At 8:30AM I had chef salad (ham, cheese, lettuce), 3oz buttermilk ranch dressing and diet coke for breakfast.

I had breakfast with Barry Thompson (my CPA and friend), which accounts for the salad, as it was the only item on the menu without a heavy dose of low melt. We ate at "The Busy Bee" which is [the] local greasy spoon, selling concoctions of flour and hamburger grilled in a grease mixture my grandfather lovingly referred to as "bread burgers."

At 11AM I'm still working on a friend's PC – murdering the day's productivity, but hanging out with Barry until 9:30AM didn't help. It's amazing how much of a day you can kill hanging out, talking politics, nursing diet a coke. The fellowship is appreciated. The politics should be avoided. Windows continues to steal my time – an operating system I have long abandoned for productivity or critical information storage.

I'm often amazed at how much time Windows takes from me. When I ran an internet access company called Linkfast, I used to joke that were full time Microsoft technical support staff that provided internet access on the side. It is a fantastic time sucking vortex which consumes any and all free resources it touches, entangling those with the best of intentions. Helping a friend quickly escalates into hardware repair, then driver support, then complete system reclamation and restoration. Next thing you know a honey do turns into 8 hours of completely wasted effort. Sure, the friend receives a computer that's no longer broken, infected or otherwise impaired. But, it isn't exactly like you received it so any unfamiliarity or missing software is your fault. It is not a good way to engender gratitude, helping your friends dance with Windows.

I like to write things down that may benefit some future generation, should someone happen upon my writings and hope to glean wisdom from my myriad of repeated mistakes. If I can translate my time wasting experience into something timeless, it's this: weigh a thing before you commit to it.

Carefully consider your prior experience and the item's worthiness of your precious attention and resources. Usually, you'll pat yourself on the back afterward for carefully negotiating away from time consuming efforts, perhaps teaching others to help themselves, or at least teaching a large enough population to navigate those murky waters to avoid dipping your own toes in too often. Even that is a dangerous status, becoming the [insert problem] guru. It's important to consider the value you and the friend (or client) place on a skill. Possessing knowledge or skill is not in itself a valuable thing. When and if it is perceived as a valuable thing, before and after its application, that makes the skill or knowledge valuable. If it is perceived as a valuable thing before, but despised afterwards it is a liability and not an asset. People will clamor to ask your help only to resent you for it afterwards. This holds no virtue.

[2010 06 24]
8:30AM
chef salad (ham, cheese, lettuce), 3oz buttermilk ranch dressing, diet coke

11:30AM
3 cups of coffee

1:45PM
8oz hamburger w/ dill relish, brown mustard and red pepper sauce, 1 apple

2:45PM
7 pickled okra

7:00PM
2 cups black eyed peas, 7 picked okra, brown mustard, 1 cup broccoli

10PM
2 large bowls of taco salad: hamburger with taco seasoning, garlic lime salsa, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes

12AM (midnight snack)
6 oz cantelope