* Posting late – but still for Day 6 (Friday 9/10/10).

Just when I started to think I’m far too bored with something to keep doing it for life, along comes a new project that reminds me about the fun part (if I can use the word “fun” in its loosest sense).

I took a work call this morning at 2:30am, did half an hour of work, and then just could not get back to sleep.  It put a pall over my entire day.  Note to self:  stop forwarding office phone to cell phone.

Also, our HelpDesk SUCKS.  Individuals that work for it are mostly good, but the organization as a whole couldn’t get an IT infrastructure right if their lives depended on it.

I’m currently <50 pages into three different books, which is an unusual situation for me, but I’m kind of enjoying switching between them; the one that’s most intriguing (and the only one that’s non-fiction) is The Black Swan:  The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  So far as I can tell, the basic premise is:  nobody really knows anything.

A missed train, a missed opportunity at work, and missing my family; I’m more & more ready for the final stage of our move back to New Jersey.  However, the pains of today are acute, whereas the pain of that transition is longer-lasting, more challenging – but more rewarding as a result.  Not unlike a stick of Big Red.

The new One-Sentence Journal (OSJ) continues…

Today’s entry:  Transition period + long-distance relationship + being new parents + putting together a new home + adjusting to one income = not easy; but my theory is that if you add a little patience & optimistic confidence, it equals a great life.  (It’s also important that you have a great wife – which is an obvious qualification to me, because I have one.)

One-sentence journal begins today.

(No, that’s not today’s entry.  Neither is this parenthetical.)

And before today’s entry, a little exposition.  This idea is inspired by Gretchen Rubin’s book  The Happiness Project, which I highly recommend.  Even if you’re one of the truly rare, truly happy people, I think you’d find value in all the work & research she did into the subject.  Further, while it’s called a “one-sentence” journal, I’m not holding myself hard & fast to that description.  But the idea is that because daily journaling (or blogging) can be an overwhelming commitment because it feels like you have to write a hearty, beefy entry in order to make it count – a totally arbitrary definition or construct that is easily discarded once you acknowledge its nature as such.  So why not label your journal as a one-sentence journal?  Also an arbitrary construct, but one that’s muuuuuuch easier on our already over-scheduled calendar.

Final caveat:  labeling it a one-sentence journal does not in fact make a requirement of the stated length; I won’t be holding fast to that, and I might argue that if you did, you’re basically still beholden to an arbitrary construct that’s almost as difficult as the one you just jettisoned.

Today’s entry:  Had an extremely arduous 14-mile run across the GGB & around the Presidio, and didn’t even eat the way that a run like that usually entails; kind of like reading 40 books over the summer for Book It! just to get coupons for eight free personal pan pizzas for free from Pizza Hut, and then remembering that you don’t really like Pizza Hut.