Summertime in Seattle?

My calendar tells me that it is summer time - it is after the 21st of June.

Yesterday, I wore shorts and a t-shirt to a swim meet and I got sunburned on my legs. Today, I wore pants, a sweatshirt and a Gore-tex parka because it was cold and rainy.

Only in Seattle could summer be like this.

I learned an old Northwestern adage today.

If you can't see Mount Rainer, it is raining.
If you can see Mount Rainier, it will be raining soon.

Ain't that the truth.

It's been three weeks

Three weeks since I've been to the gym and I broke that stretch this morning. I'd been meaning to go all week and just didn't feel like getting up.

It wasn't really my motivation that got me going this morning - it was the fact that my neighbor across the street said that he had been working out in the morning and it really started his day right. I knew what he was talking about and wasn't going to let broken arms, early morning work calls or travel stop me anymore.

I'm back on the bandwagon. You can find me now, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at the Pine Lake Club!

On another gym related note, some lady tried to steal my MINI this morning. Well, try and steal are probably slight exaggerations, but she took my keys! The gym is repainting and all the things on the walls have been removed. This includes the key hanger, so everybody put their keys on the counter below the wall. And evidently in a pumped up state, MINI keys look similar to Lexus keys.

The funny thing is I was starting a set on a machine over by the keys and I noticed that mine weren't there. As I walked downstairs, she came back in and said, "It would help if I got my own keys." I found my culprit.

We laughed about it and I didn't really want to trade her for her Lexus.

today's music

This week has been a little rough so I made an effort to listen to mellow music this morning.
I started off with Ladytron, then Lilly Allen and some old No Doubt. No Doubt got me onto ska and I listened to the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones.
From trying to relax standpoint, tha probably wasn't a good idea. I turned to NIN and listened to Broken and Fixed for the rest of the day.
Now that is stress relieving music.

I made it!

I got this email today from the University of Washington! I'm excited and it came much earlier than they had originally told us.

Congratulations! You have been admitted to the University of Washington’s Evening MBA Program for Autumn 2007. We invite you to join our community of faculty, staff, students and alumni, and become a part of one of the most prestigious academic programs in the Northwest. At the University of Washington, a highly selective admissions process and a smaller program size permit us to select students who excel in many dimensions. This insures that you are among a small, talented group of peers. Our Admissions Committee believes you will make a significant contribution to the entering class.

Just as my kids are thinking of getting out of school for the summer, I am thinking of getting back in. How ironic.

My most embarrassing moment in a long time

I really like Taco Bell.

When I was in high school, I would eat there because it was cheap. I'm still "frugal" so I like Taco Bell for that reason. Heather isn't a real big fan of Taco Bell, so I take the kids to Taco Bell occasionally.

Tonight, Heather was at a PTA meeting and I picked up Alec at swim practice, so we stopped at Taco Bell on the way home.

We went in and started our order. As each of the three kids finished their order, they took their cup and started filling it up. I made my order and reached into my pocket. My empty pocket.

No drivers license, no cash, no credit cards. No pocket lint either.

My kids had drinks and I had no money and an order placed. I was getting red in the face. I had no money in my car, either. I had to tell the lady at the counter that I couldn't pay - even for the sodas we already had.

I told the lady I would be back in 20 minutes to pay and I told the kids we had to leave. They didn't quite understand why we weren't eating dinner. It only took a few explanations that I had no money.

So, I returned home and turned around and went back to Taco Bell to pay and still buy dinner. They had already changed shifts, so I had to explain to the next girl at the counter why I wanted to pay for drinks, but she didn't need to give me any.

In the end, they were pretty cool about it. They ended up not charging me for any drinks, maybe to help me with my shame. It was quite embarrassing, but in the end we got dinner.

My Skype Experiment

A while back, I wrote about that I was playing with Skype . For me, this isn't going to be one of those check it out and drop it things - Skype is pretty cool.

Skype is cheap
With the Skype Unlimited Plan for less than $30 a year, you can make calls to Canada and the US. I pay that much for my local (long distance not included) phone each month!

Skype to Skype calls are free
My Dad was in Finland and I wanted to talk to him about some Excel functionality. He doesn't have Skype (yet), but the people he was staying with were Skype users. So, we arranged a time that we would both be around (the 11 hour time difference can be a stumbling block) and we got connected and had a 30 minute phone call for free!

