Another month’s worth of what I have been doing at 8:15 PM every night. Doing this has become a great way to see what I’ve been up to on a particular day along with what else I add in about my day. It’s become a regular habit of what I’m doing and what has happened that day and a wonderful little one paragraph diary/journal of my actions and thoughts.
A Little Background on This Post
I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:15 (8:15 PM) every day for the last few months after reading Kitt Hodson’s Pastry Box article from Jan 1, 2015. Which was about how a year earlier she read Erica Douglass’s article about writing down what she did at 11:11 AM and 20:14 (8:14 PM) every day.
I thought this was a great idea to see if I could find any patterns in my nights. So far, I tend to watch TV Monday, Thursday, and Sunday nights when I’m home. Also on the weekends I tend to be leaving or coming back from dinner, sometimes even eating dinner.
Here is my post on what I’ve been doing at 20:15 (8:15 PM) in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.
October
Oct 1 – Sitting in the Ryman Auditorium listening to the live Opry Country Classics show hosted by Larry Gatlin with his brothers, Crystal Gayle, and others. Long day of driving to get here from DC. I stayed in the Tiny Red House, which was 200 square feet. Had plenty of room to sleep, even cook if you wanted. The place had a living room that could be used for reading and relaxing, but the bathroom could have used another eight or so inches to make easier for a slim guy like me get around. Taking that space from the kitchen wouldn’t matter much in my opinion. Adding pocket doors would be helpful too.
Oct 2 – Sitting in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel for the last half hour listening to an older gentleman play jazz tunes on the piano. While listening to the music, I was cleaning up a week’s worth of e-mail before heading over to Beale St. Had a nice day by starting the morning in the Hatch Show Print in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, TN. Great place to see how they are keeping letterpress printing alive by printing posters for music events. Had dinner at the Rendezvous which consisted of an order of smoked sausage and a dinner of lamb riblets. They were some of the best BBQ meat I’ve eaten.
Oct 3 – Arriving at my AirBNB in Baton Rogue, LA. I had driven from Memphis after taking care of soon to her factory tour. When leaving town, I took Route 61 which is more the back-country way and than taking Route 55 to Baton Rouge Louisiana. It was extremely interesting being able to look at Mississippi Delta farmland. Stopped in Jackson Mississippi do you have a pig your sandwich along with a smoked meat sandwich at the Big Apple Inn. It was in one of the sketches neighborhoods I have ever been in, and that was during the daytime. Both sandwiches were awesome well worth the trip. They cost six bucks for slider size sandwiches, two of each with and hot sauce.
Oct 4 – Driving back from Noble Pig in Austin, TX, where I have a half of Duck Pastrami sandwich and a half of Seared Beef Tongue sandwich. The day was mostly spent during on I10 and then state road 71 from Baton Rogue, LA to Austin, TX. Managed to get to Austin Hilton Downtown to register in time for An Event Apart.
Oct 5 – Waiting at “Moonshine” to get seated for dinner in Austin, TX, with two other people. We had to wait for about 45 minutes that wasn’t too bad because it gave us time to catch up since it’s been a while. Had a great day at An Event Apart and learned a lot. Guess you miss out on things when you skip a few years. I won the super bingo/coverall were you are networking to meet people and find out certain facts that are true about then and fill one of your spaces.
Oct 6 – Sitting at the Razorfish offices in Austin, TX, talking about accessibility. The talk I was giving was called, “Everything I Learned about Accessibility I Learned from Wine and Cheese”. The talk was about how it takes years to get knowledgeable about accessibility. Which is similar to learning about wine and cheese in that a person needs to figure out what grapes, blends, etc. they like and keeping mental notes. With accessibility, you need to learn things all the time and try things that make sense to improve the accessibility of an entire page or even a small piece of it. Today was another great day at An Event Apart and looking forward to the Workshop on Wednesday.
Oct 7 – ENTERED – 10/14/2105 – I was driving back from Salt Lick in my friends car after a nice relaxing dinner of BBQ brisket, smoked sausage, and a BBQ pork rib. Which also came with cole slaw, potato salad, beans, bread, pickles, and onion. We talked about many things and had a good time catching up after not seeing each other for a few years. Much easier to do in person than over Twitter DM.
