Dagwood on Task Management

Yesterday's Blondie:

There are so many opportunities open to us. We can pretty much do whatever we want to, and with much of it — family, work, church, community — other people ask a lot of us, too. If we're not careful, we can easily spend our time doing things that just plain aren't important.

Peter Lynch once paid a consultant to help him become more effective at work. The recommendation was to start the day by listing everything that he could do that day, then rank the list by order of importance. Start working on the most important task and don't stop until it's done. Move on to the second task. At the end of they day, you'll know that however much got done, you did the things that were most important for you to do today.

Some things aren't going to get done. Face it. Accept it. As long as you're doing things that are more important, it doesn't matter. Focus on the most important things you can do — what will make you the happiest, make the biggest difference, and have the longest impact — and let the rest go. It's just distracting you.

The Sam's Club Moment

Photo: Josh Lewis

When I first moved to Colorado Springs, I stayed with a friend from college until I was able to get my own apartment. He wouldn't let me pay rent, so to thank him, I bought him something I knew he'd been thinking about buying himself for a while: a membership at Sam's Club.

We stopped by to do the paperwork, and he asked me if I was going to get myself one. I wasn't; this was the first I'd ever been in Sam's Club. I wasn't familiar with them, and I didn't know that I'd ever use it. He convinced me to walk around the warehouse with him before I made up my mind.

We started out, and I wasn't that impressed. I kept focusing on the cost. NutriGrain Bars for $5.99. (Sure it's more, but I can get them for $2.00 a box at Albertson's.) Cheerios for $7.99. (Half that at Albertson's.)

Halfway through, he got me to see the light, and I'm thankful to this day that he did. I was looking at it from the wrong angle. I needed to look at the value, not the cost. Yes, I could get a $4 box of Cheerios at Albertson's, but I'm going to spend $8 on Cheerios anyway as soon as I buy two boxes. Once I've spent $8, do I want to own 26 oz of Cheerios, or 37 oz? It's about making your money do more for you.

I started getting really excited, and ended up getting myself a membership as well. I also picked up as much of the grocery shopping as I could instead of stopping at Albertson's on the way home. (I wasn't ready to buy milk there. Yet.) Two memberships, groceries, and $20 cash back came to about $120.

On the way home, we stopped by Albertson's so I could get milk. I wanted to see how long it would take for the Sam's Club membership to pay for itself. What I had just bought at Sam's Club — just the groceries — came to over $160. I was astounded. I had no idea the membership would pay for itself and more on the first trip.

I've been sold ever since. Sure, there have been times I've gone overboard and bought things I shouldn't have. (It takes a long time for two people to go through 5 lbs of shredded cheese.) But it's either been worth it, or it makes for a good story. Now, my wife and I are working on gaining and understanding of just how fast we go through things, which will let us know how much we need to keep on hand. More on that later.

Gruntspeak

I came across this cartoon on Friday, illustrating the grammatical gymnastics involved in carrying on an entire conversation with one word. Go ahead and check it out. I'll wait for you.

(BTW, it just took me five tries and the help of the spell checker to find a form of "grammar" that A) fits my usage and B) is already a word.)

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my best friend when we were teenagers. I don't remember who grunted what, but here's the gist of it:

"I'm full."

"Me, too. That was a good meal."

"Totally. The pork chops were very tender and savory. Slightly smokey, and just a hint of lime."

"I agree. And the mashed potatoes were well-seasond and had just the right amount of lumps."

"They were very good. Excellent meal, Mom."

"Yes, Mom. Thank you."

"So what shall we do now?"

"Well, we could play some more hackey sack."

"Nah, I'm too full for that level of physical activity. As much as I enjoyed dinner, I'd prefer to only enjoy it once."

"Good call. We could play video games."

"We spent most of the afternoon playing video games. My thumbs are still sore. Go to the mall?"

"We could... I don't have any money, though. I couldn't buy anything."

"Oh! There was that movie you wanted to see. The one with ... whatsherface."

"That's right! I'd forgotten about that. And I'd just been talking about it while we were playing video games. Let's do that."

"Who's driving?"

"We're here. I'll drive. Do you have a card?"

"...Not on me."

"Not a problem. We can grab my mom's. Watch it at your place or mine?"

"Yours. My sister's probably still watching TV."

"Alright! Let's go."

At which point, we pushed back our chairs and got up to leave. My mother, who had been looking back and forth at us during the whole exchange, burst out laughing. "What was that?"

"We were figuring out what to do now. We're going to go rent a movie and watch it here. I'm driving, we'll need to borrow your Blockbuster card, and excellent job on the marinade. Very tasty."

Tim Allen would be proud.

Monday Night Football Redux

Just a quick note that we're back, safe and sound, from the Broncos-Raiders season opener on Monday Night Football. It was Denver's first win on the road on MNF since 1998 (I love some of these strung-up statistics), and Oakland barely avoided their third consecutive shutout on Monday Night.

The seats were great (thanks, Dave!) and it was interesting to see the differences in what the game was like. The Black Hole and Mile High each have their own flavor.

I can't wait to watch the highlights on AppleTV tomorrow so I can see just what happened with some of those plays.

Monterey and Carmel

Growing up, Monterey was one of Nicole's favorite places to go. I'd never been, until last week. I like it. It's a fun place, and beautiful.