Skype calls that you have to pay for are pretty cheap
Skype's rates are very good. You can check out their own rate pages, but the rates are measured in pennies, not dimes, almost no matter where you call to.

Skype calls have pretty good quality
On the call to my Dad in Finland, we had a great connection. On many calls, when both parties are silent, the line is so free of static that I actually wonder if I was disconnected. I've even made calls with a friend over the satellite connection at remote scientific monitoring stations. After I called my Dad in Finland, I called my Mom on her cell phone (mobile to mobile calling is free with Cingular). The international, Voice Over IP call had a better connection that the domestic cell phone call.

Skype can do conference calls
As one of the included features, you can use Skype to make conference calls. And there is no complicated flashing of the phone (who hasn't held it down too long and hung up on the other people). And as an added benefit, the specific person talking is highlighted in the conference call list on the Skype application.

Skype is portable
Where ever I have a wi-fi connection, I have Skype. It will also run off a USB drive, either one that is U3 or PortableApps enabled. I had a conference call scheduled right after my flight arrived in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. I know that wi-fi is free there, so I made the call from the Las Vegas airport. Sure, I could have used my cell phone, but that would have used 60 minutes. This call used no minutes that I had to pay anthing for.

Learnings from my first few weeks with Skype
1. Not many of my friends use Skype.
2. The headset makes a world of difference
3. Skype is a good IM client

Check out Skype. Try it out (they even give you about 5 minutes of free calls). I'm still trying to figure out how it fits in from a business standpoint. If you are a web-worker, it is most definitely applicable!

I'm beau.raines on Skype so, if you are one of my faithful readers, drop me a line!

It's been a helluva week

This week has been a rough one. I'm no longer feeling exhausted, but we'll see how the weekend fares with 3 swimmeet sessions.

On Monday, I had a training event that I needed to attend at the local office, an infrequent occurance for a remote worker. As I left the meeting, I saw there were 8 missed calls on my phone. Something was up. It turns out that my daughter broke her arm on the playground at school. My wife had scheduled last minute doctor's appointments for her and was quickly directed to the Emergency Room at Seattle Children's Hospital. I was in Kent, she was on her way to Seattle and our oldest was at swim practice on Mercer Island. I waited for swim practice to end and rounded up our oldest and met Heather in the ER.

Chase's elbow (well, the upper arm right at the elbow) was broken and she was going to need surgery and some hardware to hold it all together. There were more pressing (emergent, in medical-ese) surgery cases, so they put her in a splint, scheduled an appointment for Tuesday afternoon and sent us home for the night.

We left the hospital late and once we got home and Chase mostly comfortable in bed, I worked late into the night to catch up from being out of the office all afternoon.

I was too tired to go to the gym Tuesday morning, so I didn't. I spent the morning re-arranging my day, moving my afternoon appointments to Wednesday. Tuesday was one of those days that I had planned to spend most of on the phone making follow up calls. Heather was at a PTA luncheon and the hospital called to see if we could come in a few hours early. We jumped at that opportunity, with the hopes that we would get her surgery done earlier. We arranged for a friend to take our youngest and pick up our oldest after school and we were off to the hospital.

We were admitted and promptly taken back to a waiting area. And we waited. There was no cell phone coverage either. Finally at about 4:30 pm (pretty much our original schedule), Chase went under the knife. Her procedure only lasted an hour, during which Heather and I ate at the hospital cafeteria. We were paged to come back to the waiting area and we did and waited. Evidently, Chase was sleeping off her anesthesia and after a few hours, they took her to her recovery room, where she and Heather would stay overnight.

I ended up leaving the hospital at about 8:45pm to go take our kids off our friend's hands. Once I got the boys in bed, I worked late into the night to try to keep my head above water at work.

Chase had asked me to come back to the hospital in the morning, so I had it all planned out. I would go drop our youngest at pre-school and then go to the hospital, stay for a few hours until I had to leave to pick up at pre-school. Seconds before I was going to shut off my computer and start executing that plan, Heather IM's me and says that they will be leaving soon.

