Wordle

Amar sent this link to me today, and I think it's pretty nifty. It generates "word clouds" based on text that you point it to. In this case, I pointed it at my blog. Guess what's been on my mind lately? ;)



Check it out at Wordle.

Updates

If you're keeping track:

• We have working reverse lights on the Pathfinder, complete with a light-up toggle switch and everything. Who could ask for more?



• We have working AC in the BMW, just in time for the temperature gauge to read 105 on the way home from work yesterday - Yippee!



• We recently found out that our dogs are overweight, so that's a bummer...they're gonna have to cut back on the peanut butter. More for me!



• We'll be leaving for the doctor's office in just a few minutes, as most of the morning has thus far consisted of Amar's thumb bleeding profusely after he attempted to cut an apple for breakfast. Seriously, the fun never stops around here.



• I got to hang out with high school girls for 2 hours last night and we had a blast. I started losing my voice about an hour into it...but, we came in 2nd in the scavenger hunt!



• I'm 2/3 of the way through Harry Potter, book 6. Trying to refresh my memory before the movie comes out in July...get excited.



• Our small group is going kayaking on Town Lake this Saturday, and I'm looking forward to that. Too bad we can't take the dogs, though...there's probably a weight limit on those things... ;)

That is all.

Order of events

Background Info:
About a year ago, we lost the key fob for the Pathfinder. At this point, we have 1 key for the car. No unlock/alarm thingy. Just a key.

Also, we have a 1 car driveway, as in, we have to pull one car in behind the other car. In this instance, the Pathfinder was behind the other car.

Monday Night:
8:30 PM
Kim leaves Bible study and heads to the grocery store in the 12 year old Nissan Pathfinder (which she loves dearly, but has been a bit iffy lately).

8:45 PM
Kim loads groceries into the back of the Pathfinder, including a 40lb. bag of dog food.

9:00 PM
Kim pulls into the driveway, gets out of the car and doesn't realize that she's locked the driver side door. She goes into the house to ask Amar for help unloading the groceries.

9:01 PM
Amar and Kim go out to the car, and open the back door of the Pathfinder.

9:01:01 PM
Pathfinder alarm goes off (horn honks, lights flash, annoyingness commences).

9:01:10 PM
Kim debates about how to turn off the alarm since there is no key fob thingy. Should they crawl through the car and try to hit the 'unlock' button? That usually does it.

9:01:15 PM
Amar crawls through the car to hit the unlock button. No dice. Horn still honking. Loudly. At night.

9:02 PM
Kim runs into the house to get the keys.



Summary of the next 10 minutes:
We try to unlock the door with the key. No luck.
We try popping the hood. No luck.
We try starting the car. Not only does the alarm keep going, but the car won't start.

After 4 minutes, the alarm stops.
We frantically unload the groceries while we have a window of opportunity.

Then it starts again.
We try all of the above items again, except of course, the grocery unloading.
After 4 more minutes, the alarm stops again.



We stand quietly beside the car praying that the worst is behind us.



Silence.



So, it stopped. No idea why, but it finally stopped. We decided to just leave it be for the night, not sure what the morning would hold. Would we be able to start the car? Would we be able to even open the door? No idea.

I started dreaming about different ways to get the car out of the driveway. If the Pathfinder wouldn't start, how could we get the other car out? Could we push the Pathfinder out of the driveway and then drive the other car through the yard? Oh, yeah, that would be really inconspicuous...


Tuesday Morning:
7:30 AM
Amar goes out to the car and gently unlocks the door. No alarm.
He hits the "unlock" button to open the other doors. No alarm.
He opens the other doors. No alarm.
And finally, he tries to start the car: SUCCESS!

Happy Tuesday!

Alert: Free Food Tomorrow

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the doughnut.

Love 'em.

So, I felt compelled to let you all know that apparently tomorrow is National Doughnut Day. Both Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Doughnuts are participating.

Unfortunately, I don't live or work near a location for either of these chains, but if you do, you should totally take advantage of the holiday.

Enjoy!!

More info @ The Consumerist.

TV Addict

I grew up watching a lot of tv.

And I have a bit of an addictive personality.

Thus, there are several shows that I watch quite frequently.

I'm trying not to add any shows to the schedule. After all, there are occasionally other things that I like to do with my time. Like watch movies.

Anyhow, there's a show that I stumbled upon last summer, and I just now noticed that it's back, and yes, it's better than ever.

It's called Wipeout and it's on ABC.

I mean seriously, this is good television.






It's a ridiculously-constructed obstacle course, complete with commentators (who yes, occasionally make some questionable jokes). But it is hilarious. The stuff that they make these people do is just insane.

Side note: while Amar and I were in India, there wasn't much on tv that we could both watch and enjoy (the Indian ones were hard for me to follow, and the English ones were not incredibly compelling). The two shows that we could agree on were 1) BBC World News and 2) Takeshi's Castle. Hopefully you can figure out the former. The latter? Potentially the most awesome Japanese gameshow of all time. Needless to say, hours of entertainment.

