Celebrating my geekness
Yay for another 5 Geek Things for Friday post! I kinda like the short and sweet list format. So, this week, my 5 geek things are . . .
but I’m thinking about giving up my desktop computer. Yes, that’s right, even though I’m a huge tech geek, whose main limits are those of my pocketbook1 I’m considering getting rid of my desktop computer even though it’s fairly current and still working great. Now, before you tar and feather me, let me do a little more explaining.
I’ve got to sit down and think about it a bit more. We’ve got to make sure that my current desktop would be able to handle the programs and such. We may need to upgrade a component or two just so we can have the right types of ports for the set-up that we want.3 But it’s still going to be much cheaper than purchasing everything new, especially since we’d also have to buy an operating system for any new computer we get. I also need to sit down and see what programs and things are on my computer now that I’d want to install on my laptop and then copy any important data over or back it up somehow.
I’ll try to remember to update when the decision has been made. Feel free to put your own 2 cents worth in the comments!
This week I thought I’d put up a little list of the geek things I’ve done and enjoyed.
5. Sitting next to my husband in bed while we each work on our laptops.
4. Using my iPod Touch as both my sleep aid and my alarm clock.
3. Forwarding the latest song releases from Rockband DLC to my husband.
2. Re-tweeting Susan Piver quoting Albert Camus.
1. Using Role Playing Game terminology to describe everyday life.1
I heard something today that resonated so strongly with me that I just had to share it. I was listening to episode 241 of the Zencast Podcast and in one part the speaker was discussing that time in between when you’re traveling. How it’s time when you are no longer where you were, but not yet where you are going to. It was like a bell was struck inside me. I think that’s why traveling between places, especially long trips, feels so freeing to me. I know to some people, waiting in an airport gate, sitting for hours on a plane, or spending time sitting on a train between cities would feel more like a prison, but it’s quite the opposite for me.
I’m released from everything that was, but am not yet everything that will be. I’m unattached to any place and free. There is no defined place of being that I exist in, so I can exist only for me. My soul feels unbound and I can simply spend time existing in a more pure state. I feel more peaceful, more rested1, and the world just seems to make a little more sense when it’s hurtling by me, as opposed to when I’m attached to a particular part of it.
As things have started stirring in me for action, I’ve almost gotten frustrated at being on vacation because it’s forcing me to be inactive.1 So, I’ve been doing lots of reflecting and journal writing2 to the point where I’m going to have to buy a pen here in Japan because the one I brought is almost completely out of ink3. But doing things when I get home will require time and I’m already finding my time stretched thin. So, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve got to try to cut back on my online life. I’m talking about the time that I’m just consuming what other people put out there and not really doing anything myself. Sure it’s great for inspiration, but if I spend all my time getting inspired when am I actually going to act on that inspiration? During all this, I’ve had a few moments of clarity and been inspired to once again go through and re-structure some of my geeky online activity. Namely, reading blogs. It was partly inspired, ironically enough, by a blog post I read4 The post in question was a recent entry on Unclutterer letting their new traffic know about all their services and features and in that post was a link to another post in which they described how they filtered the Unclutterer RSS feed using Yahoo pipes. ((Wow! I’m so unaccustomed to Yahoo having anything to offer to the modern web 2.o world that I actually typed ‘Google pipes’ first and then had to go back and edit that.)) Basically they were able to use the free Yahoo pipes service to filter out some of the blog posts that they know some readers don’t really want to see and have created a separate RSS feed with less content. I’d known about Yahoo pipes for a long time but never really had a venue with which to apply it and play with it a bit since it had only ever been described to me in theory5. With this great example and clear tutorial on how to use it, I now had a a concrete idea that I could play with, and the inspiration I needed to work with it. So, here I am in Japan with a computer, feeling like I need to take action, and realizing that I need to cut back on my online consumption. Add in a bit of inspiration on what Yahoo pipes can do to a blog’s feed, and you have me spending a couple of hours in our hotel fiddling with filters and feeds. I also culled a bunch of blogs that I don’t really spend time reading any more. I’m keeping all the blogs of people I actually know, and I’m going to try to batch process some of my niche blogs on a less frequent basis. In my normal old routine I would try to get to an ‘RSS zero’ state every day, but I was barely treading water with over a hundred subscriptions to keep up with. Now I’m going to try to accept that some categories don’t need to be read daily. Instead, they can be saved for a time when I’m actually going to read and process that information in a more meaningful way. I’m sure I’ll still make generous use of the ‘mark all as read’ button too. I’m just hoping that my obsessive compulsive nature doesn’t freak out with all of the unread posts staring me in the face. Do you find that the abundance of information online gets in the way of actually doing things? Have you found a good balance for yourself? Got any tips to share?
