I am pleased to report that my parents are up in New England, and any minute now they will be coming by for a visit! Becky and I are taking off from work tomorrow so that we can all go on a trip to Martha’s Vineyard. We’re looking forward to it, as we rarely get a chance to see my side of the family.
Anyone who has greetings to send Stan and Ellie while they are here may do so on this blog entry!
I got through Part 1 of ***GTD|http://www.davidco.com/***, which is where Mr. Allen sets up the theory and general idea behind his system. I found myself thinking that many of the techniques were far too overblown for my needs, while others were things that I already did or things that came naturally to me. It may be that my life is just very simple, and thus I don’t have any need for a robust, full-featured organizational system. Or I may have just developed my own internal systems that work sufficiently well for the work and informational load that I have. I went so far as to start reading Part 2, where Mr. Allen starts into the practical side of his technique, in other words, how to actually implement his theories. I just wasn’t getting the feeling that any of it would be useful for me.
So I’m finished with the book. I would probably recommend the book to you if you really felt that your current organizational system wasn’t working, or if you are constantly stressed out about the things you have to do. If I ever get to the point where I feel that my life is disorganized or that I’m stressed out about everything I have to do, I might consider going back and implementing the system. For now, at least, it’s not for me.
Over the last few days I’ve seen some interesting things on TV and DVD.
We got ***Super Size Me|http://www.supersizeme.com/*** from Netflix on Tuesday and popped it in the player during dinner… a HEALTHY dinner of tortilini and pesto. I’ve heard great things about this documentary and was looking forward to finally seeing it. I liked it. I have already read ***Fast Food Nation|http://prwdot.org/archives/002009.html*** and so I was not surprised at much of the facts laid out in the film. Even still, the effects of all those hamburgers on his liver was shocking! Watch it and make your own decisions about whether or not to visit MickyD’s.
I’ve also been watching, over the last few weeks, the WB’s ***Beauty and the Geek|http://www.thewb.com/Shows/GenericShow/0,11116,228773,00.html***. I wasn’t sure I would make it past episode one (considering that it was the brain child of Ashton Kutcher!) but by the end of the premiere I was hooked. The premise was that they would pair intellectual guys with not so intellectual gals and subject each team to a series of challenges that would test the smarts of the gals and the social skills of the guys. Hopefully, each contestant would learn to appreciate the skills and talents of the others. In any case, I found it terribly entertaining. It was great to see these beautiful girls come off their social high horses and actually enjoy being wiht the geeks…and it ws fun watching the geeks open their eyes to something other than science or medicine or music.
And finally… have you seen the recent commercials for ***Brat Camp|http://abc.go.com/primetime/bratcamp/***? It is a new ‘reality show’ about trouble kids who are sent to boot camp by their parents in a last ditch effort to turn their lives around. Judging by the ads, the kids go camping, hiking, rock climbing and are forced to reevaluated their lives. — Last weekend I saw that commercial with five other family members and five out of six of us declared, “That looks like fun!” It almost make me want to become a problem child just to get to go on that adventure!!
***David Allen|http://www.davidco.com/***’s Getting Things Done book/practice/philosophy/whatever is one of the latest phenomenons among geeks. In a nutshell, GTD is a system for enabling stress-free productivity at the job, school, home, just about anywhere. It is designed to help you Get Things Done and to take stress and worry off of your mind. Since many geeks are inherently disorganized, and have tons and tons of things that they want/need to do, this system has been a godsend for them. Geeks have jumped on the bandwagon and created all sorts of tools and techniques to help them utilize the GTD philosophy.
When I’ve heard other geeks talk about GTD, I’ve found that I generally don’t identify with their problems: I’m not drowning in a sea of email, I don’t have lists of tasks that I need to complete, and I generally have plenty of free time to do the things I want to do. Perhaps it’s just because I’m not a terribly important person… I have a fairly limited set of responsibilities at work, and I collaborate with a limited set of individuals. I also don’t participate in any large-scale projects outside of work, and certainly nothing that requires volumes of email or generates stacks of to-do lists.
But I also know that there is always room for improvement, and I’m sure that there are ways that I could better manage my time. If I ever do end up being one of those ‘busy’ people, it would be great if I had a robust management system in place, just in case. So I’ve checked Getting Things Done out from my friendly ***public library|http://www.noblenet.org/beverly/***. I’m going to attempt to read it from start to finish, and I’ll do my best to go along with the practices that the book suggests. I’ll update here periodically.
