Epiphany and Stuff

So January 6th was Epiphany, which is a Holy Day of Obligation for us Catholics. That means we're required to attend Mass. At this Mass, we also sing "We, Three Kings of Orient Are," and believe me, it sure is hard to avoid singing about rubber cigars and so on. Straight to hell, I'm tellin' 'ya. That's my destination, no doubt about it.

We three kings of Orient are
Tried to smoke a rubber cigar.
One was loaded, it exploded...

We two kings of Orient are...
(repeat until no kings are left or your parent smacks you)

So, the Knights of Columbus had a big shindig (also known as the 2006 Mid-Year Meeting) at the Marriott in Charlotte, NC scheduled for this weekend, and your old pal Wiggy had to go represent (that's the way the kids say it these days, I hear).

I drove out from Wilson after work on Friday, got checked in to my room, and went right to sleep, more or less. On Saturday, we had meetings galore - much sekrit stuff going on - but I slept through most of it. So if we're planning on taking over the world or something, I missed the date it's supposed to start, sorry. If I hear anything I'll let you know.

Saturday afternoon was Epiphany Mass, as I mentioned, followed by the Feast of the Epiphany, which in this case was roast beef and chicken and some little red potatoes with various veggies. It was fine. I went back to my room, popped a can of Guinness, and installed the latest release of Mandriva Linux on my laptop. That turned out not to work well - it was bog slow and didn't want to upgrade itself properly, so out it went and in went the latest Suse Linux release, which seems to be ok. I usually run Ubuntu, so this was fun for me. Geeky fun. Oh well.

Anyway, I went to bed and woke up this morning with a stabbing headache. I mean my head hurt really badly. I sat up for awhile, holding my head in my hands and hoping it would go away, but it didn't. I thought it might be my sinuses, so I sat in the bathroom for awhile with the door closed and the shower on hot - steam sometimes helps. Not this time, it got worse right away. It was hurting so bad, I was getting nauseous. You know what I mean.

So I got dressed enough to go down to the front desk and buy a couple of three-dollar packs of Aleve and a cuppa joe. Got back to my room, ate the pills, and sipped at the coffee.

Well, that was a bad idea. I did the Big Spit, the Technicolor Yawn. Ugly. You get the idea. I'll leave it at that. It was just one Guinness, or I'd have suspected a hangover. One, really.

Our sekrit meeting broke up before noon and I headed home; long drive when you're feeling punky, let me tell you. And my voice is a busted up, not that anyone has to listen to me talk right now. I got home and Mrs. Wiggy made me a nice Jello, which helps considerable.

But I didn't want to talk about that. I wanted to go on a tear again about one of my favorite subjects - calendars. I mean the kind of chapbook-sized planner in which one keeps one's schedule, appointments, and personal notes-to-self. You might recall I ranted about these last year - when I discovered that it is impossible to buy a calendar for the current year in March of that year - only the NEXT year is for sale. But that was a different rant - the availability rant. This is a rant about the types of calendar-planner thingies that are sold.

So, let me set the stage here. You might suspect that your old pal Wiggy is not the 'keeps-a-personal-planner' kind of guy. And you'd be right. In fact, some of the Wigster's friends can recall when my idea of 'organization' was a box labeled "Bills I'll Never Pay," which was sadly somewhat literal.

However, a number of years ago, Wiggy somehow got into the habit of using one of those "At-A-Glance" organizers, and I really got used to it. I liked it because it was simple, it was small, and I could take it anywhere. A page for each day of the year, and a month-at-a-time display at the beginning of each month. Tabbed for the months, and that's about it. You open the thing up, and open the tab for the month you want. The first thing you see is your monthly calendar, so you know what's coming up that you've forgotten to plan for (hehehe) and then you turn to today's date, and you see what you have scheduled for today. That's about it.

For those of you who have gotten used to using a daily planner of this sort, you know what I mean - once you're hooked, it's your life. You can't do a thing without it. Everything is in there that matters in your day.

I carried one for about ten years, but stopped doing so about seven or eight years ago - just didn't need them anymore, because I got a traveling job and a PDA.

Yes, PDA's are cool. As a road warrior, I liked mine quite a bit. It kept my daily schedule, of course, but it also was an MP3 player, and it kept things like downloaded itinaries and directions to local hotels, customer sites, names and phone numbers, and etc. A handly little device, to be sure.

But, I don't travel for a living anymore. And a PDA is way more than I need now. And a PDA is not that good at the one thing I really do need it for - keeping quick notes and my daily schedule. Oh sure, it can do it, but I'm not that fast on the keypad, I don't speak Blackberry, and my prehensile thumbs are not up to speed, since I'm a pre-1962 model human. So as much as I'm a true techno-geek, I am not doing the PDA thing anymore.

I started a new job a couple of years ago, and I had discontinued using my PDA, and had not gone back to the dead-tree version. My boss noted a couple of times that I appeared to be forgetting things - like meetings and deadlines and stuff. Then, when I failed to correct the problem, he noted it on a performance review and hinted that staying on top of things might be a good way to remain employed. Hmmm.

