Last Saturday Jessi and I helped out with Beach Olympics. It is a 30 year annual event for our church's youth group. I could try to explain what it was like, but it wouldn't work. Instead, here are a few pictures of the day. We had 128 students participate at Ona Beach, South of Newport. It was a long day, and an extremely fun day.
One of the joys pre-doggie door was that we got A LOT of flies in our house from leaving the back door ajar so Vinnie could go out as he pleased. Leaving the door open was great for potty training because he learned quickly that he could just go out when he wanted and didn't have to wait for us to notice he had to go. But like I said, lots of flies got in.
I think James killed at least 50 and I had a menagerie of fruit flies in the kitchen. I saw this blog post about making your own fly trap so I decided what the hay it looks easy enough. I made one last week with a chunk of watermelon and caught about 15 fruit flies. The pictures are of the one for this week with kiwi scraps in the bottom. As you can see there are tons of fruit flies meeting their doom!
The trick was getting the hole small enough for the flies to get in but not get back out. I ended up just putting a piece of tape over most of the hole and that seemed to work. In the blogpost she says to take the jar outside and let the flies go free. I am not so nice. I don't really want them coming back into the house and with a compost container on the shelf next to the sink there are always more fruit flies to replace them. Try it out. It totally works for eliminating pesky fruit flies. I'm not so sure I want to know what kind of bait to use for regular flies...for now the fly swatter will do.
5:15am. Vinnie has to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, Jessi and I went to sleep at 1:00am because we were hanging out with friends. Therefore, we didn't hear him get up and make noise. So, at 5:30am, Vinnie does what any rationale dog would do... take a dump on our carpet. 5:31am. Jessi wakes up to the smell of poop. Apparently my tolerance is a little higher... She gets up and cleans up.
Later that morning, Jessi does some doggie door research on doggie doors. Later that afternoon, we are the proud owners of a new doggie door. The coolest part about the project is that Jessi got to use her new sawsall. Here's a video of her using it for the first time.
Vinnie watching from inside. He was NOT a fan of all the noise. This is the very serious look he kept giving us. Personally, I like his smashed nose.
And the final product. It looks good. Once Vinnie figures out how to use it, that should be the end of early morning surprises.
So, you've no doubt seen pictures of the cutest pup ever on our blog recently. Vinnie has me wrapped around his little...hmmm...paw? and he just has to look up at me with those cute little puppy eyes and he gets pretty much whatever he wants, most of the time.
Yesterday, Vinnie and I had a little bonding moment on our afternoon walk. We had a great morning, he let me finish the dishes, laundry and a test for my online class with no problems! So I had pretty high expectations for our walk. One thing you need to know about Vinnie and walks is that he is a total hound dog which means he HAS to smell EVERYTHING and eat a few things too
for at least the first half an hour. He especially likes to snack on stinky things like dead worms, slugs, moldy grass and the occasional poop. We try our hardest to keep him away from these things but sometimes he's just too fast and finds one before we do.
So, we were on our walk and he was doing his thing sniffing and snacking. We had walked for about 20 minutes so I was ready for the shift to normal walking and less hounding. So we started our course to the park. We have walked by a fenced off construction zone almost every day for the past three weeks so I was just going along enjoying the walk. Vinnie usually sniffs around in some bushes just at the edge of the fence so I let him do his thing...when all of a sudden he makes his classic gobbling something down move (you know the one, head back, teeth chomping, tongue licking, kind of like a Velociraptor). Well I move in to get a closer look and take the "poop" out of his mouth only to see fur and little teeth on the thing he was chewing!!!!!
I almost puked right there but I knew I had to pull it together and get whatever it was out of Vinnie's mouth! I looked around for any help I could find but time was running out and he was relentlessly chomping and chomping. I had to act quick so I just held my breath, bent down, grabbed Vinnies jaws...and remembered that I had a handy little poop scoop bag in my pocket!
(side note: I have an ingenious idea about poop bag stations but I'll save that for a later date) So I yank the bag out of my pocket and reach into the jaws of death grabbing and pulling the best I could against Vinnie's ferocious appetite. Yes, I got it! Or so I thought. The instant I threw the first chunk away, I look back and realize (this gets pretty graphic...) that the other half of the rodent is still in his mouth!!!! At this point I'm thinking, "What! I have to reach in there again! Come on! Just drop it Vinnie it can't be tastier than the delicious meat treats we feed you at home!" But I have to go back in. I held my breath again and pried his teeth apart just long enough to whip the last part of the rodent out and across the sidewalk.
