Jul

31

At the end of the day, my grass and your grass still function the same

Filed Under me so g33ky, tout le fromage | 4 Comments

a lovely tub of grass…so when I give you a lawnmower that works on all the grasses of the world, please don’t decide to take the mower home, pull out the blades and a few key nuts and bolts, attach them to the top of the machine (or not at all) and then ask me why your grass isn’t any shorter.

Trust me, I’m good at cutting grass.

This little anecdote is a veiled metaphor for an issue I’m having with a ‘neighbour’… one who will be knee deep in weeds if said neighbour doesn’t start mowing the grass with the lawnmower and instruction manual I provided. * sigh *

It is, at times, painful to be helpful.

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Jul

29

a movie tonight and a car show tomorrow

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Thanks to satellite TV and an Amazon DVD rental membership, there is never a day without a movie (or four) to watch. Tonight we’re catching King Arthur (satellite) and hopefully it’ll be entertaining. There have been some bad historical fiction films over the past few years (Did anyone really enjoy Troy? I mean besides looking at Brad…) and this one has its turkey potential by casting Guinevere in a sort of Xena-esque light… We’ll see. Regardless, it has Keira Knightly and Clive Owen in it, so the eye-candy factor will be intact. (That factor was just enough to keep me watching Troy, so King Arthur should be safe.)

As for tomorrow, Neil and I will be amongst a uniquely ‘his’ kind of eye-candy: cars. Lots and lots of cars. Subarus and Aston Martins. I’m looking forward to several photo opportunities and the chance to experience an event devoted to high performance cars. I’m not much of a car geek (though a clever mechanic when I need to be) but I am always up for new experiences. Tomorrow will be fun and I will have plenty of pictures to share with you. If you want to know more about the event and what kinds of performance vehicles we’ll be seeing, go to the Prodrive site.

And now: movie time!
smooches~
jEN

UPDATE: King Arthur was actually pretty cool. It was gritty and had an uncommon take on Arthurian legend. We liked it.

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Jul

28

the struggle between logic and black water

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I’ve always been a ‘to-do’ list addict. Often written with more items than humanly possible to achieve within a reasonable timeline, I cling to those lists as some loose measure of productivity. Get something done, cross it off. I now have visible progress logged on a scrap of paper. My rule number one: never cross things out so much that you or someone else cannot still read the finished items. Proof of productivity lies under that strike-through and no man or beast can take that away from me. I like knowing how far I’ve come and I realise that psychologically there is much more to this than simple task-goal assessment.

Thanks to the wonders of ADD and my general inability to get focused and down to business on the right thing at the right time in the right order, it seems that I am in a constant battle (with mostly myself) to prove that I’ve achieved something — anything — to the point where I will sometimes (OK, often) construct ‘to-do’ lists which include a few items I’ve already completed on them just so I can cross something off. I keep it reasonable, say, within the same day of tasks, but the point is that I already have something achieved and so then the rest of the daunting list doesn’t seem so scary. Plus, I like seeing measurable progress. I need to see measurable progress. My whole life has been an uphill battle to feel focused and to feel as though I’m accomplishing things and so if I don’t give myself a reminder that I am making progress, I will slip into despair. For me ADD triggers depression. That’s what led me to seek help. I’ve only begun to understand this relationship in recent years.

ADD can cause immense feelings of worthlessness— the highs of hyperfocus mixed with my sometimes spontaneous euphoric episodes are not without their equally powerful opposite: the depressed lows and struggles with self-worth and deprecation. I’ve been medicated for ADD in the past (for a year and a half or so a few years ago) and did find a powerful change in this imbalanced and unpredictable beast of a brain. Though I felt ‘in control’ for the first time in my life, I don’t like taking medication for my mind — shit, not even headache remedies, let alone chemical imbalance stabilisers — and so I went off of the drugs. Bolstered by diagnosis, I forged a keen interest in fighting my demons the natural way. I’ve spent most of my life that way already. It is not easy.

I’m back to confirming my worth through ‘to-do’ lists and am struggling to understand and integrate more powerful tools for project organisation into my daily life. It’s not easy for me to grasp and I am confused by how others map out progress and the businessy terminology they use to describe progress and project components. Milestones, tasks, critical paths, baselines, Gantt Charts, action, and deferred. None of these things fit into my brain and the logic behind them confuses me to the point where I teeter again on the precipice looking out over potential depression. I find that even with these modern organisational tools at my fingertips that I am drawn to entering data relating to things I’ve already accomplished, yet again searching for that reassurance that I’m getting something done. I’m making progress. I am focused. See? It’s all right here in digital strike-throughs…

I may be fooling myself by attempting to use these tools. I may fail miserably in my attempt to integrate them into my lifestyle, but I’m desperate for something better than a scrap of paper with my ‘to-do’ list on it. Life and my work are much too complicated for such project management anymore. Perhaps I just need to upgrade my scrap of paper to a little notebook… pens and paper have never failed me before and I can shape the data to work however my brain wishes. I know this isn’t the real answer, and certainly not a practical one. I need to figure out a way to work with project management instead of feeling like it’s working against me. I do love my brain and the way I think, but it doesn’t stop me from wishing I didn’t have ADD sometimes. I stand on that cliff looking out onto black water more than I admit to anyone. I could do without that.

