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Sun. 05.04.08 - Happy Sunday to you from four local iris-type flowers making their May debut into the big bright world.
Last Sunday I made a note for myself of four things I wanted to blog about this week, but due to busy-ness I have not gotten to a single one of them until tonight.
Let's talk about work vs. rest or how to take a day off when you are a freelancer:
I have blogged a few months ago that I have spent the last year traipsing down a variety of career avenues in search of the perfect post-graduate-school career position but there has been no perfect path, only the path to being overwhelmed and over-committed as I have found myself involved in a wide swath of interesting projects and working many days in a row without a true day off. Then I get frustrated with spending all day every day with my computer and then I start to slow down & procrastinate about finishing things up with the excuse that I need time off.
Add it up and you get....
A desperate need to catch up, finish up, and actually take a day off. But the worst part is that when I do take time off, I feel too stressed out and guilty to enjoy it. This is bad.
Enter Ryan's article on the 4 Day Work Week. Carsonified says the 4 day work week makes their office more productive as folks arrive on Monday actually rested.. The 37 Signals folks found that they were honestly only productively coding a certain amount of hours every day so why not distill that time into 4 days and have 3 days off.
There also is the guy writing/talking about the 4 hour work week. The trick to this is outsourcing every task in your life and then writing a book about it and it selling well.
I don't think that I will want to whittle my life down to a 4 hour work week, but I would like to set a goal to a productive 4 day work week rather than a stressed out with productivity falling 7 day work week.
Where to start? Just do it? I love being online and on my computer, my work merges with my passion. My computer is also my main tool, next to my mobile camera phone, for my creativity and art. When I create art with these tools, the Protestant Guilt Ethic creeps in and asks why I am playing instead of working.
How do the Carsonified & 37 Signals folk walk away for 3 days? Or do they separate their job work on their computer with their love / passion for being online and creating?
If you are freelance or your work & love are on a computer, how do you manage the work / life / creativity balance?
Thurs 05.01.08 - Happy May Day or Beltane! May your spring be overflowing.
I woke up early this morning from an involved dream fresh in my memory that included a river flowing under my house / apartment, and the back room opening up into a wide staircase that went down into a grotto with a Virgin Mary on the riverside.
The river was clear, fast flowing, and deep. The statute of the Virgin Mary was in a light blue robe with a white robe underneath. The grotto was well lit, of which people freely came and went. The house / apartment was a mash-up of my last few favorite historical places I have lived in: shaped two rooms in a row like the 1860s brownstone apt. I lived in in Boston, hardwood floors (Misty's side of the duplex) and the back room of the Victorian in Orange, and the plaster & lathe walls of my current 1930s/1940s flat.
It was a peaceful dream and even in it, I yearned to live all the time in this 2 roomed apartment with its subterranean river of life and stairway of people come and going. This is the first ever dream I have had with Mary in it. I did not grow up Catholic and tend to find the veneration of the Virgin to be a bit bizarre. Upon research today, see links above, I found out that May is considered the Virgin Mary's month.
Fare the well to my thirties, I didn't like you much.
May the next decade be much better.
On Friday night, circumstances evolved that I invited a friend of a friend to join me for Happy Hour at my favorite local restaurant/bar/grill. For the sake of the story we will call the friend of the friend - QBB, call the bartender - Devi, and call the place/bar/grill - Freddy's. All names & relationships have been slightly altered to protect the innocent or guilty as the case may be.
Upon arriving at Freddy's we both ordered the Friday Happy Hour Spice Shrimp special and a glass of wine. Conversation proceeded. As the evening proceeded, things got weird. Most of the other patrons around us at the bar/grill part were well-to-do beach-bleach-blond-Americans of indeterminate ethnicity in their 40s and 50s. As the Happy Hour progressed it became highly evident that every man within a 15 foot radius was going to come and talk to us, with his date / female companion's permission or not. As time wended on the females went from friendly to claws openly bared.
Why? Well, the friend of a friend, aka QBB, is a woman in her early forties who has made several set of choices to conform to the highest standard of Southern California's Culto de Corpo through a rigorous and disciplined regime of lack of eating, extreme exercise, and visits to the plastic surgeon. QBB is the Cali-Puerto-Rican Barbie Doll - tall, thin, tiny hips, big boobs, big eyes, hair extensions, etc, etc, etc. Fill in all the stereotypes of LA bimbos.
Except QBB is more complex than a bimbo. By choosing to go out with her it meant that for 3.5 hours all of the explicit and implicit gender theatrics played themselves out. QBB is very intensely involved in her current relationship but due to sub-conscious need or a lifetime of sending out sexual signals or both (ding ding ding), she attracts men and women in droves. QBB is inordinately proud of this, which is why I came out of the evening thinking most of those folks got pnwed by QBB.
