Hypotyposis on a Good Day

There should be time to look back at 2006!

Today is the last day of 2006. Happy New Year!

As I sat the church today, I concluded that it would be a good time to reflect on this past year. Alas, I won't be able to do so comprehensively today. I'm under pressure to keep working on my book (that is, to keep looking forward) today. I will take next month (January 2007) as a transition time in which to look back and to look forward.

Time apart

This morning, I dropped Laura off at the airport on her way to a five-day trip to Honolulu. I'm already missing her but know that Sunday night will roll around exceedingly quickly. In the meantime, Laura and her mom will have a splendid time in Hawaii while I get some time to indulge into some programming projects that I've not been able to immerse myself in as a married man.

Down with a cold

On Thursday evening, I realized that I had a cold. My throat started to hurt, and I felt unusually tired. I took off yesterday from work as a sick day (though I did make an important hard-to-set-up meeting at 9am.) I slept a fair amount and tried sleeping even more. I suspect that I'll need to nap throughout today and tomorrow to make sure that I get well ASAP.

My mind continued to race while lying in bed. My body was saying, "You must rest." My brain says, "You must work." I hadn't counted on being so drained by the code4lib conference, followed almost immediately by Mashup Camp, combined by the rigorous demands of teaching a new course plus a whole lot of other circumstances. Even as I write this paragraph, my eyes and legs feel droopy and draggy. Time to nap a bit.

Busy last week before vacation

It's the last week before the holidays, and not surprisingly, there's a lot to do! Not only are there major strategic decisions to be made but also taking care of the business of daily life. (For instance, it felt good to dig up my latest credit card bills and pay them this morning. The Getting Things Done system is supposed to keep me on top of tasks large and small, but I need to intervention of a higher power and intelligence to get me back on track with GTD.)

Children Learn by Monkey See, Monkey Do. Chimps Don't. - New York Times:

Mr. Lyons sees his results as evidence that humans are hard-wired to learn by imitation, even when that is clearly not the best way to learn. If he is right, this represents a big evolutionary change from our ape ancestors. Other primates are bad at imitation. When they watch another primate doing something, they seem to focus on what its goals are and ignore its actions.

Relaxed and focusing

My honeymoon was by far the best vacation I've ever had. Undoubtedly, I've had many wonderful trips in my life, but none has been as deeply relaxing and fun as my ten days away with my best friend and now wife, when we had little of great concern besides feeding ourselves and enjoying the aloha spirit of Maui's people and land. Though I'm back in the office, feeling relaxed and energetic, I'm still getting up to speed on the many things that have happened since I was last in the office.