So today is my birthday and this week I treated myself to a new toy. I am terrible when it comes to buying things because I never want to spend money on things… But I decided I had some money from my b-day and I had thought about it quite a bit and I figure I can use it for a lot of things so I decided I’d go for it. So this post was written on my brand new iPod touch.
I read an article last night that gave me some very good ideas. It started with a poem:
I always eat my peas with honey
I’ve done it all my life
They do taste kind of funny
But it keeps them on my knife
- anonymous
In IT we are often doing the same things as eating peas with honey because we are using a knife. What we need to do is not create solutions that make bad things bearable, but that actually fix the root of the problem - getting a spoon instead of using a knife.
So I went through my projects today to see how many of them could be considered “honey projects” - probably half of them could go away with a good CRM solution.
Even better, not only would they go away but they would be easier to maintain in the future. I’ve started, instead of looking at my projects a entities in and of themselves, looking at them in the whole scheme of things and whether they only are a band-aid to cover a problem, or if they are actually fixing it. Its a good change and I anticipate that looking at things this way will help to make projects in the future more productive.
Ok, so I’m not usually one to get overly involved in politics. I follow things, but I find that often I’m one of the onlookers who lets things happen as they will. We can’t let just anything happen with this vote. This is really a big deal and it needs to be dealt with in the right way. We need to vote to help protect our kids and the future of this country.
Digg the website up: http://digg.com/political_opinion/Prop_8_The_Divine_Institution_of_Marriage/ (The site can be seen here: http://www.preservingmarriage.org/ If you don’t have a digg account - get one just for this!
Here is the text of an email I just received - and my response to it:
I do highly dislike forward emails and that is why you don’t usually don’t get any from me but I believe this is one of those times when forward emails is justified.
Some one once said, and I quote:
Here it is a little of my contribution. We need to show people, this country, and the world that there are people still standing for what it is right!. I DO NOT CLAIM the following message (The links are not working, I am working on that part) to be mine; I actually got it from Allison Theodosis. I please!!!!! ask you to pass this on and let people hear that good people is there and we won’t let evil triumph. If this issue does not rise any kind of concern in you, I would say, you DON’T care for your love ones! and to be hones with you, you…..
Thank you for standing up! and stepping up
Ben
http://www.preservingmarriage.org/
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
YES on Proposition 8
PLEASE READ THIS no matter what state you live in.
Failure to pass Proposition 8 will hurt children. If gay marriage remains legal, public schools will put it on equal footing with traditional marriage. Children will likely receive “age appropriate” information about sexual relations within heterosexual and homosexual marriages.
Failure to pass Proposition 8 will hurt churches. The court’s decision will inevitably lead to conflicts with religious liberty and free speech rights. Society will become more and more hostile to traditional beliefs about marriage and family. Over time, greater acceptance of nontraditional marriage will be demanded of all people. This could impact the ability of any religion to teach and practice its beliefs. Including adoption agencies.
A YES vote will not hurt gays. In California, the law provides for marriage-related benefits to be given to civil unions and domestic partnerships. Proposition 8 does not diminish these benefits.
For your information:
On Friday, October 10th, 2008 a first-grade class took a field trip to witness a lesbian wedding in California. Click Here for the article from the San Francisco Chronicle.
A father in Massachusetts was frustrated when his twin kindergartners were taught about homosexuality at school by the teachers. He insisted he be notified in the future before such things were discussed so he could pull his boys out of school.He was taken to jail. Click Here for the story.
A Catholic adoption agency In the UK closed their doors because of the Government’s new homosexual equality laws. The Equality Act forbids discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the basis of sexual orientation. The law was forced through Parliament last year despite past Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recommendation that Catholic adoption agencies be exempted from the rules. Click Here for more info.
Earlier this month judges in Conneticut overturned the state law (just as the judges in California did) to legalized gay marriage. This is not just an issue in California. We voted years ago to keep traditional marriage as the only marriage recognized in the state of California, 4 judges overturned our vote…and we need to fight back. That is what this Proposition is about. This is happening everywhere and the leaders of the church and others have warned that the outcome of California’s vote will affect the way the other states vote. So PLEASE…even if you don’t live in California, put this on your blog or email this on. The internet knows no state line. You know contacts in California that I don’t…and so do your friends. Please pass this on as it could eventually have an effect on everyone!