Chase and Heather returned home and we quickly turned around to go to literacy day, so she could show off a book she had made in class and a neat PowerPoint presentation about the desert.

As I was returning from the pre-school pickup, my MINI lurched and had a loss of power. The check engine light came on and we limped home. I was able to schedule an appointment, unfortunately for next Tuesday. What was truly problematic was that I had a 6 am flight Thursday morning to go to Oakland. I arranged for a shuttle to take me to the airport and was set for the next day.

My shuttle arrived promptly at 2:50am Thursday morning. It was really quite early and we made 5 other stops on the way to the airport. I got to the airport on time, in fact early, but I was already exhausted and this didn't help any. Usually, when I travel, I stop at Starbucks (the first one on the B concourse) and buy coffee and a scone. I got there before they opened. So, I took a nap and waited for them to open.

I had a full day in Oakland and got a lot accomplished. I didn't get too much email, so on Friday there wasn't much catching up that I had to do either.

My shuttle back home only had me, so it was much faster and I only got home a few minutes later than had I been driving.

Friday I was still too beat to go to the gym. Even though it was only two days ago, I can't remember what I did. There was a swim meet and I do remember that there were lots of calls to our consultants that resulted in, "Can I call you about this on Saturday."

Saturday was another early morning, because we had a swim meet. I only got two loads of laundry done, some work and some reading. I think the best part of the afternoon was giving Heather a nice full body massage. She thought I had been practicing!

So, here I am on a Sunday, again at a swim meet (yep, 3rd time in a weekend). I've been catching up on blogs (pre-writing a few and staging them as drafts, so they are ready to publish during the week). I am about half way through Freakonomics and looking forward to dinner with one of my college room mates who is in town for a conference.

I'm definitely not caught up on rest, but I'm getting there.

Ubiquitous capture

This post had originally started as a writing on paper versus electronic calendars, to-do lists and what not. I was inspired by some postings on Web Worker Daily, 5 Reasons to use a Paper to do list and 6 More Reasons to use a paper to Do List and how important it was to have a paper based solution.

Since then, I have acquired a Samsung BlackJack and my perspective has flip-flopped once again. But utimately, the point is this - you need to be able to get at your calendar, your notes, your to-do list anywhere the thought or fancy hits you. A Ubiquitous capture device is what you need.

Ubiqutous capture is a tenet of GTD - get the thought out of your head and put it on paper. This way you can focus on the task at hand with your full brain power, rather than having to keep track of everything else you need to do at any point in the future.

I think that the foundation should be electronic, but depending upon your preferences and pocketbook, paper or electronic will still fit the need.

I am a Google fanboy. I won't deny it. Google Calendar, Notebook, Documents and Spreadsheets, Personal Homepage... The list goes on and on. Online task management apps, such as Remember the Milk, work very well too. Web-based is excellent and they are some very good productivity tools. There is a certain productivity gain from having the data portable and nicely formatted. But an application that lives on your local PC is just as good. Outlook, the Mozilla suite of applications and Lotus (although I have no experience with it) can all work as well to track your commitments and to-dos.

Using an electronic tool gives you multiple ways to get things on your list. They allow adding by email, IM and SMS all depending upon the software.

I guess you could use a paper based planner, but this is the 21st century! It is the web enabled world.

But, we've got to face it. We aren't always sitting in front of our computers. When you are stuck on a plane or at your kids' event and you remember that you need to send a file to someone, you need to be able to add it to your to-do list. Of if you get invited to a social event, isn't it better to be able to say, "Yes, I can make it," rather than, "Uh, thank you for the kind invitation; I'll have to check my calendar and get back to you."

This is where personal preference, depth of pocketbook, technical aptitude all come in. An electronic tool doesn't necessaryily mean a CrackBerry - you can do a whole lot with text messages and a cell phone. A paper based tool doesn't mean writing everything by hand in a notebook.

I had a conversation with some friends a few months ago about the use of online calendars and what not. Someone asked, "Would you ever go back to a paper based calendar, now that you have everything online?" Collectively, we all said "No." There was too much of a challenge to make sure everything stayed in sync. I agreed.

That weekend, the power went out in our house for almost 72 hours. Cell phone towers had no power, so my Google and Razr enabled calendar didn't do me much good. I realized that I needed to have a way to adequately capture things when I was really offline.

