Overheard

Mike: This is the draggingest hump day ever!

You gotta live

just how big is a full grown bull elephant seal? really freaking big., originally uploaded by emdot.

39 Ways to Live and Not Merely Exist.

Yea! New blog discovered (for me). Dumb Little Man.

Dear Dumb Little Man,

Your site made my day.

Sincerely,

Baically smart and too tall Emdot

Go read this list. I bet you start thinking of things you could add to it. What makes your heart sing? What change could you make that would take this summer from lowercase summer hohum to ALL CAPS FREAKIN A AWESOME SUMMER?

That's the question I've been asking myself since June 19. The solstice was coming up and I really wanted to come up with a list of Fabulous Things to Do That Would Make Me Look Back at This As a Really Damn Good Summer.

I came up with losing weight. Getting to work early. Walking to work. Drinking water. Being organized.

All fine goals. Things that would make my life better.

But it's pretty safe to say that these are pretty... um... boring. Ho hum. Yeah rights. Yeah sures. And yeah you oughttas.

A list of Yeah You Oughtas does not a great summer make.

I feel like it's five days late -- but with 85 more days to go, I'm pretty sure that DLG's list could make this a summer to love.

What are you doing this summer?

More Helpful Links

It seems that today is Helfpul Links day.

» 7 Secrets of the Super Organized

Note to myself: Read these

slurp slurp, originally uploaded by emdot.

» How to prioritize quickly and intuitively

» Hacking towards Happiness (Time Mag art on life hacking)

» Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students

» The Happiness Project: Stop Naggers in Their Tracks

» 90+ Photography Tools and Resources

» Monkey on Your Back
Send/receive reminders (to yourself or others)

» How to Make a Room Look Bigger

» 8 Ways to Cut Back on Computer Cables

practicing forgiveness

I find it much easier to forgive others than to forgive myself. But I know some people who have a hard time with forgiveness in general, so I am sharing today's "Rigpa Glimpse" from Sogyal Rinpoche.

Imagine vividly a situation where you have acted badly, one about which you feel guilty, and about which you wince even to think of it.

Then, as you breathe in, accept total responsibility for your actions in that particular situation, without in any way trying to justify your behavior. Acknowledge exactly what you have done wrong, and wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness. Now, as you breathe out, send out reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and understanding.

So you breathe in blame, and breathe out the undoing of harm; you breathe in responsibility, breathe out healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

This exercise is particularly powerful and may give you the courage to go to see the person whom you have wronged, and the strength and willingness to talk to him or her directly and actually ask for forgiveness from the depths of your heart.

— Sogyal Rinpoche

omg LOVE!

Orrin and Stacey came up for a mid-end-of-week SLO Town get-away. And they took Amtrak to get here. And Orrin made a coolio vimeo. Check it out and love it, too!






SLO Train from Orrin on Vimeo

very quickly because i'm at work so this will have to constitute as an official mid-morning break

frog in the garden, originally uploaded by ranjit.

one. this awesome funny photo of everyday fabulous life from ranjit. if you aren't familiar with ranjit go, go now and roll around in the goodness which is his flickr stream. spend extra time in his farmer's market scans which are brilliant. and don't forget to say hi to samson (i'll come back at my lunch hour and put in the direct links).

two. expensr. yesterday 7s sent me a link to this freaking awesome web site which helped me figure out where in the heck all my money went to. go now. sign up. and see how much easier it's going to be to figure out your money woes, i mean situation.

three. arcade fire interview on fresh air.

four. rule the web by mark frauenfelder. not sure which is better, the book, the book idea, or saying frauenfelder a million times out loud.

i'm in love with my igoogle theme

i'm in love with my igoogle theme, originally uploaded by emdot.

I know it's a little thing, but my google theme makes me happy every time I see it. I love how this cute little critter moves about throughout the day, rowing his boat, picking the oranges, making lunch, playing guitar to the ducks. and at night he sleeps. so cute.

this morning i woke up before the crack of too early, opened up this page and saw that the cute little guy was just waking and a rooster was crowing on the other side of the pond.

it's the little things for me.

another fun little thing: localization of flickr. it's hard to have it on english when you can have the fun of german, spanish, portuguese, french. so great!

today was my first day of 95% cold free. that is 14 days of sickness. i am a wimp. just a cold and it laid me out flat and rendered me stupid. i praise my clear sinuses. i rejoice in my moving with ease lungs. and sing hallelujah for clearer thinking.

Kottke Gives Great Links

Yes, I love boingboing, just like all you other nerds out there. But sometimes boingboing gets too cumbersome, or too lolcats, or too unicornrainbowmakemagazine or what have you. Where as Kottke has fewer posts but it's more likely that I will find his subjects more interesting. YMMV.