I have been in India for 9 days and 8 hours so far on the Nokia Urbanista Diaries adventure and will be here for another 2 days and 16 hours before departing for Vienna. Here are some of my initial random thoughts on India:
People: So far everyone has been very friendly, good to talk to, and helpful. In Chennai, Bangalore, and Kerala were delightful for the folks I met, both Indian and other folks. In Goa, I seem to be getting a lot of giggles. Apparently my hair is amusing.
Dogs: Lots of street dogs in Chennai, of which the number of dogs and general scruffiness has decreased in each city since. Of the walked, leashed, pampered pooch set, Pomeranians are popular. I would hate to be a Pom in the summer here. The street dogs almost down to the dog have nice short hair.
Power: In most places that I have visited so far (Chennai, Bangalore, and Goa), both American and European power adapters will work in the electrical power ports/sockets in the wall. British/Irish ones, no, unless there is a special adapter. In Kerala, only European ones would fit, but that was fine as I brought my European Nokia charger in anticipation of Vienna.
While the power is 240V, all my adapters are rated 110-240V and have been doing an admirable job of holding up on the highest end of the scale. The trick I learned in Ireland (220V) when charging my Powerbook is that if the battery gets too hot, prop the laptop up in a triangle formation and allow the battery and the whole back of the PB to face the air and other other side to have as much air as possible. That trick has come in handy here.
Electricity: India and other South-East Asian countries have a great energy saving device in hotel rooms that the US and Europe would do well to imitate in hotels, offices and homes. When you walk in the room, you insert your hotel key into a slot near the door and then all the lights, A/C, and power comes on. When you leave and take your key with you, all the power turns off and the A/C or fan is switched to lowest fan setting automatically. No leaving the lights on. The only wrench in this lovely economy plan is when you want to leave a device charging, but this could be easily gotten around by having a a set of power ports that are not killed by the key switch.
Pollution: Um. What to say. Time for a clean air and water acts with serious back up behind it. The skies from the ground and from the airplane look like photos of Los Angeles from the 1960s or worse, nothing like a good clean air law and strict regulators to clean up a city's air. Look how LA got whipped into shape by OSHCA over the last 17 years. Now I am off to Mumbai where weather.com reports recent days as "smokey" rather than sunny.
All photos taken by Ms. Jen on Feb. 4, 2006 with her Casio Xlim40
digital camera at the 'new' St. Brigid's Well in Kildare, Ireland.
Yeah! This weekend is the time for my two favorite, highly under-appreciated holidays! St. Brigid's Day today and Ground Hog's Day / Candlemas tomorrow!
Go out and celebrate the transitioning of winter-spring and the increasing daylight by giving your local Ground Hog a big kiss... ;o)
Everliving God, we rejoice today in the fellowship of your blessed servant Brigid, and we give you thanks for her life of devoted service. Inspire us with life and light, and give us perseverance to serve you all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, world without end.
At dinner last night, it came out that various members of my family think I am a vagabond.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a vagabond.
In my seven years and four months as a freelance web designer and developer, there have been many ups and downs to working as a "consultant" rather than cube farming as an employee at an established company. Over the years, I have attempted to solve many of the major pitfalls of freelancing by purchasing my own health in-sewer-ants (Kaiser), opening my own 401k, and working at even-ing out the cash flow, etc., but I never thought of public perception as a pitfall of freelancing.
In web design and development, I know more folks who are freelance than who work at a company. Of the friends who do work at a firm / corporations, I only know of one who is truly satisfied and the others keep talking of going back to freelancing or at least entertain the idea of it or are jealous of friends who are freelance. Of my freelance friends, many of us toy with the idea of steady cube farming, but instead have started to form informal partnerships with other freelancers or small design/dev firms to have greater reach than just one person could.
But to be called a vagabond. Really.
Now to be fair the person who said this is in their late 80s / early 90s and this may be a generational gap issue and a lack of understanding of contemporary work practices & realitites more than an insult, but I was still surprised.
In the web design & dev world, I am a moderate stay at home freelancer compared to some of my compatriots who are on the conference speaking circuit or have clients spread far & wide. I do get out and about a couple of times a year, be it for conference speaking, conference attendance, or just plain travel. Heck, I haven't even reached the gold status, let alone platinum super-flyer, with my frequent flyer program.
How can I be a vagabond if I am not even recognized by my fave airline as a frequent frequent flyer?