A hipster PDA became the solution for me. I downloaded templates from DIY Planner and a few times a week, I would print out my Google Calendar on 3x5 cards. I was able to print out my RememberTheMilk tasks for today and every evening I would update my online tool with whatever I had come up with during the day. It was great, I always had my schedule at my fingertips and if an idea struck, I could capture it. Now, I was subject to many comments of disbelief that I, the geek I am, would turn to such a low-tech solution as 3x5 cards clipped together with a binder clip. But it worked. As a note, it worked in the past too. Before it was called a hipster PDA, this was the solution that was widely used by officers and NCOs in the Army.

Recently, I became eligible for a phone upgrade. I'm a big fan of Motorola phones and the Q, but I wasn't willing to go away from my mobile provider, Cingular. They had the BlackJack and I started doing comparisons between the Q and the BlackJack. As soon as I was eligible I got the BlackJack. Now, I've got web access in my pocket and my online tools are always available to me. Yeah, it checks my work email, but I've got that set to do it every two hours - I don't need to be at the beck and call of my email, especially my work mail.

I can get at my calendar and to-do lists using mobile versions of the web apps and notes (through the phone itself) anytime I want. Plus, it integrates with my Outlook contacts, so everything is always up to date.

I guess all of my observers will be happy that I've gone hi-tech, but lo-tech works too. The power might go out for longer than the 5 days I can get between the two batteries that come with the BlackJack. And if that day comes (or the Revolution), I'll be ready.

A new PC

Well, not really. I should have greatly improved my computer's performance. Overtime I have amassed a grand collection of photographs, music, documents and what not. Slowly, my 40GB disk became full and as a result, my computer began to run slowly.

I couldn't maintain my computer - there wasn't enough free space to run defrag! Thank goodness for Web 2.0; computing in the cloud helped me maintain my effectiveness with my laggard computer. Thank goodness for cheap memory (I got a 2GB SanDisk U3 flash drive at Radio Shack for $25 on sale); I've been been running Portable Apps off of it (on mine and my daughter's PCs) to keep me going.

The final straw broke a few days ago. I was taking my son to swim practice and was planning on working bedouin-style at the library and the aquatic center. Just like any other day, I hibernated mmy computer and threw it in my messenger bag. When I got to the library, it wouldn't start. I started to wonder - my photos, my music, my financial records, my work - would it all be there? I placed an after-hours call to our helpdesk - my message did include the phrase, "I'm beginning to panic."

My son and I went on to swim practice and I sat in the bleachers. Sad, now not planning on working, I was only hoping that my hard disk hadn't failed and that my stuff would be recoverable. I got a call back from our helpdesk and it was my friend Ken. He recommended I take out the battery and plug it in and restart it - I had already tried that. But as it is with many techincal problems, when repeating a problem with technical support, the problem is solved (probably just by tech support's presence). My computer started. I resolved that I would move my pictures to another disk and ensure that there was free disk space for my laptop to function well.

When I got home that night, there was only 1.5 MB of free disk space. I knew I had to move those pictures.

I used (note the past tense) Adobe Photo Album to organize my photos. I really liked the fact that I could tag my photos for ease of searching. After tagging some 6,000 photos taken over the course of many years, I learned that the tags weren't saved with the files - they lived in the application it self. My photos weren't all that backup-able without tags.

Some Google searches revealed that Photoshop Elements 4.0 had thee functionality to write existing tags to the file and in the future would save the tags to the file themselves. Google searches revealed that other products, namely Picasa, would also save the tags to the file. Picasa is a free Google product which appeals to me. I decided I would switch.

I used Elements to convert my tags and then exported them to my iPod. I actually had to install some of Elements on a flash drive I had so little space! I then deleted my catalog, Elements and Photo Album from my computer. This freed up 10 GB of disk space. I now have enough room to defrag my hard disk. My computer should be back to its good old self.

All my photos are backed up now and easy to put where ever I want them!

If its Thursday

I'm no my way to Oakland again. The basista at the B concourse Starbucks asked me, "Do you work here or just travel a lot?"

