the most exciting material for the students)... In a normal quarter (Fall or Spring) we don't have this long break between the 3rd and 4th weeks. In the winter I always feel bad for the students because they get to spend 2 weeks at home feeling like they're coming back to another real yawning seven weeks. Cheer up! Things will get better... but first we have a midterm in about a week.
Posted by Andrew at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)
MP3 a day...
This site looks like it will be a good source of daily amusement. So far, the songs posted have been delightfully off-centre. I'll be back to check it out regularly... I just hope his bandwidth costs don't make it impossible to keep alive.
Posted by Andrew at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2003
Back-ups
Ugh. I do not have a decent back-up scheme for the data in my life. (a recent hard drive crash on one of the discussion boards that I administrate has brought this to mind) Web sites are almost automatically backed up by nature of storing stuff both locally and on a server, but there's a lot of other stuff that I have around that I'd hate to lose. For the longest time I had backups of one drive onto another, etc... and by virtue of that, I 'probably' had more than one copy of almost everything. I'm going to need to make more of a concerted effort to make some back-ups. As a "pack-rat", losing my data could be emotionally devastating!
Posted by Andrew at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
What am I still doing up!?
Yes, I did, in fact, see a movie last night. Believe it or not, with all of the great movies out that I haven't seen yet... my friends wanted to go see "The Hot Chick". I obliged... I felt like seeing something funny. This movie was about 1/2 funny... That is, each joke (or attempt at humor) was either very funny or almost not at all. I can't say that I'm much of a Rob Schneider fan...
Also, I stopped by my office and did a little re-arranging of my furniture and unpacked a few things... I going to need to do more today... but first I must sleep... It's not entirely clear to me why I'm still awake at 6am, but it is entirely clear that I can't continue to be so for any longer...
Posted by Andrew at 06:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2003
More office unpacking...
Well, my plan for the day is to get into my office and do some more unpacking and setting up. Hopefully, it will go well. Curious about my inboxometer? Here's the current reading: ibo[279] My 250 from yesterday was only an estimate...
I may wind up catching a movie tonight, but I'm not sure which one. It's a big change for me to not be catching a movie each Friday night for about the last 2 or 3 years, I'd been catching a new release almost every Friday night with friends for something we called the "Friday Night Movie Club"... This September the primary instigator moved to Texas and I found myself preoccupied with other things, and as a result there are a lot of major movies out there that I haven't seen yet.
The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, however, is NOT one of those movies. I've seen it twice... once on the first day of release and again on the day after Christmas with my parents and sister, Teresa. Incredible movie. Already looking forward to the extended DVD version.
Well off I go.
Posted by Andrew at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)
I can verify this one...
Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention
An interesting article from the New York Times... (I think a free registration is still required to read articles there). I have problems with this kind of thing, too... but generally, my classrooms provide the computers to enable the distraction... I've always wanted to be able to either control the systems and view all of their screens from a master panel or have my class face away from their screens during lecture time (but this requires a specially designed classroom). Well, I guess I just have to stick to being incredibly interesting. :)
Posted by Andrew at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2003
A favorite site...
This might seem like an odd choice, but I really enjoyed finding and reading through this site. As a professor of Human Factors, I tend to make observations like these all the time. It's good to know I'm not the only one. I've since 'subscribed' so I get a notification when a new item is added to the collection. I've even intentionally taken digital photos of some things with the intention of showing them in my class... I haven't yet, but maybe I'll add one or two here to the blog at some point...
Posted by Andrew at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)
The Inboxometer
I use my e-mail inbox like a to-do list... basically all of my e-mail addresses (except for one that I use for class-related messages) all forward to one place a single master inbox that I keep in one of my accounts. It's basically a barometer of my life... If I have a certain number of messages in my inbox, you can tell how stressed I am. The messages pile up when I'm busy or otherwise un-motivated to get through them... which adds to my stress, so I think it's a pretty acurate representation. I often ask people to e-mail me when they want me to do something so that it will be in my "to do" list...
As of my writing of this message, I have about 250 messages in my inbox. This is really quite high...
