Keeping My Life Organized

For those who know me, I have a horrible memory. I constantly leave myself notes, make lists, and use calendars to help me remember what seems like every aspect of my life. I have a variety of tools to suit my needs. aNote on the iPhone is a great notetaker. Grocery Gadget helps remember what I need to buy. Delicious helps me remember links and Instapaper helps me with articles I want to read later. Email is a big factor as it’s quick and I’m constantly in my inbox. If something is really important an email to myself will do the trick. However, none of those things can compare to Google Calendar.

It’s not that I will completely forget something all together. Most of the time I do remember what it is I need to. My problem is that if I have something to do at a specific time, I’ll remember it several hours before, but when time comes I will either forget, remember when it’s too late, or remember just in time to piss me off for not remembering sooner. GCal helps combat those issues. I like GCal because it syncs with my iPhone and my iCal on my iMac and MacBook. It is a great tool with a simple interface. I love how you can have multiple calendars and can turn each one off with the click of a mouse. That doesn’t mean I haven’t found some things I dislike about it.

Earlier this morning I was creating an event to remember to drop off my rent check in the morning. Now, I already have ‘Pay Rent’ set up on every first of the month with a reminder going out, but the problem comes with the reminder. Paying rent is an all day event on my calendar, mostly because I never know when the exact time I can pay it will occur. Therefore, any reminder I set up will be prior to the day starting. Sending an email the day before is almost too much, but sending it 15 minutes before the event won’t work either. I’m not going to do anything about paying rent at 11:45 at night. This is where there needs to be a Google Labs feature that allows you to have ‘business hours.’ This would be an option to let you choose what hours that calendar uses for All Day events. For example, for my Work calendar, All Day is not 12am-11:59pm. Work is from 8am-5pm. That’s when work’s All Day events should stop. I’m really surprised this isn’t something built in or already available as an experimental Labs feature. I would also like more control over the time increments. Sure, you can type in any start and end time, but the dropdowns only go by the half hour. I would prefer the dropdowns to have an option to display time in 15 minute increments. Those caveats to GCal aside, it is a great tool. I really don’t know where I’d be without it, probably lost, walking aimlessly down the highway wearing duck slippers and a bathrobe. That reminds me, I should add ‘Buy duck slippers and a bathrobe’ to my calendar.

,

Baseball as a Metaphor for Life

I love the writing of Rescue Me a lot and I also love baseball so it’s no surprise that I think the following monologue nails it on the head.

Anyway, baseball and life, one in the same. Everybody always says that life is too short. Bullshit. Life, unless you get cancer or hit by a bus or set on fire, takes forever. Just like baseball. It’s a series of long, mind-boggling boring stretches of time where absolutley nothing happens. So, you take a nap, and then, after a little while, when that crisp crack of the bat hittin’ the ball, so crisp you could almost smell that wood burning, jolts you awake and you open your eyes to see something so exciting and intricate, and possibly, very, very meaningful has just happened, but you missed it ’cause you were just so goddamn bored in the first place. Oh, you know, a couple of hot dogs, throw in some beers, the occasional blow job, and that’s that.

The End of Movember

It is the end of Movember and I am thankful.  I’m thankful to the people that donated and thankful to be able to shave the ‘stache.  Going a whole month without trimming was hard. I don’t know how people with bushy mustaches do it. It was so annoying. I would wake up every single morning wanting to trim it. It was also ugly. No, seriously, I hated it and I’m sure I looked stupid to most people. In fact, it got to the point that when I’d see people I hadn’t seen in a while I’d have to explain why I had the ridiculous mustache so they would know it wasn’t a fashion decision and that I was growing it for the greater good. If you really want to torture yourself you can go back and look at the Movember set on my Flickr page. I did miss taking pictures a few of the days, but there are 22 of the 30 days in the set. I think if I do this again next year, I’ll try a different style, maybe just the old-fashioned used car salesman mustache.  We shall see.

Got Yourself a Gun

I’ve never been pro or anti-gun. I’ve just never had an opinion on it. It is a hot issue, but one I’ve never felt strongly about. I know that getting guns off the streets could mean less crime. I know that most gun crime is committed by guns obtained illegally. I don’t think you need semi-automatic or automatic weapons to hunt deer. I see both sides of the argument and dangle my feet on both sides of the fence. I’ve never wanted a gun but to each their own.

Lately I have been thinking more and more about owning one. Not because I’m afraid of crime or because I want to carry a concealed weapon (that’s legal in Missouri). It really comes down to the amount of nutjobs there are in the world right now. No, I’m not talking Tom Cruise believes aliens dropped frozen souls into volcanoes type of nutjobs. I’m talking about people who are so easily manipulated that they get whipped up into a frenzy even though what they are yelling about makes no sense. I’m talking about allowing people who don’t have the mental capacity to own guns suddenly buying them. Or people who have no problem burning people in effigy.

The point is, there are some crazy people out there and when people who are supposed to be responsible leaders shout fire and brimstone from their pulpit, nothing good can come. Look at the racist, bigoted, nonsensical things that have come about from the tea baggers and the birthers. Look at Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, and Michelle Malkin. Look at the hatred in the last campaign from Sarah Palin supporters. It was disgusting. I know owning a gun isn’t going change these nutjobs, but if these people are armed and get in their heads there needs to be a revolution, why shouldn’t I be able to protect myself against these lunatics?  The prospect of owning a gun is becoming more and more appealing.

Movember

Mo Logo Stacked SmallI found out about a great little fundraiser called Movember.  What is Movember? Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the mustache, highlighting men’s health issues – specifically prostate and testicular cancer. Starting November 1st participants start growing their ‘staches.  I found out about it a day late and I already had facial hair so I had to start a day late by shaving.  That’s right.  For the first time in at least 8 years I have no facial hair.

So, what is the point?  Well, to raise money.  The money raised goes to The Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  I’m doing my part by growing an awesome ‘stache, won’t you help out by donating now? You can also go to my donation page or my Daily Booth page every day to see my mustache progress. The first picture of baby-faced shep is up now, complete with nicks and cuts.