Yawn

Jesus tea bag

Desk light phone charger

Knowledge

Daily Journal - April 13, 2017

I keep seeing headlines that "Military Strike on North Korea is Imminent." This is pretty f'n scary.


Reading Derren Brown's book ...  He is a magician/illusionist from the UK. I'm in the middle of a chapter on hypnosis. It's very interesting. He put forward the hypnotic suggestion structure:

"As you X, so you Y"

Busy, stressed at work.

Up today at 5 am.

Thought about Goals/Habits -

Hip pain

For men only why you should always leave the toilet set up

Persuasion

Getting Doctor to give me a note

Today I needed to get a note from my doctor to get a stand-up desk at work. So instead of just asking him I engage him in conversation about what he thinks of standing vs. sitting. After this discussion I ask if I could get a note for a stand-up desk and he says "yes."

Woman on the escalator

A woman was standing on the left side of the escalator as I was running to make a train at Penn station. As I passed I said "It's less rude to stand to the left

10 lbs in 10 weeks.

I've decided that I want to lose some weight. 10 lbs sounds good. I've been having trouble losing weight.  So I've gone public on twitter.

How to Prioritize When You Have Too Much To Do?

Prioritizing is sorting.

If you know how to sort a list in alphabetical order you know how to prioritize.

Except you're not ordering by something that exists.

So the real question is "What's my MIT (Most Important Task)?" and then do it.

If you could assign a value to each task then all you'd have to do is sort by that value. If there was a tie then you could flip a coin to choose.

Another question could be if you were a robot what would be the program or steps to determine your MIT.

Another issue might be even if you knew your MIT, would you do it or would you have "demand resistance" against it.

According to Google "Demand resistance can be defined as an unconscious chronic negative response to demands, real or perceived, internal or external. It means that the individual does not react well to any demands or expectations for how they should behave."

So I have a new task "Research Demand Resistance."  I found the term Demand Resistance from the review of the book The Procrastination Formula.

So the goal is to have a number of variables associated with a task. The apply some math to the variables and sort it by the result.

Simple methods

• Do small tasks before large tasks

Daily Journal - April 23, 2017

Up at 11 am today, but had 6ww earlier and fell back asleep. She took the dog for a walk.

Blood Sugar was 102 which is good for me but I want it to be lower.

Blood pressure 132/84 after a full cup of Bulletproof Coffee and heart rate at 68.

Sitting on an exercise ball and trying to stand 10 minutes of every hour.

Excel Diet

Yesterday we had 5 people over for pizza and to watch the NY Rangers vs. Montreal Canadien hockey playoff game. Rangers won and move on to second round of the playoffs.

Weight this morning was 170.6. I had vodka, pizza, 3 - 4 small slices, fruit salad, ice cream, brownies.

Today is second time I'm behind my 1 pound a week goal so I have to tighten up what I'm eating today. The key to the diet is the "A" from "MEAT" acronym which I wrote about in this Excel Diet Infographic. And how to create in infographic if you're interested.

Library books

I've had these books out for awhile and haven't been able to get to them.

Media

I watched the following videos.

Daily 5 Minute Journal July 16 2017

My last post was on April 30th, 2017 almost 2 1/2 months ago. I'm not sure why I haven't posted recently.

Some things to cover in this post:

• Book Creator
• Books I'm working on
• Weight Loss
• Kindle book
• Work
• Bulletproof Coffee
• Twitter List
• Lab visit with my son

Book Creator

I've been working on a tool I currently call Book Creator. I didn't specifically go to create it. It sort of happened in a bottoms up fashion like most of the things I do. 

Bottom's up vs. Top Down

I'm a bottoms-up type of person. I'm good at starting small and then improving something instead of planning out what I want and then fill in the details.

Book Creator is a tool that assists with creating a book using an FTAD (Finish Then Add Details) method. It is also embedded in the Listi.net list creation tool.

The tool allows me to easily write multiple non-fiction books that in theory are always ready for consumption. The book must be in the format of :

101 Ways to Get a Job.

Now, say if I only have 3 ways then the book title and content automatically adjusts. All ideas I have goes into a backlog and from there I can easily order or pick the idea to write on. Once I've finished the article or blog post I can add it to one or more of the books I'm working on. The book automatically adjusts:

• The Cover Page increases to 102 Ways to Get a Job
• The title on each page changes
• The Table of contents is automatically updated
• The footer on each page is automatically updated
• The book can be easily converted to Microsoft Word format (this still needs some work)

This probably wasn't clear due to the Curse of Knowledge, so I'll  make a video to better explain this concept.