Anyhow, you should check out Wipeout. Just give it a shot for 5 minutes and you will be sucked in.

Or, maybe it's just me. Is it just me?

Inbox insanity

Several of my co-workers have recently started using Xobni, which is a MS Outlook plug in that claims to keep you from drowning in your inbox.

I don't normally have a problem with drowning, as I try to stay fairly organized most of the time. However, today I found myself digging through a folder that had about 2000 emails in it, trying to locate one specific email from a person whose name I couldn't remember.

And then I thought of Xobni, and thought, "What the heck, why not give it a try?"

I downloaded it, and after about 15 minutes of having it index my emails, I was able to locate that missing email in about 30 seconds.

Definitely worth it.

But the goodness didn't stop there. They have this feature called Xobni Analytics, which basically shows you a bunch of cool stuff about your email habits and trends. You can find out who you send the most email to, who sends you the most email, what your high volume hours are over the day, etc.

One thing I found curious was the "Time to Respond" metric, as I try to respond in a timely manner to most things. Here's my analysis:




If you click on the picture, you'll see that back in November, I had an average email response time of ~4 hours. Compare that with my average response time in May of ~30 minutes. That's what I call progress ;)

If you look at the data another way, you can tell the times that I'm more likely to respond quickly to your email:



You'll see that if you send me a email at 3AM, it might take me 3 days to respond to it. But if you send me an email between 6AM and noon, you're looking at an average response time of less than 15 minutes.

Is it just me, or is this cool?

It's ok, I already know I'm a nerd...this is just official confirmation.

More nerdy goodness...

Average email volume by day:



Average email volume by hour:

Twisters

Is it just me, or does anyone else have recurring dreams?

It's not that I have the exact same dream on a recurring basis. It's more like, I have recurring themes in my dreams (and no, I didn't intend to rhyme there...).

The theme: tornadoes





I think the earliest I remember having a tornado dream was in college. Since then, I can recall about 10 or so variations on that theme.

Usually when they're in my dream, they are far away. I'll be looking out over the city, or over a field and they will be there. Sometimes just one, sometimes it's a whole gaggle.

A tornado made a guest appearance earlier this week in one of my dreams, and it was pretty vivid. Rather than it being far off, I was in it. I was in the wall of the tornado and I could feel the air almost getting sucked out of me.

I'm trying to figure out if the dreams correlate to anything going on in my life, but I'm drawing a blank.

So I'm curious to know if y'all have any thoughts on this. Do you have recurring themes?

On a side note, based on a very informal survey of the couples in our small group, it turned out that most of the guys in the group didn't dream very often. This was in stark contrast to the girls in the group, most of whom had vivid and memorable dreams.

Interesting.

Telling stories

I've been noticing a personal and professional trend over the last few years: I'm getting nerdier.

Sure, I've always been on the nerdy end of the spectrum. 3 years ago when we were buying a washer and dryer, I did lots of research and put everything into a spreadsheet. Probably overkill, but it helped me think more clearly about the various facets of the purchase.

I now have an Excel addiction.

But more than that, I find that I've become a bit of a snob about spreadsheets. Everyone has their own preferences, sure. But spending 5 minutes doing some minor formatting really makes a huge difference in getting your audience to understand your data.

The same can be said about presentations, and I'm becoming increasingly nerdy about those as well.

Why spend hours crafting a deck that no one will remember? It's a waste of time and money, and it sets a tone for your future pitches. Polishing things ever so slightly can turn a bad presentation into a decent one.

But why stop at decent? What really makes things stand out? What makes them memorable?

Sure, fonts and images go a long way there. But I'm talking about really crafting your message. Telling a story.

This goes for more than PowerPoint decks. I'd argue that telling stories is most of the battle. Drawing people in, getting them to understand the context, the tension, the climax and the resolution...this is what makes it interesting...what makes it memorable.

We've all been to bad presentations, attended bad meetings, or read bad emails. That's part of what makes work feel like work.

But it doesn't have to be that way. A post from the folks at Duarte reminded me of that today. The post is about hiring professionals, knowing when you're in over your head. Check it out: here

Now, let me say this: not everyone can hire professionals. Heck, I know there's no way that would fly in my corner of cubicle city. But just changing our mindset about what we want to communicate can really help get us on the right track.

I want people to look forward to communicating with me, whether that be over email, via spreadsheets, in staff meetings or at coffee shops.

If you're digging this line of thinking, you should also check out "Death By Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni. Good stuff there as well. Very readable business fiction that will get you thinking about changing things up a bit...

Good luck out there.

Bravo

I was sad to see that Project Runway would not be seen again this year on Bravo (and I still can't picture it on Lifetime...but that's another blog entry for another day). However, I gave their new show, Fashion Show, a try this week.

