https://www.johnbooze.com/post/Recent content in Posts on John BoozeHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usMon, 29 Nov 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/yes-and/Mon, 29 Nov 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/yes-and/Growing up I was highly introverted. To the point where I wasn’t comfortable having a conversation. I was always afraid I was saying the wrong thing so I often chose to be quiet. Fortunately, I enjoy learning and trying new things. One day, my friend Serena told me she recently took an intro improv class. She wanted to take the next class but she was occupied with singing activities the next semester.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/joplin/Wed, 24 Nov 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/joplin/The last post pointed out how keeping a daily log can make a huge difference. Notetaking software can make this habit a lot easier. Joplin For my work logs I’ve been using Joplin for these reasons: You’re in control of the storage. This is important when critical business information may be stored in the notes. I’m using OneDrive. Open-source. Since this software is open-source, you don’t have the risk of it suddenly disappearing because a company was purchased or went out of business.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/write-it-down/Tue, 16 Nov 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/write-it-down/I’ve now been working from home for 20 months. It’s been a learning experience, but overall I vastly prefer it to working in an office. Mark Seemann’s article on latency vs throughput was highly inflential in my approach. My big takeaway is the concept of oral culture vs written culture. My counter-move was to begin to write things down. When people would call a meeting, I’d ask for an agenda.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/learning-piano-scales/Mon, 08 Nov 2021 19:28:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/learning-piano-scales/Back in high school I played trumpet. I never really got any good at it. I particularly struggled with the relationships between the notes in a scale. During college, I took a music theory class and things started to make more sense. After I moved to Washington for work I wanted to incorporate musicality back in my life, so I decided to learn piano. This was when everything really came together.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/spaced-repetition-learning/Tue, 02 Nov 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/spaced-repetition-learning/Last week’s post cautions learners to be aware of Illusions of Competency. A common Illusion of Competency is spending time on things you already know vs what you’re struggling with. This of course makes sense. We want to protect our ego and feel competent. So we just keep reviewing questions where we already know the answers. How do we take off the blinders and keep ourselves in check? Anki Anki is a great software tool to address this issue using a technique called Spaced Repetition learning.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/learning-how-to-learn/Tue, 26 Oct 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/learning-how-to-learn/I highly recommend the free online course Learning How to Learn by Oakley and Sejnowski. The concepts and techniques presented in the course offer significant dividends for all future learning endeavors. This would have been invaluable to know in college, high school, and earlier. Like an investment account, the sooner you start, the more time it has to grow with compound interest. Illusions of Competency One concept that really stuck out to me was the concept of “illusions of competency.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/kexp-tour/Mon, 18 Oct 2021 01:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/kexp-tour/As I’ve previously mentioned, KEXP is my favorite Seattle radio station and they also organize live events. On October 24th, 2015 KEXP put on an event called “R” day at the Old Rainier Brewery. Beat Connection and Helio Sequence performed. While I was there a woman comes up to me and asks “Are you the guitarist from Motopony?” And I respond, “no.” Then she asks “Oh, well what band do you play in?https://www.johnbooze.com/post/kexp/Tue, 12 Oct 2021 01:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/kexp/KEXP is my favorite Seattle radio station. My car’s radio is practically locked into the 90.3 tuning. Different DJ’s rotate throughout the day spanning all genre’s of music. From blues to underground hiphop. Bands local to the Pacific Northwest or perhaps from a different country like Iceland. I totally appreciate that I’m constantly discovering new music from this radio station. Thanks to the realtime playlist, I can take note of what was played.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/erasable-pen/Tue, 05 Oct 2021 14:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/erasable-pen/An effective technique to retain what you read is to manually take notes. Throughout my school years, I used a mechanical pencil. I’ve come around to prefer pens. You don’t have to worry about lead with a pen and they write darker than a pencil. The downside is you can’t correct mistakes. A real conundrum for my inner perfectionist. PILOT FriXion Erasable Pen 🖊️ Well that’s what I though until I discovered the PILOT FriXion Erasable Pen.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/favorite-laptop-desk/Tue, 28 Sep 2021 17:09:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/favorite-laptop-desk/Like many others, I started working from home when the pandemic began around March, 2020. My primary computer usage changed from a desktop to a laptop. One of the big differences I noticed is that I’m less effective using a trackpad vs a mouse. For whatever reason, I’m not that comfortable using a laptop on a table or at a desk. I prefer to sit on a bed or a recliner so a laptop desk sounded like the solution for me.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/simplest-gratitude-journal/Tue, 21 Sep 2021 08:00:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/simplest-gratitude-journal/Gratitude Invites Joy Into Our Lives Brené Brown, the author of The Gifts of Imperfection, says: The relationship between joy and gratitude was one of the important things I found in my research. I wasn’t expecting it. In my 12 years of research on 11,000 pieces of data, I did not interview one person who had described themselves as joyful, who also did not actively practice gratitude. A key part of this statement is that gratitude is an active practice.