GET OFF MY LAWN!

So I'm a homeowner. Have been for two years now. And what do you get when you own a house? A dog. Meet Frankie.

Frankie is a hyper but lazy dog. He's hyper when something exciting is happening, like going to the park, car rides, giving him milk cartons to play with; and he's lazy the rest of the time. So he typically just sits on the backporch steps 99% of the time he’s outside. I often have to yell at him to get off the deck to actually go do his business when I let him out in the mornings. I think it may have to do with his tether. We don't have a fenced in yard so Frankie is on a 20' braided tether that's anchored in the center of the backyard.

One thing that's always bothered me about where we live is the kids use my backyard as a road between our cul-de-sac and the one behind us. Now, I was raised to NEVER cut across somebody's yard without their permission. I even remember my older brother talking to me about this when I was 8 or 9 years old. Also, you’d think a 40lb dog would deter kids from cutting through the yard.

But tonight the funniest thing happened. We're having our piano tuned so Frankie is sitting on the back porch tied up to his tether.  I'm at the kitchen table when I hear Frankie skate off the deck... Barking! This out of a dog that doesn't bark. "Something’s up" I think to myself, so I go outside to see what’s going on. And Frankie is all fluffed up barking at this kid trying to cut through my yard.
          "HEY!" I yell to him.

          "Hey" he melancholily responds, barely looking up at me but continues on his way down my yard. He’s short; well probably 5’4”; average I guess for a fourteen year old. His long healthy black hair stops just below his shoulders and is died orange for the last four inches. He’s in baggy black jeans and a baggy black t-shirt.

          “What are you doing?” I demand of him.

          He mumbles back at me, this time stopping to acknowledge my existence.

          “Don’t be cutting through my yard. Go around.”

          He mumbles back at me again, but continues on down the yard.

          I figure, “He must not have heard me the first time; I’ll repeat myself so maybe he gets the picture.” “Don’t be cutting through my yard. Go around!” chewing on the words so they sound more authoritative. By this time, Frankie has returned to the deck.

          “I’M LOOKING FOR MY PHONE!”

          “Alright, hurry up! But if my dog gets ya, I ain’t stopping him.”

          To which Frankie responds by darting off the deck at the kid. Lucky for him he was right against my neighbor’s fence and Frankie’s tether stops about two feet shy of the fence. The kid bends down and stands up again (I don’t actually see a phone in his hand but whatever) and heads out of my yard, the same way he came in. But just before he gets out of earshot, I reach down to Frankie and give him a real good pet and say “GOOD DOG!”

GET OFF MY LAWN YOU KIDS

Some pictures of my "vicious attack dog"

Frankie asleep on his pillow

Frankie enjoying a car ride

Sunbathing

"What?"

Ten minutes before class starts

Well I'm back in the saddle again. School that is. And I've got a full plate this semester. But I will be able to keep up thanks to my handy Android phone and a great app called GTasks. Gtasks syncs with my Google Tasks in the cloud and allows me to manage them on my phone. It has a good clean interface and is simple and straight forward. One shortcoming I've found with most task apps, and GTasks is no exception, is the lack of ability to effectively categorize or prioritize a given task. But I've figured out a way to do this myself. Before I enter each task I consider its priority according to the FranklinCovey method and then enter it preceding the task such as:
     [A1] Mow the grass.
And for my school work, I tend to understand those tasks by category so I will enter:
     [678] Finish GDB lab.
Where 678 is the course number. EECS 678 = Intro to Operating Systems

See, something you've gotta know about me is that I used to work for FranklinCovey Retail Stores. I learned so much while I was there about working according to your highest priorities, setting SMART goals, and time management in general. One thing in particular I learned from their time management seminar was the four cores of the FranklinCovey planning system: contacts, calendar, notes and tasks. Now my Android phone yields itself very nicely to managing my calendar and contacts. But ever since I switched to a smartphone and away from a paper planning system, I've struggled with an effective solution to last two: notes and tasks. Notes aren't so much a concern for me as most of my note taking is relative to my classes for which I have notebooks. The tasks are the kicker though, but not anymore thanks to solution i described above. This simple approach helps me to keep organized and on top of the 1400 things I have to do. Maybe this will help you. Try it. I'm gonna go mark this off my tasks list now.