What I’ve Been Doing at 20:15 (8:15 PM) – February 2015

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Here is the next installment of what I have been doing at 8:15 PM for the month of February. Here’s my post from January, 2015, of what I’ve been doing at 8:15 PM.

Little Background

Started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:15 (8:15 PM) every day for the last month after reading Kitt Hodson’s Pastry Box article from Jan 1, 2015. Which was about how a year earlier she read Erica Douglass’s article about writing down what she did at 11:11 AM and 20:14 (8:14 PM) everyday.

I thought this was a great idea to see if I could find any patterns in my nights. So far I tend to watch TV Monday, Thursday, and Sunday nights when I’m home. Also on the weekends I tend to be leaving or coming back from dinner, sometimes even eating dinner.

February

Feb 1 – Watching Katy Perry perform at the halftime of Super Bowl XLXI, along with catching up on Twitter. Nothing exciting going on as of yet with the game tied at 14 to 14. With Seattle scoring with six seconds before the half against New England.

Feb 2 – ENTERED 2015/02/3 – Watched 2 Broke Girls after making updates to my Performance slides. Then last night cleaned up a few 100 e-mails with more work to do.

Feb 3 – Sitting in Barnes and Noble drinking a large Starbucks hot chocolate with whipped cream while looking through magazines. The magazines were Communication Arts magazine, along with: Entrepreneur, Inc, Jamie (Oliver’s), and Fast Company magazines.

Feb 4 – Installing Dragon Naturally Speaking on my Windows 8.1 PC, while cleaning up my e-mail. Busy day working on more APIv2 issues, along with creating a draft of e-mail sent to users.

Feb 5 – Talking with Corey, Emily, and Marisa about the design after the Dribbble DC event were a guy from Gannett talked about using the Oculus Riff. Spent the day reviewing ODEP PDF and UX for APIv2.

Feb 6 – ENTERED 2015/02/16 – Had Pho at Pho Viet Flare so was either there or heading home from there to watch Tree Masters. For some reason, this entry got skipped or deleted from Simple Note while using it on my phone.

Feb 7 – Attempted to install Turbo Tax on my MacBook and found out I need to have OS 10.7 or higher to install, and I only have OS 10.6. Glad I have my PC, which has Windows 7. Also working on my 2015 THEME blog post about a HEALTHIER ME. Visited my local coffee shop (St. Elmo’s). Did some reading, napping, and next TV, and dinner.

Feb 8 – Watching Anthony Bourdain’s the Layover in Toronto. After a day of seeing the movie “The Theory of Everything”, Pho at Pho 75 in Arlington, VA, taking a nap, and a getting 3.41 mile walk into Old Town down King St.

Feb 9 – Listening to Ali, Max, and two others talk about getting into UX, what they do, what they are looking for in a new hire at General Assembly DC. Most of the day was spent looking at PDF issues and closing out issues in GitLab.

Feb 10 – At Clarendon Apple Store looking at 13″ Retina MacBook Pro to replace my old White MacBook. Played around with the Notes and Pages, along with Mac Word 2011 to see if the files created were accessible. A long day of checking eight or 10 PDFs and other documents at work.

Feb 11 – Laying in my bed looking at the days Twitter after reviewing PDFs and attending two meetings. Then spending the afternoon teaching Compliance Sheriff class, along with my “Is Your Website Accessible?” talk and other accessibility issues at a work agency.

Feb 12 – Writing up notes for the four websites Viget Labs asked to check for the talk on Friday. Next need to check the home page with JAWS to see how things read and what is going on with the extra accessibility navigation thing. Another busy day checking documents.

Feb 13 – Finishing up Pho at Pho Viet Flare on Van Dorn or heading home from there. Stopped at Sugar Shack for donuts. Had a good day at Viget Labs talking accessibility with their team in DC, Raliegh, NC, and Boulder, CO.

Feb 14 – Eating roast pork Bahn Mi sandwiches while watching “Dinners, Drive-ins, and Dives while waiting to watch mid-season finale of MythBusters. Got cars oil changed, then over to St. Elmo’s, home to read then out to Pho 75 with Sam and Eric. We then went to Super H Mart for meat to add to tomorrow’s soup with a stop at Banh Mi DC Sandwich.

Feb 15 – Sitting in Buzz Bakery with two 9:30 cupcakes to go after a busy day. Went to Hoffman 22 to see the five Oscar-nominated shorts films, along with the ten or so nominated animated shorts films and runners up. Then it was off to St. Elmo’s to read with a cup of hot chocolate. Then to Dairy Godmother for a quart of salted caramel custard and then drive to Mt. Vernon before dinner at Momo (sushi).

