The real long term stuff

So, future self, this is another note to you, this time about finance. You have that money in that Latin place that's about doubled in value over the last 10 years. I am thinking of doing some rebalancing - the funds are getting old and the Europe thing seems to be playing itself out. According to their portfolio advisor you're looking at 45 stocks, 40 pct bonds, 10 pct international and 5 pct short term. My options are:

1. Rebalance to a new set of funds to meet this allocation mix;
2. Dump it all into a lifecycle fund.

I think #2 is the no-brainer but I don't trust the aggregate asset mix - not as many comparison basis. The key is the progress in bonds - rates are in the tank right now and I just don't see where it will change when our gov't is having a fire sale on Treasuries every week.

You should have joined an investment club, but the ones you've seen are not all that great - lots of very nice people and commiseration over the general confusion but not much in the way of facts. Basically set it and forget it for a year.

Hope it worked out for you.

Requiem for a Tree

This was a tree in our garden which blew over in a intense windstorm. He was one of a pair, and they had been in our garden for at least 10 years. Now he is no more, and his partner stands alone in the night. I read an article that plants can detect the proximity of nearby relatives and since those guys were about the same age and similar type I bet they came from the same nursery and so were probably related.

If you think about it, in the existential sense, if it's true that plants can sense proximity then these trees 'knew' each other and the other plants and trees in my garden. Do you ever wonder what names they have for each other? We call dogs and cats "Louie" and "Spot" but the animals obviously know each other as well - do they have referent names to label each other with? What about plants? Do they use pheromones, or positions, or what?

So how does a plant access the details of a being it "knows" about?

Yes, I think too much. And that's a common problem in the world - too much contemplation. More mindless, thoughtless action is surely the cure for what ails us.

I cut off a piece of the standing tree and threw it in with the remants of the old tree. Maybe silly, but I wouldn't want the dead one going away without some part of the tree it had spent all of its life with.

I guess I should leave a piece of the old tree with the survivor as well. One thing is for sure - the ecosystem of the garden has changed. Wonder what that will mean.

11/30 Trouble on the HAN

I am trying to get my home network to be more cooperative about sharing files and printers. When I connect my work laptop via VPN to my corporate network, I lose connnectivity to my home printer.

I have tried activating the secondary network cards in the two machines and I get link lights but they won't talk to each other using the secondary interfaces. I've tried

route add 192.168.A.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 192.168.A.1 metric 1 IF 2

but this either does not work or takes out my ability to connect to the internet on the wireless NIC. No, I am not typing A.0 but I am paranoid and don't want to post my network specifics here too much. Secretive and technically stumped - the recipe for late nights at the keyboard.

Been reading a few posts about being a better IT person and I think networking might be something I should learn more about. At least so I can print.

08/30 Stone wall and some block-busters

Well, seven days in and I am hitting the wall. Nothing seems worth writing about.

Some ideas for block-busters:

1. Randomizer.
I have an idea for a tool that would cough out the core of a blog post for you, and you could just add in and fill in the blanks. Far from being a mechanical way to churn out posts I'd think it would be tremendously freeing and remove the drudgery and allow your writer to wander. Of course, I have to actually create the stupid thing.

2. Backlog of stories.
Like make-ahead soup - write them in batches and use the stock to fill in gaps. Haven't enough of a backlog yet, unfortunately. I can probably do this with the LIFE stories if I think about it hard enough. I also have ideas for entries but they require tons of research and I am just not blessed with that kind of focus.

3. Pick a random object in your sight-line.
This is Writer Camp 101. Just pick something, something you can see, and free write about it. The idea is not what you're writing, it's that you're writing.

Tomorrow I am walking in my 1st 5K since 2002, when I took 90 minutes to complete the course. I measured myself on a at-home 5K route last night and did it in 53:00 - we'll see if the inspiration of fellow walkers pumps me up or brings me down.

Followup 08/04/2007: I did not walk in the 5K. A late departure and bad weather pushed me off the activity wagon. I did, however, have a lovely day with my SO going to art fairs and farmer's markets, which was just as good (and better company). I will walk in a 5K this year, at least it's my goal to do so.

05/30 20 Types of Blog Posts and where's my ring?

(Note: I was sitting here typing and suddenly noticed I'm not wearing my wedding ring, which I very rarely take off. I'm really concerned but a cursory search of the house has turned up nothing, so I am hoping I took it off at work while I was repairing a white board. This is really upsetting to me, so I'm turning in kind of a half-finished entry tonight. If anyone reads this, I'd appreciate some good thoughts as I really hope it isn't lost.)

