Maggie at 6 months

Haven't posted a picture of Maggie in a while, so here you go.

Black Friday in Lowell

Christmas lights downtown

On tha Mass Pike

Here we ah.

Considerations in Continuing this Experiment

I started this blog because I had a cool idea, that I could post pictures about the things I am seeing at randomly selected times of the day with data about what I am thinking about, how I'm feeling and that sort of thing. And then later on I could run it through some statistical analysis and find out some interesting things about how I can be a happier and more productive person.

But I'm thinking that this will be the last post here for a while. Three main reasons:

1. There are some technical problems that are making this difficult. Apparently Verizon fixed some sort of problem at vzwpix.com and my posts are able to get through now. I say apparently because the post below took two days to get from my cell phone to this blog. The process used to work dependably and I don't have time to figure out how to fix it right now.
2. I have entered National Novel Writing Month and committed to producing a novel and have only 20 days left to do so. I'm making excellent progress, but this takes a lot of time.
3. Maybe most important, writing this novel is clearly the most engaged I can possibly be while I have my clothes on and am not on a tennis court. I hope that this novel doesn't completely suck, because I know I'm a good editor and I can make it a lot better. And I may seriously think about attempting to do this full time after I am done writing it.

So I'm going to take a break from this site for a while and may return to it if things change (if I find myself bogging down in the novel, or I become suddenly unemployed, or depressed, or whatever. And maybe I'll just return to it anyway and finish the experiment. Best way to get notification is to subscribe to the feed.

Crunching numbers

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I am preparing some spreadsheets to format election exit-poll data as it comes in. Pretty energetic, mostly out of fear that when it finally comes in I won't be able to do it before the deadline. And feeling pretty good about being able to help.

Writing again

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Work on the NaNoWriMo novel never ceases. Well, I guess it will cease on November 30.

Making good progress after an extremely busy weekend with two birthday parties for my son, who will be nine years old tomorrow morning at 8:27 am.

Feeling good but tired.

Zamboni

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At a hockey game/birthday party with my son and his soccer friends. There are like 14 of us. I think if you include the pep band that's like almost half the crowd at the lightly-attended game. Lowell Riverhawks won 5-0 against Merrimack. I'm tired but having a pleasant enough time.

Mobile blog up and running again

I have no idea how this worked out, but the gears and fan belts are all going in the right directions now and I can post with my mobile phone once again.

I called Verizon yesterday, thinking that the communications problem might be at vzwpix.com, since I wasn't getting responses from them that they had received my posts. But I still don't understand why they would get the messages in the first place. I am sending them directly to go@blogger.com.

Anyway, the time-intensive and somewhat unsatisfying experiment that is real-life postcards will resume today, thanks, I'm guessing, to the patient and kind Crystal at Verizon.

I'll probably have to spend some time getting the formatting on this site worked out, though. Perhaps I should learn some more html, or CSS. I changed the format of the site when I was having technical problems, because I switched over to beta.blogger. I don't know if I still have the option to play around with the formatting directly.

Working on my NaNoWriMo Novel

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Writing a novel for NaNoWriMo. I couldn't get much of anything done on it at work because I had to travel to a couple of meetings and worked through my lunch hour on something else.

I'm alone and am making good progress. Lots of energy and feeling good about the whole enterprise.

Putting my novel online

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I was just finishing uploading the first 200o or so words of my novel for NaNoWriMo and I wanted to check my mail. Here's the front page of Yahoo I was looking at. Perhaps it oriented the feature around my keystrokes? I dunno.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and can't seem to concentrate on anything. I'm going to bed, even though I should be cleaning the basement in preparation for Saturday's string of birthday parties. I feel pretty good about my day, though.

Notes on Data Collection

Perhaps this is a little confusing but the previous few posts and the next few posts, until further notice, are posted a day late. The pictures and data and text were recorded on the previous day and sent when I had time to send them. This is because Blogger can't seem to post from my phone anymore.

Coming home to help with the Costume

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Driving over the Roarke Bridge, stuck in traffic. Everybody apparently wanted to leave work early today.

Feeling pretty energetic, but it is an anxious kind of energy. Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I don't like wearing a costume, don't like having to comment on the kids costumes, don't like having to get up from whatever I'm doing to pass out candy at random moments.