Another month’s worth of what I have been doing at 8:15 PM every night. Doing this has become a great way to see what I’ve been up to on a particular day along with what else I add in about my day. It’s become a regular habit of what I’m doing and what has happened that day and a wonderful little one paragraph diary/journal of my actions and thoughts.
A Little Background on This Post
I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:15 (8:15 PM) every day for the last few months 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) every day.
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.
Here is my post on what I’ve been doing at 20:15 (8:15 PM) in January, February, March, and April.
May
May 1 – Driving through Del Ray after picking up my car at Landmark Honda, then to Pho Viet Flare for a small #10 with extra noodles. Once done with dinner went to Good Fortune Supermarket for roast pork and pickled veggies, then taking a long slow drive home through Ballston, Clarendon, Courthouse, and Roslyn. A day spent reading, rereading the DOL Trusted Tester and Section 508 policy document before a two-hour meeting about the document.
May 2 – Sitting outside on the 6th-floor patio at Lorien Hotel (Kimpton Hotel) as part of Mary Elizabeth Kamin and Kevin’s engagement party. Went to Elmo’s and found out about the event. Went home and spent two hours cutting, raking, cleaning the front yard, then was down for a two-hour nap.
May 3 – Watching “Junkyard Empire”, which is a show about a son who now owns his father’s junkyard and Damascus Motors that is a high-end car shop. This episode is about how DC Brau ( local DC beer company) wanting a vehicle to be able to take four to six legs to beer festivals. Went early this morning for an hour and a half massage and then it was off to Eastern Market for a brick (potatoes, egg, cheese, sausage patty, on an awesome roll. Bought a tin tile painting of with three women by M. Novak, who is a supposedly famous painter, which I already have a painting of paint blobs that look like flowers. Then drove around DC before heading home for a three and a half hour nap. Great relaxing weekend.
May 4 – Watching “2 Broke Girls” after ordering a few books. Hoping Ferran Adria’s creativity books gets to me this time and is not missing the last few pages.
May 5 – It finally happened after four months. Today at 8:15 PM I was in my bathroom doing what I needed to do. I had finished reading some Twitter, and my second version of Amy Hoy’s Just Fucking Ship eBook and heading to my spare bedroom to update my nephew’s soccer website with completed and upcoming soccer camps. My day was spent mostly reading and playing with the interactive examples from the http://eloquentjavascript.net/ website. Bought the book, but have found reading it online has been great, so I can run the examples, along with making updates and changes to see what will happen.
May 6 – Down in the basement grabbing a light bulb from one end to move to the other end so I could see to put laundry in washing machine. One of these days, I will bring an extra bulb down with me, so I don’t have to worry where the other one is. Updated nephews soccer website with a grammar change. Did another review of the work FORM PDF created in Live Cycle Designer, plus more reading on Javascript. Read another 15 or 20 pages of Just Fucking Ship by Amy Hoy, which gets me over half way through this updated version. A few more night after work and I will be done with my second reading.
May 7 – Sitting in the Artisphere in Rosslyn eating two breakfast tacos with chorizo tacos and two shrimp tacos while DC Night Owls gets started. After introduces, Matthew Lesko (guys in question mark suit from 80s and 90s TV) talk about doing your own thing that makes you happy because otherwise you’re working for others and most likely not happy. Plus, he talked about he had businesses that failed, write 100 books, and was happiest when he started wearing the question mark suits. Helped VETS come up with a great solution on how to bake infographics accessible by adding off-screen text.
May 8 – ENTERED 05/09/2015 – Was at Taco Bamba with Sam eating tacos. I had tripe, Lengua (beef tongue), and goat tacos. Once we were done there stopped at 29 Diner for dessert. I had chocolate layer cake as usual. Had a retrospective meeting o the last sprint in the morning. At about 11:45 AM went out to the sixth-floor patio to watch the VE Day planes fly over the mall. I could only stay for the first 15 or so minutes because I had to grab lunch before my three-hour training of Compliance Sheriff (first two hours). Then an hour on “How to Make Your Website More Accessible”.
May 9 – Sitting at my computer in the spare bedroom watching episode one of the second season of Small Empires about “Fixing everything with PartPic in Atlanta”. Great video show with advice on how to start, run, expand, etc. a small business, mostly web based. Been meaning to watch the second season for a long time, but when I would remember to look for it, it was not out yet. Now all nine or ten episodes are out so can work my way through the whole season in a few days, since the episodes are 20 to 30 minutes long. Went to St. Emlo’s today to meet up with the gang and see how the week went. Then it was off to Union Market to grab a late morning snack, which ended up being a great little breakfast sandwich from Ris. The sandwich was bacon, egg, white cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, and meatloaf on a potato bun. I could have eaten few more of those but glad I didn’t. After grabbing the remaining 60 canvases for my 100 Day Project of making paintings of wine bottle I stopped at PoppaBox to have spicy pork bibimbap (mixed rice). Then to was home to read and nap. Going to watch a few more episodes of Small Empires and then head out to Bob and Edith’s for a late dinner of breakfast.
May 10 – Started napping on my bed since about 6:30 PM after wandering around the Shen Valley Flea Market and then the downtown Front Royal flea market, along with shopping at Wegmans. Stopped at Heritage Hollow Farms butcher shop to pick up some bacon and other pork products and found them closed for Mother’s Day. Also found that Creekside Bakery and Deli (15 Main St, Sperryville, VA 22740) closed early at 2:00 PM. If you ever get there make sure to try the glazed donuts and turnovers.
