Ben's Busy Blog

Tonight, I'm going to go to bed on time today. Aside from that, there weren't really any special achievements. Got up late, had wedding planner visit, had dinner with Nat's mom, watched a movie.... Hrm, I'm recapping pretty much everything I'm putting below.

Achievements:
+ None
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Dinner with Nat's mom took up a good few hours, plus commute
Other:
+ Cleaned the house for guest
+ Met prospective wedding planner for a couple hours, seems good

Woke up late again... *argh* Then I spent time working on the bathroom. I made progress but also came to realize that I was thoroughly sick of the project. I cleaned about the house a bit, tried selling our extra A/C unit online. This was a very unproductive, and yet somehow necessarily relaxing day.

I need to change my rhythm before this becomes inescapable.

Achievements:
+ None
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ None of it... or all of it
Other:
+ Put up ad for A/C
+ More bathroom work

Today I slept very late because I stayed up very late with Nathalie the night previous. Then I spent a few hours working on the bathroom, and then it was down to Wheeling to see the guys.

Achievements:
+ Realized that I will regret it if we don't move
+ Natty went to Wheeling with me, a big step
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Slept late
Other:
+ Saw the guys for dinner... very nostalgic

Today went reasonably well

Achievements:
+ Updated wiki
+ Spoke at length with Nat about future plans
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Spent way too much time reading, I couldn't tear myself away
Other:
+ Almost finished cleaning the bathroom door (should have finished it today)

I think today went better than yesterday in regards to following a schedule. I'm very encouraged as to the results of the program so far, and I intend to continue following it. My portable dry erase board is now home to a fusion of the previous To-Do list, and the schedule. Since I'd had problems with floating items remaining on the To-Do list for long periods of time, this should hopefully resolve that. I do have some vague periods in the day for tomorrow which are home to multiple items of indeterminate length. This was my cop-out that I used in order to place items that I didn't feel like assigning a time and/or length to.

*YAWN* Anyway, I'll cut short on speculation in order to get my ass to bed more timely. I just want to note that two doctor's appointments really take a lot out of a day. Oh, and Mom had cosmetic surgery on her scar from the car wreck today. It's just out-patient, she's alright.

Achievements:
+ Scheduling initiative is taking off well
+ A little more Torque self-education worked in
Setbacks and Time Sinks:
+ Two doctor's appointments, plus drive time
Other:
+ Finally figuring out how to properly use the paint stripper, ugh, so much time spent....

Okay, so this is really my personal little blog which just started, so I'm going to have to ask you to forgive me for not posting that I was going on vacation. Right now the only readers that I know of were directly involved in the vacation, so if you're someone else... well, good for you!

I'm starting to set an hourly schedule for myself for each day. Hopefully I'll get better at doing this as time goes by.

Achievements:
+ Set a schedule for myself today, and followed well for first day
+ Started programming with Torque
+ Went for a walk
Setbacks:
+ Doctor's appt got vetoed on me at the last minute after an ugly discussion
Other:
+ Bathroom door 2: Paint Stripper Boogaloo continues messily, but getting there

Well, today was a busy day, but I didn't get to spend time working on any long term projects.

Achievements:
+ None
Setbacks:
+ None
Other:
+ Doctor's appointment, with requisite drive time
+ Home Depot shopping trip for mounting bulletin board
+ Confirmed that Verizon store isn't the place to buy the phone I want
+ Trash
+ Cleaning
+ Gathering things for trip

Today was long, but rewarding. Definately rewarding. I'm too tired

Achievements:
+ Bought exercise bike and setup
+ Nat joined me for a wonderful get-together with my family
+ Retrieved my ridiculous Lego collection of my ill-spent youth
Setbacks:
+ Played GTA while waiting for bike... for over an hour because she was late
Other:
+ Driving for a couple of hours
+ Dug through my old Legos and reminisced. God, why does the past have to be so far away?

