I wanted to give a heads-up that the site will be undergoing some changes here in a few weeks/months, but I realize that my intention was slightly less for your benefit than for mine – I have hopes that by making promises to you that things will change, I will encourage myself to actually follow through with them. This is actually fallible logic, and is based on the idea that guilt will drive action. For people like myself, for whom procrastination is a problem, the opposite is actually true – guilt drives inaction, and further procrastination.

Fortunately for me, part of my class project for Art 308 in the fall will be to design a web presence and digital portfolio, and my hope is to combine it with this site. I have also a second inspiration – my new MacBook is on its way. I needed a laptop for school and home, as my personal use of my company laptop not only violated policy, but was slowing down my computer considerably. I took advantage of several offers Apple has for students right now, including a free-after-rebate iPod Touch and some extreme discounts on the Adobe Creative Suite software. I’ve now got Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Acrobat 9 Pro, and some other tools for web publishing. I’m excited, but somewhat nervous – I’ve learned a lot about Photoshop and Illustrator from my classes, but I’m still far from an expert on it. It also must be noted that I haven’t used Dreamweaver in six years, and I’m sure much has changed since then.

I expect to get some mixed opinions on my purchase of a Mac – and I did put consideration into buying a PC. In fact, had I not gotten such a good deal as a student, I may have made a different decision. I’m happy, though, with the choice I made. I feel like it will definitely help me back into the area of website design and development, which is something I accidentally abandoned a long time ago, even though it’s one of my favorite things to do. After I graduate, I expect to have some more time to put toward such endeavors, whether I make any money on it or not.

Anyway, one of the changes you may see in the very near future is a change in my web address. You will still be able to find me at amandy.net, but I will be forwarding this URL to my new web address, amandadean.net. This domain has been registered for quite some time, but I decided now to switch over. I have several reasons for this, ranging from the trivial (I am continually confused with the owner of “Amanady” products and the amandy.com domain, receiving many of his emails and wholesale offers) to the more serious (hoping to convey a more professional image through my website).

As promised, I have some photos from the Tom Waits show. He played in Atlanta at the Fox Theater, and this is the second time I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to see him live. As you can tell from the photos, I did not have quite the incredible seat that I had at the first show I saw, but I was definitely happy, considering how lucky I was to get tickets (again). Brian and I were on about the 20th row of the ground floor of the theater. I actually did not intend to take photos at this show as cameras were restricted, and I did not expect it would be easy to snap pictures. It just happens, though, that I forgot to take my camera out of my purse when we parked at the hotel, and nobody noticed it in the pocket at bag check, so it came in with me. By the next-to-last song in the encore, I was feeling gutsy and snapped three photos. Following are the two best, although they are still blurry, as is typical of no-flash concert shots. There are better shots of the same show on the Paste website here.

Of course, it goes without saying that the concert was amazing. It was more theatrical than the last, with Tom pulling some neat stage lighting and prop tricks (including wearing a magical mirrored “disco” hat and casting beams of light across his audience), and doing some neat variations on his standard songs. The band was great too, and he brought his youngest son out to play bongos on one song (his oldest, Casey, was his drummer, as on the previous tour). It was a much longer set as well, at 2 1/2 hours including the encore. If I remember correctly, the previous show was just longer than 1 1/2 hours. I don’t know if all his shows on this tour were long, or if we got a special treat because it was the last leg of the tour. He played a lot of my favorites, and a couple of songs I hadn’t heard before – with Tom’s vast library it’s not too difficult to miss a few.

On a side note, I’m looking to replace Flickr with a more robust internet photo sharing tool. I don’t like the limits on Flickr, or how cumbersome it is to organize them. I’m considering Picasa Web as well as some other options. If anyone has suggestions or advice, please let me know.

About every few months I get on an organization kick. It manifests itself in many ways, usually prompting me to invest in new organizational tools, folders and supplies to help me organize my time, space, or ideas. I have spent far too much time browsing through sites like Lifehacker and Franklin Covey, imagining how such tools and techniques could aid me in my quest to become ultimately organized and productive. In reality, I rarely actually buy the products I find, or even try the various ideas I come across (as I mentioned in a previous post, the ever-popular GTD philosophy had such an overwhelming web-fan-base that I tired of its cumbersome teachings before I even had a chance to try it). Usually when I do buy these products, they are used until the novelty wears off, and then they gather dust.

I find that I get a mental high from just thinking about being the uber-organized person that I definitely am not. When it comes to actually having the discipline to carry through on most of the plans I imagine for myself, I usually find that I just don’t have the time to invest in stringent orgnanization. Granted, I’ve come a long way, I think. Several years ago, I started keeping a paper-planner with a calendar and notebook and such inside. For a while, it too was merely a novelty, and something I liked to think that I could maintain. I rarely did, and would go through spurts where I would keep it diligently, and then it would taper off and there would be a couple of months when I didn’t even glance at it. Although it was useful for some things, I didn’t find it difficult to maintain things like school assignments and social obligations in my memory.

More recently though, I’ve found it to be a staple, and hardly a day has passed over the last year that I haven’t needed it for something (I believe it became necessity around the time of wedding/new job/senior project). Of course, by now the novelty of the planner has completely gone away, and it has dwindled to become a sheer utilitarian (very worn) leather book. I no longer take the time to write my appointments neatly in the pages, and business cards are shoved haphazardly into their pockets. It serves its purpose, but it certainly doesn’t give me that “pinnacle of efficiency and organization” that I like to imagine. Of course, if I bought one of these, I would be a better, more organized person. I mean, if I spend $400 on a planner, surely I’ll never procrastinate again! Of course, this is a lie, but unfortunately every few months, it is a lie that I am tempted to believe. Hopefully not enough to spend $400.00 on a planner that was likely the result of many very tortured (”farmed”?) lizards, but maybe enough to buy a designer ink pen or something.

Having had a four-day weekend, I spent Thursday and Friday doing something truly productive – a slightly delayed Spring Cleaning. I went through (almost) every closet and every room, gathering anything that I didn’t use, didn’t like, or didn’t even remember I had, and throwing it into the Salvation Army boxes and bags. It was an extremely refreshing thing to do, and also very humbling to realize how many posessions I own and take for granted. I pray that I will remember this next time I am tempted to “organize” my life by buying more things – I got a greater level of satisfaction this past weekend by getting rid of and giving away things rather than by adding to my collection.

Also, along with cleaning house this weekend we went to Atlanta to see Tom Waits perform. I will followup with the particulars of the show, but altogether it was a wonderful weekend.