Category Archives: 2016

August 2016 – What I’ve Been Doing at 8:16 PM (20:16)

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Here is my August 2016, installment of what I had done at 8:16 PM each night during the month. I also found it helpful writing down what happened during the day as a small journal/diary of what was good, bad, or interesting.

Little Background

I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:16 (8:16 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.

August 2016 Events

Aug 1 – in my spare bedroom reading through my browser tabs working my way down from 380+ to the low 60s.

Aug 2 – sitting my buddies basement in Cabin John drinking a Dogfish Head lobster and basil chocolate stout while eating mashed potatoes, balsamic vinegar Brussel sprouts, chicken, and salad with friends.

Aug 3 – reading Penn Jillette’s new book “PRESTO! How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales”.

Aug 4 – watching commercials on the Viceland channel waiting to see what Action Bronson (rap singer?) is going to eat next. The show is about him traveling the world with I think his brother and another buddy eating different things than they normally would. They tend to eat a lot of fantastic food and some they don’t like.

Aug 5 – driving home from Wegmans after grabbing a bit of dinner from the hot bar and doing some grocery shopping. I watched a bit of the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics Games. I did screen reader testing of the SVG map page. Also spent three hours of my afternoon doing a DHS Trusted Tester for a women from WHD to help her understand the process better.

Aug 6 – Sitting in St. Elmo’s reading an article entitled “Git for Humans: How to Get Started with Git in Your Agency Today” ( http://www.planningforaliens.com/blog/2013/10/15/git-in-your-agency/ ) and listening to “Herb and Hanson” perform folk type music on acoustic guitars. Today I went to post office to mail a bill, along with Burke and Herbert Bank to pay my August rent. After that, I went to Del Ray Farmer’s Market to get some heirloom tomatoes. I grabbed a bunch of the little yellow and purple heirloom cherry tomatoes along with basil. Next, I went to Arlington Courthouse Farmer’s Market to get herbs (sage, mint, oregano, dill, tarragon, and rosemary) to make pesto. I managed to get to St. Elmo’s to meet-up for coffee (I don’t drink coffee) and found out one of my friends are due to have twins end of January 2017. I then headed over to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to get through a bunch of e-mail and read a few blog posts/articles I still had open in my browser. Once I left Swing, I went to Pho 75 to get a small bowl of Pho with raw round eye and fatty brisket with extra noodles and extra fatty brisket. Next, I moved on to my next coffee shop which was Bocatto Lounge to do more reading and listening to NPR. Then come home to read some more and take a two plus hour nap.

Aug 7 – Washing dishes for the first time in what seems like a year, which is not but has been a while. Slept in until around 9:15 AM after going to sleep after 3 AM, then went to Palisades farmer market. After grabbing some pastries went to DuPont Circle Farmers Market and picked up a mushroom and cheese pastry song with a few other things. I then headed home to drop them off before going to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to read a few articles and take some notes while listening to WAMU. Once my computer battery was about done, I went to St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub to read some more of Penn Jillette’s new book.

Aug 8 – working on a charcoal drawing of a whiskey bottle so we could learn how to draw glass objects. When I got home, I didn’t watch any of the Olympics because I was watching “Misfit Garage” and then “Vegas Rat Rods” show.

Aug 9 – participating in a sour beer tasting in Cabin John while eating mushroom risotto with a bit of chicken on top. A friend from Chicago was in for rest of week taking a wine class where she has tried between 100 – 120 different wines earlier in the day and had to describe them along with figure out the grape, vintage, wine region, etc.

Aug 10 – watching Penn & Teller’s show “Fool Us” while boiling purple and red small new potatoes. Did an accessibility review of some new mandatory training classes for work about accessibility that needed a few updates and corrections?

Aug 11 – was reading Penn Jillette’s new book “PRESTO! How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and other Magical Tales” while listening/watching the 2016 Olympics. I would read until I heard the announcer say they were on the last lap and then stop to watch who one each race.

Aug 12 – Driving from Wegmans to FedEX on Eisenhower Ave. in Alexandria after having dinner and grabbing groceries which was mostly fruits and veggies. The reason I was heading to FedEX was to pick up an order of whiskey from a company in Wyoming. My day was spent working with one of the Women Bureau’s front-end programmers to help figure out the best way to fix the newest set of annual reports that had issues with the data tables and also the color contrast of the charts.

Aug 13 – Having dinner at Vaso Kitchen (the old Whistle Pig) in Alexandria with six other friends from St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub. Woke up late around 9:45 AM and then headed to Del Ray Farmers Market before meeting friends at St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub were we made plans to have dinner. After talking for about an hour and a half we left and I went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to read a few articles and take notes. I then drove to pick up my buddy Sam to grab Pho at Pho 75. I had a small number ten (raw round eye and fatty brisket with extra noodles and an order of extra fatty brisket. We then left there to head to Bocatto Lounge for some Gelato, and I had very dark chocolate Gelato. While there I worked on setting up my next few months blog posts about what I was doing at 8:16 PM each night. I published my June post and planned to post the July one later in the week. After dropping Sam at the Pentagon City Mall, I headed home to read and grab a short hour or so nap before showering and heading to a friends house to meet before dinner.

Aug 14 – sitting in my spare bedroom watching one of the last episodes of season 2 of Chefs Tables on Netflix. Went to three farmers markets and two coffee shops. Manage to get a few more articles read and some notes were taken too.

Aug 15 – Sitting in my basic drawing class using charcoal to draw a horse skull while the torrential rains started. We have two more weeks of drawing class because of July 4th holiday and teacher being out of town.

Aug 16 – Relaxing at home watching the Olympics.

Aug 17 – Relaxing at home watching the Olympics.

Aug 18 – Cleaning apartment before buddies coming to DC for the weekend to attend Black Sabbath concert with Ozzy Osbourne at Jiffy Lube Pavilion. Then it was off to South China to grab Mongolian Liow Mien with shrimp and tofu for dinner.

Aug 19 – Sitting in Bangkok Golden with buddies Bob and Steve for dinner which was crispy rice salad, duck lab, pork drunken noodles, and green curry shrimp.

Aug 20 – Driving around H St. looking for parking and found none, so we drove to Peter Chang’s for Chinese dinner.

Aug 21 – Sitting in row R left of the stage in the orchestra area of Jiffy Lube Live watching the opening band Rival Sons and waiting for Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne to start playing.

Aug 22 – Sleeping during what ended up being about a two and a half hour nap after work. I spent the whole day tired after spending three days with a couple of buddies running around the DC area all weekend. The thing that made me the most tired was going out to breakfast and then not getting to sleep until 1:45 AM after going to Jiffy Lube Live to see Black Sabbath perform with Ozzy Osbourne.

Aug 23 – Watching “Counting Cars” while eating leftover hot chicken strips from Peter Changs. Spent my day doing a lot of miscellaneous accessibility work.