Today kinda sucked. Nat's been having trouble sleeping, which through no real fault of her own is affecting mine also. Then we had a big fight about how the paint is coming right off of the bathroom door. Yep, that's the bathroom door that I spent forever sanding. She was right, but I got pretty irritable about having to go through cleaning the door again. I focused my anger as productive as possible and got most of the paint off of the door, but it was a long few hours breathing in citrus paint stripper fumes. I should have used that in the first place instead of just sanding through. Oh well, c'est la vie

Achievements:
+ None :(
Setbacks:
+ Big argument with Nattie
+ Back to square one with the bathroom door
+ Played GTA for a while
Other:
+ Spent hours stripping paint back off of door
+ Bought birthday present for nephew

I was just very sluggish today. Time to catch up on sleep, I suppose

Achievements:
+ Added an article's worth of info to LiquidWiki
Setbacks:
+ Was sleepy, so I took a nap with Natty
Other:
+ Watched "Date Movie", for the love of God, don't repeat my mistake, please
+ Added a section on "Market District" to the wiki article on Giant Eagle
+ Made a doctor's appointment for Natty, emailed another one
+ Made rental car arrangements for Madison trip
+ Finalized deal for exercise bike

*YAWN* Tired. Got to bed early last night, got up at a decent time today... haven't followed through on tonight's bedtime well though. Anyhoo, let's keep the jibba-jabba short

Successes:
+ Nothing special today
Setbacks:
+ Doctor's appointment misfire: I forgot it, tried to get Nat going late, big argument
Other:
+ Took out trash and recycling
+ Little quick vacuum job
+ Removed a lot of the painters tape from teh bathroom
+ Painted windowsill and did touch up

Ugh... so tired.

Achievements:
+ Transcribed RM update notes
+ Getting to bed earlier...
Setbacks:
+ Too damn tired to think
Other:
+ Waited around for repairman the whole damn day
+ Used paint stripper on bathroom windowsill
+ Touched up other bathroom paint

Oops! In the failed rush to get to bed early last night, I missed my posting. I'd been rather pre-occupied with the first ever RM Minis game. Some seriously good insights were garnered and hopefully we'll have another match tonight.

Unfortunately, I have a poor recollection of yesterday right now, since I got up way too early this morning.

Achievements:
+ 1st ever successful RM Minis test game
Setbacks:
+ Massive failure on getting to bed early
+ Didn't post on time
+ WTF did I do yesterday?
+ No painting?
Other:
+ Home Depot trip for towels, chromey toilet paper holder, new showerhead
+ Didn't find useful stuff at Lego store, but Natty bought a Lego hospital
+ Major windfall: THE LEGO HOSPITAL CONTAINS LEGO CHUCK NORRIS!!

Well, I'm on task to make it to bed at a better time, so I'm going to try not to run long with this.

We had a doctor's appointment today, which knocked its requisite chunk of time out of availability. I also wanted to pick up some Legos, having realized that Legos were by far an excellent prop for RM Minis. Too bad we couldn't find any.

I wonder if I should ditch "Failures" and instead include "Setbacks"? I'm going to try that on a trial basis. It's a little faux upbeat, but how often do you really have a failure? I can return the field to usage if something warrants it

Achievements:
+ Lego idea for RM
Setbacks:
+ Can't find Legos
+ Still covering up paint spill
Other:
+ Doctor's appointment
+ Painting

Well, talk about fitful. One step forward and one step back. I'm not too happy about my productivity the last few days. Hopefully the new week will promise new beginnings. I've been keeping this blog for a week or so now, and it's starting to make me realize how unproductive I've been. The good news is that I'm refining my process. I'm holding myself accountable, and keeping track of things. I've set goals in the past, but didn't have any mechanisms for measuring success at reaching them. I also had no division between work and play spaces, and I'm starting to create divisions there. I can do better at this and I will.

Achievements:
+ None
Failures:
+ Spilled black paint in the bathroom, preempting any painting for the night
+ Slept in again
Other:
+ Spent three hours taping up the bathroom
Places for improvement:
+ Exercise in the mornings, even if it's just jumping jacks and weights
+ Get to bed earlier
+ Set aside time each day for productivity

I accomplished absolutely nothing today. I suppose that taking a day off is good and all in the scheme of things, but I think I should plan days off instead of having them just happen to me.

I wish I'd managed to accomplish one thing today, because then I'd feel a bit better about myself. Even if it was something small. I know it's important to relax, but you also have got to maintain momentum. Momentum is a tough thing to get back.

Achievements:
+ None none none
Failures:
+ Played hours of GTA
Other:
+ Ran and folded a couple loads of laundry
+ Ran to Home Depot for painter's tape, which didn't get used
+ Went to ARL with Natty

*YAWN* Okay, I so need to work on getting to bed at an appropriate time. Last night was a major failure in that department, and I even wound up taking a nap to cover for it.

