Work Jams

You like music, right? I mean, who doesn't? Music is great in the car, at home, at a party, at a bbq, while shopping, while eating. It's great anytime! It is even great at work. The problem at work is that you have to play nice with your co-workers and not distract them, so you have to wear headphones of some sort so you don't interfere with their productivity. My main problem with headphones is that I don't want to know that I'm wearing them. I don't want to feel them over my ears, and I definintly don't want to remember they are on by a sudden jerk when I try to go past the cable's length. Of course you can use wireless headphones, but ideally I could just jam "out loud" so I didn't have to shell out money for a nice pair.

What I want is music piped throughout my work space. It would be awesome to have a daily playlist (and I don't mean like the radio) to work to. I want to share the musical experience with my cube neighbors and be energized or relaxed through my ears. I want to be able to stand up and take a dance break to a good beat without getting my head jerked back. Being open to all kinds of music, I'd also like to know what my co-workers like to listen to just to switch it up.

Taking it one step further into less realistic territory, an out-of-the-box corporate benefit would be to hire a private DJ for the company. I can't take credit for this idea, Ryan actually mentioned it first. It's a fun concept though, and it could be personalized by mixing employee favorites. Until then, or until I get wireless headphones, I'll be getting whiplash.

Poof! Bluetooth

Bluetooth: useful technology with a lot of potential.
Problem: the average non-techy Joe is easily caught up in some of the hazy workings of Bluetooth (see the RadioShack commercial).

Scenario: you run out to fight with the shopping crowds to grab the great deals. You snatch some $9.99 Bluetooth headset/$100 Bluetooth headphones/$40 Bluetooth keyboard. You bring it home, open the packaging and attempt to read through the directions. They say to charge the device for 2 hours (damn impatience!). You watch the blue/green/red light as the energy flows. It's done! Then the instructions say hold down the big button, flip the doohicky up and down three times, and sing row, row, row your boat until a light blinks morris code in various colors. You make a mistake and sing Mary had a little lamb instead and you get an f-you beep from the device. You end up feeling like you just lost a game of Technology Twister. So you go through the steps again and sing the correct song: it's visible now! So you grab your laptop/cellphone/PDA and try to search for your new toy only to find out that the blue light doesn't mean that your laptop has Bluetooth/your cellphone doesn't support some A2DP thing (wtf?), and you have to type some magical passcode on both your keyboard and PDA and then hope that they dig each other just one of the times that you run through the steps.

Holy crap, you just wanted to get rid of a wire! Your new toy to help simplify your life has just given you the gift of a migraine and doubt that technology is really on our side.

Never fear young grasshopper! Bluetooth is not perfect, but not much is. Look at history, most technologies had their bumps in the beginning and the ones that got it together moved past that. The Bluetooth SIG has been working hard at improving the user experience including icons (again, not a perfect solution in my opinion, but a step), and working on simple pairing techniques.

In my opinion, the simple pairing would make the experience worlds better. Imagine not having to know anything about Bluetooth, nothing about profiles, not having to push and hold and wait, and blink, but instead taking your new, exciting toy, turning it on, and with maybe a simple push or touch, Poof! Bluetooth. *Sigh* what a wonderful world it would be. Until then, practice your right hand on red button twister move.

Poof! Skills

Have you ever wished you could just snap your fingers and gain knowledge or skills for something? Well this evening I had a similar experience, but from a different perspective. I had the pleasure of going to my cousin's elementary school orchestra concert... ouch my ears. Honestly, it was better than I expected, but I still had the urge to be able to wave my hands and magically make them sounds less painful.

I can distantly relate it to times when I've stood witness to someone doing something for the first time, and see them struggle like a child learning to walk. I know I can't just do it for them, they have to learn, but there is still that urge deep down inside that just wants to at least show them how easy it will be once they learn it.

Another example is my mom and ebay. She's used ebay to buy things several times and now she wants to start selling things. I haven't actually done this myself, but I know it isn't that hard. However, she has herself convinced that it will be complicated and that makes it sort of scary, as in right before you jump into a pool and find out if it's cold or not. She has even bugged me repeatedly to convince my good friend Aaron (ebay whore enthusiast) if he will sell her stuff for her. Now at first he considered it, but after we pondered a bit, we both realized that this is definitely something that she needs to do herself; a character building experience if you will.