“Occasionally discouragement may darken our pathway; frustration may be a constant companion. In our ears there may sound the sophistry of Satan as he whispers, “You cannot save the world; your small efforts are meaningless. You haven’t time to be concerned for others.” Trusting in the Lord, let us turn our heads from such falsehoods and make certain our feet are firmly planted in the path of service and
our hearts and souls dedicated to follow the example of the Lord.” –Thomas S. Monson
Click Here for excerpts from the Broadcast given by Elders M. Russell Ballard, Quentin L. Cook and L. Whitney Clayton.
A good resource mentioned in the broadcast: www.preservingmarriage.org
October 20th: Last day to apply for an absentee ballot if voting out of state. Click Here to get one.
October 27th: Last day to apply for “Vote by Mail” Click Here for info.
November 4th: Election day. Polls close at 8:00pm. Vote by mail must be received by this time and can be hand delivered if necessary.
YOU’VE BEEN TAGGED…Here’s what you do:
In the broadcast we were asked to “go viral on our blogs, etc” by Elder Ballard. This is my way of going viral. If you feel this is an important issue I ask that you copy and paste this post…and post it on your blog. PLEASE keep it at the top of your blog through November 4th. which you can adjust each time you post under the “edit post” option. The internet knows NO STATE LINE. You know contacts in California that I do not…as do your friends and their friends…and so on. Please do this. If not for your own children and the effect it could have on them some day…for mine! After you have posted this…email this to your contacts and TAG all your blogging buddies to do the same. THANK YOU!
–
Benjamin Patron Villegas
801.472.0065
ibpatronv@yahoo.com
ibpatronv@byu.edu
Stick to your task till it sticks to you;
Beginners are many, but enders are few.
Honour, power, place, and praise
Will come, in time, to the one who stays.
Stick to your task till it stick to you;
Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it too;
For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile
Will come life’s victories, after awhile.
-Anonymous
—————-My Response ————————————–
Ben,
I think I found your links - although the story seems to be a bit different than the one in the story this guy was sent to jail over a book about homosexuality in a book titled “Who’s in a Family?” http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45594 - here is another link about how the supreme court failed to hear the case:
Massachusetts court case: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54420
Supreme court: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77373
And here are some links on the field trip to the wedding:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,436961,00.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/11/MNFG13F1VG.DTL
Today is Blog action day. I can’t remember if I signed up or not, but as I did last year, I figured I’d shoot out a quick post about this year’s topic - Poverty. There are lots of ways that we can help overcome poverty in the world today.
One of the first thoughts I had was a site that I’ve visited a few times, but have yet to try. It is Kiva.org. Kiva allows you to make a “Loan” to an entrepreneur in a 3rd world country. You pick a specific person to loan to, and the loan amount and they pay you back when they succeed. If you invested even $25 (the smallest amount allowed) every quarter, or even every month, my thought is that if/when you get paid back, you can then reinvest that money back to someone else who could use it and that same money would build over time as you invest in more people and you could help a whole bunch of people - and you can see their businesses grow!
Another way to help out poverty in your own area is to do something that we just did recently here at work. A food drive. Its not a new idea but if you can get a group of people to donate a few dollars worth of food you can make a big difference. I know that here in Utah they are needing way more food than they recently anticipated due to the hard economic times. If you are time pressed, the Utah food bank even has a virtual shopping experience where you can donate food or money without even going to the store.
In the Doctrine and Covenants section 104 verses 17 and 84 read:
17 For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
84 Inasmuch as you obtain a chance to loan money by hundreds, or thousands, even until you shall loan enough to deliver yourself from bondage, it is your privilege.
Take a few minutes today and see what you can do to help poverty. Even just a few dollars can go a long way.
Well… Life is just nuts. It always happens like this - you get really really busy, you start to figure things out, and then all of a suddent things go crazy and you just lose control. Well that’s been our life the last couple of months… I’ve got lots of thoughts I’d love to post on, however I don’t know when I’ll take time to type them up. Don’t get me wrong, life is great! I love the twists and turns that happen, and usually they are to help us change our thinking for some reason or another. But sometimes its important to stop running around for a few minutes and reflect on the good things that you have. We have our whole lives to get things done, and if we don’t, then does it really matter what we get done? We need to take time for ourselves and our families and then we will have more energy to ge the things done that we need to. So take some time, right now, and sit back and think a bit about where you are, and how you got there. Then get back to thinking about what you need to do to get to where you want to be!
