Holla' if you like open source software

So, I'm really not that much of a computer nerd, but I am aware of this little phenomenon called "open source software." I'm no expert, but basically it's software by the people, for the people! And that means it's free (but donations are always welcome).

I'm appreciating it anew today because I recently got a new computer. I sucked it up and had Microsoft Office 7 installed on the system, but what I didn't realize until just the other day is that I bought Office basic. Meaning, though I do have Word, Excel, and Outlook, I am missing FrontPage and PowerPoint. Those are two programs I actually have to use for work, too!

So, I was debating about what to do, and even called my friend John to get his advice (which was great. I kept trying to copy the old program files but thankfully he told me that madness was futile and wouldn't work.) But then I started wondering if there was an equivalent to either program.

Thankfully, there is! The "equivalent" for FrontPage is called Nvu ("New View") and you can get it at http://www.nvu.com. The "equivalent" for PowerPoint is called Impress and you can get it as part of OpenOffice at www.OpenOffice.org. (They also have replacements for Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, CorelDraw, and I'm not sure what else.) I put equivalent in quotes because it's not super helpful to think of them as replacements. They are different. But for all intents and purposes, they do the same things. Sometimes, you might argue, they even do it better.

So far, everything is working perfectly. You can even save things in Microsoft-compliant formats. For example, even though I'm creating a slideshow presentation in Impress, which is a totally different program, I can save it in a format that PowerPoint users can handle without any problems.

You probably know that Google is on top of this whole software thing as well. They have created web-based versions of these software programs, as well as web-based email and calendars. I'm sure that's the way it's going...

I am happy for the creativity and development of companies like Microsoft, but I have to admit my little heart leaps when there are democratic solutions like this available.

All roads lead to the trash can

Is it normal for a large percentage of one's projects to eventually be abandoned, and destined for the trash can? Is this just the way business goes in the 21st century? It was this way in my old job, and I chalked it up to the craziness of my employer, but now it's happening again with a different "employer."

I just don't do well with all these loose ends...

Apparently the Super Bowl sucks

According to a new report, the Super Bowl will costs businesses about $800 million in lost productivity. Apparently it does this because people waste time here and there talking about the big event, betting on it, and/or shopping for a new TV.

I just find this a fascinating bit of business trivia. I mean, first of all, you have the oddity that something athletic and social would impact business in the general sense (businesses in all industries). And that something which solicits so many dollars would actually, in some sense, hurt the bottom line!

But even more fascinating (and disturbing), is the fact that everything is viewed now in terms of worker output. Reading between the lines lets us translate the header to: "Damn Sports Enthusiasts! Get Back to Work!" How productive do we as a human race have to be until we are satisfied? How many hard, long hours must we work!? I see the tangible benefits of a good work ethic... diseases cured, wealth created, etc. But the same white-knuckled grip on productivity also creates diseases (stress and all its psychosomatic ailments) and wastes wealth (instead of enjoying it).

So now I guess you know I'm not a Marxist because I hate seeing things in such cold economic terms. Have a beer and enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday! Geeeeez. Get off our backs, Man! (Yes, I mean The Man.)

Technical difficulties

I was scheduled to give a 10 minute presentation this morning in my networking group. I made a PowerPoint that I was so excited about... I went and got slide handouts printed onto bright orange paper (with Tom. late at night. oh yeah. lol jk we were dead tired)

Thank goodness my Mom urged me to have a Plan B...

The dumb LCD projector didn't work! I am sure it was something totally simple and easy to solve, too, because it worked for a second but then wouldn't come back and I didn't have enough time to figure it out. Oh well. At least it got me to finally put together a PowerPoint for my business, but man it was really unflashy and boring doing the whole thing from handouts. I guarantee you people would've been way more attentive and fascinated if I had kept them in suspense from one custom animation to the next! Sigh.

So Tom and I are getting pretty serious. I've had guys say serious things to me before, but Tom actually means it, so that's new. We are miserably sad about having to spend the next 2 weeks apart. We're preparing for it by spending every minute together which is devastating my work productivity - niiice! Well I would say more on here but really this isn't blog material, is it now...

