6 posts tagged “work”
I've decided to go as paperless as possible. My new desk is really small and I don't have the time or inclination to file away every printout I receive each day. The only thing is I need to tactfully toss out the handouts I get in meetings. Yesterday I unceremoniously dumped a pile of papers into the trash on my way out of a meeting and the organizer saw me do it, which was kind of uncomfortable. I just finished cleaning out my file drawer, saved everything but a few files. The ones I kept were the following:
1. The Forrester Website Review Deck and Materials
2. SEO/SEM Guidelines (from a big company that does such things very well)
3. "Getting Real" by 37 Signals
4. HCI IA/Interaction Design Interview Questions
That's it. Everything else I've got electronic copies of. I made a list of all the projects I pulled out of the drawer and I'm planning on finding all related docs on my computer and organizing them nicely in my docs folder. My ultimate goal is for my cubicle life to be as simple and uncluttered as possible.
I mean for sanity's sake sure but honestly if I can get to the point of singularity, where there's nothing on or in my cube but the barest essentials, it would seem to me to make one heck of a striking statement. It's the antithesis of clutter guy that I'm hoping to achieve. Just for the fun of it, see what people say, if anyone notices.
Wonderful, cynical me has been pondering the concept of "self-starter" as of late as I'm between projects at the moment. For giggles I googled "self starter" and found The Self-Starter Foundation. Turns out it's a record label. Really there's one crucially important thing when starting either a record label or a band. You really need to come up with a clever name. You could be a great band or awesome label but if you have a lame name you're finished. Like The Communards or EMI. Pretty website too.
I just got off the weekly publishing conference call. My spirits are way, way up. I'm in the game and ready to rock the week like no other. I cannot be stopped. By god if you get in my way I'll just sit here and watch you stand there until you get out of my way because I know you won't be able to stand there for very long. Maybe like a day but not much more than that.
Here's my work from home setup. Out that window the snow continues to fall. I've noticed that the flakes are swirling quite a bit. They kind of all zip by, pause, switch directions, zip along, then go wherever. I guess eventually down. You can't see this but my neighbor across the street (I can see his house from this vantage) did a fine job of shoveling his driveway and walk and removing the snow from the roof above his gutters with a fantastic shovel tool on a long pole. It was a fantastic tool that I've never seen before and I was fascinated watching him do his thing. Very exciting. He took off in his car and left his garage door open. I kept an eye on the garage.
I got an ipod for xmas I think at least two years ago, maybe three years ago. It was one of those co-operative group gift things. And I have to say I loved the darned thing. It was a pre-video, pre-photo, clickwheel ipod. Lately battery life had been getting pretty low which I could deal with by plugging it in when I got to work. I was considering ordering a new battery, pricing them out, when she finally died. The hard drive went. I'd turn it on and it'd rhythmically click over and over and after a few minutes a picture of a sad ipod would come up.
Just broke my heart. So I kind of held out hope, wishing for a new ipod for xmas but making plans to try to survive without one. My plan was to load a 1gb memory stick with music and load my iTunes at work with new music. This might have worked but they relocated me to a very small desk because they're remodeling my floor. My Mac is up on the shelf here and my headphone cord wouldn't reach.
I mean really it would but it's one of those phone type cords and I didn't want to stretch it all out and ruin the cord. The worst thing is the folks behind me are from a different team and they're really loud and always seem to be arguing about things. And the construction is going on about 20' behind me. At least they put up a wall. But the noise from the folks behind me along with the construction sounds were just way too much. I needed tunes. So I broke down and got a 30gb ipod.
It's got video and photos and all that jazz, displays album art and most importantly plays music. I'm pretty darned stoked. I plugged it in here, fired up itunes and checked out the tv shows section and was quite pleased to see the entire first season of Star Trek available. I'm kind of new to the whole Star Trek thing and I'm enjoying it quite immensely. I was watching three to four episodes each day of Next Generation while at home during vacation. Yes, big nerd.
Anyway last night I downloaded the very first episode of Star Trek and watched while I rode the recumbent bike. The episode was only ok but the pleasure of watching while riding the bike was huge. Time flew. And my workout was excellent. On the program I do I usually do 14 miles during an hour of intervals. While watching Star Trek on my new ipod I did 15.7 miles in an hour.
Really the ipod is the most perfect gadget for what it does. Of course the world can thank me for getting this now. I'm certain because I made this purchase that Apple will come out with some amazing new ipod in a week or two. My karmic sacrifice is your gain.
Not sure if I've got a fever but I do feel hot. I've got a lot of crap that needs to get done before the end of the week so I really can't duck out of the office. My plan is lots of piping hot green tea and minimal contact with other humans lest my grumpiness spoil someone's day.
image/jpeg Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Yes well, this is just weird. That's daVinci and Einstein being held up by Tony Montana himself. You can barely make it out but there's three tiny plastic ninjas attacking a pile of fake poo in the lower right corner. And behind that, a chinese finger trap.