Below is an example page from the book.

Books I'm working on

Persuasion

Weight Loss
Kindle book
Work
Bulletproof Coffee
Twitter List
Lab visit with my son

Street art

Street art

Daily 5 Minute Journal August 5, 2017

Juggling

I juggled last night at Bryant Park. Did some club passing with Joe and we did pretty well, a woman who is 49.  Talked with Alice, Iggy.  Asked Jeff if he wanted to pass but he said "no."  Worked on 5 balls, 4 balls, clubs. I juggled clubs around 180 tosses. Taught 2 kids but they were impatient and couldn't do it.   There was another guy who was learning that I tried to help and some uncoordinated guy who needs to practice.

Weight

Still struggling to get below 160. I did it once but I'm wondering if it was a scale issue. Weighed myself a number of times yesterday and got many different numbers, but I'll use 161.4 here is my latest chart. 

Goals

My goals continue to elude me. I'm trying to come up with goals for August 2017 and for the year 2017.  I do have a book http://MyGoals.87sc.com.

I was shocked at the number of sheets I had on goals in time-monitor.

1. Goals at work
2. Actions to goals
3. Three Goals Three Tasks
4. Action to goal
5. Year by Year Goals
6. Daily Goals
7. Goal Analysis
8. Monthly Goals2
9. Commitment not Goal
10. Goal Sheet - Zig Ziglar
11. Health goal of the month
12. Goal Qs
13. 10 Life Goals
14. Goal Analysis2
15. Goals at home and work
16. Monthly Goals
17. Goals
18. Goal Questions
19. Book to Goal
20. PURGE of Goals

This needs to be organized better.

It might be time to really work on STS (Smart Task Selection). I found a way to track my location via an IP address at http://ipinfo.io.

Twitter

I'm getting more people liking my stuff on twitter. I've changed my name on twitter to Al Berg from Alec Berg. as to not be mistaken for the writer by the same name from Seinfeld.

I've created a list of my tweets on twitter organized which is called 69 Pieces of My Twitter Wisdom.

I've had a couple of tweets that got more followers and I'm up to 72,783.



Popular Tweet Stats

Here is link https://t.co/XycAsM8zfC

— Al Berg 🇺🇸 (@alecberg) August 2, 2017

On average, Black women in this country make only 63 cents relative to every dollar white men are paid. #BlackWomensEqualPay

— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) July 31, 2017

@ScottAdamsSays head buried in newspaper pretending like he doesn't know this crazy chick (me) pic.twitter.com/MT5JYOlzbD

— Kristina Basham (@kristina_basham) July 29, 2017

I'm working on getting my first book published on Kindle.

You can view it at https://t.co/pOrkwtxJJi#Diet #WeightLoss #Health #Excel pic.twitter.com/3JKobwMYX7

— Al Berg 🇺🇸 (@alecberg) July 12, 2017

Work

This week at work I've started completing the automation of my software to create PowerPoint slides. This is pretty cool, that I can set a command and have it run on a server in Excel. Though some work is still needed as it's not good at say asking "Are you alive?" and getting back a response, yet. Also, the process can get busy running something. Also, I have to deal with msgbox's and how to handle errors that occur.

I didn't get it to run my data verification process. Have also started on the idea of having a process that help do manual and automated tasks.

Most tasks have components of both automation and manual steps. I'm trying to find a way to better manage this process. For example, the data verification will run on two files looking for issues with the data. If it finds them a person must look at the data and create an event that will allow the automated process to continue.

I recently finished my mid-year review and I don't think I'm doing as well as I'd like. My new boss has pointed out that I'm the only one that knows VBA more than once. This is definately a risk I need to mitigate.

One way to mitigate this is to make the process so easy and useful that the value of VBA skills is seen as useful.

Books/Writing

I continue to work on books but this has stagnated a little bit. I need to do some more proof reading and then getting the book to Kindle. I'm not sure I like the way I write as it's missing something. The books are all available for free on-line write now. If you go to http://w2fo.com/showlist2.asp?parent=49304.

I also need to work on my book covers.

Books I'm Reading

I'm reading a book called The Like Switch  that well I like.  I've also downloaded too many free books from Kindle.

Time Tracking

This once and always is a problem I'd like to solve as I have to track and enter my time at work. I'd like to be able to answer some very basic question on how I spent my time and analyze if it was spent wisely.

