Ryan Carmelo Briones

Some of you may know that have been trying to be on the GTD track for a little while now. No, I don't have a venereal disease, I've been trying to read, and live by, David Allen's "Getting Things Done". I'm not going to try to explain the contents other than it's quite a productivity mind opener. That coupled with subscribing to the 43 folders podcast this weekend, I've been in quite the "productive spirit" [1]. So, when we had some time to spend, and we were already planning on going to the Levee to eat some Deweys, I wanted to pick up a Moleskine, pronounced mole-a-skeen-a, for a project I've been wanting to do for a long time.

So Stephanie and I went to the B&N to pick one up. We did some other shopping, but as soon as we got home we turned on Moleskine hacking mode. We went to the internet to see if we could find a couple good Moleskine hacks to use as a guide and we somehow stumbled into an alternate, much nerdier, Moleskine universe. We were siked! We were also pretty sure I picked up the wrong Moleskine type to manage the way we wanted to. It was settled. A mere 45mins after getting back from a day of shopping we were back out on the road, this time to Borders, on a Moleskine hunt. Specifically for the Square-lined Pocket Notebook Moleskine....and we hit paydirt. After Borders we went to Wal-Mart to stock up on as much stuff as we could stuff in our mobile Moleskine offices. Mostly Post-It products. We stayed up until 1:30am "hacking" our Moleskines. We are such nerds. I took some pictures to show you what we did with mine.

I've also settled now scrapping the original, above linked, project and are going to go with a mixture of a GTD analog system along with Bill Westerman's popular "GSD" (the "s" in this acronym isn't a very nice word) system. I'll try to keep up with how things are going with it. Maybe I'll end up with my own super-hardcore better than everyone elses system system. I doubt it.

[1] "productive" meaning as much as those who know me know I can be.

So Stephanie and I were in Sam's Club last night looking around at stuff, we had some Christmas bling to spend, and we weren't doing to well. As we're passing the book section, I said "Man, I really want to get 'The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream' by Barack Obama." The idea had come back to me as I have recently subscribed to Senator Obama's podcast. I really don't think I would have bought the book that night anyway, but Stephanie got this weird look on her face. I was thinking that it might be because I was talking about Senator Obama, so I shrugged it off, but then she kept making that face. "What?", I said. She says, with a big smile, "You don't want to get that book." Thats when the light in my head came on. When I told her what I was thinking she was a bit embarrassed that she let the secret go, but it was my fault. So, I got to open a Christmas present early. I'm very excited about reading this book. Senator Obama really intrigues me. Stephanie and I decided to read this book together, so we started last night. It looks really good. It's fresh and real. Once we finish it, or get to something particularly interesting, I'll be sure to tell. Until then, I'm going to see what other Christmas present I can ruin! :)

A couple of years ago this video was up at santamosh.com, but that site appears to be gone. Thanks to some YouTube user my Christmas can be complete. If I could only find the disc that I backed up my local copy to... oh well. Enjoy!

• I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 01


• I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 02


• I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 03


• I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 04

I still haven't made up my mind on how I feel about these. They are definitely interesting. I may write more about this later...my feelings and what not.

[Source: ThinkChristian.net via Digg]

...the first real snow. Well, let's not jump to conclusions. I got to work without killing myself when there was a small layer of snow and ice on the ground. Luckily the DEATH big hill going from our apartment to the main road was salted and/or plowed. Anyway, it's beautiful (for now) outside. I think Stephanie is uploading some pictures now, so you can check with her in a bit.