Status Quo in the Caffeine War

My caffeine intake Thursday was about average: four 20oz bottles of diet soda. But I drank water with lunch, and I drank a 20oz Gatorade G2 in the afternoon. And I once again resisted the urge to have a can of diet soda in the evening.

Caffeine is still my enemy.

Setback in the Caffeine War

Wednesday was not a great day in the Battle Against Caffeine. I drank five 20oz bottles of diet soda at work - two in the morning and three in the afternoon. Ouch. I did have 20oz of water with lunch, but I also had some regular Coke with supper.

Just not a good day.

In my past attempts to kick the caffeine habit, this kind of day makes me want to give up. But this time is different.

Caffeine is the enemy.

Caffeine is the enemy.

The Caffeine Battle Begins

I've had mixed results so far in my efforts to kick caffeine.

On the way to work Monday morning I didn't have time to stop at the convenience store to look for Caffeine-Replacement Liquids (CRLs), so I ended up having a couple of 20oz bottles of diet soda in the morning. After lunch, though I bought a bottle of Gatorade G2 and a fruit-punch flavored drink whose name I forget. I ended up drinking three bottles of diet soda at work, which is less than usual.

On Tuesday, I backslid a little - I drank four 20oz bottles of diet soda. But on the plus side, I made an effort to drink more water. Considering I haven't been drinking much water at all at work, the 40oz of water I drank today was an improvement.

And Tuesday evening, I resisted the urge to have a can of diet soda. As if I don't drink enough caffeine at work.

Even if I don't regularly buy any CRLs, I can always fall back on water.

The Beginning of the End of My Caffeine Addition

At the beginning of 2008, I stopped regularly drinking regular soda, switching to diet soda (Diet Coke, Diet Dr Pepper, and Diet Mt Dew). That cut back on my sugar intake quite a bit, and that was a good thing. But I was surprised by the effect of caffeine without the sugar. I was hungry much earlier in the morning compared to when I was drinking the sugar-laced sodas, and the caffeine "highs" were much more pronounced. It was like in the past the caffeine burned up the sugar, each almost negating the other, and when I switched to diet the caffeine had free rein.

Even though I know too much caffeine makes me irritable and upsets my stomach, I still crave it. I look forward to getting to work so I can start drinking caffeine. It's gotten to the point that I almost always have a diet soda in front of me.

I've tried a couple of times to cut back on the caffeine or stop altogether, but I have not succeeded. I tried Caffeine-Free Diet Code, but that didn't last - it didn't taste right at all (I know a lot of people say that about "regular" diet, but I could tell a difference), and it made me feel even more dehydrated. I've tried low-sugar drinks like Vitamin Water and Gatorade G2, and I was able to make some progress with them, but it didn't last. The diet soda is too easily found; if I don't have time to get anything else, I can always fall back on diet soda - and I fall back on it I gladly will.

I need to make a change. I realize this will take some time, but I'm sure it will be worth it.

So I've started searching for ideas that will help. I did some searching and came across a posting on Dumb Little Man about How to Give Up Coffee and Caffeine Altogether. It says to slowly replace coffee with caffeinated tea and to slowly move to decaffeinated tea. I'm not sure how well that will work for me because coffee isn't my main problem. I've noticed that simply making sure that I have a bottle of water in front of me helps - I'm used to having something to drink in front of me. But I don't think I can simply switch to water because I need something to replace the taste as well. Maybe the tea idea won't work for me, but I should be able to find something that will work for me.

Tomorrow morning I will look for something at my normal convenience store that might eventually replace diet soda.

It's the beginning of the end for caffeine and me.

“Can I Have That Back…?”

Twice in recent years I’ve had a door-to-door salesperson come to my door and start off by handing me something free, something small.

The most recent occurrence was a couple of weeks ago, and the guy who came to the door handed me a small pack of tissues before launching into his sales pitch. (I forget what he was selling.) He gestured to a beaten-up car on the street and said his boss was in it and wanted to give me a demo of whatever it was. I said, no, I didn’t have time. He didn’t try to counter that, but he did ask if he could have the tissues back so he could offer them to someone else. I gave them back.

I find the tactic annoying, but I can see why they do it. Giving a householder something will make him or her feel obligated to listen to the spiel. But if the salesperson is going to use that tactic, they shouldn’t ask for the item back – they look petty and cheap when they do that. And the next time someone comes calling using that tactic, I’m reminded of how annoyed I was the last time someone used it and therefore I’m less likely to respond favorably.

I think the next time this happens, before I take the item I’ll say, “I’ll take that if you’re offering it, but I’m not giving it back. I’ll listen to a brief sales pitch, but I’m not giving this back. Still want me to give it to me?”

