Thursday, December 27, 2012

I'm a news kind of guy.  During my early post-college years, I had subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and Discover magazine.  As the internet destroys such things, my collection keeps dwindling.  I just cancelled my Newsweek subscription today.

Funny thing, they seemed to have anticipated this when they announced the switch to digital.  Their phone lines were swamped, their email addresses were closed, and their website changed so that you couldn't cancel online.  Convenient, huh?

Well, hopefully I thwarted them.  It may only have been a few dollars at this point in my subscription, but at least they're not getting them.

Now I just have to finish reading the ones sitting around here.

- Jim

Monday, December 24, 2012

First of all, Merry Christmas Eve!  I don't know if I'll be able to post again before then, so just in case I miss it, Merry Christmas as well. 

Way back... several months ago, I decided I was too far behind to get everything done by the time I wanted it.  That's not really all that surprising.  I don't schedule for patience, and as I've said many times before, I'm interested in everything.  On my work table sits a pile of index cards with sixty or so books I want to check out of the library.  I have twenty or so books sitting around my desk that I want to read.  Then there's the book list I have online of those I want to buy.  Add in the books I've collected and downloaded in digital form and I could stay busy even if I lived for a thousand years.  Well, maybe not.  It might only be like six hundred. 

Well, I've done what I could with the annoying distractions I suffer.  I'm also working harder than ever during the last days of the year.  It's always been like that.  Nothing new there.  I bite off more than I can chew, and then I spend the rest of time in a futile rush to catch up.

That being said, it's time to start working on the Master Yearly To-Do List, formerly known as my New Year's Resolutions.  I've got a preliminary rough draft and am working on adding things to it. It'll look familiar; there's a lot of stuff from last year.  And the year before.  And the year before.  And so on. 

A couple things I want to mention though.  Unlike previous years where the beginning is meant to catch up on all the stuff I didn't do last year, I'm going to work on new stuff.  Well, it's not new.  I've always meant to write, but that task will no longer be subordinate to anything else.  If it's on the list and it's not writing, then it's secondary, meant to either fill the cracks when I can't write or meant to be after I finish writing.  I will send a book to a publisher this year.  I'm close enough, I think, to make that promise.

There will actually be a couple days when I won't write, in the beginning of the year.  I'm going to wait until my Sister's kids all go back to school after their Christmas break.  I'm motivated, but I'm not crazy.   It's hard enough to just read or watch movies with them around.  As a side note, if I ever win the lottery or come into insane amounts of money, the first think I'm going to do is build a cork study. 

- Jim