Aug 24 – Relaxing and watching TV while thinking about the best way to create my 10K Apart entry to display restaurants information by city.

Aug 25 – Sitting in Bocatto Lounge starting to code my first attempt to
create a small enough 10K Apart application. I’m looking to keep my CSS and HTML page structure to 3 Kb or 4 Kb, so I have 6 Kb to 7 Kb for content. Met with a group from OCIO to figure out the best way to present their content. It started as data TABLEs with links to videos which we informed them would need to be captioned. Since they were under a short timeframe, we suggested linking to another page with a version of their scripts as a text version.

Aug 26 – Relaxing at home watching TV while working through the best ways to get my Place Geeks Eat application to work along with being under 10 Kb to create the pages and also be under 10 Kb for the loaded pages too. Thinking the easiest way to be able to read in each cities restaurants is to hand create individual city JSON files that I can pull in and process after the person chooses them from the drop down list.

Aug 27 – Listening to a six-person impromptu music event at a buddies house. Hadn’t planned on being there earlier in the day but found out it was a last minute gathering because one of the musician’s wives was due to have a baby any day now and figured he wouldn’t get out much for a while. Went to the Courthouse Farmer’s market to pick-up a bunch farmer fresh veggies and then it went to St. Elmo’s to meet friends before most of us travel for part or all of the next few weeks. After I left there stopped home to drop off my veggies then onto M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to work for about two hours on my 10K Apart entry which is about listing places geeks eat. It’s more of a prototype of how best to display the restaurant’s information for users. Once done I met up with a buddy for lunch at Taco Bamba which was out the second choice because Bangkok Golden which was closed for vacation. We also made a stop at Bahn Mi Restaurant DC for egg rolls and a few Bahn Mi sandwiches for later.

Aug 28 – Walking around Wegmans to pick up some Hatch chili’s, fruit, cured meat, seven-grain bread, etc. Today I managed to get to both the Palsides and DuPont Circle farmers markets. Then I drove around DC while listening to the TED hour in NPR. Stopped home to drop off food and then went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to spend two more hours working on my 10K Apart entry after doing some checking to see about an AirBnB while in Portland for XOXO Festival the second week of September. Once I left there, I ended up at

Aug 29 – was sitting in my last basic drawing class not in the mode to draw since I was mulling over the best way to get my 10K-Apart entry to work with the least amount of code. What I was doing instead of dreaming was watching my teacher doing a live self-portrait from a mirror using gray paper, an eraser, and county to draw. Think I learned more by watching and asking questions than I would have I spent the hour drawing.

Aug 30 – Laying in my bed catching on Twitter since it had been a busy day at the office. Somedays you need to relax and let things percolate in your brain.

Aug 31 – I seem to be too busy doing something to write it down, but it’s not memorable enough to do so the next day.

Conclusion

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 entry to see what you have done or can accomplish over the course of a year.

If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:16 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.

July 2016 – What I’ve Been Doing at 8:16 PM (20:16)

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Here is my July 2016, installment of what I had done at 8:16 PM each night during the month. I also found it helpful writing down what happened during the day as a small journal/diary of what was good, bad, or interesting.

Little Background

I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:16 (8:16 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.

July 2016 Events

Jul 1 – checking on my computer what if anything news on television being that it’s Friday before Fourth of July. Most of my “early leave” day was spent working on the FRD for the accessible SVG map.  After coming home early from work, I read a bit and then managed a three and a half hour nap.

Jul 2 – waiting to be seated for crab dinner at the Crab Deck in Kent Narrows, MD.

Jul 3 – Watching “American Pickers” after a slow day of going to DuPont Circle Farmers Market and having an excellent pulled pork veggie leaf wrap with dill lime rice, thinly slide age cured ham, pickled red onions, and pickled yellow beets. Then it was off to the Georgetown flea market and then home to read until I met up with my buddy Sam to go to José Andres’s American Eat Taverns for their indoor picnic. The picnic included a great variety of food which included cured aged ham, Serrano ham, three types of deviled eggs (jalapeno, pickled, and traditional), pickles, etc. Then the next batch of food was suckling pig jambalaya, shrimp fried rice, fried oyster slider, cheeseburger, bacon wrapped mini hot dogs, and Texas beef brisket chili. Next moved on to the seafood of shrimp cocktail, Alaskan King Crab cocktail, and other mixed seafood. Finally, made it to the desserts which were mini key lime pie, mini chocolate cake with chocolate whip cream in a small jar, dark chocolate tart, more of a lemon tart/pudding. The meal was well worth the cost, but will go earlier next time so some of the dishes won’t have sat out so long, since being the Sunday of 4th of July weekend not so many people were there. After dropping Sam home went and took a few hour nap and never had dinner until close to 10 PM because I was still full.

Jul 4 – watching and taking notes during Amy and Alex’s 30 x 500 “Sales Safari in Action” with special guest Brennan Dunn.

Jul 5 – was visiting with a friend from Ottawa Canada and his family and mother. I met them at their AirBnB in Capitol Hill area after stopping to grab some cheese and crackers to go along with the wine I brought with me. I left cheese, open wine, and an extra bottle since they were going over to other friends for dinner on Wednesday after a visit to the National Zoo.

Jul 6 – sitting at my desk in my spare bedroom adding removing people from my EventBrite mailing list. Doing this should take more time than it does to create a new event and prepare and e-mail announcing the event. I should be able to see which people asked to be removed and those that bounced. Plus, be able to add easily new people that signed up. Once done with that relaxed to watch some TV.

Jul 7 – walking out of the kitchen after grabbing a few slices of hot soppressata, along with a Kind bar while the two samosas I pulled out of the fridge get to room temperature before heating them up as my dinner. Worked on adding my accessible SVG map HTML and CSS to GitLab. Had to work on a readme file after I created and an empty one to make things easier. The process took much longer than planned because we tried using one product before giving up on it and that I did not have the proper access to be able to add, updated, delete, etc. on GitLab.

Jul 8 – Driving to Momo Sushi listening to “Dinner Party Download” on NPR. After dinner, I stopped at Sugar Shack Donuts and picked up a red velvet cake donut along with a maple bacon yeast leaven donut. I have noticed I like their cake donuts better unless you can get the others once they come out such as their salted caramel leaven donut.

Jul 9 – Sitting in Bocatto Lounge starting to read “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz. I’m in the process to see how to make vinegar and pickled items such as beets, cabbage, carrots, etc. Spent my morning going to the Courthouse Farmer’s Market to pick up herbs (basil, mint, sage, oregano, dill, tarragon, etc.). Next, I stopped at St. Elmo’s to visit with friends before heading to the Del Ray Farmer’s Market where I got a few more bunches of basil so I can make two large batches of pesto and pork and beef empanadas. I then went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters for a hot chocolate while catching up on e-mails and taking notes from e-mail newsletters and blog posts. Finally, headed home after stopping at Pho 75 for lunch to read and nap.

