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A general commentary on the things that are strange, uncomfortable, or worthy of mockery while riding an airplane.

1. The “window shuffle.” This is a situation that simply can’t be avoided, and is easily demonstrated. The next time you’re on an airplane, and in a seat other than the window seat, sit forward just a little in your seat and look out the window. While this phenomenon works especially well when you’re in the middle seat (or immediately adjacent to the window seat), it’s effective on the aisle side, too. Now that you’re looking out the window, watch the person sitting in the window seat. Watch for them to make eye contact with you, wondering if they’re looking at them…then watch them turn and look out the window, just like you. Having someone staring directly past your face is not only uncomfortable, it’s just plain impossible to tolerate…apparently.
2. The “We’re at the gate, now stand up” game. This one doesn’t take anything from you to simulate. Just ride the plane, and pay attention once the plane is at the gate. As soon as the plane stops, and the seatbelt light comes off, heads up: 60% of the plane’s occupants will unbuckle immediately, and stand up. There’s another three or four minutes before the doors will be open, and they know it…but that’s not going to stop them. What’s even better? Half of those 60% are actually stooped over uncomfortably because they’re not in an aisle seat…
3. The “five-pound bag” game.” Somewhere deep in my psyche there lied an assumption about carry-on baggage. I always assumed that the dimensions of your standard overhead compartment were published, standardized and well-known within the “luggage industry.” [Note: I can't attest to there actually being an industry here, as opposed to a random collection of companies who make bags.] You can see that assumption of mine proven wrong, in real-time, every time you’re on a plane. Try and get on the plane early so that you can watch the rest of the passengers stroll aboard with their “carry-on luggage.” Take note of the number of bags that are lifted into the overhead with the wheels facing the aisle, then immediately rotated 90 degrees because the bag is too long/tall to allow the compartment door to close. What remains is absolutely hysterical: a bag taking up half of the width of an overhead space, while allowing about 5″ of space in front for someone to use. That remaining space works really medium-weight winter coats; I’d encourage you to bring one and test my theory here…I know I’m right. You can squeeze at least one jacket in the remaining space.

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So THAT’S what a real stickie looks like!

Originally uploaded by Turnipville.

For all of you poor bastards that have been following along with my GTD evolution over the last few years, you’ve seen the implementation change courses a few times. For those of you who couldn’t give a crap about my past implementations, and are interested in how I’m using Toodledo in my new system, welcome to the fray.

The basics: Toodledo is an online “to-do list manager” that has some very strong GTD-esque features and options, is free (though it offers upgraded accounts - one with file storage), has a great mobile/iPhone interface, and a very slick and usable online interface. There is a third-party iPhone app in the app store that syncs tasks with Toodledo, but it’s about as feature-poor as could be, and I’ve avoided it.

Why Toodledo? I did consider Remember the Milk (RTM) and a few others in my search for an online component to my GTD system, but Toodledo was the clear winner. First, I’m only interested in those to-do managers that sync well with Jott. I’ve found myself doing massive core dumps in the car over Jott, and all of those items either end up in my Toodledo inbox, or in my Evernote notebok. RTM made the cut there, but was light on text message interfacing compared to Toodledo, and lacked the GTD context assignment parameters that come with Toodledo. The mobile interfaces were a push, as far as I was concerned.

Why digital? What happened to the Moleskine? If you didn’t read this post explaining my reasons for changing the system, or this post talking about the new role of my Moleskine, go do that first.

Read on for specifics on my new system.

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It’s true that I’m a sucker when it comes to reading, and that until the recent release of an easy-to-use new eBook reader I’d managed to keep that addiction held somewhere on just one contextual action list. Now that Stanza has made eBook acquisition, digestion and enjoyment so absolutely flawless, I’ve found myself spending an inordinate amount of time with the work of Mr. Cory Doctorow, whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past.

Little Brother and When Sysadmins Ruled the World have both fallen victim to my scanning eyes in the last two days, and I just can’t say enough about them…even if I disagree with some of the political angles that Cory takes.

This isn’t going to be a detailed review of either book; there are plenty of those on the interweb already (hint: try these guys). Rather, consider this a quick endorsement from the most official purveyor of Turnipville goods and services, the master of my laptop, and the guy who loves my wife the most.

Hey, Cory…thanks for writing, dude.

The Moleskine evangelist in me has given up protesting. I think I’ve finally made him understand that there’s no shame being absolutely outstanding at one thing - as opposed to being pretty good at everything. Making an evangelist understand anything is a challenge, but Mr. Moleskine (yes, he has a name) is especially contrary when it comes to change.

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