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Jul

27

been updating my flickr page for no reason at all

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I have a (free) flickr account that lays dormant most of the time. Actually, my dotMac photos haven’t been updated in ages either…

Anyway, not that anything particularly exciting has happened today that I feel the need to share photographic documentation, but you can go check out a truly random bunch of photos if you like. There are pics of me, of my dog, of lovely nature stuff, more stuff from Portugal, sunsets, a plastic monkey, industrial points of interest, and more. I don’t know what inspired me to upload, but I have done so in abundance.

And now — with eyes glazing from too many hours in front of dual monitors — I’m going to the other room to examine the scribblings I wrote about last night’s thunderstorm.

smooches~
jEN

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Jul

27

skiddaddling to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe & Fringe podcast too

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

As July nears its closing days I am growing more and more excited to see a part of Britain that I’ve always wanted to visit: Scotland!

For years, Aaron and I dreamt of taking a trip to explore Scotland and I am thrilled I announce that I’m finally going. Unfortunately Aaron will have to live my trip vicariously until he can get over here for his own adventure, but I promise to have enough fun for the both of us!

One way he’ll be able to keep up with the trip is through The Edinburgh Fringe Show. It’s a podcast from a Scottish pal of mine named Ewan Spence and Neil and I will have the pleasure of contributing in some way to this year’s coverage. The Edinburgh Fringe podcasts were extremely popular last year and got a lot of attention from the BBC and other media outlets. I believe we’ll be staying with Ewan and his family for part of our time up there and will be giving him a hand in some way with a bit of this year’s coverage. Ewan and his team have even been awarded Press Accreditation. Not bad for a podcaster! ;)
Next month is gonna be fun! Thanks for the invitation to your corner of the UK, Ewan! Goodness knows Neil and I need a break from work and the Edinburgh Fringe will be just the vacation from the grind that we’re looking for!

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Jul

26

dweeb. nerd. something of a Trekkie.

Filed Under me so g33ky, tout le fromage | 3 Comments

Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!

I used to be fairly fond of Star Trek: The Next Generation and I still am (Data and his cat Spot being perhaps my favourite characters) but I have really taken to Star Trek: Voyager. I watch an episode nearly every day during lunch — even ones I’ve already seen — and find myself occasionally thinking about things like half impulse, Jefferies tubes, and nacelles when I’m not even anywhere near the TV. Does that mean I’m a Trekkie? Well, if that didn’t do it, then this picture of my desk today will… Click to enlarge the picture and you’ll get little descriptions of all the visible stuff on my desk as well as where to get the ridiculously cool (nerdy cool, that is) screensaver for Mac or PC.
I am such a nerd.

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Jul

25

Thank goodness there’s still time

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 4 Comments

Open Water. I probably should've avoided watching all that 'Shark Week' stuff in the past.After a hot summer day, during which I cleaned the flat and then met Neil at our ‘remote office’ Costa Coffee, we settled in for some cheap, store-bought pizza and a movie at home.

Open Water is a low-budget suspense flick brought to you by Lions Gate Films. After a flawed head-count on a diving tourist boat, a couple get stranded in the ocean. Hilarity ensues. Actually, it’s pretty tense and successfully fuelled my already teeming but baseless paranoia. Thank goodness there’s still time for me to de-stress over remote yet potential disaster before our holiday in The Canary Islands.

I was — until seeing that movie — considering a diving tour… ;)

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Jul

24

the next level in multi-tasking: shower time

Filed Under irregular, tout le fromage | 16 Comments

I can’t be the only one who finds hygienic ritual gets in the way of perfectly good task time. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good shower like any number of bipeds do, but I hate having that prime thinking time washed down the drain with nowhere to jot ideas. You can’t drag a notebook into the shower: gets all wet. You can’t have a voice recording device: gets all wet. Not even going to consider video equipment: this isn’t ‘that’ kind of site.

But seriously, don’t you need a special cleaning fluid to wipe certain whiteboards clean? You can’t use normal water to get the ink off, so wouldn’t it be a natural assumption that you could hang a whiteboard in the bath for those genius sparks of inspiration as you scrub behind your ears? Or even just to draw funny pictures inspired by suds?
I just realised that I probably haven’t outgrown tub toys…

So it’s just a thought. (One that occurred in the shower today. See? See? I should’ve had a whiteboard in there…)

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