Minnesota Vikings Week 2 Observations

The Vikings once again started slow – the first-half of today’s game against the Detroit Lions was not pretty; the defense was having trouble stopping the Lions rush, and the offense was clicking.  It was 10-0 Lions at halftime.

Things improved a lot in the second-half, and Minnesota won 27-13 to go to 2-0.  They scored 27 unanswered points before Detroit scored a field-goal toward the end of the game.

I’m happy for the win, but I am concerned.  If they keep on starting slow, it will catch up with them – good teams will bury them.  The Cleveland Browns – last week’s opponent – and the Lions aren’t strong teams, but they still played tough.

My other concern is the health of the Vikings’ starting quarterback.  Brett Favre is taking a lot of hits.  He was sacked twice in the first-half and hit several other times.  He looked like his throwing arm was hurt in the 4th quarter on his second touchdown pass.  That play turned out to be his last play of the game because the game was well in hand.  He was laughing on the sideline later, so hopefully there’s no serious injury.

I know it’s early in the season, but I wonder if Favre is going to be able to last the year.  The blitz is getting to him, and he is taking hits.  I hold my breath every time he goes down.  He started a NFL-record 271th straight game today.  The streak has to end someday, and I won’t be surprised if it ends this season.  I hope I’m underestimating him.

Brett Favre is a Viking

It will take awhile for me to get used to seeing him in purple and gold.  I’ve had some time to get used to the idea of Favre playing for Minnesota, but the reality of seeing him in a Vikings uniform takes some getting used to.

It is a strange, strange world.

Dresden Files: Changes are Coming

I saw today that the cover for the next book in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series – Changes - is making the rounds on the interwebs:

 

I like it.  Very dark imagery, and it hints of a non-Chicago setting.  Only eight months to go…

“I Want It All…”

“…and I want it now!” –Queen

I’ve been thinking about patience, and this song by the rock band Queen – “I Want It All” – came to mind. The theme of this song is not patience. I think that someone with that attitude is going to be disappointed: he won’t get it “all” now, and whatever he does get, it won’t be “all.”

Impatience is associated with youth; patience is supposed to be easier as a person ages. But as I get older I don’t know that I’m getting more patient. I think I’m simply avoiding things that take a lot of time, focus and commitment.

As I look back over my life, I’ve always had a fear of commitment; I don’t think I’m unique in this – most people like having choices and commitment reduces choices. But over the last few years, I’ve added the inability to focus to my fear of commitment - I’ve become less able to focus on any one task for long. I don’t seem able to concentrate, partly due to a lack of patience.

I can trace the beginnings of my current mindset back to early 2006 to mid-2008; I coordinated a large project at work during that time. At the beginning of the project, I found myself getting bogged down in a lot of details. I had to learn to delegate. My boss at the time told me, “It’s not your job to do all the work. It’s your job to make sure the work gets done.” That helped a lot.

Once I learned to delegate, I came to like it because I could keep the big picture in mind without spending a lot of time on any one problem. This fit nicely with my fear of commitment – I could pass off time-consuming tasks on the legitimate grounds that I didn’t have time to do them.

But my current job – prototyping – involves spending a lot of time on problems so I need to change my mindset from “delegate”-mode to “problem-solving”-mode - getting down into the details is what I’m supposed to do. I need to remember that there is no one to delegate to anymore. Finding the best solutions is my job, even if those solutions take time.

Another side-effect of growing older is the perception that time is running out. When I’m focused on a task to the exclusion of all else, time goes quickly. Part of me doesn’t want time to go quickly. I’m afraid that if time goes quickly, I’ll look around and realize that my life has passed me by while I was busy. (See the song “Time Stand Still” by Rush.)

But at the same time, we have to keep moving; life is motion. I don’t want to be stagnant either. So I find myself in a dilemma: I don’t want life to go too fast, I’m impatient, I want to grow as a person, I don’t like focusing on one thing for long, and I don’t like commitment.

With that combination, my life should be filled with frustration. Maybe when I am old I’ll look back at my life and wonder why I didn’t focus more on worthwhile pursuits instead of being frustrated by my conflicting tendencies and desires. Or maybe I’ll be too lazy to care.

Double Meanings

I am sometimes dense when it comes to phrases with double-meanings. Take this phrase:

If I told you you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?

I’m heard that phrase many times before, and I always took it to mean the person being addressed might take offense if told “you had a beautiful body.” Until now I never understood the second meaning: “…would you hold it [your body] against me?”

For all I know there are a lot of such double-meanings that I’m missing.