Oct 8 – I was settling into my AirBnB in New Orleans before heading out to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street. It was interesting walking French Quarter and Bourbon Street. I didn’t realize there were so many strip clubs/gogo bars in that area. Another thing was people wandering the street with plastic cups of alcohol. I got back to AirBnB by 10:30 or 11 PM. After a breakfast of breakfast tacos at Torchy’s I drove to Lockhart, TX, for some BBQ at Smitty’s. I got there around 10:45 AM and wasn’t quite ready for BBQ yet. I wanted to wander around town, but they were preparing to film a movie, so lots of streets were closed, and so were the shops around the town square. I got fatty brisket along with a smoked sausage and a Jalapeno Smoked Sausage and pink lemonade.
Oct 9 – Driving back from dinner at Bon Ton Cafe where I had turtle soup. It was a bit salty for my liking but supposedly helps with gaminess. My main course was Red Fish Bon Ton, which was pan seared fish with butter sauce and crab over the top of it, along with pan fried Brussel sprouts. When dinner was over headed over to Preservation Hall to see the 8 PM show of the Jazz band. Close to show time and way too many people ahead of me and stomach not feeling to hot I grabbed a cab back to my car headed home. I spent the day wandering around the Quarter and cleared out a bunch of old e-mail at a coffee shop. Then looked at a bunch of art which I bought a half dozen pieces. Most of them were small and two larger ones. The second largest one I needed to head back and grabbed information about the artist from their saleswoman, who forgot to grab a business card from the other day.
Oct 10 – Standing in line with two guys from Glasgow, Scotland, a couple from Chicago, and a few people from outside New Orleans to see The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Earlier in the day went to Port of call and had a mushrooms cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, pickle’, and a baked potato. Then went to the Garden District to wander around. Ended up at the cemetery across the street from Commanders Palace. Once done their tits and wondering in the neighborhood. Then I headed back to the French quarter so I could go back to Jackson Square and look for more art. Ended up buying a slate roof tile painting of the jazz trombone player. Then I grabbed a guitar player photo for only 25 bucks even though it was a repainting on top of another. After the Presentation Hall JAZZ Band, I went to are nods and head alligator sausage with baked onions and spicy mustard. My entrée was crawfish O’Connor, which was crawfish, some spice in a tomato butter cream sauce. They had wonderful homemade bread and butter.Could have eaten more of it, but wanted to cut back a bit.
Oct 11 – ENTERED – 10/13/2105 – Driving to my rustic cabin AirBnB. Got of Interstate 95 and drove 13 miles down a two lane road with no street lights then turned right and drove another eight-plus miles. Turned right at the only place with a street light. A few turns later I’m on a dirt road fro over 1.7 miles, driving at five or ten miles an hour looking for a sign that says Cabin and garden in pick darkness. Once I found the sign and turned left as the email said. Another quarter mile I see a light in the distance, and there it was a two room cabin, which one room is the bathroom, with the internal, external lights on. Grabbed laptop bag along with my clothes and went in. To my right, there was a TV with Direct TV standing on a bunch old glass bottle milk crates with two leather chairs. In Theodore if the room there was a small wood burning stove. In the kitchen area was a fridge, gas stove, and on the sink was a bottle of Bourbon and another of Johnny Walker Black. The next thing in the room was the bathroom. The part of the cabin next to the bedroom area was in had a bunk bed, gun cabinet, and then a twin bed in a stand that you needed a step stool to get into. Also, over the fridge was a stuffed male turkey and raccoon on a log over the sink and a deer head over the main door. It was great to be able to use my Your Karma to check e-mail and others things in the middle of the Georgia mountainous back-country.
Oct 12 – ENTERED – 10/13/2105 – Having dinner at my friends house south of Raleigh with his wife talking about my travels the previous twelve days. We had a great dinner of strip steak, Brussel sprouts and bacon fat cooked in a cast iron skillet, along with homemade cornbread, German potato salad with bacon and some cooked mushrooms with onions. Spent the day driving from the rustic cabin in Hamilton, GA. Had great nights sleep in this wonderful place.
