Posted on Leave a comment

Programmer/Artist

As a programmer, I often feel like an artist reusing the same canvas over and over and no one ever looks at the painting. As I make modifications and improvements to a program, my previous creation vanishes often without having been appreciated by another programmer. I write tomes of code and a vast percentage of that writing ends up in the fire.

Posted on Leave a comment

Flippant remarks meant for deletion

You know how when you have a negative thought you write it on a piece of paper then burn the paper to get rid of the thought. I do the same thing but I type it in the computer then delete it…except occasionally I screw up and push publish instead of delete. My apologies for those that read the recent mistake. That’s like having the burned paper blow away before the match hit it and having the paper land in the gossip column of the newspaper.

Posted on Leave a comment

Finally making progress on staining the bay window

A little less than a year ago, we had a bay window installed in the house. The contractors suggested staining or painting it soon to protect the wood. Having not stained wood since I was a teenager, and with Dad’s guidance, I hesitated…and hesitated…and the window was loved by the children…and the dogs…and the cats…and it was muddied and watercolored and scratched and marked upon. And a few Fridays ago Knoxville was iced in. So I used my sander on the window and it came clean! Thus I created "Dad’s clean room."

IMG_1677

I’ve since sanded and removed all the scratches and stains and only in one place which I will never reveal did I almost ruin the veneer. This weekend I vacuumed and made my clean room clean. Btw, it worked really well to contain the dust as I sanded which kept the house clean and the wife migraine free. I’ve now taped the windows and am preparing to apply my first coat of stain! This is good. Hopefully by next weekend (or the end of February at the latest), we will have our window complete.

Posted on Leave a comment

Hellish week ahead

This promises to be a hellish week mostly attributed to scouting…4 hours Monday night, 1 hour Tuesday night, 4 hours Thursday night. And then there is regular work (the day job) and client work (the night job(s)) and scout planning and paperwork (outside of the aforementioned meetings. Somewhere I need to work in reading to the children, helping them with school work and projects, cooking meals, and practing juggling for a show next Tuesday. Let’s not forget the personal management stuff in my life (finances, household stuffs, household repairs, sleep, car repairs, etc.) and of course, time must be set aside to watch Chuck.

I can allow this week to control me or I can rule this week. I choose the latter.