(update - found it! yay! I moved a chair and plop it landed on the floor. It's not funny but it's funny how I don't notice it very often but when it's gone I literally can't think of anything else. I am also a little disturbed at this twice-yearly ritual...one does think of Alzheimer's...)

So I was trying to find a way to formalize the content, so I would be filling in an outline instead of staring at a blank page and fighting the Idea Demon for a scrap of inspiration. I googled a little and found a couple of really interesting posts about different types of blog entries:

Original list (Darren Rowse) : He's just got an interesting site period, but this post inspired me to try and use this structure for the 30 day project. All idea credit for this is his.

Challenge (bunnygirl): She was going to write one post of each type and keep track of it, which she did.

So what if I am eighteen months late to the party. I am going to do it anyway, besides it will get me through the next 20 days and by then I should either be rolling on my own or off watching Tivo and wondering why my life still sucks.

Here's the list - I stole the HTML from bunnygirl's site, tablefied it, and added a space to link the post once I have it written. I took the initial definitions from Darren and tried to rewrite into something I can understand. I also tried to group related types of posts.

She struck the posts as she did them and I will do the same:

The 20 Types of blog posts are: (Why is Blogger's table handling so sucky?)

Type	Definition	Post
Contrasting Options	contrast products, services or approaches that outlines the positives and negatives of each choice.	Pending
Informational	Define or expand on a concept. Will either be a literature review, a research, a link or a rant.	Pending
Instructional	Tell people how to do something. If you include items from somewhere else it's a link or literature review.	Pending
List	Brief list of phrases or sentences around a theme or question, and develop each into a paragraph or two. Must be your own content. Probably a instructional or informational at heart.	Pending
Literature Review (Darren called it a Collation Post, some people call it a sling blade...)	Like research but more semantic than empirical. Identify a question, but instead of empirical data, research what others have written/said. Collect everyone’s ideas (with short quotes) and tie them together with a few of your own comments to draw out the common themes that you see.	Pending
Research	pose a question that can be empirically answered gather data (if you are reading and quoting from other people's work it's a survey, not research) assemble the data into a usable form make inferences, find conclusions	Pending
Inspirational	Tell a story of success or paint a picture of ‘what could be’.	Pending
Interview	Interview (1 or 2 questions, you are not Playboy) or a guest post.	Pending
Profiles	Do some background research on an interesting person. Point out how they’ve reached the position they are in and write about the characteristics that they have that others in your niche might like to develop to be successful.	Pending
Hypothetical Posts	Pick a something that ‘could’ happen down the track in your industry and articulate implications.	Pending
Memes and Projects	Suggest an idea, offer a poll, solicit a memetic sense of a topic or situation.	Pending
Prediction and Review Posts	Doesn't have to be December 31 - this would be fun to do the night before your birthday or anniversary. Review what happened this year Make predictions for next year (good time for a list)	Pending
Critique	Find positives in what others do and make constructive suggestions for improvements.	Pending
Debate	Between two people, between a blogger and ‘all comers’ or even between a blogger and themselves.	Pending
Link	link to a post/article but add your own commentary & insight so you don't get flagged as a spammer (which my old blog did repeatedly)	Pending
‘Problem’ Posts	Review negatives of a product or service, along with suggested solutions/workarounds.	Pending
Rant	sound off, one two, sound off, three four...	Pending
Review</dt>	Share your opinion and ask readers for their opinion. Opinions are conclusions based on provable facts. Rants are attacks in the form of opinions based on other opinions, or data which cannot be sourced.	Reviewed Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
Satirical	See The Onion.	Pending

6 down, 24 to go. I hope I find my ring.

IT tonight

Big storms in the metro - stupidly left the dogs outside. Should know better than to do that.

Tonight:

• Fixed the PHP problem on my Ubuntu server - PHP was disabled by the upgrade and I had a cached version of the page so even when I fixed it, I didn't know it.


• Installed and configured a MediaWiki for work.


• Deployed BusinessWorks project to tarchive documents in accumulator directory, compress, timestamp them and upload to a remote server.


• Finally got my conf file to restrict access to certain pages in the domain to my local server.


• SOA Governance meeting - challenge as always is not the technology, it's the process and the people getting along. Need to find a way to make small-scale services, not a big moon shot that enervates everyone and tanks the ROI before anything is usable.

Note to future self: How long did all the electronic stuff last? Bits don't get dusty, they just go away. Do you still read these posts? Does anyone have meaningful records from this era?

More stuff!!

• Enabled HTTPS on the server
• Created my first mySQL stored proc
• wired PEAR code to the PHP forms