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Work and reorganization...
Dec. 19th, 2010 06:36 pmSome days, it seems all I do is reorganize, but today only partially felt that way.
There was a time I created a filing system for miscellaneous paper items that I would store in 8-1/2 by 11-inch page protectors that were consecutively numbered and kept in 3-ring binders. Step two of the system was to update a computer file with the protector number and a short description of its contents.
The key idea behind the system was not having to arrange the protectors in any other way than numerical, since a program like InfoSelect (or grep, in a pinch) could easily tell me what protector to look in based on a search string.
The system worked very well, as far as it went. A number of times, I was able to retrieve specific items with no problem at all. This past May, for example, when Galina was applying for her Russian tourist visa in Houston, I was able—from my work place in Kazakhstan—to successfully vector Drew to the binder in my office in Pagosa in which I had stored Galina's certificate of U.S. citizenship, which was an essential part of her visa application package, without which it would have been impossible for her to join me in Moscow in June.
But there were several serious problems with the system, too. First, once you get up above 1,000 protectors, the binders start to take up a lot of room. Second, unless you file just about everything this way, finding things you're looking for becomes a game of roulette. Third, unless you update your key file to match what you put in the protectors, you may as well be buying lottery tickets.
So on and off over the past couple of days I've been going through the protectors and trying to keep a healthy, aggressive attitude going about throwing stuff out, to the point where I have several hundred empty protectors lying in their own binders. There are still many left.
In the course of the review, I've found some interesting stuff. A journal of a ten-day stint in Paris on the way home from Moscow after Galina and I had registered with the Soviet authorities to get married. A journal of my trip to Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Sweden during the 1990 Borland "OOP World Tour." Autographed score sheets of chess losses I sustained playing against Nicolas Rossolimo and Lev Alburt (the latter, in a 1988 simultaneous exhibition in Jacksonville, Florida). A few aborted attempts at storytelling, some of which may serve as germs of future inspiration. And several letters of appreciation, including one from the commandant of West Point for a presentation I made to students there on C++ programming.
In other news, I walked a mile on the treadmill and I've put another dent in Feht's job, too, so it's been a fairly well-rounded day.
Apropos of the treadmill, I've decided to listen to audiobooks while walking there, to encourage the activity. So perhaps I'll walk for another fifteen minutes or so, and absorb another dose of Lou Diamond Phillips reading Tom Clancy's latest novel, which I downloaded from Audible yesterday.
And there's not any better time than now.
Cheers...
There was a time I created a filing system for miscellaneous paper items that I would store in 8-1/2 by 11-inch page protectors that were consecutively numbered and kept in 3-ring binders. Step two of the system was to update a computer file with the protector number and a short description of its contents.
The key idea behind the system was not having to arrange the protectors in any other way than numerical, since a program like InfoSelect (or grep, in a pinch) could easily tell me what protector to look in based on a search string.
The system worked very well, as far as it went. A number of times, I was able to retrieve specific items with no problem at all. This past May, for example, when Galina was applying for her Russian tourist visa in Houston, I was able—from my work place in Kazakhstan—to successfully vector Drew to the binder in my office in Pagosa in which I had stored Galina's certificate of U.S. citizenship, which was an essential part of her visa application package, without which it would have been impossible for her to join me in Moscow in June.
But there were several serious problems with the system, too. First, once you get up above 1,000 protectors, the binders start to take up a lot of room. Second, unless you file just about everything this way, finding things you're looking for becomes a game of roulette. Third, unless you update your key file to match what you put in the protectors, you may as well be buying lottery tickets.
So on and off over the past couple of days I've been going through the protectors and trying to keep a healthy, aggressive attitude going about throwing stuff out, to the point where I have several hundred empty protectors lying in their own binders. There are still many left.
In the course of the review, I've found some interesting stuff. A journal of a ten-day stint in Paris on the way home from Moscow after Galina and I had registered with the Soviet authorities to get married. A journal of my trip to Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Sweden during the 1990 Borland "OOP World Tour." Autographed score sheets of chess losses I sustained playing against Nicolas Rossolimo and Lev Alburt (the latter, in a 1988 simultaneous exhibition in Jacksonville, Florida). A few aborted attempts at storytelling, some of which may serve as germs of future inspiration. And several letters of appreciation, including one from the commandant of West Point for a presentation I made to students there on C++ programming.
In other news, I walked a mile on the treadmill and I've put another dent in Feht's job, too, so it's been a fairly well-rounded day.
Apropos of the treadmill, I've decided to listen to audiobooks while walking there, to encourage the activity. So perhaps I'll walk for another fifteen minutes or so, and absorb another dose of Lou Diamond Phillips reading Tom Clancy's latest novel, which I downloaded from Audible yesterday.
And there's not any better time than now.
Cheers...
