How I get things done

When I was in High School, I figured out how to take the shortest shower possible. The secret is one of those things that is really simple when you say it, really simple when you apply it, but really hard to accomplish day after day. Letting my mind wander while hot water pours over my body is the only reason I can get out of bed quickly, and since there's no such motivation (except the clock or water heater running out) to get out of the shower I usually hang out for a while.

So what's the secret? Two things: 1.) Use both hands to clean at all times and 2.) Get out when you're done. People will have other tricks like top to bottom washing or soaping dry but really, if you can keep moving you will be clean in under 5 minutes. If you're clean, why are you staying in the shower? (Except girls who shave in the shower, I'm not going to complain :)

This turns out to be the basis of my strategy for getting things done in the new year. 1.) I need to always use all the tools at my disposal. 2.) I need to stop when I am finished.

So far I've blown through a bunch of things that otherwise would have been forgotten, or done at the last possible minute. I got my car registration done which required an oil change, emissions, check writing, getting stamps and mailing. I cleaned out my closet and will take 3 bags of stuff to good will once I also go through my dresser. I researched and got a new credit card. I'm more productive at work also.

In addition to getting a lot done, I've noticed that this is exhausting and I go to bed tired every night. But it is one of those good fatigues that makes you sleep hard and wake up refreshed. I'm making such good progress that I can soon start on something I really want to do verses these things that I needed to do.

2008 Goals

As 2007 was the first year I created goals, I think it went pretty well. This year I'm going to focus on doing more awesome stuff. Not only adventures, but also completing projects and generally living my life more efficiently.

To help with that, I'm going to try out the GTD craze that everyone has been talking about. I may have missed the fad, but I think it could still help me stay focused and Get Things Done.

Maybe later I'll talk about the actual things I want to get done, and that will be my real set of "goals" this year but if I am going to do more, I need shorter deadlines.

2007 wrapup

for all practical purposes, this is the first year I made new year's goals since it's the first time they have been written down. So how did I do?

- Do something awesome:
Not many people know this, but I had a patent filed this year. I wont know for a couple years whether it is accepted but I have a copy of the patent application in my desk at work.

- Do something stupid (in the pursuit of awesome):
Although I never finished the story on my blog, my mustache fits this category quite well. Everybody hated it, and I loved it.

I have to tell this story because stories are what this goal was about. I shaved my mustache off and trimmed my sideburns on Christmas eve after everyone went to bed. I wanted to have Christmas eve pictures proving how long it got, but not ruin Christmas day pictures. Over the 2 months I grew it, it had become fairly thick and everyone noticed my mustache so I didn't have the embarrassing situation of people not noticing right away. I wondered if people noticed it because it was out of place on my normally boyish face, so I didn't tell anyone I had shaved it. Waking up, cooking and eating breakfast, gifts, and getting into the car to a movie were all family affairs and nobody noticed. Kyra was watching a video on her camera from Christmas eve and I said, "aww, remember when I had a mustache? Those were good times." Suddenly the car was in an uproar :) Lots of fun.

- Perform something in public:
I'm going to bring this one back to work, which wasn't the intention of the goal but it still fulfills it. I got to speak in front of over 300 people at WWDC this year. I was so prepared to be nervous speaking in front of lots of people that I didn't even consider that the lights would be too bright to see anyone. It was like practicing to an empty room, and it shocked me so much that my presentation was sub par.

- Keep the plants on my deck alive:
Absolutely failed. No excuses, it just didn't happen.

- Plan and take a vacation:
I went to Panama!

So there you have it. I give myself a 3.5 out of 5, since 3 were total successes and one was sub par. New goals will be made on the new year :)

Update

My moustache is trickling in at a steady rate. It's good enough now that people can notice and laugh. I'm extending my donation's promise to this claim: If you donate to a good cause, you will be assured immunity towards making fun of me :) I think the entire lunch table at work ought to donate now.

In other news, I'm flying back to Colorado... now-ish. So if you live there, call me up and we'll chill.

Horse Racing

Today Apple had a party at the Horse Races. It was actually a lot of fun. We were given a voucher for some money to play with, and some drink tickets and food. They reserved the entire top section for us and had extra staff around to help teach us how to bet.

One thing I find interesting, not only in this situation but also in life life is how we throw around percentages, and which ones matter. If you can drive across town to save 10 cents per gallon of gas, you save one dollar per tank. I fill up every two weeks so that's 26$ for the year, .03% of my salary. If you just paid off your credit cards earlier, you could be talking about whole percentages saved, quite a bit more than stressing about frugal gas purchases.

Or how about savings? If you move your your extra savings into the stock market, you take on a small risk and (hopefully) your money grows much faster. The goal of any investor is to "beat the market", to get above that magic 20% return that you receive by simply investing in an index fund. But when you go gambling, you don't really feel happy unless you double, or triple your money.

If you played horses like you play the stock market, you would be extremely happy to get 20 cents per dollar. And I don't think that would be very hard. I guess there's some draw to "Winning Big" such as lottery and gambling, that supersedes the plain old "winning".

