Work...

I’ve had little time to do anything… well… except for work.

A 12 hour day followed by a 16 hour one, home each day for an hour then to sleep, only to be awoken at 6:30AM for more work.

5 hours of sleep. I’m not used to working this hard. Good chunks of last week were like this too.

I’m not really complaining, but I’m damn surprised at how well I’m doing with it all. Nearly lost it a few times yesterday, but all in all I’m doing surprisingly well.

Not long ago I would be dead to the world due to lack of sleep and the resulting badness of mood (depression.)

What a difference a drug (or 3) makes.

Something new

I could have got a shiny new Mac Mini for just a little bit more. Sadly that will have to wait, and I don’t really need one.

Instead I got a new look and a new (weaker) prescription, but the same grey tshirt

 
 
 

Good bye to comment spam?

I like what google is doing and I hope it’s adopted widely enough to make a real difference.

I’ve implemented rel=nofollow using the PR Block Textpattern plugin.

It’s looking good. Not that I ever got any comment spam, and not that this will stop it. But maybe I’m helping a bit or something.

Moleskines: My New Obsession

I’ve taken to carrying around a Moleskine everywhere I go. They are nice things, very nice. I was looking at buying some kind of expensive smart phone that could keep my todo list, calendar, be my phone and do all that other stuff. Instead I bought an expensive note pad. $12.

They are nice, the feel is nice, the quality is there. It’s expensive for a pad of paper, but it’s quality, the kind that doesn’t feel disposable. It’s the type of thing you can fill up with notes, plans, lists and schedules. Then put on your shelf to look at years later.

“Ahh, look what I was doing back in early 2005…”

I’m not an organized person, really not at all. And I’m a pretty bad procrastinator, but I can get things done when the task grabs my attention. The Moleskine is just one step along that road.

The first few chapters of Getting Things Done really opened my eyes to a few things. The most important so far; Write everything down. Make lists of everything you want to do. Then come up with a system to reference those lists regularly. That way you don’t have to fill up your mind with reminders, you can just trust that your system will work and put your mind at ease.

I’m far from there yet. Very far. But I’m trying. I still have to finish the damn book.

In any case, my Moleskine is a nice thing to have. It’s comforting to always know I can write my thoughts down when I need to.

Thanks to 43Folders for pointing me at them (I think it was that site originally.) Some good info about their true origins is provided by the BBC.

NASA World Wind: Cool!

I finally noticed and downloaded NASA’s World Wind which is one of the coolest bits of software I’ve seen since, well, WoW. It’s a 3D model of the entire Earth that you can rotate and zoom all the way down to 15m per pixel satellite images in real color. Then you flip over to black and white USGS 1m per pixel maps so you can find your house!

It’s a large download but worth it, and you will really need a good and fast net connection and a somewhat decent computer with a good 3D video card. Once you put all that together you have one damn cool application. I can even find where I work.

Rotate over to North America, roll the mouse wheel and zoom into Arizona and then The Grand Canyon. Flip the view back and there is the river, the canyon walls, and all of it, accurate elevations, 3D representation. Totally amazing.

Of course this all requires a lot of data, so World Wind downloads it on demand. As you zoom in you can see it updating the sections you need, then it caches those for later. Watching it update is actually fascinating and creates quite a cool effect.

Then to top it all off, it’s opensource. Your tax dollars at work!

Those I would like to see again...

Thinking about the past tonight. I’m not one who needs a lot of friends, or keeps in touch with a large group of people. However there are some who I have lost touch with that I would really like to see again.

This list isn’t that large, I guess that makes it exclusive and all. Once high school was over, I left, and tried to never look back. I left some people behind, and I would like to talk to them again. The people who really left a mark, those who are still on my mind this many years later.

Those who I would like to talk to again, in no particular order:

• Heidi Dunn
• Yvonne Smith
• Rochelle Groniger
• Megan Darwood
• Emily Torpe
• Jenny Liebl
• Kathleen Francis
• Seth Holbrook

All of these people I knew at Liberty Bell High School in Winthrop Washington, and in most cases, for years before that. I won’t get into my feelings about that place now. Leaving and rarely looking back, I think it was a good thing, but there were a few I left behind in my haste. I miss them.

If you are any of the above people, please email kelp at plek dot org and let me know how to write you back.

I’m in Seattle now, not far. But that will only last for 2-3 more years and then I’m off to some place tropical.

I hope you are all doing well, and I really hope to hear from some of you.

I guess I should say who I am. Travis Cole. The first, and maybe last time my full name will appear on this website. Strange I am that way.

Now google, come and index this into history.

UPDATE: 2008-07-20, I found this with Google and updated my broken contact link. It broke when I moved this blog in early 2007. Now just email me. Also I am in contact with some of the above mentioned people, and it's by no means an exhaustive list.

For some reason Movable Type pisses me off.

I’m not sure why. Maybe because so many people use it and you can always kind of tell when I site is powered by it. It’s tainted somehow.

You have to regenerate everything when you post.

I want my vacation back.

Aren’t you supposed to feel all reseted and ready to get back to work after a vacation? I just took my first ever (at this job) whole week off. It’s the most time I’ve taken off in nearly 2 years. With 3 days of vacation left I began to think about work and dread showing up on Monday.

I was once one of those people who loved work. I really enjoyed what I did, really a lot. Now I find more frustration and annoyance in it than anything else. And I’ve come to realize that I really like staying home. I like it a lot. I very very much enjoy my days off work.

I’m not sure what to do about all this. Somehow I have to make my self happy with it again.

No more bells, no more crouds...

I had the entire week off work, and since the 25th has come and gone I won’t have to endure the downtown crouds and ringing bells. The annoying songs will no longer lodge them selves into my consciousness. I can stop thinking about all the money spent on all the useless things, all for a stupid day about a fictional fat old bearded man and fictional sandal wearing bearded man who walked on water.

No new years resolutions here because I know I never keep them. I would like to blog more though. I will write more about what I’m doing, even if I don’t think it’s all the interesting to others. Then I will see if people take to it.