This got me thinking about how one could make those firsts in life easier. There are things that help like having an older sibling or a friend that has done something give you tips or let you know what to expect. With so many things posted online these days, it's pretty easy to research stuff before you have to do it. But what about the things that aren't covered by these aids? Well after about 5 minutes of concentrated thought, I have decided that there shouldn't be a "safe" way all of the time. In fact I identified situations where I was nervous or unsure and paused for sometime to worry about it and that made it more thrilling, think of the slow ride up to the top of a roller coaster (worst part of the whole ride). Once I actually started in on my "first" it was more fun and more satisfying.

So while sometimes I may wish to be able to make someone more improved to save my ears, I have also decided that it may not always be a good thing to have a magic wand that I could wave and go Poof! skills.

Tails up tip

I love to dance. Performing, social, club, whatever, I love it. What I would like to focus on tonight is social dancing. For those of you who don't have experience with this, social dancing in my dictionary is basically ballroom/latin/country dancing with either digital music or a live band. There are usually a lot of people of varying skill levels and it's a great time. There is also something called dance etiquette, and that folks, is the topic in question.

There are few things that can put a damper on my evening of dance. Being sick is one of them, a smokey is another, but the biggest thorn in my side is when people don't at least have some personal awareness of their actions. This may not be their fault or these poor souls may need some guidance, so I have a nice list of etiquette rules to help you continue dancing and making friends.

1. Freshen your breath.
Everyone gets cotton-mouthy after dancing for hours, so after you've eaten, if you smoke, if you've been dancing awhile, do your partner a favor and take a second to prevent them from holding their breath the whole dance.

2. Know your skill level.
I honestly love dancing with beginners. They tend to be timid and may step on my feet frequently, but how else are they going to learn, but by dancing? I honestly love dancing with experienced dancers. They can give me that yummy feeling that only some higher level moves can give. I honestly hate dancing with people who think they are at a much higher level than they are. Everyone makes mistakes and I, nor anyone else, am perfect, but just because you learned some cool move at a workshop, does NOT mean that you know how to lead it, and just because I didn't do what the dancer in you head was supposed to do does NOT mean that I didn't follow what you lead.

3. Do not teach your partner a new move on the dance floor during a social unless you are asked.
Maybe they don't want to do the sequence you learned with a flick because they don't want to look stupid like you do (ok that one was pretty harsh, but deal). If you lead something I don't know and I want to learn it, I will ask you. If I don't ask, don't do it again. Simple.

4. If you need to count the beats, count to yourself and make sure you're counting on time.
I understand that many people have a hard time counting music and learning to dance to it. What I don't understand is how saying the counts very loudly and blowing them into your partners face (even worse if you haven't followed tip #1) makes you dance on time. Maybe it helps you dance on your own personal beat, but most likely you're counting so loud that you can't hear the beat of the music you're counting to. Just keep the numbers to yourself. If you're lucky, the people in your head will help you out. You can also admit that you need some help and ask your partner for guidance. Use this if the people in your head are on break.

5. Keep the free styling to a minimum.
This is a hard one for most. You only know a few steps in the dance, but you have previous dance experience or just like to get your groove on, so you want to break into some freestyle when you run out of moves. Personally, unless I am good friends with you or am trying to help you feel less self confident, stick to the basics. I would much rather do a basic step the whole dance than have to fake enjoying you shimmy. Exception: merengue <--- do pretty much whatever the hell you want here.

6. Don't critique.
Unless you are paying a compliment after the song ends, keep your trap shut. This goes along with tip #3. Socials are for fun, not for being an ass. You may think you're helping, but in reality you are just less likely to get to dance with that person again.

7. Thank your partner.
Whether it was good or bad, you don't have to say, but you can gain points by simply thanking the person for the dance and not risk building a bad reputation.

8. Assume the worst at first.
If you're dancing with someone for the first time, assume that they are a beginner, or even better ask them what level they feel comfortable dancing. Then slowly add more difficult moves as you go along until you get an idea of what steps they can handle (<-- leaders. followers, you just follow). If you use this technique you'll never make a fool of yourself.

9. Learn to navigate.
Traffic can be as bad as L.A. so do your best to navigate even if it means doing more basic steps. This will mean less collisions and less bruises for the follower which makes for a happy follower.

