365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.
(Second Update - 1310.24. First Update - 1306.05 Originally Posted - 1304.25.)

Monday, September 16, 2013

T-shirt #179 - Mystery White Shirt and Lunchbox Museum

T-shirt #179 - Mystery White Shirt, To-Do Lists,  and Lunchbox Museum

Hello and happy Monday.

Today, I am going back to relatively short entries in an attempt to work ahead. I am also presenting some material I have found and saved just for your edification and amusement.

First subject is work and to-dolists. I did write about to-do lists and my work process (with pictures of my office) a little in T-shirt #111: Atom Ant.

Right now, I am experimenting with different ways of working on both my jobs and my blog. I am not by nature a true multi-tasker. Because of my jobs, (yes, plural jobs), I have to multi-task. But I much prefer to work project to project, one thing at time, bear down, put all my focus on finishing, before I move on to the next thing. But life and work and opportunity do not always allow me to be so project fixated.

To best accomplish my goals each week, I have developed the matrix grid to-do list as seen in the photo below. The first photo is an older matrix, so, I am also posting this week's matrix right below it. See how the matrix has evolved? This may be only interesting to me, but I am fascinated by process and how people do their work. I am always trying to learn from others to refine my own process. My matrix has evolved tremendously over 65 iterations since last summer.

Many concepts are the same. There are tasks that I must do every day, and others I must do every week. Then there are long term goals that may stay on the matrix for weeks. I have refined my process to eliminate other to-do lists, trying to use the matrix for everything I have to do, plan to do, or wish to do in a week. I adopted this method from a friend of mine who mentioned making daily to-do lists. When I found that I was wasting time writing the same things over and over, and when I put off the making of the list for days because I was not done with all the items on the list from three days ago, I refined my method. Saving the files to my computer and editing them each week based on what I have to do was the most logical method.

This is another short week for posts in which I have to get ahead on my work. As such, I am trimming back other things that may eat my time as my best friend and his son will be here on Friday to check out Kalamazoo College, and I want to take off the entire day.

Matrix 10 from June 12 2012

Matrix 75 from Sept. 16 2013
TODAY'S SHIRT: the MYSTERY WHITE SHIRT

I have no idea where this shirt came from.

I am a little embarrassed that I cannot identify the source of this T-shirt as I believe it was handmade by the person who gave it to me as a gift.

I may put some more thought into this as time passes, and if I hit on an answer, I will update here and possibly reference this in a future entry.

But for now, the shirt is a mystery. Where did it come from? Who made it for me? I do not remember.

And so, this seems like a great opportunity to write about memory.

As I have shared before (in T-shirt #77 and T-shirt #171), I am big fan of Ray Kurzweil. I receive Ray's daily email newsletter. The other day he had two things on memory: current researching in creating memories and other current research in removing memories. Check these links to the stories on Ray's site.

SELECTIVELY ERASING UNWANTED MEMORIES

CREATING NEW MEMORIES BY DIRECTLY CHANGING THE BRAIN

Neither research would help me recover the lost memory of the origin of this shirt (perhaps hypnosis?), but these are interesting articles that I wanted an excuse to share.

Also, in sharing mode, the very cool (after all it comes from the Cool Hunting site via the Daily Mail in the UK) Lunchbox Museum. I actually own several of the lunch boxes pictured here. Check the site and the very short accompanying video. I think CBS Sunday Morning also visited the Lunchbox Museum.

What's up with that tree in the middle of the showroom?

From WWI to the Beatles and Bee Gees: The world's largest LUNCHBOX museum takes visitors on a trip down memory lane with   2,000 vintage models



- chris tower - 1309.16 - 11:15

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