I Feel Your Pain.
I’ve had this same kind of weekend before, minus the poopy diapers.
Do It Yourself Nelson Clock.
This one involves a MIG welder—I intend to use wood and a drill press.
This weekend, I…
- Sanded the shit out of the upstairs and downstairs hallway. I put at least four and a half gallons of drywall mud on the walls, and sanded at least half of that back off. It’s almost done.
- Found some more Christmas presents for certain people. The Target was packed full of holiday zombies, slowly circling the aisles and getting in the way. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot.
- Coordinated long distance with my wife over her father’s present, and put it on hold until she gives the OK.
- Staked the tent over the Scout down. Good timing, too—with last night’s snow and cold snap, we have gusts of 40mph today. (I still think that thing is going to blow away into the next county, though.)
- Began running new electrical wiring to the hallway—while I have the kickplates off, it’s an easy thing to cut a square and stick an outlet box in, and going through the floor plate is a zillion times easier. This will be so much easier than doing the upstairs…
- Did the laundry in our own washing machine; with the help of some Oxy-Clean and laundry bluing, the rust in the water hasn’t stained our clothes as far as I can tell. Which is good, because I hate the laundromat.
- Attended the Breakaway Christmas party, which was held at the Cloisters, a very pretty manor house-turned formal hall (not to be confused with the Cloisters in New York City, which is frickin’ amazing.) It was beautiful, catered by the same folks who did our wedding, and a mellow good time. It’s frightening how many people this company has hired in the last six months, and how much that reminds me of my first six months at Cidera.
- Cleaned up the house as much as possible for Jen’s return. She’s leaving Dysfunction Junction today to come back home, and the least I could do was make our place as peaceful and calm as possible.
- Missed my wife. This has not been an easy Christmas.
Jen’s Mom is now installed in the back room of their house in St. Mary’s county. The doctors have concluded that there’s nothing they can do besides manage the pain, so a hospice nurse stops by daily to administer the happy juice. Two of the three sisters are home and are helping take care of her. As of yesterday she still wasn’t able to hold anything down.
split-window Corvette, Ellicott City, 6.30.04 (taken with crappy DC-3400)
I took 10 minutes on a break this afternoon and updated the interior pages of this site to include the javascript randomizer for the header picture. There’s also three new pictures in the series, and I’ll be adding more as the days go by.
Out To Pasture. This afternoon, I called up and made arrangements to donate the Taurus to charity; specifically, to benefit WYPR, our local National Public Radio station. In 2-4 business days somebody from the towing company will call to make arrangements to meet me, and they will take away the Grampamobile to chase rabbits on a farm in Pennsylvania. Which means I have to run out there tonight and remove my roof rack and loosen the bolts on the license plates. Apparently they don’t take anything older than a ’93, so I squeezed in just under the wire. For every dollar of fair market value, you see $0.33 back on your taxes, which is about how much I’d get back—conservatively—if I fixed the transmission and then sold it.
Meanwhile, I put the 100 CD-changer in the Pennysaver for $100 next week so that I can scrape money together for this.
Soliciting Opinions. Jen and I were talking about creativity last night, and what we do to keep it healthy during the times when block creeps up on us. I’ve had months where every attempt I make at creating something new is met with failure, or does not live up to expectations, and that gets to be a dangerous place when I’m stuck in a cycle of doubting myself. The added complications are those of everyday life- sometimes I’m unhappy with my job, relationships, or simply in a valley, and those other things affect my drive.
So what do you folks do to keep yourselves happy and productive? What rituals do you have before sitting down to make something? How do you deal with low periods or block, and how do you break out of them? Any tips or ideas to share? What do you do when outside factors contribute to your block, like co-workers or job pressure?
(For me, I try to keep several irons in the fire at any given time—photography, this log, working on the house, freelance projects—they all give me a sense of accomplishment and pride, which offsets the boredom I often have in my professional life. Usually it works, but I often find myself in low spots, and the solution is usually a combination of forcing myself to create/draw/photograph through the block, or resolution of the outside issues that are gunking up the right side of my brain.)