The only language I speak – barely – is American English. I wonder if other languages have many such double-meanings, or if English lends itself especially well to ambiguity.

In any case, maybe I’ll get more perceptive as I get older. I can hope.

The Brett Favre Saga

I am a Minnesota Vikings football fan. In the past, that has meant a lot of pain and frustration. The memory of the 1998 NFC Championship loss to the Atlanta Falcons still stings; the 2000 NFC Championship loss to the New York Giants was a humiliation; and the less said about the Hershel Walker trade, the better.

There have been good times, of course. Watching Adrian Peterson has been exciting, much like watching Randy Moss was exciting; the 2004-season playoff victory against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field was a high point; and there are many other pleasant memories, too.

Lately for me, being a Vikings fan has meant following the sports news for the latest word about the Brett Favre will-he-or-won't-he-play-for-the-Vikings saga.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

On one hand, as the long-time quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, Favre has been a Vikings nemesis for years, and I've spent those years cheering against him and the Packers. And for many years, he could do no wrong in the eyes of most of the media. Watching Packers games meant enduring slobbering announcers gushing about how great Favre was, how he loved the game. I respected him as a player, and by all accounts he is a decent person, but the division rivalry and media-worship made it hard for me to like him.

But that is the past. If Favre improves the Vikings roster, I'll welcome his addition. After watching the Vikings' painful quarterback play last season, it's not hard to think that Favre will improve the position. The Vikings' playoff loss against the Philadelphia Eagles showed the value of having an experienced quarterback in the playoffs; the Eagles had the experience, Minnesota didn't.

And as his public divorce from the Packers played out a year ago, and as he struggled through the last half of the 2008 season with the New York Jets, the media began to treat Favre as something less than a god, so I don't get as annoyed by his media coverage these days. And if he plays for the Vikings, I will be happy if he plays so well that the media raves about him. Somehow I find it easier to endure media-slobber when they are slobbering over players on my favorite teams.

But before I start day-dreaming about Favre handing-off to Adrian Peterson and throwing touchdowns, I should remember that Favre hasn't even signed with the team yet. And he might not play (and even if he does, he might fail).

The longer Favre takes deciding if he wants to play, the more nervous I get. Based on media reports, his physical condition isn't the issue. I don't know his reasoning, of course, but if he was able to fully commit himself, wouldn't he have already decided to join the Vikings? I hope I'm wrong, of course, but if Favre signs right before training camp after an off-season of "anguished" indecision, I worry that he won't be ready mentally or emotionally.

It will be a disaster if he doesn't decide by the start of training camp. The uncertainty would distract the team more than it has already. It will be bad enough either way for the quarterbacks who are on the roster, Tavaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels, and if Favre doesn't play, how much confidence and enthusiasm will the two of them have?

Favre needs to decide already. One way or another.

Hope for the G.I. Joe Movie?

Just saw a positive review for the new G.I. Joe movie at Ain’t It Cool News.  I didn’t expect to see good reviews for this movie.  Maybe I’ll have to go see it after all.

I think the only movie I’ve seen this summer is Star Trek.  I missed X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator Salvation.

I have a hard time wanting to take the time to see a movie.  I keep thinking about all the other stuff I have to do.  But maybe I can make time for G.I. Joe.

The Joy of Getting Old

I’m getting old.  Do you want to know how I know that?  You’re probably thinking, “Um, this could be bad.”  Don’t worry, the answer doesn’t involve tedious descriptions of physical ailments, and it doesn’t involve mental decline (maybe it should, but it doesn’t).  The answer is “baseball.”  I knew I was getting old when I found myself enjoying watching and following baseball, specifically the Minnesota Twins MLB team.

My fondness for baseball took a long time to develop.  When I was a teenager, the only baseball I would watch was the World Series.  I didn’t know the subtleties of the game; I often thought a game, especially the latter innings, took forever, and I didn’t understand why.  “Boring,” I thought.  A new pitcher comes into the game, pitches to one batter, and then they pause the game again to bring in another pitcher.  What the hell?  Do they want the game to go on forever?

I began watching baseball regularly in 2001.  I have always preferred watching NFL football.  I have a little more understanding of its subtleties, and it was a lot faster moving, making it easier to pay attention.  But starting in 2001 I begin to watch the Twins as they started to attract attention as a contending team after years of futility.  After winning the 1991 World Series, the Twins had sunk a long ways by 2000.  But during the 2001 season, the Twins started making some noise.  The Twins had a lot of young players that had been developed in the teams farm system, and those players were driving the Twins to the top of their division, surprising a lot of people.

