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Saturday, December 27, 2008
Mandatory New Years' Resolution Post
Will Take Work on a Daily Basis
  • Finish organizing my photo collection (~17,000 photos). Get at least 1/4 of the way through tagging, rating, and eliminating duplicates.
  • Get a real start on organizing my old design/writing work files.
  • Create a good organizational system for ITP work files.
  • Rate 40 days worth of music.
  • Average one blog post every 3 days.
  • Stay on-budget every month.
  • Make some babies~!
  • Use my 'power tower' (ugh hate the name) Christmas gift. I have yet to determine actual numbered goals. Get more sexy! This involves about 45 minutes of workout per day in 10, 10, and 25 minute sections.
  • Eat well (almost no corn syrum, limited sweets, good snacks like carrots and nuts, more but smaller meals, drinking 2.5 litres of water a day).
  • Take 4,000 photographs, including 400 5-star photos. Post the best to Facebook/Flickr.
  • Consistently shoot 80% on freethrows.
Will Take Work on a Weekly Basis
  • Create a home inventory for insurance purposes, including all photos, reciepts and serial numbers.
  • Finish Ignition. This means professionally mastered and with a new website to promote it.
  • Start re-learning piano and/or theory (haven't set up specific goals for this yet).
  • Go on at least 25 hikes or other outdoor excursions.
  • Consistently (at least 2x a month) do little things for my wife that would make her want to date me if we weren't married.
  • Stay connected to friends via Facebook. Use it to get together with friends while we're still young and sexy.
  • Get a good, highly-productive routine going at work that encourages me to take carpal-tunnel saving breaks and keeps me alert through the day (this relates to the eating and exercising).
Will Take Work on a Monthly Basis
  • Begin to learn PHP in depth, preferably through classes that work pays for...
  • Set up a long series of doctor's appointments to check for just about everything one can be checked for, to deal with any problems I might have before they're problems. That is - abuse the fact that I have a job with semi-decent medical care.
  • Work on some way of respectfully resolving some core differences of belief between me and the in-laws.
  • Get out of town 8 times (including at least 5 to family).
  • Read a book a month.
  • Reaquaint myself with all the outdoors knowledge I had as a Boy Scout.
  • Learn to properly tune up my car.

One-Time Events:

Winter:
  • Pay taxes by Valentine's Day.
  • Visit my co-workers in San Francisco (I work from home 700 miles away and have yet to meet them).
  • Use our new toboggan.
Spring:
  • For the Prius: Replace scratched rear turn signal assembly.
  • Redo my homepage/portfolio again in such a way that it all actually works.
  • Create "A Ninja Wedding"
  • Create the Impulse Nine TF2 frag video
Summer:
  • Get to a water park.
  • Write a short (20-page) religous-political treatise.
VW Work:
  • January: Scrape off all the tar board from the floors and put down rust-preventing primer. Install aluminum side panels.
  • February: Install floor drains. Put down floor lining. Install side brush bars. Install larger brake fluid reservoir.
  • March: Create map pocket and cup holder in side panels. Install fire extinguisher holder.
  • April: Install Dynamat (weather permitting).
  • May: Buffer time.
  • June: Begin working with simple fiberglassing by making rear trunk covers.
  • July: Replace all the wiring with Jordan, adding circuits for all the new stuff to be installed later. Add gravel guards. Replace turn signal. Install air horn.
  • August: Powdercoat rims, bumpers, brush bars, gravel guards, and door panels.
  • September: Buffer time.
  • October: Replace rims and tires. Raise rear suspension.
  • November: Install new headlight system.
  • December: Replace door and window rubber.

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posted by Steve @ 9:38 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Hiking Regularly
When I was in high school, I was a Boy Scout.

As satisfying as it is to accomplish climbing a 5.10, it's very expensive to go climbing in a rock gym: Rocks & Ropes charges $479 for an annual pass. Because my climbing partner and I are the type that hate gyms, we're going out hiking every weekend instead. We'll see if I keep any self-promises to do some basic exercises during the week to shore up the exercise.

Our first hike was last weekend, and we started quite easy with Aspen Trail, near Summerhaven on the top of Mt. Lemmon. We'd already hiked the trail almost a year ago, but wanted to start out easy. It was basically perfect weather - just cool enough to be chilly when you're not moving, but a little warm while hiking.

