One thin line
December 8, 2010
This already isn’t going well, because when I was first inspired to write tonight’s entry I had a clear vision of how at least the first one hundred words would go, but then I had to pause to feed the cats (who are always very anxious but hardly ever satisfied) and when I came back to write I couldn’t quite remember anything,
so I sat here for a few minutes trying to recall, but then I finished my glass of crappy Pinot Noir (it was on sale for US$9 minus one additional dollar via a Facebook coupon, so I tried it because I have learned not to discriminate against wine based solely on price, as one of my very favorites is Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel which sells for about US$8 per bottle) and decided to switch to Flying Dog Doggie Style Pale Ale which turned out to be lovely indeed even though it didn’t restore my memory—
and really, if anything, at this point in the evening contributed to just the opposite and distracted me even further, which I find to be a slight bit more of an issue as I age, especially the later the drinking goes on—aging sucks—but it did put me in a slightly better frame of mind for writing something, anything, even if I still couldn’t remember what that something was originally going to be, you know, just half an hour earlier,
which is perturbing, because I usually have a really good memory for the details of what has gone on, which any of my friends who have been annoyed by my recollection of facts can tell you, even if such remembering is in conjunction with consuming tasty beverages such as Summit Extra Pale Ale at bowling, karaoke or some such thing, but tonight I sort of lost the plan so I’m thankful that, even after I fed the cats, something jogged my memory a little bit every few minutes so that I could get this far—sort of—
and now have I just realized that I seem to have unintentionally drawn myself as Janeane Garofalo in that superhero movie (with a little bit of Amy Winehouse thrown in for good measure), and I think that’s a good place to stop.
Inertia, part 3
September 16, 2010
Well, it’s been a little over ten months since I berated myself and bemoaned my apparent lack of motivation to accomplish my life’s big goal, moving to London, England. The Shubert Theater managed to get off its ass and begin restoration. Let’s take a look at how I’m doing.
As a result of making new friends in the Tweak Today community, some of whom live in London, I resolved during the winter that after I got my (U.S.) income tax refund in February or March, one of the things I’d do with the cash was book a trip across the pond.
Although I have previously lamented that in this down market, my mortgage traps me unless I want to take quite a hit in selling price, one positive is that the mortgage interest credit on my tax return provides for a sizable refund. Once a year, I clear up all my outstanding financial obligations (including paying my friend who floats me for Minnesota Twins baseball season tickets for the previous summer) and take my three pets in for checkups.
This year, I took care of myself first. I spent a lovely nine days in London the end of June beginning of July and hung out with my new friends. It was a good trip.They both live “in town” and I got a lot of time walking around on my own during the work day and going about the business of locals in the evenings. It gave me a good opportunity for a better-informed evaluation of how I might actually like living there. I was not dissuaded from my desires.
I figure it would still be at least a couple of years before I could make anything happen. The notion that I’ve had in my head since London won the 2012 Summer Olympics is that if I planned my arrival for soon thereafter, there might be ample more-reasonably priced living accommodations. On the other hand, if I somehow got myself there, you know, soon, maybe it would be easier for me to find a graphic design job or otherwise in the run-up.
It’s me. It will be later rather than sooner. And so far this entry is idle chat about my vacation, not a change in behavior.
What I have started doing is going through stuff around the house with an eye to downsizing before a cross-ocean move. Or because I simply have too much crap and I had houseguests. The casual observer would be hard-pressed to notice any difference, but I know the progress I made. A couple of my neighbors have much less stuff than I and have brought out the potential in their units. I want mine to be like that when I sell.
I did pass my 15-year anniversary at work and have no doubt that I’ll make it to 16 and beyond. Changing jobs wasn’t really the point of any of this, at least not until I’m looking for a job in London.
For a while I had been watching less television and doing more writing, reading, anything, but that bloom mostly faded. I still haven’t finished The Stuff of Thought, but I did manage to breeze through a romance novel in less than 24 hours this past weekend.
I don’t think there are obvious outward signs that my state of being is any different. About the best I can say is that I am quite certain that I’ll book another jaunt to London this winter when airfare is at its cheapest and I could accomplish the trip from a couple of paychecks rather than shooting my wad on high-season summer prices. I don’t need warm weather to have a good time.