This led to the previously-mentioned rant, as I tried (in March) to find a 2005 calendar, only to discover that you can't buy one for the current year past January of that year. I finally found a half-baked 'Academic Year' planner for teachers, and it worked, after a fashion. But this year, I resolved to find one of my old favorite "At-A-Glance" daily planners.

So here it is - the 8th of January, 2006. I actually started looking on Friday, the 6th.

My first stop was the local Staples - one of the Big Three office supply superstores (the other two being OfficeMax and Office Depot). They have a whole row of planners, and Glory Be, they're all still for 2006. However, although they have every form and type of planner known to US marketing forces, they did not have what I was seeking.

Over the years since I had used my last "At-A-Glance" planner, the various US planner-makers seem to have reached some sort of agreement on nomenclature for planners. They're labeled with a big "D" if they are daily planners. "W" stands for weekly, and of course, "M" is for monthly. And there are permutations available, of course. There is "WM," which is weekly-monthly. And therein hangs a tale.

It would appear that the type of "At-A-Glance" planner I used to carry was what is now known as the "DM" variety (Daily/Monthly). Do they have one? No, they do not.

Oh, there are lots of alternatives. Loads of them. If I want to build my very own paper-based personal time management device (I am not making this up), I can purchase lots of loose-leaf pages that match, more or less, my needs; and then I can select a cover and put the whole thing together. It will end up costing about three times more than I want to spend, and it will have a whole lot of what I don't want.

Let me tell you what I don't want. I don't want any freaking affirmations. No poems. No zen koans. No prayerful thoughts, no pictures of clouds or puppies. I don't want anything that takes batteries or lights up or makes noise. I don't want fine Corinthian leather or zippers or buckles or snaps or velcro. Nothing padded, nothing with pen holders or rulers or metric conversion tables. No world time-zones or "Zipcodes I've Known and Loved," no "This Day in History." All I want is a single page for every day of the year (you can double up on weekends, I guess) with a monthly preview calendar and tabs for the months. That's it.

I guess the various planner makers here in the USA have been busy trying to out-PDA the PDA's. More 'features', if you will. More fluff. And of course, more money. Well, none of them will do. I don't want them, and I won't buy them.

There are several US makers of these things. Names that come to mind are At-A-Glance, Daytimer, Dayrunner, and Franklin-Covey. And they're all crap. They all make exactly the same thing, with each one trying to top the other in extras. You end up with an overpriced, padded leather, all-singing, all-dancing book of garbage with your important notes lost somewhere in the middle of that monstrosity. It reminds me of a 1973 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Comfy? Yes. Useful? Not especially.

So today, as I drove home from Charlotte, I stopped at OfficeMax and Office Depot, thus completing the unholy triumvirate, and discovered what I fully expected to find at this point. Nobody has a "DM" planner. Naturally.

What really galls me is that most of the employees of these places looked at me like I'd grown two heads when I asked them about it. Not only did they not have any "DM" planners, they were fully prepared to swear on a stack of bibles that there had never been any such thing in the entire history of the world. Why would ANYONE want such a thing? Now, that really gripes my wagger. It's one thing to not have an item. It's not great if they no longer make it, but I can deal with it. It's NOT OK for snorg-hunching employees to sniff in my general direction and try to impress me with their acumen in the daily planning arena.

Ah, but this rant MIGHT have a happy ending after all. When I got home, hoarse and angry and planner-less, I got online and checked the 'net.

Seems the Europeans haven't lost sight of what a planner is bloody well supposed to be.

The first thing I found was the Moleskine, an Italian creation. It has a huge freaky fanbase, apparently it is very famous. There's even a blog devoted to it. Well, it is the thing I'm looking for, so that's good. It doesn't cost very much, that's nice. Ah. They're OUT OF THEM. Yeah. That had to happen.

Take a look at this - see how nice it is? See how simple? Why can't the Americans do that anymore? It does not have tabs for the months, but it has a ribbon to mark your place - I can live with that.

Moleskine US

I also found Lett's of London - apparently well-known in NYC as well as in London, according to Mrs. Wiggy. Her uncle would never go out without his Lett's. The one I like is this one:

Letts of London

However, although it appears to be in stock, it lacks some critical descriptions of what it contains. Specifically, I don't know if it also has a monthly calendar preview of each month. I wish they'd be more descriptive.

Exacompta is the other European company that I found that understands what a daily planner is supposed to be:

Exacompta

So here I am on Sunday night; ticked off, again. I'm going to go to work tomorrow and I'm going to get online and I'm going to order SOMETHING, I reckon. Guess it will be one of those European numbers, presuming that someone has one in stock and will ship two-day air. I'm going nuts here.

And I still don't understand why the US makers won't just make a simple planner (or 'diary' as some Europeans call it).

But enough of this. I'm tired now. Going to bed. No epiphany in sight. But by tomorrow, I'm going to have a planner, if I have to draw it myself on notebook paper.

Smooches,

Wiggy