Ok, so Google created a browser. I haven’t spent a ton of time playing with it, but its worth a look if you haven’t downloaded it yet. It can be downloaded for windows only right now at http://google.com/chrome. Below are my thoughts:
1. It seems to load pages (particularly AJAX based apps) quite quickly.
2. It seems to respond quickly in general as far as switching between tabs and pages and such.
3. I like the tabs in the top bar and not having them take up the normal bar - it made the whole thing seem like it had a lot more space (although I do also have the web developer toolbar taking up a row too…)
4. I need some of my add-ons from Firefox, namely Adblock Plus. I just could not stand to use it for very long for real web searching with all the ads interrupting me…
Overall opinion - I like it but I will wait and let it develop before I think hard about adopting it as my default browser.
Piggybacking on my post from last night I thought I’d share a website that was brought to my attention that I’ve used a bit at work. Its called nowdothis.com The idea behind it is that you go in and setup a list of tasks and it gives you the first task on the list. Its just a blank screen so there is very little distraction. You hit the page and get your task, work on it, and then mark it done and you get the next task. When you’re all finished it has a happy message about being all done! Its quite a simple idea really but it can be a great help to keep reminding me what I’m working on (or supposed to be…). I even experimented with having it in my side bar in firefox but I decided I didn’t need it to be there all the time. The page serves as a great reminder of what I’m supposed to be working on if I think I’m starting to get off track. There is no registration required and I think (not 100% sure) because it uses cookies and javascript you could actually pull it up and then go offline and use it so you could disconnect yourself from the web if that is one of your time sinks. Go ahead and give it a shot!
Tonight I was given a reason not to multi-task and I thought I would share it. See I always have this problem, TONS of things going on all the time in my head. What this usually leads me to do is work on bits and pieces of a bunch of things. I’ve been trying to take some of Leo’s (from Zen Habits), as well as other’s advice and just pick one thing and work on it.
Well tonight this proved useful. Today was actually quite productive as I focused on one thing, got it done, and moved on. I just got back from a computer reset however. This interruption was quite sudden. I guess one of my drivers threw a stop error which shut windows down quick! Well this is where the working on one thing was a great help. First of all I didn’t lose any parts of things I had been working on because as I moved from one project/task to another I uploaded the files to the server. All I would have lost was a few minutes of work - so there was no fear about lost data when it went down. The other thing is I knew exactly what I was doing when it happened. I didn’t have to go open 12 files and remember what I was doing with each one. So, not only does working on one task help you move through your list easier, you have less chance of losing work!
Tonight I was thinking about the word “Tomorrow”. It started because I was going to set some goals for tomorrow. Get up early (4:45am) and get to work being the main one so far. This isn’t going to be easy as its currently 11:30PM… But Tomorrow - there is that word again - is a very busy day, and I need to get up and get going. I have come to find that when I have very busy days, if I get up and seriously get something accomplished in the morning, I have so much more of an effective day. And man do I need effective now! My wife had a kidney stone removed over the weekend and with visits to the doctor and hospital taking up a good portion of the end of the week and the weekend I’m behind at work and in getting things done around the house! So, back to tomorrow - as tomorrow never comes, its not good to say I’ll do it tomorrow, except thats what we do when we are setting goals for the next day. So I wonder if saying I’ll do something tomorrow is not a good idea as it may lead to a procrastination habit. My question then is should I not set goals the night before? I have found that if I have a concrete set of goals the night before I am more likely to get up in the morning than if I just say I’ll get up and get to work - but maybe I should look into finding another solution. For now though, tomorrow is becoming today and I need to get to sleep!
Problems are much easier to solve if you know what the problem is! Tonight I spent a half hour digging out the door frame to our bedroom when the door knob goes in past the plate. It has never latched, and we finally got to a point where shutting our door to keep Jayden out of our stuff would be great. So I finally got to it. I kept digging, putting the plate back on, digging more… so frustraited that it wasn’t working… “IT SHOULD BE WORKING!” was all I could keep thinking. There was no way it needed to be back out that far to close… Turned out that the hole wasn’t too far in, it was too far DOWN! As soon as I noticed that - I measured the height it needed to be, and my now bigger hole was plenty big enough - and boom plate went on, and door closes no problem. Its usually a good idea to step back and look at the problem again if you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Maybe there is a simple solution you just haven’t seen yet!
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