Event Planning

I am not saying that I am the single greatest living event planner.  Oprah is pretty good at what she does.  The American Idol people have stretched very little talent into the consciousness of millions of people.  The various professional sports leagues do well in gathering large crowds and keeping them from demanding more from their governments.  Still, I am good at planning events.

I am very willing to say that I am an organizer.  My desk is tidy.  My home is neat.  The special events I plan have a purpose and I have a system in place to manage them and the people who are part of them that is efficient.  Behold readers the Excel template I use to manage the special events I organize:

#	First Name	Last Name	Company/ Organization	Email Address	Attending (Y/N/M)	Date They Confimred Attendence	Date I Replied to Their RSVP	Remarks
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Yes, I realize that the table above breaks the formatting of this page.  Deal with it.  If you're not good enough with a computer to translate this into your own Excel spreadsheet, I am sorry to say that you may not be ready to wield the awesome power of this incredible event management system.

Update: San Diego Gets a New Library

New San Diego Central Library

Recently, I checked in on the construction of the new San Diego Central Library and took the following photos of our soon to open gray concrete library that comes with a dome, which will offer those inside a view of the Coronado Bay Bridge:

 

Apparently, it will be very close to the San Diego Trolley

 

What library would be complete without a dome?

Can we get one with more gray colored concrete? 

 America seems like a very generic destination

for a trolley that runs exclusively inside
the United States

Suggested Software: Notepad++ and 7-Zip

Notepad++ has long been my go to text editor.  In fact, I have a copy of the software on a flash* drive along with several other programs that I install first thing when I get my hands on a new computer that I will be using for more than a few minutes.  If you ask nicely in the comments, I might publish the rest of the list here.

Here is the link to the official Notepad++ web site.

Use Notepad++ to Break Up a Block of Text with Line Breaks
Or, How to Put Email Addresses that are Separated with a Semicolon Onto Their Own Lines

• Click on Search
• Click Replace (or just press Ctrl + H)
• find the Search Mode options
• Select Extended (\n, \r, \t, \0, \x...)
• Type \r into the Replace With field
• Type a semicolon into the Replace What field and viola!

Thanks goes to Viper this comment on the Alex Blog for coming up with this solution.

Use Notepadd++ to add text to the beginning or end of a line

The following technique is useful for adding text to the beginning or end of each line in a document that contains a large amount of text:

• CTRL-H to open the Find/Replace Dialog. 
• Check "Regular expressions" radio box near the bottom of the dialog.
• To add "md " to the beginning of each line, type "^" in the "Find what" field, and "md " in the "Replace with" field. Then click "Replace All".
• Use "$" in the "Find what" field instead to get the text added to the end of the line instead.

Notepad++ Can Capitalize the First Letter of Each Word

• Hit Ctrl + F to bring up the Find and Replace Command
• Enter the following in the Find box ^(.)
• Enter the following in the Replace box \u\1

7-Zip

Recently, I was asked by a co-worker for a way to unzip a folder which refused to decompress for her using the tool that is built into Windows.  My go to application for unzipping, untaring, etc. is 7-zip, which can be downloaded here.

If you do not know if you should download the 32-bit or the 64-bit version of the application and you are using a Windows based computer, open the Control Panel and find the System application.  In Windows 7+ this information will be displayed to the right of the "System type:" field.  I know that computers running Windows XP do not list this information in the System application.  If you are trying to install software on a computer running Windows XP, it's a fairly safe bet that you should go with the 32-bit version because aside from one wise acre who did so just to upset general rules of thumbs, if a computer is running Windows XP it's a 32-bit machine.

*Or, thumb, jump, USB, or whatever one is supposed to call those little portable hard drives that you can plug into a USB port, which are basically worthless in the age of cloud computing but I still have sentimental attachment to because they were cool (in my eyes at least) at one time.

Election Fallout

Elizabeth Warren is now a member of the United States Senate.  "You took on the Wall Street banks and the powerful interests and let them know, you want a Senator who will ALWAYS fight for the middle class." writes Senator Warren on her blog.  Hopefully, she will spend the next six years fighting for the middle class.

Here is a video that provides her back story:

The next big hurdle for Elizabeth Warren is to find a way to get herself into the powerful and influential circles among her ninety-nine new colleagues in the senate and the 435 members of the House so that she can quickly introduce and secure passage of legislation that will help the middle class.