Let me just say this: I cannot fathom a world in which a grey satin harem pant is a "must have."

The challenge was to create a "must have" item and build five looks around it. Now, I might not be as fashion forward as the next girl, but harem pants in the first place are just not must-haves. The other items created were ok. Jacket? Yes, it could work. The concept of a skirt? Yes, could work. But I agree with the judges on this one: the way that these looks were executed leaves something to be desired.

Granted, they only had about a day to do it. So you have to cut them some slack. But seriously - it got a little crazy and unwearable pretty quickly.

And if any of you watched the show, please try to explain to me what Merlin is. I really can't understand it.

Will I tune in again next week? Most likely.
Do I like it as much as Project Runway? Not just yet.

Your thoughts??


Harem Pants Montage




*Images courtesy of Bravo

Yankee Stadium: Predictions

Not sure if you follow sports, but it was hard to miss the recent thrashing(s) that took place in Yankee Stadium.

Given that home runs in the new park are up 250% from last year (currently averaging 5 homers per game in the first 5 games played there this season), it would not surprise me in the least if:

1) There is some sort of lawsuit against the architect, design firm, construction company, etc.

-OR-

2) There's some legislation floated about standardizing the existing and/or future designs of ballparks such that they all play in similar manners.

Just putting it out there...



But seriously, if I were a Yankees fan, I'd be a bit ticked off right now.

Happy birthday to me!

So I aged on Monday. Monday specifically. I don't age everyday. It's just the one time each year. Blink and you may miss it.

Anyhow, in honor of aging day this year, Amar got me a super-sweet Nikon D90. Yes, I'm spoiled.

It came in the mail on Friday, and the weather turned nice enough this afternoon to test out the new guy in the yard. Here are some of the results:

Don't mess with Texas

Yay Texas! Way to stay sane.



Image courtesy of NPR.

Is it really the thought that counts?

When the efforts to greenify the office mean that employees who have to come in on the weekends, overnight no less, cannot get any lights to turn on in the building...you just might want to reconsider just how green you want to be.

I'm just sayin'...



Slightly ironic that this comes on the heels of a previous post about recycling?

Nah.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take

That being said: I'm entering a photo book contest

Wish me luck!

For more info on my particular book, this would be a good place to click.

The Three Rs

In today's ever-greening society, I think it might be appropriate to redo the Three Rs to mean Recycle, Reduce and Reuse.

That being said, I want to give a quick shout-out to a company that it walking the walk: Preserve

Their motto is "Nothing wasted. Everything gained"

The deal is this: they recycle plastic into everyday, household items that you can buy. And then, when you're done with whatever it is that you bought from them, guess what? You send it back and they recycle it.



In checking out the prices, it seems reasonable: 8 plastic plates for $7, food storage items starting at $3.

You should check it out. If you don't check it out, you are essentially wadding the planet up and tossing it in the trash. Happy shopping ;)

Cube Envy

So I read this article over on Lifehacker and I now have cube envy.

I think this one is my favorite....but oh! To have a window (check out the other pics)!





I want to be able to decorate 8x6 square like that!

Things

Item 1:

I keep thinking today is Thursday. I woke up thinking it was Thursday. I cancelled a meeting thinking it was Thursday. I went to a different meeting thinking it was Thursday. Help.

Item 2:
This made me laugh. Let me know what you think.

Item 3:
Very excited about this. I (heart) George-Michael!

Maybe this is why I'm afraid of bugs

I just got this error message while at work:



Gotta love pessimistic developers!

I'm still alive - FYI

I'm still alive.

I just haven't had the time/energy/attention span/inspiration to blog in awhile.

I should be able to come back up for air after February 8th. Drivers for that include: work, church, reading list, sleeping, etc.

Peace out.

A Mighty Wind

Also known as, we lost another tree today.

Yes, I know. The odds of us losing 2 trees to wind within a year are pretty low. Well, we're over-achievers here, so we just like to keep setting the bar high.

Here's a before glimpse of what our front landscaping used to look like:



Notice, if you will, the tall, skinny tree off the the left of the photo (helpful labels added by yours truly). Pretty. Elegant. And infested with spider mites.

By the time we knew what was wrong with it, the tree was pretty far gone. And apparently the only way to fix that problem was to douse the tree with a vigorous spray of water and soap every so often.

Since we didn't have a 40 foot ladder, this was a bit out of our league.

So we just decided to do the humane thing and let it die of natural causes at its own pace.

Last week, it was a bit windy...and I honestly thought that we'd lose the tree soon. So just about 2 days ago, we talked about calling someone to come and get it before it fell and potentially caused damage.

But we were a bit too late....

After a windy morning, we looked out the front door and saw this:



Here are some shots of the aftermath:













We had to use a circular saw, 3 extension cords, a spade, and a hand saw to cut the tree into movable pieces. Yay for manual labor!!