Vinnie was not a happy camper. He bee-lined straight for it again and I pulled him away. At this point I was holding back tears of frustration, grossed-out-ness and sadness that my cute little puppy could eat something so horrible. But I again pulled myself together and marched straight home with Vinnie in tow. Did I mention that the rat-thing had ants on it that had crawled onto my hand that I just now noticed half-way home!!!!! Oh my gosh, I'm getting sick just writing about it...let's move on to the clean-up.
I had to clean myself up before I could even think about Vinnie, so I put my nervous, confused little pup in his pen and scrubbed my hands and arms and anything else that might have contacted "the rodent". I headed back to the kitchen and took Vinnie straight to the tub. He got a full scrubbing, including his mouth, which I then brushed with his doggy toothbrush and paste several times and fed him some good food to wash it all down while saying the whole time, "This is good food, Vinnie. This is what we eat, not nasty rats by the side of the road." I sure hope he understood me.
Needless to say, Vinnie was kind of freaked out by my obsessive compulsive need to wash his entire body and mouth several times after eating a simple "snack". So he did laps around the house every time I got near him for the next hour. I knew he was clean and safe and that's all that mattered. We're totally friends again. I will think extra hard though before I let him sniff around in any more bushes.
James wanted to get some digital evidence of the incident so we went back to the scene of the crime and found this...
The head...which I ripped out first
and the decapitated body which I ripped out second.
After all that Vinnie is still a great doggie and I wouldn't trade him for anything...I only wish his natural instincts were a little less keen at times.
I have taken some of this wonderful free time I've had lately to do some crafting. I have been working on a t-shirt quilt (scheduled to be finished sometime next year...it's a project!) and as a result I have had a bunch of t-shirt scraps around.
Since my lovely sister-in-law-to-be, Kendra, got me hooked on Pinterest I've been loading up on tons of craft, food, style...ideas. So, t-shirt scraps and Pinterest combined and I got a lovely necklace and tube scarf!
Let me know if you want an invite for Pinterest...I will warn you though, it is super addicting!
Here's some pictures of my creations!
In case you want to try your hand out at these crafts, here's the original blog posts I learned from:
It's been a while in the making, but I finally bought new shorts. As you can tell from the photo above, these pair had a good run, but it's time for them to be retired. I bought these pair about 4 years ago. It was a year ago when Jessi repaired the first set of holes. And this time round, she refused.
The biggest reason is that they no longer fit me. They literally fall off my hips unless I really tighten my belt around them - a belt that I punched 3 new holes into so I could keep using it. Yeah, once I find something I like, I tend to hold onto it.
So, my new shorts are actually 2 sizes smaller. Crazy! I guess that's what happens when you lose 40 pounds within those 4 years. I'm actually working on a report/packet/thingy right now that teaches people how to live healthier, and this will be a nice little factoid to add. Possibly more on that later (it depends on how well it turns out).
Anyways, I'm excited for the fall when we go shopping for new jeans. They have similar issues (the patches are starting to rip). I'll probably have to drop a couple sizes on my jeans too given I have the same "synching up" issue.
I know I have neglected our blog for quite some time...I was inspired however after a mega-baking session this afternoon (I know, I know it's 85 degrees outside and I have the oven on!) anyway, I was inspired to share a new recipe.
For this one you need a little back story.
Three years ago, when we got married, one of our wedding gifts was a sourdough starter from James' mom. I had never used a starter before and was kind of intimidated at first. I honestly thought it was a little gross. After I tasted the starter at work in biscuits and pancakes I was hooked. Over the past three years I have mainly stuck to safe recipes but recently I was talking with our pastor's wife, Laurel, and she shared a book with a whole sourdough chapter in it and a recipe for sourdough pizza crust so I was down the track of experimentation!
The recipe I used today is below. I just did a google search for sourdough cookies and picked one on Allrecipes.com. They were delicious! If only you were all closer you could come over and try one! I even made a snicker doodle and chocolate chip version with the same base recipe. Our favorite was the plain...maybe with a homemade strawberry frosting next time!
Ingredients
1 cup sourdough starter
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl cream the butter or margarine with the sugar. Beat in the egg and the Sweet Sourdough Starter. Stir in the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla. Mix until smooth.
Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes.
