Mindfulness
August 30, 2007
I’ve been listening to this book on tape but you can also read it. I feel very relaxed. This is not some new age thing. It is written by a Zen master. I like his methods and metaphors. One metaphor which have stuck with me is of a stone thrown into the body of water. It accepts and sinks to the bottom. This is the position for meditation. He discusses the Sutra in layman’s terms. These ancient philosophy and methods illuminates. Another metaphor is of the breath. He describes each breath as a climb on the rope to get to the top. He talks about the concept of the five aggregates. This is Dharma. This book seems to touch up on a lot of smaller detail items that I’ve read in the life remix, life hacks, and life improvement tip blogs. When I eat, I slow down and respect the food, I’m mindful and thankful. When I write, I’m mindful and thankful for the paper, computer, and typewriter etc. Hand writing has now become a form of meditation. An example of mindfulness image which the author gives is when one breathes, focus as though it was the axis on which the planet rotated.
Thay on speaking of faith public radio program thich nhat hanh
Update: September 25th, 2008 I saw a video VHS of “Walking Meditation”. In it, Thay is talking about walking while meditating. The breath unites the count and the step, three into one. When walking allow yourself to be happy and smile. He mentions the metaphor of the rope again. He also mention that he was helping the boat people in Singapore. He hired a boat to go out and help 700 refugee to land in Singapore. The Government didn’t like it. They wanted to deport him and 700 refugee in 24 hr. It was 2am. He did walking meditation in his room until 6am when a solution came to him.
Green Gulch Farm Zen center in California produced the video.
tags: Thich Nhat Hanh, spiritual, meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, Zen, Zen Buddhism
Kawaii-Cat’s Circa
August 30, 2007
Originally uploaded by Duc N. Ly.
It’s never too early to introduce the GTD methodology. Here, you see my twelve-years-old niece’s custom notebook. Kawii-cat likes the 4×6 grid index cards combined with the Real Simple 3×5 index cards as GTD tabs. She keeps a list of worries: mostly about piano practices, a neighborhood play ‘Ella’ which is a modern day Cinderella story in which she has the lead roll as ‘Ella’, and her Tamagotchi ideas for the forum ‘TamaTune‘ in which she was promoted to ‘Admin’ yesterday! Congratz Kawaii-Cat!
CircaRolla Manila Folder Recycle Project
August 29, 2007
Originally uploaded by Duc N. Ly.
I do like to use the thick Moleskine blank sketch notebooks. I’ve already filled up about half of one. I was thinking of getting another one but I decided to save some money and make my own! The thing about the Moleskine is that I can’t re-arrange the pages. Often the good sketches need to be gather into a sensible organized order. I’ve toy with the idea of cutting pages from the Moleskine and then punch them with the Circa/Rolla paper puncher to accommodate the discs. This project accomplished both objectives nicely. I’m always hesitant to draw on the more expensive Moleskine sketch books. With these home-made pages, I am more likely to draw on them.
There were a lot of discarded Manila folders in my office which I was starting to hoard until one day there wasn’t room in the drawers any more. So I decided to recycle them into a notebook! The legal size is cut down with the paper guillotine, and the corners rounded. I bought a corner rounder at a scrap booking store or they even have it at Target’s scrapbook section. To minimize the waste, I first clip the tab edge as these can get damaged in the file shuffle. I line up to the seven inch mark and chop the tab edge. Then I measure eight inches and chop the folder again. You can use what ever dimensions you want.
The corner rounder is from EK Success.
The paper puncher and discs are from Rollabind.com and Levenger.com
This is your tip of the week! Enjoy!
Featured in notebookism.com/2007/08/31 circarolla-mani
ducly.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/simple-mynd-hack
ducly.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/light-blue-hpda-cover
If you like this hack please digg it/design/CircaRolla_Manila_Folder_2
tags: Rolla, Circa, CircaRolla, notebook, paper, hack, moleskine, disc-bound,
Tschai’s Gift Journal Story
August 27, 2007
Originally uploaded by Duc N. Ly.
A while back, Tschai sent me this notebook. It is only now that she begins to tell me a story about the paper. Well, I actually discover a post on her new blog about paper notebooks that she’s been making. I would like to read more of her stories about the collection of notebook for purchase. What began as a few journals has grown into an extensive collection of both traditional and modern types of journals.
How wonderful it is to know that it was made in a convent. I’ve had a fascination with monastery and was fortunate enough to visit some of the monasteries in Europe. It’s good to know that the paper came from a pure source and that it was done diligently and perhaps with meditation.
D: So tell me a little bit about the Convent that made the wonderful paper.
