Recently in the Self Improvement Department:
August 21, 2008
Assessing My Character
According to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing, Maya Angelou once said
I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
I don't know if she really said that, but I thought it would make a nice blog post to explain how I'd handle those three things, so you folks can learn something about my character.
Rainy Day
I guess I don't understand this one. Except for cancelling activities that require a clear day---outdoor photography, washing the car---rain has no effect on my day. I don't mind driving in the rain, and I have rain gear to keep myself dry.
Lost Luggage
I would be filled with righteous rage. All manner of indignities are inflicted upon air passengers in the name of false security, but when it comes to keeping our luggage secure, pathetic failure is considered an acceptable standard. My anger would be tempered only by the knowledge that yelling at front-line customer service people never really helps me get what I want. I would keep the white-hot fury inside me as I fill out the paperwork.
Tangled Christmas Tree Lights
Those tiny lights don't last very long and they only cost something like $2.99 for a string of 100. If I need some, I just buy new ones.
December 31, 2005
Resolutions for 2006
Lots of people are making New Year's resolutions right now. Something about the list at Not Guilty made me decide to do my own:
Windypundit's New Year's Resolutions for 2006
- Same as everyone else: lose weight. I lost a bunch of weight in the first half of this year and then gained a bunch of it back. I weigh less than I did a year ago, but not by as much as I'd like.
- Take a lot of photos with the D200, learn a lot of photography. I enjoyed it a lot with my Z3, now that I'm buying a more expensive camera, I really better enjoy it.
- Sort my photos more regularly. I don't like to sort through them right after I take them because they usually aren't as good as I imagined. But if I let them age a while, I lose my preconceptions about them, and many of them surprise me. The problem is that I'm falling behind. I have unsorted photographs going back to July.
- Blog more, and blog more consistently. 2005 was the year my blog begain to take off. Maybe I can make 2006 even better.
- Take more pictures for the eminent domain series. I think it has the potential to attract attention to this site.
- Launch my new website. (More on this in another post.)
- Port the benefits export code to .NET. (Special private resolution for one of my clients.)
- Get the house organized. I need to clean up and organize my office and my work area in the kitchen.
- Finish several home remodeling projects that have stalled. Most importantly, put the 2nd bathroom back together.
- Play more computer games.
Update:
- Write more software for fun. All of the software I write these days is work-related, but I really do enjoy software development, so I should write some fun stuff that isn't part of my job.
- More catblogging. (Per spousal request.)
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