The Twins faded that year, not making the post-season.  But I had become interested enough to follow them, and it was exciting to watch them go to the playoffs in the following years, even though they haven’t made it to the World Series.  And in that time I’ve learned enough about the game to enjoy it.

I used to think a close game – a 1-0, 1-1, or a 2-1 game – was boring.  Now, I think such a game is exciting, like a low-scoring NFL football game between two good defensive teams.  Sure, offense is exciting, but I can appreciate a good defensive battle.  And such close games are exiting in a way that high-scoring games aren’t.

What has helped me to enjoy baseball is a basic appreciation of the nuances of the game.  Even though I’m no baseball expert by any means, I can appreciate a pitcher who can shave the outside of the plate for a strikeout, or a hitter who reaches first base on a walk after being down 0-2.  I can feel the pressure when a pitcher takes a no-hitter in the late innings.  I watched Johann Santana tie the record for strikeouts in a game; that was history in the making.  I have watched Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer come up from the minor leagues and develop into two of the best players in all of baseball.  There is still a lot I don’t understand and maybe never will, and I don’t have a good sense of baseball history, but I have come to enjoy of well-played game of baseball and to savor the 160-game season.

Don’t get me wrong, baseball is often boring, almost as bad as watching paint dry.  Those pitching changes can extend the end of the game and take away some of the excitement of a close game.  And a never-ending extra-inning game is like a boxing match between two exhausted opponents that ends when one of them gets too tired to defend himself.

I rarely watch a baseball game with my full attention.  There are exceptions, but I’m usually doing something else, either reading, working on the computer, or other activities that allow me to give the game my partial attention.  I can work on something else and keep an ear out for key events in a game, like a home run or a great defensive play.

I am getting old, no doubt about it.  But liking baseball shouldn’t make me feel old.  Maybe anything that I can be passionate about should make me feel young.  If nothing else, it helps me relax after a day at work.  Not bad for a boring game.

Writing is Hard

I read a lot.  I think about writing a lot.  I look at books I like, especially a non-fiction software development book, and I think, “I would like to write something this useful.”  But then I despair because I don’t know where to start, and even if I did, I don’t know that I have all that much to write about.  That’s not to say that I don’t have any knowledge or skills; I simply don’t know how to easily unlock that information and transfer it to the page.

Sometimes I feel like I am a knowledge base without a Table of Contents or Index.  If someone asks me a question, I can search my knowledge and experiences for an answer, sometimes even a useful one.  But without the trigger of someone asking me a question, I probably wouldn’t sit down to write about that question.

I’m probably not unique in this, but I get frustrated when I try to think of things to write about; I know I have at least a few bits of wisdom and knowledge to pass on, but those bits aren’t available for retrieval until something specific comes along that needs to access them.

The human brain is not like a operating system’s file system; a file system can give you a list of everything that is contained in it.  A human brain has no such index, at least mine doesn’t.  Trying to create such an index is difficult and will never be 100% accurate, probably not even close.

Part of my problem is that I have not been organized or disciplined about communicating my knowledge and thought processes.  Professional teachers create organized lesson plans all the time, so it’s possible.  There are plenty of books and resources that show that knowledge and wisdom can be communicated in an organized fashion.  But I’m sure it’s not easy.

When trying to find technical topics to write about at work, I’ve found it helps me to write about the questions I get asked.  In the past, I’ve written blog posts on subjects that I get asked about a lot.  Other times, I’ve written about solutions to problems I encountered that day.  Also, I’m trying to write about things I’ve learned in a day; it’s a rare day when I don’t learn something, so I should have plenty to write about.  But I also want to write about subjects that others will find useful.  I don’t want to write about esoteric trivia that no one will find useful; on the other hand, if I find some obscure bit of knowledge interesting, the odds are someone out in the interwebs will find it interesting, too.

Writing blog entries is a long way from writing a book, of course, but it’s a start.  Like with anything that you want to be good at, it takes time and effort to master it.  Practice, practice, and more practice is needed; I should write every day.  Impatience, boredom, discouragement, and lack of focus are my enemies, and I struggle mightily with those foes.

Writing in order to communicate knowledge and experience to others is hard.  I want it to be easy, but it simply isn’t, not for me.  It’s work.

Writing for myself, such as journal writing, is easier, but it still takes effort.

Both are fulfilling and serve a need.  But it won’t be easy.  Time will tell if I meet my writing goals (one of my goals to find some goals), but I’m becoming more convinced it’s possible if I keep at it and work hard.

Blog Editor

I don’t like to blog about blogging, but I’ll make an exception to talk about tools.

As I posted before, I’ve wanted to find a good cross-platform blogging client, but I’m finding that I need to reduce my expectations.

