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Adding Leaders or Dots Between Tabs

By
Edel Alon
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0

On a PC

You can add dot leaders between tab stops or choose other formatting options in the Tabs dialog box.

  1. Type the text that you want.
  2. On the horizontal ruler, set the tab stop that you want.
  3. On the Page Layout tab, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher.
  4. In the Paragraph dialog box, click Tabs.
  5. Under Leader, click the leader option that you want.

When you press ENTER to start a new line, the formatted tab stop is available on the new line.

On a Mac

  1. Type the text that you want.
  2. Click on Format, Tabs.
  3. Type in where you want the tab position to be.
  4. Select the alignment (right for most of us).
  5. Choose the style.
  6. Click Set at the bottom, then OK.

References:
Microsoft Office

Cornell Notes

By
Edel Alon
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1

I have my version of how I take notes on this website somewhere but my kids are getting to that age where they will need to use Cornell Notes.

“The Cornell note-taking system is a widely-used note taking system devised in the 1950s by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University. Pauk advocated its use in his best-selling How to Study in College.

The Cornell method provides a systematic format for condensing and organizing notes. The student divides the paper into two columns: the note-taking column (usually on the right) is twice the size of the questions/key word column (on the left). The student should leave five to seven lines, or about two inches, at the bottom of the page.” -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes

Instead of doing this on lined paper, I decided to just make my own. To make this template, I used Microsoft Excel. Don’t laugh. Microsoft Excel is great where you know you’ll need solid lines. In fact, many of my templates start off in Excel then move to another graphic software when I run into limitations.

Cornell notes work. I’ve used it in the past. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn’t seem to utilize the entire sheet. In my template below, you’ll notice that I put some “check boxes” to formulate some kind of list…something like a summary of the summary.

Download:
Cornell Notes (PDF)

Pierce Street Bike Path Project – Albany, CA

By
Edel Alon
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0

Sometimes I’m surprised with the dedication to quality in people’s work. I recently visited the Hoover Dam and was amazed at the quality of work in the construction. There was a time where Americans believed and loved the work they did—there was a certain level of pride. Today, that is so far from the truth. I see the lack of dedication and lack of enthusiasm in the work place. I talk with many people who aren’t happy with their job(s). I also thought that the last stand in quality was still in construction but I was wrong.

A construction project outside my front door shows a lack of quality. I agree that construction jobs are hard but I don’t think this is one of the places where mistakes should be overlooked. The overall goal of the project was to redo the street and add a bicycle path. They made the bicycle path and replaced the road. I’m going to overlook the fact that the bicycle path is a half-mile of path that dead-ends. Right now I’m concerned with the striping. Striping is the process of putting the lines on the road, marking the parking stalls, and other paint that goes on the pavement.

The pictures below are from the job. I called up the Albany City Engineer, Ana Bernardes, who told me the striping was completed. I complained about the job and she informed me that she’ll take a look at it. Redgwick Construction Company executed the job (I’m sure they placed a bid on it and won) but I’m not sure if they were in charge of the striping. Today, there are a few more things left for them to do. I’m hoping they can clean up the striping before they completely check out.

References:
http://www.redgwick.com/

April Fools – Google Maps 8-bit

By
Edel Alon
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0

I have 1 hour left until April 2nd and I totally forgot to write my April Fools post. Today I found Google’s April Fools joke where they took their maps and made an option to view in 8-bit mode. Any classic gamer would love this feature. I feel like I can read these maps better than the real thing.

Here are a couple of maps I found very interesting.

Meeting Agenda, Action Items, and Motions Templates

By
Edel Alon
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0

I received a few emails about running efficient meetings. I usually respond by telling people to use RRO (Roberts Rules of Order). When I look back at some of the minutes from some of my previous meetings I can really see what went on during the meeting and what was discussed. I guess I’m lucky for having great note takers. I think this also a result of time where you and your note taker understand and foresee where you’ll go next.

I created some templates for you to use that might help you out with your meetings. One of them is an agenda that has information like date, time, and location. I added a conference call phone number for those of you who use phone or videoconferences.

Then there’s a section for what to read and what to bring. Finally, the agenda is listed at the end. I’ve used this format for a while now to cover a couple of meetings with different organizations. It works. I know there are many things we can include or exclude but I think this agenda will cover most non-profit organizations.

The other templates help keep track of motions and action items. The motions sheet is something I thought of to help manage the motions. The idea is to use this in conjunction with your agenda. First, write down the agenda item you are discussing. Then write the motion and who made the motion. Write down who seconded the motion. Finally write down the vote and the discussion.