There comes a point when every creative spirit and soul needs to stop pouring out from themselves and immerse themselves in the creativity of others, so that their own well can be re-filled. My fellow creative types will know all about this. I think it extends beyond just the creative to all sorts of energy that we pour out of ourselves on a daily basis.
Before we left for Japan1, I think you could safely say that Benevolance and I were skirting burnout. I feel a bit like a faker claiming it for myself, since compared to him, my workload is much lighter2. I’m hoping that this three weeks away is long enough to refill our wells so we can return to regular life with renewed vigor.
For myself, I can feel that familiar stirring inside of me. I’m getting fired up again about different projects and things I want to start doing. The problem is always that most of our time at home is spent on our jobs instead of our interests, so I am always feeling like there isn’t enough time. But it’s important to make time for these things at home, so that we let a little trickle in to keep our wells from drying out too quickly again.
One thing I’ve been reminded of on this trip is that exercise refills my well. Even at home, when I’m exercising I seem to have more energy so that I can use my time more efficiently and effectively. Sleep is the other big one. It’s hard, but I must start getting to bed earlier. Here where we have so much fewer distractions in the evenings, it’s so much easier to start to sleep when the sun goes down. Sure, in theory, we could watch some tv, though we don’t really understand it. And we’ve got a computer and a Nintendo DS, but we only feel compelled to use them for so long while we’re on vacation.
Sorry to put up such a rambling post, but felt like I should share some of what’s been going through my head.
As I shared before, I’m using a different goal setting method this year for my annual goals. There are a bunch of goals that I think would be just kind of boring to share, especially since I’m not sharing them in the context of the categories that I created them in. I’ve already shared some of the bigger goals that I’ve got going on for the year, but there are a couple that didn’t get mentioned, that I thought I should throw in. I’ve been trying to come up with a good way to categorize them for you, but that would just devolve into a whole bunch of blog posts that are all really short. So instead I thought I’d just list them all in one final post on my goals.
Travel
As I mentioned in my last post, my husband and I have a travel blog that we update when we go traveling. And, well, in about a week, we’re going on another three week vacation. It’s our second time going to Japan and we both can’t wait for the break. I didn’t include travel as its own goal category just because the trip is happening so early in the year. Most of the work towards it actually happened in 2009.
Family
With recent events being what they are, my family needs extra time and energy right now. A substantial portion of my year is going to be dealing with the aftermath of my step-father’s unexpected passing. It’s going to be a roller-coaster of emotions and I’m trying to think of ways to handle the ups and downs.
Finance
My husband and I go through regular re-evaluations of our financial position and goals. He doesn’t do the same year end thing that I do though, and we usually end up re-evaluating our financial position in spring, around tax-season. I think our focus during the coming year might shift slightly away from RRSPs and towards paying down the mortgage on our condo, but it’ll depend on how things go with our income1
Projects & Collaboration
I have two projects that are in various stages of development right now that I’m also super-excited about and that will take up significant amounts of time and energy. But, I’m not ready to reveal many details just yet. One is a collaboration effort with a couple of other creative, intelligent, entrepreneur women who are fabulous. Seriously, I feel so lucky to be working with them because there’s no way I would have ever thought of tackling something this fun and exciting on my own! The other is just a little fun project that started brewing somewhere in the back of my mind last year. It will involve a blog, but not this one. I may, or may not, share a link to it when/if it happens, I’m still undecided about that.2
So that’s it for my goals for this year. As we wrap things up before our vacation we are going to have a crazy busy week! Not sure if I’ll be popping in over here,3 so if you want to keep up on what’s happening, be sure to check in with our travel blog, Sauntering Sunflower!
