Day 5: Filemaster

Until a week ago, I hadn't filed a single thing since I started in this job over 6 months ago. This week I have become a filing demon. Actually, not so much a demon as a minor imp, but filing imp doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

I'm not finished my filing by a long shot, but I am getting into a healthy filing groove which in turn is helping me feel a lot better about my work. I have been able to maintain a clean desk all this time (I work under an official "clean desk policy" security regime) but my desk drawers were becoming very crowded indeed. My filing blitz is helping me clear out the deadwood, which in turn is helping to clear my mind.

Parliament sits again in a couple of weeks. I'm going to hit the ground running mentally recharged. All this filing has been dragging me, more than I thought possible.

Nothing else tonight. At least not yet, at any rate. The night is still young(ish).


filing cabinets originally posted to Flickr by redjar. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution Share-alike licence.

Day 4: I'll keep this quick

I'm trying to keep my online time to the bare minimum tonight so I'm keeping this short and sweet.

I've done twice as much filing today as I did yesterday. The more I do, the easier it gets. It helps that we're a bit light on for work (although as usual, something comes in late in the day so I can't get away early) so I can spend some time on this. I also updated a couple of documents for clearance once Parliament sits again in a few weeks time. Finally, my little mapping project is now in maintenance mode ie I only need to update it when new information comes to hand. Yay! Friday is a traditionally slow time so with a bit of luck, I could knock over the bulk of the rest and still knock off a wee bit early.

I won't be achieving anything else today, unless cuddle time counts as an achievement. In fact, I've now decided it does.

Day 3. Urgh.

This is proving to be as difficult as I thought it would be, which is a bit pathetic when you think about it. Surely it shouldn't be too difficult to achieve one thing a day.

The interesting thing is that the more I think "What am I going to get done today?", the more I notice things that really need to be done, and done much sooner rather than the later that I have become accustomed to.

Today I sorted out the electronic archival/filing system once and for all and was able to clear one entire file document backlog. It might not seem like much, but proper record keeping is an important thing.

I've spent most of these evening battling with technical difficulties while conversing with Ebay Live Help through their web-based chat. That took hours (their server kept bumping me) which meant that I didn't achieve much of anything else. Urgh.

I have got to get more organised or this is going to be an embarrassing 30 days.

Small steps

I guess (and hope) that by cranking out some of the smaller things, the bigger things will start to fall in to place. Day 2 has not exactly been an inspirational success.

I managed to push through a document for clearance a day ahead of schedule.

I sorted and collated a batch of emails ready for electronic filing and archival. It fell over at the last hurdle as I'm incorrectly assigned in the system so I can't actually file them until records management fix it. Of course, I couldn't get the right people on the phone at all today. *sigh*

On the other hand, I started a new project using "My Maps" on Google Maps, although I am not in a position to give any further details on that one.

At home I started filling out a few bank forms but I don't think I have all the information I need at hand. I thought I might get this one finished tonight but now I don't think so.

The garden planning continues. Slowly.

Like I said, small steps. Very small steps.

Drifting

Lately I've been drifting a little, both at work and at home. I've been keeping things ticking over, but I don't think I have been moving forward. There have been periods where days go by and I don't feel like I have achieved anything at all. Not one thing. New month, new financial year, and a time to try something a little bit different.

I hope to try and achieve at least one thing every day and if possible, two things - one at home and one at work. I'm going to try and move it forward for 30 days and see what happens.

Anyway...

Daily Achievement

Work
I've started getting my filing at work in order. Since I started working here in November, I haven't done any proper filing. I feel bad about this because I started my career in the public service in a records management position. Today I worked out how to order new files (I've been doing some filing on existing files). It's a small step but it's one I've been avoiding for a while.

Home
I worked out how to use Secondbrain. It might look suspiciously like futzing instead of doing work, but I plan to use Secondbrain to organise my research for planning our garden, which has lain fallow for long enough. We've talked about planning and actually planting a garden for almost 2 years. It's time some planning actually got underway.

batting about the driftwood originally posted to Flickr by striatic. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution - Share Alike 2.0 licence.

Edit 3/7/07 8:15am to correctly attribute Flickr photo.

