Tag Archives: 2016

Day 2 / 75 – progress on my goals…

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 20 2016

I’ve got a working tracker finally going again, a two-part one that has my work stuff in a single page that I can work with by hand, and another that I had hoped to put on my tablet but then found out that Excel online/cloud/Android doesn’t allow form controls. Fortunately I did *not* spend hours and hours trying to make it work before discovering (a) it was overkill and (b) my tablet wouldn’t let me do it anyway. The page is still a bit tiny font to make it all fit on one page, haven’t solved that problem yet, although I have an idea or two.

The top part of my daily tracker has a full 27 items that I am tracking, and admittedly some of them are no brainers. Like using my sleep machine. They are part of my routine, but one of the frequent failures of trackers is they only track “new stuff” which is bound to have a lot of failures on it.  » Read the rest

Day 1 / 75 – progress on my goals…

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 19 2016

So I posted yesterday that I’m sucking on my goals writ large, and I’m trying to find a carrot or a stick that will let me whip myself back into fighting shape and get back to working on them. Today marks 75 days left in the year to January 1st when I normally set my goals for the new year and take stock of the old year. I’m curious — if I work hard for 75 days, can I make some progress on my goals that will let me think that the year wasn’t a wasteland of slackerdom?

I’ve been struggling with a good tracker that will let me focus on some of the mechanical tick box items like making sure I make my lunch instead of buying it, take proper snacks for mid-morning and mid-afternoon, try to have breakfast with Jacob in the morning (I often end up showering while he has breakfast with Andrea), and get all of our collective butts where they need to be in a reasonable time in the morning.  » Read the rest

2016 – Progress on my goals

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 17 2016

This is kind of a tough one. I am so far off my game it isn’t funny.

2016 – The Only Way Out Is Through
GoalsJFMAMJJASONDCurrent Status

Live Blue or Die!

Astronomy

  • Moon
  • Filters
  • Photos
xxxxxxxxxxxxAlmost nothing for this year

Courses

  • Video games
  • Psychology
xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much to date

Reading

  • Kindle Unlimited
  • Reading challenge
xxxxxxxxxxxxI might be a little unfair to myself on this one as I have finished a few books in there, mainly Stephanie Plum, a book about the music industry, some more CS Lewis, etc. but nothing that would go green, maybe just a few yellows in June or July perhaps

Writing

  • Blogs
  • HR Guide
  • Non-fiction guide
xxxxxxxxxxxxNot much happening as I had to move my blog and completely rebuild it on a new hoster

Photography

  • Course
  • Setup cards
xxxxxxxxxxxxCrickets chirping, that’s what I hear

Reviews

  • TV episodes
  • Book reviews
  • Season reviews
  • Movie reviews
xxxxxxxxxxxxIf it wasn’t for my reviews of TV premieres, it would have been red throughout

Organize

  • New apps
  • Redo bucket list
  • Family passport
xxxxxxxxxxxxApps are working well, particularly for shopping, calendar, but not quite up to speed on personal to do yet.
  » Read the rest

Fundamentals of Photography – Class 02 – Camera Equipment: What you need

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
April 17 2016

As I mentioned earlier, I started watching videos on Fundamentals of Photography – Class 01 – Making Great Pictures from The Great Courses company. Class 02 of the course deals with camera equipment and related accessories. While the host is a National Geographic photographer, and has been for much of his career, he basically suggests getting equipment that fits in a backpack. No more, no less.

For the bag, he recommends soft shoulder straps so that you can lug it around for the day, and room for:

  • camera body;
  • a lens or two;
  • memory cards;
  • batteries;
  • battery charger;
  • lens cloth;
  • external flash + batteries for it; and,
  • a sync cord for flash.

I confess I don’t really like my camera bag setup. I had one that came with the combo I bought, and it is a hard bulky near cube-like format. It would hold everything above, but it only has a shoulder strap, and it’s kind of blocky.  » Read the rest

Casting challenges

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
April 12 2016

I watch a lot of TV, that’s not a surprise to anyone who reads my blog. What might be a surprise is that I’m also interested in the production side of things. How people are cast, the role of show runners vs. writers and sub-writers, the role of non-show runners vs. producers, and what stars actually do if they get an executive producer credit, if anything. But stunt casting is out of the hands of the writers, that I know.

Which leaves some episodes in the mystery genre where casting a big name is clearly a bad decision on the part of the producers and casting director, because they are often the bad guy, leaving a carefully crafted script way too obvious. You might as well have them introduce themselves as Murderer #1. But what about non-big names but experienced actors? Take a simple episode of a series, perhaps Elementary for instance.  » Read the rest