Cutter's Log - Stardate 2102.13.30
Current Song - Promises, Promises (Naked Eyes)
The clock is chiming midnight.
Normally people are going to be at this time. However my tasks are still incomplete. This, my friends, is what it's like during the worst couple of weeks of my life.
I was going to write a blog entry last week about this, but never had the time to. I didn't have the passion to.
In mid-March, I flipped the wall calendar above my computer screen from February to March. That's how bad this has become.
However, with each new day comes more and more tasks to complete. The slate is never clean. I try to take one or two days to complete everything and see a clean plate, but more and more things just keep coming up. No wonder why I have trouble prioritizing things.
I'm taking the weekend off of sports, and this decision came just before typing this sentence. However, I truly feel that I will feel much better once everything has been cleared and I can start LIVING once more.
Seriously, the past three weeks have been a nightmare: laying down on my bed lost in thought, and when I was not lost in thought I was thinking about how to tackle this monster that is the task bin.
But hopefully I won't be buried again.
Someone told me that I should make a list of things to do. Since I'm so buried in this mess, I thought it would be wise to list them in this blog entry from first priority on down.
Keep in mind, some things take longer than others. I want to get the things I know I can do quickly out of the way first. (If I do the longer tasks first, then the numerous little things get piled up at the end).
So here goes:
---after this blog entry, I will:
1. Post one more picture to the Sterling/Rock Falls Facebook group
2. Look up next week's assignments for NISB
3. Sort out my journalism notes bin and put them in my filing cabinet
4. Take Dan's practice calendars off my office wall and throw them out
5. Clean my catch-all desk drawer
6. Organize my reporting gear and put it all in my bookbag
7. Put my LP-Sycamore softball story on the NISB Facebook page
8. Clean up the small mess of things next to my bed and put them somewhere
9. Sort out my clothes in my room (jeans with jeans, pj's with pj's, etc.)
10. Contact this local shopper newspaper for article writing possibilities
11. Fill my car with gas at Shell and ask an important question
12. Go to the bank and get help in organizing my accounts
13. Make a call to one of my writers for an assignment for Saturday night
14. Revise a pair of columns that I have had on my tackboard for quite some time, and plan a release date for them
15. Plan my week using my weekly whiteboard
16. Post something on Facebook to the tune of auditing baseball cards
17. Do the McDonald's reciept theory once again
18. Get on the scale and write up a blog entry on trying to get healthy once more
19. Re-think the job inquiry process and organize places to apply for online
20. Create a general online resume, so that I won't write 2 different things on apps
21. Start the online app spree and inform each place of it
22. Another round of calls
23. Plan daytime trips to potential job places if necessary
24. Go to RFHS for its baseball game against Winnebago (this is Tuesday afternoon)
Hopefully everything can be done in a timely manner.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Amazing What Memory Retention Can Do
Cutter's Log - Stardate 2102.02.30
Current Song - Couldn't Get It Right (Climax Blues Band)
My youngest brother Danny always tells me that he can't remember anything prior to middle school. I quiz him at times over things he used to do when he was younger, and just can't seem to remember ... and even goes as far as yelling at me because he just CAN'T remember.
My memory retention goes as far back as age 4. I still remember the trips to Madison for my doctor's visits for my autism diagnosis. This was 1990, and from that point on my memory began to build and there were many things that just wouldn't go away. I don't know if this is similar to other human beings, but remembering things from back that far seems impressive.
Going back to Danny's memory retention, as his and mine are far different, I began to wonder if mine is abnormal.
I say all of this because one of my favorite Facebook pages is called "You Know You Grew up in Sterling/Rock Falls If......"
I post on there once in a while, and it seems as if I'm the youngest poster on there that can remember some of the history of Sterling and Rock Falls after 1990. I think there are a couple of others on there just a few years older than I am, but that's all. Since I can remember back that far, I can still recall the buildings that were there before Sterling's biggest landscape change at the time: the demolition of the west side of downtown.
Recently on this Facebook page, there were pictures posted that had these buildings going through the demolition process. There is a photo album in the library (the only place saved from demolition in that area) that stands up on top of a bookcase in the local history room with all of these pictures in it - telling the story in photos of the transformation of the west side of downtown.