• What did I work on?
• How much time?
• What problems did I have?
• What is wasting my time (meetings)?
• Where could I be more productive
• How is time broken down by report?
• How is time broken down by part of process
• Automating
• Research
• Testing
• Documenting
• Following procedures
• Support

Daily 5 Minute Journal July 22, 2017

Today I try to write in 5 minutes. Juggled last night at Bryant Park with Joe. He's a really nice guy. We did well together passing clubs. We passed 5 clubs and 6. We worked on passing 5 and then try to pick one up. Gary was there who is currently unemployed. He was asking me too many personal questions asked what I'd call a lousy liking question: * Are you going to retire soon? * How old are you? * What's your last name? He also told me about his mom's cancer and gave me much too much detail on it. There's a guy who was juggling Mia I think his name is Joe. I told him how good he and Mia were doing body acrobatics and that he had to be strong to do it. He replied that once you aligned properly it was easy. He asked if I wanted to participate and I said no. He kept insisting that I'd give it try but I kept repeating the anti-persuasion technique I learned from Scott Adams which is to say "I have a rule..." So I said this but he asked again and again. I think it took 4 times to get him to stop asking. I'm a little disappointed in my weight this morning of 162.4 after 160.4 yesterday and 2 hours of juggling. I'll guess it was the pizza that caused the issue. I realized that sometimes you have to just focus on today and not on yesterdays 2 lbs. Okay, I could use this to make sure I eat light today and exercise more. I'm 5 lbs away from my goal. of 157 when I can eat whatever I want. That feels bad. It's been 30 days since I was below the goal line. It seems like I should have some sort of rule when to start a new chart. I've been working on a number of books and my book creator software.

Daily Journal - April 30, 2017

Last day of the month and the question I have is  wtf did I do this month and what will I do next month?

I've been working on this problem for years and haven't been able to solve it. What I'd like is a summary of my plans and accomplishments. So today I will start on my post-month analysis. Maybe use a simple blog post to record this.

I've been thinking more about "What to focus on?" which I'd write as W2FO on my notes. The other day I checked and the domain was available. So now I have a new distraction W2FO.com.

Yesterday was a beautiful day almost feeling like summer. I didn't nap which is unusual. I spent most of the day mowing the lawn and taking dog for a walk and doing something on the internet.

I'm still using a RTS method or Random Task Selection to figure out what to do.

I've be doing okay on my ExcelDiet.com.  I've seen the importance of having this method and following it.

I've been on a new website call GoinsWriter.com which is nicely written and a good place to learn from. Though it said to "write a sentence for the argument of your book" which I'm having trouble. I posted in the comments and hopefully I'll get a response.

I spent some time working on the outline for a book 27 Ridiculously Simple Methods to Persuade Others. Though my persuasion skills need work to get more feedback. I've thought about a system where people give each other feedback on their projects and score points from the poster by giving good feedback and the get to move to the top of the list of people needing feedback.

I could get feedback by creating a Youtube video and then identifying the weakness of my pos (Product or Service) though is there an subliminal message where pos means Piece of Shit?

I've posted a list of my talent stack a term from Scott Adams the Dilbert Comic strip creator.

When it comes down to it, my biggest problems are:

1. Lack of feedback
2. Lack of focus
3. Not finishing
4. Too many projects
1. I like to start new projects
5. Getting bored with project
6. Not failing

Please leave a comment because you might be able to help yourself by helping me

Weekly Journal - April 22, 2017

To-do List

1. Get seed for lawn
2. Work out
3. Clean garage
4. Clean poop
5. Walk the dog
6. Test metformin affect on bs and pizza
7. Automate some of the manual tasks from work
1. Olga's work
2. Nick's work
3. Case where template didn't get updated
4. Speed up due to Excel 2013 slowness
8. Research resetting Blood Sugar from The RC Way

Goals

I continue to try to figure out what to focus on and have started a goal notebook.  

1. Work = $
2. Health
3. Clean/House Stuff
1. Outside - Seeds, weeds, wood, paint
2. Inside - Leaks, squeeks
4. Family
5. Other

Twitter

I seem to be getting a lot more mentions on twitter recently. Replying to popular tweeters seems to be the best way to get these. I'm following mostly Scott Adams and Stefan Molyneux but you can see my main list at http://87sc.com

I've tweeted 11 straight days about my ExcelDiet.com, The idea is for public expression of my weight loss ot help me lose weight. 