On the indisputably positive side, a year and a half later I am still working out at Curves regularly. And, after the aforementioned ten months, still writing this blog.
The links, except the one about the Shubert, are all to previous blog entries which are related to one degree or another.
Hopping mad (Lars vs. Rolf)
August 3, 2010
Today I was supposed to show a mad face. It wasn’t explicitly stated that it should be my own mad face, but I assumed the implication. My personal policy is to not get mad because it’s usually not worth it and it just wastes a lot of energy that could be put to better use, such as talking and trying to work it out.
So instead, I drew these two angry rabbits facing off. And actually, the stare-down didn’t begin until they were in Photoshop. I can only draw them facing to the left.
Who do you think will win? The three opinions that I know of (mine, @thedigitalghost’s, and @superc0w’s) pick Rolf (righty). Lars (lefty) looks more like he’s stubbornly standing his ground versus actually being angry. Rolf looks like he has issues. There is tension in his body language and you just know he will explode at any moment.
That’s why they each do different henchmen jobs for Tiny-bunny.
I’m not saying that I’m never upset by things. I am. I have my mother’s leave-no-thought-unspoken enthusiasm, but it’s tempered by my father’s don’t-worry-don’t-be-angry mellowness. If something doesn’t sit right with me, it will be known to the outside world. But I also have the ability to usually just let it go and not take it personally, at least not for long.
What do you really gain in the long run by being mad?
Billy Goat Can Float
May 18, 2010
Five years, six months ago, I was in the throes of writing, designing, and producing the First Sounds and First Rhymes series. Herewith, you will be treated to a couple of examples of my stunning writing prowess.
It???s not that I mean to be facetious about what I do for a living; it???s just that I had always envisioned something a little more highbrow for my writing endeavors. On the other hand, as these books all go into school libraries and are meant to supplement the regular reading curriculum, there are some very specific guidelines that we are required to follow and constraints that we must adhere to. In that regard, these are mini-masterpieces.
First Sounds was an A???Z series in which each book dealt with a single letter or letter combination and featured words beginning with those letters. First Rhymes also covered the alphabet, but via perfect rhymes. Both series were part of our Rebus Reader line, which meant that the first part of each book was given over to our version of rebuses for six-year-olds. The second parts of the books were simple stories illustrated by photo+clipart collages.
I have always enjoyed working on the story illustrations; we make frequent use of that style. The goofy rhyming stories are fun, too. And this was back in the day when we more heartily embraced the cookie-cutter method of graphic design.
So put on your reading glasses, sit back, and enjoy.
Eva and Ethan from the First Sounds series, ??2005 ABDO Publishing Company.
Billy Goat Can Float from the First Rhymes series, ??2006 ABDO Publishing Company.
A thing of the past: postal mail
May 15, 2010
Last Thursday I sent more snail mail than I have in probably the last five years. You???ve heard the winging and moaning from the postal service and it???s true. The telephone and email take the place of the letters I used to write.
My most prolific letter-writing phase was during my teenage years after we moved from Ohio to Wisconsin. I left behind lifelong friends and we all did a good job keeping up. At the time, long distance was a luxury not to be squandered, and cell phones were from the Star Trek future, so we wrote letters. (Dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, too, but that???s a different story.)
In college, I still wrote letters, still to my friends and with the addition of my parents, as I was now out of town. For a couple of years I was very creative with the packaging of the letters to my parents, doing anything thing I could to avoid using a regular envelope but still have it go through on one stamp.
I gradually stopped writing letters, or sending cards, or mailing anything. Even bills I now pay electronically. I can???t remember the last time I stuck a stamp on something.
Last Wednesday, there was a flurry of address exchanging on Tweak Today, and Thursday I mailed out seven pieces. There will be a second wave in a couple of days. It???s mostly Minneapolis postcards, but for the people I know a little better, it???s more customized. I mailed two Washingtons, a California, New York, England, Scotland, and France in the first batch. I will be adding another California, a Tennessee, Idaho, Ohio, and Netherlands. I typed a couple of the email addresses incorrectly so the messages were undeliverable, so those addresses will be delayed, but I???ll still do it.
The post office clerk got a big kick out of my taking a picture before I???d relinquish my mail to him.
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May 12, 2010
What did you want to be when you grew up?
