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A Quiet Moment to Reflect, Regroup, and Rethink

Dorian — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:33:48 +0000

The madness of the past few weeks, has taught me the importance of quiet time. Time that I can truly reflect quietly and calmly work on the next steps I need to take. Most of the week I have rushed, ran and tired to compact as much I could into a single day. But you can only do this for so long before you have to slow down. While life fills up with small, urgent tasks, those tasks are rarely that important. Not to say I can forget about the small tasks and go on living comfortably. Those small tasks after all act as the components of the large important projects in life. Yet three ideas that have helped me recently are: 1) to keep the important projects in the front of my mind; 2) remember the scale of importance between the day-to-day tasks and the goals in life; 3) maintain balance in one’s life.

Anyways, enough philosophizing for one post…

While I was riding on the train back today, I tried to catch up on some e-mails. And I found out about the new version of WordPress was available for my sites. Thanks GoDaddy for being an awesome web host and sending out e-mails notifications of those kind. Anyways after some twiddling with the new WordPress update, I decided to do some house-cleaning of my website. One of the slight modifications I made is the new title of the blog. Yes, I am back to using “The Art of Being Dorian”. This has been the best title so far, and while thought about using the geeky “Transmissions from High-Earth Orbit” or obscure “Mlaren Racer” or the nice but misleading “The Zen of Dorian”. (Misleading because even though I like Zen as a design methodology or as a general idea of simplicity, I am not a Buddhist nor do I follow Buddhist philosophy, culture, etc.) Plus, I good friend of mine in Ireland loved this name back in the day. And so it is back.

Also note that I dropped the “Hacker, Gamer, Writer” moniker. Hacker, yes if it means coder and not cracker as it means in conventional terms. And while I still enjoy playing the occasional game, I rarely do so. So by definition I fall out of the “gamer” crowd. Just like I’m not much of a boarder since I rarely have the chance to go snowboard, surfing or windsurfing.

So this blog I will dedicate to writing articles about coding, writing and living well. I think it will be most benefit for everyone. And I will enjoy sharing my knowledge in these fields, more so than the random ranting that I’ve done in the past. I hope you enjoy the new blog!

Out with the Old

Dorian — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:13:57 +0000

I’m preparing for what I hope will be a new phase in my life. And one of the things I need for this change is a revised online presence. I’ve experimented with various ideas and concepts. And I want to try and implement them in my life.

One of the first to feel the changes, will be my blogging. I deleted my old Blogspot blog. All the content exists on this website anyways. Also I’m planning to make this blog more into a portfolio, than just a blog straight up. The blog obviously will be accessible, just not on the front page. Also I’m thinking of doing some ExtJS magic and build a new AJAXy theme. So if the site breaks, you know what I’ve been up to.

On another note, I’m getting back to developing justCheckers into reality. And on the side playing around with the newly revived Pyzzle game engine.

Excuse the Dust

Dorian — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:59:53 +0000

I apologize again for the silence earlier this week. I meant to post a few posts earlier on, but I did not get around to it.

Also you may have noticed that I’m updating this blog. In fact in general I am updating and cleaning up my “Web” presence in a big way. Hence I’m working on refreshing the look and feel of this blog. I’m plan on modifying the current theme into something I built myself. And I’ll building out my portfolio, something I should of done ages ago. Hence I’ll try to keep updating this blog frequently, but I might be a bit too busy for daily updates. Also the e-mail subscriptions ARE going way, please switch to using RSS feeds.

Tagged, Balanced and Categorized

Dorian — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:41:37 +0000

I think I just hit a new milestone in my organizational efforts. I just finished tagging and categorizing the last of my blog posts. A long effort but finally done. I almost want to take a moment to step back and admire my handiwork. But unfortunately, today I’ll be heading off to party hosted by the Huddarts. So I don’t have time to stop and celebrate, at least not until tonight.

In addition I finished balancing my accounts and ledgers this morning. This could not of been possible, if I had not yesterday filed away most of my papers. The expanding file idea seems like a stroke of genius now. I can easily find everything, takes up less space and I feel organized. I managed to compress space and create time. And this all thanks to a bit of time, money and effort. My next goal will involve clearing out the junk and clutter I’ve collected over the years. With some effort, time and perhaps a bit of money I’ll finally be able to live neatly in the small room that I own.

Still this week my schedule suffered from my efforts. I have walked around sleep deprived. I put off tasks that need to finish. But at least I can safely say my long term goals and projects seem closer to realization.

OK, moment of reflection over. I need to plan for tonight. And I need to acquire breakfast. Also I need to get to those defered tasks. Maybe I can find time to move my projects forward too.