Then this is where the action item template comes in handy. Use the action item template to write does the action needed, who will work on the action, when the due date is, and the current status.

All of these should be bundled together as part of the soon to be previous meeting minutes. I hope these templates help you and your organization.

Download Attachments
Meeting Sheet (docx)

Motion Tracker (docx)

Motion-Tracker II (docx)

Action Items (docx)

Mega Millions Lottery

By
Edel Alon
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0

The Mega Millions lottery is up to $540 million and still growing for the draw to happen on March 30. If you win this lottery, the payout is somewhere around $389 million. The lottery craze swept through my office and recently my brother told me I should play.

What’s funny is that he sent me an excel spreadsheet indicating the most picked numbers in the past 25 rounds. This is where my inner nerd came in and said, “25 rounds? We should take a bigger data set and run more numbers.”

The CA Lottery website has a feature where you can download the data set of the past winners. The data dates back to the year 2000. After creating my formulas I was set to make the parameters.

The result is the following PDF, CA Lottery Picks 2012. This PDF contains the winning numbers constrained by date. Past winning numbers for 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2, years, 3 years, 5 years, 7 years, and 10 years. Adding the color coding helps to visually find the numbers most picked. There were some rules that I had to adjust for the color combinations. Between 3 months and 5 years, anything above 75% showed up as green, less than 75% and greater than 50% are in yellow, and under 50% are in red. Between 5 years and 10 years, I had to adjust the percentages where green were the ones that came up more than 90% of the time.

That change became apparent when the number of instances of the numbers started to plateau and the variation between the lowest instances to the highest number of instances tapered off.
From these numbers I generated 5 sets of numbers, showed off my spreadsheet, made deals to split the money, crossed my fingers, and purchased some tickets. We’ll see what happens tomorrow night.

References:
calottery.com

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

By
Edel Alon
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0

A conversation at work got me thinking about pork. Then, on my way home I saw a guy with a tattoo of a pig on his arm. I had to do it–make my bacon weave and wrap it around some pork tenderloin.

Step 1. Make bacon weave.
Step 2. Season the tenderloin.
Step 3. Pan sear the outside of the loin to brown on all sides.
Step 4. Place in oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
Step 5. Take tenderloin out and wrap bacon weave around.
Step 6. Place back in oven for 5 more minutes until bacon crisps.

Notes:
Don’t forget to let the meat rest before slicing.

Enjoy!

Clara C – Heartstrings

By
Edel Alon
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0

I picked up a flyer at my local Guitar Center for the free workshops that they offer and found and advertisement for TC Helicon and then on the other side some person named Clara C.

I looked her up and was amazed by the talent. There’s something about her music where I can’t stop listening. Her music reminds me of a cross between Jewel, Tori Amos, Oassis, Cranberries, Fiona Apple, and Natalie Imbruglia. Yes, put the good stuff about those artists and out come Clara C.

Her music is catchy, hypnotizing, and makes me smile. The lyrics are probably what get me sucked in. In her song Heartstrings, there’s tease of new love with a hint of reservation and does nothing but put a smile on my face and make you believe in love.

Heartstrings
Hey baby, it’s easy
to believe in you and me
The smiling, the laughing
It’s comin’ so easily

It’s a funny thing, this love thing
It only falls into my arms
When I’m not looking for it at all

Hey baby, you’re doing
All the things that make me
Sing sing sing sing sing sing
Untying these heartstrings
That I’ve been triple knotting

I wanna take it slow and that’s okay with you
See I’m finished making the same old mistakes
I won’t let us fall

You put a smile
You put a smile on my heart
You put a smile
You put a smile on my heart
They’re coming all undone
My heartstrings

Hey darling, see these wings?
They’re not clipped anymore
I’m singing and shaking off
My silence with this voice

It’s a funny thing, this love thing
You’re always on the
Same page, same line, same letter
We’re gonna go far

 

Then there’s The Camel Song and the intro lines:

running through the forest hand in hand
jumping over streams talking bout our dreams
we laugh we smile we dance
would you give it one more chance
please don’t let me leave this place
i really really don’t want to wake up

There’s a cute sense of innocence in her lyrics that most mainstream artists neglect to use or have forgotten about. While simple, you can hear the emotion and start reminiscing about untainted love, joy, and happiness.