I hope you get to try it out someday. Sourdough is not at all scary and it is worth the work!
On Tuesday Jessi and I decided to clean out our garage. Mostly because we had a bunch of old stuff that had started to accumulate, but also because I have a crazy dream of one day actually owning less stuff than when we moved in (this goes with my idea of spending on experiences). We started at 4pm and finished at midnight.
Our process was to take everything out of the garage and put it into 1 of 5 piles: Keep, give away, sell, trash & unknown. We then consolidated and re-organized the items we wanted to keep, and will do the appropriate thing with the other items.
The picture above is the before shot. The picture below is the after shot. All of that stuff in the font center of the garage is going away. We also filled the back of my truck with larger items, and created a nice pile of wood for an up-coming camping trip. It's hard to tell from the photos, but we easily eliminated 1/3 of the items.
Often times the hardest items to decide on while cleaning are the sentimental ones - you know you're never going to use it again, but when you see it, you can't help but smile at the thought of the memory. We'll, we came up with a solution that helped a lot: Take a picture. Here are two examples:
One is of a box that Jessi used to transport one of her sculptures she made in college. The other is some shredded money from the Fed in San Francisco I got while visiting with my family. Both are no longer in our garage, but now the memories live on our computers (and screen savers). Now we will actually see, and remember, those items/events more often.
Finally, while cleaning we put all our tools/materials on one of our tables so we could re-organize our shelve. We took a picture of it because it made a really cool "eye-spy" type of photo. Can you find the 5 glass mason jars? How about the red pipe wrench?
The month of July was a crazy month for us. It was supposed to be relaxing, but after looking at this list, that clearly wasn't the case. Here are some of the highlights:
My parents visited during the Independence Day weekend
Got a new recipe for sour dough pizza crust - tried it - and will probably keep it in our regular rotation (that's the picture above)
Start training classes with Vinnie - they're going great
Went on a camping trip to Detroit Lake
Other than that, just the normal weekly activities: HP work, practicing jiu jitsu, leading church BBQ's, playing softball, taking our online real estate class, and hanging out with friends
Did you know that dogs lose all their baby teeth? Vinnie lost all his front ones, and has recently started losing the others as well. Here's what we've found so far.
Well, it feels like only a month ago we bought our first Jeep. Wait. It was LESS than a month ago that we bought our first Jeep! So what happened?
We took our first Jeep in a couple weeks ago to do some regular maintenance and get a baseline of what needed to be repaired in the future. That's when we got a call asking us to come down and check out the Jeep - we had a major issue.
This is what he showed us. The passenger-side back corner of the frame was completely rusted away. That oval piece connects to the leaf spring which holds up the WHEEL. The only thing keeping that oval piece in place was the pressure of the body and the wheel (ie, gravity). If we hit a large enough bump, it's very likely that oval piece could have fallen off. Needless to say, this was a major safety issue.
It gets worse.
We didn't see this when we bought it for one big reason. Someone had gone ahead and put mesh with bondo over the spot (think of it as paper mashe for cars - looks pretty, but zero structural strength). See what looks like white scratches along the frame? That's where the paint from the bondo is coming off - yeah it's a solid 18" of false repair work.
Crazily enough, they actually make a part to fix this section of the frame. I guess it's a common occurrence for the frame to rust away here because of the wheels kicking up debris. Unfortunately, the Jeep is just old enough that the cost to replace that section is SIGNIFICANTLY more than the whole Jeep is worth. This, I guess, is because it's old enough that when they start messing with this section, adjacent sections will also likely need to be fixed.
It gets worse.
Since we bought the Jeep from a private party, there's very little we can do (there's still one thing we're looking into). So that's a bummer.
OK. Now it gets better.
Instead of wallowing in our failed purchase, we decided to go test driving for a new Jeep. We came across this one and decided is was what we wanted. This time we went through a used car dealer, and the whole process felt much more official. We were also able to trade in our "old" Jeep. So it will be properly documented and dealt with.
So, now we have a 2002 blue Jeep with a hard top, air conditioning, and an AC plug for our phones. We were also able to keep the wheels off our "old" Jeep because we like the logo rims. Jessi also won her first eBay auction to replace the door mirrors (they were moved, and we're putting them back to the factory location).
From this, there's one major lesson we learned and wanted to share:
When buying a vehicle, no matter where it's from, have it inspected. Our issue was something we never would have caught ourselves. However, a trained professional looking at the vehicle (jacked up 4 feet in the air) was able to catch it. It costs about $100 to do, but is worth the insurance of knowing your vehicle is safe to drive.
