New header image shows the boats at the docks below the house we stayed in (Jerusalem, Rhode Island.
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Oliver and I are sitting in the Washington Dulles airport and waiting for a late-night flight back to North Carolina. Our visit with my father and stepmom in Rhode Island was very good, and I'll have a full report with photos in tomorrow. Our flight out of Providence today included a two-hour delay on the tarmac -- and then an extra half hour on the Dulles tarmac because the thunderstorm meant we couldn't safely exit the small CR-26 jet down the steps and into terminal. No matter. We're safely inside, and sitting at the quiet gate area for next (uneventful, we hope!) flight.
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- At work, my colleagues and I help each other improve our "brief ins," which are the memos and messages to others that we use to describe an assignment, request a review of a document, or define a request for the layout and design of a report.#
- When I write my brief ins, I have to remind myself to write more than I initially think and to add details before I send it off. I know this about myself: I usually say too little, either because I haven't fully thought out what I want to say, or because I'm assuming or expecting that the other person will know what I'm thinking.#
- Some of my friends and colleagues are the opposite; they provide a lot of detail and many layers, often too much and too long for busy leaders or peers to be able to quickly scan.#
- The goal for us all, of course, is to communicate with just the right amount of information, definition, and detail to help another person understand the context of what we're requesting, what we need to happen, and when we need it to happen.#
- I appreciate how my colleagues help me improve my writing, and how they respond to my edits and suggestions. We have a great team at DCRI Research Communications and Engagement, always improving and progressing.#
Thinking about all that, recently, I figured I should tell my colleagues about what I've learned from Dave Winer about how to write good bug reports. Over the last decade, Dave has helped me write focused messages about what I encounter when I'm testing or using his software. His request is that I always answer these three questions:#
- 1. What was I doing? #
- 2. What did I expect to happen? #
- 3. What actually happened? #
- I was nervous when I first started submitting bug reports to Dave, but I've come to welcome the rigor of that three-part test. I have used what I learned from Dave to improve my work brief ins, too.#
- I also want to tell my colleagues about Dave's Narrate Your Work. That's his way to keep track of what he's developing day to day and to show others what's he working on. Every now and then, Dave gives us a view to his development worknotes, and I'm always fascinated by how disciplined he is in noting the day's progress and planning the next day's first task or focus. #
- For example, here's his Change Notes for Drummer, his great new outliner-based blogging system. (Last year I helped Dave test Drummer; I contributed bug reports, some better than others.) #
- Drummer, I've been thinking, could be a good way for me and my colleagues to narrate our work according to the performance goals set for us by our managers. I can imagine how an outline of my worknotes can make it easier to write my self evaluation next spring. The better I can show how I met and exceeded those performance goals, the better my chances at a raise or a future promotion.#
Waking up Oliver for his last day of sixth grade. Playing
Best Day Ever by Sly and the Family Stallone.
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I missed the U2 channel on SiriusXM by one number today and got to hear the Ramones sing
I Wanna Be Sedated on the First Wave channel.
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Dr. Mary Klotman, dean of the
Duke University School of Medicine, gave the annual State of the School of Medicine presentation this evening. The past two years, her address was only on Zoom, but tonight the school's Great Hall had seats set for in-person attendance. Alas, I was one of only about 40 who showed up. I'm glad I went, because this was one of her best presentations, and I was proud to be a part of this school at this university.
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Allen from the
Sound Speeds channel on YouTube offered to make high-quality XLR cables over the holiday weekend, so I decided to invest in a couple of cables (one blue, one orange) to improve my home podcast studio. Cables arrived today not long after I visited the cool new Studio Four in the Bryan Center at Duke University, where I recorded a
short message of gratitude to my colleague Stephen Toback.
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Stickermule was unable to deliver my new stickers to my old work address (my fault for not reviewing the order closely), so I had to go to the UPS distribution warehouse in Durham this evening to retrieve the packet. A worker in the parking lot pointed me through an open bay and told me to walk down the steps, under the conveyor belt, and onto the other side of the floor. While I waited for a woman to track down the packet, I watched a handful of workers loading trucks or receiving undeliverable packages. Watching them work in the dusty, noisy warehouse made me appreciate how efficient their system usually is, nearly always getting packages up the gravel road to our house in Chapel Hill. #
- My sticker, by the way, is one of a series of four icons designed in 2001 by a Cleveland friend, Paul. I used those icons on a short-lived website called VanAmericanNius Online ("Serving the Volunteers of Peace Corps Vanuatu"); I also have used the tamtam as my avatar on Twitter and Zoom.#
- The Coconut Wireless is what I called my blog at mistersugar.com. As I explain in the tooltip on antonzuiker.com, "It's sort of a joke: On an island, information moves down the coconut wireless, like the game of telephone."#
- Stickermule's weekly deal was 50 stickers for $9, so I used it for the coconut wireless icon. I love it. I'm excited to share these with family and friends, and will explain that the image is a reminder to stay connected to each other.#
Can't recall what I did to shake Drummer to display my latest Radio3 items in the Links tab.
