Pete's Log: Who cares about free will?

Entry #1342, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 24 years old.)

Happy spring time! Cherry blossom time is rapidly approaching in the DC area.

I've decided it's time to get my information situation under control. I am deluged by info I don't know what to do with. My primary storage solution is not up to the task, but I have little upgrade options for that. So what I want to do is improve the interface between primary and secondary storage. I've got more than plenty secondary storage, but it comes in so many forms.

Saved email, blog, stuff on laptop hard drive, stuff in afs, stuff on Meg's computer, stuff on various pieces of paper, stuff in books. Gah.

My goal is to solve this all for good. Or at least for a few days.

But first, I'd like to state that I would consider making an exception in my anti-death penalty stance for people who write "for all intensive purposes." I'm a snob, ok?

Last night I reduced the volume of my pine inbox from nearly 800 pieces of email to 350. The problem is there is still a lot of stuff in there that I want to save somewhere, but I don't quite know where. And there's email in there that I should have responded to months ago, but haven't. Because I'm an ass.

Sometime during my junior or senior year, I stuck a little note on my monitor that said "reply to email immediately" or something to that effect, possibly with cruder language for emphasis. For a long while after that, I was actually good about keeping the chain of communication going. Now, I fear, I am the weakest link. I hope to change that.

Also, I need to quit sending myself cryptic emails and then forget about them for months. e.g.
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 01:20:32 -0500 (EST)                                     
From: Pete Rijks                                             
To: Peter William Rijks                                      
                                                                                
ae is definitely 5+++                                                           


Other emails make slightly more sense, but still don't seem quite like saving, such as the one that contains simply "setenv NOTPAUL 1"

So anyway, I'm investigating 'knowledge management' solutions. Particularly appealing to me are apple's tools. But in the meantime, I hope simply to catch up on some correspondence with people. So here's hoping you hear from me!