Timekeeper

For the first time in over a year, I have started wearing a watch again.

I got tired of using my mobile phone as a surrogate watch, which isn't a useful solution in situations where my phone is switched off (which happens more often than I first thought it would).

I own three watches and up until yesterday morning, all three of them needed new batteries. Now only two need new batteries (they also need new watchbands, but one step at a time). I didn't have to spend any time at all deciding which watch I was going to resurrect first. The watch above was given to me on my 21st birthday by a group of my university friends so it has great sentimental value to me.

After all this time, wearing a watch feels weird. I'm still not used to the extra weight on my wrist or the scraping noise it makes when it hits the desk while I'm typing. I have lost a bit of weight since I last wore it so it is still a bit loose on my arm. I am sure I will adapt.

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.

Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

Herbert Simon, Recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
and the A.M. Turing Award, the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”

Life how it used to be lived. The return of Main St?

I used to love the idea of urban sprawl with everyone having their own slice of land. These days, I wish there was more urban infill. I feel like so much community is missing in my personal interactions and I wish I could create opportunity for me.



Superkul is a Canadian architectural firm that turned a run down residence and returned it to its original shopfront/residence glory and added a third floor into the bargain. There are some great pictures of the setup on Treehugger.

Bring it on, I say. Main Streets rock.

The hammock district.

Even though Canberra is now firmly in the grasp of Winter's icy tendrils, every now and then Mother Nature throws up a gorgeous day like today. No breeze, moderate temperature (max 14C) and barely a cloud in the sky.

It shouldn't take a genius to work out why I decided to read the paper and take a brief nap in the hammock this morning. I fed the boy lunch to give my wife a chance to do the same. Her nap was, shall we say, not so brief. I had to wake her an hour later! Still, it has done her a world of good and we're both much better for our hammock adventures today.

If only all Canberra winter days looked as gorgeous as this one!

One of these ones is not like the others

I spotted this ad in this morning's Canberra Times newspaper. I just had to laugh..

It's a bit difficult to read but it says:

• In store signing with Australian adult movie stars
  
• Pole dancing and lingerie shows
  
• Penthouse and Hustler showbags worth $120 for only $25
  
• 24 booth adult movie arcade
  
• Sausage sizzle
  

Brrrr!

I thought it was cold this morning when Elijah woke up at 5am and wouldn't settle so we brought him back to our bed. He then woke me up 10 minutes later playing "The Nose Game" [1] before he settled back to sleep.

I thought it was cold when I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45am to start getting ready for work. I have to get up this early a couple of times a week to get the early bus so I can leave work early. It was cold. My shower was extra hot to compensate and I stepped out of the shower a satisfying shade of lobster read.

I thought it was cold when, while walking at a vigorous pace to the bus stop at 6:55am, I spied this poor frosted flowering plant in someone's front yard.

I thought it was cold when I walked past the York Park Conservation Site between the bus stop and work and it was sheathed with fog and looking rather spooky (it's normally a dry, empty looking patch of endangered native grassland)

I knew it was cold when I got in to work to check the Bureau of Meteorology site for the temperature to find out it was -5 C (about 23F).

Winter is well and truly here, and this is just the start of it.

[1] "The Nose Game" was started by me, and Elijah loves it. I poke him on the nose and say "Beep" or make another appropriate fun noise. Elijah worked this out pretty quickly, and started poking our noses as well. Of course, we would "Beep!", much to his delight. Unfortunately, he does this a lot, in any situation. He sometimes would also grab my hand and drag it to his nose, whereupon I was expected to "Beep!" or suffer the consequences. "The Nose Game" is cute at 4:30pm when playing with blocks in the lounge room. At 5 in the morning with freezing fingers? Not so much...

Power toolage

I don't often get a chance to crack out the ol' power drill and do something constructive. The last time I did this was when I put up the guitar hoooks a couple of months back.

At the moment we've been keeping the boy's toys and associated stuff in his portacot which lives in the lounge room. The downside is that it means he can't actually use his portacot, and every now and then he seems to like pretending he's been imprisoned (that and he likes to peek over the top and giggle at us - entertainment is sooo cheap at this age). We bought some stackable wooden boxes to solve this problem, with the added bonus that we can now quickly pull down the portacot and put it away when we are not using it.

