Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
Thursday, January 27th, 2011 Tom Merritt is a tech reporter and host on TWiT – This Week in Tech – the podcast network of Leo Laporte. Tom is also an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, my alma mater. He recently was showing some old identification cards on the live TWiT stream, and one of them was of his old I-Card, the U of I college ID. A far cry from today’s version, seen below.
Tom Merritt’s I-Card, circa 1980s?
My I-Card, 2006
Current version of the I-Card, 2010
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Monday, January 3rd, 2011 I don’t like new year’s resolutions. They are too often forgotten a few weeks down the road. I do, however, like to have short and long-term goals, and the beginning of a new year is a great time to reflect on what you have accomplished, and what you plan to do in 2011.
2010 Completed List:
Goals for 2011:
- Learn Drupal and donate a new website to my old High School
- Learn Photoshop
- Create a Blackberry or Android app
- Add new features into Remember the Umbrella including text messaging and rain vs. snow preferences
- Learn about beekeeping
- Learn Guitar
- Grow plants
- Learn to cook
Have questions or ideas about any of these? Please let me know!
Thanks to Kevin Rose for the idea for this post.
Posted in Personal | 5 Comments »
Monday, July 19th, 2010 
I recently moved to Chicago, IL to start the next phase of my “real life.” I have learned a lot, including:
- Bed shopping is hard – how do you know what you like?
- It is expensive to re-stock your basic “one time yearly” foods like butter, spices, plates, soap, cleaning solution, etc.
- The Chicago CTA Train, although cheaper than driving and parking in downtown Chicago, is far from “cheap” at $2.25 per ride (and no way to get discounts)
- It is tough to remember all the places to change your permanent address (credit cards, banks, Amazon.com, etc)
- Comcast will try to take advantage of you by charging a $50 setup fee. Do not pay it – call them to get it removed.
Summary: Moving is not necessarily fun, but moving ahead in life with new experiences and meeting new people is definitely something to treasure.
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Saturday, July 12th, 2008 For the past 10+ years, I’ve been using Agenda planners by Premier. They are always high quality, and I love vertical columns, which they offer in a few of their products. Their small agenda is only 5″x8″ and used to have vertical columns – it worked very well for me for many years.
This year, however, Premier decided not to make a 5×8 vertical column agenda! I am crushed. Vertical columns are better for tracking schoolwork, assignments, and exams, because work that doesn’t get done can easily be “pushed” to the next day with an -> arrow. Also, the right-hand side of the day column can be used as a check-mark area, so I can easily tell if that day’s task in that particular subject are complete. This is something that horizontal date-block style planners just do not allow.
Why are vertical columns not as popular as horizontal blocks? I really can’t understand how people think the other way is efficient. Has anyone else had problems finding their perfect day/school planner? I now have to find a different company to find my planner – any suggestions?
Posted in Opinion, Personal | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 13th, 2008 Liquid pizza could be good, right?
Liquid Pizza Recipe
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »
