Sunday, July 20
Having a laptop
Having a laptop is proving to be a great personal asset. I carry and use it almost everywhere I go - at work, on the train, at home, and uni when it starts. I'm still exploring useful ways in which to use it.
Currrently, its most important use is in keeping all the reading material I gather from the Net. My reading collection is steadily growing into a very useful and personalised library of resources. Most of the stuff is mainly Java and Websphere stuff related to work, but I can see it expanding to include all sorts of stuff covering my entire reading appetite. The great thing about it is that I can pull up and read them anywhere. And I'm finding that I'm more able to review more regularly, which is helping my remember things learned.
The other thing that I'm doing is keeping a daily log that I use to help me keep track of tasks. I note down things I've down, things I gotta do today, tomolo, this week, next week, and someday. Because I'm able to see this anytime I use the laptop, I can keep this list up to date. It's proving to be a great task tracking and planning tool.
Finally, I've got all my movies and music to entertain me when I get bored on the train home.
I guess the thing I like about having this laptop is that I feel more centralised and controlled because it's all there (everything I need) in one easy to access place. And this is precisely the main motivator for getting one in the first place. I was just so sick of setting up my environment on every pc that I sit down to use. This is particular annoying at uni when each pc loses its image after logging out.
So SDD, I'm ready. Show me what u've got!
Currrently, its most important use is in keeping all the reading material I gather from the Net. My reading collection is steadily growing into a very useful and personalised library of resources. Most of the stuff is mainly Java and Websphere stuff related to work, but I can see it expanding to include all sorts of stuff covering my entire reading appetite. The great thing about it is that I can pull up and read them anywhere. And I'm finding that I'm more able to review more regularly, which is helping my remember things learned.
The other thing that I'm doing is keeping a daily log that I use to help me keep track of tasks. I note down things I've down, things I gotta do today, tomolo, this week, next week, and someday. Because I'm able to see this anytime I use the laptop, I can keep this list up to date. It's proving to be a great task tracking and planning tool.
Finally, I've got all my movies and music to entertain me when I get bored on the train home.
I guess the thing I like about having this laptop is that I feel more centralised and controlled because it's all there (everything I need) in one easy to access place. And this is precisely the main motivator for getting one in the first place. I was just so sick of setting up my environment on every pc that I sit down to use. This is particular annoying at uni when each pc loses its image after logging out.
So SDD, I'm ready. Show me what u've got!
Friday, July 11
Birthday season
On Thursday, it was Neville's birthday. Later that day I got two phone calls from Derrick and Wanis inviting me to their birthday parties (both clashing on Saturday night). Then at the mind meld I found out that Alan would be celebrating his birthday on Sunday. Then I remembered that Lloyd and Elackl had their birthdays last week. And I have a feeling that there are others that I am missing too.
So many birthdays surrounding my own birthday!
So many birthdays surrounding my own birthday!
Monday, July 7
The Law of Diminishing Returns
I came across an article today that applied the economic law of diminishing returns, to certifications. Besides stating the obvious (that there's a point when more certifications is just not worth it), it got me thinking about my work ethic.
By nature, I tend to overdo things - to invest too much effort. In the end, the outcomes do not justify the extra effort. So while it is necessary to invest effort, it's important to avoid overinvesting because this results in diminishing returns. I think just being aware of this would be helpful. So in a nutshell...
It's all about finding that middle way, that elusive balance. To adopt the jargon and put it more pragmatically, why not focus on improving the production function, which transforms the invested effort into desirable outcomes. Or in plain English, work smarter and not harder.
By nature, I tend to overdo things - to invest too much effort. In the end, the outcomes do not justify the extra effort. So while it is necessary to invest effort, it's important to avoid overinvesting because this results in diminishing returns. I think just being aware of this would be helpful. So in a nutshell...
