Buy a desk, Kill a weekend.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/30/07 at 11:04:11 am

Rather then getting some needed R&R, or doing other more productive projects this weekend I decided that my office needed to be re-arranged. I started out by moving everything around on Saturday and finally finishing at about 3:00AM only to find that I really didn’t like the layout and the way I was positioned in the room. So on Sunday I ripped it all apart again, and I ended up ditching my old desk for a brand new one.

I’m happy with the new desk and the overall layout, what I’m depressed about is that I got obsessed with this project that I didn’t even plan on doing before Saturday and it consumed my entire weekend. I really don’t like not being productive, I don’t like lose ends or unfinished projects sitting around… Lately it seems like I have a lot of that. I have all sorts of projects I want to work on and I can’t find the time to do them. The problem is that the time is there, I’m just not using it as efficiently as I could be.

Anyway, the new office looks pretty good, I’ll post some pictures on My Flickr soon.

A Perfect Example.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/23/07 at 08:04:09 pm

I don’t write about my artistic or design interests very often, but I should. If you can’t tell by now, I’m big into more a minimalist appearance to things. Frankly, it just looks good. If not overdone, the minimalist style is often times professional, functional, easy to read and understand in one swift move. Most of my work, layouts, or designs I choose to use are very simple for a reason, and the reason isn’t that I don’t have the ability to create something more complicated it’s that I just love the feel of clean uniform fashion.

“Minimalism is not a style, it is an attitude, a way of being. It’s a fundamental reaction against noise, visual noise, disorder, vulgarity. Minimalism is the pursuit of the essence of things, not the appearance.” - Claudio Silvestrin

I was surfing around the internet tonight, and I was reading up on ApacheCon, an upcoming conference for Apache users, developers, and innovators. I stumbled upon the ApacheCon Website and I wanted to link to it here, to show a perfect example of good clean design that doesn’t have to conform to a particular style other then professionalism.

Snuffleupagus

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/20/07 at 01:04:20 pm

Could it be stress that’s making me sick? I’ve heard that before, that stress can make you sick and if you have been reading for a while you know that I’ve been a little on edge lately.

I have a cold… Again. I just got over a nasty head-cold and I’m not sure if this is a new manifestation, or the same one coming back for more. I’m trying to fight it by pretending I don’t have it, but I’m really starting to feel like crap and it shows. If it is stress that’s making me sick I can understand why, as you may know I work with an ISP that provides broadband Internet service to greater MN and SD. Last night and into today we experienced a serious outage that effected literately 1000’s of subscribers, a lot of them major businesses, schools etc. It’s a mess. The project of the day is definitely Damage Control.

TGIF though right? I’m really looking forward to the weekend. I actually came up with some plans to visit Duluth, Minnesota. I haven’t been up there in a long while so I’ll be making the trip with the family on Saturday to spend the better part of the day gazing at the land-bound sea that is Lake Superior.

I’ll have my camera with so look forward to a brand new Duluth, MN photoset on My Flickr.

Movie Review: Disturbia

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/18/07 at 03:04:03 pm

This past weekend I had the chance to head to the local Cinema to see Disturbia and I thought I would jot down a short review.

I think the concept behind Disturbia was somewhat old, the idea of the neighbor or someone in the neighborhood being a serial killer or whatever, the story has been told before. However, what really separates Disturbia from the rest of the genre is the interesting twist with the main character. I mean there are plenty of stories of someone spying on the neighbor and turning them in for whatever crimes, but in this movie’s case the main charter is tethered to his house. He can’t leave so he watches, getting more paranoid as he’s seeking clues to the mystery… remotely.

I think the whole story behind the movie had the perfect amount of information, I mean they didn’t have any long drawn out scenes about nothing or something completely unrelated to the plot, the movie flowed well. Disturbia also had a solid acting cast. I personally like David Morse’s acting as he fit’s the ‘creepy guy’ role perfectly in this film. Sarah Roemer is amazingly beautiful and the little known Aaron Yoo was hilarious.

It seems that a lot of the horror movies these days are nothing more then a couple of hours of blood and gore, but Disturbia although technically a thriller brought back a creepy mystery aspect that I’ve grown to miss with recent films. I want to say that Disturbia was ‘light’ as in you can tell right away why it received a PG13 rating. It’s most definitely a movie with teens in mind.

I didn’t want to give too much away, so with that - Overall Disturbia was far from epic, but definitely a good movie that is wroth seeing at the theater.

Catching Up With Stress Management

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/11/07 at 12:04:03 pm

It seems that the hardest thing in the world for me right now is simply keeping up with life. I’m not sure if I’m actually more busy, or if I just think I am… Either way it’s like I don’t have time to do anything anymore, and I’ll think about what I’m actually using my time for and I can’t figure out where it’s all going.

I think whats happening is that I’m mixing the overwhelming feeling I have at work with my life at home. There are just endless amounts of projects going on at work, some of which are actually pretty interesting and I’m excited to dive into, but overall it’s a lot of planning, thinking, and time management. I get stressed out by being overwhelmed very easily, and I think I’m trying to balance that stress by bringing it outside of work.

I realized that this new form of stress is why I’ve been looking into getting a PDA again. I could really use something to help manage my time better. It seems lately I’ve been turning into one of those people who have to check their schedule before doing anything. It’s depressing, however at the same time it definitely gives me a feeling of accomplishment. If I keep busy in life I know I’m doing well.

The reason that I’m brining up a subject like this on here is because my overall stress has interfered with everything including things I enjoy doing in my free time IE: blogging and working on new projects. I’m not really sure about how good I am at analyzing myself, but I think I’m onto something here. Or maybe I should stop rambling and get back to work?

Twenty Two

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/11/07 at 12:04:28 pm

Alright so, although my next post will be about the lack of time I seem to have these days, I did manage to let my obsession take over long enough to whip up something new. I’m pathetic, I know and I just lost another $8.00 bet… We will see how long I can hold off this time.

So to save the extended speech and without further introduction; I give you, Version 22. *sigh*

The Last Couple Days…

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/04/07 at 10:04:43 am

Have been rough for me. The weather has been nice and seasonably accurate up to yesterday where it drastically changed back to dead winter temperatures and over 6’’ of snowfall. It’s supposed to be April, where is the sun?

I received the new file server yesterday; Titan Blue. The FedEx lady must have slipped or simply dropped the box on the way in as it was soaked and 1 corner was severely damaged. I tear open the sopping package like it’s Christmas only to find that the top of the new computer also sustained a fair amount of damage, Thanks FedEx.

Today was like any other day, heading into work on the barely plowed freeway (MN/DOT is all done for the year, it’s supposed to be Spring, remember?) and as I’m heading into work going 70+ Mph on the freeway my car decided that it didn’t like or want the entire front passenger wheel well and it partially broke off while the other half hung on and was lodged and melted onto my wheel to later be cut off manually. Just an FYI - Being stuck on the side of a slippery freeway trying to remove melted plastic chunks from under a salt covered car is far from good times.

You would think all of that would be enough, but to top it all off I’m also starting to come down with a nasty cold, I have the chills and I’m all stuffed up. *sigh*

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