Here is my June 2016, installment of what I had done at 8:16 PM each night during the month. I also found it helpful writing down what happened during the day as a small journal/diary of what was good, bad, or interesting.
Little Background
I started keeping track of what I was doing at 20:16 (8:16 PM) every day for the last month 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) everyday.
June 2016 Events
Jun 1 – driving over to Five Guys to grab a cheeseburger and some fries for dinner. I spent a lot of my day responding to emails.
Jun 2 – Doing a bit of reading in my living room of Aaron Drapiln’s new book “Pretty Much Everything”. One thing to make it easier to read the more text-dense pages would be to use a larger font and have better color contrast too.
Jun 3 – Walking around the Principle Gallery in Old Town Alexandria, looking at G C Meyer’s newest art, along with talking with him ad his wife about what they were up to the last six months or so since I saw them last. It was interesting seeing some of his new work were he was adding in swirly winds or rays of sunlight.
Jun 4 – Reading over the 30 x 500 ask me anything questions and answers to cuddle lounge. Met up with a few friends at St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub. Spent most of my day getting through emails and responding setting up reminder e-mails for Accessibility DC along with taking a two and a half hour nap.
Jun 5 – Sitting at Boccato Lounge drinking tea while finishing up e-mail and Accessibility DC reminders. Was in Cabin John at a buddies house to get ready for his annual pig roast the following Saturday for 500 or 600 people. We mostly cleaned up the yard of sticks, leaves, poison ivy, etc. along with putting up the portable carport where the food goes and some lawn furniture from the neighbors across the street. Once done we sat and had some wine along with a couple of frozen pizzas. When I got home, I read a bit on my bed and then “napped” for four hours. Guess I was a bit tired after working and sleeping the night before for only five hours.
Jun 6 – In Cabin John for pig roast prep with pulled pork over rice with roast hot pepper sauce.
Jun 7 – In Cabin John for pig roast prep drinking wine and chatting with friends.
Jun 8 – walking back into the house after spending over an hour of mowing the lawn on a cool evening with not much humidity. One of the nicest evenings in the last month. Started functional testing of the new elastic search project.
Jun 9 – talking with friends in Cabin John that I haven’t seen in months or since last year’s pig roast. Started doing some accessibility testing of a new elastic search project after finishing up most of the functional testing.
Jun 10 – watching the first mopping of the base on the pigs after a day of relaxing and drinking wine with friends before the storm we call pig roast the next day.
Jun 11 – walking around buddies yard in Cabin John doing clean up before heading home since I was there starting around 9:30 AM. Took two friends and a friend of theirs back to their summer rental (internship) toss be them waiting for along with for an Uber. Hot day and didn’t eat all that much because of the heat.
Jun 12 – watching mindless TV to recover from a week of after-work work for the pig roast and the party and clean up. Was in Cabin John by 8:00 AM to start the clean up process which took an hour and fifteen or so minutes which included taking the tarp off the lighting rig over the smokers.
Jun 13 – walking around Wegmans produce section gathering up some red seedless grapes, a few bananas, salad greens, etc. after having dinner from the hot bar. Worked on testing the appeals search accessibility and usability issues.
Jun 14 – in Cabin John talking about pig roast and any other thing that came to our minds while tasting beers.
Jun 15 – sitting in a conference room at Blackboard listening to Dylan Barrel’s talk about agile accessibility as part of a team’s build process.
Jun 16 – walking from Toki Underground to Maketto to kill time and say hello to the staff with a friend who is moving out of town next week.
Jun 17 – eating Pho at Pho Viet after going to JC Penney to pick up some new casual work pants, polo shirts, a pair of shorts, and a few t-shirts because of the 40% – 50%off for the Father’s Day sales.
Jun 18 – Met friends at St. Elmo’s for coffee and then headed to Swing Coffee Roasters to work on dealing with old e-mails. Went to Pho 75 for dinner after a few hour nap. Once done went to Bocatto Lounge for tea while reading and taking notes from newsletter e-mails.
Jun 19 – I was watching TV. Mostly Viceland for most of the afternoon after driving around DC. Had tried to go to DuPont Circle Farmers Market but couldn’t find parking so went one near Bear Cafe in NE. Stopped for late breakfast at American City Cafe if a cheese omelette, hash browns, rye toast, and a side of sausage.