When investing effort in a particular endeavour, there is a point that should not passed. Beyond this point, efforts will be in vain
It's all about finding that middle way, that elusive balance. To adopt the jargon and put it more pragmatically, why not focus on improving the production function, which transforms the invested effort into desirable outcomes. Or in plain English, work smarter and not harder.
Friday, July 4
...........
I do not have anything interesting to say today, but I felt compelled to make a blog entry anywayz.
What's up?
Yesterday I bought Jackie Chan's "Battlecreek Brawl" on DVD for 10 bucks! I'm looking forward to watching that tonight.
Tomorrow I'm cleaning Hiromi's apartment and packing her things up while she tries her best to look for another apartment. I'm actually looking forward to doing it coz it feels like a great thing to do. I wish I could do more great things like actually cleaning up my own room but I just lack the motivation. It feels different doing it for someone else. Isn't it funny.
Actually, by nature, I prefer everything to be clean. I love it when my room is clean. I was so happy with my room in Japan coz it was so clean. But how did I manage to keep it so clean? I figure it was coz I was all alone with no one to depend on to clean up so I just did it. Back here at home, I have the comfort of knowing that my mum will clean my room so I don't. Once in a while though, I get a big wake up call and realise that I really need to do something about my room. Then I get off my ass and start cleaning. In fact, I feel one of these coming soon coz I've got nothing else to do when I get home after work and hanging out in my room as it stands now is pretty depressing. It's proly time to get my act together.
Yeah, maybe later. I'm gonna watch the DVD first.
What's up?
Yesterday I bought Jackie Chan's "Battlecreek Brawl" on DVD for 10 bucks! I'm looking forward to watching that tonight.
Tomorrow I'm cleaning Hiromi's apartment and packing her things up while she tries her best to look for another apartment. I'm actually looking forward to doing it coz it feels like a great thing to do. I wish I could do more great things like actually cleaning up my own room but I just lack the motivation. It feels different doing it for someone else. Isn't it funny.
Actually, by nature, I prefer everything to be clean. I love it when my room is clean. I was so happy with my room in Japan coz it was so clean. But how did I manage to keep it so clean? I figure it was coz I was all alone with no one to depend on to clean up so I just did it. Back here at home, I have the comfort of knowing that my mum will clean my room so I don't. Once in a while though, I get a big wake up call and realise that I really need to do something about my room. Then I get off my ass and start cleaning. In fact, I feel one of these coming soon coz I've got nothing else to do when I get home after work and hanging out in my room as it stands now is pretty depressing. It's proly time to get my act together.
Yeah, maybe later. I'm gonna watch the DVD first.
Wednesday, July 2
Ye-ha!
It just keeps getting better! Today I received an email notification from Dell informing me that my Inspiron 500m has been shipped! This is much early than I expected. Based on their estimates, it should arrive at my doorstep sometime next week! I can't wait!
Tuesday, July 1
Snowboarding Weekend
Snowboarding at Thredbo this past weekend turned out to be really awesome. My unexpected back spasm didn't bother me at all and this time I was really able to get the hang of shifting my weight back and forth to glide down the slopes. Overall, another great winter snowboarding trip!
It all started at 6:30pm at Bay 15 of the Central Station bus stop. The OzSnowAdventures double decker bus pulled up to take us on board. I found it surprisingly spacious because my legs didn't complain once from a lack of leg seating space. After brief liqour stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, we were off on the six hour drive down to Jindabyne. The six pack of Cascade Premium Light helped ease the trip along with the wacky Christian satire "The life of Brian" that they showed.
We arrived at our accommodation at about 12am but didn't get to sleep till about 2am. We had to stand in line waiting to get our board and boots fitted. In any case, it was better to do this that night rather than deal with it the next morning and risk losing valuable boarding time! In the end we ended up in scrambling around again in the morning anyway. We had to help the two Honky gals in our room get their ski gear together after convincing them the night before that they'd be missing out if they didn't go skiing.
