Part of what I love about these walks (some with headphones/podcasts or music, some without) is that I do get to people-watch. Or house-watch. (It was very cool to see the daffodils I sweated over planting 14 years ago blooming still in the median near my old house, for example.)

And since we’re in the midst of an election primary season, I’m seeing plenty of lawn signs. For congressional reps, city councilmen (or woman, in the case of Mary Nolan) & for Portland’s next mayor, where the top three candidates now are ex-councilman Charlie Hales, Bus Project wunderkind (and current state congressman) Jefferson Smith, and entrepreneur Eileen Brady.

I’ve put in 12 miles on foot in the last 7 days.

I’ve seen plenty of signs for Charlie Hales.

I’ve seen plenty of signs for Jefferson Smith.

I’ve not seen one single, solitary sign for Eileen Brady.

I believe they have signs – I was told I could pick one up a few weeks ago via an Brady for Mayor email (I got myself on the list, and haven’t yet bothered to unsubscribe.)

The same email that trumpeted Eileen’s new ad with a nod to Portlandia: Put a Job on It. (My friend Robert Wagner wasn’t at all impressed, nor was I when I finally got around to watching it. Today.)

But here’s the thing: In order to get a job, you have to first do the leg work. Even the boring, what seems to be mundane work. (I’ve volunteered for enough school campaigns in my day to know that’s the kind of work that ends up paying off in the end, in fact.)

Which means you have to get in front of voters. With lawn signs that hit people as they’re walking, driving, biking or running by. Not so much videos that people have to add to their to-do lists to go watch ‘later’ (as in my case).

I’d say in this day and age, if you want to get a job – well, you have to be persistent. Memorable. And make the impression that you’re going to be consistently there, working hard, for starters.

But the very best way to get a job is to first prove you can do the work. Including (in this case) the work of getting her name out there, her presence visible to the average, ordinary voters as they go about their average, ordinary days.

Brady hasn’t done that for me, sorry.

And they may have had to go through their super-duper reinstall of the underlying Android OS to try and deal with the nagging annoyances I’d started to experience (phone constantly restarting, not maintaining a Bluetooth connection, horrific battery life, or worse – flipping off but not then back on).

And I may have gotten back my old phone – but now with no third-party apps at all on it! BONUS!

But I also got a new battery out of the deal – along with a fresh & sparkly phone that’s gone through the equivalent of what I imagine Dorothy & Co. went through upon arriving at Emerald City.

And yes, I’m still a fan of my Motorola Atrix.

That whole ‘re-install the apps’ process? Not as painful as I might have imagined. For starters, I’m not really *using* many apps – why do I need them when a browser will do? And my data’s already being pulled in from other places – calendars, contacts, phone numbers, photos, email – you name it, it already lives elsewhere as well.

Secondly, I’m not trying to make my phone do everything. While all of my books are eBooks these days and I love, love, love my Kindle app on my tablet (1st generation iPad – yes, I’m OS-double-dipping), for example – I have little to no desire to actually read a book on my phone these days.

(That goes ditto for any app that requires heavy reading – Instapaper-ish apps, GReader apps, etc. – yes, I’m talking about you.)

Finally – both the Android Market (now re-named Google Play – except not yet on this phone) and Amazon’s App center both remembered the apps I’d already downloaded & made it easy easy to get them back with a single click per app. (I only had to manually grab less than five apps I must have obtained elsewhere…)

So less than 2 hours after I started this process (while also working, checking email, eating lunch & doing my usual multitasking thing) – well, I’m done.

The apps that made the cut are as follows (some come as defaults):

• Anything from Google – Gmail, Maps, Contacts, Calendar, Music, etc.
• Evernote (it’s how I capture the handwritten whiteboard full of grocery items on my refrigerator, for starters)
• Two other useful ‘toolbox’ apps: Dropbox and Tiny Flashlight (you may laugh at the latter – but I use it *all the time*)
• Since my phone serves as my primary audio source in the car: Spotify, Pandora, Google Music, PocketCasts & Amazon MP3

What quickly gets replaced/upgraded:

• Default ATT browser? Nope, it’s Dolphin instead.
• Ditto keyboard – SwiftKey all the way

I still may have a bit of tweaking to do (why, oh why does EVERY notification want to include sound as a default? DO. NOT. LIKE.) – but I’m now good to give this 2.0 version another spin or two.

