Monthly Archives: January 2006

Looking for a new Digital Camera

To be more honest – I’m looking for three new digital cameras but I will buy just one.

I have an Olympus C3030 zoom which I like quite a lot. It is a few years old. It is slow to start up and slow to fire. It does take very nice pictures but the resolution is low (3Meg) compared to today’s cameras. It is a good size for carrying around town or on hikes. But this isn’t the one I want to replace.

I would like to get a really good digital SLR like the Digital Rebel. But this also isn’t the camera I’m looking for right now.

I’m doing a lot of business travel. I would like to find a good small very packable camera. I have a 007 camera from Think Geek. This is very small and quite fun. It takes okay pictures but they are great fun to take.

There are a suite of thin form factor digital cameras. They all have tiny lenses which mean low light gathering capabilities which probably means mediocre pictures. So is there a good camera which is highly packable, travels well and takes good pictures?

I am at the Fuqua Business center at Duke University. The Architecture is gorgeous. The crowd is fun. The woods are pretty. I would like to have a camera with me that I could capture this stuff at reasonable (okay, what do I mean by that?) quality. I will not pack a Digital Rebel for these trips. I don’t even pack my Olympus but I might pack something slightly smaller. If there was a credit card factor camera that takes good pictures, I would just leave it in my laptop bag.

Printable CEO – cool but how to implement

I came across a post on Lifehacker on the Printable CEO. Printable CEO uses a set of goals which are weighted with points. You then set up your Task List based on how they align to those goals. Then you can say, “I want to accomplish 20 points of stuff this week”. You can do two big items or 20 smaller items. David Seah’s list is very business oriented.


I think this is pretty cool stuff. Especially when tied with the PocketMod idea. PocketMod’s are small booklets you make from a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper.

So the questions are: could we I alter the goals of Printable CEO to represent I.T. Architecture goals instead? How do we give points to those goals? How would we categorize and measure our tasks? Need to put some thought in on this.

Printable CEO – Cool but how to implement

I came across a post on Lifehacker on the Printable CEO. Printable CEO uses a set of goals which are weighted with points. You then set up your Task List based on how they align to those goals. Then you can say, “I want to accomplish 20 points of stuff this week”. You can do two big items or 20 smaller items. David Seah’s list is very business oriented.


I think this is pretty cool stuff. Especially when tied with the PocketMod idea. PocketMod’s are small booklets you make from a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper.

So the questions are: how can I alter the goals of Printable CEO to represent life goals instead? How do I weigh the life goals? How do you categorize and measure those tasks that are longer and life oriented? For example: Let say a life goal is to “Get In Better Shape” and say it is bound to some measure like Get In Shape for Cycling a Century in under 5 hours. If I scored that as a 10 point goal, would riding my bike to work each day count as 10 points? Is it really moving me towards that goal?

Need to put some thought in on this.

Bumper Sticker on Laptop

I’m in a meeting with Oracle. Across the way is a woman and her laptop. She has this sticker on her laptop. I’m amused:

[tag]JimPhelps, Voldemort[/tag]

Random Quotes from TV – The Hotel Room Edition

I channel surf when I’m in hotels. I always watch stuff I never watch at home. It is kinda like camping food. Things that taste great camping really suck if you make them at home.

Random quotes from surfing tonight:

From E! – “Girls like dumb guys. They’re like big dogs.”

Somethings you hear are specific to the locale – “I work in textiles and I like my job but I’m afraid it will get outsourced overseas. That’s why I went back to school.” I do have to agree with the sentiment.

Welcome to the New Year – From the Road

Welcome to 2006. I am, once again, on the road. This time I’m in North Carolina for the Common Solutions Group meeting. I was struck by the smell of the South when I left the airport this afternoon. It is interesting that places have such strong and unique scents. The deserts of Utah and Arizona smell of sage and wet sand. Denver smells thin, cool and like pine earth. The south is rich and earthy and something like mildew (don’t take that wrong – that’s just what is smells like). Imagine if we had the noses of dogs. The smells must be as stark and different to dogs and the landscape of Mars and Venus are to us.

I have business trips lined for February and March already and April too I think. I actually have had enough business travel for a while. It is exhausting and disruptive. I took two weeks off over Christmas and New Years. I made a list of “To Dos” that had built up over the past few months while I’ve been traveling. It was 15 items long. I was as busy on vacation as I am at work – okay, I did get more naps but I needed them.

I had to get up this morning at 4:45 this morning to catch my flight. It was pretty tough after sleeping in until 7:30 for the past couple of weeks. I’m now starting to get the “all-day-business-flying” blur.

I head back home of Friday. Lola and Ena will be happy to see me I’m sure. Ena does get to make hot-and-spicey tofu stir-fry when I gone. When I leave town, Lola moves down from our bedroom to sleep on the couch in my office just inside the front door. That way she will know as soon as I get home. She is always very happy to see me which is very sweet.

I have a few other things to post but I do them separately.

Welcome to the new year everyone. Hope you had a great holiday.