Health

• Forgetting to take my vitamins
• Metformin didn't work
• Trying to lose 10 lbs in 10 weeks
• Sitting on exercise ball at work
• Juggled at lunch
• Standing for 10 minutes every hour
• Bought and took PQQ from Vitamin Shoppe $20 from Life Extension tweet
• Blood pressure = 117/84
• heart rate = 68
• The LifeExtension.com website referred to something called The CR Way, which means Calorie Restriction. I want to do some research on this to see if it can help lower my blood sugar

Metformin didn't work

I tried to test the effect of Metformin on me and found it had an insignificant effect. I want to do better more accurate testing to determine what works and what doesn't. This seems to be a theme in my life as in the past I tried to see which trading strategies worked and which didn't.  

So one day with Metformin my blood sugar dropped 12 points and one day without it, it dropped 10 points.

Brain Freeze and Cherry Drink lowers Blood Sugar

I'm not sure why but a long walk in the sun + a cherry medium frozen Dunkin Donuts drink + Metformin (I think) caused my blood sugar to reach lows I haven't seen since I started testing. 

While I was drinking it I was getting brain and chest freezes that were so painful.  

I tested once and got a 63. I was so shocked I tested again and got a 75.

Free Speech

I've watche a few videos with Mike Cernovich and Alex Jones on Free Speech. Mostly on how "they" are trying to silence speech.

I see a tweet from Howard Dean who is a democrat and ran for president a few years back that "Hate speech isn't free speech."  I'm not for hate speech but who is to say what is hate speech and what isn't. The most obvious line about free speech is "You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre."  

Work

I have a big deadline every 21st of the month as some reports are due. I have to collect PowerPoint slides from 5 different groups and put out 8 separate decks with about 45 - 65 slides. There is a lot of work that goes into producing these documents.

I set a schedule in the beginning of the month and had deadlines on Tuesday and Wednesday that were missing my 3 different groups.  Then on the final day a number of slides were missing. In addition people miss the deadline and don't even email me to say "sorry, something came up, yada, yada, yada and I'll get you the slides tomorrow.

I try to publicly shame them by highlighting their tasks in red. I'm not sure if this helps or hurts as it could get someone to make they get me the documents on time or it could piss them off and make sure they get them to me late.

I thought about cc'ing their bosses, maybe having a meeting or even meeting in person. I could talk with their suppliers as one person said technology made a change without notifying them.

One thing that pisses me off at work is seeing that many people have a higher title and work in an office where I have a measly cubicle.  This focus gets me angry and bitter. I think the only way to get a better title may be to get a new job. The other thing to do is just focus on doing the best job I can do and let whatever comes my way come.  

Reading

I didn't read much this week except for Charles Munger who is Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway and his speech to Harvard on Psychology of Human Misjudgement.

Dog - Lola

She's trying everything this morning to get treats

• Whining
• Crying
• Wagging tail
• Winking at me

Terrorism and islam

I don't hate muslims and not all of them are terrorists, but it's sickening what these people do in the name of islam. Do we want to bring these people here?  With their culture that:

• Suppresses free speech
• Encourages violence and death against
• Homosexuals
• People who leave the religion
• People who draw cartoons or criticize their false prophet

I'm so fed up with hearing about this and their backwards beliefs.

Final Depressing Thought

We're all on a trip that doesn't end well.

Time line

The following was an attempt to track how my day went, but this seems like a futile task. Please skip as this part is for me.

6:30 Wake up

• Weight 168.6 
• Put up hot water 
• Greet dog and send her out to get treat
• Thinking that Lawn looks bad
• Checked twitter and go 8 notifications

6:40 

• Water boils
• Loading dishes
• Test Blood sugar
• Let dog in and she's whining for a treat so I give her a milk bone
• Mixed coffee in french press for 4 minutes
• Dog crying for a treat

6:50 

• First cup of french press low acid coffee is ready
• Turn on dishwasher
• testing blood sugar = 117
• Dog continues to whine for food

7:00 am

• Take vitamins
• Multi-vitamin
• GTF Chromium
• K2
• Calcium
• Magnesium
• Lutein
• D3
• Gingo
• Inositol/& Choline
• CoQ10
• Fish Oil
• /ALA
• Sugar Aid - multi-vitamin
• Experiment on Metformin today none just vitamins

7:10 

• Lola still whining
• Taking my vitamins
• Writing this blog

7:45 

• Watched an anti-islamic video 
• Dog is whining to come in

10:00 am

• Working standing up and on this blog post 

11:00 am

• Walked dog for 1 hour > 5000 steps

12:00 pm

• Lunch of fish and brussel sprouts

2:00 pm 

• Nap

For Men Only. Why you Should Always Leave the Toilet Seat Up

In public restrooms if you are a man, always leave the toilet seat up.  This helps the "aimers" (guys who try to pee in a toilet with the seat down and miss the seat due to their aiming skills) not have to practice their perceived skill. Note, that this doesn't apply to your home, where women can "fall in" (does this happen?) due to your laziness.

