Category Archives: Tips

Feb 14 0 comments
Being a Man, Tips

Keeping a journal

A journal by Baghy

A journal by Baghy

I often get asked this question – Why do I keep a journal?

To be honest, I was not a big journal keeper until recently. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about my life, my adventures, my contributions and the fact is, I have a record of a few things only. Generally it is in the form of letters I have received from friends and family, photographs I have taken and received from others and odd records that I have saved from time to time. Other than that, I do not have a chronological record of the events of my life. So, one day I said to myself that I ought to keep a journal where I could jot down a few lines each day about things going on in my life. Soon, keeping a journal became a habit, and now I actually enjoy doing a journal daily. So, if you are interested in keeping a journal, here are a few tips.

Why start a journal?
Keeping a journal has some obvious benefits. For instance

  • Before keeping a journal my thoughts were more random, in keeping with oral conversation.  Keeping a journal taught me how to express myself in writing – with structure
  • Writing forces one to weigh the importance of ones ideas.  Now, when I have an idea in my head I don’t just blurt it out.  Instead I deliberate about it, think of its importance, look at the pros and cons and then commit my thoughts to paper.  This way I am learning to economize my words
  • My journal helps me remember events more clearly.  This is an obvious benefit of journal keeping, but one least regarded.  Believe me, when one gets older memory does begin to fog a bit and it is difficult to remember important details to the same degree.  Today I wish I had kept a journal in my youthful days as I regret not remembering many critical details, names of friends who were close to me, dates of important events etc.  A journal would have been very useful to me now in looking back at my life.

How to start writing and keep writing a journal
Obviously, if it was easy to keep a journal every one would. The main reason why people don’t keep a journal is because it appears to be such a daunting task. I know I started to keep a journal many times, but almost always gave up after a few weeks. Here are my tips on keeping a journal continuously.

  • Challenge yourself to write no more than one paragraph each day. Writing one paragraph does not seem as daunting as writing a whole page.
  • Decide on a structure. For instance a good structure would be – Summary  >> Elaboration >> Example  >>  Inference >> Summary.  For example:  if you have a position on Olympics, you could start out by stating your position – “I think Olympics are a waste of resources”  >> Elaborate on your position – why you believe that Olympics are a waste of resources >> Provide an example or two of how resources could be better spent doing other things  >>  Summarize your position again
  • Make a list of topics that you want to write about.  Often if you sit down to write, you will find that the topics are hard to come by.  However, if you get in the habit of writing down interesting ideas as they come into your mind, you will soon find that you have so much to say about so many topics!  So keep a small notebook handy where you can jot down these ideas.
  • If you are an expert professional, you could start with a few topics in the area of your expertise.  There is no better way to start writing than to write about a topic that is of great interest to you and in which you have some degree of expertise.

Tools for writing journals
In the old days, the tools for writing a journal were – a paper book and a pen or a pencil.  If you wish to write a private journal, even in this modern day, nothing beats paper and pencil.  If you decide to keep a paper and pencil journal, click on the photo above to take you to some beautiful journals which you might enjoy writing into.

However if you want to keep a public journal in today’s electronic world the tools have multiplied amazingly with all sorts of blogging tools being available to you.   Below is a list of some common tools available to bloggers:

  • Wordpress:  For those who want a turnkey solution, there is the Wordpress.com blogging tool.  For those who have access to personal server space, Wordpress is available as a downloadable tool from Wordpress.com site
  • Blogger:  Blogger.com is another widely used “ready to use” tool – courtsey Google.  Blogger is probably the most widely used tool
  • Live Journal:  One of the older blogging tools, can still be found here…; although I have not been a big fan of this myself
  • Movabletype:  I believe this is the one that started the blogging revolution. Movable type was the first tool to make blogging more easy by focusing on ease of use.  Today it is being used more as a professional publishing tool more than a hobbist tool.  Still, its a perfectly good tool if you wish to use it for your diary.

So, there you have it.  Writing a journal should not be as difficult as it might seem at first blush.  Again, the trick is to not try to do too much.  Focus on writing small paragraphs, make a list of topics of interest, and give yourself a two/three week of continuous journaling opportunity.  Soon it will become a habit, that will reap you rewards many times over in future when you sit down to read all that you have written.

Good luck!

Nov 27 0 comments
Tips

How to find cheap vacation rentals

A Oregon Home Offered At AirBnB For $49 per night

A Oregon home offered for $49/night at AirBnB

If you are planning winter travel, let me say that no time is better than now given that travel is down many fold and lots of deals abound. But if one is not careful travel can quickly become an expensive hobby. Since vacation rentals are one of the most expensive piece of the travel budget, I have developed some strategies to keep the costs low.