10. Don't grope (leaders and followers).
Guys tend to be the offenders more often because they tend to have better access. Just remember guys, if you violate this too many times, you'll get an "accidental" bloody lip the next time the lady's elbow is free, and for me too many times is 1.5 and I have good aim.

There are a few other things that could be mentioned here, but if you can handle these ten you can pick up on the rest.

Poof! List

This is the first of what will probably be a series of posts. I'm going to call it the Poof! Series. I have found that there are several things that should just happen to make life easier or more seamless and I will post them as they come to me.

One area I want improvement in is using lists. I have gotten better at keeping lists of things that I need and organizing them by store, but my problem is that I always forget to bring the list(s) with me. Not very useful... I either forget it at home when I leave, or don't even have it with me when I have time to run errands. We already have ways to create and manage lists efficiently and they can even be sent to our mobile units. So what more can I want? Smart lists! I want my mobile unit (phone, PDA, whatever) to be able to tell which store I just walked into and from that, bring up items from my list(s) that I can purchase there. What would be even better is if it could also display the prices of those items in the store or even the aisle it was located in!

How awesome would that be to walk into Target and have your phone display your list?

Paper towels $1.99 aisle 5
Toothpaste $2.49 aisle 9
lamp shade $2.99 aisle 21
puffs $1.99 aisle 5

(as you can tell, I would probably not be good on the Price is Right)

If it's doing this much already, why not have it sort the list by location so I don't have to go back to aisle five 20 times to get all of my paper products? Ooo I'm getting goosebumps!

As an incentive for the stores, maybe they could throw in related items that I might want to buy just like ads anywhere else we go nowadays.

In future revisions of this application of technology, I would like to see price comparisons done using the current store you are in and other stores that you frequent. This would be a great way to make buying essentials less tedious and Poof! have a useful list.

This post was brought to you by the Poof! Series.

OMB... you'll get it

This takes iPod accessories to a whole new level. Oh the random stuff you find on the internet :)

Do you SIP?

One of the topics that always tends to come up in work conversations is how much phone, internet, and cable providers charge for their services. I'm not a fan of paying a lot for these services, and phones are a big thorn in my side. Having had a particularly unpleasant experience with Qwest (MN) two years ago, I decided that I didn't need to even think about a land line until I moved into a more permanent dwelling, aka house. Right now I just use my cell phone for my limited amount of calls, but the problem is that my number is not local to where I live. Great for my parents, not for my friends and family who actually live near me. With this in mind, the only real benefit from getting a land line now is to be nice to other people and there is no way I'm going to pay a monthly bill to a phone company just to be nice; sorry guys.

So what has caught my eye? More and more VoIP services have sprung up as a great alternative to your standard phone options. You can get Vonage for about $20/mo which isn't too bad, but still not good enough for me to hop on. Skype also offers a pretty good deal for SkypeIn and SkypeOut is free which means you could choose to only pay a monthly fee for incoming calls made on land lines. A few of the concerns are that it's still only in beta and I haven't been super impressed by their computer to computer service, although not deterred by it either.

Today I read about the Gizmo project and this sounds promising. It does have a per minute charge of $0.01 cent for out going calls to land lines, but their incoming calls are a slightly cheaper than Skype if you pay for a year. The niceties include being able to call 60 different countries (Skype only does US and Canada), it's compatible with GoogleTalk, and it has this Area775 option. I've only looked into the 775 thing enough to know that I probably won't need it, but it seems like it could be useful for a small or home business. It allows you to be reached through your computer or "real" phone and can be switched (for a fee) during the call. You can also get a fax number and screen your calls, features that Skype is lacking as far as my minimal digging has shown.

While I don't intend to try any of these tools out right now, you can be sure that I'll be keeping my eye on them to see where they go.

Lego my Bluetooth

Everyone's favorite lifelong toy LEGO has made a cool announcement. They have added Bluetooth for LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT! I would love to get my hands into this and play around. The little demo robot kind of looks like Number 5 which is also appealing :). I could use a sidekick don't you think? Oh the temptation!

Bringing Up Baby

I found this link about taking your child to work while I was flipping through my Gmail random links. It isn't really what I expected, but I got to wondering how many people actually take their children to work, even for "Take your child to work day". I remember going a few times with my dad to work, and if I went with my mom, well I got to go down to our basement since she worked from home. It seemed more like and excuse for some kids to get out of school, but under the right circumstances, I think it could benefit older kids to see what their parents do and what working could be like.