Feb 16 – Watching 2 Broke Girls on a relaxing Presidents Day holiday. Spent day reading, napping, and trying to come up with a better way to have multiple skip navigation links on Craig’s Hospital. Having an issue with the width of the container, which I’m thinking is getting style in JavaScript. Plus, waiting to see how much snow we get tonight and wondering if work will be canceled or have two hour delay.

Feb 17 – Back to reading “A Day at elBulli” by Ferran Adria. Currently, read page six of the “Creative Methods I” lime green section of the book which is between pages 136 and 137. The Federal government was closed today because of snow (three to four inches at my house). I ended up shoveling a few driveways (mine and end of neighbors after plow came through) for an hour and a half to two hours. Then it was time to watch “Gift of Business chat with Amy Hoy, Alex Hillman, and Brenan Dunn after that was a late lunch of Pho at Pho Viet Flare. I  dropped my car at Landmark Honda to get an oil pan gasket fix before hopping a bus to King St. metro station and walked home from there.

Feb 18 – Watching an old episode of “American Pickers”. Reviewed a half a dozen PDF’s on first day back after a four day weekend because yesterday was a federal government snow day.

Feb 19 – ENTERED 2015/02/20 – Listening to Kaytee Nesmith talk about the UX of crypto applications. These applications can make life safer for those in danger or sources for articles at nclud as part of February’s Refresh DC event.

Feb 21 – Driving Sam and Eric home after dinner Ray’s the Steaks with William, Anthony D Paul, Samantha, and a few others. Had the hanger steak with mashed potatoes, wild mushrooms, and bone marrow, along with steak tar tar, horseradish, and capers in deviled eggs.

Feb 20 – Leaving Caphe Banh Mi where I had a small house Pho (eye round and brisket with beef broth) with extra noodles. While sharing part of my table with six women out celebrating two of their 50th birthdays. That was fun getting asked a bunch of questions while eating from slightly drunk women. Say of APIv2 meetings about UX and accessibility issues.

Feb 22 – Eating a roasted pork Bahn Mi while watching to Oscar pre-show on ABC. Slept in and did a bit of snow removal so when it freezes tonight it would be an ice rink. Then went to Pho 75 for a small bowl of #10 (eye round and fatty brisket). Next grabbed Bahn Mi, chocolate chocolate cupcakes (Doom) from Baked and Wired, along with breakfast tacos for a mid-afternoon snack.

Feb 23 – Its Monday night so watching 2 Broke Girls like most weeks. Talked with my brother James earlier who called for my birthday a day early. Spent the day dealing with APIv2 with Daniel and figuring out more issues with Token and Datasets.

Feb 24 – Again finding time to read “A Day at elBulli” by Ferran Adria on my 52nd birthday. I’m in the middle of the history of the elBulli section, which are the tan pages between pages 184 and 185. Finished the history up until 1997. After I’m done with the history section, it’s off to grab Pho at Caphe Banh Mi in old town Alexandria and bring it home.

Feb 25 – ENTERED 2015/02/26 – Was catching up on “American Pickers”. Needed to unwind after a day of reviewing PDF’s.

Feb 26 – Watching “Big Bang Theory” after running to Burke and Herbert Bank to pay my rent, then to eye doctors to pick up my new glasses. Next off to Barnes and Noble to pick up “Great Discontent” and “Lucky Peach magazines. Finally, stopping at South China to grab Mongolian Lo Mein after a long day checking PDF’s after a two-hour snow delay.

Feb 27 – Flying to SFO for Bay Area Accessibility Camp at LinkedIn in Mountian View, CA. Currently, over middle America somewhere between the western side of Iowa and eastern side of Nebraska. I’m sitting next to Nguyet and Doug how are headed to Sonoma Valley for a few days.

Feb 28 – Sitting in Agave Mexican Bistro with a dozen or so accessibility people after a great day at Bay Area Accessibility Camp at LinkedIn in Mountview, CA.

Conclusion

After re-reading these entries, I have notice how much I have done over these few months. Some of it productive and other times recharging the batteries. I also at some point in my writing down of events started adding in how the day went, what happened, what I planned to do later, and I was thinking.

In the future, I plan to post this information once a month at the beginning of the following month.

Hopefully, this has been helpful to you and gets you to keep track of what you do a particular time of the day, along with a short daily diary.

If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:15 PM some evening, please leave a comment. Or a suggestion of something that is not part of my ordinary life you think I should do.