Monthly Archives: April 2008

Celebrate Compost
We have a compost bin where we throw all our fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells and occasionally moldy bread but never cooked foods. I never do anything to it like stir it or add layers of grass clippings. Every other year, or so, I drag the bin over to the garden and dump whatever’s in there out into the dirt and rake it around or dig it under. Usually the bottom is a nice sludgy brown and I guess magic for the garden and the top is usually carrot peels and apple cores.

Every time I read anything about composting, this is never how they describe doing it. But if it’s going to be more complicated, it’s not going to happen at our house.

Yesterday I got my new tooth which I love. It fit like a dream on the first try so they glued that puppy in and I’m chewing mastadon bones for dinner. (Just kidding, they’re so difficult to find around here.)

Almost everyone at the dentist office asked me if I had ever thought about getting my teeth straightened. There’s some new process that I guess is like some sort of invisible retainers. I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I don’t hate the idea but it’s not a big concern. Especially not right now when I just emptied out my wallet for Uncle Sam, the state of Oregon, my new tooth and Clark County is going to get my property tax payment in another week.

Tooth vanity doesn’t fit in the current spreadsheet.

Busy and Exhausted
I had 2 super busy days at the office plus Monday night my yoga teacher tried to kill me. I was so tired last night I went to bed at 8:30p. As in, turned the lights out and went to sleep the minute my head hit the pillow.

Now I have time but nothing to say.

I’m going to link to this Gawker thread on this completely stupid article in the NYT food section today about microtargeting and how what you eat somehow relates to how you might vote.

Where is all the time going?

Another photo post because those are fast.

We enjoyed a fantastic walk yesterday that included a swing by Espresso Wizard which I thought I’d posted a photo of before but now I can’t find. This is a lame shot but it’s the reserved parking space for Espresso Wizard customers.

I should add that Espresso Wizard is a drive thru coffee stand.

This is photo of the rest of the parking lot. This is all empty space for lease.

Do You Think We Have Enough Phonebooks?
I don’t understand why there are so many phonebooks. In the electronic age are phonebooks a growth industry? I think that’s 4 different phonebook publishers. And why do Verizon and Dex each give us two (2!) phonebooks, one big and one small? (I already recycled the small Verizon so it’s not in the photo.) The beer is for reference and also to look foward to later.

I had planned to do a big post on a great article in Tidbits about why introverts may be ill-suited to instant messaging.

A couple of years ago I read Caring for your Introvert by Jonathan Rauch. I had always thought that my need for time and quiet to myself on a regular basis, my dislike of big crowds and discomfort in large groups of people I don’t know was some sort of personal failing. Turns out: it’s just how I work. Other people work this way, too.

I’m not sure if I get “worse” as I get older or I’m just better at understanding how I function and take better care of myself. I’m going to go with the latter.

The Tidbits article is by Joe Kissell and he has a lot of interesting insights that I would love to discuss, but I have had a marathon long week including working late yesterday and not getting home until after 7pm. I worked on a massive research project yesterday and spent so much time with Westlaw we’re talking about having children together.

I’m going to stay off the computer and go enjoy the sunshine.

So my short comments about the article are, he must be onto something because I haven’t the slightest inclination to even try IM.

Two choice quotes:

From considerable reading and from personal experience, I’ve learned that introverts have a number of other tendencies. And taken together, these traits may shed some light on why I (and numerous other introverts I know) have a hard time with IM, Twitter, and the like. For example, introverts typically need to concentrate on just one thing at a time, and are often particularly sensitive to interruptions and distractions. Now, I happen to think “multitasking” is a concept that should never, ever be applied to human beings (regardless of personality type), but be that as it may, I can certainly say that I’m easily distracted, and having more than one thing to think about actively at any given time is sure to make me both ineffective and grumpy.

My comment: I’m not sure what his definition of multitasking is here. I’m actually pretty good at multitasking in the domestic realm and do okay at the office depending on the circumstances. If the phone rings a lot while I’m trying to draft something I begin to feel insane but in general I can juggle a number of things at once.

The introvert trait of not dealing well with interruptions comes into play in a couple of different ways with IM. First, naturally, is the whole notion of something popping up on one’s screen demanding an immediate conversation. Let me give you a personal perspective on this. Unlike many people, when I’m in front of my computer, I’m working, which means I’m concentrating on something. I’m writing an article, or a book, or an email message, trying to come up with exactly the right way to phrase some sentence or express a certain point. Or I’m programming, trying to solve some logic problem. Or I’m reading an article. Whatever the activity, it’s something to which I am predisposed to devote my entire attention. If the phone rings, or my wife asks me a question, or an iCal alarm goes off, it breaks my concentration in a way that’s frustrating to recover from. I lose my mental place, and it takes me a long time to get back into that same train of thought and finish whatever I was working on.

Last comment: When I’m working on writing at home, this is exactly why I hate being interrupted.

I do our taxes myself with a sheet of graph paper and a pencil. I use a calculator to check my work. Obviously, our financial situation isn’t complicated and based on my, admittedly limited, personal interactions with accountants, I’m not sure they’re worth the money for us.

I’ve also tried a tax program on the computer and after filling out 10 million screens it told me we owed a horrifying amount to the state and I couldn’t figure out how to explain to the computer that only a portion of our income is subject to Oregon tax. I decided could do the job more quickly with my prehistoric methods.

I usually do all the calculations and pencil-in the forms in February so I know how much we owe and then in April I re-do everything and check all my numbers and finalize everything with a ballpoint pen, attach a check and send off. It’s hard to believe that someone who loves computer technology as much as I do does not embrace it for tax filing.

This year, for no particular reason, I put off any tax calculations until Tuesday night. We ended up owing more than I thought but not horrifically more.

Last night I attempted to finalize before I picked up my sweetheart from the airport because I had all the stuff spread out on the kitchen table and I wanted to clean it up before he came home. I found a big booboo having to do with the kicker so turns out we owe another big chunk.

Still doesn’t qualify as horrific but definitely hits depressingly large.

I’ve never been excited about planting tulips. It’s not because I don’t like them. It’s because they look pretty for about 15 minutes and then the wind blows and there are petals surrounding a green stem.

This year I thought I planted two batches. These little pink ones in back and the red ones (with one lone cream colored one ?) below that are in the front. But there’s another bunch coming up in back and I’m not certain where they came from but I’m going to guess that they’re purple and from an Easter gift last year.

I had another productive writing day and I would write more about that but I’m too tired so perhaps tomorrow. Other than that I got a couple chores done but the taxes are still waiting and a few other things I wanted to take care of have been ignored.

Busy Saturday

One of my favorite lunches is paella at Southpark. I’ve been talking about learning to make paella forever and coworker was going to buy me a pan and then decided to give me a gift certificate instead. I went back and forth about getting an actual paella pan v. getting a multi-purpose pan that I could also use for paella. I went for the paella pan and I’m going to give it a test run tomorrow.

I’ve been admiring all the gorgeous trees in the neighborhood. Dogwood and other flowering trees I don’t know the names of. Finally our tree is blooming. I don’t know what it is but I call it a Weeping Cherry.

This photo makes it look like our backyard is a sunny field of daffodils. This particular bunch was a gift from Bob’s Grandma’s house in central California. We got a bag of bulbs and I planted them together in one corner so we’d always know which ones were Grandma’s.

Two amazing days of productivity. Going for Day 3 tomorrow.