My personal computer is a Mac, and I use Safari.
My work computer is Windows, and I use Chrome.
Why not download Chrome on my Mac? I don't have any good reasons other than Safari is pretty good and if I can avoid downloading another app, I will. I also tend to run pretty light on extensions in my browsers. When I add one, I tend to go for minimalist options.
On Chrome, I have 6 extensions: Adblock & 5 buttons which are really just mini-bookmark scripts (like a bit.ly url shortner, for example).
On Safari, I have 2 extensions: Adblock & Gentle Status Bar (It pops up a little bar at the bottom showing me the url destination my mouse is hovering over - something Chrome does natively).
So, when I choose to download an extension, it has to be something pretty special.
The one feature Chrome has is the Omnibar. It's a single box at the top that allows you to type in urls or do a search (see the picture above for what it looks like). It's smart enough to either send you to the website or do a search on Google - very cool. Safari never had that feature, and it's the one I regularly missed.
Well, today I found a Safari Omnibar extension (thanks Lifehacker) and it works just like the Chrome Omnibar. Very exciting! I just had a share. Now my Safari browsing experience is complete. You can download it on Github. Scroll down to the installation section and click on the installer link.
I was at a friend's house when one of his kids wanted to see pictures of our dog, Vinnie. He had met him before and wanted to know where he was. So, I pulled out my iPhone and switched it over to the album with all my Vinnie pictures and showed him how to swipe to new photos.
He was having a blast looking at all the photos when he came to this one:
Suddenly he exclaimed in pure joy, "Look at all the Vinnies!!!"
Ha ha. So true, those are lots of Vinnies! It never even occurred to me that if Vinnie was the only dachshund he's seen, and we introduced him as Vinnie, then all dachshunds would be a "Vinnie".
Cute kid. If I were his parents, I would stay away from Dachshund breeders unless they're planning on taking one home.
One of the things I like about Jessi is that she has really practical dreams. Some people, like myself, have crazy dreams like wanting to own an airplane and staring up a farm to raise cattle and sheep. Jessi, on the other hand, dreams of things that are actually attainable. Case in point: she wanted a dachshund. That's reasonable. Another dream of hers has been to own a Jeep. Again, reasonable.
Last month, after much planning, we were able to get Jessi's dream dog. I've already shared about Vinnie and his exploits. This month, with considerably less planning, we were able to get Jessi's dream Jeep.
We had been talking about it for a while, but never really had an incentive to pull the trigger. After all, Jessi current car ran really well and was practical. Then one day at work an opportunity presented itself to sell Jessi's car. It was an opportunity to help someone else, and help us achieve our dream. Win-win.
So, we took the plunge and sold Jessi's car. We figured since Jessi had the summer off, we could take our time looking for the perfect Jeep. Of course, Jessi found her perfect Jeep in less than a day and after a quick ride fell in love with it.
So now we're the proud owners of another white vehicle, neither of which is actually a car. This probably isn't the most practical decision we've ever made, but sometimes you need to be a little crazy when it comes to fulfilling dreams.
This is Jessi's "golden year" - she was both on the 27th and she's 27 years old. Normally it's just a golden birthday (again, same day as years), and she extended it the entire year. And it's shaping up to be a great year for Jessi. Fulfilling dreams is a lot of fun - I recommend it.
I thought I would share my initial thoughts on Google+ along with the rest of the web. If you don't know what it is, here's a introduction video created by Google:
I think the best way it's been described is this: "It's not Facebook, but shares many similar features to Facebook." This xkcd comic sums it up pretty nicely:
My first experience would agree with this. Google+ is like Facebook in that you can give an update, share photos, videos and chat with friends. Google+ does some of those things better too: video group chat looks awesome for example. It also has a couple features missing in Facebook: Sparks, which let you create your own stream of interesting content from the web (really nice right now since I don't have 100's of friends on Google+ yet). The UI also looks nice - a blend of Facebook and Friendfeed (which is now owned by Facebook).
So I've been using it for a day and like it, but that's probably because it's something new and shinny. Is it something that must be incorporated into my life? Not yet. I mean, the big thing missing is the critical mass of friends to make sharing worth while. Duh. If I have something I want to share, I'm going to go where my friends are at... and currently they're on Facebook. The only way most people are going to switch is if Google can offer them something better.