References:
http://claracmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/claracmusic

Upcoming workshops in the Bay Area:
Friday, May 4, 2012 at 7PM
Guitar Center San Jose
3677 Stevens Creek BLVD
Santa Clara, CA 95051

Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 2PM
Guitar Center San Francisco
1645 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94109

FUNdraising

By
Edel Alon
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0

I’m not a sales guy and I don’t take rejection well. One of my biggest frustrations in life came when trying to raise money for my local PTA. I remember the first time someone said said, “Not right now.” or “Let me think about it.” I thought to myself, “I’m not trying to raise money to bail out Wall Street. I raise money for good causes.” My positive inner thoughts are probably keeps me going.

Yesterday I got off BART (http://bart.gov/) and as I approached the street to jump onto the bus I saw a group of kids handing out doughnuts. Of course I walked faster towards the doughnuts. As I got closer, I found out they were selling these doughnuts–$1 each or $10 for a dozen. These were KrispyKreme doughnuts and on the box was the word: FUNdraisers.

A few things popped into my head:

  1. Aren’t these kids supposed to be in school?
  2. Doughnut FUNdraiser, why didn’t I think of doing that amongst the hustle and bustle of the morning working crowd?
  3. Do I have $10 in my pocket?

I didn’t really care about the kids not being in school because the thought of eating doughnuts was more important. I’ve actually thought about doing this FUNdraiser before but I didn’t have the location and the KrispyKreme near me closed. These kids had the location and sure enough I had $10 in my pocket.

They scored and left me thinking more about why I didn’t do this FUNdraiser in the past. Other than the nearest KrispyKreme to me is 23 miles away, I remembered that I really don’t like fundraisers where kids are made to solicit. This includes all the fundraisers like selling candy bars, cookie dough, giftwrap, and now KrispyKreme. I’m not saying that I haven’t participated in these types of fundraisers; it’s just that when given a choice, I refuse to have kids solicit for money.

With that being said, support kids selling over priced items. It’s about the cause.

Just so you know, I shared the box of doughnuts with my office.

 

Wedding Show Tips

By
Edel Alon
-
0

Happy Spring! Spring marks a new season that resembles new life, growth, renewal, bunnies that lay eggs, and weddings. It is one of my favorite seasons. Mainly because one of the things that happen around this time are wedding shows or at least the start of wedding shows.

My guess is that most guys get sucked into the holiday season celebrations and pop “the question”…near Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Valentines. There is a good 5-6 months of bride-to-be’s chomping at the bit to start their wedding planning. The reality of the wedding finally hits the bride as soon as the weather warms especially after many nights reading bridal magazines on cold winter days.

For me, Spring means, I grab my nearest bride and head to these wedding shows to collect swag and to gather new wedding trends. I enjoy heading to these shows because I like watching the many happy and glossy-eyed people look for all the little things to make their special day memorable.

Here are my tips before you head out to the show(s):

  1. Know your budget. There will be a lot of really cool things that will appeal to you and your future spouse. Knowing your budget will help limit the add-ons.
  2. Wear comfortable shoes. Expect to do a lot of walking and standing while you meet with vendors.
  3. Bring a backpack. There are some shows that give out a lot of swag but don’t give you a bag. Remember bag for your swag.
  4. Bring mailing labels. I’m sure you might have some mailing labels that you forgot to use for Christmas or ones that have been collecting dust. I recommend using these labels when you sign up with different vendors. It’s faster to place a label than write your information and the vendors will appreciate the fact they don’t have to convert your handwriting.
  5. Eat before you go. While most shows are in hotels, you might want to eat ahead of time in order to get the most and reach every vendor. Also bring a bottle of water.
  6. Prepare to spend your whole afternoon. Really good shows know how to keep you there. Most will have a dress show, presentations, raffles, and a really good selection of vendors.
  7. Talk to vendors. While it might be easy to grab a brochure, take some time to talk to the vendors. You’ll get a little more information from them than what’s on the paper. You never know if they have a special deal.
  8. Preorder tickets. If the show you want to attend has an entrance fee, you might want to preorder. Most shows that I’ve seen give you $2 off if you preorder.
  9. Bring a notebook and pen. Write down the ideas you see as you see them. Bring a camera too however ask the vendors if it’s okay to take pictures.
  10. Have fun!

 

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Welcome to the curated chaos of curiosity and creativity—brought to you by Edel Alon: maker, thinker, and hands-on problem-solver. This blog is part journal, part resource hub, and entirely dedicated to the art of doing. From culinary experiments and car tinkering to tech deep dives and DIY builds, you'll find stories, guides, reviews, and reflections designed to inspire, inform, and occasionally make you laugh (or at least raise an eyebrow). It's a celebration of learning by doing—with a few detours along the way.

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