Weeks 50 and 51 and 52 (Final)

Sunday afternoon (final) - So a whole 52 weeks of this experiment has concluded and it kind of felt like it fell apart there at the end. Life threw me for some loops and sometimes I rebounded well, other times I just jumped off the wagon. For chores, for sure. For diet, definitely for sure. Final tally on this three-part week was 449 tasks when normally I would have liked to have had about 200 per week or 600 complete. Let's see if we can do better next week. One part is definitely making sure to document each day, something I slacked quite a bit at there at the end. Ben put himself to bed and took a nap this afternoon so I took advantage of the sunny/rainy (it couldn't decide) afternoon and pulled out the mower and mowed all four lawns, the edger and edged two of the lawns and a rake to rake at the moss. Definitely need to get fertilizer and moss killer. Also trimmed some bushes and pulled some weeds and turned over some of the bark. The yard doesn't look as improved as I wish it did for the work I did, but it also wasn't a lot of work, but still felt good to be out there doing work. Hopefully in time we can get it back on track for this summer (last year was kind of lost) and eventually we won't be the reason none of the neighbors ever worry if they have the worst looking yard on the block.

Friday evening - I realized tonight the significance of this being week 52 - that means I'm a year into the experiment. That said, it's another failure of a week. All heck broke loose this week. There was temporary insanity at work and I thought I was going to have to go find a new job. It was so bad that it made me sick to the point that I stayed home sick on Wednesday. Things righted themselves, but the damage was done, I'd kind of blown off this week, too. le sigh. Oh, and I got addicted to 2048. Like seriously addicted. Like I can't stop playing. Like I went to get the link to put in this article and almost stopped and played a game mid-sentence. If I could play this on my phone, all hope would be lost. Also, my diet has filed for divorce. I cheated on it so bad today, so blatantly, so obviously, rubbed its face in it. You don't want to know, you don't want to know.

Monday afternoon - The first of its kind, a three-week (or possibly four-) accounting. So I've gotten into the habit of using Remember the Milk consistently to make sure I'm getting stuff done. What I have not been consistent in is actually doing stuff, or planning for stuff. I've slacked. I think I need to recommit to a daily check-in to make sure I'm being at least consistent. Walked 2.8 miles today, read from Starters. Did not get up early enough to do any free step before work. 296 completed so far - goal is 400. (Will get more done tonight.)

Thursday evening - This has been an off two weeks. Lori and I were talking about that tonight. We're not sure why, but things have just not been normal, whatever that means. Unless it's a new normal. Not sure. Either way, it's way too late at night for me to still be up considering the poor sleep we've had the last few nights. 222 completed this week - 26 per day to hit 300.

Monday evening - Got a lot done today. Caught up on a bunch of stuff. So if my goal was 200 in one week, I think it's going to be a stretch to get to 300 in two weeks (yes, last week was that bad).  152 completed, 25 per day to hit 300.

Reading - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (Susan Cain)

Sunday evening - This was a week of stuff that wasn't exactly the type of stuff you put on a to do list, but stuff that threw me way off course all week long. Frustrating to be so far off course. The stuff itself wasn't necessarily frustrating (though some was) but I really feel like a need some time off after this week and weekend.

Wednesday evening - Been too busy lately to pay too much attention to this, and too many surprises that don't make good to-do list items. Way behind.

Monday evening - I feel like I'm going to be hard-pressed to get 200 items done this week. Another day with less done than I'd hoped. (165 to go, 28 per day to hit 200.)

Sunday evening - I started the new week later than I had originally intended. I got in a run (first in a long time) and also discovered, diagnosed and ordered parts for a leaking washing machine. So I got less done than I'd hoped, but I think I can still get there. (188 to go, 27 per day to hit 200)

Book Review: Enclave

Enclave (Razorland Trilogy) by Ann Aguirre

In the world of Enclave, we find a society made up of groups of children and young adults, living underground in subway tunnels, after something has happened to mankind. A rule-and-order based society, they trade with their nearest neighbors and hunt in the tunnels for food. Life is hard, death is a constant threat and most don't make it - the oldest in their tribe is 25 years old.

