The difficult art of becoming.

Chernobylia is too hard to spell. So I went here.

Which is harder to spell. Please update your blogrolls and stuff.

Out.

…you can accurately describe your life in WoW metaphors.

I’m currently trying to solo [70] Housekeeping and [70] Parenting quests while also doing the [70] Employment meta-quest. The dungeon boss is on a two-week cooldown cycle, and I’m expecting a respawn next Saturday. If I don’t complete the quests fully before the end of the cooldown period, I may have a major boss fight on my hands.

The three mini-bosses keep respawning, and if I’m not careful they disappear and return with adds. I can solo one at a time, but very easily become overwhelmed when all three aggro on me. Even if I manage to solo all the mini-bosses, they don’t drop any loot, just vendor trash.

On top of the quests, I have a minor debuff that I haven’t been able to get dispelled, which I think I got from one of the mini-bosses. That mini-boss is currently roaming the dungeon, and I’m trying to CC it into staying in the one place. I may well have to stealth and sap.

Got a surprise when the dungeon boss unexpectedly spawned this morning, but I used a Hug buff and CC’d the mini-bosses into it’s path. Fortunately it despawned without me pulling aggro.

Mind you, if you fully understand that, you might need to ask yourself a question…

Yet another admission; It’s been a long time since I picked up my Bible and seriously read it. When I have, I’ve tended to stay around the gospels because it’s easy to waste time arguing over Paul’s theology, but the words of Jesus… that’s where I’m at… man.

This struck me this morning, from Matthew 5 (Sorry about the KJV, I don’t have to © attribute it!):-

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

This is Jesus saying that we are to be doing good works, and visibly. Somehow, I don’t think filling a pew on a Sunday quite meets the requirements. To me, this ties in with “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another” and “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

This is what was on Jesus’ heart - love. I would interpret this to mean that I should be doing good works, out of love, not to impress others.

Then this arrow pierces my heart. What visible “good works” have I done? Am I doing? Can I do? There is more to think about, and critically, something to do.

Pax.

It’s NOT a New Year’s resolution, but I’m blogging again.

I’ve also taken up Jeff’s challenge.

I have read my bible cover-to-cover, once, many years ago. I’d like to try this finish-it-in-one-year thing.

Wanna join in? I’m not flush with cash for a new copy of the One Year Bible, so I’m going the cheapskate route and doing it online via One Year Bible Online.

Pax

… but sometimes you get dessert for free.

I’m not a big RSS consumer. I understand the concepts, but it just hasn’t grabbed me. Partly, I’ve just not had the time to sit down and think about it in any meaningful fashion, or fiddle around with anything other than the Mac RSS screensaver.

However, I’ve come across references to NewsFire RSS Newsreader multiple times, and it’s apparently pretty popular.

This weekend, however, David Watanabe is offering, on his blog, a little extra incentive to purchase NewsFire - buy it this weekend, and you get a free licence for Inquisitor, an add-on for Safari and Camino which apparently makes searching the web as easy as using Spotlight. So there you have it.

I probably should go and download NewsFire myself, instead of just spruiking it.

So, eight years later I finally got around to watching The Big Lebowski.

Over the years it has been recommended to me many times.

It’s a rambling incoherent mess. It seems like a series of vignettes strung together with only The Dude to keep it all together.

I want the two hours of my life back.

Peace out.

My first “holiday” from the job I’ve held for the last 14 months.I’ve taken a couple of days off here and there, but never a week solely to be away from work.

But, not planning to let it slide by in a haze of Warcraft and DVDs.

I’m setting myself a few goals.

Tidy up all my business paperwork.
Clean up my desk
Clean off my old desktop PC (now transitioned to the Mac)
Clean out the garage
Update my blog
Update my websites
Draw another comic
Let’s see how I go.

I broke my blog.

I upgraded to WordPress 2.0.1.

Which went well.

Lost my customisations.

Not so well.

Back to the grindstone.

…or the fine art of practical application. I’ve discovered David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done”, and I’m going to try and blog about it. As most of the GTD-devoted geeks seem to end up doing.