Apparently I write bad cowboy fiction in my spare time.
Now Is The Time For All Good Critics… December is the month of Big Lists where every pundit has to weigh in with their 50 Best or 10 Most or 35 Worst of something. Usually I wait until December for all the music geeks to emerge from their darkened rooms and type out a list of something so that I can go back and buy ten or fifteen of the albums I’ve been hearing about all year but wasn’t cool enough to go out and buy. Also, enough time has passed where the albums they may have liked in February have had to stand the test of time and deserve a second critique. Usually this method works out pretty well, with a few misfires here and there.
Update Dept. I have finished my Christmas shopping for Jen as of this morning; now to wrap the goodies quickly while she’s not there and place them under the tree. In related news, the daughters of the previous owner of our house are not stopping by to say hello—apparently it’s a little too soon after their father’s passing. So we don’t have to run around cleaning this weekend (although the house could use it) but look forward to the promise of a visit in the new year. Tonight is Jen’s office Christmas party, which promises to be an exciting study in both social science and chemistry: there’s an open bar, which is reportedly a departure from the ‘drink ticket’ method of the past. Score one for morale-building. (It’s kind of frightening how far second-shelf booze goes to brightening anybody’s mood.) So I dusted off the suit and spit-shined the shoes; I’m driving tonight so Jen can enjoy herself as much as she likes.
The Beat-Down. I would never have pegged Jack White to be the type to curbstomp anybody, but this poor sap apperently met the wrong end of Mr. White Stripe’s fists at some bar in Detroit. Funny stuff, that.
Wake Up. News flash to all you pro-lifers out there: RU-486 over the counter is not going to promote promiscuity. Promiscuity is alive and well without this pill. People have a natural urge to have sex, and because the US refuses to teach its children about sex, contraception, or childbirth adequately, the current trends of accidental or unwanted pregnancies will continue. Simply telling kids to abstain from sex does not work. You may as well wish for world peace. Giving women a way to prevent an unwanted or accidental pregnancy is a good thing. (Disagree with me? Listen to Loveline some night this week and listen to the questions your screwed-up kids ask on a daily basis.)
Hypocrite Who? God bless this woman; her asshole father did not deserve a daughter with this much dignity and class.
I’m filling out the music library this afternoon with a few gems: Ozzy’s Crazy Train, G & R’s It’s so Easy, and ZZ Top’s Cheap Sunglasses. Ahh, bringing back the old days.
I put up some pictures of our trip to my folks’ house this morning: Enjoy.
(Nervously eyeing the latest reports on unemployment and economic news) The house update is that we’re on track for a late August closing date, barring any bizarre finds in the inspections. Hopefully each house will pass muster.
Science project of the week: I’m rebuilding a 3Com SuperStack II, which I found laying in the garbage here at work. Unable to pass up a choice bit of technology, I fished it out and pulled it apart to find two fried cooler fans. A quick stop at a cooling fan site, $10.40 later, and I should have two identical fans by Friday.
. . .
I’m happy to answer the door, even when I don’t know who you are. I’m happy to come outside and move my truck, because it’s in front of your house, and you want to bring in a dumpster to begin gutting it. I’m happy to make small talk with you. I’m happy to tell you that I’ve just gone to contract on my house.
I’m not happy when you ask me how much I sold my house for, when you’ve never once said hello to me in the three years you’ve lived on the block, and you don’t know what my name is, and you don’t bother to ask. It’s none of your business. Read it in the fucking paper.
Because the camera is currently in Florida (I am a very nice guy and sent it along on a company trip), I of course saw two things that inspired me to shoot this morning: the 95 overpass against a really deep slice of blue sky, and a broke-down AMC Pacer by the side of the road.