I haven’t had much success finding a good cross-platform editor; most of them haven’t been maintained in a long time. (Flock is maintained, but it is overkill for what I want to do.) ScribeFire is the best cross-platform tool that I’ve found, but at least right now on Firefox 3 on WinXP, keyboard shortcuts don’t work. I’ll keep ScribeFire around as a backup, but it probably won’t be my primary tool.

On Windows, I have to say that Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer is the best tool I’ve found. It’s easy to use, has great image-handling, and – most importantly – it “just works.” I rarely praise Microsoft, but I like Live Writer a lot.

I almost forgot about Zoho Writer; I like it, too. Its keyboard shortcuts override the browser’s shortcuts, so that shortcuts like CTRL-B/CTRL-I/CTRL-U work. And it’s possible to publish directly to Blogger, so that’s a big plus.

As for blogging from the Linux desktop, I need to do more research. Some of the “big” names in Linux desktop bloggers don’t seem to have been updated recently. Zoho Writer/Google Docs might be my best bet there, although I haven’t tested their image-handling abilities.

As I was searching for editors, I found this article very useful: 20+ Useful Desktop Blog Editors.

Discovery of the Day - WriteMonkey

I don’t know how much I’ll use it, but I find WriteMonkey to be an intriguing tool. As far as text editors go, it doesn’t get much simpler than this:

No whistles and bells, just empty screen, you and your words. WriteMonkey is light, fast, and perfectly handy for those who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter but live in modern times.

Despite it’s simplicity, it has quite a few options, including colors, font, and sounds.

Screenshot:

I’ll have to keep this tool in mind for writing projects that call for simple text.

Quote of the Day - 7/9/2009

"I think a certain fearlessness in the face of your own ineptitude is a useful tool." - Michael Cunningham

Information Overload

There is a lot of garbage on the Internet.
     I try to avoid it.

There is a lot of dumb stuff on the Internet.
     Occasionally humorous.

There is a lot of useless stuff on the Internet.
     I spent more time than I should being entertained by it.

There is a lot of interesting stuff on the Internet.
     I try to follow as much of it as I can.

There is a lot of very useful stuff.
     I don't have nearly enough time for all of it.

Here are a couple of examples of the later category:

The Top 50 Productivity Blogs Of The Year
50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

I could - and probably will - spend a lot of time looking through these resources, looking for useful information.  But I doubt I will have time to go through all of it, maybe not even close.  And even if I could take it all in, how much could I absorb and apply?

Sometimes I despair of every mastering any subjects because I spent all my time barely scratching the surface of too many different topics.

Twittering

I made my first "tweet" tonight. I have been very slow to jump on the Twitter bandwagon; it just doesn't have that much appeal for me. But there are more and more people who are announcing things on Twitter instead of their blogs. So I have to pay attention to Twitter no matter if I want to or not.

Twitter simply seems like a public IM (instant messaging) system. Scott Hanselman has a good post about how to use Twitter, saying "If you make Twitter into another list of crap to read, you will be sad. The sooner you realize that Twitter is just a list of crap, the happier you'll be." He also says "[t]o really get something out of Twitter you need to follow at LEAST a hundred people of various backgrounds." Ok, we'll see if I manage to follow that many people. I already have more things to read than I have time for. And I need to reduce the number of things beeping, blinking, and flashing to get my attention; I need to focus more and get distracted less. Time will tell if I find Twitter to be worth the time.

Blogging Editors

For me, half the fun of any new undertaking is finding the right tools.  Blogging is no exception.

I've spent more time today than I care to admit researching tools for blogging - WYSIWYG HTML editors and blogging editors.  For my internal work blog, I use Microsoft's Windows Live Writer, and I like it a lot.  But for this blog, I wanted to see what other options exist; I'm especially interested in cross-platform tools because I use Linux at home half the time, so I want something that will work on both Windows and Linux.

I installed the ScribeFire Firefox plugin, and it works good; I'll keep it around as a nice cross-platform option.  Flock is a stand-alone cross-platform tool that looks interesting; it has options to interact with other social web sites like Flickr.  But Flock might be overkill for what I need.

Google Docs is an option, too, for Blogger accounts, at least.  I use Docs for some non-sensitive work material, and it works fine for basic word processing and spreadsheet tasks.

I'm writing this entry on Zoho Writer, an online word processor.  It's along the same lines as Google Doc's word processor.  I haven't used it enough to determine how they compare in features.

If I can't find a perfect cross-platform tool, I might just use the best tools that each platform offers.  I'm not sure what the best Linux-only blog tool would be.  Last time I checked, Linux's blog tools seemed immature, but that might have changed.