Jul 10 – ENTERED 08/13/2016 – Since it is a Sunday night I was most likely watching TV, but not sure because I was too busy it seems to write anything down.

Jul 11 – in drawing class attempting to draw using one, two, and three-point perspective. My drawing was of three boxes stacked on top of each other but offset a bit for the middle box. Created QA sign-off document along with some testing and found issues with the search results not being correct anymore. My guess is mismatched code to content.

Jul 12 – Watching Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana which is in Modena, Italy, in the Chef’s Table documentary series on Netflix. Not eating dinner before the show is not the best way to watch the show because it makes you even hungrier than if you had eaten s at all the great food. Worked with the team to come up with ideas of what needed to be done to make updates to developer.dol.gov for now having offset for the APIv2 datasets. I went to the website and looked for all the broken or redirected links and any other weird things I noticed. Plus, created a list of all the pages that were using APIv1 and the few that were using APIv2 along with which section.type of dataset they were.

Jul 13 – having chicken, fig, and pine nuts risotto with a mixed green salad along with a Nigella Lawson’s sour cream chocolate fudge frosting and cake at Evan’s. I was there with two other couples, one of which live in the condo downstairs. We had one wine before dinner with some cheese and roasted cherry tomatoes on garlic toast. One of the best dishes was the watermelon gazpacho with finely chopped cucumber. All this came about because I had been wanting to drop off the new “Food Labs” book to Evan while killing some time, so the metro bus was less crowded because if metro’s yellow line is closed between Braddock Rd. Metro Station and Pentagon City metro. Most days it’s taking over an hour and a half to get to work or come home afterward.

Jul 14 – either walking around the beer section of Wegmans or checking out at the cashiers after shopping but first having dinner from the hot bar. Worked with co-workers to do QA testing of the new Appeals elastic search along with updating the dollar and cents of the earnings disparity column for the District of Columbia.

Jul 15 – ENTERED 08/13/2016 –  Since it was a Friday night I was most likely either at Wegmans grabbing dinner and then shopping, or I was at or driving to or from Pho 75 for dinner.

Jul 16 – walking around the parking lot of screen 2 at the Family Drive-in Theatre in Stephen’s City, VA, waiting for Ghostbusters to start.

Jul 17 – watching the “Chef’s Table” episode about Niki Nakayama of “N/Naka Restaurant” in Los Angeles.

Jul 18 – working on my first charcoal square to create the class portrait of Samuel Becket.

Jul 19 – since I wasn’t in Cabin John for wine or beer tasting I was in the process of unboxing my new 34 inch Ultra DELL monitor.

Jul 20 – met up with Mike and Kevin who were in DC for Drupal Gov Con. We were at Bangkok Golden with Sam for Loa food.

Jul 21 – waiting at a stoplight on Telegraph Rd.  On my way to Wegmans to grab dinner and do a bit of grocery shopping before the almost 100F heat until later next week.

Jul 22 – sitting in my car at the corner of S. Joyce St. and S. Glenn Rd. Waiting for the light to change on my way from dinner at  Pho 75 to get vanilla custards with hot fudge at Dairy Godmother for desert.

Jul 23 – ENTERED 08/13/2016 –  Since it was a Saturday night I was most likely either at Wegmans grabbing dinner and then shopping, or I was at or driving to or from Pho 75 for dinner.

Jul 24 – walking in front of the White House while on a walking/bus tour of Dc with speakers and other attendees from An Event Apart DC. While dropping off my annual cupcakes to the An Event Apart staff, they asked if I wanted to go on the walking/bus tour since they had an extra seat. I said yes even though it was going to in the upper 90’s F with a heat index over 100F during the tour which started at 7:30 PM. The tour was great because I got to learn a few more facts about DC, such as Constitution Ave NW used to be a canal and the stone building at the corner of Constitution Ave NW and 17th Ave. NW was the lock keeper’s house which he lived in with his wife and thirteen children. The house is extremely small even for two people let alone 15.

Jul 25 – Sitting in my basic drawing class at Torpedo Factory Annex using charcoals to draw white cloth draped to form shadows.

Jul 26 – reading Twitter to see if and when to meet Kevin Hoffman other An Event Apart speakers/attendees to see Ghostbusters at the AMC Hoffman 22 Theater. Ended meeting there for the 9:35 PM show and dropped them back at the hotel after the movie to save them a cab or Uber/Lyft fair back to the hotel.

Jul 27 – Sitting at Blackboard listening to the end of Denis B.’s Accessibility DC UX talk.

Jul 28 – was at Wegmans grabbing dinner and then doing a bit of grocery shopping. I worked home so I could attend the GSA PULSE tool call and then head to the cemetery for Tony’s mom funeral. After the ceremony at cemetery went to Knights of Columbus hall for lunch and then headed home for a 3-hour nap.

Jul 29 – driving on Route 27 towards Washington Blvd to grab Pho at Pho 75 for dinner. I had a small bowl of Pho with raw eye round and fatty brisket along with extra noodles and more fatty brisket. Spent most of the work day figuring out the accessibility issue we had from the new GSA PULSE tool, along with other DOL websites. I noticed that the HSA tool had not scanned the home page of MSHA. I also ran a maximum of 200-page scan of each website I had never run before to get an idea of how right or wrong most were. Of the seven I tested four were 90% or higher, two were in the 70s, and one was in the mid-30s.

Jul 30 – ENTERED 08/13/2016 –  Since it was a Saturday night I was most likely either at Wegmans grabbing dinner and then shopping, or I was at or driving to or from Pho 75 for dinner.

Jul 31 – walking in my house after going to three farmers markets (DuPont Circle, Palisades, and the one near Big Bear Lounge in NE). Spent test of the day in four coffee shops answering e-mail and getting rid of a few hundred browser tabs by either reading articles, closing tabs, or placing it as a bookmark for later.

Conclusion

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 entry to see what you have done or can accomplish over the course of a year.

If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:16 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.

June 2016 – What I’ve Been Doing at 8:16 PM (20:16)

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Here is my June 2016, installment of what I had done at 8:16 PM each night during the month. I also found it helpful writing down what happened during the day as a small journal/diary of what was good, bad, or interesting.

Little Background

I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:16 (8:16 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.

June 2016 Events

Jun 1 – driving over to Five Guys to grab a cheeseburger and some fries for dinner. I spent a lot of my day responding to emails.

Jun 2 – Doing a bit of reading in my living room of Aaron Drapiln’s new book “Pretty Much Everything”. One thing to make it easier to read the more text-dense pages would be to use a larger font and have better color contrast too.