A lot of the day got taken up by a few medical-related things. 45 minutes out for an hour-long doctor's appointment. Then through construction traffic to the mall for a better-fitting replacement of Nattie's prescription sunglasses. After choosing new frames, we had over an hour and a half to kill. I dropped my phone off at the Verizon store for repair and we had plenty of time to cool our heels. After all that it was over 45 minutes home again. Nattie crashed for a nap while I busied myself cleaning for an hour or more. She got up, but I wound up crashing for a nap.

After a late dinner, we were back in the bathroom for painting the trim black. It will look really nice with a second coat, but man, the first coat just lies on there, looking like hell.

Anyway, I'm tired. Off to bed soon. I didn't really do anything that addressed my personal long term goals, but I had a pretty busy day otherwise, so it's all good in my opinion.

Achivements:
+ Nothing special
Failures:
+ No long term significant achievements
Other:
+ Doctor's appointment with Nattie
+ Visited Lenscrafters to replace Nattie's sunglasses
+ Gathered garbage, emptied litter boxes, vacuumed, took out trash, emptied dishwasher
+ Painted bathroom

Woof, I'd have to say that today was very productive. Not only did Nathalie and I finish painting the white surfaces in the bathroom, I also finished the alpha version of the Rusted Metal Minis ruleset. I've requested that Dave review it, and next we'll need to work out how to play a game over such a long distance. I'm kinda pooped, so I'm cutting the commentary short.

Achievements:
+ Completed alpha version of the Rusted Metal Minis ruleset!!!
+ Finished painting the bathroom white
+ On track to get to bed on time! w00t! (yes, I'm lame)
+ Resisted the urge to play GTA (that's hard!)
Failures:
+ Spent a lot of time on Wikipedia today
+ Late to bed again last night
Other:
+ Home Depot trip for chrome switchplate and painting supplies
+ Cooked dinner: Thai chicken stir fry
+ Edited Dreadnought (comics) on Wikipedia

Man, I really need to work on this sleep thing. I think I'm going to to have to make a personal requirement of doing my blog at midnight and then getting to bed by 1 AM sharp. Getting up has been difficult lately.

The bathroom's shaping up nicely.

Achievements:
+ More painting
+ Very small amount of work on RM Minis
Failures:
+ Too much time wasted playing GTA
+ Wasted time surfing Wikipedia. I might have to start filtering certain entries somehow
Other:
+ Took Nat to a doctor's appointment

Today went very well, I would have to say. I wasn't too slow coming out of the starting gate, so I'm reasonably happy with that. I didn't hop into quick action though, but I did spend time in further negotiation over my Craigslist exercise bike deal of choice. Hopefully I'll be able to reel that in pretty soon.

I also had a little bit of ostentatiousness. I recently converted $40 of Discover CashBack into $50 at Borders, and thanks to corporate partnerships, I promptly spent it all at Amazon.com. I picked up the Ubuntu book I'd been eyeing, along with the latest available Fables TPB, "A Scanner Darkly" and, with a sense of nobleness, picked up the CD of my current fave indie: Brad Sucks. Yeah, I could have forgone the extra expenditure that wound up coming out of my pocket, especially as dude's already got everything free for download, but it wasn't much over shipping price and put me into free shipping territory.

Anyway, enough of my sake and vodka fueled garrolousness. The big thing is that Nat and I did a great job on the bathroom today. I hit the ceiling for a second coat with the roller, and then after washing it out, I put a first coat on the walls. Nat and I spackled some more (there's always more holes to be found). Then while she painted the bathroom door, I cleared caulk from the shower and cleansed the mildew ith a bleach/water/detergent mix. That needed to sit for a while, so I treated us to a pizza. Yeah, I should have cooked, but after the third time washing my hands, I decided I didn't want to touch chicken with that much paint on my hands. While wating for the pizza, I took out the garbage and recycling.

After dinner, I followed up the bleach mix with rubbing alcohol and then caulked the cleansed crack. Painters tape made it easy to keep it under control. Too bad the tube died before I could do touch-up. Meanwhile Natty put a second coat on the bathroom door and then did detail work around the room. The bathroom looks great, and hopefully we'll have it all taken care of in the next few days.

Oh yeah, and did some more Minis stuff, while consulting with Dave on a point or two.