April 27, 2010
I wanted to be a writer. Who didn???t? Who doesn???t? From childhood, I had visions of writing novels for a living. That, or raising horses. The two interests dovetailed one time only. The only novel I have ever finished was a short one about intrigue on a Thoroughbred farm, completed when I was about thirteen. When I discovered the author Dick Francis around the same time and my mother hesitantly let me buy one of his books, I thought I was in heaven. Unfortunately, my writing career did not parallel his.
As late as my seventh year in college, I still sort of thought that the writing thing might come together.??
I had an eight-year effort in getting my bachelor???s degree. My parents both zipped through in four years and were horrified when I dropped out two and a half weeks into my first semester, and not much longer into my second semester. Then I tried it out at a couple of technical/vocational colleges in the area before returning to the university for a couple of more or less successful years, if you were judging by the fact that I actually completed semesters.
I got the bee in my bonnet that I wanted to live in Minneapolis and so decided that the easiest way to accomplish that would be to transfer schools and move into the dorm. Nothing to it. But it soon became apparent that I???d have to graduated eventually and thus would have to choose a major.
What all did I pass by on the way? Communications, music, computer programming, journalism, graphic design, and a few that I???m forgetting. I eventually settled on English as my major, just English. I never had any desire to teach but I needed to pick something. I was good at reading. I???d worry about the rest of it later.
I did graduate but found that without the journalism or communications angle, there were no writing jobs. So I went back to school and ended up getting a commercial art degree from yet another technical college, and thus began my graphic design career.
I guess I lucked out, because at my current position we do most of our work for book publishers, and one of those publishers put us in charge of everything about a new imprint they created. That meant we were responsible not only for the graphic design and production of those books, but also for finding the authors. It happened that I and a couple of other people were interested in writing, and thus began my writing career.
I am not writing novels. I am writing supplemental materials for beginning readers, as in, five??? to eight-year-olds. I have to my credit such scintillating titles as It???s K, The Jelly Bean Machine, and It???s a Baby Gazelle! It gets fun when I both write and design a series (the books are always in series of at least six).
I backed into being a writer and I guess I shouldn???t knock it; I have technically achieved my desire to be an author. How many people can say that they???re immortalized in the U.S. Library of Congress? I can!
It was a dark and stormy night ???
March 16, 2010
Tonight I present a group writing effort, courtesy of the TweakToday community. Our mission was to write a story by building on the previous submission. We have a little grey goose who just wants fast internet but has to battle an army of super-beavers by channeling her inner llama. Contributors are credited at the end.
Once upon a time in a small corner of the interweb
…there lived a small gray goose that was stuck in the land of dial-up internet access…
but one day that little goose was gonna get the biggest and baddest broadband connection available, then and only then he would be webmaster of….
the entire pond, the rest of the ducks would be her minions, if only she could defeat the evil…
General Beaver and his army of chipmunks, navy of otters, and airforce of hawks. His life mission was to….
…stop the number 1 cause of beaver deaths. Falling trees!
But the ducks interfered with his mission, as they were against cutting the trees that surround the pond.
In order to fight back, the ducks had to arm themselves. They strapped on …
fricken laserbeams.. That’s right, austin powers might have failed, but the ducks wouldn’t. They…
believed in the words of this charismatic leader. She, the enemy of half measures and weak decisions, would lead them to a paradise of lightening-fast internet connectivity- but they had to earn it first, and they knew the likely cost. Together they…
took aim at the beaver dam and prepared to fire but out of nowhere three giant…
super beavers stepped out of the forest. Paws beating their chests, chanting their creepy, awe inspiring, hold to the bottom of your seat chant that went something like
Beaver two, beaver one, Let’s all have some beaver fun!
Beaver four, beaver three, Let’s climb up the beaver tree!
Beaver five, beaver six, Let’s go get our beaver sticks!
Beaver eight, beaver seven, Let’s all go to beaver heaven!