Jun 3 – Walking around the Principle Gallery in Old Town Alexandria, looking at G C Meyer’s newest art, along with talking with him ad his wife about what they were up to the last six months or so since I saw them last. It was interesting seeing some of his new work were he was adding in swirly winds or rays of sunlight.

Jun 4 – Reading over the 30 x 500 ask me anything questions and answers to cuddle lounge. Met up with a few friends at St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub. Spent most of my day getting through emails and responding setting up reminder e-mails for Accessibility DC along with taking a two and a half hour nap.

Jun 5 – Sitting at Boccato Lounge drinking tea while finishing up e-mail and Accessibility DC reminders. Was in Cabin John at a buddies house to get ready for his annual pig roast the following Saturday for 500 or 600 people. We mostly cleaned up the yard of sticks, leaves, poison ivy, etc. along with putting up the portable carport where the food goes and some lawn furniture from the neighbors across the street. Once done we sat and had some wine along with a couple of frozen pizzas. When I got home, I read a bit on my bed and then “napped” for four hours. Guess I was a bit tired after working and sleeping the night before for only five hours.

Jun 6 – In Cabin John for pig roast prep with pulled pork over rice with roast hot pepper sauce.

Jun 7 – In Cabin John for pig roast prep drinking wine and chatting with friends.

Jun 8 – walking back into the house after spending over an hour of mowing the lawn on a cool evening with not much humidity. One of the nicest evenings in the last month. Started functional testing of the new elastic search project.

Jun 9 – talking with friends in Cabin John that I haven’t seen in months or since last year’s pig roast. Started doing some accessibility testing of a new elastic search project after finishing up most of the functional testing.

Jun 10 – watching the first mopping of the base on the pigs after a day of relaxing and drinking wine with friends before the storm we call pig roast the next day.

Jun 11 – walking around buddies yard in Cabin John doing clean up before heading home since I was there starting around 9:30 AM. Took two friends and a friend of theirs back to their summer rental (internship) toss be them waiting for along with for an Uber. Hot day and didn’t eat all that much because of the heat.

Jun 12 – watching mindless TV to recover from a week of after-work work for the pig roast and the party and clean up. Was in Cabin John by 8:00 AM to start the clean up process which took an hour and fifteen or so minutes which included taking the tarp off the lighting rig over the smokers.

Jun 13 – walking around Wegmans produce section gathering up some red seedless grapes, a few bananas, salad greens, etc. after having dinner from the hot bar. Worked on testing the appeals search accessibility and usability issues.

Jun 14 – in Cabin John talking about pig roast and any other thing that came to our minds while tasting beers.

Jun 15 – sitting in a conference room at Blackboard listening to Dylan Barrel’s talk about agile accessibility as part of a team’s build process.

Jun 16 – walking from Toki Underground to Maketto to kill time and say hello to the staff with a friend who is moving out of town next week.

Jun 17 – eating Pho at Pho Viet after going to JC Penney to pick up some new casual work pants, polo shirts, a pair of shorts, and a few t-shirts because of the 40% – 50%off for the Father’s Day sales.

Jun 18 – Met friends at St. Elmo’s for coffee and then headed to Swing Coffee Roasters to work on dealing with old e-mails. Went to Pho 75 for dinner after a few hour nap. Once done went to Bocatto Lounge for tea while reading and taking notes from newsletter e-mails.

Jun 19 – I was watching TV. Mostly Viceland for most of the afternoon after driving around DC. Had tried to go to DuPont Circle Farmers Market but couldn’t find parking so went one near Bear Cafe in NE. Stopped for late breakfast at  American City Cafe if a cheese omelette, hash browns, rye toast, and a side of sausage.

Jun 20 – drawing negative space at the Torpedo Factory in my first basic drawing class. Worked on figuring out why Magic 13 with IE 11 wasn’t allowing the user to click any links on the new OFCCP home page. The issue ended up being a pop-up that was blocking non-secure content, but once the content was allowed the links worked.

Jun 21 – It’s Tuesday, so I’m in Cabin John with friends having some wine, along with a spicy pork ragu with penne pasta. Spent the time all over the place talking about politics and how messed up we will be depending on who wins the election in the fall. Think either primary candidate will not be the best for the country, but one could be worse than the other, and it all depends on what side of the fence you are on. We all agreed that if you don’t vote you’re not helping the problem.

Jun 22 – Reading Twitter while waiting to be seated at Caphe Banh Mi. Ended up sitting next to a couple that introduces themselves. They had never been there so I made a few food suggestions and then we started talking about other food places and he suggested a few places in and near San Diego that I added to my list of places to eat. And I suggested to them Las Cuatro Milpas for tacos and tamales with red beans and rice, along with Tajima Ramen Bar Hillcrest for Ramen. Plus, I mentioned how when I go with three or more people we got all four types so we can share and try each one, which is the best way to get to try all the kinds and pick a favorite. The reason I was there for dinner was that I had gone to the Torpedo Factory to pick up my Basic Drawing class supplies to have for Monday’s class.

Jun 23 – Sitting in Wegman’s lounge after grabbing dinner reading Twitter before going grocery shopping. Did more work on reviewing other agencies accessibility issues.

Jun 24 – driving from Wegmans towards Dairy Godmother after grabbing dinner and cashing in my change, so I had cash to walk around with while I waited for my new debit/credit card to show up Saturday. Never stopped at Dairy Godmother because I was too full from dinner earlier. Spent most of my day fighting fires with accessibility issues for another agency within DOL.

Jun 25 – Driving over to Boccato Lounge to grab some gelato and read a bit, which is mostly my open tabs in my browser of articles and blog posts I opened either from Twitter or other articles or posts I was reading. Went to bed at midnight last night and woke up before 7 AM and stayed up reading on the internet until about 8:15 AM. Then fell back to sleep until 10:10 AM. Before leaving for St. Elmo’s to meet friends I checked and my new debit/credit card had not arrived yet. After meeting with my friends, I stopped back home, and the card was there. I then activated it right away and proceeded to go to 7 Eleven’s ATM to get some cash. Next went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roaster for a hot chocolate and to answer e-mails and read articles and blog posts. Went to Pho 75 for lunch before heading home to nap for close to three hours.

Jun 26 – deleting photos and visors from my iPhone so iCloud will back up my phone. For some reason, iTunes thinks all the photos and videos are still there. Went to Hoffman 22 to Yo-yo Ma’s new movie “Music for Strangers” which is a documentary about the Silk Road Project. Was interesting seeing how passionate the musicians from countries around the globe and how some can’t go home and perform? Then went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roaster and St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub to respond to e-mails, along with taking notes from articles. Once done there went to  Pho 75 to get a late lunch of a small bowl of Pho with fatty brisket and raw round eye along with extra noodles and extra fatty brisket. Then headed to Boccato Lounge for tea and more article notes.