All jokes aside, I have reached the stage of life of which in some folks' expectation I should have bought a house, started a family, and otherwise "settled down". So when the news hit the family that I would be spending a great deal of the month of February trotting about on the Nokia Urbanista Diaries project... vagabond!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will be out and about from Feb. 6th to 24th participating in the Urbanista Diaries project / challenge with Nokia N82. Now one of the glories of having a freelance web design career is that I can say "Yes!" to Nokia and not have to worry about not having enough vacation time. As a freelancer, I just need to get my work done, give warning to my clients and folks I contract with, and then off I go.
More on my destinations in a bit... I first need to find my tin cup, red kerchief, a hobo hat, and suspenders of which to deck myself out for my trip!
Hello Kenya,
I love you, please don't fall to pieces.
Kenya, I have admired you from afar for many years. Even though I prefer chilly, mountainous places and am inordinately fond of snow for a woman born and raised in Southern California, I have dreamed of visiting you for years. Even though I take most of my non-California holidays north of the 50th parallel line, when folks ask for me to list my top five places I must visit before it is all over, besides Iceland, Alaska, Greenland, and Lapland, I always list you.
It is not just Mount Kilamanjaro and its lovely glacier. It is not just your rich, deep heritage and landscape. It is not just the animals and safaris. It is not just Nairobi, a city that has been widely recommended to me. It is your people. Some of the best, truly best humans I have ever know where born and raised in Kenya before they came to California. Rosemary Mwangi. Mark Fredrickson. Among many others.
Dear Kenya, please don't devolve into unrest and murder.
Please Kenya, pull yourself up. Shake the hand of the man or woman next to you. Give them a hug. Sit down together and figure out how to make the government work for all the people of Kenya, not just one tribal group. Representative government for all. Justice for all.
Please, no eye for an eye. Instead, love one another. Or at the very least, peace for the common good.
Please, dear Kenya. Please.
Photo taken on 12.31.07 by Ms. Jen with the Nokia N82.
Brewster's Rockit has the best summary of the year 2007 to date. There have been many blessings in this last year, esp. all of my travels, visiting with friends near and far, as well as the opportunities that 2007 has presented itself, but I am ready for the new year. I like even numbered years and am particularly fond of leap years.
2008, I look forward to visiting with you for 12 months. May you be a delight.
Mie at Kokochi linked to this TED talk by Larry Lessig as the best so far of the TED talk videos that she and Dav have watched. I have watched a few of the Ted talk videos and agree with Mie and Dav on the above Larry Lessig talk.
I saw Lessig speak on Copyright and CreativeCommons at SXSWi 2003. He is amazing in person, on topic, on track, personable, convincing and knows how to pack a punch. Per his style, Larry gives great examples in the above video, stays on topic, and really convinces one that read/write or (re)creativity is the way to go. I agree. To an extent.
I returned home from SXSWi 2003 all fired up about the brave new liberal world of creative commons and set most of my websites to a "Share-Alike" Creative Commons "copyright". All was well until this last year when I have noticed a number of for-profit folks violating this charter with my photos and text, ie using it for their website that they are making a profit from (either it is a business where the photos are a part of a sold product or a website with a lot of ads) and not asking permission for the use of the photos or text.
I don't mind if folks remix/reuse small bits of photos or text if it is for fun/art and they give attribution, or for fair use, but the wholesale lifting of photos and blog posts with no links back has forced me to drop the Creative Commons attribution on this site and my Flickr page and revert back to an "All Rights Reserved" copyright. I don't like it, but after consulting the two lawyers and one US Patent Agent in my life, it is the only way under the current law that I protect my claim.
I would love Lessig's ideas on the creative commons to come into widespread use, but it means that all of us have to agree to respect the Creative Commons and unfortunately there are many who willfully abuse it or are ignorant to the contract and under current US and EU law the only way to really protect it is to have a copyright.
In the beginning of this video, Lessig talks about his attempts to change ideas and laws at the governmental and legislative level but that he is no longer doing so as it is un-effective. For Creative Commons to be more than a lovely idea-set for the liberals and creative-minded amongst us, we do need governmental and legislative back up so that over time we can protect our art from the occasional or rare case of abuse.
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Update: Sun. 12.16.07 - Tara Hunt of ::HorsePigCow:: more accurately gets at the essence of what I was trying to say in her blog post the "Tragedy of the Commons".
When I first started traveling in college, I loved the "Let's Go" series of travel guides as they led to one to the cheapest of the cheap all over Europe. Sometime in my mid-to-late twenties they failed to satisfy and I moved my travel guide book loyalty to the Lonely Planet series. Lonely Planet had a wider range of budget, moderate, and higher priced options for each town, as well as write ups on more of the history and points of interest, less of "Let's Go"s nightlife and ultra-cheap focus.