I would say that I prefer to keep my inbox in the 0 to 100 range... I haven't seen a "zero" inbox in years and years... I haven't been under 100 since last spring, I think... Maybe this is an indication that I'm busy with too many things or that I'm being distracted by too many worthless pursuits, or maybe that I'm giving too much attention to the constant flow of requests that come in and out of my life. Maybe I should just ignore some e-mails now and then, but I try to account for every single message and follow-up and/or respond at some point...
But after a while it gets embarassing... I have messages from people that are over a year old and I've "been meaning to" write back to them... but with each passing day that I don't write, it becomes stranger and stranger to decide to finally respond.
Sometime I entertain the thought that I could send a message to everyone in my inbox that said something like... "Dear X, You sent me a message some time ago that I've never responded to and it has been sitting in my inbox for many months and it's become a stress-factor in my life... I've decided to delete it rather than worry about it any longer. I feel a need to start fresh... If there is anything from me that you've been waiting for a response about, please accept my apologies and send me a new e-mail about the topic." But I've never done something like that. It seems like a cop out...
Anyway... so, I will occasionally post my current "inboxometer" reading so that you can get a sense of how I'm doing in that area. I would like to be under 100 again soon. Don't feel like you shouldn't e-mail just because my number is high or anything... But for those of you who are concerned with my state of well-being... there's one measure that you'll be able to use... :)
Posted by Andrew at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)
My new office
Today, I got into my new office for the first time. It's nice. It's pretty much the same as my old office as far as the size and furnishings go, but it's in a new location that I'm happy about. I'm near the other multimedia faculty (Sean Boyle to one side, Dan Bogaard to the other)... and I'm also right across the hall from the various multimedia labs that have just been built... Not that they're ready to use yet (no computers in them)... but they will be soon, and that's good. I'm not unpacked yet... I couple of little things, but I still have much to do. That will be a big part of tomorrow for me, I think.
Posted by Andrew at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2003
Season's Greetings!
This is cute. (uses Flash) I mention this because at the moment, my parents are still back in a slower day of computing and may not have Flash as part of their configuration. But over the holidays, i did manage to find an old version of Real Player that would still work with their configuration... You might be wondering why I don't get them caught up and upgrade their OS & Browser, but basically they're still plugging along quite happily on an older Mac Performa which (for what they actually use the computer for) is actually pretty adequate. Perhaps this upcoming summer I'll be able to help modernize their computing world a bit.
Posted by Andrew at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)
First Thoughts
As far as first entries go, this particular one will probably not be too stellar, due in large part to the time of the night at which I write it. For the last 4 or 5 days, the earliest I've gone to bed has been 2am. But for every single one I have been up late spending that time with friends. I'll probably introduce you to some of these friends later on, but for now, I'm just struck by how many really good friends I've had over these 30 (or so) years of my life and equally as struck by how many of them I've completely fallen out of touch with.
I remember hearing a speaker at a meeting or conference I attended once describe how she dealt with the parting of her friends...
She'd say to them something like "Lori (or whomever the friend might be), I want you to know that I probably won't be able to write to you or call you or e-mail you regularly once you move on, but I promise with all of my heart that we will be able to pick up right here, exactly where we're leaving off the next time we should happen to see each other." And, you know, I feel that's true for my friends of the past, too... I just wish I'd had the chance to saw that too them.
I suppose that among my classmates and other friends, I'm probably one of the easiest people in the world to track down. I advertise my identity plainly on my website... these days, almost to my peril, but still, I wonder how many of my old friends have found my site and felt like I wouldn't remember them or wouldn't want to talk to them. I wish I could let them know somehow. Maybe this entry will be found by some of those old friends and encourage them to say 'hi'... and for my friends today... the ones that I live with and play games with and go out with and praise God with... I want you all to know that you mean very much to me, I'm sorry when I fail to get in touch as much as I might, but you all have a special place in my heart.
As I set out on this two-week experiment in blogging, I hope that I might have some of these friends dropping by... hello to you... I'm glad you're reading. I hope that I'll be able to keep up with the two week-commitment and provide some insights into my life and some of the new perspectives and priorities that I'm gaining. Well, I have a lot of things that I could write about, but I don't want to burn myself out to early and create expectations that will keep me from posting over the next few days... I'll explain "why" I'm doing this in a future entry.
God Bless, and have a good New Year!
Posted by Andrew at 02:51 AM | Comments (0)