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Ritchie’s First Impressions of Las Vegas

This is my first time in Las Vegas and I’m here with John (also his first time). A few observations that I’d like to document and mention:

1. I’m an early riser that requires coffee to function in a “normal” state. This is bad why? Last night was a long night and I woke up at 5:30am, stumbled my way to the 24 hour Starbucks for an Americano (conveniently located in the Planet Hollywood Casino) and was attacked by a sensory overload of lights and sounds from the casino portion that I had to walk through. Not good since this almost caused me to go into a murderous rampage to all of the casino patrons (who were still drinking and playing - who drinks alcohol at 5:30am, I’ll tell you; alcoholics thats who!)

2. When you’re walking the strip, you can walk in any door and end up in a casino. Which is a pretty obvious fact since we are in Vegas, but you don’t understand. It’s EVERY door!

John: I need to go find a washroom
Me: Hey, look there’s that door with the washroom symbols on it.
John: Ok, let’s go. I really need to go
*Walks through door into the penny slots portion of the casino*
Me: WTF! I don’t think we should be urinating on the slot machines.

3. There is a lot of food to eat here. Not a big deal considering the amount of food that John and I ate seems to be the equivalent to a small supply depot for an army.

John: Dude, check out this muffin!
Me: Holy crap, that thing is huge!
John: It’s like 3 muffins in one! Aaaaaannnnd if you really want to, you can get Prime Rib for breakfast!
Me: Yes, only in Vegas can you get a muffin the portion of a small planet and still get some fatty prime rib steak with au jus made with the fat of angels with it.

4. There are rappers every where. Now generally, I don’t get scared with thugs; I usually socialize very well with people but in Old Vegas at 1am every one seems to be a struggling rapper speaking in that Snoop dogg gansta speak. Thank God John speaks ebonics.

Rapper guy: Yo homeboy, let me holla at you for a bit. Check this track out.
Me: Erm, huh?
John: *whispers* They want you to listen to a CD.
Rapper guy: Yea dog, peep this. *puts headphones on my head and plays distorted rap music*
Me: Oh this is pretty good, who is this?
Rapper guy: Oh thats me (name: Troof Serum) on the track, you like it?
John: *whispers* Don’t say you like it or they’ll ask you to buy it.
Me: Yea, it’s pretty good.
Rapper guy: Well, if you like it; we’ll give you a CD for a small donation. *stares directly into Ritchie’s soul*
Me: *throws 2 bucks* Runs like the dickens, while screaming “please don’t kill me” repeatedly.

Fun yes, but me thinks we’ll be taking the cab instead of walking from now on.

8:43 am 3 Comments

Insert clever title here

Since I find myself struggling to write something significant or even remotely funny, here are a few links that can fill the gap in the meantime.

Hope you like ‘em.

• Urgency is poisonous
• Jott! Get simple back
• Build your library with these 110 books
• Most awesome alarm clock!

I’m going to Las Vegas this weekend for a few days. Any suggestions?

7:35 am 0 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

I think I know everything of what I don’t know

Yesterday, I put together a presentation for my leadership class. It was a riveting presentation about the different stages a person goes through about being self-aware (kinda) taken from a book. At this point, it is also important to note that this is a cycle and a long term process. The stages themselves are pretty self explanatory (please don’t kill me for the rhyming scheme, it’s not mine!):

• I don’t know what I don’t know
• I know what I don’t know
• I grow and know and it starts to show
• I simply go because of what I know

This is fine for most self-motivated people, I think that it is a more or less a pretty standard transition between becoming aware of what you know and need to improve on to implementing what you do learn. However, I think most people get stuck on an “I think I know everything of what I don’t know” stage that really could be a hindrance to their self-development. It’s the stage where a person is thinking that what they know is actually enough and the learning stops. Or worse, they continue on the path being completely unaware of the world around them.

I think it’s a pretty dangerous situation to be in. So how do we avoid it? A few things come to mind.

• Be humble; I think taking the stance that you don’t know everything and there are things that another person can teach you will help in keeping out of this rut.
• Be a bit more proactive; I believe that it is a learning process and this process is circular. By being proactive, you continually search for ways to improve.
• Accept that change will happen; I believe that being more accepting of change is a key attribute. I heard somewhere that change is always a point of pain for people but there is an inherent difference between accepting the pain because you know it’s a good thing versus avoiding it.

Did I miss any?

11:28 am 0 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