Not too many people my age (in my graduating class, for example) can remember going into Eberley's Drug store, or the KFC, or the Kastle, but I can. One of my classmate's uncles owned Eberley's. My mom's mother was one of the managers at the KFC. Seeing all those pictures once more brought back the actual time that I remember seeing them.
But perhaps my best memory of what's no longer there was one of the last days of preschool at Wallace. We all walked over the the Kastle and had ice cream. Then we walked back on West 4th and ran into Mr. Fell, who owned a barber shop along the way. He gave us all one of those hard strawberry candies (you know, the ones wrapped like a strawberry).
Nearly a year later, all of that was gone. There is still debate on whether tearing all of that down was a good thing or a bad thing. The debate was strong enough that, back in 2000 or 2001 there was a calendar for sale depicting all of those buildings for each month. I had one, but can't find it.
Also recently, there has been a spurt of more older pictures of what downtown Sterling used to look like many years ago - buildings that were long gone before my time. These pictures have kept the discussion in this Facebook group alive. I started adding in some pictures of my own, but didn't want to post the same old buildings again.
I wanted to do something different, and post some of the oddball things about Sterling and Rock Falls. Not too long ago, I took my camera and turned the setting to black and white and took some pictures that would try to tell a story.
Among those pictures are: a faded-out painted advertisement along the former Pro Shop bar downtown, the mailbox and its chute inside the Midland States Bank building, the faded-out words reading "Academy of Music" on top of the D&E Furniture building, the traffic control switchbox at West 3rd and Avenue B (still standing after the lights were removed 20 years ago), and a small street leading to apartment buildings just south of Avenue H and West 3rd. I've got a few more on the docket.
For more than five years, I have helped run the Illinois High School Glory Days website. From my experience in researching the histories of the schools, and trying to find the whereabouts of these school buildings, I know how restoring the research helps people dig back into their heads and remember how things were back then. Pictures especially do this well, but most of what I stumble upon are such buildings far from its original purpose - and most times, derelict.
I wonder if looking at pictures of the current shells of what they used to be lead to a visual rekindling of a comparision between now and then. Or is the picture simply that of a ruined old building? Hopefully by putting the pictures in black and white, it cleans up the ruin into two colors and thus help the eye bring back the visual image of what is used to be.
Those little trinkets of nostalgia that don't get talked about often about Sterling and Rock Falls is what I'm trying to find for this Facebook group. Hopefully I can find them before its too late.
They say a picture tells a thousand words. As a writer, I can find ways to expand the artwork into many, many more words. Hopefully I'm doing that with my pics.
Here is the link to the Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/groups/202495229808351/
Current Song - Couldn't Get It Right (Climax Blues Band)
My youngest brother Danny always tells me that he can't remember anything prior to middle school. I quiz him at times over things he used to do when he was younger, and just can't seem to remember ... and even goes as far as yelling at me because he just CAN'T remember.
My memory retention goes as far back as age 4. I still remember the trips to Madison for my doctor's visits for my autism diagnosis. This was 1990, and from that point on my memory began to build and there were many things that just wouldn't go away. I don't know if this is similar to other human beings, but remembering things from back that far seems impressive.
Going back to Danny's memory retention, as his and mine are far different, I began to wonder if mine is abnormal.
I say all of this because one of my favorite Facebook pages is called "You Know You Grew up in Sterling/Rock Falls If......"
I post on there once in a while, and it seems as if I'm the youngest poster on there that can remember some of the history of Sterling and Rock Falls after 1990. I think there are a couple of others on there just a few years older than I am, but that's all. Since I can remember back that far, I can still recall the buildings that were there before Sterling's biggest landscape change at the time: the demolition of the west side of downtown.
Recently on this Facebook page, there were pictures posted that had these buildings going through the demolition process. There is a photo album in the library (the only place saved from demolition in that area) that stands up on top of a bookcase in the local history room with all of these pictures in it - telling the story in photos of the transformation of the west side of downtown.
Not too many people my age (in my graduating class, for example) can remember going into Eberley's Drug store, or the KFC, or the Kastle, but I can. One of my classmate's uncles owned Eberley's. My mom's mother was one of the managers at the KFC. Seeing all those pictures once more brought back the actual time that I remember seeing them.
