Last May, I finally walked the arroyo in the neighborhood. The gravel gully led to this very concrete channel where plants insist on taking root in every available crack. I now regularly stroll thorough this arroyo, feeling the microseasons. It’s my path of centering.
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This afternoon we walked a couple loops around the local elementary school. The second time, boy decided to ride his bike. He swept circles through the parking lot, his teal jacket basking in the golden haze of an almost setting sun.
This is a time of utter chaos that will eventually reach us 2,400 miles out from its epicenter.
But today was a perfect day.
As I’ve matured, I’ve realized that we never get to live our dreams (life is much too mundane for our wild imaginations). That’s OK, this dour realization has freed me to savor such fleeting moments.
Prompted by this marker on the solar cycle—a few thoughts on the past year and looking into this fresh, shiny, new year.
Last year started hectic between moving into our new house and work piling up at my old job. That went from busy to crazy when the Administrator and Deputy Administrator were suddenly demoted adding a gray pall over the whole endeavor.
Soon after, I was contacted by a former consultant engineer about an opening at the Airport. I initially demurred, because I wanted to finish my current projects. On the last day the position was open, she called me back to just apply already!
Fine!
I applied, using an iPad in a San Diego garage apartment before heading out to the Zoo (copy-pasting from my LinkedIn profile!)
At my old job, the Spring during even-numbered years were always insane as we prepared for the upcoming State legislative session. Beyond normal duties, you’d be assigned a slew of projects to scope out and estimate.
Now add going to an interview, negotiating salary, accepting the gig, waiting for background checks to clear, and ultimately giving notice.
That was a long, fast three months.
Over that season, I realized that my old job was no longer recognizable. The place had changed and I was lucky to have been pushed into a new position.
Every new job comes with fresh jitters.
Especially joining a unique place like an airport. It’s a high security mini-city transportation complex that’s carefully regulated by the federal government. Plus learning the different politics of being part of a new agency.
I shouldn’t have worried. Each of my colleagues went through their own shock whenever of joining the airport and were all happy to help.
And it was nice to be spare working crazy hours…and not having to think about work when I wasn’t at the office. This freed me to cement my daily practices.
Before I left the old gig, I had started posting a daily “Vegas Ordinary” photograph to maintain a minimal semblance of creative sanity. With the extra breathing room at the new job, I turned it into a wider tracking exercise—clearing out blog drafts, diet, physical exercise, and music practice . In August, I pivoted from photography towards calligraphy.
This endeavor was supercharged when we bought a printer-scanner and I pulled out an old light box. I was now composing on sheets, not just scribbles in notebook!
This new obsession survived it’s first big interruption—a week in September with COVID. I was still graphing at the end of that lovely time off, which made me confident enough to step into two months of daily insanity.
At first it was “just” Inktober. I planned on just doing a simple 5 Word Piece every morning. Nice and easy, but composition (and yeah a little competition) consumed the month.
Inktober lead into Callivember and sixty-one days had suddenly disappeared. I’d unknowingly signed up for an unpaid part-time internship. At least I progressed quite a bit by pushing my limits every day.
But no time for rest. By the end of November it was time to get into the holiday spirit, make cards, wrap presents, and boom we’re now in tax season!
So what to make of this new year?
I’m not serious about goals but I am fond of noting a yearly theme. The exercise helps me reflect on the past year and nudge my attention for the new trip around the sun.
At first, I toyed with the idea of a mass purge. Refinement. Crucible. Burn the dross. Much too aggressive.
Let’s go with a much gentler vibe of “letting go”. Admittedly I started 2024 hoping to work through this slew of old blog posts and unfinished digital projects. This time I’ll take a chill approach to clearing them out.
I don’t plan on changing jobs this year. So hopefully I’ll make a legit dent this time! Or maybe, I’ll end ’25 with the realization that I need to let go of that urge to clean out this digital house.
We’ll find out in 365 days. Hope you’ll hang around for the fun!
Earlier in the year, I waited eight weeks for the local Ikea to finally get a shipment of Billy bookcases.
