Wednesday

errands / photo / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on Things you write in and on
10
Jan 18

Things you write in and on

I bought some new notebooks the other night. I have many notebooks and notepads, you see. Some I use. At the office, I work from a stack of legal pads, with each one corresponding to a different role or set of running concerns. At home I have a nice stack of old notebooks and pads and things that I’ve accumulated over the years — and years isn’t overstating it. None of them are of an special high quality, they were meant to be scribbled and written on, but for whatever reason I find I seldom use them. And when I do find a need to write in one, I have the worst time deciding which one I’m going to mark up.

But when I’m on the go I’ve found that I enjoy the one-subject, 100-page, seven-inch by five-inch spiral notebook. They fit in my bag, they are inexpensive, they come in many colors and so I can use one for each subject and they are spiral bound, which is just easier somehow.

And so, having purchased a new handful of those to compliment the two older ones, I can pare some stuff down. I have lecture notes and interview notes and random notes to myself and scribbles between me and whoever I was sitting next to at the time and all kinds of things in those two notebooks. Some of that information is still useful. Some information really needs to be separated, which I spent a bit of this evening doing. (My life, now featuring a notebook of things that just needed to be separate unto itself, in a notebook that might one day see eight percent of its pages put into use.)

While I was leafing through the pages, trying to decide if I should keep this section, or tear it out or transcribe this specific page into a new book, I ran across this page:

I’ve no idea what I was going for here.

As ever, the web helped me figure it out:

I thought that, somehow, someone’s guess might jog my memory, but I’m still at a loss. Leave your theories on what this note could possibly mean in the comments!

I visited the surplus store this evening. This is where the entire university system sends its gently and heavily used products when they’ve reached the end of their time on campus. You can find deals on clothes to cleats to sheets to desks and chairs to high quality picture frames there. So it is good to visit every once in a while, and they have later hours on Wednesday, so I can stop in on the way home and, tonight I was going with a purpose. We basically needed a computer stand and I thought I’d start looking for something I could halfway modify.

And wouldn’t you know it, they were having a half off sale tonight. And wouldn’t you know it, right by the door:

So I consulted with HQ, we took some measurements both of this lectern and of where it might need to go and, long story short, we now have a lectern at home.

What, you don’t?

I was standing in line, beating out some random rhythm with my fingertips and the couple behind me called me out on it. I thought they were trying to get me to stop, but they were just making idle talk while they stood in line with me. They were a little surprised a random guy would purchase a lectern. And they were pretty close to buying my story that I wanted it so I could practice classroom lectures at home.

In retrospect, if I’d told them about the notebook thing they would have absolutely bought that story.

photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Burrrrrrrrrrrow under all of the blankets
3
Jan 18

Burrrrrrrrrrrow under all of the blankets

I forgot to add this picture to yesterday’s post.

This was early in the game, and at the community workshop. I spent about six hours that night on an antique jointer cleaning up the ends of the slats that would become the desk. I don’t think I ate dinner that night, since it was about midnight when I was finished, but I did stop by a drug store and got water and milk and gatorade. My hands felt weird for days. And it somehow doesn’t look like a lot, but there’s a whole lot of sawdust there.

Anyway, that was in the fall. This is today:

Cold, but sunny. But cold. But sunny! It isn’t quite the ideal circumstance, but it is sunny. I don’t want to overstate it, but I did see a guy slicing open a tauntaun just off campus this morning. The windchill was seven below this morning.

And I have pictures to prove it, and I’ll share those tomorrow, when my fingers thaw out.

photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Somebody get me my quill
29
Nov 17

Somebody get me my quill

I can be poetic:

Or I can be prosaic:

But can I be both?

Fuel, I get more monthly
Better than the old weekly rate
Four mile commutes are good

Only in the haiku format.

photo / Wednesday / windshield time — Comments Off on Travel day
22
Nov 17

Travel day

You often see curious things when you’re traveling. A sign here, a weird fence there, and so on. I try to take pictures of things I see, because, sometimes, you find a theme emerging. But I only saw the one thing today.

You feel like they are maybe picking on Merle, the One-handed Man here. The rest of the employees, they get a pass, but Merle, he needs to think hygiene at all times.

The sink was one of the old fashioned ones. You had to do operate the faucet, soap dispenser and hand towel dispenser manually.

Anyway, Thanksgiving festivities begin tomorrow. I hope you’re safely and exactly where you need to be.

IU / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on The beautiful trouble of autumn, Part IX
15
Nov 17

The beautiful trouble of autumn, Part IX

I’m in the final week of the local autumn observational complaint: You can’t make autumn stay, you can’t show off the season properly. I’m still trying to do it, even though it can’t be done. But I’m still trying.

It seems like there’s a shift in the tint of the golden light from the late sun. It’s still pleasant out, but there’s a feeling in the air. The optimism of crisp morning air is taking on a new meaning with a nearer, sharper crispness in the air. It isn’t a foreboding, but a coming to a sense of reality.

There was a mom and a child playing beneath that tree, while the dad was taking pictures of them. The boy was in his element and having a great time, but the parents were trying to document all that was passing before them. We must deliberately categorize certain things out of doors, in certain lights. The kids will get bigger, the trees will become exposed twigs, the blue sky turns grey. Before you know it, the next family photos feature a slightly older kid. And by the time they take those pictures, things will be green again. Or, covered in snow if their brave. And so they are out right now, setting a memory.

That’s a lot to take from watching a young family for a few seconds, but there’s a certain chill in the breeze.

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