As a youth I travelled to Europe and Asia extensively through Youth Hostels. But as I grew older traveling through Youth Hostels seemed a bit strange. While I very much enjoy the company of young travelers, and particularly like the camaraderie of the fellow traveler, being an older person in the company of teenagers and twenty something seemed a bit out of place. Plus Youth Hostels tend to be rather spartan and while the spartan nature of travel was the main attraction in my youth, today the lack of comfort is not so appealing.

Then there is the Elderhostel – recently renamed to Exploritas. The focus of Exploritas is “organized travel” with the intent of providing some education. Exploritas, as any organized travel would, offers some excellent travel opportunities in the company of likeminded people, but truth be told, its not my <a href=”http://www.jayateas.com”>cup of tea</a>. I find the “organized” nature of travel rather stifling even though the opportunity to get to know a few people over two-three weeks has its own merits.

Since my preference is to travel light with as much flexibility as possible, recently I have been traveling a lot more through bed and breakfasts and by taking advantage of friends of friends of friends who might be living in the town I am planning to visit. In addition, I have been using Craigs list a lot. For instance, the previous link will provide you with a link of vacation rentals available in NY area.

But recently I stumbled upon another neat website called AirBnB, which while I haven’t tried out, from just browsing and reading comments of previous users of specific rentals it appears that this will be a new way for me to locate short term rentals in near future. Mind you, many of the offerings tend to be rather expensive, but if you are traveling to a large city it is not unusual to find some local artist or a student offering a clean room for $50 or less! The big benefit of this sort of travel for me is that I now get a local expert to help me plan the exploration of the city, my food expense is cut in half as I can use the kitchen, and I end up making new friends – often for life.

So, as you can see travel does not have to be very expensive. If you look around, vacation rentals can be found for cheap in many locations. Its just a matter of doing some research.

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Mar 23 0 comments
Tips

How to select a dress shirt

All of us need to buy a shirt from time to time. Most of us end up buying a ready made shirt because tailored shirts are not easily available, and tend to be expensive. Regardless, even when you buy a ready made shirt there are several things to consider.

First, what is your size. Size in ready made shirts is indicated in collar size and sleeve length.

Collar size: Have you measured your collar size recently? If you think, “Oh I wear size 16, so let me buy size 16”, you are wrong. If you a youngster in mid twenties, then you may be OK to make this generalization, but if you are a middle aged person like me, let me tell you, our collar size changes more frequently than you would believe! Neck region tends to accumulate fat more quickly along with the abdomen. And it doesn’t take much time to measure the collar size, so before you buy a shirt always measure your collar size. The tragic thing is, many a ready made shops do not train the sales people on how to take measurements. In taking the collar measurement, measure at the base of the neck where the collar will sit. And when the tape is wrapped around the neck, its important to put one finger under the tape before taking the measurement. This is to ensure that the collar isn’t too tight if you put a tie on. A tie tends to put some pressure on the collar and its better to have some “give” in the collar for that reason.

If the measurement is 16.25 inches, unfortunately you will have to go with a 16.5 size collar because ready made shirts do not come in 0.25 inch size graduations. And that 0.25 inch difference can make all the difference between a good look and a bad look. This is when you should consider going with a tailored shirt which will give you the best look and feel.

Sleeve Length: Let me ask you a question. What is your left sleeve length? And the right sleeve length? If you are not sure, measure it! And take caution to measure the sleeve length from the shoulder joint to half way between the wrist and the base of the thumb. Why measure both sleeve lengths? Less than 10% of men on this planet have both sleeve lengths the same. Yet, invariably we tend to measure our right sleeve length (no idea why) and go with that measurement. Wrong! Sleeve length should be measured on both arms and because ready made shirts offer only one sleeve length, if you are buying a ready made shirt, you should go with the “longer” sleeve length than the shorter sleeve length. This invariably creates a bad effect of being longer in one arm than the other, but better that than have a shorter sleeve which appears very bad.

On the other hand, if you were to go for tailored shirt from Zermatt, you will be able to get a shirt tailored to both the arm lengths precisely, giving your shirt a much better fitting look than a ready made shirt. On the other hand, if standard sizes fit you fine but you want the fabrics we carry, just email us and we will make your shirt using standard sizes.

And our tailored shirts are not any more expensive than ready made shirts form top brands. In fact, because of the volume of business we do, we are able to provide tailored shirts for about the same cost as ready made shirts from, for example, Brooks Brothers.

There are many other things to consider when you are buying a dress shirt, such as the color of the shirt, the design, fitted, non-fitted, type of placket, pocket, no pocket etc etc.  But size and sleeve length are probably the most important consideration.  So, I know that this tip in itself is inadequate.  Still, I hope that this tip will come in handy when you buy your next shirt.

Next time, we will talk about selecting a casual shirt.

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