So if you poop, the last thing you should do is lift up the toilet seat so that the next "aimer" will not get the seat wet.

The next person will pee with the seat up,.Pee-ers will pee and poopers will drop the seat to poop.

Please pass this on to others so we can have cleaner toilet seats.

I can't solve the world's problems but I'll try here.

A little courtesy starts with you.

While I'm complaining, I've been making at least 3 pots of coffee at work each day. There are a bunch of lazy bastards at my office. If you take a cup of coffee and you can make another pot, please make at least one per day, otherwise it's just not fair.

Weekly Journal April 8, 2017

What did I do yesterday?

I feel like I didn't get much done yesterday. I've wanted a system that could show me the answer to this question. At work I need to track my time and often feel the same way.  If I know where my time is going I believe I could learn from it and make better usage of my time.  There are many "productivity" books that say you should track you time for a day or week and learn where you waste it. 

First I'll just do a brain dump of what I remember:

• I installed the new cable box in my basement
• I brought up folding table from garage
• I worked on this document
• I watch a lot of videos on Syria
• I watched 2 Derren Brown Videos
• I napped
• Twitter
• Bought and ate ice cream
• Cooked Salmon for dinner
• Didn't watch Islanders hockey game but followed it and the Toronto vs, Pittsburgh game and the Isles are out of the playoffs :( on the second to last game of the year

Sitting vs. Standing

I've been trying to stand more since watching a video on the internet saying how bad it is to sit.  Not sure if it's true or what is true anymore.  I downloaded an app that gives me an alarm every 50 minutes to stand up.  So if I do this at work that's 80 minutes of standing with probably lower productivity unless I have a stand-up desk.

I asked my boss if I could get one and she said that I need a reason. I said "Like a doctor's note?" and she said yes. One thing I realized that how valuable you are at work is based on what you will get and will not get, If my boss really valued my contribution she would have said "I'll see what I can do." If you're being turned down for things like computers, or stand-up desks then you should take this as a message.

I'd like an app that measures how long per day I sit.

Standup Desk

I've been wanting to get a Stand-up desk at work. I asked my boss if I can get get one and she said "You need a reason."  So I have a doctor's appointment and want to ask my doctor for a note. Instead of asking him right out I first ask him about what he thinks about "stand-up" desks. After he agrees with me about their usefulness I ask if he will write a note for me 

Drs. Appt

• My PSA 3.5 which is high for a 57 year-old 
• Asking for a note for stand up desk
• I'm asked to spy on whether my doctor washed his hands

Weight

• 170.8 yesterday and 171 this morning and I want to start the Excel Diet again. In 11 weeks I could be at a goal weight. 

President Trump sends cruise missiles to Syria

This week there was a chemical weapons attack in Syria and President Trump order 59 Cruise Missiles fired at the airport where the plane took off from.  Is this the first shots fired for WWIII. A couple tweeters (People on Twitter) Scott Adams, Mike Cernovich think the attack wasn't by Syria's government. Others like John Xenakis says that it was the Syrian Govt did commit this and other atrocities against civilians.

3D images

On my phone I noticed that image appear to be 3D. I'm not sure why or how this effect works. My wife and son don't see the effect. 

Taxes

Tax day is fast approaching. About 1 week away. I hate taxes so much. I go to the accountant each year and get charged $250.

To-do List

1. Install Cablebox
2. Bring up folding table from garage
3. Clean Garage
4. Vacuum
5. Clean other desk
6. Clean poop from yard
7. Wrap up wood
8. Clean Desk
9. Read Habit book
10. Finish automation at work
11. Shopping
1. Buy Damp Rid
2. Buy Paint to finish painting the fence
3. Buy new faucet for kitchen sink
12. Work
1. Move latest mxlp-s slide to template
2. Finish Automation
3. Generalize automation
13. Health
1. Start up the Excel diet again
2. Try to figure out how to have a better diet
3. Research PSA and Prostate

Reading

I've been reading Steve Scott's book 23 Anti-Procrastination Habits. It's a good book and I'm not sure if this is from the book but I have listed this rule:

"Don't start a new task or project mid-week. Work on one project or story per week."

This idea is from the scrum methodology.  So I'd like to start an Agile methodology with my projects. I need to start a Backlog and to pick one or more items to do for the week. 

Goals - Habits - Actions

I want to change, but change is hard. Everything you do is related to habits.

