The other day I wrote a post about the procurement process here. It may have been born out of some frustration and while I feel it’s fairly accurate, maybe it’s a little one sided in its depiction.

While having a conversation today about the contract approval process, one that didn’t go particularly well I might add, I was reminded of a few times when they really came through for me. There have been some fast turnarounds on contract extensions and a desire to help me meet my deadlines.

I can appreciate that. It’s good that they ultimately have my back.

Unfortunately I still feel like the process is sometimes harder than it should be. It’s also hard for anyone else to have the same sense of urgency I feel about my own projects. I completely get that. It’s just a difficult situation to be in. For both sides.

I’m not sure how to make things runs more smoothly or efficiently though.

All the research shows that sitting all day is bad for you. My dad died early in life due to a heart attack. Granted he was a heavy smoker, was pretty overweight and a heavy drinker. I’d kind of like to be around for the next 40 years so I’ve been trying to not be so sedentary and get moving around throughout the day. Sit less, walk more. Prior to my office move, management was nice enough to get me an adjustable standing desk. They got me a Kangaroo Junior from ergodesktop.com

I love it. It allows me to easily move from one position to another. Right now I spend about 1/2 my day on my feet as opposed to 8 hours of sitting slouched over a keyboard. It’s pneumatic so it raises up on it’s own and take a little pressure to lower it. There’s 2 knobs you loosen to adjust the height. One for the base and one for the display. It would be great if the knobs were levers instead so it was a little easier to operate them but it’s a minor issue.

There’s a small bracket you can use to prop up the front of the unit when it’s in the standing position for more stability. There have been a few times when I forgot to put the brace in and leaned on the apparatus. Nothing broke, nor did anything fall but the whole thing shifted. I’m now in the habit of putting that brace in there. Every. Time. Truth be told, my biggest issue is forgetting to take the brace out and trying to push the desk down.

We also purchased a Rain Design mStand to elevate the laptop a little more too. That also gives me a small area under the laptop to sit stuff like my phone, headphones or iPad.

Also visible is the standing mat that I purchased. I bought the Imprint Comfort Mat Nantucket Series about 6 months ago and it’s been great. It really reduces the fatigue from standing. It feels so nice that sometimes I take off my shoes and stand on it. I’m not sure how my co-workers feel about this…

I can’t say whether standing yields any real health benefits but one thing’s for sure, it’s got to be better than sitting.

Official Gmail Blog: Get your mail faster on the Gmail iOS app.

We’ve recently announced that we’re migrating Faculty and Staff to gmail. Yeah! I can’t wait!

Now Google has updated the iOS app to support background refreshing so email is already loaded when you launch the app. You don’t have to wait for it to fetch the data.

Also, they now do single sign-on across their other applications like Maps, YouTube and Chrome.

I think they just want to impress us.

So I’m a fan of chalkboards in so far as I realize that they’re the best tool for the job and there’s currently no suitable replacement much of the time.

YOU CAN HAVE MY CHALK WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!

That being said, I realize it’s not all roses.

The downside of chalkboards.

A colleague at another university recently shared these pictures with me and I thought they were too good to not share. Names and locations have been withheld to avoid any embarrassment.

In a post that I wrote a few days ago regarding procurement issues (The pain of procurement), I mentioned that I was waiting for an open source product to be approved. The timeframe given was 20 business days.

I’m pleased to report that it was approved last night. It was a turnaround of about 2 1/2 business days. That exceeds my expectations in every way.

I just would like to see some standards and a different workflow built around the request and approval process. It seems like it would be in the best interests of everyone.