Alex asks for recommendations for desk chairs. I was going to answer in his comments, but it got to be long, so I thought I’d post here instead. I have three data points about desk chairs:

One, when I was in high school, we had one of those kneeling chairs (though a cheap one, without the back, not the nice one Alex is considering), which I spent many a late night in, writing papers for classes (in WordStar on an Apple IIe with a CP/M card, uphill, in the snow…). After a couple of hours, it always felt terrible; often I would go get a kitchen chair. And I was young and limber then, I can only imagine what they would do to me today.

Two, I worked for 14 months for one of those dot.bombs that immediately went out and spent their fresh VC dollars on Aeron chairs. I loved mine, and wanted to buy it when the end came. But the CEO made a deal with the landlord to resolve the lease/rent, and my chair was included. I was very sad. I still think about buying one. I suppose if the remodel ever ends, I may do that this year, if I continue to work at home.

Three, about two years ago, Rochelle got a great little size A chair from an excess sale at her job. It was a $500 chair when new, from a premium office furniture maker, so it was a great deal at $40 used. And getting the small size was perfect for Rochelle’s short body. (Finding someone who carries the small size can be difficult; they are almost always special orders.) Every once in a while, I’d sit in it for an hour or so, while admin’ing on her computer, and thought it was pretty comfortable, if too small for me. So, when her company had another salvage sale, we bought another chair, in my size, and I replaced my $150 Costco chair immediately.

After two months, the “better” chair had hurt my back pretty badly. I had a spinal x-ray, an MRI, and various other exams. I ended up doing two months of physical therapy, because we thought there was something else wrong. But it turned out to just be the chair. After an hour of sitting in it, I would be in pain. When I finally realized it, I gave it to my mother, and went back to the old Costco chair, and my back has been in decent shape since. And my mother loves the chair that hurt me.

You would think I would have noticed that the chair was hurting me sooner than I did. I mean, I was in a lot of pain. But, when I get in front of the computer, I get focused on other things. I just never noticed, until it got really bad.

Anyway, the point of this long third story is that expensive chairs are not necessarily better for your back, and every person needs a different chair. If you can, take your laptop or a stack of paperwork to the chair store, enough for a couple hours of work, and get them to set you up with a chair or two that you think you might want to buy. And then, work in each one for at least an hour. But an hour may not be long enough, so ask about return policies, and don’t buy where you can’t return it within 30 days. You’ll pay a higher price, but you’ll be sure you’re getting a chair that works for you. If you’re spending even 40 hours a week in it, it’s worth it.

For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds:

Life		Tech
Self Rochelle Food Travel The Cats The House The Job Haightlife I Like Politics & Law Media Miscellaneous		Mac OS X Anti-Spam Technology About This Site

As if we didn’t need more proof that the economy is crummy, here’s the exceptionally literate journal of a porn store clerk. It’s funny, a little sad, and very disturbing by turns. I just spent 1 1/2 hours reading the entire thing, and there’s no question the woman writing it deserves a better job, she’s a very talented writer.

Best of luck, Ali!

Hit another milestone on Saturday, now I’m under 100 messages. I am in serious danger of getting my act together…

For years I’ve lived with hundreds of unanswered e-mail messages sitting in my Inbox at home. Since e-mail is my preferred form of communication this is a real problem, because basically anything “below the fold,” that is, not in the first screen of my Inbox, gets ignored, often indefinitely.

Periodically I would get into a groove and file some, delete more, and answer or act upon others, without ever really getting the situation under control. But recently I’ve been on a roll, hitting magic numbers that provide new motivation. Last weekend it was getting under 300, on Saturday it was 200. After last evening I’m under 150.

My Inbox displays 26 messages in one screen, so theoretically my final magic number should be 25. For now, though, the only number I’m looking at is 100.

Now if only I could make this happen at work…

Today is my mother’s birthday. I’m working at a tradeshow until 9pm tonight, but I’ll call her when I get home to wish her a happy birthday.

But if she checks here before then, Happy Birthday, Mom!