Work

I've been feeling stress at work and disliking the job a bit. The stress is coming from the constant deadlines and not enough time to deliver. Then also from doing two jobs. One is automating or programmer and the other is report producer.  I feel like I have to do some work on the weekends to catch up as I feel like I'm falling behind.

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

I watch the show that Jerry Seinfeld does with Fred Armisen who stars in the show Portlandia. He was a bad guest and barely had anything to say. I also watched the episode with Miranda Sings. Also pretty bad, but interesting very end when she comes out of character.

Showing Phone on TV

Faster Internet

I got a faster internet connection this week and needed a new router as previous one was too old to handle the faster speeds. OptOnline gave me one for free.

Twitter

On twitter I posted a number of tweets and the one below is my favorite.

Juggling at Bryant Park

I went to Bryant Park one day last week and found the Juggling group. I met a bald guy named Alex and, a guy who was juggling 7 balls named Joshua and some other guy whose name I don't recall. 

He was teaching someone to juggle and told her not to look at the balls, which is terrible advice.

I worked on 3 balls, 4, 5 and some club juggling. My hamstrings were killing me the next day from all the bending to pick up the balls.

Food

• Fresco on the Go - Gorgonzola Zucchini and potato chips 34 E. 52nd street
• Whole wheat pizza on First Ave. between 68th and 67th street

Music

Islanders miss the playoffs

The miss playoffs

Blown games

6 on 5 and empty net goals

Luck in hockey

Mike Cernovich

Weekly Journal April 1, 2017

Woke up today at 5 AM at 171 lbs. and bs @ 134. I had franks in jackets and 1/2 a beer last night and 2 atkins bars. Took 2 Metformin.

I set up 2 new lists on twitter.com,

1. Fake News
2. Politics

Cognitive Biases

Prediction bias - This is were you remember correct predictions better than you remember incorrect predictions.

Overwhelmed - This is where if you have too many choices you choose nothing.

Oversold - If someone tells me how good a movie, book, TV show is I'm usually disappointed.

Stand Up

I've heard about the issue of sitting too much and somehow came across the following silly video. Now I'm not sure how true this is but it's probably worth investigating. At work I asked my boss if I could get one and she said I'd have to have a reason for it. When I said, "Like a doctors note?" she said "Yes."

The video said you shouldn't sit more than 3 - 4 hours a day but implied that if you got up for 10 minutes each hour that it would counteract the affects of sitting. If this doesn't scare you into not sitting.

Habits Book

I started reading a book on habits by Steve Scott on my Kindle
Bring Bulletproof Coffee to work

Read Steve Scott Habit book called 23 Anti-Procrastination Habits. This book looks interesting and is top on my reading/doing list.

Cognitive Issue when you have too many decisions

Improve my flexibility

Plan you life there's not much time

Fake News Tell

I've been looking at how the MSM (Mainstream Media) pushes out fake news.  To me, media should be unbiased and the tell of bias is calling President Trump, "Trump" or "Donald Trump."

There is so much speculation on Russia's influence on the election. I don't trust the MSM on this. 

Work

At work I'm very busy, I made a mistake recently. I got an email from a user complaining/questioning data on a report. When I researched the problem I found what I thought was a discrepancy.  I told the user that the data was wrong in an email that I sent out pretty late.  

This was a big mistake as the data wasn't wrong and I pissed off a co-worker.  At least he told me he was pissed off instead of being Passive Agressive. 

I apologized and  said that I was wrong, made a mistake in both email and over the phone. You have to be careful on what you send out. I did it because the data looked wrong and I felt I would be blamed for the problem. 

I like the work I'm doing at least part of it. One problem is that I'm developing and doing wearing 2 hats. Deadlines keep coming up.

March Accomplishments

I would like to know my top n accomplishments in March were.

1. Ran for 21 minutes in 3 sets of 7 minutes
2. Car Mileage is below lease allowance
3. I got stuff done and work and still have a job
4. I got my work goals out

March Failures

My weight has not dropped and my BMI is in the overweight range.  I tried eating low calorie but failed. 

My diet is sucky as I'm eating way too many protein bars.

I have a lack of friends at my new job (5 months now).

I sent out a slide with the word "Global" misspelled as "Glolbal"

Goals for April

I'm not sure what my goal for April should be? Maybe that should be my goal. To create a prioritized list of my goals.

People

Just watched below video with Alex Jones and Stefan Molyneux. I like Stefan. Alex Jones was too much into conspiracy theories so not a big fan, but he's joined the Trump Train.

I was recently watching a Mike Cernovich Periscope but couldn't finish it. I like Mike but he kept repeating himself over and over. I just couldn't watch it. He was on 60 Minutes recently and was pretty good.