My husband and I started a travel blog for our last trip to Japan. I made a few posts about my New York trip with my sister too. We’re planning on updating it from the land of rising sun once again, so if you want to follow along, then head over to Sauntering Sunflower. You can subscribe via RSS and I may get my husband to insert email functionality so people can be emailed updates as they happen. But, we’ll see what we get around to before we go. Hopefully there won’t be any long stretches between our updates, since this time we’ll have a netbook with us and won’t be so dependent on internet cafes while we are there. This will also hopefully mean that we’ll be able to post a few photos along with the blog posts.
Before reading this article, please close your eyes and envision me doing a fitness activity. It can be running, kick boxing, lifting weights, the exact activity doesn’t really matter. Got a clear picture in your head? Good.
Now why did I ask you to do this? Well, I try to include visuals with my blog, but despite searching through all my uploaded Flickr images, I couldn’t find any of me at any fitness event or doing anything particularly fitness-y. Which is weird because both Benevolance and I have done all sorts of fitness stuff in the past. The closest thing I could find to a fitness related picture was one of me posing in a lightish-red hip scarf and my lightish-red shirt1 that I wore to belly dancing class. And this is someone who has supposedly done the Vancouver Sun Run 4 times!2
On the bright side of things, this inability to find any pictoral evidence of my fitness abilities has given birth to a new fitness goal – start documenting fitness accomplishments with photos! Now, part of me resists this because my fitness clothing is not really flattering. I don’t shop at Lululemon and I don’t usually concern myself with style when I’m doing a workout. Yes, I’ve even been known to mix peach and red together, which is not a flattering combination. Plus, there’s the fact that I don’t wear makeup to workout and am quite often covered in sweat. This is a good thing when you’re concerned with fitness, but doesn’t make me look particularly photogenic. And then there’s the red-face issue. I get very bright red in the face when I work out. I always have, and probably always will. But, it’s a little shocking to see a person who is normally so pale, go bright red. It looks a little clown-ish.
But, I really should get past all of that, and start taking pictures. Or rather, start getting other people to take pictures of me doing things. And, by logical extension, this means I’ve got to start getting out and doing fitness things (again). I’ve devolved into a bit of a couch potato, but my health and fitness is something that is really important to me. Despite that, I haven’t been able to set any really concrete fitness goals for myself this year. Last year I had a similar problem and didn’t feel like I progressed much at all. This year, I’m tossing a few options around in my head, but a lot of the fitness programs out there, don’t last an entire year. I had started working on my running last year just before switching to the P90X program, but we’ve just discovered that our treadmill may be on its last treads. 3 Probably won’t get around to repairing or replacing it until March when we’re back from Japan. And though I know I could run outside, I’m a really big wimp and have a lot of reasons why I’d rather not. 4 So, in the mean time, I’ve got to figure out what I want to do and here are my thoughts so far:5
So, my dear readers, care to share your fitness goals? Thoughts? Advice? Any and all are welcome in the comments!

More old books... by guldfisken via Flickr. Image is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
This year I decided to do a reading challenge. The challenge is to read a number of books in a few areas of interest to me. It gets me going in several areas that I think are important for my personal growth and will hopefully get a few books off my ‘to-read’ list at Goodreads.
I’ve decided the four areas that I want to do my reading in, but I haven’t figured out which books in each category I’m going to read. So, if you are familiar with the genre/category, please feel free to give me recommendations on what to read in the comments.
I like to read a wide variety of stuff with both fiction and non-fiction. For the non-fiction end of things, I’d like to do some reading about Buddhism and Leadership this year. For the fiction side of things, I’d like to read some Steam Punk fiction and a couple of graphic novels as well. 1
I’m keeping it small and manageable and will pick 2 books per category to read during the year. That’s only 8 books, less than 1 per month!2
You've landed on the blog and online home of Jennerosity. I am a writer/teacher/gamer/story enthusiast who will be geeking out a bit here. Feel free to join me in the comments or by sending me an email (there will be a form when I get around to it). Other things that I enjoy which will likely come up here from time to time are travel, history, anime, Star Trek, steampunk, and girly geeky things.