Jun 27 – basic drawing class that wasn’t going so well. Hoping it was a bad day and not things to come. Was having trouble getting things to scale. Spent my morning finishing up making the weekly ETA HTML page accessible.

Jun 28 – in Cabin John celebrating the beers kids one year anniversary of hanging out with the group while eating homemade beef beer stew. Started making the RFD Word document accessible.

Jun 29 – cleaning out the fridge of old moldy food since it’s garbage night. Didn’t get as much work done as I planned because a few odd things that came up during the day.

Jun 30 – sitting in the audience at Agency Chief at Refresh DC to listen to Kit talk about UI animation. It was great to see a few friends I hadn’t seen in years. One has been busy while the other moved out of the country for a year and a half then was home when the family was ill, and finally, she and her husband left the country to travel to Asia for over six months.

Conclusion

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 entry to see what you have done or can accomplish over the course of a year.

If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:16 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.

May 2016 – What I’ve Been Doing at 8:16 PM (20:16)

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Here is my May 2016, installment of what I had done at 8:16 PM each night during the month. I also found it helpful writing down what happened during the day as a small journal/diary of what was good, bad, or interesting.

Little Background

I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:16 (8:16 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.

May 2016 Events

May 1 – Reading articles about how to save money so I can retire by 30 years old while my MacBook updates a few things along with doing a back-up and transfer of Dropbox files. Managed to sleep in until close to 10 AM. After reading for a while headed to Wegmans in the rain to grab two breakfast of sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches on croissants. While eating and shopping later used the iPhone and earbuds to listen to TED Radio Hour, which talks about TED talks in more detail. Once done stopped home to drop off groceries and then to St. Elmo’s for tea and sending out overdue e-mails along with a conversation with Roy and Big Dan. Left St Elmo’s to head to Boccato Lounge do more e-mailing along with working through old e-mails to myself with articles to read which were about food, places to eat, or how to retire in my 30’s or even 40’s. From Friday night until Sunday afternoon went to three different coffee shops for a total of six visits.

May 2 -Watching all the Jekyll videos to get a general idea of what and how to code in Jekyll.

May 3 – Was in Cabin John drinking beers that I brought it others had. The hit of the night was the Bourbon barrel raspberries stout that I bought. People wanted me to pick up a few beers at Wegmans for them this week. Had homemade pasta sauce with Al dentate pasta for dinner.

May 4 – I’m cashing out at Wegmans. After grabbing beers for Jeff and the Beer kids. Then had dinner. Went to Carmines for Neil’s last day. Did more work on making that SVG map or accessible.

May 5 – Sitting in the audience at Sixth and I listening to Chris Anderson talk about how to give a great Ted talk along with being interviewed by a guy arise from the Ted Radio Hour.

May 6 – Standing in line at Boccato Lounge waiting to order a hot chocolate after finishing a bowl of fatty brisket and raw round eye Pho at Pho 75. Continued updating the accessible SVG map with actual real data and the tables.

May 7 – Working on connecting my updated COMCAST TV video box. Had mixed the cables up at first so it would not set up. After switching them, the signal made the TV snowy. Looking to complete the setup and asked for my account number along with my phone number and gave me an error message. Then called COMCAST to work my way through this. After a bunch of signals sending and resetting the box remotely the customer service person had my enter my information again and still didn’t work. The person asked for my account number and informed me that I didn’t need the last digit which had a dash before it. It would have worked much better if that was in the instructions. Earlier in the day went to Courthouse Farmers Market to pick up a few things; then it was over to St. Elmo’s to meet with people and only one person showed up so worked on clearing out my e-mail. Once done there went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to finish up on e-mail along with reading and taking notes on a bunch of articles/blog posts open in my browser. Left for home around 12:40 PM, to be home in time for the live streaming Jekyll Conference, which was free. Spent at about three or so hours listening to 30-minute talks and taking notes before taking a nap for a couple of hours. Once I woke up went to hear the last few talks.

May 8 – Continuing to read about setting goals and decluttering your life, which I have been taking notes about earlier today at St. Elmo’s and a bit at Wegmans. Managed to get up around 8 AM and went to Eastern Market to grab a brick (sausage patty, fried egg, cheese, and home fries on a great soft kaiser-type roll. After wondering around looking for more cast iron pigs. I managed to grab a cherry and apple strudel. After that headed over to the DuPont Circle Farmers Market to get some duck eggs, along with some mixed salad greens from Hans.

May 9 – Trying to figure out where to stay for Biz Bacon conf in Philly. Debating between one bedroom studio or an 1856 hotel. They’re both around the block from each other and less than a half mile from the conference. Also need to decide if I’m going to go and take Amtrak or drive. If I take Amtrak be harder to get to Reading Terminal market, and two S. Philly goes to Bruno’s in the lake but will save me having to deal with parts cars. Managed to finish importing all the data for the accessible SVG map prototype. Along with changing all the colors on the map.

May 10 – Walking back into my apartment/house after mowing the lawn which was a mess because of all the rain and the upstairs neighbor having someone only mow the part in front of her front door. Ended up getting in 15,000 steps for the day because I had to make multiple passes on the lawn to get all the grass that was close to a foot high or higher. Started doing a quick test of the updated OSHA Heat Index iOS application, which nearly crashes right after opening.

May 11 – ENTERED 05/16/2016 – Not sure what I was doing but it must have been exciting at the time that I didn’t write it down or type into Simple Note for my records. Was most likely doing some reading before watching “American Pickers”.

May 12 – Watching the season finale of “The Big Bang Theory”. Made adjustments to the accessible SVG map per the request of the stakeholder.

May 13 – At Boccato Lounge drinking Cherry and Fig tea that they let steep too long, so it was bitter while starting a blog post about mobile resources because of two Twitter DM’s I got from two different people the day before. Did more screen reader testing on the accessible SVG map and changed the working of the earning disparity TABLEs summary statements so they would read better, along with removing the SVG DESC tag and text because it made JAWS a bit too verbose while reading with a couple of different browsers.

May 14 – Laying on my bed in my spare bedroom catching up on Twitter, which is mostly about Eurovision. Which is a song and dance spectacle from one see year that lasts about four hours and has the participation of 30+ countries around Europe along with Australia for some reason? Slept until close to 930 this morning but most that were because I was awake from about 4:00 AM till 5:30 AM. Then went to Saint Elmo’s going to some friends grabbed some stuff from the Delray farmers market. After that when to M. E. Swing coffee roasters to work on creating a blog post about mobile resources after two different people the other day DM me for information. Figured it was better to publish this is a blog post so I could just give people link in the future. Once I was done there went to Union market and grabbed Rabbit Ragu with Tagliatelle pasta along with some French pastries for later. I came home and read a bit and napped for a couple of hours.