Movember

The idea is simple. Bring awareness to prostate cancer by growing out your mustache. How hard can that be? If you're a skinny blond kid like me, it may be a little hard. But I'm going for it anyway. There's a website where you can support my peach fuzz.
https://www.movember.com/us/donate/donate-details.php?action=showrego®o=142643&country=us

I'll even make a deal. I will keep the mustache for 1 month AFTER November for every 5$ you donate. If you want to laugh at my stubble until next year, all you need to do is donate 60$ to prostate cancer (tax deductible). Maybe by then I can grow enough to wax it and curl up like the oldtimey studs. (I'm going to honor the max contribution, so if one person donates 5$ will keep it until the new year, 15$ will keep it through Valentines day)

I'll keep this blog updated with pictures. Be sure to check out Ryan Bruels for a real stud who will probably outgrow me by a meter.
https://www.movember.com/us/donate/donate-details.php?action=showrego®o=141291&country=us

Yosemite

How to have an adventure:

Go to Yosemite and walk around. It's a very beautiful place full of trees and tall rock formations.

Take a hike on one of the many trails. We went to Glacier point, and it was a crime how many people drove to the top rather than hiking. The path is so sheer you can get a sense of accomplishment as you look over the valley.

Walk home in the dark. It's scary, and probably more than a little stupid but the stars were perfect and the extra effort really bonded the four of us together.

Fly there. Driving is for wimps. Get some of your Google buddies to hop in their private plane and take you to Yosemite. Did I forget to mention that before?

And that's my weekend folks!

Happy Leopard day

I'm going to ignore the pink elephant in the room and just talk about anything but. If you know me, ask about the pink elephant and I'll let you in but the web is no place for pink elephants.

But in other news, Leopard shipped! Work wrapped up a little bit ago for us because they need to put all the shiny disks in the plastic boxes but it's extremely nice to be able to talk about it finally. You should definitely check out iChat, which uses QuartzComposer to make you look even funnier while video chatting with your friends. There are also some pretty sweet iTunes visualizers and new image filters that are really nice. Of the three new QC screensavers, one started out as a little test I did to make sure the Noise patch was working.

Of course if you're into art or programming or any combination thereof, be sure to install the Quartz Composer editor application by installing the Developer tools. Real live features I put into Leopard are available for you to play with.

Hope you enjoy!

Wrapup

Why is it so hard to write the last journal entry after a vacation? Is there some fear that the trip is over when that is done? Obviously you can't write a first entry since being back until you write the last entry of the trip so here it is, two weeks out and I'm finally writing.

We're home! Our sketchy Central American airlines got us home; and if you would like to avoid the risk of being stranded somewhere, never fly COPA airlines. If you recall they are the same airlines that abandoned us in Guatamala, and we later learned that our flight was NOT canceled, they just decided that everyone coming from our United flight would get bumped so they could handle the overbooking. That was then. The new sexy is triple booking our seats. You would think that an airline could remember how many people fit on one of their airplanes but apparently that's too much to ask. After I got settled in my seat someone came with an identical, printed, dated ticket as mine. When Tanya got to hers, someone was already sitting in it and someone ELSE had a ticket for it as well. Apparently this happens all the time because the locals took it in stride and somehow everything worked out.

Another fun experience to add to my list was getting selected for a random bag check in customs. They pulled all my stuff out of my bags and cut open some sealed coffee to look for drugs. All part of the experience!

Panama City again

Well, it´s our last night in Panama. In the last couple days we left David taking an overnight bus to Panama City which was so cold from the AC we didn´t sleep very well. We got in at 6AM and got to the car rental place.

If you like thrillers, drive in Panama City. It´s bad enough inside a Taxi, but then you only have to worry about how nutz your driver is, not the thousands of other taxi drivers around you. We weren´t renting a car to get around the City, it´s easy enough to get a taxi and only costs 2$ anywhere. We wanted to explore some of the inland areas and so we were taking a car trip.

Two nights ago we drove to Pedasi, a sleepy little town with some nice beaches and very nice people. On the way we stopped by the most over developed beach in Panama (Coronado) and it was too developed to even find access to the beach! We also stopped in some little towns with lots of history, found some pretty churches and visited a museum that was so eager to have our business that two of the staff rattled on to us in spanish for 3 hours (2.5 more than we had hoped to spend there)

After Pedasi we drove up to El Valle which was a really nice place. Like Boquete it was up in the mountains so cooler and very green with extreme hills rising vertically all around. We visited a zoo there where you can get right up close to the animals and the only thing stopping you from putting your hand in the cages was a sign "Cuidado".

This morning we drove back to the City, and we´re going to see a folk show and have dinner soon. Tomorrow we get on a plane and with any luck we´ll be back in the USA by tomorrow night at 11:30.

Boquete

I´m in Boquete now, and it´s raining. Seems like it does that a lot lately, and while my rain jacket was great at lower altitudes it´s actually a bit chilly here.

Today we got up and had some breakfast we bought yesterday in our hostel and then got a Taxi with a nice lady from San Mateo to the bus station. We found the bus to Boquete and had a nice trip through beautiful country to here, where it´s undescribably beautiful. Gigantic hills with shear cliffs covered in green life and clouds floating in and out between them. There isn´t a ton to do here though, so mostly we walk around the hills and look at stuff. We got a fabulous house for 15$ a night with two rooms, living room and kitchen. It looks down into he river, I think it´s the chiquiri river. Tomorrow we´re going to see an indian artisan villiage and tour a coffee roasting company.

I´m loosing track of the days, it feels like I´ve been here forever. I´m starting to miss some things about America like hot showers but I could certainly enjoy this a bit longer.