Posts Tagged ‘clouds’

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Dreams vs. goals

September 12, 2012

In a romance novel I once read (seriously, even with this intro, it is going to be a good, insightful post) (really (probably))…

Let’s start again.

In a romance novel I once read, the heroine is a well-connected woman. Plus, she’s a nice human being. So when another person says they’ve always wanted to write books for children, our heroine moves heaven and earth to get proto-author the right contacts into editing, agents and children’s publishing. The proto-author then flakes out completely.

Because the proto-author didn’t want to write children’s books, she wanted to talk about how someday she’d like to write children’s books. It was a safe dream but it was not a true goal.

(I’m a little worried at this point because two friends who  occasionally read my blog have said they’d like to write children’s books. This is not about them. This is about my neurosis, not about anyone else. Not even Phil. Who, as far as I know, doesn’t want to write children’s books.)

Ok, let’s switch away from children’s books into something that may get me into less trouble. But, really, I promise, there is a unified point.

When C was serious with the band, a neighbor of ours joined for awhile. But he didn’t ever practice. He couldn’t remember the words to songs he wrote. I actually liked his voice but he just wasn’t serious about the band. And as they started to have gigs, the neighbor’s lack of dedication was a frustrating barrier for the whole band. See, the neighbor didn’t want to be in a rock and roll band, he wanted to talk about being in a rock and roll band. His mental model was not only dad, provider, husband, handyman, etc. It was also “singer in a rock band”, it made him feel cool; C’s band fed that image. But it was a dream and not really a goal.

I worry that part of my personal mental model is “mad scientist inventor” but I don’t have the oomph to do it. I like reading and watching television and going to the beach and hanging out with my friends and sleeping and exercising (and working on projects, shipping software).

I’ve been thinking about dedication as I work on this prototype for my infant product idea, trying to figure out if my project will survive and how. Do I have what it takes to see it through? Forget that…I’m too afraid of the answer, let’s try a smaller chunk: do I have what it takes to build a prototype for my own personal use and for demonstration purposes?

When I work on other people’s products, it is easy to identify the work involved and motivate myself to get it done (ahem, cash is a nice motivator for me as is the “done” finish line). But with my own project, somehow I believe that is I just wish hard enough, it will magically be complete.

That hasn’t been working so I carved out some time to work on it as a project. (My rates are really quite reasonable when I work for myself.) Today, I hit a limit of my tools that showed I have compiled my program and downloaded it 100 times.  Some of those were dumb, formatting tweaks to printfs but not all of them. This ridiculous milestone  represents a lot of work, a lot of time spent with my butt in the chair thinking about this product. Sitting here, reading datasheets, putting hardware together, learning to crimp cables, drawing schematics, buying beer and sushi to bribe people into helping me, and writing code, it really is a lot of work and not nearly done.

And still I fear that this may be a phase, something I’m excited about but only because it is new and shiny. And when something else shiny comes along (or this bauble loses its gleam), well, I’ll drop it in the gutter.  I don’t know the path ahead or if I’m really on any path. Or if I want to be.

I don’t know if this is just a dream or truly a goal.

Funny, as I finished this post, I just got a call from a past client. They want me to do something for them. They pay pretty well (and on time). It will be just a few weeks of work. I just managed to carve out time from current clients to have time for my project. But it would be a lot of money to work for these clients which would give me the freedom to work on some other future idea. It is an easy job. So shiny.

 

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Rock me

May 14, 2012

Hey, look! A rock!
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That part of the drive was pretty. Right now, a little over an hour away from Reno, it is less pretty. Oh, I like the mountains, even the scrub plains. But we are driving into a dust storm. Not a bad one, it probably won’t delay us at all. Visibility is good on the road. But the mountains are hiding. The desert looks bigger this way, kind of like a Japanese woodcut using fog to indicate the distance of mountains, printed on yellowing paper.

A picture just looks blurry, you’ll have to take my word that it looks mildly interesting, then kind of boring, kind of spooky. Yeah, I know it isn’t usually both but there you have it.

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There is a good one

May 9, 2012

When we got Zoe T. Beagle, we didn’t know what we doing.

C had never had a dog. I’d only had very large dogs (Great Pyrenees, Newfoundland, and Great Danes). Large dogs sleep more than smaller dogs so my experience as canine cohabitant was very different than that of new dog owner.

Zoe was a little demon. Whirling teeth, check. Unholy glint of mischief, check. Inability to sleep thought the night, check. Behaves only at puppy obedience class, check. Insane hound of hell, check.

Beagles are described as “genially stubborn” or “merrily independent”. What this really meant was that our puppy thought we were idiots and was happy about it.

The first time I saw a beagle on leash, walking politely (without being dragged along as it tried to snort whole plants), I pointed it out to C and said, plaintively, “There’s a good one.”

He looked, just in time to see it stick its nose to the ground and start tugging at its leash as it caught a scent.

So now whenever I see a non-Zoe beagle, I say, “There’s a good one.” Well, except that time the beagle was dragging the child into the busy street (that turned out fine, don’t worry). I think after we for done laughing ourselves sick, I remarked it reminded me of Zoe’s puppyhood.

Zoe has gotten older and calmer (it took four years so anyone with a beagle puppy, don’t believe the two year stuff they feed you at the vet). She still thinks we are stupid and is still kind of happy about that (and everything else) but she sleeps more and occasionally goes along with our idiot ideas just to keep the peace (and for liver snacks which she doesn’t believe the dumber-but-more-obedient Bear should get any of).

Yeah, I miss the pups.

Anyway, after lunch today, C pointed out a tall cloud, lit by the sun in distance. I said, “There’s a good one.”

As it traveled over us, the cloud rained in fat drops and sheets for the next thirty minutes.

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Sometimes things are appreciated in their lack

May 6, 2012

I am super excited to see the clouds today. They indicate that my in-laws were telling us the truth: we have NOT been transported to a world of vast gray nothingness of damp.

I best Boston is prettier in the light. Though the drivers! Talk about stereotypes that are entirely true! Of course, if they had lane markers it might help.

Here is a pic of a pond in Cambridge. You can see the cloud in the upper right corner. Sadly, the prevailing wind seems to be pushing that cloud and all it’s brothers over the sun. But it was nice while it lasted.

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I know it was a pond instead of a lake because the sign said so. Though, in California, that would totally be a lake.

Update 30 min later: The clouds were burning away, not encroaching. We’ll need sunglasses today! Yay!

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Need cheese sauce

April 25, 2012

On the waitwait NPR news game radio show, one of the players said something like, “I like broccoli. I feel like a giant eating trees.”

I understood what he meant (and laughed) but California trees don’t really look like broccoli. Not like these do.

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Now that we have left grass plains, there are a lot of trees. Trees of all sorts. Everything smells so good, like honeysuckle. I’m sneezing a lot.

Anyway, I like these trees but they make me hungry.