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Archive: September 4, 2010
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Getting caught up here after a long week away... woke up in Carlsbad this morning, drove home, returned my loaner Porsche (about which I will have more to say - yes, I have my little car back, yay!), and here I am back on deck, literally and figuratively, trying to get caught up. It was a great week but also a sad week, and somewhat thought provoking, as some reality intruded into my weird little world. Anyway it will be nice to have a long weekend, hang out with my family, and get in a little R&R. And a little blogging...
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Tech note: I discovered to my chagrin that Twitter is now forcing OAuth for their API, which means when I post to my blog it doesn't automatically Tweet, and hence doesn't automatically post to Facebook. This scheme didn't work well anyway and I guess this is my chance to fix it, but coding an OAuth interface was not on my menu for this weekend. I guess I'm going to have to post manually for a while... so be it.
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 Last weekend I declared the end of summer, but some say it isn't over 'till the fat lady sings (that is, Sept 22). I must admit, sitting outside on this beautiful morning, it *does* still feel like summer. But school has started, football is being played, and it's Labor Day; in fact, after this weekend I can no longer wear my white jacket :) so it is over, baby. Sad though that may be... 
 Can you believe? Google Chrome is two years old. It has not replaced Firefox as my primary browser, but I often use it to check FB and for other JS -intensive tasks.
Apple had a great week, but Ping seems to be a dud so far. It suffers badly from the "now what" problem; I signed up, and there was nothing to do, and I will probably ignore it from this point forward. Integration with Facebook would have solved this problem, and apparently at one point Facebook Connect was part of Pink, but at the last moment Apple took it out. So be it.
How to succeed like Apple: ignore your customers. Really?
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 Last weekend I reported the awesome folks at The Auto Gallery have loaned me a brand new Porsche Panamerica! I have driven it all week and returned it this morning. It was a pretty amazing vehicle and I thought I'd share a few thoughts...
- It was fun having an *unusual* car; everywhere I went people commented. But nobody thought it was beautiful. It was always like ... "huh, so that's the new four-door Porsche." They successfully incorporated the Porsche design cues from the 911, but they did not end up with a great looking car.
- The 3.8L six has plenty of horsepower for daily driving, but it does not excite the senses. You can't hear it roar, and you can't feel it throwing the car forward and smashing you back into the seats. It is not a Turbo Carrera.
- The interior is beautiful and beautifully laid out. Nothing bad to say.
- The electronics are first-rate. The touch-screen Nav system is excellent. The iPod link is perfect. The sound system is quite impressive for a "stock" stereo (although, like the engine, it will not blow you away).
- There is plenty of room in the back seat for two full size people. Is is not a 2+2, it is a true four-door four-seater. And the trunk arrangement is very nice, plenty of room under the hatchback and the rear seats fold down easily for even more room when you need it.
I guess I'd sum it all up by saying it is a Lexus sedan with Porsche styling, a sheep in wolf's clothing (and a very luxurious sheep, too!). If that's what you're looking for, here you have it :)
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Last night I shared a bottle of Chardonnay with my friend Jay, and he introduced me to a most significant concept: the third quadrant:
This little 2x2 matrix plots tasks we have to perform on two axis - importance, and urgency. In quadrant one we have important and urgent tasks, and we do these first. In quadrant two are tasks which are urgent but not important, and we do these next due to their urgency, even though they aren't important. "Busy" people tend to accumulate a lot of quadrant two tasks. That would be me. In quadrant four are tasks which are not important and not urgent, they are in fact optional, and often "fun". These are the tasks you do when you are procrastinating from doing... the tasks in quadrant three, which are important but not urgent. Because they aren't urgent we don't make time for them, and because they're important, they're "scary" and "hard" and not "fun". And the pitfall is that we often don't get to them at all. That would be me.
Realizing this doesn't necessarily help - after all, I'm blogging right now, a quadrant four task if ever there was one, despite having plenty of quadrant three tasks waiting for my attention - but it is a great concept. The main takeaway for me so far is that I must avoid quadrant two tasks to make time for quadrant three. I will of course continue to set some time aside for quadrant four tasks :)
PS amazingly and interestingly, this insight occurred at the 3rd Corner, how cool is that?
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