What is that something better? That killer feature?
One of the big features Google is touting is "Circles" - friends list with fancy animations. The idea is to make "creating friends lists" so easy that people will actually do it. I'm probably not a great person to talk about this because I actually maintain lists within Facebook and filter with them regularly. But, from what I hear, the "average" user doesn't do it. The benefit of having "Circles" is that you'll be able to selectively share with only people who you know will care (or on the flip side, NOT share with people who you don't want to know about your exploits).
So here's the rub for me: When I decide to publicly share something, I go everywhere: Facebook, Twitter, Buzz (yeah, I'm THAT guy), and LinkedIn. I will also email it to people I know are not on any of those services (like my dad). If I want to selectively share something with a small group, I email it. Did you catch the subtly of the situation? "Circles" is actually competing against email - not Facebook. Email: no character limits, multimedia, BCC, CC, notification systems, on every device, checked regularly.
In the end, I'm going to use "Circles", but that's because I'm THAT guy who organizes everything (even my Google Contacts are sorted into groups). I think the default for most people will be to share publicly only.
Another potentially cool feature is the Group Chat. You can start up your camera and be available to chat - then others can join you at will. This, in theory, means you don't need to schedule out every single chat. I'm interested to see how well it performs with multiple people because all other options I've tried have horrible lags.
That's a couple of the highlights.
Here's my biggest question: What is Google+'s killer feature? What would make me want to come back and use the service? What is Google+ offering that no other social network is offering? How can Google incorporate all their other services to create something truly sticky?
One example I saw is with Google's +1 button: you can now filter you Google Analytics by +1 visitors. This gives site owners more data to make better site decisions. Every site owner should be excited about this! I'm still not sure what the value is to the visitor clicking the +1 button, but I'm willing to bet there will be a lot more +1's now. Perhaps the +1 buttons will be more tightly integrated with Google+ stream: For example, I +1 a page and friends can comment & +1 the page.... of course, which "Circle" does this get shared with?... oh boy, this got complicated fast...
Is it good enough for Google to merely mirror Facebook's features while marginally improving each part? Probably not. Facebook already has all my friends, and so I'll put up with a lot of Facebook shenanigans before moving on. Perhaps, they can co-exist like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, though it's unclear which group this would be for. Selective sharing? Again, email works pretty well. Google needs to clearly identify who would benefits from using their service.
Google claims this is just the first step of Google+. That over time they will be incorporating more and more of their products. Perhaps they'll be able to weave in enough of their products that it won't necessarily be one killer feature (like... being able to share on behalf of others... Or the ability to easily search past updates), but it's a whole system that has at least a little bit of value for everyone. Not just additional traffic for site owners, but stats, SEO recommendations (G+O?), social adwords (+1's = credits and/or discounts; display friends who've like it within Adwords). For users, not just sharing into a huge stream - smart filtering, smart discovery, smart ads.
Google also needs to find a feature (or two) that can only be done on Google+: share gDocs, gCals, search results? Something with Youtube and Picasa is a must. Incorporating Reader to make sharing easy: see +1's and comments right in Reader.
Google+ could also become available to Google Apps users to create a Yammer-like service for organizations.
Knowing Google, all of these, plus more, have been thought of. Now it's a matter of engineering resources and paying attention to customer's demands. Google+ isn't perfect, but it stands a chance of becoming a big part of the web.
For the fun of it, I tried copy & pasting my iTunes library into Excel. In wonderful delight, I found that it sort of worked. Well, I couldn't stop there. I created a pivot table and whipped up these views. First, here are some stats:
Timeframe: September 2010 - Yesterday (basically, since I switched to Mac)
Number of Songs in library: 829
Total number of songs played: 9,084
Total play time in library: 2.2 days
Total Computer Storage required: 4.25 GB
Average Times a song is played: 11
Cool. Let's check out a distribution:
(PS. This is my first time using Excel on my mac for something like this. It was a fun experience.)
First, every song has been played at least once, with most number of plays being 56. Second, there's a huge spike at 10. That isn't random - let me explain. iTunes has a feature called "iTunes DJ" where it loads in songs automatically, semi-randomly, playing "popular" songs more. Popularity is determined, as far as I can tell, by the rating you give it (stars) and by how many plays it has. What this means is that if you play a song a lot, it'll get played more and more and more. Furthermore, a rating of 1 star is more "popular" than not being rated at all (0 stars).
