Clarkson Energy Homes

I have been having trouble with my Firefox browser for some time now. It is sluggish and slow and just takes too darn long to do the simplest things. When I upgraded to the latest version I was still disappointed by how slow it seemed. After a particularly slow session this morning I was considering opening a Bugzilla request. Then I had a light bulb moment. Perhaps some add-on I installed was the culprit. So I disabled all my Add-ons and sure enough the sluggishness is gone. Now I just need to turn them back on one at a time to see which one is the problem. I got my inspiration from an old mind trick. When you are not seeing the solution (or all the solutions) distract yourself with something else. Inspiration will sometimes come to you. I do this a lot while programming. When I have a particularly difficult stubborn algorithm problem, I sleep on it. Literally. I go to bed and often find the answer in a few hours. During the summer time I mow the lawn (a lot). I tend more than 8 acres and 20 homes. It’s a mindless task. Even near homes it takes very little mental effort to avoid yard obstacles. Mowing the lawn is my distraction from daily life and allows me to find solutions to a plethora (I like the word) of problems which arise each month. Find something you like to do that can distract you from the stress of your daily problems and you may find solutions popping into your head at some very unusual times. One piece of advice. Do not ever shout out “Eureka,” if your distraction is an intimate encounter with your spouse. I’m not confessing to such example, but I can foresee that as an awkward conversation.

I just wrote an annoying email. I logged on to an account to update some credit card info for a hosting company where I resell hosting services. The bill doesn’t come due until March, but it is safer to make the change now while I’m thinking about it. A business partner originally set up the account and has been footing the bill each year. Circumstances have changed and I ended up with more hosting accounts on those servers than he has, so I decided that I would foot the bill from now on. He has set himself up as the primary contact and I was always fine with that. The host sent a message to a shared email account, which forwards messages to each of us, requesting I visit their New Client Area. I took a look and it is a nicer looking interface. It is easier to navigate and it has nice big letters saying “Welcome Kevin!” right in the middle of the page. I am not Kevin and frankly, I’m annoyed that this company would assume that only one person would run a company. Perhaps it is the drugs (I take a lot of medication), but I am especially annoyed by this today. I tried to keep my disappointment in this minor detail out of the email I sent about a billing problem, but I doubt I was successful. Now I am wondering what I do to my clients which really pisses them off. It may be something minor as well. Perhaps a client is just having a bad day or has increase their medication also. So, I am going to check all my client contact points for little annoying things like calling people by the wrong name and such. Wish me Luck.

I ran across a reference to this article. Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper and Better. I only got about half way down the list. So I added it here to get back to it later.

In fact, it’s been said that the average adult only uses 10% of his/her brain.

I don’t think so. Humans use almost all their brain. We just do not use it all at the same time. We use certain parts of our brains for different tasks. We might use more than one part when doing multiple tasks, but we can’t add more brain power by changing one area to double duty as another area. The article has some great ideas in it, but remember that not everything works for everybody. The Kinesthetic Techniques section doesn’t work if, like me, your hands shake too much to write well. For me, the Kinesthetic exercises only serve to frustrate me, and increase my stress. The same is true of walking. As a younger person I walked a lot. An awful lot. The last foot X-Ray I got was due to some pulled ligaments in my left foot some years ago. The foot doctor (podiatrist?) said I should avoid even low impact exercise like walking. Thankfully, I enjoy bicycling on my stationary bike at home.

I know what safety is, but I’m watching Fringe tonight and they keep speaking of Safety Deposit Boxes. Now. I know that banks often keep deposit boxes in a safe, but those are called Safe Deposit Boxes. They are boxes which are deposited in a safe. While I was writing this, I realized that a Safety is a position on a football team. I just don’t understand why anyone would store a deposit box inside a football player, but this is Fringe after all.