Straight from the official Senate web site, here are the committees in the United States Senate:

Committees

Standing  Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry  Appropriations  Armed Services  Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Budget  Commerce, Science, and Transportation  Energy and Natural Resources  Environment and Public Works  Finance  Foreign Relations  Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions  Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs  Judiciary  Rules and Administration  Small Business and Entrepreneurship  Veterans' Affairs  Special, Select, and Other  Indian Affairs  Select Committee on Ethics  Select Committee on Intelligence  Special Committee on Aging  Joint  Joint Committee on Printing  Joint Committee on Taxation  Joint Committee on the Library  Joint Economic Committee  Now let's see if Senator Warren can get herself onto the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Budget or Finance committee. Joe Donnelly got himself a promotion from the House of Representatives to the United States Senate.  Here is his website.  I find the comparison between Senator Donnelly's web site and Senator Warren's web site to be revealing in terms of how enthusiastic each individual is about the prospect of serving in the United State Senate for the next six years.

Cheers and Jeers

Cheers

Hooray!

For Those of You Who Take the Time to Love Your Leather
Cheers for this video and this link that explain the basics of caring for leather shoes:

Here and here are two more resources that I vouch for that explain about leather care.

To You Who Take the Time to be a Little Clever With Your Responses to Parties

Go ahead and toss in a reference to Cole Porter's ultra-famous song when you reply in the negative to an invitation.  Learn more here.

To You Cabin Dwellers

Thank you for sharing some photos of your shacks here.


Jeers

About.com - either get substantially better content or get off my internet!  I have had enough bad experiences with about.com that I will no longer visit the site.

Boo!

Jeers to anyone who does not include their full name and contact information in the signature portion of the emails that they send.  I know that you think you are special.  You are not.  You make it difficult for me to keep track of who you are and how to get in touch with you.  

If you are one of the sadistic people who signs your email "Peace, Joey" or "-Joe" or "J" stop it.  Right now I want you to take five minutes and setup the signature portion of your email to read as follows:

First Name Last Name

Title (if any)

Company or Organization

Physical Address

City, State, Zip Code

T: (xxx) xxx-xxxx

F: (xxx) xxx-xxxx

E: joe@example.com

[Brief statement about your business, inspirational quote, statement about delivery to the wrong person, or other personal touch]

From now on your emails should looks like this:

Sam,

I just want to say that you are doing a great job!

Also, I will be attending the conference you are working so hard to arrange on March 20, 2013 with Jane Doe from my office.

Sincerely,

Joe

Joe Smith

President

Any Company, Inc.

123 Any St.

New York, NY 10000

T: (212) 123-4567

F: (212) 123-4568

joe@anycompanyinc.com

Every company should do what I'm doing right now!

Jeers to People Who Do Not Listen When You Talk

A recent conversation recorded nearly verbatim from my place of employment:

H-: We should hire a new person.

S-: I agree.

Roger (me): I agree because we have a lot that needs to be done and it is distracting H- and I from what we should be doing.

Big Boss: Alright.  Do it.

D-: I think it's important to make sure that the new person has something to do.

H-: Trust me we have lots of things for that person to do (laughs).

Me: Agreed.

-- Time passes as the conversation moves on to another topic before the new person to be hired gets mentioned again and this happens --

D-: I just think that if we bring someone in here we should really have something for that person to do.

H-: Even just helping Roger and I to avoid being interrupted would be good.  If the person wanted to read a book the rest of the time it would still be a big help to both of us.

--- Conversation moves to another topic and eventually the meeting ends ---

Later that day, D- approaches me and suggests that if we hire someone new they should be given something to do.  

I am not making any of this up.

Awesome Things to Inspire You

Instructions for interacting with this post:

1. Either read or look at the pictures below
2. Get inspired
3. Create something

Look out Guatemala, just seeing this bag makes me want to invade a small country.

Can I get one with more pouches?

I bet this next awesome thing is heavy especially with that many books on it.  Also, I wonder if the shelf for each state contains only books that relate to that state.  Learn more about this awesome American bookshelf here.

What is that landmass extending from the east coast of Florida?

This image from here has inspired me to create a similar series of images of items available for purchase and where they can be purchased from depicting what can be purchased to make for an awesome party/ experience.  If I get more followers on this blog, and if you're good, I'll publish them here.

