Ade in Business

This past weekend my wife and I tackled the task of repainting and rearranging my office. The office used to be a dark navy blue that only a 12-year old boy could love, and she’s wanted to paint over it ever since we got the place. Also spurring me to tackle the project were a few interesting posts about workspaces I saw recently on Lifehacker that got me thinking about how some changes to my work environment could help productivity.

We My wife settled on a nice greenish-beige color called Distant Mountain. I don’t really get why it’s called that, but then again I live in the flat state of Indiana so maybe there’s a reason there that only mountain dwellers would understand. Of course I wanted to paint the office ecru. This isn’t because I like the actual color, or even know what the color looks like. It’s just that Ed mentioned the color once in conversation years ago and I’ve since thought it was the coolest sounding color name. If you’d guess that my knowledge of color theory is about nil, you’d be absolutely correct.

Miscellaneous Observations

The primer coat is never going to look “done”, and I fall for this every time I paint. I need to just get over my need to have it look completely coated, and move on to the real painting. There’s a lesson in that somewhere.

I frequently leave my computer cases unscrewed after tinkering around with the hardware. It seems like something goes wrong every time I move a computer and decide I’ll finally secure the case. This weekend the computer I did this with just failed to boot up, and the simple act of removing the case fixed the mysterious problem. This reflects one of the reasons why I try to stay away from tinkering with hardware.

The F connector at the end of coaxial cables started out as one of my favorite connectors because it’s so tactile, but after getting my modem and TV setup all wrong and having to screw and unscrew the cables several times, my raw fingers have made me rethink it’s status. Yes, a wrench would be the proper way to go, but I’m not very bright. By the way, my other favorite is the RJ45 because of the nice “click” sounds it makes, as opposed to the boring USB and RCA connectors.

Manufacturers who make power adapters that take up three spots on a surge protector (see below) should be put out of business. I think there’s collusion between them and the surge protector manufacturers that the DOJ needs to investigate. When the trial is complete, I’m recommending that the judge order that everyone who’s purchased these devices be given a free PowerSquid.

I have tried many times to organize all my cabling, even buying an assortment of cable ties and gadgets to help the process, but have never been successful. I really thought I was going to do it right this time, but it just ended up looking like this (and this is just a sample):