But I should ask you:

• What Android phone apps do you consider essential – and why?
• What apps do you rush to uninstall?
• And what are the top settings to change/modify on your phone?

Or in other words – what am I missing?

Tried (and failed) to connect to my other blog (the one that’s been getting all my love lately) – no dice, sadly.

So I’m sitting here, dreaming of chicken soup. The quick & dirty “homemade” soup that’s simmering at home, in fact.

I’m hungry. I want that soup – but with spinach & bok choy as well.

(The kids get egg noodles instead. See how I deprive them? That’s how I roll…)

But nothing can happen until we see the doctor for the nagging sore throat my daughter has “for two weeks now.”

And the verdict? Virus.

Good thing I’m making soup!

• I’m over on All Things Critical today, writing about why I buy from Amazon so much.
• I updated the long-dormant Redoing Media site yesterday with a promise to do more (and praising Robert Wagner’s efforts resuscitating ATC while I was at it.)
• What has kept me occupied? Well, stage managing my daughter’s budding musical career. Next up? Monterey!

And then there’s the whole ‘day job’ bit, the shower I’m throwing Sunday for @MillerLitePDX & his mama, @sabrinapdx, the wedding I’m attending Saturday evening, my lame attempts to have any kind of dating/social life, etc. etc. etc.

Is it any wonder this place has been barren for months?

Except – it hasn’t, really. Because over on the left and right hand sides, you can see links to recent blog posts. Or twitter streams from either @betsywhim (copiously updated) or @redoingmedia (not so much.) Down below? Yep, that’s the music I’m listening to.

See? It’s one-stop shopping for the Internet stalker I’m aspiring to lure in…

…’cause I’m efficient like that already.

I am very much into the whole ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ mantra – I save my vegetable scraps and make stock for soup each week, buy and sell back clothes for us all at resale shops instead of buying new, have drastically cut down the amount of waste and/or paper coming into the house, buy in bulk on a regular basis, and try (where possible) to eat fresh, local produce or meat – that I lovingly cook from scratch at least 4x a week, no less.

So you would have thought I’d be completely and totally on board with the City of Portland’s new mandate (supposedly thoroughly vetted via pilot program/surveys/citizen focus groups) to reduce garbage pickups from once per week to every other week. What do we get instead, you wonder? Well, your yard debris bin now also can be used to house the contents of your compost bin – that’s now where food scraps, leftovers, turkey carcasses, etc. now belong – and NOT your garbage bag.

To aid this effort, the city provided these really adorable little compost buckets, so you can take your food scraps outside regularly instead of letting them all fester inside. And oh-so-helpful city employees gave alternate tips to manage the outflow of food scraps (“freeze a bag of compost instead, then recycle the frozen bag on pickup day!”)

But the program’s not going over well, judging from the grumblings I hear about it on Twitter – from the very people you’d think would be enthusiastically on board. Why? In a nutshell: very little common sense was applied.

Think about it:

• The ratios are all out-of-whack – our garbage can is full after a week and a half; while the green bin is barely 1/8th full each week – even with two households filling it! (Okay, we may have some leaves mixed in with this week’s batch. But what happens after the leaves are all gone…?)
• Those adorable little buckets? Impractical as hell – even with the specially-purchased biodegradable liners that leak after a single drop of liquid hits the liner. (Coffee grounds? Instant sieve…) I now have another bucket to clean out 2-3 times a week, otherwise the fermentation kicks in in a less than olfactory-pleasing way. Another minus? They’re not locally produced, are they? Nope. And to those who’ve suggested using newspaper as a liner instead – um, I’m not reading/buying newspapers (see that whole ‘reduce/reuse/recycle’ mantra above) – not even to line a compost bin.
• The larger green bin? Is now a lovely toxic waste breeding ground after a month. The city suggests baking soda, a soap/water rinse, or…more newspapers. (Is this how we keep the newspaper industry afloat, I wonder?)
• How many families with children have room in their freezer, anyway – much less for bags of rotting compost?

