Ever have one of those days?

I started out trying to write up a to do list. I hate paper to do lists 'cause I lose 'em or don't finish 'em and can't remember what I had on 'em when I go to make a new one and end up duplicating a lot of what was on the old one I lost.

Tracking so far?

So I turn to my trusty computer. Here's what I want... a to do list that links to my address book and can be linked to a calendar and can be fed to a Google gadget and can have entries posted from just about anywhere. It's got to be sortable, too. If I enter a name in the address book and a to do item that references that name I don't want to see the name in the Google gadget
... just the to do item.

I want to sit down at the keyboard and type "to do: call joe smith about digging a ditch today," and have the program know enough to put a to do item with a due date of today and a note about ditch digging and a link to Joe's address book entry in a Google gadget I can see n my home page.

Is that asking too much?

I don't mind having to use a hotkey keystroke or two. I don't even mind having to perform a little drag and drop action for sorting and assigning categories. I don't expect it to decipher typo.

I do mind having to learn a complete secret code to enter the information... especially if I can't get a Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring in my box of Lucky Charms.

There are lots that seem to come close:

• Toodledo
• Hands down the best to do list manager I've found. No address book integration I can find, though. Great Google gadget. No way I can find to enter data without switching to the site.
• Stikkit
• Best all around, if a bit quirky, freeform personal information manager I've ever seen. I love this app! Having said that, I cant get things to consistently link and the Google gadget shows everything or nothing... there seems to be no in-between. I can enter from Quicksilver which is also great, but also quirky.
• Palm
• Won't properly integrate with much of anything anymore. I love my Palm... I've got 2 of 'em and had several others, but where the hardware was keeping up, the software slipped. Because of that, I'm sorry to say, I now have a nice, compact eBook reader/solitaire/cheap digital cameraMP3 Player. Not that that's a bad thing to have, but it no longer does what I bought it for successfully.
• iCal/Address Book from Apple
  
• They'll sync and they'll link, but in order to get them to do it right You have to use several work-arounds and bounce from this site to that site to another. I've never gotten the to do's to sync successfully anywhere.
• iGTD
• The once upon a time champ of to do lists has succumbed to featuritis. Now, what was a simple, clean, easy way to manage a to do list has become buggy and unstable, over-featured and underpowered. That, and it never did work well with an address book or sync to Google gadgets.

• Expresso for Macintosh
• ohhh yeah... gadgety goodness and eye candy. This PIM wouldn't sync to anything, but it did put a prettified version of your calendar and to do list right on the desktop as wallpaper and it could be accessed with a hotkey. All I can find now are other folk, like me, lamenting the loss of this PIM (and all the rest of Berkeley Systems).
  
• Okna Desktop Set
• This memory is so old I can't quite remember why I loved this program. I seem to remember it doing almost everything including linking to a built in word processor for easy creation of business letters and such. It's still around, but it's for Windows and I am long since a Mac devotee and if the website is any indication of their current coding skills, I'm just as glad it's not available.
  

Isn’t that the way it goes so very often? Just when you’re ready to spit out the answer to the question… time’s up!

The questions I’m dealing with today are wild and varied… this is going to be one of those long, drawn out how-can-lose-my-train-of-thought-when-I-don’t-have-a-train-only-a-pogo-stick-of-thought posts. Brace yourselves!

• Is it cheating to post the same post to two blogs?

• Why is it Jeanette, who I had to cajole and prod into maintaining a blog, is doing such a good job with her blog while I, equipped with desire, software and experience, can’t seem to write a post more than once a week?

That’s easy! Shes doing all kinds of interesting things… checking lambs, chores, building fences, gardening, shearing, listening to the birds, packing and shipping and dealing with customers online.

I’m making looms and knitting needles and crochet hooks and spindles. How many times can I write that and make it sound interesting?

In fairness, the last loom I finished this morning, a 4-foot Sorraia with wooden pegs is very nice. And the set of knitting needles she wrote about this morning are also very unique (for now… remember, she has a tendency to take all my ideas and, once they work, post ‘em and I have to make more ). Jen took some pictures, but they’re over on her computer and she’s busy so…

And, I did help with the hay and a load of slab from the sawyer and work with the bees.

• And, speaking of bees, shouldn’t we take notes when dealing with bees?

They’ve got it made! They’re captains of industry and orderly and structured…

My new spacesuit… beam me up Scotty!
That’s a pith helmet under the netting, so with just a quick costume change, I can be exploring the deepest darkest… Dr. Livingstone I presume…

Nope, not a phaser… We’re told that the smoke doesn’t really calm them, although that’s the end result. The smoke makes ‘em think that there’s a fire (duh!) and they go grabbing honey to make good their escape. So, they’re fat on honey and focussed on getting out and that makes ‘em slow down. Or so we’re told…

“What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happenin’…”

And there they are. They seem pretty healthy, but not as prolific as I’d like to see. however, I’m an inexperienced beekeeper and these are still relatively new hives.

Inexperienced? yep, but lucky, too… checked most every frame in both hives and not one bite… from a bee…

It seems to me that if we would just accept our role in life and acknowledge that Jen is the queen and do what we’re told (or know needs to be done instinctively) we’d all get along so much better. I men, who needs ambition or creativity or… ah, forget I said anything…

• Why is it I can never seem to get caught up or ahead?

Because business is brisk, and thats a good thing. Because there’s so much to do, and that’s a good thing. Because there are only so many hours a day… can we get Congress to change that? Because when I do get caught up I take a day off and that’s a bad thing.

I wouldn’t know caught up or ahead if it walked up and bit me!

• What should I pack?

Now, however, I hear the queen buzzing and the buzzing can either be translated as “get back to work, you still have looms to finish before you pack your tools.” or “BZZZZZ - Time’s up!”