Tag: time

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Coordinating calendars: CHECK!

I rely on Google Calendar on my laptop to keep my schedule organized. I use Google Chrome as a web browser (because Internet Explorer sucks donkey balls) and added the extension “Checker Plus for Google Calendar”. Basically, it shows a little calendar at the top of the screen with the time of the next thing on my schedule. Since I’ve got a meeting at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, it currently shows 4:30 in gray. Last night when I went to bed, there was a 6:00 in gray because I was getting together with some friends for dinner tonight.

That was a problem. Yesterday morning, I received two phone calls: one from the hair stylist and one from the chiropractor, both to let me know about my appointments today. I like to keep the little appointment cards handy, but as an additional reminder, I put those times into my phone right after hanging up.

The problem? Those events never appeared on Google Calendar.

The result? I showed up for my haircut an hour early this morning. (I went to bed thinking it was 10:00 instead of 11:00 for some reason.)

I went home for about forty minutes to research how to coordinate my phone and my laptop properly. Dates and times could transfer from the laptop to the phone, but that was it. Nothing from phone to laptop. When it was actually time for my haircut, I headed back to make my head look spiffier, then came home again for another round of research. Thankfully, I eventually found an online forum where Groovy123 provided the answer I needed.

Apparently, my phone’s main connection was with Yahoo Calendar. It could accept calendar entries from any source I wanted, but only send out information to one. In this case, it was sending to Yahoo Calendar, which I’d never even heard of before, let alone used. I made some changes to properly connect the phone to Google Calendar and a minute later, a blue 2:00 appeared on my laptop to remind me about my appointment at the chiropractor. Thus, I showed up to the chiropractor an hour early. Hey, wait a second… minute… hour…

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Wow, look at the time…

My apologies for the recent lack of entries, but I picked up a new job that’ll probably last for a month or two. Why is that significant? Because it’s during the night shift. Suddenly, all that free time I had in the wee hours of the morning is being put to use for someone else’s benefit. Sure, it’s putting some money in my bank account, but what good does it do you? None whatsoever! And for that, you have my sincerest apologies.

I don’t want to blame it entirely on the hours, though—it’s a soul-sapping job. I get home and part of me says, “Let’s write something and make people smile and giggle and possibly urinate all over themselves with all the happiness and joy emanating from the computer screen!” And then the part of me that just walked into the door after many, many hours of work slaps me across the face and says, “You gotta be kidding me! You don’t have any creative juices left tonight! … This morning!”

So what am I left with? Guilt at not having written anything since the beginning of the month. You’d be amazed at how motivating things like shame and humiliation can be. Or maybe you already know, in which case you should probably write a new blog entry, too. In the meantime, I hope I managed to summon up enough juices for one ni—… morning. If you don’t think so, I can take some time off from work to write more. Just fill out your checks to “Shawn Bakken” and I’ll put that money in my bank account instead.