Yes, I’m still using the system – for now. But how many Portlanders have already opted out – choosing instead to just cram more stuff in their now-overflowing trash cans?

Are you on board here with the new mandate to compost your food scraps? Why or why not?

But I’m honest enough to advertise my flaws, even after the fact. Here’s where I ‘fess up:

1. Yeah, I was distracted all day long. Note to self: do not pay attention to interruptive text messages. Especially when they contain misspellings, gah.
2. No yoga class. In my defense? I was needed to play Mom Taxi after orchestra jazz band rehearsal instead.
3. Score! Thanks to a very timely email from my buddies at Cork, I now have 3 boxes (boxes? Yes, boxes!) of wine on order – all without leaving my office. (If you were on their mailing list, you’d have gotten the heads-up as well. Get on that…) Sadly, it is NOT in my house. Yet. (More on this below…)
4. HAHAHAHAHA! Who seriously thought I’d do this? (And how long have you known me, anyway?)
5. Yes, I succumbed to Cyber Monday. But being able to get 50% off this killer NYT-endorsed box wine from Jenny & Francois was only offered until 6 pm last night. And after 20% of the stock was spoken for after the 1st hour (this per my wine buddy, Darryl) – well, I needed to jump on it – right?

It goes without saying that after a track record of complete failure on the inaugural effort, well – I’m not making any public commitments for today’s activities.

What would you suggest, though?

But I made up for lost time this weekend over on my personal blog – that’s for sure!

• A very mushy post about what I’m thankful for on this day – along with a recap of my Very Paleo Thanksgiving.
• My new career – as stage mother? Possibly…
• My latest dating horror story (and the resulting kick-ass recipe for chili that was the aftermath)

Now, the plan for today? Five things…

1. To deal with the plethora of work-related tasks, interspersed with all of the distractions I keep getting drawn to. So it’s Twitter for five minutes… work task for 30… a quick blog post… staff meeting.
2. Yoga class tonight. Blew it off twice this weekend, need to get back on the horse.
3. No wine in the house at ALL? Really? This must be remedied – because what’s in stock at 7-11 just will not do.
4. Deep breaths. Plenty of them. To prevent (or at least slow down) the things I should probably not say out loud.
5. Avoiding Cyber Monday (or as a friend just referred to it, ‘Sideburn Monday’). Since I don’t buy anything for anyone else ever (I’m a Xmas curmudgeon) – well, this is an easy resolution to keep!

What’s on your list today….?

Update: Had the wrong link below – and it’s a doozy besides: My dating story from hell

This goes out to my Twitter followers – those people who have some understanding of what I’m like. And it’s a follow-up to this post, where I lament Saturday evening’s outcome.

Soooo…what kind of man do you see me with? And where on earth would you suggest I find him?

About me, in 140c: Mercurial, irreverent, whimsical, transitory, stubborn, whipsmart, occasionally obnoxious. Grammar snob. Spelling nazi.

(Need some background reading first? Try these two sides of the same coin: Worst date story ever, followed by The dating dilemna from the long-ago archive…)

Ready: GO!

See, these are the people I tend to mute on Twitter.

Sure, unfollowing someone on Twitter is far more authentic.
Way less passive-aggressive. It’s a statement of intent – or non-intent, mostly. Where I once was interested in you, or what you had to say – I find that I’m not interested any more in giving you any more of my attention. On the surface, it’s as simple as that.

As a general rule, I have no issues unfollowing people – and I take no issue whatsoever when people choose to unfollow me.

(Nope, I think any notion of reciprocity – the whole ‘I’m following *you*, so you have to follow *ME* crap – is complete bullshit. Sink or swim on your own merits, says me.)

But I’m also not a complete stone-cold bitch, I can recognize when someone’s going through a rough time, and I have occasionally moved into, ahem, inappropriate tweeting patterns myself from time to time (live-tweeting at a conference… an evening outing… while enjoying more than one glass of bourbon… etc. etc. etc.)

And yes, there are others where it’d just be Really Awkward if I stopped following them any time soon (think co-workers, people in your larger social circle, etc.)