Tschai – They are Franciscan sisters, (order of St. Francis of Assisi) and in order to augment their “outreach” program, they have livelihood projects. They are rather famous for their handmade paper. They have invitations,
boxes made of handmade paper, paper fans. The handmade paper comes in different colors and is usually sold 20″ x 30″.
On my end, I love their papers as inside sheets for my journals, it has an amazing texture and when clumped up into a book block, its not as heavy as the regular bond / board specialty paper…
D: What about the square cubes?
T: Those? those are just from fashion jewelries i thought i thought would look good as journal embellishments if you had to know, all holes found on the edges are hand-punched and hand-stitched… but I’m sure that is obvious…write something on it with you fountain pen… and take a picture…
D: So do you have a picture of the convent?
T: Nope. hehhehe
D: Darn
T: I’m sure ur imagining a cloistered convent of some sort.
D: Yes…so don’t ruin it for me…lol
T: my friend who is a nun sent me a journal made there with nice handmade paper (i don’t know what its made of) and their signature cloth.. the weaved one… off topic, just remembered my friend when you mentioned ‘nun’
D: oh wow soo cool….so you get free journals too
T: Once…hehhe as our “friendship book” i gave her one. And while away with each other, we write on those journals and exchange when we see each other in 3-5 years.
D: oh wow…another good story…okay i copy and past.
T: and i forgot to tell you, the book is side bound using Cinnamon stick to hold the cover and page.
D: so tell me about the cinnamon stick
T: well let me describe it in my own simple way: the whole book is bound by strings, sewn, but at the end, instead of the strings, sewn directly back into the book, they used a stick to stabilize the binding.
flickr photos of the cinnamon stick
The Red Jacket
August 24, 2007
Originally uploaded by Duc N. Ly.
This is a red jacket. This photo was taken few months back with the DMC-LC1. That camera has a bad sensor in it. I miss that camera. I thought this jacket could fit also a CircaRolla 3×5 index cards. I bought it, rescued it from the sales bin at Office Max. The jacket is made of faux leather from China. The brand is call Blue Sky. It came with a small spiral notebook.
tags: myndology, circa, rolla, blue sky, jacket, red, orange, notebook, paper
My Hero ’329′
August 21, 2007
Hero ’329′ was a fountain pen my family brought over from Vietnam. I used the jet black from 1990-1993. I dropped it on the hard concrete floor of the studio. The nib chipped and the top of the barrel cracked. It pains me to this day when I think how clumsy I was and still am to some extent. The hero was my constant companion. I wrote with it, sketch with it.
The Hero ’329′, as I later learn of its domination or numeric designation, has many sentimental values. I’ve been looking for this pen for a very long time now. Last nigh, I found it! Let me start with last Saturday, August 18, 2007. I rode the bus to Downtown Portland to get some refills for my Parker Vector. (The Vector was also a 2005 birthday presents from the In-laws.) On my way out, I discovered ‘PenWorld’ magazine. The last page has an interview with Norman Haase of Hisnibs. After a series of email exchanges, I found it on his website! Bingo! I wrote back to Norman. The picture shows a streamline design which was inspired by the Parker ’51′ and ’61′. Frankly, I prefer the Hero ’329′ over the Parkers. It has a modern sleek look and feel of the 50′s stream lines. The modern touch, almost futuristic, resides above the hooded nib. Some Star Trek fans have mistaken this as their insignia.
Last Christmas of December 2006, I inherited some pens from my mother-in-law. She used to write with Hero fountain pens in school. Unfortunately, the only Hero item left is a ballpoint pen. This brought back many memories. It reminded me that I used to own and write with a Hero.
The year was 2003, I was in Poland on a sojourn, an artistic residency. I was in an art supply store and found a Hero ink bottle but no Hero pen. (I also bought a pencil case.) Later, I open the Hero ink bottle cap to smell the elegant perfume. I had a Proustean moment. The scent transported me back to Vietnam when I wrote with a dip pen and made repeated dips into the Hero ink bottle. I put a piece of blotter paper between the pages of a notebook. The thick pink blotter page lay like a piece of baloney in a sandwich. When I withdrew the blotter paper, it had soaked in the mirror image of what I had written, only faintly and blurred, as if it was an inkling of some distant memory.
Here’s a bit of email exchange I had with Norman:
Hi Duc,
Do you mean that this is the pen you wanted? Here’s the link to its page:
http://www.hisnibs.com/’329′_series.htm.
This was the model that launched His Nibs! My wife, who is from Hong
Kong, brought a few of these back for me for my pen collection about 10
years ago (she grew up using them). I was so impressed by the quality/price,
that I had her sister send me some, which I put up on the then new eBay.
