10/31/06


Everything has a place.

Genius lies in making it look easy.

It's so hard to get a good babysitter these days.

Pre-operative workup
Felicity's Halloween Costume


Re: Picture 2
There is a joke about the left wing always drifting to the center ... three year olds never get the joke but labour historians find the reference quite amusing. There are not a lot of labour historians...

Halloween pumpkins

10/26/06

How to Hack the Vote and Steal the Election

"Many people have asked for it so that the government will have to deal with it. So here it is: a guide to stealing an election that uses electronic voting machines written by Jon Stokes over at Arstechnica. From the article: "In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.""

10/25/06

New blogging software from Google! Labels, collapsible archives, search going all the way back to 2003. Lots of good stuff. It will take a while for me to categorize the 850+ posts. Nothing like a little trip down memory lane.

10/23/06


Everybody wants to go back home again at one stage of life or another.

10/20/06


Coat of many colors.

Extreme close up.

10/18/06


Getting ready for Halloween.

10/16/06


Getting ready for ski season.

10/12/06

Herewith: Merlin’s top 5 super-obvious, “no-duh” ways to immediately improve your life.

1. Reduce noise - We all have innumerable inboxes, interruptions, and distractions that are part of work and life — you can’t change that. What you can do is get more hard-nosed about the elective diversions that you invite into your world. Cancel a subscription for a magazine you never read or sign off an annoying mailing list. Needles get easier to find when you aren’t constantly adding new hay to the stack.
2. Write things down - Ever find a piece of paper in your office with seven digits on it? You know it’s a phone number, but whose? Get ruthless about jotting down ephemeral information if you’ll need to recall it later. Remember that your brain is a creative organ with limitless creative possibilities — but it makes a really crummy whiteboard.
3. Focus on action - My favorite productivity book, “Getting Things Done” highlights how anything you want to do in life eventually comes down to intentional physical activity — even if it’s something as mundane as “take out trash” and “call Mom.” Learn the habit of planning your world around action verbs rather than fuzzy nouns. “Implement Strategy” is not a task; it’s a project. “Call Jim about strategy” is a very do-able “next action” that keeps the ball in motion.
4. Get out of your inbox - Many of us are habituated to living out of our email inbox, voicemail, and the other “in baskets” of our lives. Instead, try to set aside regular, periodic times when you trawl for the new content in your life — then get back to work! Inboxes are delivery systems, not workspaces. The real work is happening in your brain and practically every other place that’s not an inbox. Stop allowing yourself to be brow-beaten by the latest, loudest, or most dramatic item that’s landed in your world.
5. Get pickier - You are the sole person in your life who gets to decide where your time and attention can go. Take that responsibility seriously by not wasting time on junk. You know in your heart what’s really important to you — does the current direction of your time and attention reflect that? Is “kid hugging” time where it should be in proportion to “Blackberry checking” time? Be mindful at the highest level about where you focus your energy, and always strive not to squander it on undeserving activities.

10/3/06


We spent a wonderful fall day at the pumpkin patch. They had animals to pet, buildings to explore, a corn maze, lots of kid sized entertainment and an old dog happy to see small children. Hard to have more fun than that for a dollar. :-)

Felicity and Bertina at the pumpkin patch.