izmeina: (Don't panic)
This serpent has finally turned back into a giant orange pumpkin since the Fringe festival finished on Sunday
Now it's back to the boring life of watering the weeds and domestic duties. And the Lair sure needs taming after 4 weeks of only the most basic house work.
But it's funny. I am quite enjoying the slower and quieter pace. It also gives me time to process so many amazing shows. Due to the Fringe Friends Frenzy passes being extended to the end of the festival, I got to see lots more shows at a 30% disscount

The culture vulture dramas even dragged me away from my usual favorite shit show staring the orange blob and his legions of flying lying GOP monkeys. Mind you I did not neglect him entirely. I was up at 5am s few times watching the flim flam sham impeachment trial live and last Friday I went to see the very wicked and twisted "MAGA - the musical" which was definitely a show I would have been happy to see twice if I did not already have plans for the following day


Viva Las Vegas. Grumpy Dems play poker while trump channels Elvis


I have been slowly catching up on reading friends' posts in Dreamwidth land. So many juicy bookish memes out there.
It's always fun to think about books in new and interesting way and to see what recommendations can be snaffled from other folks.

One book that is not really a proper book that I had given up hope on getting this year did cross my path yesterday. The Co-op book shop is closing down. Forever. It's a liquidation sale. I have no need for any books since I can get them dirt cheap at the charity stores where I volunteer but of course curiosity got the better of me
And there in the window were several incarnations of the Goal Digger diaries that had proved so elusive this year. The arts centre shop that used to have them have gone for a different model this year and the other hipster shops that usually have them had empty spots on the shelves. Most of their diaries and journals were stuck in trucks on the Nullabor on account of the main road west being closed due to the bush fires. Most books are not like avocados or tomatoes but diaries are. By the second week of January, people expect to get them for half price.

By the end of February, they should have been down to 75% off instead of the measly 50 they were offering. I could be a cheapskate and wait another week or two but I was not going to take the chance after going to so much effort to find this particular make and model.

So I spent today filling in the details of the first of my 7 short term goals for the year - the long awaited overseas trip to Europe to visit Daisy Dursley, my fairy Godmother and other friends from ancient serpent days.

Drought proofing the garden will need to be Goal Number 2 if I am going to be absent for 5 weeks unless I can find a garden baby sitter between now and September.

It is so much better to do thinking on paper than in the serpent skull. It is just so much clearer that way.

6,000

01/03/2013 10:30 pm
izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
Exactly 5 years and 5 days after the serpent’s solar panels were connected to the grid they clocked up the magic 6,000 kilowatts. It’s a pissy little 1kw system on a west facing roof so that is a reasonably good performance
These days it would cost less than half of the $5,000 it was back then but it would be a veritable nightmare sorting out the kosher from the crap. And the serpent would not be getting 47 cents for every unit sold back to the grid. These days in spite of being cheap as chips, solar panels are only worth the bother for big users.

Those panels were just one out of a hundred things on a certain ‘to do’ list started back in May 2007. Every now and again I indulge in such bouts of wishful thinking. A relic from the ancient days of 5 year plans from your local socialist utopia or maybe just a bit of wishful thinking

Sometimes you make a 5 year plan and forget all about it. Then years later those bits of paper with all that wishful thinking just turn up out of nowhere long after the initial enthusiasm has worn off. But the spooky thing is that a bunch of things have been ticked off. So somewhere deep in the recesses of the dark cobwebbed corners of the mind it has been remembered after all
So for that reason alone it is worth indulging in such list making and wishful thinking. After all even a 50% fail rate probably results in more stuff getting done than if the list never existed

So with this in mind started the first list of 101 things in 1000 days way back in May 2007. Managed to complete 48 of the 101 things on the list and another 18 were still in progress but the most significant thing turned out to be how the list alerted the serpent to possible opportunities that would have remained otherwise unnoticed. The very wishful ‘Earn 20% of income from other than work sources’ item was almost in the same league as “Win the lottery”
But the fact it was there made all the difference. When such an opportunity did indeed present itself, it was time to give it a second look rather than dismiss it outright. This one decision directly influenced other items on the second incarnation of the 101 things in 1000 days list

That one finished last week. It was pretty much abandoned after a bunch of Howlers from a certain toad last year but even before then was looking most miserable indeed
The final score ended up being a very sad and pathetic 17 ticks on the list for things completed and 18 items in progress. That left a ridiculous 75 items not even touched
But one of these 17 completed items was probably worth at least 20 of the completely and totally failed 75. Had aimed for paying $40,000 off the Lair but had managed to add an extra $16,000 to that and got rid of the whole thing entirely. A large part of achieving this goal was directly related to devoting all that non work derived income from the 2007-2010 list to increasing the house payments.