The particle board smell was so strong that we started with two book cases and let the rest air out in the garage. This start was enough to handle a third of my books.
A few weeks later, we raised the final three and finally emptied our boxes of books after eleven years!
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Social media is dangerous. Our puny individual ape brains were not evolved to survive hordes of corporate psychologists. However, there is great value buried in those sites.
After being on on Instagram for #inktober for two weeks, I am all the more certain that the best way handle a social media website is to decide upon a real-world analogy (to limit your use) and never let it slip out of its prison.
Here are my personal metaphors for various social media sites.
Twitter—Newspaper opinion pages (lurk only—no comments, no hearts)
Facebook—Telephone gossip among old friends
Linkedin—Awkward business networking event
Instagram—Mall of private galleries (I’ve had a rotation of interests, but my current selections are calligraphy, illustration, and airports).
Reddit—Collection of old school special interest web-forums (ignore the all-in-one feed on the main page).
Substack—The collected newsletters make an Arts and Poetry Magazine, with Notes as an attached web-forum (I avoid hot button topics like politics).
Youtube—A giant Fry’s Electronics wall of TV’s. Even though I only lurk the site, this is by far the hardest place to keep in check. I might institute a personal rule to write a sentence about each video I watch (h/t James Hart).
Tiktok—Just Say No.
In these battles against the algorithm, you will be constantly presented with intriguing morsels creeping outside of your proscribed boundaries. Don’t take the bait. You must constantly ignore, mute, and cull your feeds. Big Social is a fine servant but a cruel master.
The husband of local architect collects Pokémon cards. When I asked her where to buy a big box of cheap commons, she handed me a pile that I passed onto the kids.
That became a giant mess on the floor, way past bedtime!
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I’m learning that cleaning up is a slow necklace of focused moments.
Each attempt at organizing takes way longer than planned. But if you tackle each clean-up endeavor as a focused chip off a giant boulder, you’ll make a dent over time.
Last Saturday we finally put up shelves in the garage. Sunday, I threw the mess up on the wall. Admittedly this just made a vertical wreck, but it was nice to see the concrete slab again.
This morning, I sorted through the stuff, consolidated the boxes, and we now enjoy a tidy garage.
In winter, we played in the snow as the sun set over the girl’s last afternoon as a 9 year old. With the rains of that week, our usual spot at Mount Charleston (in the valley below the visitor center) was in fresh deep fluff.
Coincidentally, this week, I’ve been listening to the Fred Frith soundtrack to Rivers and Tides which includes a few scenes of Andy Goldsworthy working in the winter cold. My memory of the sounds from that afternoon have blended with the sounds of that lovely film.
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After four and a half years, COVID finally found us.
I got the symptoms first so I rushed off to my in-law’s empty rental house. Too late, the family all came down soon after.
But inertia took over and I stayed there for a couple of weeks as we recuperated separately.
One can get a lot done without family responsibilities. I cleaned up the place thoroughly, finally finished T-Zero (fine book, but still a sequel) and The Conference of the Birds (a glorious Sufi poem that I can barely comprehend), created AutoCAD templates for my calligraphy practice, and ate a lot of TV dinners.
Without kids, the place stayed remarkably clean. Entropy moves slower in the absence of little people. But still, nice to be home again, mess and all.
We settled into our new home six months ago and reality intruded on the even the earliest moments everyday magic.
Here is the boy is looking down as I tidied the garage. A minute later, a yellow pencil poked a hole in the screen.
And while making our first batch of pancakes, he threw a tantrum after I mixed the batter, after telling me to go ahead and mix without him. Then I got into a tiff with Mama because I burnt the first few pancakes while learning the new stove. (Couples cooking has never been our strong suit.)
The gods have been gracious, but they always spice things up to keep us in our place.
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I was given a tour of landside operations at the airport. Since they manage parking and traffic, they have a large team. I asked one of their managers how someones stands out when a promotion is open.
First, he noted that not everyone is ambitious. He started with an entry level job 25 years ago and some of his colleagues are still in that exact same position.