Oct 13 – Settling in for a bit of TV after not watching any got almost two weeks. Currently, watching the “Bizarre Foods” show were Andrew Zimmern is in Paris, France. Left my friends place in Raleigh, NC, at around 8:30 AM and arrived home at 1:00 PM. Doing so allowed me to stop and pick up my mail, which I had them restart delivery. Grabbed a pork chop sandwich with salt, pepper, and hot sauce on white bread. After unloading the car, it was time for a couple of hours nap. Finally, drove to Wegmans to eat dinner and stock up on a few things for the house.
Oct 14 – Looking at my “What I’m Doing at 20:15 in 2015” while sitting at my desk in the spare bedroom with a hoodie and shorts on. Guess my body doesn’t quite know what to do with cooler weather after a long vacation, it might be getting sick which I hope it doesn’t. I’m getting ready to put the month of October so far through Grammarly, along with last month if I haven’t done so already. Had a relaxing first day back at work catching up on e-mail. I did a bit of testing of a QA testing tool and explaining to everyone asking what my almost two-week road trip was like and what I did.
Oct 15 – Watching episode 10 of “Movable Feast” – Scribe Winery with Christopher Kostow and The Wise Sons. Which was about wine, blintzes filled with farmers cheese and strawberries on top, along with duck prosciutto, and truffle, asparagus, veggie, rabbit sausage, and egg casserole, along with an in-season salad with tomatoes, hand picked baby greens, walnuts, olive oil, and much more. My day was spent testing a new QA tool and updating the accessibility standards page on the wiki.
Oct 16 – Watching episode 1 of “Movable Feast” in Seattle with special guests Seattle: Tom Douglas and Thierry Rautureau. Great seeing Pikes Place Market and the bay/ocean when getting the seafood, spring onions, morels, etc. Another day of afternoon meetings of what we are going to work on next week and testing our new QA Tool, which I found a few issues with and reported them in our issue tracking system.
Oct 17 – Napping after an hour and a half massage to help loosen up my muscles after a two-week road trip to Austin, TX. Watching Notre Dame football against USC and it’s a tied game with a little over twelve minutes left to go in the fourth quarter.
Oct 18 – I was watching the “R-E-S-P-E-C-T the Butterbean” episode of “A Chef’s Life” on Amazon Prime. The day was mostly spent going out to the Shen-Valley Flea Market and not finding anything I needed to buy, but when I got to the Front Royal Flea Market, I purchased a chef’s knife ($5) and eight small wood bowls and one larger one for all of two dollars. My final, stop after having lunch at Blue Winged Frog in Front Royal where they have a huge picnic table in the middle of the restaurant was the Creekside Bakery to grab two donuts and two apple turnovers, which were well worth the trip.
Oct 19 – Watching commercials during “The Big Bang Theory”. Haven’t seen the show but only once this season because I have been traveling and missed it the other nights. Spent a good part of the day gathering information about the small possibility of changing accessibility scanning tools. Contacted a few people I know that work for some of the different companies to see if I could get some information from them without having to go to the sales people. I didn’t contact all of them at once since I wanted time to read through anything I found from each of them. Two of them wanted to set up a meeting, and I told them I was attempting to gather some general information first. One asked me a for questions over Twitter DM, and I sent a few and then realized maybe an e-mail with them all would be better. So I started gathering all those questions in one place.
Oct 20 – Sitting in the basement of my buddies house in Cabin John trying different beers, while talking about plans for friends wedding this weekend. Found out the bridal party or, at least, the groom and groomsmen need to be back to the hotel on Saturday and ready to go by 3:00 PM. So that means lunch might be ending closer to 2:00 PM, which is when my beard trimming was supposed to be taking place. Will need to move my appointment back until closer to 3:00 PM.
Oct 21 – Sitting on my leather chair and using my leather ottoman to prop up my feet as I read Jamie Oliver’s new book “Everyday Super Foods”, which he started writing over a year and a half ago when he realized he was turning 40 and need to make a change in his life. Te book is about making better meals to help you live longer along with other things I haven’t read yet. More wiki updates for pages the deal with accessibility.
Oct 22 – Listening to Laura McGuigan (@grafxnerd) talk about being the only designer at a start-up and how she didn’t know anything when she first got there about products, hiring, etc. Nice to see Viget Labs new space. More wiki updates for pages the deal with accessibility, along with testing the updates to the QA Testing Tool. Managed to give the two new people at the office my talk on making websites more accessible so the release management person and the new front-end person can each understand what needs to be done and think about when doing their jobs.