Exciting news

This is cool. I am going to brag for just a second.

The organization I work with drills community-sized water wells in Africa. The unique thing is that we set up an Africa-based company to do this. It not only creates jobs for Africans in addition to providing water, but it is set up as a business that can drill for profits and then take those private client profits and turn them back into ministry projects (serving the poorest of the poor). It's pretty dang cool.

Anyway, I just talked to my boss and he told me how much he appreciated me ("yay"), and said that two proposals I wrote were effective... one foundation is giving us $125,000 and another is giving us $200,000. The even cooler thing is that both of these are part of an equipment matching challenge that goes dollar for dollar. So this $325,000 will actually result in $650,000. All for huge drilling rigs and support trucks that make deep water wells in Africa. Sooooooo cool! Great news on this Thanksgiving...

Well, day before Thanksgiving. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is so great. I am with Amanda's family in Ohio, Micah is here too, and everyone else. It just feels so homey and happy. But now I do have to focus on work for a few hours before I lose ALL motivation this holiday weekend.

Articles on non-profits and ending poverty

My Dad and his business partner Paulette have this new website and directory for... holistic, spiritual, new age resources... Whatever you want to call it.

They asked me to write two articles, and here they are.

Holiday

I've declared today work from bed in my PJs with lots of soft blankets and pillows and Billie Holiday playing day. :) And of course my laptop. It's going great so far. Well everything except the "work" part. heh.

Strange and terrible

Last night I realized that I should have started a certain project WAY earlier... basically it was a massive media contact list for distributing a press release. I was going to distribute this baby about 8am this morning, but it wasn't until last night that I discovered what a mess the list was. Hours and hours of internet research got me far, but not nearly far enough. Finally at 2am I emailed my boss on that project and said am I being a perfectionist, should I just send it to whoever... or should we wait. He liked the idea of waiting and perfecting it. Sigh. So the good part about that, is where I thought I was going to wake up in a frenzy this morning to get it out, I actually am fine and just need to keep working on it.

Anyway when I was working on this last night, I was in a strange and terrible mood. Do you ever just... get out of whack? And it is (or seems) wholly impossible to get yourself back where you need to be. For me, I know what the circumstances were that made me feel that way... basically I thought two things (that I haven't mentioned) were going to work out, and neither one of them seem to be working out. Other times in life, two things you thought weren't going to work out DO and you get the opposite feeling... giddiness instead of despair.

I just hate getting in moods like that though. It makes me feel almost breathless and restless. It's like you can't get relief from your own self, from your mind. Not that anything is so terrible... I am talking about something very, very subtle. I just was putting it out there because sometimes I wonder if I am the only person who gets this way. It's a feeling of being trapped in wrongness in a way. Having to deal with something you'd rather ignore.

There's no sugar-coated, happy ending to this mini-story, but I will say that sleep is a real gift. Great is your faithfulness, Lord... it is new every morning.

Early morning

I joined this networking group that meets every Wednesday morning at 7:45am.

Gahh :)

To a freelancer, that is a death sentence. That is a punishment.

Nah, actually it wasn't too bad. I actually got around 6 hours of sleep last night so I don't wake up toooo sleepy. I actually saw the sunrise. That is one of the first times I've seen the sunrise from my apartment that I've lived in for 2.5 months. It is totally visable over the trees through my kitchen window. Kinda pretty, actually.. it's over the trees, like I said, but it's like a horizon. Well I've gotten up super-early a few times to go to the airport but that was in darkness... never at sunrise.

The reason I'm thinking about all this is I am soooooo hungry and I looked at the clock and it's only 11:18am. Usually I would have just eaten breakfast around now. lol

Great timing

The other day, my Mom asked my Dad how he was doing. He sighed and said happily, "I am having a Jenny day." lol This is true.