I was listening to a Sam Harris podcast and I like Sam's work but he could lose the "anti-trump" bullshit. He might be right about him, but I rather he stick to his normal brain, atheist schtick. I wish he would debate or have one of the following on his show, Stefan Molyneux, Scott Adams or Mike Cernovich

I liked Cernovich on 60 Minutes who is Fake News.

I've watched a lot for Derren Brown videos. Derren is a magician that has amazing content. 

Any of the following are good.

• Luck
• The Art Heist
• Betting on Horses

I bought one of his books and started reading it. 

Pet Peeves

I've upgraded my computer at work to Office 2013 from 2007. It's been annoying getting use to it. Of course I will. There are little things like changing the color of the Outlook Icon from orange to blue. When I look for Outlook in my task bar I don't see it.

I also had a macro that warned me before I sent out emails that no longer works. None of my Quick Access toolbars were transferred and some software was removed for MODI, which is code to do optical character recognition.

Blogger annoys me as there's no shortcut key that I'm aware of that will allow me to quickly change something to a sub-header.

I use an http://e.ggtimer.com at work and I'd like a way to pop up a message when the timer expires.

Another problem I've been having is the inability to load picture to blogger. I did a little checking and couldn't figure out the reason.

Book Buying

Went to Strand Books on 13th street and Broadway in NYC. If you like books they have a big selection of low priced books. I've also been buying books and the discount store Unique.

I've run out of room in my book shelve.  One thing came up was that I almost bought 2 books I already own, but since I've loaded most of my books on a website, I was able to check this. 

I also take books out of the library that I almost never read. Some current books I have are:

• Adios, America  by Ann Coulter
• Self-Hypnosis for Dummies
• The Procrastination Equation
• 8 Week Blood Sugar Diet

I had an idea that for every new book I buy I'd have to get rid of two books, but that was just an idea.

Lonely

I've been feeling a bit lonely. At work I don't have anyone to hang out with like I did at my previous position. At home, the kids are at college and wife sleeps in a different room. She watches TV in her room and I don't see much of her.

Messy

I continue to be messy. Mainly in garage, bedroom, family room even outside.

Speculations on How Derren Brown does his tricks

Weekend is here so what did I do last week and what's the plan for this week.

I've been watching Derren Brown who is a British Mentalist. He has a TV show in England and isn't that well known in the United States

• Watched Derren Brown the great art robbery which is great. If you like magic, puzzles or are curious you will love this.

I found out about Derren from a Scott Adams' blog post in the comments related to predicting horse races from The System



Now since Derren is a magician everything he does can be called into question as magic is basically lying to people. I've performed magic and it's a weird phenomena that something that seems so obvious to you can fool people.

Saturday March 19 2017

I started the day with this blog. I spent the day doing nothing.My weight started out at 169.8. I seem to be stuck weightwise.

I took my dog to the vet and she's in good shape except for the bill was $450. Ouch! Why is the doctor one of the scam places where the price is given afterwards and no negotiation is done. This should be against the law. It's like going to the store and buying non-returnable items and then finding out the price at checkout. 

When I came home I had a low carb bagel with butter and cheese. I was tired and took a nap for an hour.

I picked up my son from Jamaica Station leaving at 1 PM. At Jamaica I sat drinking a Tim Horton's coffee and there was a group of older men (30s- 40s) that I didn't trust. One was saying how either he or some sucker punched him...  I didn't get to eat lunch at Calda Pizza until 4 PM. I had Chicken a la Vodka and Buffalo chicken.  The pizza as usual was delicious. 

I came home but was tired probably from the pizza (carbs) and had to watch more Derren Brown videos and nap.

I got up at 7:30 pm and went to Vitamin Shoppe where I bought some ceremonial Green Tea for $19.99 there was some for $39.99. 

Got home and my son had a friend over but I felt tired and watched more Derren Brown Videos. Some were short clips but two appeared to be his live show.  His trick are amazing but I suspect there must be some form of trickery, either stooges or ear pieces.  Just as I wrote this there is a video of Derren guessing the amount of money in a wallet and I think I figured out how he did this trick. He could have pickpocketed the wallet, counted money replaced it and then guessed the amount. If you like magic he's very good. The other problem with a show that runs for a few months can't possibly be different each time. Has anyone seen the same show multiple times? 

There were a lot of short clips but there were 2 of his shows as part of the videos. The video says

 "There are no actors or stooges or stooges used in this programme and no research has been carried out on any members of the audience."

