On the other side of the heat

The transition from city to suburb is now complete.  Karen doesn’t think where we’re at is the suburbs, and while it is down in a little wooded valley, there’s a BestBuy, Petsmart and Mega Walmart just down the street.  So, you decide.

The move was motivated by the school district my last place was in.  While the old place didn’t have enough space for all of us, it would’ve been much (much) cheaper to find a larger place in the old neighborhood.  But the school district was not only academically poor but a bit – rough – for our tastes.  So, out to the suburbs.

The move was difficult.  I have way too much crap.  When I moved over here I used a car and a U-Haul (I don’t remember the size of the truck).  The only furniture was a futon I’d purchased from a friend.

This time around I used a 19′ truck, a 24′ truck and many trips with my car.  I still have the futon but have added – lots.  I really need to pare down.  I needed to pare down some time ago, and now that I’ve moved into a spot with more space I need to make sure that, should I fail in my quest to reduce my amount of stuff I don’t expand my stuff collection to fill.

My friends Mark, Chris and Steve helped me move most of the big stuff from my old place to my new place, then Mark and Steve returned to help me move the rest of it.  It was brutal hot.  Then my parents came to help me clean and move the last few loads over.  It was still hot.  These folk were lifesavers.

The new place has a garden. It’s a small raised-bed plot, and I’m kinda excited about growing stuff there.  We’ll see how that goes.  For now I’ve got more than enough to do in the unpacking job.

The project that I thought I’d wrapped up is still hanging on – not really a good thing, but I hope to iron out the lingering issues post haste.  But I am starting a new project for the same company soon, and this is a good thing.

One of the reasons we stepped up the schedule for moving into the new place is the wicked heat wave overpowered the window unit I used in the old place.  Even when we abandoned all but one room of the house to the heat it was still muggy and uncomfortable.  Annoyingly coincidentally the central air at the new place failed our first weekend there.  That was wonderful.

The wicked heat wave has abated, by the way.

Not to jinx anything, but I seem to be riding a shallow but extended productivity wave.

I really need a haircut.

Nothing new on the horizon, except a possible Labor Day photo journey.

June and July Update

It’s been getting steadily hotter.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but it doesn’t stop anytime soon.

Karen moved up in mid-May.  The transition was, from the point of view of our relationship, easy and seamless.  Again I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but it keeps getting better.

I picked up an off-camera flash and have had three photo shoots so far – all more-or-less successful.  The full accounting of my photographic fun is found over at roadside fruit stand.

Karen, her son and I went down to Sam’s Throne and had a grand time wandering about the woods.  There was a lot of wind, and a ton of locusts.  It was a biblical time out in the wilderness.

I helped my friend Max with a project of his using technology which I wasn’t at all familiar with, and it went (from my point of view) pretty well.

I managed to hang with the yoga class, and had a photo shoot with my instructor, but now my instructor moved away and I am much less motivated.  I try to carry on on my own but the move has gotten in the way.  We’ll see.

Karen and I wandered up to Toronto this last weekend and that was a good time.  The weather wasn’t that much cooler, but we’ll take whatever we can get.  There was lots of food and conversation and walking around.  We visited Niagara Falls and rode the Maid of the Mist.  I met some folk I only knew from online interaction and got to hang out with Max and Sarah, which is always a good time.  Karen sprained her ankle just before we left, which was not such a good time – but she’s a trooper.

My time at the moment is taken by moving my stuff to the new place (I’ve moved out west).  Stephen and I have been meeting semi-regularly but there’s not been a lot of movement in that area.  I finished up a paying project at work and am now back to a couple internal projects for the foreseeable.

Spring Doldrums

So much to do.  So little motivation.

Last weekend I had hoped to make some significant progress on my software architecture certificate project.  No such luck.  Friday night was spent at my co-worker Charlie’s place experimenting with my new external flash unit (cheap Chinese model speedlight).  Saturday I didn’t feel particularly well, but managed to get some basic household maintenance done.  Stephen came back into town on Sunday to stay a week while looking for a place to live up here, so we hung out a bit and eventually he bought a new computer and then, of course, we had to play some StarCraft II.  That pretty much did it for Sunday.  I’ve been similarly adrift at work, staring at a screen an alarmingly large percentage of the time.

What I should be doing:

• Cleaning out the spare bedroom
• Boxing up stuff, throwing stuff away, getting stuff shipped out
• Creating a photobook for Mom and Dad (from their anniversary)
• Software Architecture Certification
• Personal Software projects
• Personal Photography projects

What I do:

• Poke around the internet
• Sleep

So I think I may have discovered at least part of the reason that I’m not seeing the productivity that I’d like.

This coming weekend is Karen’s birthday, so I’m headed down that way.  Maybe I’ll find some motivation along the way…

Serendipity

I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but ever since I can remember I’ve felt as if I’ve lead something of a charmed life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my share of bad things happen, but when I compare that to the number of times things have just worked out it’s a little scary.  Or not.  Depending.

Anyway.

Stephen came up this weekend and we had planned to head down to the Arcadia Valley and do a little poking around.  The weather appeared to be intent on thwarting those plans, as Friday night was full of storm sirens and tornado warnings.  But the cell that was aimed right at me wandered north and demolished the airport instead.  So, bullet dodged (unless you were on that flight headed to Chicago).  The next day dawned grey and rainy, but we headed south anyway.  At the very least we’d have a good drive.  Things were pretty dicey going down, the road was closed due to flooding, but we too the back road in and – it all cleared up.  We wandered about in relative dryness and warmth, and then we headed back through pouring rain.  We managed to visit all the points we wanted save Mina Sauk falls (the trail was a river/muddy bog) and still have a nice drive.  That night we took some just-for-fun head shots of Steve and chatted.  It was a good time.