There is also the threat from "freaks" - zombie-like adults who want to kill and eat them. The exact nature of the calamity that has befallen the planet isn't known, this is just the world they know. Eventually, a group is forced to leave the relative safety of their enclave to travel above ground - a world populated mostly be gangs who are pretty violent.

Enclave doesn't specifically identify its location (that I can recall) until near the end, except to say that it's a U.S. city, but I couldn't help feel like it would be at home in the Enemy universe, only a slightly more sanitized version. Enclave is tamer. Not boring, but a little calmer, a little less stressful, a little less fearful. And I'm fine with that. I'm curious to see how the rest of the trilogy pans out.


Enclave (Amazon.com)

Feed Sift (03/28/2014)

Here's five things I've found recently that I wanted to share...

-1-

LIFEHACKER -- How to Get Better Sleep (and Need Less Every Night) - though I must be doing it wrong.

-2-

ANDY SERNOVITZ -- How many people DIDN'T hear about it? - just another example of Google being evil. Or at least short-sighted and stupid.

-3-

GOOGLE -- Bring a little something extra to Docs and Sheets with add-ons

-4-

NY TIMES -- What You Learn in Your 40s - she says there are no grownups. I still think grownups are people taller than me who wear dress clothes.

-5-

ENGADGET -- This list is brought to you by 25 years of the world wide web

Aspirational/Future Customers (A Work-Related Post)

I receive a number of emails from companies I've never purchased from, at least online. Companies I'd like to purchase from or companies I intend to someday purchase from. With all the information available, these companies know (or should know) that I have yet to make a purchase. Like Pottery Barn - if I've purchased from Pottery Barn, it was probably around the time of our wedding.  Oh, wait, yes, I do remember standing at the counter watching purchases being wrapped, boxed and bagged. Ah, so long ago. I always loved going in there, but the items I could afford and the items I wanted were usually on different sides of the store.

So if I get your emails every week and I open them all at least once, but if I rarely ever click through, that should tell you something.  I am an "aspirational fan" - something about your brand resonates with me, even if I haven't yet made a purchase. This holds true whether you're Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Tesla, Harley-Davidson or the Humane Society.

We already know that emails drive offline purchasing and that most people will not subscribe to multiple emails in a vertical. (If I'm receiving emails from The Home Depot, I'm not subscribed to Lowes or TrueValue emails.)

And yet (to pick on Pottery Barn), there's nothing much to suggest that the email I receive is tailored for me. It feels like a batch-and-blast. It could be that they don't have enough click data or purchasing data to customize the email, but it doesn't feel like that's the case. (Sadly, this is often the case - email is successful enough that it's hard to justify, or get the headcount, to do more specific targeting.)

But if I'm continuing to engage by receiving and opening your email, I'm the perfect person to do experiments on. Offer smaller items with lower price points. Try to get me to engage with you on social media. Run a contest where I could win something off my wish list if I make a wish list. (And my chances increase if I get others to make wish lists.) Big, bold experiments to try to get me to engage deeper so that someday I do become a regular customer, a deeply engaged customer, a brand ambassador.

Book Review: The Happiness Code

The Happiness Code by Amy Herrick

This is an interesting book I can't recommend. From time to time, I find that I can't recommend a book that I've read, sometimes after only reading a short bit, other times having invested the effort to make it to the end. It didn't take a lot of effort here, I kept reading, even at the expense of sleep some nights, so I've been trying to figure out for a few days why I wouldn't recommend it.

The Happiness Code takes place a few days or years in the future, which leads to this weird sense that things are almost as they are, except a little different. Like moving to a new state. Little things like the names of phones ("voicelink" and "pocketlink") or how garbage is collected (you put it "laser bins" on the curb and the "laser truck" comes and picks it up - essentially a guy in a truck that incinerates the garbage as he goes - messy, dirty, unhealthy work but apparently a technological advance from garbage collection). This slightly, but only slightly, futuristic world allows the story to be told of a mad scientist who finds an interesting connection between a genetic condition no one is studying (even though everyone who has it dies by the age of 25) and happiness (everyone with this genetic condition seems to be very happy). His aim, naturally, is to separate what causes people to be happy from the part that causes them to die young.