Beaver ten, beaver nine, STOP! It’s beaver time!
but then the ducks responded…
In disbelief knowing that they were out gunned. The only means for victory would be to travel to Hollywood forest and summon the invisible swordsmen so that…
they would be given the knowledge of how to defeat the giant beavers. Meanwhile, the small gray goose had an idea and googled…
to find a gaggle of more geese to support the ducks in the effort. But her 128k modem dropped the connection so instead she had to …
use a much more reliable source of communication- the carrier pigeon. She enlisted the help of her winged comrades to call upon the council of seven Anatidae Elders- the great geese of yore whose knowledge, wisdom and power were her only hope against the toothy menace. The elders responded…
in their ancient and arcane dialect that victory favoured the bold, so taking her mighty asparagus spear in her beak, and feeling a spirited wind in her feathers…
she flew through the netherworld of dark cable features and foggy grey bottoms to find the information that
her ancestors had been right – she was not a goose afterall, but a…
llama, transformed by a curse years before. How fortuitous it was then, that the ducks returned just as this was revealed to her to inform her that the invisible swordsmen had revealed the super-beavers only weakness- that most awesome and terrifying of creatures- none other than the llama.
As the ducks then walked away to prepare for the awesome battle that awaited her father emerged from the woodlands behind her. The same man that vanished on that December 26th night some ten years previously…
, he explained that he went out to buy some smokes and got lost in a blizzard. but she did not believe him because…
his eyes had that same smokey haze they had when he told her mother he would be back soon, he was just going to the 7Eleven for a pack, she replied: “……
“don’t bother me with your nonsense. I’m busy learning on my abacus and drinking scotch.” The man continued out wondering about ducks and geese that lay ahead.
And at that very point in time, the gray goose realized that she had to channel her inner llama, the llama that she used to be. This was the only way to defeat the Beavers.
She pawed her webbed foot on the ground and waddled up to the first Super Beaver. She stared him in the eye. She took one, two, three deep breaths, and from the depths of her goosey innards expelled a giant, gooey spitball at the Beaver. The Beaver clawed at his eyes and cried out …
“Gross!” Little did he realize the true consequences the spitball would have. In a matter of seconds,
The beaver from his disintegrated eye pulled out a weapon of mass destruction. The very much feared
ocular dribble cannon… he took aim and…
tried to fire at the goose, but the spitball goo had quickly solidified, causing the ocular dribble cannon to backfire into the Beaver’s head. The Beaver
Beavers head exploded and his brains covered his tribe. With pure evil and anger flowing through the tribes veins they…
lost their self-control and blindly charged at the goose, forgetting …
their lunch boxes, cool box of refreshing juices and their ethics, thereby causing…
fits with the beaver union and forcing a work stoppage. As the entire Beaver community protested their lack of snacks, the small gray goose with the heart of a llama decided to offer up a treaty by offering…
The holy grail the beavers have been searching for all their lives…
The one, the only, the Beaver-Wings of Auresteus, son of Laumos born of Ilya. Such wonderful and unfathomable a prize could the beavers hardly bear to imagine. Acquired by her bravery in the Battle of Hayden and given by the king Rawl, these wings had been her prize for years, nay decades. The young goose/llama returned to…
her community of peaceful waterfowl and revealed the treaty she had proposed to the Beavers. The elders of the noble Mallard Clan, however, were displeased she had given away such a treasure as the mystical Beaver-Wings of Auresteus. They proclaimed…
“You silly goose! You’ve given away our best bargaining chip! Now we’re screwed.” The goo-lma sighed and said …
oh dear me… dear dear me… what have i done? she reached into her utility belt and pulled out a…
peace treaty, and she asked everyone to join her around a stump, where she said…
“Dear geese citizens today is not a day for doubts, but a day for decisions. A day not for quarreling, but for rejoicing for here in my wings is a great treaty of…
the world wide web. May information flow to your heart and music stream to your brain.” And with a flap of her wing…
she launched herself into the fathomless blue sky and sped off to the south for it was autumn. They all threw up behind her a cry in joyous support of net neutrality and…
honked, “Now, may we PLEASE have a high-speed connection?”
Authors: amazingaaron, thedigitalghost, jackcomrie, a_noob, superc0w, x-u, saxchik, toyotaboy, merendis, thebradymachine, tmmh, fstopblues365, kellydna, redd141, mandy716, sayanythingbam, imryanharris, athanie, coco-tidan, chaomancer, quacorezx, nonlinear_time, philos-phobo
Illustration: athanie
To-do list (2 March 2010)
March 3, 2010
The to-do list. It seems innocuous enough. Yet at the end of the day, you curse it. If you’re like me, your ambition always outweighs your actual accomplishment. Yet today, I did okay.