I don't know if I would bring any of my (future) children to work with me, or if they would even be interested, but if others out there do, what do you do with them? Do you treat it like they're shadowing you doing your job? Do you use it as an excuse to not do work? Do they get to sit in your office or cube all day entertaining themselves? I almost think that "Take your child to work day" has been moved into middle school or high school where kids can job shadow someone for a day, but then it's more like "Send your child to someone else's work day". It seems like bringing your child to work may be frowned upon at most middle to large companies, but maybe some still see a benefit in it.

Resources

The recent desk upgrade and interest in making large purchases (bike, MacBook Pro, house) spurred me to start keeping track of my finances in a way that I could forecast and see what I was spending money on each month. I have a copy of Microsoft Money so I chose to use that. So far it seems like a typical Microsoft product. It has a lot of features that I most likely will never use, the basic tools to input individual income and expenses are easy, but when you start to use the budgeting, forecasting, and reporting tools along with automatic downloads, glitches tend to happen. For example, I setup my online banking and credit accounts so Money can automatically download my statements each month. This worked well, and other than having my 'Payee' and 'Memo' fields flipped, I was pretty happy with the ease of the task. Then I started to set up my budget information including recurring bills and income. Then Money asked me if I wanted to have my taxes tracked to get an estimate for this years taxes. I thought, why not? It would be handy to know approximately how much I would have to pay or would get back. So I grabbed my latest pay stub, input my gross income, pre-tax deductions, taxes, and post-tax deductions, click and done. Then I go back to the main line item list and hover over my latest paycheck item... Click: would you like to add this as a recurring item? Um... I thought I just did, but sure I guess. Rinse and repeat. Go back to the budget page. What happened to my income (input twice already)? Geez I guess I have to do it again! Third time through the process. Now I go to the budget area and I have three recurring income items! Well isn't that special? Microsoft thought that I should be getting paid triple, what a tease. Once that got cleared up things moved a bit faster. One thing I did like in particular was that you can add financial goals to your budget and set dates for them. So I added in things like "bike", "house", and "Europe trip with Wendy and Brad" then I set dates ranging from now to three years from now.

I'm still sifting out which tools I want to really use and which ones are just fluff to me, but the ability to automatically download my statements shows much promise for continued use.

Hungry for travel

About a month ago I got to go on an awesome trip to Europe courtesy of my mom. We traveled to Austria (Vienna and Salzburg) and the Czech Republic (Prague and Klatovy/Pilzen). There are a few things I don't like about traveling, mainly long flights and stupid American tourists, but even those downsides can't overshadow the thrill of getting lost in another culture and coming back to tell everyone about it. There are too many details to tell the whole trip here, but I can spare some highlights and some pictures. I can't say that I have one favorite place or event from this trip, but one of the most thrilling things for me is navigation. Just getting from place to place, finding travel options and blending in with "the locals". Give me a map and a list of places you want to see and I'm happy. Both Vienna and Prague were very easy to get around in. They had plenty of restaurants, history filled buildings, and "government buildings" according to my mom. If you're looking for hot European shopping, Vienna is most definitely NOT the place to go. With my mother in that city for 5 days, we found no good shopping areas and that is impressive. Prague however had tons of places if you're looking for either cheap touristy knick knacks or beautiful crystal or garnets.

An insightful thing to think about is how you deal with pictures while traveling. Are you the type that wants to take a picture of everything even if you don't know what it is, or won't remember what it was when you get home? Or are you the type that prefers to enjoy the moment and then hopes that someone else got a picture of where you were? I definitely fall into the latter until I get home and try describing the trip to people and have few visual aids. Then I wish I were more of the former. I was somewhat lucky in that the three other people I was traveling with on this trip all took pictures of everything, so eventually I could have pictures of everything times three.

In summary, I make a good, cheap tour guide... hire me for your next trip! Just make sure to hire someone else as a photographer.