But perhaps my best memory of what's no longer there was one of the last days of preschool at Wallace. We all walked over the the Kastle and had ice cream. Then we walked back on West 4th and ran into Mr. Fell, who owned a barber shop along the way. He gave us all one of those hard strawberry candies (you know, the ones wrapped like a strawberry).
Nearly a year later, all of that was gone. There is still debate on whether tearing all of that down was a good thing or a bad thing. The debate was strong enough that, back in 2000 or 2001 there was a calendar for sale depicting all of those buildings for each month. I had one, but can't find it.
Also recently, there has been a spurt of more older pictures of what downtown Sterling used to look like many years ago - buildings that were long gone before my time. These pictures have kept the discussion in this Facebook group alive. I started adding in some pictures of my own, but didn't want to post the same old buildings again.
I wanted to do something different, and post some of the oddball things about Sterling and Rock Falls. Not too long ago, I took my camera and turned the setting to black and white and took some pictures that would try to tell a story.
Among those pictures are: a faded-out painted advertisement along the former Pro Shop bar downtown, the mailbox and its chute inside the Midland States Bank building, the faded-out words reading "Academy of Music" on top of the D&E Furniture building, the traffic control switchbox at West 3rd and Avenue B (still standing after the lights were removed 20 years ago), and a small street leading to apartment buildings just south of Avenue H and West 3rd. I've got a few more on the docket.
For more than five years, I have helped run the Illinois High School Glory Days website. From my experience in researching the histories of the schools, and trying to find the whereabouts of these school buildings, I know how restoring the research helps people dig back into their heads and remember how things were back then. Pictures especially do this well, but most of what I stumble upon are such buildings far from its original purpose - and most times, derelict.
I wonder if looking at pictures of the current shells of what they used to be lead to a visual rekindling of a comparision between now and then. Or is the picture simply that of a ruined old building? Hopefully by putting the pictures in black and white, it cleans up the ruin into two colors and thus help the eye bring back the visual image of what is used to be.
Those little trinkets of nostalgia that don't get talked about often about Sterling and Rock Falls is what I'm trying to find for this Facebook group. Hopefully I can find them before its too late.
They say a picture tells a thousand words. As a writer, I can find ways to expand the artwork into many, many more words. Hopefully I'm doing that with my pics.
Here is the link to the Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/groups/202495229808351/
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Rough Patch
Cutter's Log - Stardate 2102.60.30
Current Song - What You Won't Do For Love (Bobby Caldwell)
I knew this wasn't going to off of on the right foot.
Having to take care of fianances as of late, and digging deeper and deeper into the savings. Not what I want to do. But in order to live, that's what I gotta do.
Thus, the job search has picked up some steam once more. I've got this system that I think works wonders and micromanages the expenses used to conduct such a search. This system I have has been chastized, but this really opens up more avenues without having to spend so much money. The reason for the "disapproval" of such a system is because it "looks" like there's no commitment. HOWEVER, if an entire day is spent doing this my way, that I call commitment.
If there's anything I have learned from this whole ordeal - now going on 6 months - it's trying to micromanage everything.
So the job search continues. I'm about halfway through the research process already, and will complete the other half tomorrow morning. Then I'm off to apply at some more places - both nearby and 50 miles.
You cna only do so much when you're limited in your finances and your abilities. The abilities are extremely limited on my part, unfortunately.
Current Song - What You Won't Do For Love (Bobby Caldwell)
I knew this wasn't going to off of on the right foot.
Having to take care of fianances as of late, and digging deeper and deeper into the savings. Not what I want to do. But in order to live, that's what I gotta do.
Thus, the job search has picked up some steam once more. I've got this system that I think works wonders and micromanages the expenses used to conduct such a search. This system I have has been chastized, but this really opens up more avenues without having to spend so much money. The reason for the "disapproval" of such a system is because it "looks" like there's no commitment. HOWEVER, if an entire day is spent doing this my way, that I call commitment.
If there's anything I have learned from this whole ordeal - now going on 6 months - it's trying to micromanage everything.
So the job search continues. I'm about halfway through the research process already, and will complete the other half tomorrow morning. Then I'm off to apply at some more places - both nearby and 50 miles.
You cna only do so much when you're limited in your finances and your abilities. The abilities are extremely limited on my part, unfortunately.
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