Sadly, (for him), the work is shut down because he's doesn't necessarily follow all the rules and laws when it comes to his sciencing. One of his staff takes advantage of the situation to get ahold of some of the work and then convinces a coworker to become a sperm donor and she has a baby who's always very happy. When she's killed, the sister takes the baby and leaves it in the backyard of the donor and his family at their new house.

Much like this baby suddenly appearing, this book suddenly appeared. It was in our holds at the library but no one could remember requesting it, so I read it when it came home. It wasn't on my reading list but it sounds like something EW would have recommended.

So much of the story centers around the donor and his family and their everyday struggles as boring people who lack passion and love, their neighbors, their friends and the scientist who learns of the baby and wants to kidnap it for scientific experiments.

I tried to think why I wouldn't recommend this book and I guess it's because I wouldn't want someone to recommend it to me. The baby, Bertrand, is happy all of the time. But he has no sense of danger and is constantly doing things that puts him in harm's way, sometimes nearly causing him to die. In other cases, his new parents are essentially negligent. As the parent of a child who has no sense for his own safety, I know first-hand that you gotta watch him constantly, or take efforts to seriously babyproof the house to make it safe for a while to play unattended.

But these parents, who seem to just be muddling through, don't take those kinds of precaution and so the baby nearly chokes to death, bleeds to death, gets struck by lightning and kidnapped (where he's subsequently tortured to find out if there's any limits to his ability to be happy, thankfully told with very little detail). As the parent of a child who will run away from you any chance they get (including parking lots) and stick anything in their mouths, we'd been to the ER too many times. So to read of parents who seem clueless and negligent and while infatuated with the baby, struggle to have any sort of love for each other or their other child, well, that was just too much to take.

There's also a subplot of their cat's meanderings after being captured in a neighbor's house and the neighbor takes them across town and dumps them. That cat's point of view is fun, being chased by "stinkbarkers" and hunting "skyflappers" and strangely enough, "mice."

None of the characters in the story seems all that happy, except the baby. It's almost as if to say that to be happy could kill you. But the sad way in which all the other characters live their lives makes you question if the author's saying that there's really nothing to live for and that it's all just random and unpleasant.

So while the author uses some great descriptions, the story doesn't hold up structurally, or as one I wanted to be a part of, though I was just curious enough to make it to the end.


The Happiness Code

Feed Sift (03/21/2014)

Five things from around the web I felt like sharing...

-1-

THE INCLUSIVE CHURCH -- 5 Strategies to Include Teens with Special Needs

-2-

FRESH ADDRESS -- Image Caching: What's New In Gmail - how Gmail's image caching will affect your email campaigns

-3-

DINNER LAB -- About Us - I would so want to do this if I had money, the ability to go out at the drop of a dime, oh, and lived in one of the host cities. (Would speak to my "serendipity" goal

-4-

LIFEHACKER -- This Infographic Reveals the Secrets of the Happiest Couples

-5-

ADDTHIS -- This Infographic Reveals the Secrets of the Happiest Couples

The Place Where We are Right

The Place Where We are Right 

From the place where we are rightFlowers will never growIn the spring. 

The place where we are rightIs hard and trampledLike a yard. 

But doubts and lovesDig up the worldLike a mole, a plow.And a whisper will be heard in the placeWhere the ruinedHouse once stood 

Yehuda Amichai

I heard the first two lines of this the other day and went and searched it out. I like it. I just picture a guy standing on a concrete patio watching his neighbors digging in their dirt, their back to him. He's looking smug and proud of himself, condescending at them, a woman and her daughter, dirt-stained, backs bent, sweating in the sun, doing something in the dirt.

What he can't see is that they are planting flowers, that in time he will be able to enjoy even as he enjoys his ugly gray concrete slab.

I'm sure the poem is a lot more than that but I just like the notion that we have to be willing to be wrong, to be willing to be open to new ideas.