I had to ask... Well, according to my Dad, a Jenny day is when all your projects come together and/or something very serendipitous happens. If this is the definition, most of MY days are not Jenny days, but I have definitely had about 10 of them since becoming a freelancer.

The most recent one was Friday, and I feel compelled to blog about this because it was so cool and so strange. I visited this local business networking group over 3 months ago... wait, I will find the date in my inbox... June 12, 2006... oh my gosh, 3 months ago to the DAY! This is getting freaky. (I was just guessing 3 months.) Anyway, even though it was my first time and I was only visiting, this guy gave me a referral. He wrote on a slip of paper the name and number of someone who might be interested in my writing services. My plan was to call soon, but I didn't call that week, or the next week, or even the next month.

Yes, I procrastinated 3 months away!! Well I wasn't just totally slacking - it was project overload that caused me to be slow - but even when the projects eased up I didn't call.

Finally, on Friday, I decided to call because I am joining this networking group and I didn't want to face them again without having followed up on the referral they gave me! So call I did.

The guy I spoke with returned my phone call within a couple hours and said something very strange: I'm glad you called - this is great timing!

Whaaaaa?! 3 months later is great timing? It turns out they have 3 regular people (the rest are all independent contractors) and as of the end of this week, their WRITER is moving to San Francisco. So they needed someone who they could trust to do good work... everything from business proposals to technical writing to marketing collateral.

I just came from my face-to-face meeting with this guy, and it went great! They're going to start me off with something small so they can see how I work, and I can see how they work (well more for the first reason :). I'm excited and thankful.

Finally got some JUICE in tha hizzy

So after I wrote the last post and continued to play the day away, my computer stopped charging. The power cord got very fussy and had to be held into the back of the laptop at a particular angle. I could handle that, until it stopped cooperating entirely. My crappy Acer battery continued to lose power at warp-speed until like 15% remained. Well, now that I'm in the middle of this story, I realize that it's long and boring so I'll spare you. Suffice it to say my computer has been dead for 7 days while I have waited for Acer to send me the RIGHT power cord! I feel bad I gave the customer service guy such a hard time yesterday but they really were being loserish with me. The whole tense phone conversation made me realize that, in some deep subconscious recess in my mind, all phone calls to corporations involving customer service reps, terrible hold music, and inept attempts to solve problems are grouped together in this massive "I HATE COMPANIES" category. The effect is that whenever I call any company, and have to wait for more than 1 minute, and have a less-than-perfect experience, the most violent and uncontrollable anger is stirred up from within my being. lol I mean I'm half-joking but it's half-true.

It's like in Crash, which Amanda and I watched again the other night. You know how Sandra Bullock's character is such a... and near the end, she realizes her anger is chronic. She says, everyday I wake up everyday like this and I don't know why. I can relate to that 100%. That is my last year in DC. It was primarily my job and the traffic, but it's also primarily the way I handle stress (which is badly). I was always angry. Anything can set you off and make you cry.

Anyway I'm not like that now, though I am struggling to handle normal, everyday stress in a healthy way (but you know that from my earlier post). Honestly I would love like... a 2 month retreat from just absolutely everything. And I do mean everyTHING and everyONE. I don't see how that is going to happen, though.

I'm going home for 2 weeks this month, and I am tempted to make it even longer.

Part of what's been happening in the last month to cause the blog absence is that I met a guy, thought I fell in love, was on cloud nine, and then he fell off the face of the earth. I don't understand guys at all. You wouldn't believe the serious type stuff he said not only to me, but to my friends as well, and yet he just dropped off all contact... so bizarre. I feel sooooooo puzzled. And of course I can appreciate the whole "he's just not that into you" theory. It's probably true in this case. I'm not a stupid or desperate girl... I can realize when the connection is just lost. But the two times I explicitly said, "I guess you are trying to tell me, through your actions, that we are over" ... he pleaded with me saying that no it wasn't, it was just circumstances, and I was the one thing he wanted in his life. Then nothing.

Again, I don't understand guys. I'm just trying to move on from that.... I'm sad for the loss but on the other hand, I deserve much, much, much, much, much better treatment than that.