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Catch up work on Flickr

I posted several photo sets to Flickr this weekend. I've taken lots of photos, but just hadn't had the time to tag, edit and post them. I've finally gotten around to it, as well as posting some photos from a Disneyland trip many years ago (Heather found the photos).


Disney World and Florida Vacation

La Connor Tulip Ralley

Disney Land 2004

Enjoy!

This posting spans months

I've been doing a lot of traveling so my free time hasn't been in blogging, but catching up on the parts of my life that I can't take care of while I am in a plane.

As I'll confess further down, I am not totally caught up yet either, but I need to get these thoughts out of my head on on to the blog.

I've been to Oakland, DisneyWorld, Las Vegas (only one of those was vacation - and it was mostly business and a little vacation) and on a Ralley with the British Car Club here in Seattle.

The kids and I went on a Ralley sponsored by the British Car Club, but heavily attended by Puget Sound MINI, the local MINI owners club. We drove all over the Tulip fields and Anacortes and La Connor trying to figure out clues and not miss turns (both difficult to do with a 10 year old navigator). We didn't come in first (it was going around the traffic circles 10 times that cost us - not really) but we had a lot of fun. I've got pictures, but haven't posted them yet.

I went to a conference on Radio Frequency Identification in Orlando and took my whole family and we spent a few days at Disney World and on the beach. My sun burn is finally peeling off , the blisters on Heather's feet are mostly healed and I haven't gotten the photos posted yet either. It was nice to have vacation and the kids got to skip school for it too!

I've been to Oakland for a day trip on 4 days notice and finally earned a free flight on South West to anywhere they fly!

I spent a few days in Las Vegas with one of our sales teams and had a productive meeting - we are going to meet the teams aggressive sales goals and a good time, too: steakhouse dinners and the Blue Man Group. On my flight there and back, I sat in the first row of the cheap seats, the one with no under seat storage. That part was a little strange, but the added leg room was nice. I had to stand up mid-flight to get something out of the overhead storage and I looked back.

Normally, I sit towards the rear of the plane and can see forward through out the flight - and I see lots of activity. This flight was different. Everybody was quiet, some asleep, even though it was only 4pm. There was even a lucky guy with the feet of the lady sitting next to him on his lap - she must have been his wife or so the flight attendants supposed. Every one must have been sleeping off Las Vegas.

My oldest son has started to email his girlfriend and that has turned into instant messaging - he even IM'd me while I was in my meeting! My youngest son has started to read Dick and Jane on his own.

I'm home for a few days and then back to Oakland again. They recognize me at the off airport parking I use - I didn't even need to give them my coupon to get he the discounted rate! So there it is a few months rolled up into a few short paragraphs.

I'm halfway there

I haven't written about this yet, not to get any body's hopes up; although I have spoken to a few people about it.

I am applying to University of Washington's Evening MBA Program and they have a two-step admissions process. First, there is the standard application, GMAT exam and some (4) essays and then there is Evaluation Day.

Evaluation Day is a basically combination of group exercises and interviews, but they don't let on what the process is. I wonder if you have to sign an NDA?

So, I've made the first cut! I got an email just a few minutes ago inviting me to Evaluation Day. I'm pretty excited about it.

Candidates will be evaluated on their oral communication, team skills, managerial potential, and their ability to “think on their feet”. Based on your written application and your performance in the Evaluation Day exercises, the Admissions Committee will make a final decision on your application. To remain under consideration for admission, you must attend the Evaluation Day.

The admissions work shops I attended suggested that this wasn't something you could prepare for, you just had to be ready. Well, we'll see. Standby for an update in the beginning of June!

I'm at a baseball game and I just ordered food by text message. How cool is that?

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The Five-Second Rule Explored, or How Dirty Is That Bologna? - New York Times

I practice the 5 second rule. Do you?

This is the kind of science that I like. It is real-world, practical and applicable. I mean, who doesn't drop food? And then pick it up again? And eat it?

The Five-Second Rule Explored, or How Dirty Is That Bologna? - New York Times

I think that this is a great study.

What do these numbers tell us about the five-second rule? Quick retrieval does mean fewer bacteria, but it’s no guarantee of safety. True, Jillian Clarke found that the number of bacteria on the floor at the University of Illinois was so low it couldn’t be measured, and the Clemson researchers resorted to extremely high contamination levels for their tests. But even if a floor — or a countertop, or wrapper — carried only a thousandth the number of bacteria applied by the researchers, the piece of food would be likely to pick up several bacteria.

