More Readings

Tuesday May 13, 7:00 pm at Borders Books on Kirby. Group reading in support of The Weight of Addition.

Saturday Sept 20 7:00 pm at Barnes & Noble/Woodlands as part of the Poets Unleashed series hosted by the estimable Daniel Rice. (you have six months to make arrangements for baby sitters and covered wagons, etc. so you have no excuse to miss my first solo gig).

#30 Weeding the Files from M and Z drives

I did find that I was pretty organized. There was very little of my stuff on the M drive that needed to be deleted. I tend to use it for storage of stuff I am certain I will need and files that need to be accessed by others in the dept.

My Z drive was a little more work. I had a Projects Completed file that had about thirty items, some of which were left over from my first months at HCPL. I deleted files that were duplicated on M. I kept templates for recurring projects, but deleted 2005 and 2006 files. In the end, I was left with only one folder and two word docs out of the thirty items, so was able to move those out into My Documents and delete the Projects Completed file entirely.

On the M drive, we have Branch Profile files going back to 2002. These are fairly big files (7 - 8 MB each). I'm thinking that 2002 thru 2005 could be moved to CD and deleted. Of course I will need the Selection Specialists permission to do this.

#29 Cleaning Up Email Account

I have a pretty good folder/file system for my email, but even with that, stuff can pile up quickly. I went through all my folders and deleted ruthlessly. I would say 90% of the stuff I discarded was stuff I saved for good reason, but have since finished the project they were concerned with, so should have deleted them before now.

I do this fairly regularly, but every time, I find that I delete at least one thing that I will need in the coming weeks, and it's almost always a CMA (Cover My...er...Anatomy) document.


My biggest weakness is not wanting to throw anything away immediately. I've been trying to get better at discarding emails that require no action from me.

I never keep more than five or six messages in my inbox at one time.


The most useful thing I learned here was in the netiquette section. A couple of my duties require sending relatively large attachments to branches. They are customized to each branch and are not to be seen by other branches (it's all v. cloakanddagger), so the S drive was not an option. I had never heard of YouSendIt and will try it out next time I send out the attachments.

Spring Cleaning #28

I set up a Google Calendar account and didn't much like it --too slow and cumbersome. Tried Remember the Milk to do list and found it slightly more helpful, but still not enough so to get me to let go of my pen/ink/paper calendar. One of the aspects for which I prize pen & ink is its accessibility. I keep the calendar open on my desk all day. I can make quick jots, glance at daily/weekly/monthly views with a turn of the head. No mouse clicking/scrolling/waiting for the boot, etc. The only advantage to the online calendar is that it is accessible from any computer.

If I were in a position with more responsibilities and had to think about work when I'm off-duty, then I think I'd be more inclined to make the switch. As it is, I have a desk calendar/schedule/to-do list here, and a pocket-size moleskine for real life.

GTD:

I really like the emphasis on perspective and control that the article talks about. The whole "prioritize and conquer" model always seemed unrealistic to me. It's too linear. My paper calendar is organized on four levels day/week/month/year. Each has it's on physical location(s) on the page. It's more like the tag-cloud idea.

Also love the idea of "the bucket." The place into which you unload the stuff in your head. Seeing tasks on paper or monitor de-fangs the amorphous jumble of half-seen monsters in your head. It is always better to be able to see things in black and white and in two dimensions no matter how massive the list is. The stuff in your head just accrues and accretes things like guilt and dread and fear. On paper they are at least partially inanimate.

One thing I put into use immediately after I read it about a month ago is "if it takes less than two minutes, do it immediately." I keeps your desk so neat and tidy and allows you to keep your to-do lists for more complicated matters.

selah.

dave c

Upcoming Readings

I will be participating in a group reading to promote The Weight of Addition Anthology from Mutatabilis Press at 7pm on Sat. Feb 23 at Covenant Church (4949 Caroline Street, Houston, Texas 77004) Here's hoping the walls of the place won't come a-tumblin' down when I walk thru the doors.

Jeannie Gambill, Lewis Garvin and Sasha West among many others will be reading as well.
All three are wonderful poets and readers. All three have taught me a lot in their different ways and I owe each my undying fealty.

I'll be reading a couple poems including the editor's choice prize winner.

At 7:00pm on Sept 20, I'll be reading solo at Poet's Unleashed hosted by Daniel Rice at the Barnes & (ig)Noble in the Woodlands (1201 Lake Woodlands Drive
The Woodlands, TX 77380 ).

(I tell you all this as if there is actually a "you" out there).

It's 2:30am on Super Bowl Sunday

The only real holy day-- the last communal experience-- in which we all bow down before the same altar.
This is a feast day that is about the commercial in every sense of the word, but make no mistake, it is a religious ceremony complete with mystic/mythic transformations (men into goats or gods), burnt offerings, gods of misrule and gods of wrath, danger and redemption. For all its baroque pageantry, its high-church profundities, the Super Bowl is primitive religion. It is genuine in ways canned and sterilized religions of the whitebread, white-haired Santa Claus God and his straight teethed, heart-throb son can't hope to approximate. There is real danger here, the outcome is very much in doubt, lives hinge on the moment.

When was the last time you went to church not knowing how life would look when you walked out?

Hell, son. When was the last time you went to church?

3.7 cold, warm and hot burning typewriters

cold, warm and hot burning typewriters
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/14118044@N05/

Original Photograph (row 1, column 2) uploaded to Flickr July 25, 2007 by TGKW.

See more of his amazing work at the link below.

I manipulated it using picnik.com: easy to use, and the advanced editing capabilities are comparable in many ways to adobe photoshop.

Please click on the collage and use the "all sizes" feature. The clarity of detail is what makes his original so gorgeous.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgkw/899158430/