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What do I carry around with me?

So I carry around a messenger bag with a combination of stuff in it. I’m curious to hear what other people carry around with them. So to start things off, I thought I’d tell you guys (and gals) what I had in my bag. Don’t worry there isn’t anything nasty in there.

I don’t like heavy bag so I try to carry around a small amount of essentials.

A Moleskine sketch book - not because I like to draw (I consider stick figures and color-by-numbers renaissance art) but I like the paper and I use it for note taking. I tend to take a lot of notes so a small notebook like this works really well. It’s the perfect balance of size and portability. I also have a very specific and particular pen to use with this notebook. I think I might have a notebook and pen fetish.

A dot grid book - I’m working on a project that requires me to document EVERY SINGLE ITEM and action. So I bought me one of these so I can take my project specific notes and any sketches in it without cluttering up the regular Moleskine. So far it has worked really well since the dots tend to keep my writing in place while still offering the fluidness of a regular sketchbook. Did I mention that I’m a stickler for paper? This notebook has excellent paper.

My IBM X30 laptop - God, I love this laptop! It is the lightest. thing. ever. It gives me the ability to take my work around and when I have a longer amount of time at a wifi hotspot/coffee shop I whip it out (the laptop - get your minds out of the gutter) to do some document writing, coding or emailing. Whatever may fancy my interest at that time. My only complaint is that it doesn’t have a trackpad; it has a nubbin’ for the mouse control. Easily remedied by the wireless kensington mouse that I also carry around. Oh yea, it gets a bit hot. Hot enough to burn a laptop shaped patch of my leg hairs.

The IPhone - An mp3 player, a portable media player, a calendar and, of course, a phone. I carry my music and my audiobooks in it for times that I need to distract myself from work (or life). I carry around two movies: Intolerable Cruelty and Thank you for smoking. Two movies that I can just listen to as background because of the awesome dialog. So yea! Screw you Rogers! I already have one!

So how about you? What do you carry inside your bag?

6:08 am 3 Comments

Insomnia

I’m obviously still struggling to fight this insomnia. I can’t believe that I started this day at 4:30am and I’m still awake at 1:30am (the next day). Warm milk doesn’t work with me because my body doesn’t tolerate lactose. Sleeping pills are a pain and generally have worse effects on me the next day.

I suppose I could just lay off the insane amounts of caffeine but that just wouldn’t be as fun. What do you people do to combat insomnia?

ps. I’m trying put the whole Google Ad thingy.

2:42 am 3 Comments

Roy Jones Jr. who?

There were a lot of funny little things that came out of the Las Vegas trip but I think that this will probably be the last post about it. Cause you know, what happens there apparently stays there.

Anyway, John is a big boxing event fan (along with most of my friends). I, on the other hand, don’t really watch sports. The ongoing joke is “Hey Ritchie! Can you name 5 hockey players?” to which I respond by listing every single fashion brand “Dolce, Gabana, and LV”. Bottomline Ritchie is NOT a sports guy and John is.

We were walking through the casino maze looking for the Spice Market Buffet when John stopped dead in his tracks. He apparently saw Roy Jones Jr. playing craps.

John: Dude! Is that Roy Jones Jr?! He’s playing Craps man! I want a picture. Is that him?!
Ritchie: Who the heck is Roy Jones Jr.?
John: You know the boxer? I think there was a fight here a few days ago. Dude let’s go get a picture
Ritchie: Sorry man, I wouldn’t even know. Which one? That dude at the end of the table?
John: Yea man! OMFG! It’s Roy Jones Jr. Dude, get your iPhone out and take a picture.
Ritchie: Erm, you’re not even sure if it’s him. I don’t wanna get punched out by some boxer dude.

* at this point a bunch of blinged out rapper dudes pass by in the hallway and John decides to elicit their opinion *

John (to rapper dudes): Hey man, is that Roy Jones Jr?
Rapper dude: *looks* Yea man, that’s definitely Roy Jones Jr. lemme go holla at that.

* at which point all of them start making their way to the craps table get his autograph and play craps with him *

Ritchie: Who the heck is Roy Jones Jr. ?!

10:06 pm 2 Comments

Get ‘er done

Getting things done, the methodology of organizing your to-do’s, is an interesting system. It’s advocated by many different people and used by even more people. A lot of different developers and managers advocate the system because it deals with the question of “stuff”.

Without getting into the tinier details of it, the system advocates organizing your to-do list by project and context. The general idea is that you organize your to-do’s with regards to where you are or what you might be doing. For example, if you need to make a phone call to Natalie your to-do might look like “@phone Call Natalie (604-555-9923).” So when you’re in a place where you can make a phone call you bring up your @phone list and viola!

Of course, the assumption is that you take your lists with you (either by lo-fi organizer or PDA) so when the context comes up, you’ll have your list available and ready. The ultimate goal being like the ready state in martial arts, always ready to pounce and react.

I find the system itself fascinating but the it is obviously dependent on how you organize your contexts. So here is a question that I pose to the GTD’ers out there: How do you organize your contexts or maybe give some example of the different contexts that you use?

1:21 pm 2 Comments

It’s a hierarchy: caffine, ephedrine… crystal meth!

I’m sure you blog people have seen the article explaining how to use caffeine effectively.

As a person who enjoys the ‘benefits’ on a daily hourly basis, I just wanted to explain how the hierarchy worked. If you’re not tired and you need a quick boost, then it’s coffee. If you’re starting to get tired and need a bigger boost then you need ephedrine. If you’re fatigued and need to be wired for days, then you need crystal meth*.

* We here at macapinlac.com don’t condone the use of drugs of any kind. Well, except for coffee, which we love, and will kill your kittens for it.

6:45 pm 1 Comment