May 15 – Reading the year of hustle emails from Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman on my laptop in my spare bedroom. I was a few emails behind and had to catch up. Had been waiting to do the first one because I needed to do some writing I want to have the proper amount of time to do so. Sleep until around ten even though I was awake from like 6 to 730. Then attempted to go to swing coffee roasters but they don’t start their Sunday hours until June 5th. Ended up over at Saint Elmo’s for a bagel and some tea for going for an hour massage. After the massage, I went to Pho 75 for lunch. Next went to the Boccato Lounge to have some tea finish up checking my links on my mobile resources blog post along with getting my what I was doing at 8:15 PM post for a ball done as well. After that went home and did some reading.

May 16 – Reading through the Year of Hustle “Slay Your Schedule” PDF from Amy Hoy/Alex Hillman. Looking at ways to free up my time to be able to spend more time on creating my new web based application. Actually, will have to do more prep work first to make sure I’m building the right thing even though from the people I talked to said it’s a cool/great idea. Need to find out if it’s application that people will pay money for on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. The larger chunks of time  (quarterly, every six months, annually) people pay for, the less money is lost to fees to companies like Stipe, PayPal, etc.

May 17 – Sitting in Cabin John drinking Cabernet’s and zinfandels all eating pasta with homemade sauce with friends. A few of them moved back from Richmond for the summer for internships. Spent more time today working on the map along with creating a test plan. Did another DHS Trusted Tester review after making changes to the code to correct some of the issues we found.

May 18 – At Blackboard giving my accessibility talk on GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day). This was our most well-attended event since starting back a little over a year ago.

May 19 – At Agency chief listening to Matt Kemp give his UX talk. Where he’s talking about Marshall, make she will, and media would be cool to Kaitlyn from a literate nation to a tribe and nation.

May 20 – Finishing up dinner at Wegmans and heading to get a shopping ca
LOCATION // 115 and 117 East Church Street and do some grocery shopping. Mostly picked up fruits and vegetables some cured meats cheese oh yeah and like 130+ dollars worth of beer.

May 21 – Sitting on the first floor of the Artomatic building in Frederick, MD, talking to a guy named Don that was painting with water colors and he let me try watercolors for the first time. Worked on paying my bills, then met up with friends after which went to create June’s Accessibility DC event on EventBrite. Once done headed to Frederick, MD, to get my beard cleaned up before Biz Bacon Conf in Philly next week. I had some time to kill before my beard trimming so stopped at Gravel and Grind for a hot chocolate and creating the Meetup event for Accessibility DC. Got my beard trimmed and then headed over to Artomatic to check out the first floor. Went to Lucky Corner for Vietnamese and then back to see the art I missed earlier.

May 22 – Updating both my iPhone and my MacBook Pro. I managed to have a little slow leave the morning of reading. Finally left the house after 11 AM and went to Wegmans to grab breakfast along with check out their coin return the machine and some cookies. Came home and took a nap along with some cleaning off of the top of my dresser along with gathering up all my change. I then went back to Wegmans to turn in $300+  worth of change. Wegmans takes 10.9% of the total value of your change which is which left me with $283.91.

May 23 – Walking to the spare bedroom to do a bit of reading on the computer along with listening to a podcast or two while taking notes. By taking notes, it can take two to three times longer since you stop the talk nad then type what you can and then go over it to make sure you wrote it down correctly. Spent the day making some adjustments to the accessible SVG map page, along with attending my every morning standup at 10:00 AM.

May 24 – Drinking “Right Proper Brewing Company” beers along with a hearty would bourbon barrel’s raspberry stout in Cabin John, MD, with a few friends talking politics and what not.

May 25 – Ona north bound Amtrak train headed to Philly to attend Bacon Biz Conf Thursday and Friday while reading Amy Hoy’s “Lesson – Backwards Plan, a Twisted Fairy Tale.”

May 26 – Sitting outside in the courtyard of Frankford Hall Beer Garden talking with other people that are bootstrapping their startups or lower info products or the like. Was a very enlightening day learning about all the ways of processing email and all that from all the speakers at Bacon Biz Conf in Philly.

May 27 – So busy talking with different people at the Bacon Biz Conf after party at the Freckle headquarters in Old City Philly. The after party was a great way to get to spend more time talking with others about their current jobs, products, apps, etc. or what their idea was for a new or additional business opportunities. Great conference to learn what I need to do and what to avoid when starting out. The tacos for lunch by Chef Patterson and the dim sum with soup dumplings were awesome.

May 28 – I was doing a bit a TV watching to unwind after three plus days in Philly for  Bacon Biz Conf. Went to bed Friday night by 11:00 PM or so since I was tired from the whole week of waking before 6:00 AM. Did some catch-up reading of Twitter and then went to the Menagerie coffee shop to register for a bunch of the speakers newsletters. When I got there a few of them were there so, I sat with them and attempted not to bug them too much but pipe in now and an again with their conversations before leaving to walk over to the Reading Terminal Market to wander around. I managed to order three sandwiches while there. I order the roast pork with aged Provolone and the meatball sub with aged Provolone from DiNic’s cut into thirds which I then ate a third of each before heading to Becky’s Cajun Cafe to order a Train Wreck. Once done walked the mile or so back to the AirBnB. Along the way, I ran into Allan and his family who were heading back to Freckle to return the fake money bag he tried to fool his son with from his wish after finding a four-leaf clover. After parting ways with them stopped back at Menagerie for a cold drink and to check my e-mail, etc. I ran into Kern again and talked with him before heading to AirBnb to relax and have some of my Train Wreck before heading over to 30th Street Station to get my Amtrak train back to DC. Once I got there, my train was delayed about 25 minutes. While there ran into another Bacon Biz attendee, who was taking the train back to Boston. Finally, my train left, and I read more on the train to pass the time instead of napping. I ended up getting home about 30 to 45 minutes later than planned because of the delayed train and issues with the DC metro trains too.

May 29 – Sitting in my leather chair in my living room reading Aaron Draplin’s new book “Pretty Much Everything”. Went to bed early last night so I was awake at 6 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I left for Shen-Valley Flea Market at 7:30 AM in the morning. Which ended up being a good thing since it got so hot I was able to finish that flea market in the Front Royal, VA. Didn’t manage to buy anything while there even though I saw a few I wanted but didn’t need.

May 30 – Reading over the “Marketing Content ebombs” by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman along with taking notes from the different videos that are part of the 30 x 500 lessons they gave me as part of the “Year of Hustle” e-mail course. Again attempted to sleep in, but was awake before 6:00 AM. Stayed in bed and read a bit of Twitter along with other things then went back to sleep from about 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM where I showered. I got ready to go to St. Elmo’s to see who might be there. Ran into Susan and talked with her for over three-plus hours about stuff from the conference I attended to food, some of our common friends, and more. After leaving, I went to Pho 75 for a small bowl of raw round eye and fatty brisket with extra noodles. Once done there went to Baccotto Lounge for some tea and making the June 15th Accessibility DC event live on both EventBrite and Meetup. It would be so much easier to do if EventBrite removed all the people that unsubscribed, along with adding the new people from last month to one of my two lists. Once that was done spent some time before leaving to catch up on Twitter. After getting home started reading the “Year of Hustle” and processing other Bacon Biz Conf information. I still need to work through a bunch of e-mails from attendees that I signed up for their e-mail newsletters for free books as part of the conference.