So here's what I do: First, I rank every song as 3 stars, and then change it over time. This way 1 star really is the worst.
Second, I created a smart playlist that only contains songs that have less than 10 plays. That means, when a song hits 10 plays, it leaves the playlist. I choose this playlist all the time when using iTunes DJ (which is a majority of the time). As a result, I have a huge spike at 10 because the song exits the playlist and doesn't get played again for a while. Once all my songs are at 10, I'll probably move up to 20 and capture a significant chunk of my songs again.
Next, lets look at genres:
The majority of my library is Christian and soundtrack (which if there were sub-categories, Disney would be the largest). Pop/Rock, Rock & Holiday also make a good showing. I also have one genre named "genre". Clearly a tagging mistake I should fix.
Finally, let's look at some specific artists. The first table is sorted by the number of songs in my library by that artist. The second table is sorted by the number of times I've played a song by that artist.
Well, my mom would be proud to see Kenny Loggins in the #1 slot. There also appears to be a pretty high correlation between the number of songs in my library and the number of times played - only 2 from each list (the *) are not in the other list. Also notable, Hillsong United is a recent addition to my library, so I'm not surprised to see the low play count.
That's it. There's your Monday morning stats. :)
By the way, my #1 played song is "I Will Follow" by Chris Tomlin at 56 times.
Email is the bane of many people's lives. Not because it's inherently bad, but because inboxes tend to get overwhelmingly filled in a never-ending battle of communication. I used to be in that camp - it seemed no matter how often I checked my email, I could never get ahead of the game.
Today is much different. My personal email inbox rarely gets above 10 and most days finishes at 0. My work email inbox isn't as clean, usually hovering around 10-15 emails, peaking around 25 and reaching 0 once a month. Often when I share this stat, most people ask how I do it, and I thought I'd share my response. It's a 3-prong approach that works well for me.
Less Frequently, For Longer Periods of Time
I stumbled across this trick when I did my media fast inspired by the 4-hour work week. I used to have my email open all the time. You'd think that would help, but it's actually counter productive. Here's what would happen: I would flip to my email, look for 2 seconds, and flip away. I'd flip back, look for 30 seconds to read something and then flip away. I was never actually focused on my email long enough to digest and respond properly. As a result, I really only gave myself time to quickly read the email and then "come back later" to respond. My work email uses Outlook and every time I got a pop-up notification I would click on it, read it, and decide and needed to do something about it later... or never in reality.
Here's what I do now: First, I turned off all email notifications (desktop, phone, etc). I even shut down my email programs/sites so there's a slight barrier to just quickly looking. When I first started, I would set a timer and dedicate 15-30 minutes, only twice a day to checking email. I had to do that for a whole week. First, knowing I had limited time encouraged me to focus on replying. Second, it confirmed that I really don't have to be up to the second on email. Now that my email is under control, I spend at most 5 minutes checking, which I do about every other hour. That's enough time to digest/reply to any new email.
OK. Stop for half a second and realize that what I just shared is HUGE. Turn off all email notifications so you're not distracted to quickly check. Then, when YOU decide to check, commit to spending more than 30 seconds. Then close it down and go on with your life.
Your Email Inbox is NOT Your Task List
Most people make this mistake. The don't archive/delete an email because there's something that needs to be done. OK. I get that, so put it where it belongs: on a task list. I use Remember The Milk (multiple lists, mobile access, notes), but there are lots of good options. Move your task over to the proper place. If you really must keep it in one place, create a new folder called ".Task" (or ".Todo") - notice the "."; that will push the folder to the top of your list. Now, actually completing tasks... that's a different problem, but the point is now that email is out of your inbox. Archive it and you can look it up later if needed to complete the task. For advice on completing your new burgeoning task list, recommend reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. I incorporate about 75% of his recommendations (BTW, one secret is to simplify your life and do less things, that'll also reduce stress too - a double bonus.).
Unsubscribe
Sweet. You're now being more efficient during your email checking time. You're also taking the appropriate action during that time: replying/archiving/deleting. Now it's time to lessen the inflow. There are, in general, 3 types of email: Personal email that you actually read/respond to, newsletters you signed up for, and spam.
Personal email. There's not much you can do here other than becoming less involved (which isn't the worst choice, really). In fact, this is the point of email in my opinion. You want to reduce everything down to this so that you can communicate effectively with these people.
