One of the things I'm doing for my new job is going through all the resources that the office has and finding ways to put them in The Internets. Some of these are quizzes and career resources, others are tips and tricks, books, and the like. The quizzes range from the Strong Interest Inventory to Meyers-Briggs (I'm an INTP. However I'm still not entirely certain about the accuracy of MBTI - I've read conflicting studies. But get this: "he or she may become overly critical and sarcastic with others." WHO, ME? NEVER.)

The one I did today is a pretty basic quiz that has you press on happy/sad faces to rate your preferences. It was only ten questions long. But for a quiz that asks "Do you like: taking and following orders?" this actually pegged me fairly accurately. But I've gotta say: LOBBYIST?? What's wrong with just saying "prostitute" ??

There were also about ten different entires for "mechanic," "gunsmith," "millwright," and then it popped up with "director." And I'm, like, wait, what? Unfortunately, nowhere did it say dictator which would have been way more accurate.

In short: not for me a career in law enforcement or early childhood education. Which I think was already fairly obvious to anybody who, you know, has ever met me.

But four in the top eleven isn't too bad...

I'm the most scatter-brained person on the planet (well, ok, not the most, my friend Jo [named changed to protect the scatter-brained] is possibly worse, I think her cell phone spends more time in other people's houses than in hers).

So anyway, I need a lot of tools to protect myself - notepads, cell phones, whatever, as long as it follows me around and yells at me. (Why do I say this? Because I forgot my cell phone yesterday and missed two meetings. My brain is, shall we say, special.)

But I finally got it ironed out yesterday, and this is the set up that I've got working in my office to help me stay organized:

1. Outlook. I'm sorry to all you lotus or google calendar types, but Outlook beats the pants off of any other mail/calendaring/task application for the office. (I also don't like Google's labelling system for mail, since my work breaks down easily into distinct folders, and I like the ability to add reminders and priorities to my email too.)

   I know you can do some of that in Google, but it's still veeery clumsy. As well, Outlook has journaling capability, which I really like to use. I just really like the Outlook interface: it's tight. However, I use GMail and GCal to hold all my appointments and emails, rather than Exchange, because that way I can keep my life and my various work on the same screen wherever I am. Google is the best for multiple calendars, web calendars, and webmail. By far.

2. Remember the milk: task management for the rest of us.
3. Pocket Outlook: For those times I'm away from my desk.

The problem is syncing all this stuff: my cell phone, Google calendar, gmail, my work email, and my RTM tasks.

Luckily, I found a few ways. I use OggSync for my Google calendars to my cell phone, and RemoteCalendars to get my Google work calendar into a two-way sync with Outlook (in fact, it replaces the default Outlook calendar so you never get confused. Which I have been known to do.) I use MilkSync to get my tasks onto my phone, where I use them the most often.

However, I am missing one thing - getting RTM tasks to replace Outlook tasks. RemoteCalendars chokes on RTM feeds for some reason. Anybody have any suggestions?

Hey! I ordered a memory stick from MemorySuppliers.com and it was Good. They are nice people. Fast service. All the memory you could want, right there on one website. AND they said that I would get $15 refund if I posted this. And oh, no, I'm not too proud to do that. Nope. Not proud. And I should mention, while I'm shilling, that the deal I got on that 2GB of Compact Flash memory for my camera is so great that, after this rebate, it will have cost $10 in total? Is that a good deal or what? Yep. Deal! Ok, I do have my pride, it's just that, as a marketing ploy, this was really great and leverages the power of the Internet and deep linking, and I wanted to applaud their savvy. Also, $15!

Um... Ok. Moving on...

Lulu asks you what your favourite Paul Newman movie is and why. I had a really tough time deciding between Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Harper, Cool Hand Luke, and The Sting. Harper just delighted me, and Newman made it so believable the way he downplayed everything which made it seem bigger as a result. I also adore William Goldman because, well, you know.. He also wrote Butch C, not coincidentally. Which was also FABULOUS. The Sting is mostly eye-candy, not a lot of depth to it. Cool Hand Luke was probably better than Harper, but in terms of the whole package, Harper delighted me, so I'll go with that.

In sort-of-related news, related to Things I Like That Are Also Movies, this is the most hilariously over-the-top thing I have ever read. Er, well, that I have read today, anyway. If you're a Firefly fan, I dare you to read it and not come away missing several IQ points. I dare you. This woman gives real feminists a really bad name. She's like one of those cartoon versions of real objects, like Elmer Fudd's hat. Her writing epitomizes the old saying about opinions and assholes. (Oh, wait, is that sexist? Maybe I should have said herpinions.)

This is an interesting observation about the current corn-ethanol fad:

A student came in my office last week and asked: Aren't ethanol subsidies just implicit taxes on the poor? I thought about it for a minute, then said, "Yep."

It always comes down to that, doesn't it?

Man, this winter is just totally kicking my ass.

I'm sick of snow.

This morning, which is always my earliest morning of the week, and a MONDAY, I managed to make it onto the bus. Then I stumbled into a coffee shop and bought a $2.00 cup of shame before hauling my butt to my class (late, as usual). As I was listening to my prof lay out the lesson plan for the class, I absent-mindedly backed up my laptop half an inch... and nudged my full, undrunk coffee... right into the garbage can that was in front of my desk.

Crap.

Also, the terrible cold that I had all reading week is gone, but it left me with congested ears. Half of every day is spent in eerie silence, and the other half - after swallowing and hearing a "crack! pop!" in my inner ear - is shriekingly loud. Loud, soft, loud, soft. Loud. Soft. All day long.

Somebody please give my eustation tubes a good talking to. Please. CRACK, POP.

And then this daylight savings thing. I don't mind falling back, but springing forward gives me hives. Every year it's the same. I'm not a morning person, and waking up an extra hour early hurts me. It hurts me in the soul.

And lately it hurts me in the computer, too, ever since some large brains decided that an extra hour of daylight two weeks early would save the world enough energy that it would let them continue drilling in the Alaska Wilderness Reserve without qualms for an extra year or two.

In theory, the two-weeks-extra change would have been ironed out what with all the Windows patches and Java patches and database patches that I installed this time last year. But no, of course not in real life, only in theory. I got several emails throughout the day from the person filling in for me about all the various things that screwed up this weekend. I now officially hate computers. Sigh.

Also! My PDA started to act up, coughing profanities about the time change and vibrating uncontrollably for minutes at a time, right in the middle of my classes, so I spent the day alternating between freaking out about being late for things and then freaking out about being early for things, and having to readjust my timezone settings. (And yes, of course I applied the fixes, I applied them weeks ago.) I fixed it, but not before wanting to strangle Bill Gates. Personally.

And! Midterm results come trickling in: a steady string of C Plusses. Sigh. I blame February for those.

Last but not least: last night I crashed out for a nap at 3:00pm and woke up at, like, 10:00pm. Oops. I needed the sleep, except that all the reading and phone calling I was supposed to do on Sunday night ... didn't get done. Aargh.

Have I chronicled my miserable existence enough for y'all? Ok, good. I'm tired now. At least I got my tax return and paid my student fees. I've never been so happy to be broke.

The paper Using the Technology of University Buildings in Engineering Education by R. Stephen et al has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Engineering Education. The paper discusses the Live Building concept and its educational opportunities.