Here’s a couple of predictions for the 2002 NCAA Basketball Tournament which starts in about an hour.

Duke takes it all. Kansas looks really strong, but every Duke player in the rotation knows what it takes to win a national championship. Duke’s not invincible, but they know it. Expect Jason Williams to focus, and win.

No way Cincinnati is a Final Four team. Yeah, they have 30 wins, but they won’t get four more.

Gonzaga got screwed by getting a #6 seed, and faces #2 Arizona in the second round. It’s going to be a Final Four-level game. I think AZ is going to bring it, but I’d love to see the ‘Zags move on instead.

Stanford is out in the first round.

USC is going to last a bit longer, but has to face Duke. And will lose.

Cal wins a game, but probably not two.

UCLA out in the first round.

Oregon, without any Tournament experience, will win two games, but no more.

Last year my tournament picks were in the 96th percentile at ESPN’s Tournament Challenge; tell me how I did in three weeks!

Steve Rubenstein, of the SF Chronicle, has a great suggestion for making the world a little less pleasant for telemarketers, the kind who call you during dinner.

The basic premise is that telemarketing is cost-effective because most people who are going to say no say it in the first 10 seconds of the call. This lets telemarketers dial as many as a couple hundred numbers an hour. If the “Nos” start slowing them down, by taking a couple minutes, the economics of telemarketing stop working.

How do you do this? When you get a telephone solicitation, say “Hold on, please” (or some variation), set the phone down…and let them wait to figure out you’re not coming back.

You’ll find it personally satisfying if you start doing this yourself, but the key to this technique really working, achieving the global aim of cutting down on telemarketing, is for lots of people to do it.

So, pass it on.

Rochelle and I are both glad that 2001 is over with. It’s not as though a calendar can mark the boundaries of luck or experience, but as much as the date shouldn’t matter, you can’t help summing a year up into a theme. And 2001 sucked for lots of people.

But it wasn’t all bad. Rochelle and I were fortunate to be able to spend almost two months together, 24/7, and come out on the other side having more fun with each other than ever. It’s good to be married to a good partner.

Both Rochelle and I experienced job changes we hadn’t intended, mine because my company died, and Rochelle because her boss wasn’t right for her. Now we’re both in jobs we like better than what we started with last year, and which are overall more financially rewarding to boot.

We replaced the nasty carpets in much of our house with wonderful hardwood floors. The floors bring joy to us every day, and may go down as the best investment we made in 2001 (not that the others were hard to beat).

Inspired by the success of the floors, we got serious about lighting, and replaced five existing lights with 4 “new” (to us) period fixtures (this was the source of my Fun With Electricity postings). The one that gives me the greatest pleasure is in the office, which replaced a ceiling light and a 500-watt halogen lamp, lighting the office about 20% better using half as much electricity.

We also started in on our water closet renovation, but have stalled on that, because we decided that getting all of the excess crap out of our parlor and office was more important. Both of these jobs will be with us through most of 2002, I predict.

We threw or attended some really good parties, the best of which was Rochelle’s birthday, and the most impressive was David’s birthday. (One of these days we’ll get the food photos from that up on our site.)

We took some nice trips, including Mexico, Texas, and LA. We ate a whole lot of good food on those trips, most of which we photographed, and most of which we’re behind on publishing. A resolution for 2002, surely.

I bought a new Mac and transitioned entirely to Mac OS X. This is something which gives me pleasure daily, for a whole lot of reasons, one of which is that it enabled me to start this weblog.

I said goodbye to Tex, whom I miss dearly, but who is certainly living a better, happier life in her new household, where she’s the top kitten, with cat companions she likes, neither of which was true in our house.

Rochelle and I both made tremendous progress on our crap reduction and abatement programs, though we clearly have more to accomplish in 2002 (another resolution).

I’m sure we accomplished many other things we’re happy with in 2001, and my feeble mind can’t remember them. That’s why one of my resolutions for this year is to regularly update this weblog. I’m a little behind at this point…