Beyond that, he advises every new employee these three simple guides.
Be here when you’re supposed to show up.
Do what you’re supposed to do.
Don’t do what you aren’t supposed to do.
After that, he said it’s a matter of politics and luck. These factors are out of our hands. For example, he almost got a job with another county agency in 2007. It didn’t work out, but that team experienced massive layoffs during the great recession while the airport avoided layoffs altogether.
Introvert Drawing Club posted a badge that caught fire, cause we’re sick of the cheap plagiaristic garbage being shoved in our faces online.
This morning, Beth Spencer posted a note that she was only 53 badges from 1k.
Let’s make that 52!
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The image was hand drawn with fountain pens in and edited in Pixlr. This morning I added the text as a markup on my iPhone, with the PNG export done in Pixlr after deleting the white background. You can see the badge in action on my photo on the about page.
If it looks familiar, it’s because I made the original image last year in a post about alternatives to AI art. There is so much great free art made by real people, why would anyone outsource our visual world to thieving machines?
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Bonus! I originally wrote the badge with “Made”. Since it’s not doing any good by itself on the computer, here it is if you’d prefer this wording.
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Check out the IG page for all the other #HiBadge2024.
In January, I wrote a letter to a colleague who is rejoining to our team. Selfishly, I’m excited that she returned.
This was my first tiny poem-calligraphies to leave the house. It was also one of the last ones that I wrote.
It’s been a long 2024, and we haven’t even started the biennial budgeting season—that hits tomorrow.
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Unfortunately, my publication schedule will continue to be sporadic. After we get our budget season assignments, it’s off to the races through June.
Beyond the increasing workload, it has been a tumultuous time for our team. Hopefully things will settle down, but it’s not surprising that my Commute Music project has stalled on Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult over the past month.
I just started moving again with Blue Mitchell. Yes, I’m slightly out of alphabetical order. It was a necessary fudge.
Hopefully I’ll get another post out in May, and then June, but frankly it’s been all about work for the past quarter. I’ve already told my supervisor that I’ll try to keep up the pace up through July 1st, but after that it stops. (He’s the best boss I’ve had, but we’re all going through it together). Maybe I’ll breathe again.
When buying the house we agreed to address a few minor plumbing issues. Easy enough to do during the negotiations, but the work still had to be done. We changed the innards for two of our toilets, switched faucet stems, and installed a new kitchen sink with our own RO filter.
That sink took three days, five trips to Home Depot, and a couple angle stops.
Yes, hiring a plumber would have been more sensible but I learned stuff and enjoyed the challenge (aside from multiple trips to the hardware store!)
Shoutout to YouTube…there’s no way I would have started this project without all those tutorials. That site is the greatest DIY reference library ever assembled. It has so many videos for every task, with a myriad of angles and opinions.
I hope more folks make use of this empowering free resource. Simple repairs are one of the easiest ways to earn a feeling of accomplishment on a weekend afternoon.
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David Auerbach, Carols in the Caves
The sound engineers tried to capture the essence in being a massive cave, but the whole album sounded distant. Everything felt flat.
This might be a good holiday background album, but does not have presence as the central audio feature for a drive.
The album cover looks great.
Babyland, You Suck Crap
Last week, I complained about noise. This one is all about noise, but I had fun.
Sampling a multitude of instruments (and implements) gave the audio palate an enjoyable richness. I suspect growing up with electronica and hip-hop makes me prefer variety when getting bashed over the head.
I wish I had detailed memories of attending that concert with my landscaper colleague. Sadly, I just don’t remember much from such events. A few visual flashes and a plastic disc is all I have from 20 years ago.
Elevate, The Architect
While looking up this album last week, I learned about the genre “Math Rock“. I had to give it a second shot now that I know “It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures, and extended chords.”
Still very noisy. Most likely still not my thing, but the architectural cover makes a lot more sense with the music behind it.
Am I enjoying this album more because I’m now aware that it’s supposed to be sophisticated? Is the emperor clothed or nekkid?