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/two-fundamental-habits/Tue, 14 Sep 2021 09:00:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/two-fundamental-habits/I’ve sometimes struggled with some pretty basic tasks. For instance, maybe I’ve run the dishwasher but didn’t put the dishes away until days later. This can lead to a vicious cycle of guilt. I intended to finish the task sooner, but feel bad because that didn’t happen 😔. Furthermore, I beat myself up for being unable to accomplish something so simple. And that can lead to demotivation which makes it more difficult to start other simple tasks.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/best-x-is-the-one-you-use/Tue, 07 Sep 2021 08:09:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/best-x-is-the-one-you-use/Bringing a Bike on a Trip One of my joys in life is riding a bicycle. Another joy is travel - especially road trips. Having a bike available when exploring a new place is fantastic. The two really go together like peanut butter and jelly. Drive the car to reach an exciting new place. Ride the bike to experience the details. I bought a bike rack for my car to enable this combination.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/velcro-cable-ties/Tue, 31 Aug 2021 08:35:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/velcro-cable-ties/VELCRO One-Wrap cable ties have been life changing! Great for traveling! When I travel, I like to bring my messenger bag with various electronics which means a bunch of cords. Those cords can easily get tangled making it a huge hassle to remove anything. For instance, I like to bring an extension cord. It can look like this mess. Imagine trying to get that out of a messenger bag. Enter the VELCRO One-Wrap cable tie.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/joy-of-a-bike-ride/Mon, 23 Aug 2021 12:09:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/joy-of-a-bike-ride/The Bicycle Rite of Passage Learning to ride a bicycle is a rite of passage as a kid. At first, the focus is solely on honing the skill. Start with training wheels. Learn the motions of pedaling and steering. Figure out your balance. Finally, you overcome your fears of falling and the training wheels come off. Oh, that wonderful moment! A small demonstration of independence. Later on, I recognized the pragmatic benefits of the bike.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/satisficing/Tue, 17 Aug 2021 07:49:05 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/satisficing/In my earlier post discussing the paradox of choice, I confessed I am a self proclaimed chronic maximzer. For instance, years ago I was frustrated with my can opener. It was difficult to use and often took several trys to fully open a can. When I held it, my hands were uncomfortable. I, of course, went to Amazon to find a replacement. Searching for “can opener” on Amazon yields: 1-48 of over 1,000 results for “can opener”https://www.johnbooze.com/post/life-changing-habit/Tue, 10 Aug 2021 05:10:00 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/life-changing-habit/As a child, school provided a well defined schedule. Arrive at 7:30 AM. English class at 8 AM. History class at 9 AM. Math class at 10 AM, and so forth. The schedule provided structure but everything was mandated. You were told when and where to be and what you were studying. Sometimes the subject of the class was uninteresting. But you had to be there. It was an obligation. For subjects I did enjoy, there were times I would lose engagement because the pacing was too slow.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/free-kindle-books/Tue, 03 Aug 2021 12:09:27 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/free-kindle-books/Where can you can read books for free? Answer: The Public Library! We all know you can check out books for free at your local public library. But did you know that they also have Kindle books and audio books? There is an artificial number of virtual copies which is a little annoying. Fortunately the “Hold” functionality works so you can get notified when a copy becomes available. On the plus side you don’t need to physically go to the library to get your book.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/the-importance-of-walking/Tue, 27 Jul 2021 07:27:14 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/the-importance-of-walking/Pre-pandemic, I commuted via a bus. There was daily walking to and from the bus stop. A minimum of 1.5 miles a day. However, with work from home my “commute” is no more than 30 steps. And that difference holds true for all the little activities throughout the day. No longer the couple minutes to the cafeteria which included a flight of stairs. Getting to a meeting room? Now just a click of a button.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/free-tv-streaming/Thu, 22 Jul 2021 12:12:29 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/free-tv-streaming/The Summer Olympics officialy start in Tokyo tomorrow, which NBC is broadcasting. One option to watch for free is the over the air broadcast using an antenna. In Seattle NBC is on channel 5-1. I’ve done this in the past and it works reasonably well but often requires fiddling with the antenna to get the most consistent signal. Unfortunately, depending on where you live and your geography you may not even be able to get the channels you’re interested in.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/the-paradox-of-choice/Tue, 20 Jul 2021 09:49:05 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/the-paradox-of-choice/Freedom. A core tenet of United States culture. What embodies freedom more than individual choice? Following this logic, more choices = more freedom. Therefore, having more choices is always virtuous, right? The Paradox of Choice Barry Schwartz counters this reasoning in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. He argues that too much choice can have negative consequences. In particular it can have these effects: Decision Paralysis - We don’t feel confident we’ll make the best choice, so we don’t make any decision at all.https://www.johnbooze.com/post/building-a-website/Tue, 13 Jul 2021 07:30:19 -0700https://www.johnbooze.com/post/building-a-website/While I was on YouTube I came across a video by Ali Abdaal. This eventually lead to watching his video How To Build A Website in 2021. He makes really compelling points and inspired me to take the plunge. Over the years, I’d tell myself in passing “you should make a website”. But then it would never happen for a couple reasons. Firstly, I thought it would be too difficult. Turns out tooling has significantly improved over the years so now it’s easier than ever to generate the backing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.