Today we went out looking for food and settled on Mexican, but the spot we went to was closed for Easter.  We hit this Chinese place just past it, with some misgivings (since we were the only ones there).  The food was wonderful.  So, there’s that.

Stephen took off and I hung out here not accomplishing anything but a nap and some relaxation, which in retrospect I am totally fine with.  All in all, a delightful weekend.

Things just worked out.

Well, that’s – something

Some time ago a lady representing herself as a photo editor from National Geographic Traveler magazine contacted me about using an image in an upcoming issue.  After assuring myself, as best I could, that this was not a scam I agreed to publication of the image.  And today I came home to find two copies of the upcoming issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine at my doorstep, and lo and behold on page 60 was my picture of my father wandering around Capulin Volcano, NM.  I am pretty psyched about it, even though there’s nothing particularly good about the image (in fact there are some issues with it) – I don’t really care because it’s cool to see my name in a magazine.  So, that’s where I’m at now.

Springing into action (or, you know, not)

So there was a definite uptick in the “keeping it together” index, but for some reason it didn’t translate into more productivity at work.  I’m still becalmed on a sea of distractions.  For the record, yes I’m aware that illustrative phrase doesn’t hold together well.

Since last we spoke I’ve managed to make no measurable progress on the internal project I’ve been working on.  But I have taken a few pictures and that’s something.  I’m also managing to keep myself fed and clothed (in clean clothes, even).  This is what passes for “keeping it together” for me .

On the photography front I’ve built myself a light box (a cardboard box with the sides and top cut out and an old white sheet thrown over it, with a piece of posterboard as a seamless backdrop).  So now I put everything in the box and it’s new and interesting.  I briefly entertained thoughts of astrophotography (well, just between you and I I’m still contemplating) but there are a couple good points to consider:

• It requires you to wait for moonless, clear skies and then drive to a dark sky location at ridiculously early hours, possibly in the cold, and then hang out taking a series of long exposures.
• Not much changes up there.

I’m also contemplating off-camera flash/studio photography – the issue here is that this involves taking pictures of people, and I don’t really do that.  But, you know, it’s a learning opportunity.  If I have fancy equipment maybe I’d feel more confident taking pictures of people.  Not sure.

No progress at all on the deepwrap or SEI certification front.  So, yeah, becalmed.

I’ve been sticking with the yoga thing, though – which makes me happy.  Though I’ve still been feeling somewhat crappy – and now I don’t know if the odd muscle/joint pain is me getting used to stretching regularly or something to worry about.  Still happy that I’m sticking with it.

I went to a seminar: http://www.theflashbus.com/ (with David Hobby and Joe McNally) and it was all kinds of good.  I got in free thanks to my friend Charlie, and got to hang out and learn stuff.  Now I’m all revved up to take amazingly-lit photos.

As soon as I can buy a flash.  And a stand.  And an umbrella.  And more gear.

Maybe I have a finite amount of motivation and the excitement of the photography stuff has siphoned off excitement for software stuff…

Ok, so, real-time update – I just ordered a beginning off-camera light kit.  So, yay me.

Oh, last weekend I ended up rear-ending the car in front of me.  Not hard, but hard enough to do about $560.43 (ish) of damage.  I have a bad habit of hitting parked cars.  This is a result of the way I drive.  I make a model in my head and whatever part of the world I’m not looking at I react to anyway because it’s modeled in my head.  And in my head, this car should have already been going down the entrance ramp.  But in the real world, it had stopped.  So I hit it.  Because it wasn’t supposed to be there.

Now, like I said, this isn’t the first time this has happened.  And my first reaction is to wonder, somewhat incredulously, why this person stopped in the middle of the road.  But my second reaction is to shut the hell right up, because I hit a parked car.  And the driver’s model of the world was likely different from mine.  In his world he didn’t have time to merge.

So, yeah.  That’s a bummer – but I’ve come to think of this as life’s way of informing me that I really need to keep my eyes pointed in the direction of my motion.  This is a good lesson, I hope I’ve learned it.  This time.

Life continues apace

I find an unusual amount of pleasure in getting all of my laundry done.  I’ve been on this planet longer than four decades, I would think I would have some sort of routine in place for basic life maintenance.  But no.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I packed up the family truckster and headed out into the world.  I pointed my steed south and took some pictures of Elephant Rocks and Johnson Shut Ins state parks.  It was a good time.  I arrived early so I had both places more-or-less to myself.  You don’t need a lot of time to experience both these places, even if you go slowly, so I was out in a couple hours.  But it was a thoroughly enjoyable couple hours.  Elephant Rocks was just as I left it, but Johnson Shut Ins has really been developed.  I assume courtesy of Amren as a way of saying “sorry our reservoir broke and flooded your park”.  It was nice.

I’m in the doldrums at work.  It’s not horrible, but I need to pull myself out.  I’ve missed one (self-imposed) deadline and I will likely get a new project this coming week, so I need to wrap up the current work.  I’m coming off a pretty solid bit of work so I’d like to keep the momentum (such as it is) going.

Memorial Day is approaching.  I have decided to head East (’cause, you know, there’s never been any reason) to West-by-God-Virginia.  We’ll see how that goes.

I’m starting what I hope is an upward trend in the “getting it together” cycle.  We’ll also see how that goes.

Oh. I now own a smart phone.  The HTC Thunderbolt.  I love it.  The singularity agrees with me.

I forgot to mention that my parents had their golden anniversary last month – we threw them a party at Golden Corral.  It seemed appropriate.  It was an unexpectedly good time.

And now, I am off to be productive.