Weathering The Weather
The pre-holiday cold continues to challenge us. A water main down the street broke and one of our vehicles failed to start this AM. The water main did not affect us but I did have several moments of appreciation that I did not have to work outside last night. During my many years in the commercial construction industry there was not a day that I did not appreciate the work of the people out in the cold and the heat dodging falling things and trying not to fall themselves.
This afternoon I pulled a set of jumper cables and prepared to hook a working vehicle to a non-working vehicle but one of the clamps was missing. The cables are kept in a five gallon bucket in the back up the pickup along with a tow strap, a couple of chains and an empty Monster can. Some digging around located the clamp. Generally speaking I've found it advantageous to leave a screwdriver (multi-bit) and a vice-grip in every vehicle and tool box I own. While I could have used a big hammer everything was put back into working order. A trip to Wal-Mart for a discount battery was marked by the especially interesting crowds. It was only -4 F so I actually could work without gloves to get the new battery in and this vehicle did not require one to have two additional joints in your arm to get everything in place.
Creative Foundation
I'm working on an outline for a novel. I have outlines for a couple of business books but after seventy days of not going in an office or cubicle I'm having a short vacation from that sort of environment. It's likely that I'll hold back on business writing and cubicle/office pursuits until after the first of the year. Most of my executive peers hated the concept but I'm pretty certain that not much happens between Thanksgiving and the first of the year other than strategic planning, budgeting and holiday parties.
As pre-work for the novel I'm reading a trilogy by Daniel Suarez that starts with Daemon. It's a pop literature novel with lots of information technology content and large scale internet gaming plots. I've gone down this path a few times, reading all the work by a particular novelist or trilogies to get a sense of characters, plots, dialogue, etc. Like most language challenges (that would include Ruby on Rails) it requires seat time and I'm having some trouble getting seat time.
One of the challenges in this creative space is thinking that your work has to be all that special. Austin Kleon's work sort of slaps you on the side of your head and trashes that notion of it being all that special. I'm grinding through Steal Like An Artist and will digest his other work shortly. There are a lot of books like these that I wish I'd read a long, long time ago.
Feedback and Vacuum
The winter season means more time in the shop extracting folk art and primitive craft items from trees that have been spared from death by fire. I've linked up with other like crafters on Facebook and that has been very positive. There are people who appreciate art although it mostly other people creating art; there's a shortage of buyers unless you are really good or talented but at least the craft people like to exchange and comment on other's work. LHH has some live sessions where out of work executives get together and network and plan. I've not attended any of those. I should. My default tendency is to work independently. I might not recognize that as a vacuum.
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