Here are some pictures from this adventure:

Me and Amy in Grinzing, Austria with the Lamm sign














St. Stephans Church in Vienna















Charles Bridge seen from Prague Castle














Changing of the Prague Castle guard (in the pouring rain)

How I got my groove back

I sit in front of a computer on a desk for work, so if I'm going to come home and do something on my computer I sure don't want a crappy little desk to greet me. The previous desk I used had barely enough surface space to put my monitor and keyboard on and had legs held on partially by the cardboard backing tacked onto them and the back of the top. I finally found a desk that would work well for my activities, computer and non, that didn't cost $200! I have plenty of room for my monitor, keyboard, mouse, picture frames, and open space for projects. I was so excited to have a desk I wanted to be at that I started using Microsoft Money to keep track of my finances (description in a future post), and once I finally have all of my odds and ends in their places, I'll be using the open desk area to frame one of my pictures from my trip to Europe (also in another post). As poor of an excuse as it may sound, my previous desk was a large factor in why I didn't use my home computer as often, and hence, haven't posted here for a long time.

For anyone who may be interested in purchasing the desk linked from this post, good luck. Because it was such a good deal through Staples, all resources have been exhausted. I got very lucky and found the last one from the second Staples store I tried and they are out of stock online. If you do find one, I highly recommend it.

If I scrunch up my cord and let go...

a bunch of posts come out all at once. Let's skip the part where I admit that I suck for not posting in a long time. Weather does funny things to people. It can create allergy problems, it can lift peoples' spirits, and apparently it encourages some people to smoke more often and with large quantities of other smokers.

I have been riding the bus now for several months and there is only one building standing between the bus depot and where I work. I can either go through the entry way (great for cold days) or walk around the outside (great for enjoying the weather). During the cold months there would sometimes be one, maybe two, people shivering outside having a hit of nicotine by the door. Now that the weather has changed to favor more outside activities, smoking has become the popular outside activity for this building. What makes it worse for me is that not only is there a large quantity of smokers outside when I walk by, but both of my potential walking routes are blocked by at least three cloud sources. I also love the section of a conversation I overheard as I ran by the outside pack of polluters. Smoker A asked if Smoker B was ready to go in yet and Smoker B proudly responded, "No, I like to stay out here until the very last minute. I'm a chain smoker you know." Fantastic for you, and thank you so much for sharing bits your addiction with me. Why can't they have those smoking booths like in the airports for outside areas too? They can still get their hits and hang with their friends, but I wouldn't have to practice speed walking while holding my breath.

Help me Obi-Wan!

I have been to several seminars, workshops, and training sessions in my short life and I've often wondered how much other people get out of going to them and why they go in the first place. My experience ranges from a few hours, or one day of learning, on up to 12 weeks and while I tend to remember going to the longer ranging sessions more easily, I don't always remember the material I learned from them. I've participated in these events because I've been given the opportunity, someone else has suggested it, I wanted to, and various other flavors of reasons.

Here are three that I remember the most:

My first memorable seminar experience was with the Dale Carnegie weekly training classes. I remember them being very good, but I was 16 and I have forgotten some of the finer details. I still think that we get dumber as we get older, so I probably understood much more about what we were practicing than I do now. Our sessions focused mostly on improving our understanding of point of view and how to improve our situations by knowing how to interact with people in a way that will lead to positive results. I think this is a fantastic use of knowledge and extremely enlightening when you look at a situation from a different perspective. You can start to understand why people do things that seem utterly stupid or illogical.

My next "top pick" was actually a class I took in college based on ToC, or Theory of Constraints. For those of you who like logic and are interested in some concrete guidelines on how to use it in everything from your kids to running a company, this would be a great source. It teaches how to "map" out problems and "break" them, how to help prevent problems by stepping through potential negative outcomes, and how to solve chronic, or recurring problems that have been around too long.

My most recent experience was with IMS, the Institute for Management Studies. This was only a one day seminar, but it still ranks high on my list. A lot of it's ranking may have to do with the recent time frame, but it still impressed me enough to be excited about going to another seminar through this group sometime. This particular seminar was called The Art of Listening, the Power of Speaking. Listening! Who would have thought that it could be so important. Sometimes it helps to just have someone clear away the clutter of everyday life and point out the obvious.

One thing that I can say from a personal point of view is that even if you don't remember everything from each workshop, seminar, or class you take, it still leaves an impression on you if you're willing to let it. Somehow it changes or shapes you and only those who pay close attention will notice it if you don't let them in on your secret.

If you happen to be interested in any of the three "helpers" I briefed about above I have books from all of them. I may have to dig a little for certain ones, but feel free to benefit from my library. Also, let me know why you have or have not gone to something similar before and how much you really get out of them.

