Everyday, I struggle to get through the constant stream of incoming emails. Last year, I received over 13,500 emails that I never got a chance to read. So far, this year, I’ve managed to keep my inbox close to zero. To do this, I scan some emails quite quickly. Generally, I try to delete those that don’t need saving, and filing the rest to appropriate files. Some emails get left in the inbox as something I need to respond to or write about, and some even get flagged for special attention.

Yet even with that, there are a lot of emails that should get special attention, that I am just unlikely to get to. This month, there are currently 111 read emails in my inbox that deserve some sort of attention. 43 have been specially flagged. There are 188 emails in my inbox from last month, with 86 of them specially flagged. Many are things that I want to highlight on my blog or perhaps work up a story on, yet many will not get their full stories.

So, it is time for spring cleaning. This blog post will note some of the things that I’m watching, but may never get a chance to explore as closely as I would like.

Drupal Stuff

Tuesday evening, I’ll be speaking at the Connecticut Drupal Group meeting. It will take place from 7 until 9 at the University of Connecticut Law School, Library 202, in Hartford CT.

Then, on Sunday at 5 PM, I’ll be speaking to the Southern Connecticut Open Source Users Group about Drupal.

From Drupal to Virtual Worlds

Another Drupal topic that I’m interested in is Drupal for OpenSim. I’ve written to express my interest, but I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to work on this.

Also in the virtual worlds space, Project Wonderland, which was initially funded by Sun, and then defunded when Oracle bought Sun has re-emerged as Open Wonderland. It is another one of those pieces of technology I hope to get a chance to play with sometime soon, but realistically isn’t all that likely. More likely, I’ll at best get a chance to scan the Open Wonderland Blog from time to time.

Activism

As a follow up to the Coffee Parties, I’ve help set up CTCoffeeParty.org, a Drupal based site. I’m busy working out who will do what with content on it.

Press Conferences

Tuesday at 10:30 AM, the Connecticut Working Families Party will have a press conference at the IHOP in Orange about the need for paid sick days in Connecticut.

At 2 PM, Common Cause will have a press conference at City Council Chambers in Bridgeport about a recent survey that found that “80 percent of voters in the 4th District believe that members of Congress are overly influenced by campaign contributors, and 63 percent are opposed to the recent Supreme Court decision lifting certain restrictions on corporate and union spending to support or defeat candidates”.

Public Hearings in Hartford

One of the problems with things piling up the way they do is that some are about events that happen before I get a chance to write about them. So, for example, Monday the Education Committee of the General Assembly held hearings about bills related to the Race to the Top and I received several emails about this.

On Tuesday, the Energy and Technology Committee is holding hearings bills about Electric Rate Relief, Consumer Protection in the competitive market and public utility control authority.

Other events

On March 25th at the Yale West Campus, there will be a forum on Standards of Care During a Prolonged Public Health Emergency. I’m trying to decide if I should attend and perhaps blog this. I’m also trying to get people to write about this for the Woodbridge Citizen.

Then, there are the upcoming excursions on the Providence and Worcester Railroad. On May 8th and June 19th, you will be able to take the PWRR from Worcester to the Roger Williams Zoo. It doesn’t make sense for us to head up to Worcester to take the train, but it is one of those things that I got an email about that I wanted to highlight.

In a different email, the folks at Amtrak let me know that May 8th is National Train Day, so while a ride on the PWRR is unlikely that day, I may keep my eyes up for other train related events.

Nokia N900

There is a fascinating discussion about calibrating the accelerometer using a program called AccDisplay. I added my note about how my N900 is behaving. I really want to explore this in further detail. Could I use the accelerometer to create a pedometer? It turns out there is a widget in ‘Extras’ called pedometerhomewidget. I’ll test it. Could I tie it into the GPS? Are there things that can be done with the accelerometer and driving?

Another N900 issue in my mailbox is a request to write up about my experiences running Java on my N900. That is a longer post I hope to get to some time soon.

Videos to Watch

One friend sent me a video from the Washington State House Caucus. I need to take time and watch that. Another friend sent me a video from Christ The Healer Episcopal Church in Stamford, another video I need to take a moment to watch.

Okay. That’s probably enough for now. During this little spring-cleaning, I managed to cover about twenty of the fairly recent emails, including five high priority ones. Maybe I’ll get some other topics covered later.