I think I am burned out on blogging. Again.

Going to let the blog batteries recharge. Have a few new projects in the workings for the masses. Specifically the Springfield masses.

Check me out on Twitter till the next post.

Copenhagen – City of Cyclists from Colville Andersen on Vimeo.

Springfield is about the furthest thing from a city that is friendly to cycling. Let’s be honest. Mrs. Shoo and I have already have had a handful amount of run-ins with drivers who blast past stop signs and other ignorant drivers. Dave Heinzel got knocked down by a city truck while biking to work. BikerBen this year was almost turned into roadkill.

Wear a helmet kids and adults.

May 15th is ride your bike to work day. Anyone plan on riding? Last year I had a straight shot to work from the bike path. Now I am working downtown, so I’ve got to do a little more navigating. They have a bike rack outside the building, so I think I am down for it.

Dave Heinzel, you out there? I know you’ve been going to work with four wheels lately?! Will, how about you?

Lollapalooza Lineup 2009 from C3 Presents Video on Vimeo.

I am so stoked.

Copenhagen User Experience from Copenhagen Concept on Vimeo.

I totally dig this concept but unfortunately users are fickle to UI changes, so it will be years before we see improvements like this to Windows.

Bueller? Bueller?

Yes, Ferris is the latest piece in the Shoo household. It was my year to pick and it was actually pretty difficult. Besides having to make a decision on John’s great artwork, he was showing another artist which made the decision twice as hard. But for some reason Ferris was calling my name “Shoo?, Shoo?”

Maybe it was because the movie so iconic or a particular quote that stuck out from the movie, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

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You never know what’s going to happen at an art show…

My buddy John Romang invited us down to Paducah this weekend for his art show. You may remember from the blog last year the Shoo’s acquiring a bright green painting of Mrs. Shoo’s Shoes that John painted. Well, we like his stuff so much, we’ve got another painting. You’ll just have to wait and see what we got.

This guy was the inspiration behind the Ewoks in the movie Star Wars.

Today being tax day, I thought I’d give a little insight on how I pay the bills when not forking over hard earned cash to Uncle Sam. I don’t do anything out of the normal, our bills are paid with hard earned money, but the work flow I have has been modernized to accommodate for online payments and the occasional check.

I got sick of being charged for late payments or not being able to look back in my records when I wrote a check or submitted a payment online. I was especially irritated when I’d go to pay a bill online the date it was due only to find out that the transaction could not be processed till the next day, or I would have to pay a rush transaction fee of $15. Outrageous when a lot of credit card companies are getting customers for 20+% interest.

Even though companies almost beg to have you switch to a paperless billing format, I do both paper and electronic if I can. This way if I see an email that a bill is ready, I know that I should be seeing something in the mail very soon.

Once I get the paper bill, I take the bill out and file it in a holder on my desk downstairs. I put the bills that are due the earliest in the front, and those due later in the back. This way I can determine when it would be better to pay a bill based on when we’ll have paychecks going into our account.

While grouping the bills, I also put an entry in my Google calendar to remind me to pay that group of bills. The calendar will also send a text message reminder.

If I pay a bill online, I print the confirmation page with the payment summary as a PDF and store it in a common directory on my hard drive called “bills.” I won’t go into the details but the directory is also replicated on my server as a backup because I am a geek and you can never go wrong with an extra backup. And just in case, I always write the payment date and amount on the bill stub and throw it in a box.

I tried keeping the paper statements organized, but it just wasn’t worth it. It’s much easier to sort a group files by a creation date and file name.

For the oddball check, I scan the check along with the bill stub and put it in the same “bills” directory.

All of this seems like common sense, but I know too many people who are afraid to look at bills or don’t know when they’re due. With my workflow it’s really hard for me to ignore the phone bill that’s due on the 15th. It works for me.

Anyone care to put in their two cents? Have a process that easier than what I do? Leave a comment.

“If we don’t Twitter, we don’t exist.”

Forecast says that it is suppose to warm up by the end of the week. I feel a late afternoon cold coming on once it hits 65.

I hate these sunglasses, but she loves them. Bug eyes.