We started off in Carmel on Saturday. Browsing around the shops, we found a gorgeous leather jacket that looks really good on me, but not $900-good. I got a kick out of the fact that a lot of the shops have a little pail of dog treats on the counter, or a water dish outside the door. Carmel is a very dog-friendly place. The bottom tier of one of the fountains was a water dish.

The highlight of the cuisine was probably Isabella's Wharfside. It's on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. I had the Salmon Basil Pasta (they make their own noodles in-house) – fresh steamed salmon with a cream sauce on linguine. Nicole had spinach ravioli stuffed with crab meat and topped with the sweetest marinara sauce we've ever had. The dipping oil had fresh minced garlic in it – very good. We split a creme brule for dessert.

The lowlight of the cuisine was lunch in Carmel. I won't call them out by name, but their "English-style" fish and chips were anything but. For one thing, the British don't bread their fish – they batter them. Second, the "California style" malt vinegar has no taste to it. The fish is soggy by the time you can taste it. On the plus side, the fries were nicely crispy, the coleslaw was interesting (it had pineapple in it), and the waitstaff were friendly.

Another culinary find was The Cheese Shop, tucked away in a shopping plaza in Carmel. We met a very friendly guy there who enjoyed handing out samples and explaining the history of the cheeses as much as we enjoyed tasting and listening. We stopped back by on our way home on Sunday to pick up a Welsh horseradish cheddar and Memoire – a gouda with truffles. With some French bread, fresh blueberries, and cranberry-grape juice, this was our lunch this afternoon.

I find I prefer Carmel's white beaches to Santa Cruz's brown ones, and I prefer the rocky coast to the beach. (Although this might change if I had a dog to play with.)

The Monterey Bay Aquarium was fun, getting to see all the underwater life. Otters are cute beyond words. They have some tide pools where you can pet the little critters; Nicole did, I didn't. The anchovies were kind of surreal to watch. Kids would definitely love the place.

Did I mention that Otters are cute?

We went to church with the Monterey Ward. Just sacrament meeting. We got there with time to walk around the grounds before it started. The chapel is on a wooded hillside, and it was foggy. Beautiful. We got to see a four-point buck laying in a thicket just off the parking lot.

Flickr photo set

Around Alcatraz

Today we went up to take a look at Alcatraz. We met up with some friends, and took a tour boat out around San Francisco Bay. We thought we were going to get to spend half an hour on the Rock itself, but the tour company's definition of "at" only means "circling around". But we still got a good tour of the bay (Flickr).

We stopped by the Boudin Bistro for lunch. They claim that their bakery there on Fisherman's Wharf is where sourdough bread bowls got started. Nicole and I both love clam chowder, so this seemed like a good place to have lunch. We learned an important lesson, too: If you go upstairs, where they have nice tables with linens and a view of the bay, they charge you twice as much for the exact same bowl of chowder as if you walk up to the counter downstairs. Something to remember for next time. The bread bowls were very good, though, as was the chowder.

We also stopped by Ghirardelli Square, which is just down the street. We decided not to tour the factory (long line) but we got a delicious cupcake from Kara's Cupcakes. Try them if you get the chance.

I also enjoyed walking through a bit of the financial district, with the skyscrapers and glass mixing in with century-old Greek architecture. Ah, capitalism.

Beach Trip

I love the beaches here in Northern California. However, Colter and I have not been able to spend time at the beach in the two years that we have been together, until Saturday. One of the couples in our ward, Guy and Kat Schauerhamer, had invited us and several other young couples down to a beach house belonging to some friends of theirs. Saturday afternoon we packed a duffle bag, made a salad and headed down beyond Santa Cruz. When we arrived, we all began helping to put together the main course—a dutch oven Tex-Mex chicken dish. Colter sliced cheese. I crushed corn flakes. One of the husbands pounded the chicken flat and handed it to Kat, who spread it with taco seasonings, and rolled it up with slices of cheese. Next the chicken got dipped in melted butter, rolled in the corn flakes, and placed in the dutch oven.

Chicken prepared, we tromped down to the beach: through a eucalyptus grove, down a redwood-bark strewn path, then down, down, down a flight of stairs that scaled a cliff, down…to a beautiful, nearly empty beach. When we had arrived at the beach house, it was overcast and cold. Once we got down to the beach, however, the clouds cleared away revealing a beautiful sunset.

Guy set up the dutch oven, then joined the rest of us frolicking in the waves. The water were cold, but not frigid. Colter went body surfing with the rest of the boys. I didn’t want to get my head underwater; so I stayed where the water came up to my waist, watching.
The wind started to chill us all; so when we were finally numb with cold, we dried off and added the rest of the ingredients to the chicken dish: chili peppers, diced tomatoes, black beans, canned corn, and the rest of the corn flakes and cheese. At this point, some decided to find a hot tub, while others of us played Bocce ball and ultimate Frisbee. Colter helped score the winning point in the Frisbee game. I was happy to have caught a pass successfully. It was difficult to run because our ankles were so stiff from the cold.

Finally, the food was ready. As we hiked back up the cliff to the beach house, we could see bonfires springing up all along the beach. Back at the house we had a prayer and dug in. The “Mexican Hash,” as we dubbed it, was delicious. In addition, one of the wives had brought homemade whole wheat bread. Our salad was a hit as well.

Most of the couples spent the night at the beach house. We came home so as to sleep in a bed—and so we could get up for early morning choir practice the next day.

I don’t think either of us moved a muscle until the alarm chirped.