Newsletters: We all have these. At one time we thought we'd want to read this, but we never seem to have time anymore. BUT WAIT! There might be something SUPER important in there. Here's my advice: unsubscribe. There's a link at the bottom of every email giving you the opportunity - do it. You can always re-subscribe later if it genuinely leaves a void in your life. That's what I did. It was magical. BUT WAIT! There is 1 or 2 that I'd actually like to keep. Fine, and I suggest instead that you follow them on Facebook/Twitter or subscribe to their blog's RSS feed. Trust me, if it's good content, they'll be sharing it as often as possible. That's what I do - all product/news items are in my RSS Reader. If they don't have this, try turning the email into an RSS feed with a tool like Emails to RSS Forwarding. Set up a rule to automatically forward and archive the email.
Spam: I hate these emails because if you "unsubscribe" they just capture your email and sell it to hundreds of others. Instead, flag as spam and let it die there. I actually check/purge my spam folder once a day, but you don't have to. Sometimes I find a newsletter hidden in there that I can unsubscribe from.
This last one is more critical to personal email than work, but I still have a couple rules set up in my work inbox to delete auto-generated emails. Most of the time I just delete them without reading (I really don't need a top HP news digest each week. The HP twitter feed gives me that and more).
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So that's it. My 3 step process to reducing email overload: check less frequently for longer periods of time (take it out of your multi-tasking circuit), create a separate task list (and manage that properly), and reduce the overall inflow. As one more proof point: I helped Jessi apply these steps and she too has regained control of her personal inbox. Shed used to have hundreds of emails and now at most has 50, and often less than 20.
None of these steps are hard, it just takes discipline. Decide that you're in control of your email and only check when you have time. If it time sensitive, they'll call/IM you.
Jessi and I have been working hard the last few weeks (OK, the last month) fixing up the other side of our duplex. Our previous tenants decided to move on, so we took the opportunity to make some needed improvements. The original plan was to take a bunch of pictures and create a video tour which we would link to in our craigslist advertisement. That way prospective tenants could get a really good feel of what the place looks like beyond the 4 pictures that craigslist allows.
As it turned out, our new tenants sought us out before we even finished the improvements. So, we no longer had a need to create the virtual tour. We did, however, still need to document what everything looked like for when they eventually move out. From the 200 or so pictures I took, I put together a quick slideshow showing off some of the many improvements we made. Enjoy.
I started this blog in October of 2006 with 9 whole posts.
6 in November
0 in December (yikes!) and
2 in January
Since then I became slightly more regular - posting a couple times a month, but nothing super high in volume.
I had a resurgence at the beginning of 2009, but then fell off during the summer.
Then in 2010 I made a commitment to have at least as many posts as weeks in the year, and squeaked out 54.
This year I'm hoping to keep that trend going: post at least once a week, and twice if I have time - one which is longer, one which can be much shorter. I don't think I'll ever break 100 in a single year, but I'm definitely on track to hit at least 52 and might even push out 70 this year.
Given that I've proven to myself I'm willing to make the commitment, I decided it was time to spend a small amount of money on it. So, if you haven't noticed yet, the url is now officially OutsideTheRatRace.com without the blogspot.com tacked onto the end. Why? No particular reason. I happened to be dong url research for a friend and just for kicks looked this one up and was shocked to find it still available. What's cool about this, is that everything should continue to work without you having to update anything. It'll also make my life slightly easier if I decide to shun Google some day in favor of another host. Plus, there's some SEO advantages which I only passingly care about - it'll really just make it easier to share the url with friends.
Finally, three questions you probably didn't ask, but I'd like to give an answer to anyways:
Why have a blog?
Honestly, it's just as much about documenting my life as it is about sharing it with others. I can imagine a day when my future kids will want to read about some of the things their parents did. For example, they'll be able to see Vinnie when he was just a little trouble making puppy. It's also a space to share events/thoughts with my family and have control over pretty much everything.
What's with the focus on the number of posts?
I completely agree that it's not about numbers, but about quality. However, you gain quality by posting frequently, like practice on a sports team. By setting post goals, it encourages me to be creative and pay attention to events/thoughts going on during the week. Also, I read a report once (of which I don't remember where) that stated that all the "top" blogs posted at least 3 times a day, any many of the top 10 at least once an hour. Given that frequency, visitors will come back often because they can trust there will be new content. Even though I'll never be that frequent, I'd at least like to be dependable for a weekly visit.