√ Items 1 and 2
Things to do to finish the fifth out of six manuscripts for a book series I’m writing about simple science activities. Topic number 5 is water. The little projects were written, but I had to organize the materials list, as well as write the two- to four-sentence long book specific introduction and conclusion.
(√) Item 3
I’m working on a new text design for a grammar-related series. The author is very organized. All of a sudden, about forty-five minutes before quitting time (which turned into an hour and a half and me leaving another forty-five minutes after quitting time, which isn’t any specific time as long as we get our eight hours in and the work done), I found my design muse. Yesterday I remarked that I wish my whole day could be shifted about four hours to the later, because that’s when I shift into being productive.
√ Item 4
These are tiny little pre-final changes. They didn’t take very long. No problem.
(-) Item 5
I’ll address that tomorrow evening. I try to write at the office, but I’m easily distracted and there’s usually plenty going on. I’m much more efficient if I bite the bullet and write at home.
(-) Item 6
Well, if Item 3 hadn’t been going so well, I would have gotten to Item 6. I have to arrive t my Curves by 6:00, so I have to leave the office by 5:45 at the latest. Tonight I did not. But I went last night, so it is not yet a big deal that I didn’t make it there today
√ Item 7
I had to pick up a few items for the photoshoot for the simple science book on water. On the list: marbles (displacement), rubber tubing (siphon), cheesecloth (surface tension), clear straws (density), and wooden matches (surface tension). Marbles are hard to find these days. I imagine that’s for two reasons: they are a choking hazard which today’s paranoid parent doesn’t want to deal with, and they are not a video game which today’s youngster does not know how to deal with.
So all in all, today was pretty productive. And I drank some tasty beer and wrote a couple of blog entries, which was personally satisfying. And the temperature reached 40°F for the first time in what seems like years. It’s probably just been since November.
I am shaping the youth of tomorrow
January 14, 2010
Once again, It???s a Baby Gazelle has come up in conversation. Really. For those of you who don???t know, I am a graphic designer and author. My writing audience is that discerning group in the U.S. who is being forced to learn to read words in books when they are six or seven years old.
The publisher who is our main client puts out books in series of six or more???eight or twelve sometimes, 26 if it???s, say, the alphabet. It???s the Alphabet series consumed the previous year of my life. But they???re damned cute books.
It???s a Baby Gazelle came in the second baby animals series, ???Baby African Animals.??? When I concepted and designed the first series, ???Baby Mammals??? (basically, middle Northern Hemisphere animals), I came up with a writing template and a design format with the intention of banging out more and more of the same, because at the time we were advised ???more animals, more animals!???
The graphic design elements were based on the flora of the physical environment in question. ???Baby Mammals??? (blue) was deciduous leaves, rivers, and dirt. ???Baby African Animals??? (orange) was safari???ambiguous animal spots, sand, acacia trees, and grass. ???Baby Australian Animals??? (ochre) was the outback???the red of Ayers Rock/Uluru, eucalyptus leaves, and the golden wattle. Sure, it looks like awesome design, but there???s actually purpose behind the elements.
You can???t see the interior designs here (though those of you in the know will eventually get a secret URL sometime before the next millennium) but they were every bit as intentional as the cover designs. And I had several more environs envisioned for addtional series???arctic, tropical, desert, underwater, so on and so forth. It???s too bad for us that the publisher has not, as yet, given the go-ahead for more of these series. The format is established and we can bang them out and make money on them. I was looking forward to arctic in particular.
Oh well, I???m not in charge.
Evidence of Tiny-bunny
December 26, 2009
Tiny-bunny made his getaway from the woodpile. And it was almost a clean getaway, except the heat of his retreat burned his snowtracks into the pavement. But there was no turning back from his exile from the woodpile. He had to keep moving.
Tiny-bunny had connections on the frozen planet of Cube, Ice Cube. He would get in touch with Wendell Francis the Otter, commonly known as Snarf, and Steve the Goat, about whom it was commonly known that he had taken the fall for his previous boss of ill-repute. But Steve, with the help of Snarf, had been working on rebuilding his reputation as the proprietor of a ski resort on the frozen planet of Cube, Ice Cube. Tiny-bunny knew he could go there and Steve and Snarf would help set him up in a new enterprise. First, however, Tiny-bunny had to cover his snowtracks, and it wouldn’t be easy.
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 