May 11 – Watching “2 Broke Girls” while eating two roast pork, salad greens, and pickled veggies on a Portuguese roll. Besides attending APIv2 planning meeting, I worked converting the dataset TABLEs to a more mobile friendly layout. Ended up painting my 36th painting of wines bottles.
May 12 – ENTERED – 05/13/2015 – Sitting in my buddies basement in Cabin John drinking white wines (two Pinot Grigio’s and a Reisling), while eating a great pork Ragusa over penne pasta. We were waiting to open the 1985 Toro Albala Don Pedro Ximenez Gran Reserva Montilla Moriles at the end of the night. Did more a making dataset TABLEs easier to read on handheld devices.
May 13 – Reading “Just F’ing Ship” and taking notes on the 21 main points. Worked on more dataset TABLE page coding.
May 14 – ENTERED – 05/15/2015 – Driving from UPS after picking up my new 13″ Retina MacBook Pro to Five Guys to grab a cheeseburger and small fry. More work on making developer.dol.gov dataset pages responsive, so TABLEs only show on desktop.
May 15 – Heading out the door to see Teresa Oaxaca live paint a model at Principle Gallery Alexandria. Learned a bunch watch even though it was for only about 30 minutes on how I should blend paints on the pallet instead of the painting. Day of getting small things tied up. Heading to Momo Sushi for dinner afterward.
May 16 – ENTERED 05/17/2015 – Was at William’s in Purciville, VA, With Sam and Eric, who were learning how to shoot a 9mm and a .357 Magnum. They were having a great time and then going to give the four wheeler a try driving it around the property. We ended up having dinner of T-bone steak, grilled onions and asparagus with rice, tomato, bacon, and cheddar cheese casserole and a few strawberries for dinner.
May 17 – Driving/parking the car at The Dairy Godmother to pick-up a quart of vanilla custard to have with fresh strawberries, peanuts, cashews, and chocolate sauce after mowing the lawn. Went to Dupont Circle farmers market, then home for some reading and a nap.
May 18 – Watching “2 Broke Girls” after a bit of reading and starting the copying of 19 Gb of files to an external hard drive to be transferred to my new laptop. Created more mobile friendly dataset pages.
May 19 – Sitting in a conference room at 1776 Crystal City with eight other people as part of “UX Show and Tell”. Not sure if I was presenting what DOL was doing with developer.dol.gov’s mobile pages or had just finished. Got good feedback that we were doing the right thing. More work on making datasets mobile friendly.
May 20 – ENTERED 05/22/2015 – I was walking down into the Gallery Place/Chinatown metro station after Accessibility DC’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day. While at Capitol City Brewery with five others I learned, Blackboard now has a full-time accessibility person. She even thinks we might be able to have monthly meetings there. Today was a good day for accessibility.
May 21 – ENTERED 05/22/2015 – Attending Refresh DC at Atlantic Media Strategies in one of the Watergate Buildings to hear Sarah Mills talk about UX process.
May 22 – Laying on my bed talking to my sister a day early for her 45th birthday, since she would most likely be running around all day on Saturday. Takes to my father beforehand to see how he was doing with his medical issues. Slow day at work before Memorial Day weekend, which work let us go home two hours early and let me get a two hour and 45-minute nap in.
May 23 – Watching TV while on the phone with old college friend Christina about the women we both knew that passed away the other day. The rest of the day was relaxing with a stop at St. Elmo’s to meet friends before grabbing English peas. Bought three quarts and ate close to two of them. Then back home to read and nap. After that, it was off to Eden Center to grab some roast pork and pickled veggies.
May 24 – Unpacking the car after going out to Shen-Valley Flea Market in White Post, VA, with my co-worker, along with stopping for bake goods at Creekside Bakery and Deli inSperryville. Then we stopped at Heritage Hollow Farms for pig jowl bacon after doing the tour of Copper Fox Distillery. We made stops at Caresaul Ice Cream for custard and a quick stop at Wegmans for a few groceries.
May 25 – Out on a walking past the basketball court through the park near my house on my way to Old Town Alexandria. Hadn’t done much walking today since I spent three-plus hours helping women figure out how to fill in and use the WordPress theme she bought. Managed to add two and a half miles or about 5,700 steps in during my walk.
May 26 – Sitting in buddies basement in Cabin John having some wine, cheese, and crackers talking about pig roast plans, wedding plans for another friend there. Then it was on to talking about parents debt when they pass away and how some states are looking have a spouse, children, or other relatives having to pay it back.
May 27 – Watching “American Pickers” while eating Malaysian Lo Mien with shrimp and tofu. Reviewed a document for accessibility issues, along with attended a few meeting and made another dataset TABLE page more mobile friendly.
May 28 – ENTERED – 05/30/2015 – Watching “American Pickers” while relaxing after a good day at work.
May 29 – Sitting in Principle Gallery in watching a live painting of E. Hunt Burke being done. It’s interesting watching someone else paint to see how they do things. Had a great APIv2 meeting today at work where we worked through the process of how make a paper airplane fly-over 240 yards and so two loop de loops. These were some of the customers requests.
May 30 – Working on my new 13″ Retina MacBook Pro purchasing the necessary software to be able to code and deploy updates.
May 31 – Driving home from DC with Henny Swan after taking her on a driving sightseeing tour of DC after having a steak dinner at Ray’s the Steak’s. Figured she needed a bit of time out of the hotel before spending the next two days there for the M-Enabling Conference in Crystal City, VA, after spending the day flying from England.
Conclusion
In the future, I plan to post this information once a month at the beginning of the following month once I’m caught up.
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.
P.S. Need to go back through these 8:15 PM posts and add any links or photos that are relevant to make them more appealing.