And work has been really busy...

And also I moved this past weekend. So many friends helped me... I am so grateful. On the other hand though, moving apartments when you live alone can be very lonely. I am fine but the feeling comes and goes throughout the whole process. There are an infinite number of details to take care of when you move, and when you're alone, you have to think of and do them all yourself. I am glad for my independence but there's definitely times of loneliness.

So here I am today... moving on from the love of my life who turned out to not be... lol... and the move which has been exhaustingggggg.... and finally having my computer back after 7 days and feeling very overwhelmed by all the emails and projects staring back at me.

Jesus.

$2,500 eggs

I wish I didn't have an ethical problem with this, or maybe it's an emotional problem, but if I were just willing to donate my eggs to a Raleigh couple who is trying to have a child, I would get $2,500. Per successful donation! lol I'm not even that hard up for money but I could do that once per month and then chill all the time. Haha.

Why is it that I have a problem with that? I mean everyone does... but why? Because we don't want to have a child that we never know, I guess. Which should be reason enough, but it seems like there should be more... maybe this is one of those things that will soon be subject to a vast cultural attitude shift. Maybe in our kids' generation, it will be extremely common (or even somehow unnecessary?) to donate your eggs to infertile couples. Hah. Anyway it's just a random thought.... Now I need to get to work. I'm at Royal Bean which is one of my Raleigh hotspotttttttts - yeah!! However they've made a big change since I was here last. The back half of the shop used to be these desks along the wall, and it was the greatest workspace ever... but now they've converted it to square tables. Apparently it seats 40 rather than 16 people now. But still!

PS. Jordan almonds? Sooooo good. What is in these things? They taste so vanilla-y and wonderful.

Stress thing... not cool

I have this weird thing going on with my body. And I don't know why I'm writing this on my blog except I'm hoping I'm not the only person in the world. So, there is an extremely close connection between my mind and my body. Specifically, whenever I feel stress, nervousness, anxiety, or even just HAPPY excitement, my mind has decided to send my body the signal to get very, very hot and sweat a lot. It actually is sending a heat wave or a hot flash that I can feel sort of ripple throughout my whole body. It's really getting to be a problem, especially because I realize it's connected to stress, so I try hard to relax, but thinking about stress and the whole body response seems to just trigger this all the more. The human body is so weird!! Why is this happening!

Let me tell you two other interesting things (since we're going into my medical history online.. hah). This happened to me once before, during sophomore year of college. It was really bad... but when I went home to Minnesota for summer, it went away immediately. Apparently being in a totally relaxed, safe, stress-free environment was the key to stopping that response. It hasn't happened again until this year... and not like right when I moved or anything. There was no big event here to make this happen.

The other thing is I do think you can mentally sort of... direct energy in your body. I don't know anything about it academically but it just seems to be true for me practically. So today it occurred to me that I keep all my stress in my back, well I already knew that, but a few months ago I started going to the chiropractor regularly. And I think this may coincide with the exact timing of my heat response thing. It's like the main stress/toxins/whatever in my back muscles has been relocated in my body you know? So when I was working out today on the elliptical, I kept concentrating really hard trying to get my stress to go to my back again because, as messed up as it sounds, I'd rather have a sore back than the feeling that I'm on fire and am sweating! And I kid you not... here's the power of the mind again... my back really started hurting again, just like before I went to the chiro.

So I have no answers here... just self-diagnosis. But I am going to start taking at least 20 minutes for deep relaxation in the morning. (I hope I really do that and not just say I'm gonna.) I was reading this thing online about anxiety disorders and, not that I have it, but I definitely have some of the symptoms like inability to concentrate, bad memory, and just plain old tension for no logical reason. Yucky. I feel like I have a lot of unnecessary fears to overcome and I wish I just didn't have them. When I'm comfortable and not stressed, I'm the most happy-go-lucky person in the world... now I just have to let myself be that person all the time. Life is strange... the human body is strange... living in 2006 is strange... growing up is strange... this whole thing is weirding me out a little. lol

Africa

I've been asked to go to Africa (Tanzania) in August for 1-2 weeks for work. YAY!!! I've never been there, only to Liberia on the west coast, which is entirely different.