That’s when I can employ the completely passive-aggressive tack (thanks to the Twitter clients to allow same) of muting: I look like I’m still following you – but I don’t have to see what it is that you’re actually SAYING. (My profuse thanks to the Twitter clients who allow same. They’re the ones I’ll pay for, actually.)

I also refer to it as ‘adult time out’ or ‘Twitter purgatory’, which can sometimes preface complete unfollowing if the, uh, overcommunication turns into a habitual thing.

I probably have at least 20 people on mute right now, for one (or more) of the following reasons:

1. The signal to noise ratio way out of line. Whether you’re playing a #hashtag ‘add one more word to a movie title’ game, aggressively live-tweeting a conference you’re attending in stenographer mode, or having a long, involved chat with your BFF – doesn’t matter. You’re operating on hyperactive Tigger energy, and I don’t have the time for that most days.
2. You’re in permanent Eeyore mode, with no positive Tigger-moderating balance. My own life can be challenging enough – and I need to hear about YOUR problems as well 24/7? No, thanks.
3. You often act like you’re clueless – or you think that it’s everyone else’s job to educate you, using very small, simple words. Or you’d rather WE do all the work for you. If you frequently fall back on updates that start off ‘lazy twitter request’, I’m probably talking about YOU, Pooh. Wise up, already.
4. You’re bossy. “Go DO this!” “READ MY POST!” “Retweet this!” “Like what *I* like!” (You can often track the number of exclamation points used per capita to pick up on the overly-Rabbit-esque nature of their updates over time.)
5. You’re in lecture mode – using the less-endearing qualities of wise old Owl. Conversation? Reciprocity? Ability to absorb knowledge that doesn’t come from one’s self? Inconceivable!

See yourself up there? Perhaps that’s why we’ve not chatted on Twitter recently. Even though I’m ‘following you.’

Works for me!

You? Maybe not so much…

…or maybe you’ve muted me as well!

(For those who believe I have no such thing as ‘inner snark’ – bite me, already. You’ve only seen the surface…)

Without further ado:

• Why does the contractor who’s been sporadically working on this house for 6 months (as early as 8 am on a Saturday, as late as 9:30 pm on a Monday night) instinctively know the one day I’ve called in sick? Cue the banging, scraping, ladder-wrangling and VERY LOUD TALK RADIO right outside my window here. Really? Really. (I’m a tenant, so apparently don’t warrant things like advance notification or contractor courtesy – despite numerous requests for same.) So much for my expected peace and quiet… Yep, I know what the solution is here. And yes, it’s already begun.
• So. Very. Tired. of the ‘if you’re not with us, you’re against us’ attitude. Latest example? The Occupy PDX, uh, occupiers/supporters. Yes, I may be part of the 99%. But I don’t at all agree with the way you’re choosing to display your outrage, and I don’t want to be part of your movement to make my voice heard as well. My solution? Opt out and/or engage my Wonder Twin ‘apathy’ powers. Which is completely and entirely MY CHOICE. Go off and march to your heart’s content – if it works? Great. If it doesn’t (and I’m betting it won’t)? I’ll live. So will you. Really.
• Yes, I love you very much. No, your emergencies are not my emergencies, and do not warrant emergency ‘OMG this has to HAPPEN NOW!’ energy. Especially when you care not one iota for dealing with the things I think are far more urgent/long-term life-altering. Like that F you’re currently getting in Science, for example. Got it? Good.
• Was I talking to you? No? So why am I expected to talk to you after you rudely butted your way into the conversation (and I have no clue who the hell you are and/or why I should care)? That’s right – I’M NOT. At least my my own rules of common courtesy, that is. BUH-BYE!
• (I had this in mind for one particular situation – but if it fits – and I’m betting it will – borrow it/own it!) Why don’t you pull your head out of your goddamned ass and think about at least one other person than your own sorry, pathetic self? NO, the world will not revolve around your existential crisis, so go put on your Big Boy Pants already and start pulling your weight. (And yes, I’ve already said it to the individual in question, so don’t be accusing me of doing that Portland passive-aggressive thing, hear?)

Note to self: maybe that’s what this blog is supposed to be about after all. Snark in more than 140-character doses!

Okay. That felt: good. But I’m betting there’s more to come…what do you think? Keep it in – or let it out?