There’s no real way to know, but I have the suspicion that if I ever look back for a turning point, a marker of some sort, this might be one – for the foreseeable future, excepting any work with the Stanford Band, my primary focus will be either working on software, or taking Computer Science classes. That’s kinda neat.

One thing that highlights this perceived lack of doing is age. Especially with YouTube and the Internet making it easy to find individuals who have accomplished quite a bit who are no older than yourself.

I also think that college has made it easy to become a passive consumer of ephemera, without any real motivation to create or do something myself – it’s satisfying, if only temporarily, to scour the internet, do a lot of reading, but never write anything down or comment anywhere.

I’m trying to think about how to shift that in a subtle way – I’ve started following links to people’s personal websites that show the awesome things they’ve accomplished, designed, or painted.  I don’t think I have the creative talent for any of that, but I do think I have something I want to create, so hopefully I’ll start to do that more often.  I’d love to be able to point to something that I’ve done, ideally before I’m 30 (or 25, even!).

For people who spend more time doing than thinking, I have a feeling they just think that the thinkers (or consumers) just need to ‘start doing’ – stop sitting around and whining (or moping, which is even more passive), and get ‘er dun!  I’m not sure it’s that easy, but I’m also not sure what the roadblocks are.  Is it like a chemical reaction, where you’re content at a stable state of lower effort, and it takes a big effort to move you up to the next stable spot?

I’m hoping that my internship this summer will help kick me into a mode of accomplishing things – also, shifting into just Computer Science classes for my Master’s program this coming fall will hopefully help remove my apathy towards reading-type schoolwork (because I won’t have any/much).

My CS advisor asked a very insightful question, about whether I want to build a system which will support others who want to change the world, or if there’s something that I want to change.  I had been operating under the assumption that in order to accomplish the latter, you have to be well versed in the former.  It turns out, that there are other people in the world besides myself, and I can put together a team instead of being competent vertically across all aspects.  So I’ve started to rethink on which I want to be.  Maybe by the time I finish my Master’s, I’ll have done enough thinking and can transition to doing on that part as well.

I would promise to myself to write here more frequently, but I’m afraid that time will show that to be a false promise.  So I’ll state it as a hope instead: I hope to set aside the time to write out my thoughts, here, more often, even if they aren’t entirely well formed.  Quantity is not in and of itself useful, but repetition can make it easier when it comes time to produce quality.

Also, it sounds like it would be a great drinking game.

awesome.

I’ve started to think about ways recently to try and automate my task management in a similar way. For some reason I feel like a lack of organization is keeping me from actually getting things done.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if what’s actually going on is I’m claiming I need to get more organized as avoidance behavior, and what I actually need to do is just sit down and knock things out. I do think some of the decision paralysis is warrented though, because recently I’ve felt so unorganized that I’m nowhere near confident that I’ve covered everything I need to be paying attention to.

I’m considering trying to read up on GTD or the four-hour work-week, although I’m not sure either contain things that I would actually be interested in or capable of maintaining. I’m also finding that remember the milk might actually be not well suited to my purposes… Maybe there’s a better solution for me. The problem is that I probably can’t afford to spend the time searching for a solution while I need to get work done.

Maybe after Dollie Day.

Right…

Doing some philosophy reading on free will (specifically, hard incompatibilism) and realized what one of my knee-jerk problems is with many of these discussions – there is an assumption that everyone knows what we are talking about when we refer to selves.

Something I’ll explore further, hopefully soonish.

Beyond that, I’ll hopefully also start updating http://bylasley.com with things that Yanessa is up to.

I hope to be filling out all the info there soon, as well as returning to this blog more regularly as I get back in the swing of things in California!

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He warns that the Grand Canyon/Mojave Desert/Death Valley in July might not be smart; He’s probably right. I’ve done stupid things before though. Worth considering.

The Volvo Ocean Race is in Boston now, and I’ve got to say, even though I haven’t had much time to spend down there, it seems pretty frickin’ amazing.  I snapped a few shots today of some of the vessels while grabbing some others for work, so I hope to add them to the photostream soon.  90+ degrees today doesn’t hurt, that’s for sure.

The other nice thing about the weather is that we’ve finally been able to open up our porch for regular use again.  Yanessa and a project partner sat out there coding (outside! lolwut) for almost 8 hours straight.  I even played some WoW out there.  Very strange to me to be absorbed into your computer screen while at the same time enjoying fresh air and indirect raw sunlight.

Pretty soon I’ve got to start mapping out our cross-country trip.  Does anyone have any suggestions? We’re probably going to end up camping for some of it, assuming I can bum a tent and some sleeping bags off my parents or someone else.  Montreal is on the list at one end, and the Grand Canyon at the other.  Beyond that, as long as we end up in Palo Alto after a few weeks, anything is game.  I’m really looking forward to it, especially with my new camera – might have to invest in mobile broadband to post photos with some regularity.

Alright, that was a good 10 minute break.  Back to work!

struggle not against the coming of the dawn