Oct 23 – Driving to Frederick Maryland to stay overnight in preparation for my friends wedding Saturday evening. After checking in the hotel closer to
8:45 PM I want to family meal for dinner. I have the bird Tony spicy chicken wings and the cakes with pimento cheese and bacon. For my meal, I love having catfish over the top of beans tomatoes cabbage in a few other vegetables.
Oct 24 – Sitting at the dinner table at the Cedarville manner talking with friends at my friend Sarah and Mike’s wedding. Was waiting for the music is third so it wouldn’t get on the dance floor. Managed to sleep until only 7 AM realize they didn’t have my phone charger so I went out to my car use my catchers you’re going to read for an hour from 8 AM to 9 AM. The client went in to have breakfast with friends. Then we went to one of my buddies rooms had a little bit of wine they had some breakfast room. Once it got to be noon we went out to lunch and came back and nap for a short time. It’s 3 PM I left to go to Citizen Barber to have them clean up my beer to make sure it was Lacey shake for the wedding this evening.
Oct 25 – At Wegmans in the bakery department trying to get garlic bread sliced with the guy saying he just used a cleaning solution to clean it. He then explained that these little slice bread that late but I mentioned it done it many times after 9 PM. What I think you meant was we clean the slicer if you’re slicing bread for myself another customer. Went to bed about 3 o’clock this morning to the fact we have the after party for the wedding and the friends room drinking wine and talking and telling jokes. Then was up by 8:30 AM to be ready for breakfast with others froM the wedding party and friends. Left Frederick, MD, around 11 AM and headed back to DC and stopped at Golden Market” in the Eden Center to pick up some pork and take me. Period got home written to about 120 and then took a nap. You couldn’t care called maps, so I slept for over 5 1/2 hours. Around 730. Then headed to Wegmans to grab some dinner and do a bit of grocery shopping.
Oct 26 – Sitting in Granville Moore’s eating frites with a few buddies while we waited for Toki Underground to text us that our seats were ready. A friend from out of town that used to live in DC that had never been to Toki wanted to go so we did, and he loved it. Afterward, we walked down to Maketto to show both of them around. Once done there, we stopped into Dangerously Delicious Pies to grab a pie to go.
Oct 27 – Working on cleaning up my e-mail that had over 500 e-mails that I needed to deal with. Most of them were read and then filed away, and others need a bit more work. I didn’t get through them all but dealt with 150, which is a good start.
Oct 28 – Sitting in a conference room at Blackboard listening to Megan Zlock talk about accessibility in her talk “Building A More Beautiful and Accessible Web”. Wish more of the people that signed up and let a little rain discourage them from not showing up to hear this great talk. We had a nice discussion afterward about other accessibility issues not covered in the talk. Spent most of the day reviewing PDFs in an iPhone application that were too small to read, along with helping with some CSS issues and reviewing a few documents.
Oct 29 – ENTERED 11/16/2015 – This what you get to write when you didn’t write things down when they happen or, at least, a few notes to jog your memory later in the night or the next day. Not sure what I did that night, but most likely it was watching TV or reading, but I will never know because I didn’t write it done.
Oct 30 – ENTERED 11/02/2015 – Getting settled in at Ron’s house for a bit of music. Only stayed there for about an hour because I was tired and not many people were there when I left, and that was after taking an hour nap after work before heading over. Found out on Saturday a bunch of people I know showed up a short time after I left.
Oct 31 – ENTERED 11/02/2015 – Talking to neighbors that have been out of the country for the last three years while their kids hand out candy for Halloween. It was nice to get some time to talk to them a bit and see what they had been up too. Spent time earlier talking with the upstairs neighbors about their trip to Italy in the next few weeks. They are headed to Tuscany while in Italy to wander the country sides and see what they can and eat and drink local wine.
Conclusion
In the future, I plan to post this information once a month at the beginning of the following month once I’m caught up.
Hopefully, this has been helpful to you and gets you to keep track of what you do a particular time of the day, along with a short daily diary.
If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:15 PM some evening, please leave a comment. Or a suggestion of something that is not part of my ordinary life you think I should do.
P.S. Need to go back through these 8:15 PM posts and add any links or photos that are relevant to make them more appealing.