May 31 – in Cabin John doing a beer tasting with the usual suspects along with a few other friends we haven’t seen in a long time. We ended up having a great time along with having some slow cooked pork mashed potatoes Brussel sprouts to dive for dinner.

Conclusion

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 entry to see what you have done or can accomplish over the course of a year.

If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:16 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.

April 2016 – What I’ve Been Doing at 8:16 PM (20:16)

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Here is my April 2016, installment of what I had done at 8:16 PM each night during the month. I also found it helpful writing down what happened during the day as a small journal/diary of what was good, bad, or interesting.

Little Background

I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:16 (8:16 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.

April 2016 Events

Apr 1 – Driving up 30th street in Georgetown section of Washington, DC, after not finding any parking near Baked and Wired to get cupcakes. First had dinner of a small bowl of beef eye round and fatty brisket at Pho 75. Did more work gathering evidence that the new version of Compliance Sheriff we updated to is making scans take anywhere from twice to ten plus times longer to run. We used to have 2,000-page scans take 20 to 30 minutes which now take hours. Not sure if it is software related or possibly server related.

Apr 2 – Laying on my bed reading the latest edition of Edible DC, which is about spring veggies and new bakeries that are opening. Got up around 8 AM and did some reading before heading over to the Post Office to pick up my mail after having it held while out in Las Vegas and San Diego. Next went to St. Elmo’s to visit with friends to see what they had been up to the last few weeks while I was gone. After stopping at the Del Ray Framer’s Market to grab two blueberry scones, I went to M. E. Swing’s Coffee Roaster for hot chocolate and dealt with my e-mail inbox which needed work after not doing much with it besides deleting junk while gone. Once I was done there went to Wegmans for a late lunch from the hot bar and to grab some cheese, toilet paper, and facial tissues. The next thing on my list was to read in bed some more and take a nap.

Apr 3 – Sitting in a comfy chair at Boccato Lounge reading Scott Hurff’s “Designing Products People Love” after having a blood orange tea while setting up the April Accessibility DC event. Slept in until 9:30 AM, before meeting up with old co-workers, their child, and significant other for brunch at the Royal Restaurant in Old Town Alexandria. Afterward, we stopped at Buzz Bakery for coffees, hot chocolates, and of course cupcakes. They have made a bunch of changes to the layout along with the types of cupcakes they make. Sad there was no 9:30 Cupcake, at least, today. Once I got dropped home did some reading and had a short nap or at least short for me.

Apr 4 – Sitting in my living room reading but I can’t remember what, since I’m posting this two days later. If you’re going to try and keep track of what was going on at 8:16 PM or any other time you need to do it then or if busy spending time with people, at least, out in a few notes as soon as you can so you can jog your memory.

Apr 5 – Sitting in my leather chair with my feet on the ottoman continuing to reading Scott Hurff’s book “Designing Products People Love”. Did more research on when and possibly why the new OSHA Android Heat Index application was giving incorrect results.

Apr 6 -Reading “Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test in Just Five Days” by Jake Knapp and others from Google Ventures. I spent today explaining what you knew about the new OSHA Android Heat Index application issues, along with spending afternoon teaching a Compliance Sheriff training.

Apr 7 – Sitting at home watching “The Big Bang Theory” for the first time in a few weeks to over a month. Did another Compliance Sheriff training even though the application is running way to slow? Plus, I did more screenshot to document my findings.

Apr 8 – Writing bills in my spare bedroom that I should have sent out earlier this week. Once done I realized I was one stamp short to drop them in the mail. Did more testing of the updated OSHA Android Heat Index and found that not all of the locations were found when doing so in Spanish. The English version seems to be working but hard to tell when the country is in a cold spell.

Apr 9 – Listening to the radio in my bed while reading the Washington City Paper’s “Best of DC 2016” edition. Trying to find the best place to eat particular types of food, places to read, relax, etc. Went to the Courthouse Farmers Market and had egg, bacon, and to types of cheese ( Provolone and aged cheddar). Then went to St. Elmo’s. The post office for stamps. M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters to work on e-mail backlog and draft e-mail for accessibility meetup organizers. Then to pick up Sam for lunch at Pho 75 then headed to Boccotto Lounge for Cherry and fig tea to work some more on another e-mail draft, along with posting a blog post of what I did at 8:16 PM in March.

Apr 10 – In my spare bedroom launching Turbo Tax 2015 on my Windows XP PC so I can do my taxes for the year that are due in five days. Slept into 9:00 AM or so today. Headed over to Eastern Market but could not find anywhere to park so then went to the DuPont Farmers Market. Once I got there, I did my usual walk around to see what was there first. I noticed two things and the first being that the guys near the flower stand was making a breakfast dish of pork three ways with grits and some lightly pickled kale. The other item was Jose Andres restaurant Zaytinya was slow roasting a whole lamb. I then doubled back to get a single order of the pork and grits which had crispy pulled pork, stuffed pig stomach parts, and then what might have been a pork head cheese cooked in a pan with an over easy egg. Once I ate that wonderful dish I did my shopping and then camped out at the Zaytinya booth reading Twitter to kill some time to when the were going to be ready to carve. After taking the lamb of the spit and letting it rest, they started carving and asked if anyone wanted any of the skin, which of course I had a piece or two or three. What they served people was homemade tzatziki sauce on a Boston lettuce leaf and a few pieces of roasted lamb. What a killer dish to top the excellent pork and grits breakfast. Next, I managed to get to the Georgetown Flea Market to see what they had, and there was nothing I was interested in or needed that bad. I then headed towards home the long way through DC up the rest of Wisconsin Ave and then down Connecticut Ave to U St. and then down 14th St. to Del Ray to get tea at St. Elmo’s and send out a few e-mails and read an article or two. Once I got home did some more reading and then a two hours or so nap.

Apr 11 – ENTERED 05/07/2016 – must have been so busy doing cool things that I didn’t even put in a small note to say what I did that day or even the next day. My guess of what the exciting thing was working on my taxes and then submitting them closer to midnight.

Apr 12 – Catching up on Twitter after being home sick for the day. Didn’t feel like cooking after sleeping an extra five hours during the day.

Apr 13 – Walking home from Braddock St. metro after attending the DC Fem Tech awards a few of my friends won ( Maggie, Marissa, JoAnna, and a few more).

