Working From Home

Well, it is snowing again today--this makes an accumulated total of snow that is almost twice what is normal for this area. Being that I live about 15 miles from where I work--and very slippery, nasty miles in this weather--I telecommute on days like today. I work in a small museum that does not have the technical capability that a bigger institution might have, but I have figured out a few work-arounds.

Google is my life line now. I set up a Gmail account just for work and configured the POP mail setting to download all my mail from our server at work. I have moved my appointment calendar, task lists, email and everything out of Outlook and into Google so I can access it from anywhere. I set up a custom signature with my work contact info and configured my settings so that my work email address is all that shows rather than the Gmail address.

I use Google Notifier on my Mac laptop. It lets me know if I have mail and lets me preview what has come in without opening my email. I can click on "go to inbox" in Notifier and it logs me right in. On my computer at work, which is Windows, I have the Google Desktop with a Gmail notifier, calendar, time zone clocks, etc. This way, I don't have to keep a browser window open to see if I have email coming in.

I customized the iGoogle interface by adding a project management tab and adding a widget for to do lists that lets me set up more than one list. I have just started using Evernote for projects and Alltop to scan for news topics. Google Alerts is set to scan for specific key words for any given project that I am working on and the results emailed to me once a day. I also have a reader gadget that lets me preview content of my Google Reader, a YouTube gadget that lets me search for interesting videos from other museums, a Twitter gadget that lets me post from inside iGoogle, and a gadget that lets me see any new books on Project Gutenberg (because I am a glutton for information) and so on.

I have three Google calendars set up (so far)--one for museum programming, one for meetings and such that are work related, and one for personal appointments. They all show on one calendar, but in different colors and I can turn off a calendar simply by clicking on it in the left hand menu. I added a widget that shows all my upcoming appointments on the left side of the screen and a chat widget on the right side, but I stay invisible so I don't have interruptions. I can set email or pop-up reminders for any of my calendar items. I also added a Gmail notifications feature that emails an agenda to me each day with my appointments listed. Google calendars can also be embedded in a web page, a feature I intend to play with when I get the programming calendar finalized. I can also allow others so see or edit my calendars with customized settings for each calendar. Skype video chat allows me to connect to others if they feel the need for a face to face meeting and I can upload documents into Google Docs so others can preview them or work on them.

I am still exploring options for telecommuting, but so far I am quite happy with what I have, and it is all free!

Multi-purpose welded wire panels

One thing that I have missed here is the wire panels I used for just about everything back in Texas. Welded wire comes in many sizes and I've used it with T-posts to make trellises, dog kennels, temporary pens, covers over my kennel--very versatile stuff.

I built a small greenhouse for my tomatoes that became their support as they grew. I cut a piece of 4" by 4" welded wire panel slightly larger than my tomato bed (this requires bolt cutters). I drove metal T-posts in at the corners and on the sides. I laid the wire panel over the posts and lowered it to about one foot above my newly planted, small tomato plants. I draped 6 ml plastic over the whole thing until danger of frost had passed (I was living in south Texas at the time-zone 8). As the tomatoes started growing, they grew up through the welded wire, which supported them beautifully. As they got taller, I added a second layer of welded wire and secured it near the top of the T-posts. I had tomatoes all summer, up until they froze in December (this was also a lasagna garden).

When the hot Texas sun made an oven of my dog kennel, I secured a piece of welded wire across the top and planted gourds all around the outside. The gourds quickly covered the top of the kennel and I had the added bonus of harvesting dried gourds to use in craft projects. In the winter, the foliage died back and the sun could get through, but in summer it provided deep shade for my dogs, plus little critters lived in the leaves and provided many hours of wiener dog entertainment.

The metal panel is rigid enough that you can bend it and stand it upright to make a trellis. You need sufficient length to make it as high as you need it. I used a 20 foot length cut to about 3 feet wide (actually a left over from another project) to put a trellis over my back gate. I just secured it at each corner by wiring it to the gate post or putting in a T-post on the outside corner. Once covered with flowering vines, you couldn't really see the metal or the T-posts. We used a wider panel to build a trellis for climbing roses, then put a bench underneath it.

Because wiener dogs are diggers, we used strips of welded wire about 18" wide to put under the sides of the kennel, flat on the ground, all the way around. We covered it with mulch so the dogs could walk on it. It kept them from digging under the kennel fence and was flat and rigid enough that we could mow over it.

I have no doubt that when I build my garden preserve here, welded wire panels will play a key role. It is definitely on my top ten list of useful material for country living.

Idea for local phone books

This is what I think we need. A website entitled "mylocalphonebook.com". For each city, you would have "mylocalphonebook.com/richmond-tx/". Everything for that city would then fall under that heading. You could have commercial listings, personal listings, community areas for clubs and organizations, city and government offices--everything in one spot and maintained so it is always up-to-date, keyword searchable, linked to mapping sites like Google Maps or Google Earth. People could write reviews or recommendations for local businesses, rate services--this needs more thought to flesh it out, but I think this is what we should do to get completely away from paper phone books that are usually out of date and never seem to have exactly what you are looking for.

My two cents worth for the day.