Jen and I woke on Sunday, had breakfast, and journeyed to the Home Depot for supplies. We came home, donned our gloves, and began Backyard Patio: The Sequel. In about four hours we mixed, poured and set about 200 bricks back over the hole from the sewer repair. With three bags of cement, we got all the floor brick back down, the wall to the south planter rebuilt, and had just enough to complete the whole job. Sometimes things work out just right. We celebrated with an Easter dinner of steak and blue cheese, fresh green beans and a tasty Malbec from Argentina. I’d show you pictures of my backyard (as if you haven’t seen enough of those) but my camera… You get the idea.
There are days when software works right, and there are days when it doesn’t. Today, ImageReady is being a buggy pile of crap, and it’s adding hours on to a job that should only take minutes. Arrrrggghh! Days like this only exacerbate my potty mouth. Sorry, everybody.
I’m listening to a bunch of interesting new (to me) music these past couple of days: Sigur Ros, Low, and The Beta Band. Todd also brought in a copy of Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, which I haven’t heard in a looooong time. Good to git some old punk on for sure.
Tonight I was able to use the compound miter saw my sister gave me for Christmas for the first time to build the first of many picture frames I have planned. Oh, Mother of God, it is a holy thing. The cuts are clean, sharp, and precise. The angles are exact, the feel is solid. There is something transcendent about working with wood and tools after staring at a computer all day… I did some basic sanding, then put all four sections in the jig, glued and sanded them. The frame went together like a fresh jigsaw puzzle. Apart from some poor planning (the cuts I made in the sides to fit the glass are much too shallow), the frame is perfect. Thank you, Renie.
I got in touch with an old friend from high school last night, the guy whose floor I slept on probably more than my own (he lived much closer to town than I did.) He’s doing great, is engaged to marry this year, and is teaching a variety of music classes at my old school. I have to admit, I don’t know what surprised me more— the fact that he’s getting married or that my school installed a recording and mixing studio.
I woke up and did my daily web scan this morning, stopping around at the various sites I like to get a feel for the day. I looked at Slashdot (usually once a day—how many times can you read about why Linux is good/bad/the Almighty ) and found that the article in the Washington Post about 10-20 had been written up. Let’s see what happens…
I also did an illustration for the hell of it last night- it was fun to do the work for Loyola, and I miss working with scratchboard. I took a digital picture of Fell’s Point and made a pretty straight-on cut of the scene. I’ll post it when it gets cleaned up and scanned.
Update: Here’s the new illustration. Originally I was going to post it on the homepage, but I worked with redesigning the page and didn’t like the results.
Looks like my friend Jason has his new blog online; you can find him here. Everybody stand up and introduce yourselves.
Two quick thoughts: Why is Michael Jackson even allowed to have children? And we all knew that Ed Rooney was evil, but could he be that evil?
korean grocery, 9.22
I’m back in the admittedly flat and boring OS9 right now, for reasons I can’t quite explain to myself. Maybe it’s the comfort of the application menu in the upper right corner, where I can hide any window I want immediately. Maybe it’s the speed of the interface—I’m on a 400Mhz G3, and I notice a slight lag while it figures out what to do. Maybe it’s the way OSX writes three files for every one it works on (iPhoto comes to mind here).
Maybe I’m just getting old; I don’t know. I’ve made almost a ten-year investment in the interface I use every day, and it’s not going to be easy to switch.
Jen and I went to the Korean grocery store this weekend and bought an entire meal’s worth of vegetables, about a pound of sliced rib-eye steak, and assorted other items, and walked out $13 lighter. There is a certain sense of culture shock walking through that store—from the mingled conversations in several different languages to the mind-boggling assortment of exotic fruit, vegetables, and spices, to the old-world butcher and fish market in back—you feel as if you might be strolling through a market in Seoul or even Tokyo.
What happens when you spend all the money you make on opening new stores so that you can make even more money to open more stores? You start knocking down the old ones to make newer ones. Suggestion: Make decent food, train your employees to treat customers better, pay them more than minimum wage, and rebuild the expectations of your client base.
Nate sent this thought along in response to an email I sent about a cartoon that has some people upset:
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war to whip the citizenry into a political fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
Julius Caesar, 101 – 44 BC