The topics to be covered will be:

• Diamonds and Denim
• Pimp and Ho
• Unicorns and... something rhymes with or is appropriate to go along with unicorns
• High Class and Hobo
• Favorite Movie Character

This Post is Now Halloween Themed

Finally, Nathan took his love of Tetris and added it to everyone's love of jack-o-lanterns resulting in the first (that I am aware of) game of Tetris inside a pumpkin. Behold:

 This Post is Now Even More Halloween Themed!

Way to go Nathan!

Presidential Election Update

Who Wants to be at the Top of America's Org. Chart?

As an email I received received from PBS points out, not once in the three Presidential debates did either President Obama or Governor Romney mention the words "climate change".  Here is the page that covers the "Climate of Doubt" PBS Frontline special.

I am not convinced that either presidential candidate represents the things that are important for me, i.e. a strong middle class, increasing the availability of good paying jobs, protecting the environment now and defending the future of the environment for generations to come, shifting the role of the military from large scale land invasion forces to large numbers of nimble, far-reaching operatives capable of eliminating threats to civilian life anywhere around the globe within hours, as well as redefining the role of the roles of large numbers of military units from combat operations to engineers and builders of infrastructure capable of rapidly bringing the conveniences of the developed world to the developing world... (I haven't really thought this last part through yet but it sounds like it would be a good project for our young men and women).

I am officially (and somewhat seriously) starting a Vote for Mike write in campaign to elect Mike Rowe, best known for his work on such Discovery channel hit shows as Dirty Jobs and Swamp Loggers, to become the next President of the United States.  Mr. Rowe might not have the foreign policy chops to become commander and chief of the most highly funded military on the planet but he is certain to present the problems the United States is dealing with in a way that is both entertaining and easy to relate to.  During his work on Dirty Jobs, Mike has become familiar with working class Americans and I believe he will keep these people in mind when shaping national policy. 

You Should Get Windows 8 Now

You should really get yourself a copy of Windows 8 right now.  Here is where you can do so.

Windows 8 Drops in the Middle of My Month of Halloween Horror

Windows 8 is officially available for purchase starting today... from... here, I think.  At the time I setup this link to the official Microsoft Windows website, I found I would need a PhD in Microsoft to determine how much money they want me to give them to get my hands on a copy of the operating system.  Seriously, all I want to know is how much this thing costs and where I should send the money.  You try looking at this page and telling me how much the product they are selling will cost me:

 

Psych Wards are Full of People 

Who Have Been Driven Mad by this Website

Topics covered by Microsoft employees before creating the page above:

• We want to tell people that Windows 8 will be release on October 26.  Good.
• It's critical that people know Windows 8 will be "Serious. Fun."  This is essential.
• Include the phrase "And more" because people should be aware that our product will do more than what we are able to explain using words, pictures and video.
• Finally, as we are all aware, offering a new version of the best selling computer operating system in the history of the world is best conveyed by the image of a man holding up a child who is sucking on a lollipop.  Put that front and center on the site.

Topics not covered during this meeting:

• Screen captures of the actual product
• Displaying the price of the new product
• The competition has a much better page that describes their latest os

I've written about my experience using the pre-release copy of Windows 8 I snagged several months ago here.

Oh and I am impressed by the fact that Microsoft is offering these new computer/ tablet things that run Windows 8:

Someone should have told the graphic designer to adjust

the hue/ saturation slider before going to publication

with the image above.

Community is Back on NBC

The NBC comedy Community is back on NBC tonight at 8:30 p.m.  While I enjoy the show because it is well written, has a terrific cast and the production value tends to be high, the name of this blog is Clean Sheets and Dirty Girls.  I present the best reason for watching Community, Alison Brie:

Cute but She Doesn't Look Like a Dirty Girl, Yet

 Getting Warmer

Warmer Still 

 There We Go

If you need further proof of Alison Brie's dirty side, or you just want to laugh at something naughty, check out her appearance in the first episode of short lived series "The Committee" on FunnyOrDie.com.  I would embed the video right here but I want to keep riding the Google Adsense train to Gravy Town* and the fine people in Mountain View aren't crazy about including strongly sexual or profane content and, bluntly, this video is filthy.

*Not a real place