One of my sister-in-laws is almost obsessive compulsive on cleanliness, so when I am at her house, there is no hesitating. It drops and I'll pick it up. Heck at her house, it is the 10 second rule.

I don't like hair on my food, so if the grape rolls into corner, I might give it a second thought.

But if it is something that I really, really like - down the hatch it goes.

How have you implemented the 5 second rule in your life?

Lohan Plays a Stripper in Her Next Film

Lohan Plays a Stripper in Her Next Film

Sweet!

Maybe he'll start checking his email more often

So, both my wife and I have been catching up on emails after our trip, and as this is my third blog posting of the day, you can see I've been catching up on blogging.

Evidently, my oldest son did the same and was catching up on his email. He just came down stairs and said that he got an email from his young girl friend. Mostly, it was about the school he missed and what was coming up on Monday, but it had the requisite mushy stuff.

Maybe she will get him to check is email more often! He even wrote her back!

I am stunting my career development?

A while back, CNN had a Q&A on golf for professional development. I think I'm in trouble. I find golf incredibly boring. I'd rather pick up a golf ball, throw it as far as I can and run after it and pick it up. Sort of like an endurance running golf game.

Although golf could be alright. At one point in my life, I lived on the edge of a golf course, just off the second tee. The kid across the street from me, Teddy, has some naked lady golf tees. Naked ladies would most definitely make golf more enjoyable.

Mmmm.

They would probably have to make the flag poles a little more robust for some on the green entertainment.

I would worry about the naked lady caddy getting sunburned though.

And what shoes would she wear? High heels would probably be hard to walk in in the grass...

I guess there are some kinks to work out still. Maybe this is my great idea - Naked Lady Golf. I wonder how it applies to minature golf - Miniature Naked Lady Golf?

More health food please

CNN has a report on health food, titled Fruity cocktails count as health food, study finds. Now, I can get into this!

Evidently, adding alcohol enhances the antioxidant effects of berries! Bring on the cocktails, baby!

Adding ethanol -- the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits -- boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found.

Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they report in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

This study is a boon for lushes (and bartenders) around the world.

How to Survive in Florida on Two Showers a day

So, I need to start with an apology. I've been traveling, some work, some vacation and just haven't made blogging a priority. So, after an almost two week break from blogging, I'm back. I'm sorry for the unannounced hiatus.

As the guide book title would suggest, I've been to Florida. With my whole family, I attended the RFID Journal Live 2007 conference and then spent some time in Disney World and Tampa. I've got pictures that I will eventually post (and from a Rallye near the Tulip fields of Washington), but again, that hasn't been a priority of mine.

I don't like humidity. I love beaches and the sun, but not the humidity. I hate the sticky feeling between my fingers when you get off the plane.

When I am in that humid of an environment, I'm a shower in the morning and evening and maybe once in the middle of the day or maybe go for a swim, kind of guy. I totally understand the concept of a siesta - be awake during the cool parts of the day (morning and evening) and sleep during the hot parts. If corporate business could be run that way, I would live there.

We did have an enjoyable time there (humidity aside). As a west coaster and having been to Disneyland all my life, I see Walt Disney World as Disneyland broken down into several different parks, although some of them have beer! My wife got into texting and sent me this message, "Epcot is cool. And they have beer! When are you coming?"

Disney and beer, what could be better? Well, throw in some air conditioning, maybe. I've gotten out of the habit of rehydrating with beer - it does make it harder to chase after kids.

We also checked out the Salvador Dali museum in Saint Petersburg. It was cool to see so much of his work in one spot, but more so, was the guided tour. I look at his work and wonder how much acid he was taking, but the docent kept pointing out recurring elements and what some the symbolism represented. I don't get how you can paint something at an arm's distance that when viewed from 20 meters away, looks entirely different. He used negative space and imagery so much, it is just incredible.

And there was pretty good swag at this conference! I won an iPod Nano, as did a co-worker of mine who was there and I've got my fingers crossed for an iPhone, 42" wide screen TV and an iPod video...