I find Fodors guide books to be too stuffy, the DK guides to be very broad in terms of photos and visual diagrams but missing in actually moderate priced places to stay. So, I have kept my loyalty the last ten years to Lonely Planet. In 2004, I purchased the Lonely Planet Ireland guide and it was my faithful companion on Erika & I's 2004 Thanksgiving trip to Ireland, as well as my year at Trinity College, Dublin. But most of the Lonely Planet guide books I have used are written mostly by locals, not travelers, thus big bits are left out, the bits that locals wouldn't care about but travelers would.
Here is my list of things that I would love Lonely Planet to change, fix or cover in their otherwise excellent travel guide books:
1) No hotels near the major airports are ever listed. Not in the Ireland LP, not in the London LP, not in the Spain, nor Andalucia, nor Scotland, nor... Sometimes the most practical thing when you have an early departure or late arrival is stay within a mile or two of the airport. Lonely Planet, please put in a few airport hotels or B&Bs for each major airport. Thanks.
2) Area codes or Full Phone Numbers next to listings: The Lonely Planet guides list country phone codes in the back, and major area codes at the section head, but not next to the listing. While driving two nights ago, we were flipping to 3 separate section trying to get the full number to dial from my mobile to find a B&B to stay at. Very frustrating, esp. when one' mobile's sim chip is not from the same country as one is in.
3) Lonely Planet, please list wifi (wireless internet) locations, free wifi and for pay. This matters. Not just internet cafes or which places to stay have a stand alone computer, but please list wifi for every one of the listings in your books that has wifi. One of the hotels we stayed at in Ireland this last week had free wifi, one had none, and one had paid wifi. I would have booked my stay with preference for internet connection. All the better to blog with and finish up the client loose ends. kthnxbai.
4) Please list more neo-lithic, bronze age, and iron age or other non-major historical sites in the UK & Ireland. If you are a local writer for these guides, you probably think Americans or Germans or Italians are nuts for going to visit old hunks of rock out in muddy fields. These old sites are delightful and really worth exploring. Please list with some directions and explanations.
I am writing this from the Dublin airport where Mom and I are waiting to fly to London Heathrow to start our week in Southern England. I went to the big bookstore in the Dublin Airport mall to get a Lonely Planet England or UK guide so we can know where we are going and where we are going to stay. In an interesting twist, the whole section of travel guides at the airport had Mexico, California, Peru, Egypt, New Zealand, and many other smaller countries, but did not have a single travel guide for the UK, England or Wales. London (3 different publishers), Scotland (2 types) and Edinburgh, but no England or UK...
Hopefully, a bookstore at Heathrow will have a Lonely Planet England. ;o)
Thurs. Nov. 8, 2007
Flying through the Air with the Greatest of Ease
or The small, bouncy child version thereof
or the non-Twitter but NaBloPoMo version
Approx. 4:30pm (PST) or 12:30am (GMT) - After a long and stressful week that included a scheduled small nervous breakdown from 5:05 pm to 5:07 pm on Tuesday afternoon, I am on a Boeing 777 flying over the Great Lakes en route to London. London Calling, the November edition.
Due to completing tasks and finishing my Jane Austen-a-thon, I did not get to sleep until 2am. When the alarm rang at 6:04 am, I was hurting from too little sleep. No matter, zip bags up, and get them out to the car. I drove over to my brother's house and together we drove up to LAX.
My first flight was uneventful as I cat napped. The plane landed in Chicago a bit early and I miscalculated time, I thought I had an hour and a half until boarding my next flight to London, it was really 45 mins. I had a bit of steamed rice and mixed veg at the Manchu Wok place at the food court and a lovely chat with some folks from Yorkshire who had just visited their grandkids in Houston. I then went for a walk, got a little lost, and kept hearing "Last boarding call for London gate K-12" over the paging system. Oops. Last one on the plane.
The flight to London is going well so far. I have the "H" right aisle seat and the block of the middle 5 seats is occupied by a woman and her three children under 6 years old, of which the two boys are bouncing off the seats, walls, aisles, etc. Should be interesting. The Simpsons movie has them somewhat quieted down but the oldest is still kicking the seat in front of him. The lady in front of him is watching the Transformers movie.
The best part of seat backs with video screens is being able to vaguely watch the various movies in one's view, partial attention with no sound. The best way to watch a movie. Unless one is having a Jane Austen-a-thon or Kevin Smith-a-thon, then it should be one movie at a time with sound.
The meal service is now coming by and it is the very first time I called beforehand and ordered a gluten-free meal. I am quite curious what it will be.