They took off, and I then ordered the entire Hero line into the U.S. Within
6 months, I was selling fountain pens full time. 
Hi Duc,
A very nice piece of writing. Thanks for sharing it and for the website
link.
The woman I helped set up in business, to import Duke and Uranus pens from
China — Linh Nguyen — is also from Vietnam (she’s recently ‘retired’,
having just had her first child!).
tags: Hero ’320′, fountain pen,
The Bare & The Bio
August 20, 2007
Earlier, I had the privillage to unveil the Mynd-bio-roll-out pictures. Now the actural product is available!
I got a very exciting message from Jason on Face book:
Hey Duc!
Just thought I would pass along a note to let you know that we just officially released our new products this week. Here’s the URL to our official DIY post:
http://www.diyplanner.com/node/4603
They’re all available on the Disc Bound Page here:
http://www.myndology.com/disc.php
And FYI, I’m working on getting you the samples too…I should get them to you shortly!
Jason
tags: Myndology, Duffy & Partners, notebook, paper,
Alex’s Rollanotebook Page
August 18, 2007
(I gave Alex a Rollanotebook for his birthday and look what he did to it!)
This is a scan from my notebook concerning a short prose work I’ve been perusing over the summer. It’s gone under three rewrites and three revisions.
This is the second draft of the opening paragraph along with some notes and a few drawings. Nothing special. The manuscript is a maze of scribbles scrunched between letters and surrounded in bubbles with little arrows and stuff. -Alex
D: How did you learn revision?
A: Mostly from looking at scans from other author’s notebooks to see how they revised things
I liked how Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky revised their works.
Technocrati tags: Levenger, Circa, Rollabind, paper, notebooks
Commonplace Book 2
August 15, 2007
Originally uploaded by @Stephen.
I asked Stephen Smith write about his Commonplace book. I have a running question on my Facebook profile: ‘What is your favorite paper notebook?’ Stephen mention this notebook. I look and looked at Barns and Noble to track it down.
I have recently added a new notebook to my ever-growing collection:
- I have a Circa organizer that I use for my calendar and other GTD collecting “buckets”,
- a second Circa notebook that I use as a capture device for ideas and project tracking,
- a journal that I write in a few times a week,
- a Kraft-bound No. 3 journal from Barnes & Noble that holds my Reading List.
My Reading list is the oldest of these, I started it in August of 2003 with The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien, four years and 21 pages (403 books!!) later, the most recent entry is Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card.
I felt, however, that I needed another notebook for other information that did not quite fit into any of the other categories. Enter the Commonplace Book. There is a detailed history at the link (at DIYPlanner):
The Commonplace Books (or just commonplaces) of old were series of books, stuffed with scraps, inspirations, snippets of information, sketches, clippings, photographs, poems, jokes, references, and anything else pertaining to the interest of the person (or group) who kept it. A common fixture in the homes of writers, professionals, artists and academics for many centuries, the notion has all but faded in this digital age of commodity data and instant searches. But there’s no reason that we can’t resurrect such a invaluable resource in this day and age. In fact, it could ultimately prove worthy not only for our daily work and pleasure, but also as a legacy to leave our children and grandchildren, a gathering of those pieces reflecting both the personality of its keeper and the happenings of a bygone day.
So it was back to Barnes & Noble for the “perfect” notebook. Leather wrap-around cover, leather ties, and pockets inside for a pen and pencil. The notebook itself is a No. 3 refill with lined pages, smythe-bound signatures so it can lie flat when opened in the middle. Perfect!
I have reserved the first three pages for the Index/ Table of Contents, and the rest will be where I can keep personal reference information, websites to keep an eye on, books to read, and quotations that I come across. I figure this is also a good place for some analog backups of some of the digital information that I currently rely on Firefox to keep for me, or that I keep in the wiki on my USB flash drive.
This notebook has 192 pages, so there is plenty of room and it should last me a long time. I am looking forward to working at filling up those pages!
Stephen Smith writes about Productivity and Web 2.0 at HD BizBlog 1.2.
Recent interests and articles are focusing on creativity, innovation, and
the design of the next generation of productivity system. He is currently
working on a productivity e-book based on The Art of War. In the real
world he works with a retail sales team to manage internet customers and
ponders the future of work.
Rustico Traveler’s Journal
August 14, 2007
Originally uploaded by Duc N. Ly.
A few more shoots of the Rustico Traveler’s Journal I did last night. I try to use available lights only and a tripod.
I’m reminded of Tschai’s handmade journals on Etsy. And an earlier post about Tschai’s journal.
flickr.com/photos/ducly/tags/rustico
ducly.wordpress.com/tag/reviews