Brief Hiatus

Dorian — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:36:52 +0000

I’ll be taking a brief hiatus again from daily updates to this blog. I need to concentrate more of my time on writing my novel.

Upgraded to Yellow Stripe

Dorian — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:25:34 +0000

A quick little update, cause I want to concentrate on my personal work today before the workday begins. Finally caught up on my immediate projects, and I can concentrate a bit more on my personal and professional development. Also I’ll crank out a good deal of writing and code in the next few days hopefully. Hence the brievity of my upcoming blogs. I need to reserve more time toward things other than blogging.

Speaking of personal development, yesterday I traded in my white belt for a yellow stripe in taekwondo. Keep in mind though, that in the past I’ve trained up to yellow belt. And I’m still some way before I can don on a black belt. But I’ll keep at as long as I don’t seriously injure myself.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Dorian — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:32:59 +0000

I’ve blogging for a while now. This particular site and setup doesn’t suggest that I’ve been blogging since 2005. Of course nowadays, I blog more often than I did then. But the fact remains. I noticed this because when I imported my old Blogger blog to WordPress, I did a messy job of importing my posts. Most of the tags and categories were messed up. So every so often I go into my mass of uncategorized posts, tagging, spellchecking and updating as I go along.

Looking back, I blogged about my life in the context of a university student. My struggles and triumphs as I dealt with university, computing, stress, writing, love and growing up. Some things changed since those times, some remained the same. I still enjoy blogging for all the same reasons as before. Back then I would post when inspired. Today I have to inspire and compell myself to keep posting daily entries, that are interesting, compelling, clear and worth reading. Still it has been a worthwhile journey, one that I plan to continue well into the foreseeable future.

Looking forward, I am trying to bring my blogging into the next level. Aestetically, I have set up the theme for the site in a manner that I like. To top of the site, I created and added a favicon yesterday. Also I continue with my re-organization of old posts. I have some 110 post to clean up. So about 65% of the posts are done. Just a few more to go.

Going on Hiatus

Dorian — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:20:34 +0000

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have to hang up my blogging hat for a bit. I have to do some travelling and handle the fallout from a tragic event. So for the time being, until things settle down … Continue reading →

Sleepless Update Part 2

Dorian — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:27:30 +0000

Not sleeping slows your reactions considerably. But still I am ready for tomorrow’s work. Needless to say I will need large amounts of coffee to get through the day. Then again this isn’t something I haven’t done in the past. All that remains is a considerable amount of writing I need to finish before I leave for work. Feels like university and crunch time before an assignment again. Still it is ok, since I don’t have to go lectures afterward. Still my sense of logic and rational arguments… might be slightly unbalanced this day. But since no one REALLY wants to know my opinion (unless it is a rehash and agreement of their own), I’ll probably not be called upon making massively decisive decisions.

And I’m not sure this will work, but I’ll give it a shot. Nothing gained from not trying, right?

Dear S. I think you still read my blog often. I’m not sure what to think of your recent disappearence. I have seen no sign of you for a week. Did I do or say or write something to offend you? I am confused. And I miss you a lot. Could you give me a sign or response, telling me if I should contact you? Thanks.

In the meantime I’ll go back to writing while I wait. I’m waiting for something to happen, not sure what. It will all be clear then.

Things That Work, Things That Don’t

Dorian — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:52:24 +0000

As usual I like to experiment on various hacks to improve myself and enrich my life. Actually recently I have been actively trying to distract my mind from other issues. Along the way I like to record what worked and what didn’t.

Blogging on a touchscreen cellphone works as a compromise of convenience. Writing on a physical keyboard works better. I don’t end up pressing wrong letters and rewriting words. But carrying an IT strains my pocket more. And carrying a phone is far more useful. Besides the IT is still in an unusable state at the moment. Hmm… Another call looks like in order.

Microblogging works less well. It acts more like a distraction, than a useful form of communication such as an instant messenger or social network site. Besides just like Marika I prefer to blog in the long format.
Ok… I’m drawing a blank on what to write next. Oh right, keeping todos on my site works better than on the builtin PIM on the 5800. TaskFreak works really well. All I need is a syncing client for the todo list on my cell. Maybe I should write one as my first Qt project. Hmm…

Additionally, I am striving to incorporate regular exercise into my life. It helps to clear my mind and to keep me fit. In the winter, I used to play indoor volleyball. Nowadays I’ve switched over to taekwondo and soon, soccer. Exercise really does work, so long as it is packaged in the fun form of a sport.