The boxes came in a heavy box and were flat pack. I was worried they would be held together with nails (hammering is not my strong point - to much hand-eye co-ordination involved) but thankfully, it was a screw-based construction.

There were three boxes in all. The first one looked like this after I ripped it out of the box and laid it out, ready to go:

It turned out to be surprisingly easy to put together, and I was once again reunited with the joy that is power tools.

The final, very handy and useful product below:

It was a good day for power tools, actually. One of the presents we gave Elijah for his birthday in April was a wooden trolley with wooden blocks. Unfortunately, the guide holes for the screws in the side of the trolley bore no relation to where the screws would actually need to go if the handle was to be attached. After an extended period of forgetfulness, I finally got around to drilling some new guide holes and attaching the handle, giving Elijah a "brand new toy" to play with.

And we join together today ...

One of my friends recently announced his engagement, which is good and exciting news which makes both me and my wife quite happy to hear.

If you're reading this, Dave, I reckon you need a pair of these for the wedding...

8 prong connector originally uploaded to Flickr by janabrevick.

Counting with fingers

Apparently, boys with the longest ring fingers relative to their index fingers tend to excel in maths, at least according to Science.

Not sure what this says about my hand, but I did fail Maths in Grade 12. My ring finger looks pretty long to me. I can't say I'm convinced...

Found via /. [permalink]

Quick! Or the bunny gets it!

Fred's about to experience some serious problems. You've got 60 seconds to perform life-saving surgery.

Your time starts.....NOW!

http://www.10mg.nl/ (requires Flash)

Found via Boing Boing [permalink]

What I did on a sunny Sunday morning

This morning was some of the most beautiful, glorious hammock weather I have seen in Canberra in months. It could possibly be the last such day until the end of winter (some time in September!).

How did I spend such a magnificent morning?

Reading this. Inside at the kitchen table, coffee in one hand, pencil in the other.



12 job applications for some positions within my Division at work. I got sucked in to being on the selection panel because I didn't have any good reason to say no (much like jury duty, I guess). I gave my manager the opportunity to pull me out of this by saying that I could only do it pending his approval.

His response? "I guess we all have to be good citizens and do our corporate duty" (once again, much like jury duty).

Go corporate citizenry. Woo.

Sandman

Guess what arrived in the mail late last week?

*drool*

The photo doesn't even begin to do justice to the gorgeous quality of this massive (and very heavy) hardcover collection of the first 20 episodes of The Sandman, written by one of my favourite authors Neil Gaiman.

I haven't actually read it yet (or opened it beyond taking the photo). I want to be able to sit down and dedicate some time to this one.

Oooh, the anticipation...

First World Problem

My wrist is so tired today. I played so much squash last night that when I got home I couldn't double click my mouse....

One of my co-workers this afternoon, unwittingly describing to me a classic First World Problem.

Simple can be best...

This site just made me smile the whole way through (it doesn't take long).

Found via Signal vs. Noise [permalink]

Brush with fame (well, almost)

I was flying back home after a quick day trip down to Melbourne for work. Who did I see clowning around in economy class (well, not really clowning so much as sitting quietly and minding their own business)?



Gomez

I love these guys and have been big fans since their first album Bring it on was released. I had the perfect opportunity to say "Hi", maybe say how much I liked their work and wish them good luck for their Canberra show tonight (and maybe get a happy snap with my camera phone).

Instead, I chose to leave the guys alone. I'm sure they would have been cool with a fan coming up and having a few quiet words before moving along, but I elected to give them their space. Odds were they were going straight from the plane to soundcheck and are probably flying back out again tomorrow. It's only fair they be given a chance to chill out before the show that I couldn't manage to make it to (nearly 1 year old boy, lack of money - the excuses are long).

Hope the boys have a good show.

In the end, I walked away a little wistful, doing a little bit of "maybe, could have, what if..." but ultimately, no regrets.

(photo pinched from Wikipedia. I know, I'm a bad boy but Gomez don't have any press photos on their site)

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