Month: January 2008

theBside’s First Contest Is Here!

Hi everyone! It’s time to introduce a new segment on our show here. Brand new this year, totally original stuff. It’s a contest! Just like guessing how many jelly beans are in the jar, only not so laden with calories when you win!

I’m currently boxing up all my CDs to make my den a little more organized (more on that later). I’m boxing up not just my collection, but the few CDs that Alisa owned when we met as well. So the contest is to try and guess how many CDs I own. The prize? You get to pick any one of the CDs for yourself. It’s a free CD giveaway!

You have until I finish the process to leave a comment here with your guess.

Hints:

  • I’m currently cataloging the G’s
  • Alisa guessed ~200, and I had to tell her I was already 1 shy of doubling her guess. Her new guess is 750.
  • I’m trying to get this done by the end of the week, so leave your guess as soon as you can!

The closest guess wins. You can go over and still win – not like that Price Is Right show or anything.

Good luck everyone!

Creative Goal 3 – Learn A New Musical Instrument

Goal: I know, it sounds cliche. But as a music lover I really am shocked I’m not contributing more to music, rather than just consuming it. I’ve tried to teach myself bass and 6 string guitar before, but have never followed through to any great length. So in the spirit of pushing myself, I’m going to set myself a goal of being able to site read basic songs on the 6 string guitar by the end of the summer. If I’m feeling really frisky I will aim at having my first guitar song written up by the end of the year.

Previous efforts generally died because I simply had a book to follow, which lacks, frankly. Now with this “Internet” thingy I can get free lessons essentially. Here’s my collection of links so far:

Tuning resources:

Lessons:

Status: Ongoing. So far I’ve tuned my guitar and learned the D chord. Oh, and of course “Smoke On The Water”.

Creative Goal 2 – Daily Doodle

Goal 2: Doodling, even just silly drawings of crayon on the tub walls with Marley during her bath, is a great way to let a little creativity flow on a regular basis.  it helps underscore one of the major incentives of this cause, which was to model creativity for Marley.  So I’m working on doodling something every day.  Some days so far it is little things, while hopefully on others it will be drawings leading to paintings or pencil pictures.

Status: Ongoing (so far so good)

To Buy Or To Rent – A Difficult Question

I just discovered an interesting data collection interface put up by the New York Times. Trying to juggle the various elements of finances and markets when deciding to rent or purchase a house is difficult. This tool they’ve put together really does simplify the data down to some concrete attributes that most people can easily find . It then lets you “fiddle” with the values to determine how far away a change in outcome really is. Interesting way of doing things – quite creative.

Is It Better to Buy or Rent? – New York Times

P.S. They’ve also put together a few other data interfaces that mix similar interface-savvy ideas with raw, boring, difficult to understand data. Unusual insights abound! List provided by today’s UIETips Newsletter.

2008 – The Year Of Being Creative

Welcome to 2008 everyone!

I’m not usually up for New Years resolutions and such, but I guess you might read this post as such.  Over the past few months I’ve been taking a really close look at my day-to-day activities, my level of life-satisfaction, and my progress towards my long-term goals.  I’ve noticed a pretty important disconnect:

I’m not really on track to meeting my long term goals.  Heck, I’m not even really clear on my 5 year plan right now.

During the fall I attended a UI conference that, for some reason, had a very large impact on me.  Not because it presented particularly challenging  material (though it did) but more because of the introspection I was able to run through while away from work and home.

My conclusion after these months of thought: I need to introduce further creativity into my life and to my activities.  I’m not creating enough opportunities for expression, artistic growth, or creative experiences.

So I have found a new focus or theme for 2008: Being Creative.  I’m going to consciously work towards this goal, setting myself challenging and achievable goals on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  I don’t see this as a New Year’s resolution, but more of a life direction choice.  I’m going to be giving it some daily thought hopefully resulting in some daily action.  I don’t want this to fizzle out after 2 weeks, I’m taking this really seriously.  Maybe I’ll have to provide periodic reports here for some kind of accountability.  Accountability to the masses of people who read my magnificent blog.  Not you Samson, you’re just a temp.  (inside joke from this year’s Holiday Compilation).

Let’s begin!