Ralph Carlson Blog

Everybody is worrying these days about conserving energy and one of the supposed problems is the chargers for your devices continuing to take unneeded power once the battery is charged.  An enterprising RISD student solves the problem.

Outlet Regulator Video from conor klein on Vimeo.

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• Sunday Funnies - Chindogu Chindogu is the Japanese art of designing complex gadgets to solve simple problems.  It is not what you would expect from the home of Zen...
• District 9 - Movie Review I"m not a great movie goer. In another unexpected turn, I attended a movie yesterday.  So far this has been a big movie year for...

• Save Time, Money and Space in Over 80 Ways If you're looking for handy gadgets, tools and various items that can save you time, money or space (or all three!) this list of more...
• DIY Wind Power - Enjoy Time Tested Savings by Wendy Hamilton In light of the fact that you found this article you are no doubt serious about employing DIY wind power to provide...

I have complained about my difficulty in organizing my time, getting the most out of the time I have and making sure that I take care of long term goals as well as those immediate calls for my attention that seem important at the time but do nothing about getting my to new achievements.  It turns out that, as usual, it is my own limited imagination that keeps me from seeing a better way.  Steve Scott has managed to get his life organized and profitable using the web but what got me excited today is his no nonsense way of planning his activities – by the week.  I am going to start using his system moving forward with some new goals and ideas for my web and business activities and I am optimistic that this powerful yet simple system will help me pick up momentum.  If you are having problems organizing your time, maybe Steve’s system is what you are looking for as well.

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• Personal Branding - Facebook Audit Image via Wikipedia Sharing my personal branding experience to encourage others. I am continuing to audit my social marketing on the web following the suggestions...
• Social Networking Image by luc legay via Flickr Why I started About a year ago I began to hear about Web 2.0 applications and social networking.  People...

• getting one thing done As part of my 6-posts-in-one-day assault, I thought I would address my latest productivity attempt. I find that I am an excellent list-maker and sorter,...
• Customer Experience Management - The Telecom Industry Ahead AbstractThe telecom service providers have always followed a growth trajectory in the past decade through increase in customer base as well as adding considerable numbers...

Never underestimate the power of the unconscious mind

People underestimate the power of the unconscious mind. Because of their ignorance this very powerful part of our brain works against us rather than for us. I was reminded of this while musing about Donny Deutch’s quote on failure. He talks about the problem of people setting a goal for themselves NOT to fail.

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• Change you can believe in Image by David Reece via Flickr I gave a speech last week. Last week I gave a short presentation to a business group. This group's...
• Me 2.0- Not just for Gen Y Today we all need a personal brand I just finished Me 2.0, Dan Shawbel's book about personal branding. He focuses, as you might expect on...

• Complacency A Silent Killer Of Financial Turnarounds I'd like to dedicate a post to expanding on an idea I mentioned in last week's post, A Frugal Diet, Or A Frugal Lifestyle -...
• 10 Essential Elements of Weight Loss Success pt 1 1 - Mindset - You can never really tell how important a can do attitude is going to be until you have one. A real...

Moving on up

Earlier I posted about my wife’s first car and her initiation on the freeways of Los Angeles when they were at their prime. She caught on fast and soon the trusty Vega no longer fit her image. We had just bought our first house, three blocks from the beach in swinging Manhattan Beach and she was ready for a new car- still a Chevrolet but a far cry from the Vega. She was on the hunt for a Corvette and before long she found it. It cost her the princely sum of $6,000 in 1974 and it was her pride and joy. She loved that car and it did have a raffish charm. She drove it to her design jobs around LA and to her teaching gig at Cal Arts.

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• LA Museums Continued Continuing my post on our February visit to LA, we visited two more museums on Saturday. It seems like overkill perhaps but we are selective...
• My First Car My first car was a Corvair, purchased in 1967 when I was stationed at Fort Shafter Hawaii during the Viet Nam War. The purchase was...

• What Would You Do If Gas Suddenly Jumped To $5.00 Per Gallon? If you woke up tomorrow and gas prices had jumped to $5.00 per gallon, what would you think? Would you begin looking for someone to...
• Time to drive My son just turned 15 and a half. Around here that means he is eligible for his learner's permit. We headed down to the DMV...