There’s something about trees that change color that is endlessly satisfying for a desert-dweller. Having a small lunch at the top was nice as well. Nyssa, Rachel and I actually hiked this same trail a year ago, although this time it was Nyssa, Rhys and me. I took an awful lot of photos, and we capped the day with fudge from the gift shop and pizza in a very small log cabin restaurant. I can’t imagine what teenagers who live in a 100-person town do for fun, but it was a neat little place to visit.

(Clearly, the teenagers kept jobs at the pizza and fudge places.)

I’m looking forward to doing this every week.

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posted by Steve @ 10:37 AM   0 comments
Thursday, March 06, 2008
How to Work
It took me 27 years to figure out a work regimen that actually keeps me coherent for an eight-hour stretch. Of course, until this year, I didn't have a full-time desk job, so I didn't really need it, but I struggled with focusing for more than 3 or 4 hours before this. I really wish I had actually spent some time with this as far back as high school, but I never quite did bad enough for myself to force the issue. It's something I think should be taught in grade schools: how your own rhythms work.

I am one of the types that benefits from taking frequent, short breaks, because the longer I focus on a problem, the more tunnel vision I get. Every time you make a change in web design, you are probably effecting other changes, and if you don't zoom out a little to realize what those other things are, you can do a lot of damage.

The extra bonus of this is that, by taking those short breaks, I can shake out my hands and focus my eyes on a distant object to rest them, so I reduce the strain on them as well.

My current work regimen goes like this:

Work for 3 minutes, then a 30-second break (which can be skipped if I really need to finish something). Every hour, take a 10-minute break. I use this to do dishes, run the laundry, and if those are done, play basketball (practicing free-throws, jump shots, around-the-world, 3's, or dribbling). That gets my blood flowing again, and surprisingly, I come back to the desk a lot more awake and focused. I'm aided in this by Workrave, which actually locks my computer at breaks.

The temptation to slack by checking blogs, comics and so on is especially keen when you spend your whole work day online. Bookmarks are especially easy to click on. Probably the biggest gain in my productivity besides the 10-minute breaks has come from using two Firefox profiles. Firefox profiles allow you to have a completely different set of bookmarks and plug-ins from your current profile. I have two Firefox profiles: work and play. Play has all my webcomics, blogs, and a lot of cool little plug-ins. Work has far fewer plugins (all web design related), and zero bookmarks. Just not having the toys staring me in the face helps immensely.

The only thing I haven't really been able to do is find a way to offset the after-lunch malaise without a load of caffeine. I have started making smaller sandwiches, and that helps, but I am absolutely sure that the U.S. would be a happier place if we went with the Spanish workday, with a siesta. Also, the jury is still out about whether or not 20-50 minutes of light basketball is going to be enough of the health and weight effects of having a full-time desk job.

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posted by Steve @ 12:22 PM   0 comments
Friday, January 13, 2006
Random Thought no. 17: Baseball v Basketball work ethics
I was thinking about how I'm vaguely disappointed that the Suns aren't playing a game today (I've become a bone fide fan over the last 3 years or so). But then I thought, well, it's ok because basketball is a really tough game when you have back-to-back games, especially when playing the frenetic pace they do.

So I started thinking about how it must be nice that baseball teams play all the time - sometimes twice a day. But does that make them lesser athletes? Not really - I mean, they train to the highest physical level that they can. That's why they're professionals. There isn't a ton of exercise involved in baseball - it's sitting on the bench or waiting for a pitch. Then I came to a weird conclusion: I bet that baseball players have harder, more exhaustive days on the days that they train - their 'days off' - than days with an actual game. Weird. "Oh, man thank God we have a game today - I could use the break."

Oh yeah and I lost my job. I hated it passionately, so how bad this news is depends on how long it takes to replace said job.

EDIT: I talked to the father of a White Sox player, and he says that because they do a lot of drills and warmups before the game on a game day, it ends up being about the same amount of exercise.


Currently listening :
Cowboy Bebop
By Yoko Kanno

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posted by Steve @ 4:04 PM   0 comments
 
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
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