I have to come out and admit something up front. I’m one of the most disorganised people you’ll ever meet. There are a couple of reasons for this, and I’ll bore you with them right now.

1. Indecision. I’ve always been indecisive. Ironically, I had to stop for a minute to decide which point I wanted to make first. I’m really not sure why this is, but I’ve always liked to have as many options as possible. This then makes it as difficult as hell for me to make up my mind. I swear, McDonalds employees must hate the sight of me.

The worst part is, even with all those decisions, I normally choose the same thing most of the time anyway.

This tends to manifest in another way. Let’s say I’ve got a full in-tray (and until yesterday that way ALWAYS true. Forever). I’ll pick up the first thing in the tray. I’ll look at it, and if I’m really lucky I’ll know what to do with it straight away. Perhaps I’ll need to think about it for a while.

Sooner or later, I’ll get stuck. Normally sooner. I’ll find that I really can’t decide what to do with this particular item. So it will go onto a separate pile; it’s a slippery slope from that point. That pile ends up with most of the contents of my inbox, and once again BECOMES my inbox.

2. I’m a Packrat.
No, really. With a capital “P”. I’ve kept all sorts of things. It drives my wife crazy. A friend of mine once put it to me that it’s a sign of a “spirit of poverty”. Without getting too psycho-spiritual, it’s the fear of being broke, and having to eke out with whatever I have left now that the money is gone. I have boxes of stuff in the garage that should have been thrown away years ago. I have boxes of stuff in my head that are much the same. It goes hand-in-hand with…

3. I’ve been a Gunna.
I’m gunna do this, I’m gunna do that. Some of those boxes are filled with parts from 486 and Pentium PCs. I had the bright idea to sell second-hand parts via a website. So I collected a whole lot of stuff, but never quite got around to actually doing it. Rinse and repeat.

4. Over-commitment.
I wasn’t terribly popular at school. I developed a driving need to be liked. One of the ways I thought people would like me was to do things they asked me to do for them. This resulted in a chronic inability to say “no”. And obviously, you end up committed to damn near everything. Compounded by…

5. Chronic disorganisation.
I really like being organised. I always have. It’s just that there’s a gap between the-way-it-should-be and the-way-it-is. The big question is whether this is a symptom, or a cause. Maybe both.

Each one of these issues has its own solution. Some of them are interrelated. Working backwards…

#5. I still like being organised. It appears that I’ve found a system that works for me. I think it is mostly a symptom of #1-#4.

#4. I’ve learnt when to say no. It doesn’t matter if people like me or not. I learnt to like me.

#3. I think the fundamental causes of “gunna-itis” are overcommitment and no tracking mechanism for current projects. The other thing is that gunna-itis is only seen in hindsight; when you look back at all the things you were “gunna” do and see the things that you never finished. It’s easy to say you’re going to launch off on some new grand scheme if you’re not keeping track of all the current projects you’re working on.

This one is in the process of being solved

#2. For me, this has improved as I’ve gotten older. I’ve realised that it can all disappear in a split-second. I started to take stock of what was important, and what needed to be left behind. I can’t use all of it. I need to keep what I can, and give (or sell) the rest to people who can use it - or just get rid of it. Some of it is just junk.

#1. Not give myself so many options. Maybe this is getting better as I get older. There will probably be other opportunities to choose something from that particular menu. I’m never going to get to do/taste/experience EVERYTHING I’ve ever desired.

So, how does GTD factor into all of this?

I’m only part-way through it, but what I’ve already read has helped me immensely. Simple things - like the suggestions that finally gave me the ability to categorise paperwork and notes that I just COULD NOT decide on a location to store them (Projects, reference). I know that this stuff seems simple in hindsight, but this was a mountain I’ve never been able to climb.

Suddenly it’s just a pile of dirt that I’m able to step over. My work in-tray is basically empty. My home in-tray is half-full, and that’s only because I spent a day sorting, filing and culling. I felt like a break.

When I looked around at the lack of mess and clutter surrounding me… I felt OK to take one.

That hasn’t happened for a very long time.