Spent three days in Austin and Houston this weekend; had a great time. In transit at Newark, I loosed a large mental poop when I realized, on line at airport security, that I’d left a knife in my bag. Thankfully it wasn’t noticed or confiscated, though the thought of it got me very angry (another big mental poop) at the ineffective, insipid and wasteful time-wasters* our government has instituted in the name of security, e.g., checking IDs and boarding passes, which doesn’t make us safer. (Hey Dad: further to our conversation about a national ID system, read this essay: A National ID Card Wouldn’t Make Us Safer.)

My parents took Pete and me to an Astros game: one of the liveliest I’ve ever seen, very dramatic. 25-year old Dan, just like 6-year old Dan, was most enthralled not by the sport, but by its accompaniments: the highlight of the game for me was the confetti at the end. We were seated in the upper deck so we could watch closely as four guys shoved handfuls of confetti into blowers, sending white, red and black snips spinning and whirling in front of us. I pointed out to my dad that we were just a row beyond the furthest outlying reaches where the confetti fell to the floor (meaning a few pieces fell onto the row in front of us and none fell at our feet). Eight great funnels of paper, swirling slowly to the field on the blasts of air from the AC vents. I found myself thinking: could I replicate that in a video program? Unlike 6-year old Dan — and some of the kids present — I didn’t scoop up handfuls of confetti and stuff them in my obliging mother’s purse.

My gel

I had no idea how much I missed Beth until I was back in New York giving her a hug. It’s amazing how powerfully attached one gets to the smell, the feel, the presence of another person. She’s a lot of fun to hang out with — there’s no other person I’d rather go see Brian Eno with tonight. Will I invite him to Share? Should I ask him to sign my Post-it-swollen copy of A Year with Swollen Appendices? These are the degree-of-rhetoricality-unknown questions with which I bug my girlfriend when she’s trying to do her homework.

* yes, I said ‘waste’ twice — it’s that wasteful.

Getting Things Done

I bought the paperback of Getting Things Done by David Allen today. In short (in jargon): I wanna close my open loops. Read this 43 Folders post to learn more about GTD.