Apr 14 – Watching a repeat episode of “The Big Bang Theory” from Thanksgiving time that I never saw. Interesting to see Elon Musk on the show and working in the soup kitchen cleaning dishes. My day was spent reading and responding to e-mails.

Apr 15 – Sitting at Pho 75 texting with a co-worker while waiting to order a small bowl of Pho with raw round eye and fatty brisket and extra noodles. Attended two meetings and had the tech guys roll back to the old version of Compliance Sheriff because the newer one caused scans to run for hours instead of minutes.

Apr 16 – Sitting in Buzz Bakeshop drinking a chocolate cinnamon tea, not the best. Went and got my oil changed along with having the car dealership replace my front left headlight first thing in the morning. I used the time while I waited to publish a blog post about two different ways to create organizational charts using HTML (definition list and structured heading levels) and CSS, along with sending out a few e-mails. Once done went to St. Elmo’s to meet the gang, but only one showed up which is good because a few old friends I hadn’t seen in a year or year and a half were walking by and stopped in. Once I left there, I went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters for hot chocolate and to work on dealing with a bunch of old e-mails and to DM a group of people about talking at Accessibility DC either in person or remotely. Then went home for a bit of reading, listening to NPR, and a nap. All in all, I managed to deal with about 75 to 80 e-mails. Now I need to get through the last 100 or at least get closer to zero. Tomorrow it’s off to the Shen-Valley Flea Market in White Post, VA, which is between Winchester and Front Royal, for the first time this year.

Apr 17 – Walking into the house after grabbing dinner of shrimp, lime chicken, red curry chicken, pork pot stickers, and some rice at Wegmans after a day of wondering around near Shenandoah National Park area. Spent the day with a co-worker first going to Shen-Valley Flea Market where I bought three Griswold cast iron skillets and another cast iron skillet with a cover. Then we headed to the Front Royal Flea Market were all we bought was lemonade. Next stop was at Knotty Pine Restaurant, and I had cheese omelet with home fries, rye toast, and a side of sausage. We then made a stop near the quilt store to get some cherry apple cider. After that, it was a stop at the Copper Fox Distillery so he can pick up a few things for himself and friends. Then we walked across the parking lot to Pen Druid Brewery where we tried tastings of all six of their beers so that way I could purchase two of them to take with me Tuesday night in Cabin John.

Apr 18 – Reading an article about Jason Zook on http://minimums.com/, which is a website about featuring the most interesting possessions of the world’s most interesting people. So far of the three articles I have read they are cool people with interesting stuff. Think I saw this website a year or so ago. Did a quick Trusted Tester review of two Survey Monkey survey pages to see what was not accessible. Also, found out the rollback of Compliance Sheriff has at least gotten rid of the issue of scans running for hours or days when they should have taken minutes or an hour for the larger ones. Even managed to look at some code to try and figure out why the visual page display breaks. My guess is it is because it’s part of a FORM.

Apr 19 – Sitting in Cabin John having a beer tasting with friends.

Apr 20 – Giving a talk about ALT text at Blackboard. Finished correcting the show hide for the definition stuff at work.

Apr 21 – Talking with Jason and Rochelle after the performance talk at Refresh DC at Chief.

Apr 22 – Talking with the neighbor before for driving to Pho 75 for dinner.

Apr 23 – Driving from Wegmans after grabbing dinner and some more of the runny cheese that’s like butter to Boccatto Lounge for some tea nd doing research on iTunes about restaurant review applications to see what issues people have with them. Went to Arlington Courthouse Farmer’s Market to grab asparagus, heirloom tomatoes, along with bacon, egg, and sharp cheddar cheese breakfast sandwich. Next went to St. Elmo
s to meet up with friends and see what’s been going on with them for about an hour or so. After that went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roasters for a hot chocolate and sent out over a dozen requests for friends s to give accessibility talks at our monthly Accessibility DC events. Once done there came home to read and nap for a few hours. After the nap did a bit of cleaning up to get ready for my father’s visit on Monday, which was mostly taking paper and cardboard outside to be recycled, along with some plastics from the kitchen.

Apr 24 – Cleaning silverware and getting ready to do dishes to finish up the last part of cleaning before my dad comes on Monday. Slept in until about 9:45 AM. Then did some reading and took a shower. After that headed to the Dupont Circle farmers market. Ended up having the pork three ways with grits Friday egg and some greens. This time, the grits were a little bit flavorless compared to last time. Extra around DC up towards zoo and then down Wisconsin and then through Arlington before heading home. Then started cleaning my house, but had to stop to go over to Target to pick up a new Swiffer Sweeper to help clean the hardwood floors. While I was over in the plaza stopped at Barnes & Noble to look at a few magazines.

Apr 25 – Dinner with dad and James at Maketto for Cambodian food. Listened to my brother’s stories about bartering for items during his work trip to China.

Apr 26 – Cabin John drinking beer and eating jerk chicken wings.

Apr 27 – Watching American Pickers after getting home and spending an hour visiting with my sister who is in town for a conference. Continued working on accessible and Unites States map.

Apr 28 – Catching up on tweets during the commercials of the Big Bang theory. Found Edward Tufte forum post about creating charts and grafts that are usable by those that are colorblind.

Apr 29 – Finished up my small bowl of raw eye round and fatty brisket pho at Pho 75 and getting ready to pay my bill. More work on the accessible United States map along with finishing the review of a few PDFs and a required annual learning module.

Apr 30 – Sitting in a lounge chair at Boccato Lounge reading Jamie Oliver’s “Everyday Super Food” about creating a great healthy fruit salad. At my third coffee shop of the day. Woke up at 7 AM and read for a bit before writing bills which I nailed on my way to St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub to meet with friends. Once we left I went to M. e. swing Coffee Roaster for a hot chocolate while responding to e-mails about talking at Accessibility DC and a few other things. Ended up dealing with about 40 or 50 e-mails. After that drive the long way to Union Market so I could listen to “This American Life”. Once there ran into Chef Mike at the Toki Underground grocery store. He told me he had a pork belly pork based soup along with steamed Opel buns. Grabbed soup for lunch followed up with a chorizo and cheese kolache and a fruit and cream cheese one. Then went back to talk to chef Nike about him going to open a ramen place in the Foggy Bottom Whole Foods for Chef Eric. Ended up grabbing two steamed pork buns and a Concord grape and blackberry large bottles of vinegar. Dropped food in my car then went to A. Litteri’s to get a meatball sub for dinner and some cured meat. Finally, made it to Boccato Lounge to work on making the DOL developer dataset tables responsive and accessible using Dylan Barrel’s method, so we didn’t have to have tables for desktop and a whole other set of code for handheld devices. Productive day all around if I don’t say so myself.

Conclusion

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 entry to see what you have done or can accomplish over the course of a year.

If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:16 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.