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Home again, and cleaning out our suitcases after the late-night arrival. Last night we watched most of the UNC-Duke Final Four game in the Charlotte airport, and celebrated the thrilling final minutes just as the next airplane was up off the runway and ascending toward RDU. (The American Airlines app streamed the game for free.) Now I'm watching the Tottenham-Newcastle match, having just completed the routine back-from-the-islands washing of the hammocks.
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My Drummer blog at http://storian.org has been quiet and slow, though it's always a joy to use. And I wanted to let @davewiner know that I use Electric Drummer every day to outline my day's tasks, meeting notes, and more.
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Reading about the large
Joro spiders that are moving up the East Coast of the U.S., I'm reminded of similar spiders, like
this one, that were on Paama Island (in Vanuatu, where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer). When we visited Paama in 2018, Reddy took us for a hike up to the family garden, and he snagged a giant spider and let it walk up his arm.
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Making red beans and rice for family meal, and new classic brownies. Recipes by Pableaux Johnson and NYTimes.
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In college, one of the guys on the floor played a rockin' guitar instrumental on his stereo. I knew the musician's name then, but forgot it in the intervening decades. Every so often I would try to search the music catalog or streaming services but never could find the tune. Until today, when I got in the car (our new hybrid RAV4) after work, turned on
That Station, and heard the unmistakable licks. On the radio console:
Eric Johnson | Cliffs of Dover. A good tune, and now a favorite.
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A good friend who is a coffee expert has started his own specialty brand:
Playmaker Coffee. I ordered my first bag last night (Pre-Season #25) and met him at a local cafe this morning. Can't wait to brew these beans later this week for my in-laws who will be visiting.
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Paul Farmer died today.
Here's the NYTimes obit. I met Dr. Farmer once at a book signing (I wrote about that in
this 2004 post), and he walked past me on Duke's campus once; he was on his way to a Board of Trustees meeting, and I was on my way to get coffee. His books were part of my reading for my thesis project in medical journalism. Farmer inspired my ScienceOnline efforts, and he's continued to inspire in my work. What a terrible loss. What an amazing life.
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I updated my
What I'm doing now page on the Zuiker Chronicles blog. Long ago I paid for pro account at Font Awesome, and I figured I'd see how easy it is to add icons to that blog. I put a house and a soccer ball on Now. Next I'll look to connect Font Awesome to my Drummer blog.
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I've lived in or around Chapel Hill for more than 20 years now, but yesterday was my first time to
Merritt's Grill, where I enjoyed a most
delicious BLT.
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Over on the Zuiker Chronicles, I finally finished a blog
post about the family trip to Hawaii last month.
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My web host,
Opalstack, made it easy to install
Nextcloud, so I'm testing that platform as an alternative to Dropbox (like
Gruber, I "can't wait to eliminate" that from my subscribed accounts).
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The quality of the football in the
English Premier League is not great this January. Really boring games.
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We got more wintry weather Friday night, and yesterday dawned clear, bright, and the ground covered in fluffy white snow. It was cold, in the 20s, but we spent much of the afternoon outside around a big fire, with family and friends talking and making s'mores, and the dogs chasing the ball in the woods. It felt good to be outside and away from the computer and phone screens. I slept well, and late.
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The snow is falling, tomorrow is a holiday, so we'll be hunkered down inside the cozy house. I plan to relax, read, bake. Maybe I'll go out for a run on the icy roads, and perhaps Erin will also bundle up and we'll walk out back to evaluate the site where the new house will soon be built.
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Finally linked my SiriusXM account to the radio in the van, and now I can listen to the Grumpy Pundits and the Football Show on my phone and laptop, so my soccer obsession can follow me everywhere.
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Archiving outlines and asking Daytona to index them. I believe I followed Dave's lead correctly. I have monthly archives on GitHub, and I had Daytona clear and then ping. My searches on Daytona seem to be working well.
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Beautiful morning, sunny and clear and cold.
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I updated the About tab to include a link to the December archive.
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I wanted to play soccer this morning, but my brother was visiting and it was raining, so I slept in instead.
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Last night, before we crashed for a full night's sleep (after the red eye from Honololu), we watched Don't Look Up. It was as good as Dave's been saying for the last couple of weeks.
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Home again in North Carolina after a grand vacation on O'ahu. A long post to come over on the Zuiker Chronicles.
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I noticed that my rivers and PagePark sites weren't resolving. Something must have happened to the server while I was on vacation. I've restarted them all.
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I'm on vacation, staying at my dad's apartment in Honolulu and the internet connection is poor (might be his service, my new laptop, my three children streaming videos, or a combination of the three) so this may be my only post for a bit. Today was an epic day on the Waianae coast for whale watching and sitting on the stunning Makaha Beach. Highlight was jumping off the Zodiac into 700 feet of blue water and hearing the loud singing of a couple of male humpback whales somewhere nearby. Wow.
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New header image of the pali that was the backdrop to today's adventures.
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Another new header image, found on the SD card in the underwater camera we took on our trips to Vanuatu, Australia, St. Croix, and Lake Erie. This image is the airplane that got us to Paama Island for our reunion with our adoptive family from our time in the Peace Corps.
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New header image of a rat snake found on Hawk's Landing earlier this year.
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