Today's great link from kottke is How to hire the best people you've ever worked with by Marc Andreessen. I really, really agree with everything he said. Drive. Curiosity. And Ethics. Yes yes yes.

It made me think of my own life as well. Drive is something that can be really hit or miss for me, but one thing is for certain: if I am burned out then I have no drive. It's like the gas tank's empty, the transmission's lost its fluid, and the key won't turn. No drive.

So, important lesson to learn: FIX IT BEFORE YOU GET BURNED OUT, because in my experience, it can take a long time to get the drive back if you've burned out the engine.

Two jobs ago I was burned out to the point where I should've been up on blocks in somebody's front yard and it took a long time to get back from that. But I'm glad that I did. I'm glad I did. I'm glad I did. And I will never get myself there again. Amen.

One more thing about being sick and then I'll shut up about it already

Usually, the silver lining of being sick is that at least you are a few pounds lighter afterwards. Usually you lose your appetite and/or your tastebuds and/or your will to live, so why eat, right?

This has not been the case for me in the last few days. In fact, I have been more starving than normal and that is a lot of starving, people. I could probably eat eight times a day and still be ravenous. I'm pretty pissed off about this. Pissed off and tummy growly.

Whenever I use the word "starving" I think of this Slovak I once worked with. That is what we all called him, the Slovak. I think he even called himself the Slovak. And that now that I try to even think about this harder, I can't even remember his name. Something with a C and a V I think. But what I do remember is this little beauty about the word "starving."

We were having a long work day and the bosses were bringing in food for dinner and I was so hungry (as usual) and I said to him (the Slovak), whilst clutching my non-malnourished stomach, "oh my god I'm starving!!!" and he looked at me with this look that quite simply let me know that starving? He'd seen starving. And I was no starving.

Sigh. Yeah. Like I didn't know.

Okay I am now officially really sick of being sick. Enough already.

501s, originally uploaded by emdot.

I'm starting to get pissed. Not pissed, more like exasperated. How can I still be sick? I've gone through TWO kleenex boxes (granted, I get the smaller, more designery boxes) and a roll and a half of toilet paper. My lungs are obviously made of molasses as it takes effort to make them breathe. BREATHE LUNGS. And making my bed just qualified as an aerobic activity. This has got to stop.

Yesterday I did venture out and saw Knocked Up (which seemed like a benign activity but actually laid me out flat by the time I got home.). I really liked it. Really. Highly recommend it. Would even maybe see it again.

But.

I'm really sick of the way so many people play out relationships. Meaning, women make men give up the things they love. Men constantly let down their spouses. Women have ridiculous demands. Men cheat. In my experience (and also in observing the relationships of most of my friends), it's not like that. And I think it paints a pejorative of love and marraige.

Why can't we all just get along?

And even though she was a shrew and shrill (a terrible, tho common, combination) I LOVED how the sister responded to men who were really really brusque with her. That was great. And is still cracking me up this morning.

Cracking me up between blowing my nose and letting out sneezes that are shaking all the houses in our block.

New Post at House of Emdot

House of Emdot is a sister blog to this one. It's soul purpose is to focus on my goals (losing weight, getting organized and becoming a master of my money)... I didn't want to alienate regular readers here who had no interest in that kinda minutiae.

New post over there, including two recipes and more complaining about being sick.

» False Start. Hello, story of my life.

Butt on the couch

The smartest thing I did was nothing yesterday. As in nada. I did make some soup for dinner (leek and potato), but other than that it was just my butt on the couch. Today I may venture out to watch Knocked Up. But other than that I think it is, once again, going to be a butt/couch symbiotic relationship.

Shoot. Now I can't remember what compelled me to share that. I was going to correlate it with something or share some anecdote or something. Something....

Taps head... argh. My head is so stuffed up that even my memory is lethargic. Mucous Remembrane.

To Listen

One of the things I have loved about my neighborhood is the very loud and beautiful cricket chirpings in the evening. It's strange how you never see the crickets, but they are so loud there must be a million of them. And what kind are they? Well, I still don't know, but Weekend Edition Sunday had a great segment about insets sounds. Bonus, page includes beautiful shots of a few of the insects.

» The Thrill of the Trill: Capturing an Insect Symphony

Sick as a Dog

paw sunday, originally uploaded by emdot.

You know you are sick when even blogging seems to taxing.

I'm down for the count (and have been, now, since Wednesday), crossing fingers that tomorrow I will feel better. That is what I wished on Friday and Saturday as well.