Jun 20 – drawing negative space at the Torpedo Factory in my first basic drawing class. Worked on figuring out why Magic 13 with IE 11 wasn’t allowing the user to click any links on the new OFCCP home page. The issue ended up being a pop-up that was blocking non-secure content, but once the content was allowed the links worked.
Jun 21 – It’s Tuesday, so I’m in Cabin John with friends having some wine, along with a spicy pork ragu with penne pasta. Spent the time all over the place talking about politics and how messed up we will be depending on who wins the election in the fall. Think either primary candidate will not be the best for the country, but one could be worse than the other, and it all depends on what side of the fence you are on. We all agreed that if you don’t vote you’re not helping the problem.
Jun 22 – Reading Twitter while waiting to be seated at Caphe Banh Mi. Ended up sitting next to a couple that introduces themselves. They had never been there so I made a few food suggestions and then we started talking about other food places and he suggested a few places in and near San Diego that I added to my list of places to eat. And I suggested to them Las Cuatro Milpas for tacos and tamales with red beans and rice, along with Tajima Ramen Bar Hillcrest for Ramen. Plus, I mentioned how when I go with three or more people we got all four types so we can share and try each one, which is the best way to get to try all the kinds and pick a favorite. The reason I was there for dinner was that I had gone to the Torpedo Factory to pick up my Basic Drawing class supplies to have for Monday’s class.
Jun 23 – Sitting in Wegman’s lounge after grabbing dinner reading Twitter before going grocery shopping. Did more work on reviewing other agencies accessibility issues.
Jun 24 – driving from Wegmans towards Dairy Godmother after grabbing dinner and cashing in my change, so I had cash to walk around with while I waited for my new debit/credit card to show up Saturday. Never stopped at Dairy Godmother because I was too full from dinner earlier. Spent most of my day fighting fires with accessibility issues for another agency within DOL.
Jun 25 – Driving over to Boccato Lounge to grab some gelato and read a bit, which is mostly my open tabs in my browser of articles and blog posts I opened either from Twitter or other articles or posts I was reading. Went to bed at midnight last night and woke up before 7 AM and stayed up reading on the internet until about 8:15 AM. Then fell back to sleep until 10:10 AM. Before leaving for St. Elmo’s to meet friends I checked and my new debit/credit card had not arrived yet. After meeting with my friends, I stopped back home, and the card was there. I then activated it right away and proceeded to go to 7 Eleven’s ATM to get some cash. Next went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roaster for a hot chocolate and to answer e-mails and read articles and blog posts. Went to Pho 75 for lunch before heading home to nap for close to three hours.
Jun 26 – deleting photos and visors from my iPhone so iCloud will back up my phone. For some reason, iTunes thinks all the photos and videos are still there. Went to Hoffman 22 to Yo-yo Ma’s new movie “Music for Strangers” which is a documentary about the Silk Road Project. Was interesting seeing how passionate the musicians from countries around the globe and how some can’t go home and perform? Then went to M. E. Swing Coffee Roaster and St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub to respond to e-mails, along with taking notes from articles. Once done there went to Pho 75 to get a late lunch of a small bowl of Pho with fatty brisket and raw round eye along with extra noodles and extra fatty brisket. Then headed to Boccato Lounge for tea and more article notes.
Jun 27 – basic drawing class that wasn’t going so well. Hoping it was a bad day and not things to come. Was having trouble getting things to scale. Spent my morning finishing up making the weekly ETA HTML page accessible.
Jun 28 – in Cabin John celebrating the beers kids one year anniversary of hanging out with the group while eating homemade beef beer stew. Started making the RFD Word document accessible.
Jun 29 – cleaning out the fridge of old moldy food since it’s garbage night. Didn’t get as much work done as I planned because a few odd things that came up during the day.
Jun 30 – sitting in the audience at Agency Chief at Refresh DC to listen to Kit talk about UI animation. It was great to see a few friends I hadn’t seen in years. One has been busy while the other moved out of the country for a year and a half then was home when the family was ill, and finally, she and her husband left the country to travel to Asia for over six months.
Conclusion
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 entry to see what you have done or can accomplish over the course of a year.
If you want to meet up to do something exciting at 8:16 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.