When I moved to San Francisco I kept several different databases of potential job opportunities, apartments and fun stuff to do and join in the bay area. Over the last few months, I've been experimenting quite a bit with data collection and information tracking and decided to look back on some previous models I've created using Filemaker.

 I got super excited revisiting my own little system of job hunting! I wanted to share one file that tracked my communication with Odopod, an interactive studio where I now work. I tracked everything from interviews and contacts, to how much i wanted to work for them (the suns)... I love it! I intend on evolving this model for other tracking/data projects both personally and professionally.

 Sweet!

On this rainy Saturday I am feeling inspired by Matmos. With an enormous amount of positive energy and creative vision, I decided to spend my day mining for pieces of me in all the stuff that i've kept stored.

I started out with my hard drive to uncover my anal tracking practices for nutritional value (previous post). I moved on to my closet that was filled with lots and lots of stuff. Here I uncovered so many writings and thoughts and scribbles from eras in my life that weren't so great. 

I wanted to share one such journal entry from the multitude of journals I own and entries I've written that is such a far cry from who I am today. Everyone should look back once in a while to see how far they've come.

I was on a train when I wrote this. It's more like a collection of micro thoughts, twitter style. Too bad I didn't come up with Twitter. And yes, this was all the same entry...

---

I am not sure what happened to me. I woke up one day all fucked up. But I realize it's probably all just self-proclaimed bullshit. Why pay a therapist when I have a journal. This way, I get to keep a log of drabbling misfortunes that don't make any fucking sense.

What's the day?
The 19th of Hell.  
The Misfortune of August.
The 19th Moment I've thought about making a change but doing nothing about it (nice grammar).

There's the rub. All talk and no action.

I wonder what will happen Monday when I wake up again not having woken up at all. Wouldn't be the first time.

An Ode to Archetecture 
Oh you, structured and defined.
I could never spell you right.
Some people have a lisp while you stand tall sans 'x'
Where I'd anticipate 'e' i think 'i'
What the Fuck!
Phonetics, man.

It's still the 19th of nowhere. 
The apotheopesis of August... I just made up a word.
The omegatiosis of life! Making up words is fun.

Funny Story: I don't have enough original thoughts in my mind to fill these pages.

In case you were wondering, I'm still on a train, It's still the solitude of August, the 19th of indecision. In fact, it's only about 22... no 5 minutes from the first time I wrote that. Time is fun.

So many fucking questions and the world is full of answers. 

An Ode to Existence
Oh you, so solid and true.
So full of meaning and 'e's.

An Ode to Spelling
Oh you. So awkward and complicated.
So evil and patronizing.
I suppose ode doesn't do you justice. 
My brain needs spell check.
Especially when it comes to archetecture. 

---

And that's the end of it! CRAZY, right???!

Please note: I have since become a much better speller.

I spent the morning taking a look at all the stuff that has been hiding on my hard drive. I often create documents, find they aren't doing what I need, then I make another document that I am dissatisfied with, and on and on until I have forgotten all about all the revisions and abandon the effort entirely. Awesome right?

During this hard drive mining, I uncovered countless excel spreadsheets and revisions used to track my own health and fitness regimen. By studying these documents and all the data I had been collecting, I learned that when I was tracking, I had my shit together. When I was not (now), I do not. Thus, I am starting (again) to track my nutrition and fitness undertakings.

I also learned that I really have to love the document itself in order to stick with it, which is why I have created so many different versions. It has to be easy to use, super visually appealing, and I want to be able to craft it carefully. It helps to think of it as something that could be published. It forces me to approach it from a project level, like a website.

Excel worked to a certain extent, but I never really felt good about the documents. Sure, they're colorful and I tried quite a few different form factors, but at the end of the day, I didn't like tracking via excel.

Then I introduced FileMaker into the mix. (FileMaker, by the way, is incredible for tracking all kinds of data. Someday I'll share the 20 different databases I have created). FileMaker is the CLEAR winner in nutrition database tracking. I made what I think feels like a mini little website prototype, hyper customized for me. Sure, I've changed the layout a few times as I had done in excel, but something clicked in FileMaker. When I actually track, I do love the document and see the results.

Hopefully adding the public element of posting this stuff will kick my ass a little more.

 

i love how much fun it is to come up with ideas. especially since i think every idea i come up with is going to be awesome... but of course, we all have -lots- of ideas and no money or time to do them. That's ok though, here are some of my domain purchases over the years. 

by the way - isn't it funny how when you have an idea and want to register your domain, you have to do so with such urgency as though someone were buying at the very same moment as you. i love that little phenomenon...

please note: most of these just link back to my personal site. i will get into more details about some of them later.

http://www.allisonqmccarthy.com 

http://www.allisonquinnmccarthy.com

http://www.firstheardlast.com 

http://www.everyonehasawebsite.com 

http://www.thecontributors.org

http://www.randomexperiments.com

http://www.yourparentsareintown.com 

http://www.myparentsareintown.com 

http://www.mayisuggest.org > just picked this one up today 

that is all.

I have a huge problem with being idle. Hanging out in my apartment doing nothing might be the worst thing I can possibly think about...ever. But, if you magically place nothingness into context - say at a beach, or at my friends place, or at the park - doing nothing miraculously transforms into something and almost instantly a feeling of productivity is reached. I just wanted to say that I love that. 

What misfortune I have in the ubiquitous land of social networks. We all remember my nauseating flickr experience in which all 2,600+ of my photos went missing for 24 hours. That sucked. I thought it was over, but not so! Tonight I bring you the death of my Facebook events in my "Movie Night" group.

For those of you who don't me, I do movie nights every sunday. It's one of the most amazing things ever. For those of you who also don't know me, I love to organize. So, what better way to manage such a wonderful weekly event then on Facebook. So, for 17 movie nights in a row, I have been taking photos and posting to Flickr, and announcing the movie in an event on Facebook. I invite people they have fun... etc etc.

17 events have gone up without fail. i love seeing the events from the past. it's fun. i love seeing the future event. it's also fun. but somehow, magically, all my movie night events are gone. Argggh!

WTF Social Networks. Stop failing me, especially since i actually like you. I need to find a place to complain publicly. Just you wait... just you wait.

*UPDATE* This seems to be fixed. yay!

 

My friend from college is an amazing artist and I am thrilled to share this behind the scenes look at his process and everything that goes into his creativity.

In a world dominated by netflix, how can you charge me a $25 late fee?