Achievements:
+ Long day spent painting, spackling and caulking the bathroom
+ More work spent on Minis
+ Exercise bike is almost a lock...
Failures:
+ Didn't cook dinner (meh, no biggie)
Other:
+ Ordered some personal rewards (for free!)
+ Garbage and recycling
+ Watched Mr and Mrs Smith with Nattie. Not a bad flick

So today was a mixed bag. I spent time working on what people have been telling me to work on. I probably even made an important decision, but at the same time I really feel like I didn't get anything done today. Sure, I blocked out and spent time going over the game that I said I was going to create, like Dave told me too. I also took a good long look at what I might like to do with my life, and where I should go from here, like Nat's been telling me to. I might even become a software engineer now, after what I've read today. But dammit, I feel like I sat on my thumb all day.

I was going to paint in the bathroom too, but I didn't. I pushed my Nattie to help me out and then suddenly she was doing all of the ceiling painting by herself. I was proud of her. It looks good. On the other hand, I didn't do a damned thing but put blue tape all over everywhere.

Achievements:
+ Spent time assessing my career options (software engineer?)
+ Worked through RM Minis notes, re-reading and then started re-writing

Failures:
+ Sat around the house all day

Other:
+ Erm, I got Nat to paint the bathroom ceiling...

Well, another day down, and not as much to show as I'd like. Dave made a very good point today that I might be using relatively short term projects like the bathroom to procrastinate on important long term decisions. Not news I wanted to hear much, but something I really should consider. I also should take his other suggestion and sit down for a while and block out an hour for specificly addressing things which remain undone. My first thing to figure out is "What the hell am I doing with my life?".

Generally, I hate making decisions. It's not that I find them difficult to make. They're too damned easy actually. It's living with them that sucks your soul and the tears from your eyes.

Not my credit, but I'd say that Natty had a very good day today. She cooked up a brand-new recipe from the cookbook with nary a hand from me, and then gave the kitchen a hard cleaning. Counters, stovetop, & sink shining and then a couple loads thru the dishwasher. We went for a walk today too. It seemed to fly by.

I had an argument with my love today. She got on my case for different things, but the same things as Dave. I got pretty pissed off and stormed out of the bedroom and applied for a job at Google. I wish I could say that I'd channelled my anger productively, but I think my real motivation was to prevent it from rankling in my side anymore. I'm not entirely sure about the validity of this, as a Google job would be really awesome, but not necessarily compatible with multiple things. It wouldn't jive with either Nat's short term or long term desires, and I'm afraid that I'd just wind up in the same IT rut as I've been in. Of course I can't complain, being that I haven't made an appropriate effort to find my true calling.

Achievements:
+ Applied to Google

Failures:
+ NO RM MINIS AGAIN!

Other:
+ Two loads laundry
+ Touched up spackling in bathroom (and around the house)
+ Cleared items and covered surfaces for painting in bathroom
+ Walked
+ Spent more time setting up Nat's iPod

Well, I definately fucked up today by not starting early. The alarm went off around 9 as it should, but when Nat sleepily told me to just sleep in, I caved easily. I wound up sleeping until almost noon, and now, once again, I don't feel like I've accomplished too much. At the same time, I feel like I'm getting a better idea of how to manage myself. I shouldn't be too hard because I'm still working this out. Keeping this blog nightly is a good step in that direction. Hopefully soon I'll get that phone situation squared away and then I'll never have an excuse for not doing it.

Love,
  B

Accomplishments

• Caulked and sanded in bathroom, ready to paint finally!


• Updated Nat's iPod

Failures

• NO WORK DONE ON MINIS AGAIN!

Time Sinks

• Slept in a lot!


• Watched Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic (reasonable, but a time sink)

Other Stuff

• Watered flowers


• Took out garbage and recycling


• Cleaned litter boxes


• Vacuumed and straightened up a little


• Bookmarked stuff to preserve from old notebooks

Okay, so a "work" week is over... sort of. I intend to maintain the same discipline through the weekends here too. Quite frankly, I feel like I sort of squandered the day. I think I'm going to have to start keeping a running tab throughout the day if I'm going to keep track of everything. I just don't know where all the time went, although I know I was in the bathroom screwing around with citrus paint thinner for way too long.

Achievements

• Finished sanding bathroom


• Cooked dinner


• Got up on time (if I can keep it up, then I'll push it earlier


• Re-hung markerboard & added envelopes

Time Sinks

• Played GTA for 1.5 hours

Failures

• Didn't add anything to LiquidWiki


• Didn't roll out RM Minis as promised