Tip #284 (a totally arbitrary number) for avoiding humdrum:  Have a concrete event or happening to look forward to!  What’re your plans?

Here’s a tentative month to month for me… January: Durham, NC; Snow Trip. February: 2011 IUI Conference, maybe Getaway somewhere in here?  March: Durham, NC along with 2011 NUBC.  April: Cruise around the Gulf of Mexico.  May: May’s TBD.  Am I allowed to go to GoogleIO?  Summer: It’s summer. adventures everywhere! End of August: Start fulltime at Microsoft!

Happiness stems from passion.  Think of the things that make you happy, be it some hobby, or  those special people in your life.  The connecting link is passion for this happiness-trigger.

The other day, I had a long conversation with a friend about his discovery of his passion for learning.   I’m proud of him for that, and I’d like to say that I also share that passion for learning.  However, this can be taken one step forever: A passion for new experience!  If you learn something, it means that you didn’t know it before, and thus is a new experience of information.  After all, we only live once.  Each of us only have these 80 years (give or take) in which to gain these experiences.  To learn new things, to see new places, to try strange foods, to experience new cultures…

It’s a day full of possibilities!  It’s a magical world… let’s go exploring!

Our professional identity should help us succeed in the professional world.  This can include a career at a corporation, an entrepreneur, an artist  or even academia.  We are able to publicize and shape what people see of us.  A business card is a simple, common example of this.  My father stressed the importance of the business card; It’s a tangible object that communicates your basic information to the other party.   If you have the ‘discount’ business cards that look and feel cheap, you’re prone to being seen as less legitimate than your peers.  It’s a small and trivial thing, but there’s no need to negatively differentiate yourself.  Rest assured that I have more to say on this at a later date.

A simple step such as making known your accomplishments goes a long way towards improving your professional identity as well.  The majority of people use their résumé (or curriculum vitae for the academics) for this purpose.  That is a good first step, and few would argue the importance of your résumé, but it doesn’t end there.  Employers, potential business partners, and even your SO’s family will use the resources of the internet to find out more about you.  After all, if the roles were reversed, wouldn’t you?  An employer wants to make sure you are who you say you are, and won’t bring any demons into the company… or they just want to know a little bit more about you to make conversation.  In any event, you don’t want something unflattering to show up when they look for you.

If you have your own website (ahem) try and get the to come up as the first result when people search for you.  Populate it with information that goes past what’s on your résumé.  A little bit about yourself, other projects and achievements, and links to your other online identities.  These other identities include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and any other sites that you have control over what is shown. 

For those without their own online presence, ensure that your online profiles are sanitized from the view of non-friends.  If you have photos or tweets hat don’t show you in the best light, be sure that you play with the privacy settings to either hide or remove anything that you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with the world.  Take advantage of LinkedIn profiles, as these are often highly rated by the search engines if you have content available on these sites.  If you have an old blog from a possibly ‘angsty’ time of your life, again, set it to private or remove it if you don’t want a prospective employer seeing it. 

Oh, and don’t post anything stupid to Twitter or Facebook in the first place.  The internet has a very long memory.

• Phosphorous was discovered when a 1600’s scientist/alchemist was trying to make a ‘philosopher’s stone’ out of his own pee.
• The legal status of Western-Sahara Africa.  And it’s relations with Morocco.  That’s why political maps of the area always have it grayed out.
• London used to be called Londinium, back when it was founded by the Romans.
• Ball Lightning is likely a result of what essentially amounts to silicon dust.

What did you learn today?

May we live the life they would want us to live. Amen.

The following was one of my Father’s favorite songs. I’m revealing myself to be a sentimental git by saying this, but this is the one song that’ll make me tear up. It’s a duet between the late Nat King Cole and his daughter.