Anyway, the first day was a bit dry. There were a lot of grassy patches in some areas but it wasn't a big problem. I took some time to get used to boarding again. In particular was getting the right stance and weight distribution.
Because it was our first time to Thredbo, we were eager to do some exploring. We started out at Friday Flats - nice and easy. Then we hiked up to Merrits - pretty kewl slopes, perfect for our level of boarding. Then I got ambitious and decided to go traverse the mountain along the Crackenback Traverse. That was a bad idea. The traverse is relatively flat and so not very suitable for snowboarding. We had to keep doing and undoing our bindings all the way!
We actually took a wrong turn and ended up at the bottom of a T-bar. We both had bad experiences with the T-bar from the last snowboarding trip and this time there was no way out. The guy was running the T-bar was really friendly and took the time to help us out. But we kept falling down after sliding up a few metres. We were saved when some ski patrol dudes came by and offered to take us up.
We made it up in the end, but not without a struggle. Hiromi went ahead of me and after doing so well, lost her balance and fell. She managed to grab hold of the patrol guy and clung to him the whole way up! Poor guy! It was quite embarrassing but a lot of fun. Fortunately I managed to stay balanced all the way. Imagine if I fell down too! I would've brought the guy down with me and possibly tumble all the way down to Friday flats.
Anyway, after making it over to the other side and boarding down to the village, we had lunch. We were really tired and decided that this place wasn't worth coming and so went back to Friday flats.
That Saturday evening was pretty good. We had a decent dinner and then drinks at the bar with the two Honky gals we had met. We had a pretty early night coz we were just buggered from exhaustion and lack of sleep from the previous night.
The next day started out pretty average. But as we woke up from the bus trip to the slopes, it was snowing! Man, it's just great when it snows. You feel so happy, like a little kid whose parents buy him ice cream or something. It certainly made our day. The slopes were all powdery and soft. It was great. We decided to take it easy today and just stick to Merrits. Being stubbornly ambitious, I went down High Noon a couple of times. This was my favourite run because it was a steeper than Merrits, less crowded, but still wide and spacious. The only problem was that there was a really bad grass area that you couldn't avoid. I hurt myself pretty bad tripping over the damn grass. I didn't expect the board to stop like that! I tumbled down quite a bit and got really dirty.
By the end of the second day, I was able to shift my weight pretty easily and skirt down the mountain like the other boarders. The only thing lacking was speed. I tended to slow down too much. Next time I go, I'm gonna work on getting used to speed. It's gonna be mad. And jumps too! But enough of that, it's back to work again for now.
It all started at 6:30pm at Bay 15 of the Central Station bus stop. The OzSnowAdventures double decker bus pulled up to take us on board. I found it surprisingly spacious because my legs didn't complain once from a lack of leg seating space. After brief liqour stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, we were off on the six hour drive down to Jindabyne. The six pack of Cascade Premium Light helped ease the trip along with the wacky Christian satire "The life of Brian" that they showed.
We arrived at our accommodation at about 12am but didn't get to sleep till about 2am. We had to stand in line waiting to get our board and boots fitted. In any case, it was better to do this that night rather than deal with it the next morning and risk losing valuable boarding time! In the end we ended up in scrambling around again in the morning anyway. We had to help the two Honky gals in our room get their ski gear together after convincing them the night before that they'd be missing out if they didn't go skiing.
Anyway, the first day was a bit dry. There were a lot of grassy patches in some areas but it wasn't a big problem. I took some time to get used to boarding again. In particular was getting the right stance and weight distribution.
Because it was our first time to Thredbo, we were eager to do some exploring. We started out at Friday Flats - nice and easy. Then we hiked up to Merrits - pretty kewl slopes, perfect for our level of boarding. Then I got ambitious and decided to go traverse the mountain along the Crackenback Traverse. That was a bad idea. The traverse is relatively flat and so not very suitable for snowboarding. We had to keep doing and undoing our bindings all the way!