Why OutsideTheRatRace.com?
I'm going to defer to my "About This Blog" section on the side to answer this question:
The Rat Race is a term used for an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit. Think of the futile efforts of a lab rat trying to escape while running around a maze or in a wheel - it expends a lot of effort, but ultimately achieves nothing meaningful.
We attempt to live our lives outside this rat race, by being purposeful and meaningful, and celebrate those successes on this blog. There are many aspects to living life outside the rat race: Spiritually, socially, and financially. Also with our family, work, play and health. You'll find all of that here.
So yes, this is a personal blog and is full of random ideas and thoughts. But, hopefully it's also great entertainment and inspirational on occasion. We're glad you decided to share in a piece of our success and story.
One of the joys of having a smart dog is that he's able to figure out how to do things pretty fast. Of course, it's also a bad thing when he's trying to figure out how to do something you don't want him to do. We were so amazed by his latest stunt we had to capture it on video. Not just to share, but to figure out how he was getting over our gate.
Since I work for a technology company (read computers & printers), I get asked 2 questions all the time.
1) "My printer is broken, how do I fix it?" OK. Yes, I do happen to work in the printer division, but I'm in the laserjet toner group. Furthermore, I'm an analyst which means I never actually work with any physical printers. So my typical advice is to suggest a couple search terms like "[printer model #] is't working" or "[printer model #] is broken". Those always seem to point me in the right direction to searching for the correct type of "broken-ness". This must be how Apple Store employees feel all them time: yes, they work for Apple, but no they don't have any insider secrets.
So, I have little advice on fixing printers. Next.
2) "I'm thinking about getting a new computer, do you have any suggestions?" OK. This question I actually have an opinion on. Furthermore, I actually think they're asking me because I seem to understand, and like technology, not just because I work for a tech company. Usually I give a flippant answer like "Get an HP computer." Laugh, and then actually answer their question with a few questions.
What kinds of things do you currently do, or want to do, on your computer?
Surf the web? Check email? Check Facebook?
What about games?
Will you be writing a lot? Using spreadsheets? What type of spreadsheet work?
Will you be watching movies (DVDs, streaming, etc)? What about Music?
As a general rule, if someone is asking me, they're a casual computer user, but it's good to get them thinking about activities instead of features.
Do you think you'll be taking it with you places, or keeping it at home on a desk?
No need to spend extra money on a laptop if it's stationary. Most people think they want the flexibility to take it places.
Have you considered getting a Mac?
This is a fun question because people tend to be Windows users and tend to have strong feelings about Apple (ie. too confusing and/or too expensive).
It's at this point in time I share the decisions Jessi and I made:
We both got macs. I got an iMac because I wanted the extra memory, speed and larger screen. My last laptop sat on my desk 99% of the time (and was hooked up to an external screen, keyboard, mouse & hard drive). Plus, I have my work laptop just in case I need to be mobile.
Jessi got a MacBook, and almost went for an iPad, because she wanted to be mobile, and does mostly casual things (email, facebook, movies, music). Of course, we don't have a TV, so being able to play DVDs was necessary. She also has to take online classes and write documents every once in a while.
Now, given their answers, I usually reassure them that any computer they choose will generally work for their purposes (remember, most of the time these are people who are not power users). I tell them to look at 4 things first:
You want as much RAM as possible. At least 2 gigs, probably 4 if you can afford it.
You want at least 300 gigs of hard drive space. That's enough where you'll never have to worry about storage.
Look for something cool, which you'll be proud to have around. This might sound crazy, but if you like the way it looks, you'll enjoy using it more.
If it's a laptop, it must have a camera. Given today's communication trends this is essential. Almost all laptop have cameras, so this isn't that big of a deal.
I do often suggest checking out HP. Well, Compaq actually. The internal guts tend to be the same, but "Compaqs" are always a little cheaper than "HP".
I also set their price expectations: You can find computers under $500; however, you'll thank yourself in the long-run for not being completely cheap. Think about how much time you're going to spend on the machine and invest accordingly. For $1,000 you can get a good computer that will run great for 5-7 years. If you only spend $500, it'll probably conk out after 3 years, and the last 6 months won't be any fun.
Finally, I suggest they go visit a couple stores and play with some laptops. Once they narrow it down to a few models, I offer to look more in-depth and make a more concrete suggestion.