I'm doubting this as it appears the only way he could do the tricks he does is with both stooges and/or research. Magic is basically a lie, so why would I trust this opening credits. It is possible that some other method is used, such as hypnosis, maybe some other method but in any case it's impressive.

March 14, 2017 Shortening You Text

Productivity

Up at 5:30 am and working from home due to storm.  

I've been thinking about my current method of getting things done.

In terms of branding I'd like to be known as a "Productivity Expert" kind of like David Allen.

I've been working on a tool for way too long to create a better to-do list. My goal is what I call STS or Smart Task Selection. Currently my tool helps with RTS or Random Task Selection.

I have > 200 items on my to-do list and I need a better way to manage this large amount of tasks. One way is in Excel I use the 80-20 principle. I have two lists of tasks and I try to keep my top 20% in one and the remaining 80% in the other.

A promising thing I'm looking at is the Tony Robbins RPM system for getting stuff done.

One cool feature I just added to my time-monitor software incorporates the A1R2 method.

A1R2 - Add 1 Remove 2

One issue I have is a proliferation of sheets. So anytime I add a new sheet I get a message of how many sheets I have and to delete two of them. I actually archive them to another sheet.

Shortening Text

I just wrote some software that shortens whatever you want by removing spaces and abbreviating words http://t2do.com/shorten.asp

If you call with no parameters it will allow you to tweet the shortened text.

Below is what it would look like.

Up@5:30Am&WorkingFromHomeDue2Storm.I'veBeenThinkingAbtMyCurrentMethodOfGettingThingsDone.InTermsOfBrandingI'dLike2bKnownAsA"productivityExpert"KindOfLikeTDavidAllen.IJustWroteSomeSoftwareThatShortensWhatevrUWntByRemovingSpaces&AbbreviatingWords Http://t2do.com/shorten.asp FuCallWithNoParametersItWillAllowU2TweetTShortendText.BelowIsWhatItWudLookLike

I don't know if this is useful but in theory it could save a lot of energy as you're using about 16% less space.

I want to make it more dynamic as it's currently uses a hardcoded lookup table.

Some possible changes:

• convert 
• "ing" to "ng"
• 
  
• remove unnecessary words
• the
• adverbs (words ending in 'ly")
• actually
• really

March 12, 2017 - Daily Diary

Reading 

• "Impossible to Ignore" so I can give/create better presentations and somehow related to $.

Hiring

A person that's "Good to hire"

• Likes solving puzzles
• Likes numbers

Health

Blood sure very high today

• 131 at 5 am
• 136 at 7 am
• Had mango and real root beer last night

Weight is < 170 which is good. 168.8

Work

Wondering about some bad work habits

• Hard coding
• Lack of error handling

Working on general logic to compare 2 month-over-month files and identify issues.

I'm automating PowerPoint with 3 steps

1. Run SQL and create Excel Files
2. Take the Excel file data and create charts and data
3. Copy the charts and data to Powerpoint

Random Internet stuff

Recently listened to a James Altucher/Tony Robbins podcast that I thought was very good. I've added to look at Tony's RPM method to my to-do list

Productivity

My todo list which is RTS (Random Task Selection) needs some work. I have way too many items on it (195). So I'm thinking about RTS vs. STS (Smart Task Selection).  I need to start moving from RTS to STS ASAP.

New Ideas

• I came up with the idea to shorten tweets which can be seen at http://t2do.com/shorten.asp.
• Custom Presentations
• Ask Q's
• Generate presentation based on answers
• Save and give
• Auto Islam filter
• Any writing I do would automatically convert words like Islam to _islam.
• Knowledge to ...
• I want to create a system that takes a person's knowledge and creates content just by asking questions and getting the answers. 
• Added a % filter to t2do.com where you can show percent counts to filters

Are we in a Simulation?

This is something Scott Adams writes about  and is very interesting. There's a guy who states that there are only 3 possibilities.

1. We can't build simulations
2. We can but choose not to
3. We are in a simulation

Mike Cernovich - Gorilla Mindset

I watched Mike's video on Gorilla Mindset and liked like. The book is also available here. 

Scott Adams

I continue to watch and read his content which is really good. 

Stefan Molyneux

I've been listening to his http://Freedomainradio.com site and his content is usually pretty good.

Derren Brown

I've been watch some videos on youtube on Derren who is a magician that does really cool mental stuff. Highly recommended. I found him from a Scott Adams post and someone posted his video in the comments.

I believe simultaneously somehow I got a book recommendation on his book Derren Brown Trick's of the Mind

LolA

Hh

Hh

Book

Book

Bite

Tferris