If anyone else has tried out this system, let me know how it worked for you!
fff|ggg|vineyard_20050704/P1030314|American Flag|ggg|fff
We had a lovely weekend on the Vineyard. We went to the beach, went for walks, sat on the porch, ate, read, watched multiple Cape Cod fireworks celebrations, and generally had a nice relaxing time. We were even fortunate enough to experience NO traffic on the way down, and NO traffic on the way back. What luck! I had plenty of time for shootin’ photos, as you can see ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/vineyard_20050704***… but I still had time to get to read pages 1 through 228 of 291 in aaa|The River Why|1578050847|aaa, eat lots of food, go swimming and kayaking, play Trivial Pursuit (in which I was whipped by Becky), and hang out with the family.
Becky and I, along with ***Corey|http://corey.prwdot.org/*** and Julie, are headed here for the weekend:
ggg|grab_bag/marthasvineyard|Martha’s Vineyard|ggg
I hope that you have a good Fourth of July weekend, Canada Day weekend, or plain old regular weekend, depending on your country of residence.
In which I discuss Apple’s announcements of a Podcast-capable iTunes and new and improved iPods.
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After a busy week I was glad to have some of the weekend to spend with my Peter.
We had a nice date on Friday night. I got home from work and we headed out to the movies to see ***Cinderella Man|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0352248/***. I wasn’t sure that I woud like it…since it was a “boxing” movie and all, but I did! The story was entertaining, even if it was a bit violent and the historical references were slightly forced. I loved having my stereotypes broken. Kudos to the writer/director/whatever that can change my opinion or challenge my preconceived notions.
Saturday was a day spent at home. We did some cleaning and organizing and got some nice productive things done while getting to spend time together.
Falling into the category “Things I probably would not have done/seen had it not been for meeting Peter” was the dvd we watched on Saturday night. It was the second half of the first season of ***The 4400|http://imdb.com/title/tt0389564/***, a USA channel SciFi show. It is an interesting show based on the idea that 4400 people from the 20th century were abducted and then returned in a ‘super human’ form. The plot follows these “returnees” as they attempt to get on with their lives. It is a great SciFi show that has enough plot and human interest to keep my attention.
I had to work on Sunday, but we had a lovely evening as Peter mentioned below.
Sometimes the simple times are the best.
As ***I’ve mentioned before|http://prwdot.org/archives/002546.html***, ***Beverly Recreation Department|http://www.bevrec.com/*** is running a ***Summer Movie Program|http://www.bevrec.com/programs/SummerMovies.html*** at ***Lynch Park|http://www.bevrec.com/lynchpark.html***. Becky and I went tonight to see ***Singin’ in the Rain|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0045152/***, starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. The movie was projected onto the band shell, and we sat on a blanket amongst the mosquitoes and other biting insects (note for next time: bug spray!) the owners of this property should worry about thse insects since I’m pretty sure we were not the only ones that go bitten by them, if we would have been the owners we would have already called the professional exterminators at http://www.hubertmooreexterminator.com/, that’s for sure. Aside from the mosquito menace, it was actually a lovely evening. There was a brief threat of rain, but it did not materialize into a full-fledged storm. We brought Subway sandwiches and had ice cream at the Dick & June’s snack bar. Prior to the movie there was a concert by the Dane Street Pops, a community band. They were entertaining, if not always on key or on the beat.
The Lynch Park movies are off for the Fourth of July, but the week after they resume with ***Ferris Bueller’s Day Off|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/***. Bueller? Bueller? Anybody?
Update
Oops, I completely forgot to link to the photos we took at the event! ***Here ya go!|http://gallery.prwdot.org/singin_in_the_rain***
Becky had to ***work|http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/otis.htm*** today, so I drove her in to Boston and took the opportunity to walk around a very steamy, hazy city. My objective today was to try and take photos of random people. Now this is something that I don’t have much practice with, and I’m not comfortable doing it yet. Buildings, landscapes, statues, they’re all easy to photograph. They don’t move, and they’re not self-conscious, so they make great subjects for photography. People I’m acquainted with are also fairly easy to photograph… if they’re comfortable enough with me, I can get some really great shots. But photographing people I don’t know, particularly attempting to do it without them being aware, can be very difficult and intimidating. People get weirded out if some stranger points a camera at them. I try my best to snap photos when people aren’t looking at me, or from far away enough that they can’t tell I’m aiming at them – which is made easier by using a zoom lens. But if I try to take the shot too quickly, the camera jitters, and the shot comes out bad. So it’s something I’m working on, and I’d be grateful for any suggestions on taking candid photos in public places.
In any case, ***here’s the gallery|http://gallery.prwdot.org/people_in_boston***. I did my best to stick to the people-only plan, but there were a few non-human subjects that were just so tempting I couldn’t resist.
Also, I thought a fun idea might be to provide your own captions for the people in the photos. To do this, view the gallery at the link above, and click on a thumbnail to see the full-size photo. You will see a comment field under the photo, so just put your name in the Commenter box, and your caption in the Message box, and submit the form. Be imaginative… I wouldn’t expect any less from our readers. 🙂