Wikipediaholic

Signs that you may be addicted to wikipedia and/or procrastination... You go to a coffeeshop to work, order a pesto and prosciutto panini, and the first thing you do is Wikipedia "prosiutto". Haha.

And then you blog about it!

How much worse can it get. Muaaaaaahaha.

I'm in a pretty good mood today. The Hurricanes won the cup. Haha no that's not actually why I'm in a good mood. Things are just good overall. It's summer. I have work to do. I have good friends. I'm drinking an iced coffee. The guy who brought me my sandwich was very nice and Dadlike. I may be going home for a couple weeks in August (ooh! i need to research prices). I ordered some jeans online this morning. I'm irresponsible with money. But that's okay. (Yes I'm still on the list of reasons why I'm in a good mood.) Life is short. Grace is long. Now I'm just making up stuff.

Blogging for the Dixie Chicks

Chicks Magnet

Identify potential dream job - Cheeeeck.

Artisan, fresh-baked bread

All this restaurant copywriting is making me want to BAKE SOME BREAD NOW!! Maybe if I finish this brochure I could reward myself with that. Mmmmmmmmm. Maybe we could all do that tonight - peeps? What are our plans?? Not that any of you read this to find out your Friday night plans. Haha. BUT YOU SHOULD. And that's what's important.

Brangelina

Wow, so, I'm working on this proposal for (don't laugh)... Brad and Angelina. I kid you not. And I don't think I should go on about the details here. I thought it was pretty far-fetched and ridiculous when this was first assigned to me...

But the more online research I do, and collaborating with my graphic designer friend, and laying out the components of this proposal... the more I'm shocked that this may actually be an awesome idea... especially from a business perspective. Wow.

I can't believe I'm getting paid to research Brangelina. lol And Starbucks and the United Nations and the ONE Campaign and so many other cool things.

In other news, I went to lunch with this lady who is a "relocation transition coach." (It was for networking purposes, I suppose...) She was very Mom-ish in a way... well, she is a trained counselor, and it really shows. She listens well, but she also talks very well - slowly, and clearly, and unapologetically... without any nervousness at all. It just really put me at ease talking with her. No that's not necessarily what I want to say... hmmm. It made me realize how some people are so gifted in that relationship-nurturing way. I want to be that kind of person. Lately I feel like I've been super hurried in everything... I can't slow down to read or have a conversation very well. And I love being oblivious to time like that. So hopefully it can be regained.

Well, actually, I'm giving myself a hard time. I mean we had a fun and relaxed time last night. Okay so I guess I am just spastic at times (rather than all the time). Cool. I can handle spastic from time to time.

Time management

Drew gave me the greatest gift last night which was several hours of his time to get all MY time in order. I've been totally paralyzed from project overload, unable to move forward at all. He made me come home, write out everything, assign how many hours it would take to get each thing done, and what deadline I had for each project. Then we printed out my June calendar and he scheduled every single day for me.

I am sooooooooo relieved. Well it's still a little intimidating but this is good. And he's already big on accountability cause he called to check. Haha. (I had to do 3 hours on one project today. yeah! It's done! Which is why I am free to blog. :)

Which brings me to my point, which is ... (drum roll)... my list of DISTRACTIONS! Curt suggested I write this list up and look at it during the day and keep reminding myself that none of these things are work and must be saved till after work is done. Very good idea, Curt Nasty! So here we go... let me know if you see yourself in this list. hehe.

Distractions

NONE of these are work.

MySpace
Gmail
News/personalized google
Txt msging
IM
Wikipedia/fun research
Playing with photos / flickr
iTunes / half.com / amazon.com
Cleaning house and doing laundry
Shopping
Blogging
Reading other people’s blogs
Planning social time
Talking to friends and family on the phone
Updating websites