And now that the frumpy and ever so ancient serpent is still not gainfully employed, this single item along with the solar panels from the previous list have proved most useful and significant indeed.

There will be a new list but a bit less ambitious. It will be two years long instead of nearly three and will include only 5 things. But the big difference is that while each of these five big ticket items can be expanded to ten steps each to make a total of 50, unlike the old lists they are all part of a bigger picture rather than just a random collection of interesting or useful things to do

The hottest summer on record in this bit of Oz has well and truly nuked the serpent’s garden and the next six months will be devoted to tree planting and other devious means to keep that evil yellow blob in the sky from sizzling the soil next summer.

6,000

01/03/2013 10:30 pm
izmeina: (oro)
Exactly 5 years and 5 days after the serpent’s solar panels were connected to the grid they clocked up the magic 6,000 kilowatts. It’s a pissy little 1kw system on a west facing roof so that is a reasonably good performance
These days it would cost less than half of the $5,000 it was back then but it would be a veritable nightmare sorting out the kosher from the crap. And the serpent would not be getting 47 cents for every unit sold back to the grid. These days in spite of being cheap as chips, solar panels are only worth the bother for big users.

Those panels were just one out of a hundred things on a certain ‘to do’ list started back in May 2007. Every now and again I indulge in such bouts of wishful thinking. A relic from the ancient days of 5 year plans from your local socialist utopia or maybe just a bit of wishful thinking

Sometimes you make a 5 year plan and forget all about it. Then years later those bits of paper with all that wishful thinking just turn up out of nowhere long after the initial enthusiasm has worn off. But the spooky thing is that a bunch of things have been ticked off. So somewhere deep in the recesses of the dark cobwebbed corners of the mind it has been remembered after all
So for that reason alone it is worth indulging in such list making and wishful thinking. After all even a 50% fail rate probably results in more stuff getting done than if the list never existed

So with this in mind started the first list of 101 things in 1000 days way back in May 2007. Managed to complete 48 of the 101 things on the list and another 18 were still in progress but the most significant thing turned out to be how the list alerted the serpent to possible opportunities that would have remained otherwise unnoticed. The very wishful ‘Earn 20% of income from other than work sources’ item was almost in the same league as “Win the lottery”
But the fact it was there made all the difference. When such an opportunity did indeed present itself, it was time to give it a second look rather than dismiss it outright. This one decision directly influenced other items on the second incarnation of the 101 things in 1000 days list

That one finished last week. It was pretty much abandoned after a bunch of Howlers from a certain toad last year but even before then was looking most miserable indeed
The final score ended up being a very sad and pathetic 17 ticks on the list for things completed and 18 items in progress. That left a ridiculous 75 items not even touched
But one of these 17 completed items was probably worth at least 20 of the completely and totally failed 75. Had aimed for paying $40,000 off the Lair but had managed to add an extra $16,000 to that and got rid of the whole thing entirely. A large part of achieving this goal was directly related to devoting all that non work derived income from the 2007-2010 list to increasing the house payments.

And now that the frumpy and ever so ancient serpent is still not gainfully employed, this single item along with the solar panels from the previous list have proved most useful and significant indeed.

There will be a new list but a bit less ambitious. It will be two years long instead of nearly three and will include only 5 things. But the big difference is that while each of these five big ticket items can be expanded to ten steps each to make a total of 50, unlike the old lists they are all part of a bigger picture rather than just a random collection of interesting or useful things to do

The hottest summer on record in this bit of Oz has well and truly nuked the serpent’s garden and the next six months will be devoted to tree planting and other devious means to keep that evil yellow blob in the sky from sizzling the soil next summer.
izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
In an attempt to be organized recently bought two bright shiny expanding folders. The bright lime green one is for packets of seeds sorted by month and season and the lurid pink one for bits and bobs, scraps of paper and articles that don’t really fit anywhere else.
But while 18 brown pockets might be all right for seeds, it is not so useful for other stuff. Had already considered clearing out the contents of an old folder and assigning it to this new purpose. But like so many other good intentions this one ended up in the too hard basket. That was until tonight.

Bills and things )
izmeina: Roz with clipboard from Monsters Inc (Roz)
In an attempt to be organized recently bought two bright shiny expanding folders. The bright lime green one is for packets of seeds sorted by month and season and the lurid pink one for bits and bobs, scraps of paper and articles that don’t really fit anywhere else.
But while 18 brown pockets might be all right for seeds, it is not so useful for other stuff. Had already considered clearing out the contents of an old folder and assigning it to this new purpose. But like so many other good intentions this one ended up in the too hard basket. That was until tonight.

Bills and things )

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izmeina: a snippet of Escher's circle of serpents (Default)
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