“Creativity is about freedom.  In order for people to be free to create, they need to feel free to fail.  You can’t fear failure.  If you want to create a world that values creation above everything else, first and foremost you have to take fear out of the equation.  You have to create a culture that can accept failure, live with failure, not be fearful of failure.  So much of what we do in life as businesspeople is failure-averse.  It’s amazing how many businesses and management teams and people I have met make their important decisions based on fear of failure, tripping up, or being ostracized.  The driving force for them is not success; it is failure avoidance.  No. You need to embrace failure.”

Hip and successful advertising executive Donny Deutsch says this about failure in his autobiographical book, Often Wrong, Never in Doubt.  No need to embelish.  The quote speaks powerfully enough.

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• Nostalgia - UCLA 1973 The myth I grew up with was that degrees were the path to success.  So when I began getting disillusioned with my job, the answers...
• Patriotism - My Version [/caption] Just to be clear, I am writing this as a citizen of the United States of America. I don’t know how my thoughts will...

• Truth in Virtual Reality We live in one world. This world as we make it isn’t false. The flesh and blood world is out of flesh and blood, but...
• If You Could Pick Your Benefits At Work, What Would You Pick? Although in this economy, you might not have a choice - and you might be lucky to get a lollipop on your way back to...

Time management struggles

I have been struggling lately with managing my time better. Rather than focusing my efforts on the most critical activities, I tend to get diverted into the less critical and open-ended tasks that have unlimited potential to eat up time. I still have goals and priorities but I lack the hard deadlines that kept me focused at my job.

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• Persistence [/caption] Thinking about persistence, I turned to a book which has inspired me over the years – The Magic of Thinking Big, by Dr. David...
• Moving Right Along It has been just over one month since I decided to retire. I expected that I would accomplish so much with the time freed up...

• Money Saving Tips: 122 Ways To Trim Your Budget A while back All You Magazine offered to give away a few subscriptions to Frugal Dad readers.  The rules for entering the contest were simple--leave...
• Earn Your Street Cred Like 50 Cent Photo by @sahxic < twitter You ain't no gangsta You'se a busta, a customer, a sucker - from You Ain't No Gangsta My two sons...

What’s in a name?

A recent post questioned how important a domain name is in the success of a blog. I was concerned that perhaps naming my blog after myself was a handicap. Many successful blogs do not use the name of their creator.  Others do. If I want my blog to grow up like the big boys, should I change the name?

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• Funny in Savannah Last summer I confessed that I can’t tell jokes.  Exploration of humor to research a blog post persuaded me that this was just one more...
• What is Your Train Wreck? [/caption] Last week I briefly discussed the three train wrecks that can mess up your life.  Mine at this point in my life is the...

• How to Relocate your Wordpress Blog to a New Domain Name Making the decision to move my blog from http://www.courseladder.com to http://www.golfballdriver.com was a big one, and a good one, and it taught me a lot...
• 10 Tips To Increase Traffic To Blog At this present writing, there are more than 115 Million blogs worldwide. The majority of these blogs are strictly for the purpose of making money....

Not to be confused with  iPod, this odd-looking silicone gadget can make some of your more difficult cooking chores easier.  Fill it with whatever you might want to immerse in hot water and cook away.  Lift it out with the convenient handle when you are done.

More here.

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• Funny in Savannah Last summer I confessed that I can’t tell jokes.  Exploration of humor to research a blog post persuaded me that this was just one more...
• On Education [/caption]  A coupe of posts caught my eye this week talking about education. They were both inspired by a post by Leo Babauta of Zen...

• 22 Ways To Energy Efficiency, From The Free To The Expensive. From one of my favorite sites, Co-op America, here are 22 steps you can take -- each with the energy savings you can achieve each...
• Good Human Tip Of The Week - Buy Washable Sponges. I'm sure most people buy those cheap little sponges that you throw away after a week or 2 of use, but I wanted to let...

How long will it be before Bollywood conquers the world?

English translation here although it is hardly necessary.

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• Are you a changer or a changee? When we hear people talking about change, it is always about an external force.  We always think that change is something we can’t control; something...
• District 9 - Movie Review I"m not a great movie goer. In another unexpected turn, I attended a movie yesterday.  So far this has been a big movie year for...

–adjective

2.     worthy of notice or attentio

That is what Dictionary.com says about remarkable. To me it means something that stands out; something with a unique quality that differentiates it from other things; peerless; without compare. In other words, pretty special.

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• What can I learn from comment counts? Image by svenwerk via Flickr I know it when I see it. Until recently, the only criteria I had to decide the quality of a...
• Failure and Creativity Image by Getty Images via Daylife "Creativity is about freedom.  In order for people to be free to create, they need to feel free to...