Grant Dobbe

because of a plan whose certainty i’m not quite sold on, i’ll be without a cell phone until monday at the earliest. if you need to get ahold of me, send email to my normal address.

this is going to take the form of a post in three parts.
part the first
i have a standing offer to take a trip to my aunt and uncle’s boat in seattle or parts thereabout whenever it is convenient to me. i intend to use it sometime this summer whenever i can get things to calm down enough. i also decided today that when i do take that vacation, i’m going to fill my iPod with content, get a good stack of books, turn my cellphone off, and leave my laptop at home. i think that in our technology-rich age, we often forget (and i myself am guilty of this) the importance of being completely isolated and old-fashioned at times.
part the second
in my quest to get my shit together and figure out what life is all about, i’m beginning to rediscover the fine art of balance and self-control. the primary focus is in finances, where i’ve begun to track every expenditure i make in order that i might begin laying down budgets and making sure i have enough to make ends meet. it also has come about in issues of exercise and health, where i’m trying to find that fine line between equilibrium and weight loss (or gain!) and how it relates to my personal habits. it’s also made a return into my spiritual life, where i’ve begun to meditate again. i think that when the new year comes, i’ll have some good points from which to start fresh.
point the third
in other news, i had salmon for thanksgiving, i’m going to christmas festival on thursday night, and i’m attempting to develop a regular flossing habit. i’ll let you know how it turns out.

that’s all for now. carry on.

remember this? well, i’m in the thick of stage one, or at least the planning portion of stage one. i’ve spent a lot of time this evening thinking about life, my role in it, what i’m currently doing, and things that need to change. very difficult, and very necessary thoughts.
upon recommendation from a good friend, i started reading a really good book entitled “getting things done: the art of stress-free productivity”, by david allen. the author’s major point is that by getting every possible to-do and actionable idea out of your head, you reduce your stress level and become more productive. so far, it’s working.

i’ve started carrying around a “PDA”, akin to my father’s spiral-bound notebook and pen. it’s just a stack of index cards held together with a binding clip, but it’s helped me focus on accomplishing a great number of things both at home and at work. any time i need to do something, the specific action gets written down in the PDA. anytime i’ve finished that action, it gets crossed off the list. anytime i’m looking for something to do, i consult the list. i wish i’d had this 5 years ago. i’m also doing stuff along similar lines with regards to finances, health, social life, and my spirituality, but those aren’t quite as fleshed out at this point. i’ll talk more about those once i have more to talk about.
the process of getting my shit together is slow, and sometimes painful, but it’s happening. i’ll keep you informed of my progress.

it’s nights like these that i miss her
warm body against mine
skin on skin
hand in hand
laying awake, pretending to sleep
and listening to her gentle breathing
and yea, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death
i fear no evil, for thou art with me

the cold creeps closer now without her there to hold
i pull the pillow closer to me and wonder what happened
and wonder if i’ll ever be that lucky again

here’s a tip for those of you who like podcasts, use an iPod shuffle (like i do) when working out, or just want an easier way to sort music.

when i purchased my shuffle, i intended to use it mostly for listening to podcasts while i worked out. when i discovered that there was no way to automatically upload podcasts to it, i was disappointed. i was able to find a simple workaround, however.

iTunes has this nifty feature called a smart playlist that allows you to define playlists by song characteristics, such as length, artist, genre, and so forth. i was able to transfer the contents of a smart playlist to the iPod shuffle by dragging and dropping. so, i created a smart playlist that only grabs songs of the genre “Podcast”. when i want to put podcasts on my shuffle, i simply drag and drop the smart playlist onto my iPod’s icon in iTunes.
another neat feature of the iPod shuffle is that it updates the play count of each song on it when it’s synchronized with iTunes. to ensure that i get podcasts that i haven’t heard before, i modified the smart playlist to only grab podcasts that have a play count of 0.

and that’s my neat tip.