Just Ride It

Today I embarked on a mini adventure... riding via the public transportation system a.k.a. the bus! This post will function as both a story about my experience and some tips beyond what the website tells you.

Here begins my story: The closest bus stop listed to my apartment is about a 2-3 block walk, really not bad at all. The part about it that I wasn't excited about was that it's listed at the corner of two relatively busy streets for morning commuters. This would have been drastically less overwhelming if there had been a distinct sign that said "bus stop", however, there was nothing. I first thought that the stop might be further down away from the busy intersection, so I started walking hoping to find something, anything. Alas, there was nothing to comfort my worries that I would start the day pissing off the bus driver by waving him/her down at the wrong spot. Of course in my eagerness to not miss the bus I also arrived early to the stop which compounded my worries about the bus being late or completely skipping by my stop if it wasn't frequently used or called in ahead of time. As I later found out, the bus may be a FEW minutes late, but they don't skip stops.

At last! I saw my bus coming down the street that intersected the one I was standing on. Now my anxiety spiked, fearing that I would get passed for not being at the right pick up location or, even worse, getting yelled at! So I stuck out my arm as confidently as I could make it seem and to my great relief the bus's flashers came on and I was aboard. Now for the apologies... none needed! As I found out on the rest of my trip, the buses will stop pretty much anywhere they get flagged down within reason. In fact there were several people who were picked up nowhere near any bus sign that I could see. The driver was quite talkative and the ride was quite pleasant.

While on my trip downtown, there were only a maximum of 6 people on the bus at one time. I asked the driver if it was ever very busy and his response was that depending on the time of day, the buses that went to the mall and to Wal-mart were usually the busiest. The total trip took me about half an hour including time spent waiting at the invisible bus stop.

For the return trip I arrived a bit early again to purchase a 10-Ride Pass. This allows me to ride 10 times and doesn't expired. There is also a 31 day pass, but that would expire after 31 days. I boarded at the Transit Center or GTC. There were several people waiting for buses, but it was definitely not crowded. I had a different driver on the way home and there were a maximum of 4 passengers, including me, on the way back. If you would prefer to wait on the bus, make sure to go out right when it arrives in case the driver goes in side for a bit. Most people seemed to stay inside or on the "on deck" area to wait for the driver to come back.

The other perk that I found was getting dropped off. Whenever you want to get off you just press the "tape" shown in the picture to signal for a stop. The bus will then stop at the next intersection or wherever is most convenient. Overall my experience was positive and I think I'll continue to ride the bus downtown when I don't have other errands to run.








Below are some extras to help encourage you to try the bus:

1. If you don't have a pass, be sure to have a dollar bill or change ready when you get on the bus. You can't get change so make sure that you have exactly one dollar.
2. Sometimes public transit can be nerve racking especially if you don't know what to expect from the other people riding. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the people on my route were using the bus to get to work or school and most worked downtown including City Hall and the ARC. Everyone seemed to have a friendly relationship with the other riders and greeted each other as they got on.
3. I know the picture is fuzzy, but I saw this sign inside the bus. It advertises that you can get a free ride home on the bus if you show your receipt for $15 or more from Hy-Vee. If you're interested, take advantage of this!
4. Benefits! Not only does riding the bus help decrease the number of cars polluting, you don't have to worry about traffic, you can read, listen to music, or entertain yourself while riding, and you get the awesome experience of seeing life through interactions with and observations of the new people you meet.

I hope this long tale encourages you to try the bus at least once and helps calm concerns. Questions? Go for it.

New Year, New Life

Aaron requested info about my first week of work. Well I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you :). To sum it up in a nutshell, I like work a lot more than school, which is good since I'll be working for a good chunk of my life. I enjoy having evenings and weekends instead of days that just blur together, and I can't help but gloat about how lucky I landed myself. The one main thing that I miss is the company. Now that I have free nights and weekends (that was for you Aaron), everyone except Jordan doesn't, or they are somewhere other than CR. The atmosphere is much different from my last four years, so it will probably take me a few weeks to adjust and find my groove again. In the mean time I will keep myself entertained by finding random things like my night-vision binoculars while sifting keepers from Goodwill donations. And just to clarify to the rest of the world who has not already asked me, no I will not be buying a new car or a house, however a new winter coat and possibly a MacBook Pro may be in my future...