We actually took a wrong turn and ended up at the bottom of a T-bar. We both had bad experiences with the T-bar from the last snowboarding trip and this time there was no way out. The guy was running the T-bar was really friendly and took the time to help us out. But we kept falling down after sliding up a few metres. We were saved when some ski patrol dudes came by and offered to take us up.
We made it up in the end, but not without a struggle. Hiromi went ahead of me and after doing so well, lost her balance and fell. She managed to grab hold of the patrol guy and clung to him the whole way up! Poor guy! It was quite embarrassing but a lot of fun. Fortunately I managed to stay balanced all the way. Imagine if I fell down too! I would've brought the guy down with me and possibly tumble all the way down to Friday flats.
Anyway, after making it over to the other side and boarding down to the village, we had lunch. We were really tired and decided that this place wasn't worth coming and so went back to Friday flats.
That Saturday evening was pretty good. We had a decent dinner and then drinks at the bar with the two Honky gals we had met. We had a pretty early night coz we were just buggered from exhaustion and lack of sleep from the previous night.
The next day started out pretty average. But as we woke up from the bus trip to the slopes, it was snowing! Man, it's just great when it snows. You feel so happy, like a little kid whose parents buy him ice cream or something. It certainly made our day. The slopes were all powdery and soft. It was great. We decided to take it easy today and just stick to Merrits. Being stubbornly ambitious, I went down High Noon a couple of times. This was my favourite run because it was a steeper than Merrits, less crowded, but still wide and spacious. The only problem was that there was a really bad grass area that you couldn't avoid. I hurt myself pretty bad tripping over the damn grass. I didn't expect the board to stop like that! I tumbled down quite a bit and got really dirty.
By the end of the second day, I was able to shift my weight pretty easily and skirt down the mountain like the other boarders. The only thing lacking was speed. I tended to slow down too much. Next time I go, I'm gonna work on getting used to speed. It's gonna be mad. And jumps too! But enough of that, it's back to work again for now.
Friday, June 27
Great
I woke up this morning at 5am, I thought my back had broken. It killed. I couldn't move my torso without muscular convulsions shooting through my back.
Great, I thought. Why the hell does something like this have to happen the morning that I am about to leave for snowboarding! Of all the times that I need to depend on my body for mobility and motion, why now? Why not all those other work days that I spend almost comatosed in front of my work computer. Argh!
It's a bit better now but I'm walking around and sitting really stiff. I realised later today that it was coz I was reading Inuyasha on my bed last night in a position that my back didn't like. Now it's complaining (my back) . And now I'm complaining.
I'm trying to think of all these ways to speed up the healing process because obviously some of my back muscles have been pulled or something so their damaged and need to recover just like muscles ache the next day after a workout at the gym. So I'm trying to massage them as best I can (rather awkwardly), drink heaps of water (sounds like the right thing to do), eating lots of fruit (also sounds like the right thing to do), and tonight on the bus, I'm gonna do my best to remain stationary and in a comfortable position.
Fingers crossed, I'll be boarding down the mountain like a bat outta hell!
Great, I thought. Why the hell does something like this have to happen the morning that I am about to leave for snowboarding! Of all the times that I need to depend on my body for mobility and motion, why now? Why not all those other work days that I spend almost comatosed in front of my work computer. Argh!
It's a bit better now but I'm walking around and sitting really stiff. I realised later today that it was coz I was reading Inuyasha on my bed last night in a position that my back didn't like. Now it's complaining (my back) . And now I'm complaining.
I'm trying to think of all these ways to speed up the healing process because obviously some of my back muscles have been pulled or something so their damaged and need to recover just like muscles ache the next day after a workout at the gym. So I'm trying to massage them as best I can (rather awkwardly), drink heaps of water (sounds like the right thing to do), eating lots of fruit (also sounds like the right thing to do), and tonight on the bus, I'm gonna do my best to remain stationary and in a comfortable position.
Fingers crossed, I'll be boarding down the mountain like a bat outta hell!
