Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Brief pause for reflection

I know I've been a bit quiet on the blog lately, but I've been doing some thinking (and dealing with the throes of my kids' first week of school). Why the thinking? Well, I lost a good friend and coworker of mine recently and that tends to make one pause and ponder.

If you're interested, I have posted some thoughts about this at Joyful Jubilant Learning where this month's focus is on "Making a difference."

I've got a new post partially written, and you'll see my curious thoughts flowing again very soon!

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Guten tags

Ariane of Neat & Simple Living tagged me in yet another "5 things" chain. This time, it's about the 5 most useful sites you use to perform your work.

That is a tough one, but here are 5 of my top sites (maybe not "the Top 5" but 5 good ones):

  1. Google  --  OK, so I'm hooked. I use it for Search, for News, Financial research and Alerts.
  2. Amazon.com  --  I am an Amazon Prime customer and, as a heavy reader, they make sure I see the UPS driver a lot.
  3. LinkedIn   --  I am in a business development / networking role, and LinkedIn helps me make new connections by leveraging my existing contacts. Pretty cool for business networking.
  4. SeatGuru   --  I've reviewed SeatGuru in the past - it is the resource to figure out how good your seats are before you fly.
  5. Digg  --  A unique lens on the news of the world. Think of it as News with community-driven editorial overlay or filter. The only categories I watch are Technology and World & Business

Now, I tag 5 more.

If you're tagged, post your five with a Trackback to me, and pass on the favor.

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My latest site banner

I've had a few inquiries about the picture on my latest site banner. Here's the story - it's from a picture of a curious ground squirrel, which I snapped on a recent campout. It was definitely not shy, and I took the picture as it was trying to get into a bag of trail mix in one of our tents (it later jumped up on the lap of another guy who was there, trying to get to his food). You can see the whole scene here: CuriousChipmunk.jpg (204 KB).

This reminds me of a very funny video that's been making its rounds, called "The Dramatic Chipmunk" - you can watch it below, or on go see it on YouTube. Funny stuff!

This is the best thing since Chocolate Rain and the Chocolate Rain parody (and there are many more...).

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One-liners for life

I just discovered a very cool idea, courtesy of Gretchen and The Happiness Project.  For the last year, she's been keeping a One Sentence Journal for a year now - I am very intrigued, and thinking of doing the same.  Consider this, from her post:

"Each night, I write one sentence (well, actually, usually it's three or four sentences, but by calling it a "one sentence journal" I keep my expectations realistic) about what happened that day to me, the Big Man, and the girls.

Right now, I can't imagine forgetting the time when the Little Girl said politely, "Can I have some more pajamas on my pasta?" when she meant "parmesan," but I will, I will."

Don't know about you, but I think that's pretty cool.  She also has plans to create bound books of the sentences for her girls and her husband.  Check out the details in her post.

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