It’s the last day of (fiscal year) 2023! Pop the bubbly!
One of the perks of working for the State is regaining seasonality in my professional life (as opposed to the relentless race of private practice). We live on an artificially smooth planet, where seasonal rhythms are dampened in air conditioned boxes and food is always fresh with the magic of global logistics.
Of course I can’t fully escape the zeitgeist, my seasonality is not based on nature. I work under the overlay of a legal calendar.
Nevada’s legislature meets every two years, and they just completed the 2023 session, approving another slate of new projects. We’re off to the races, setting up projects, interviewing consultants, starting design.
In a few months our projects will be humming along and we’ll start due diligence on the next slate of Agency project requests. The Spring of even numbered years is our the busiest season, as we run between facilities, meeting with agency staff, discussing their needs, and estimating costs.
Once the budgeting is over, we get a slight breather to merely manage projects. Before you know it, the next election will have concluded, the new Legislature will start their new session at the beginning of each odd numbered year, and we wait for another wave of new projects at the start of the next fiscal year.
A fond goodbye to FY23, it was too busy! Unfortunately, FY24 looks to be only more hectic.
Hmmm, I just realized I have nine more bienniums in my career. Let’s make this one count!
~
Some Links
Taegan MacLean started a series of monthly One Word documentary videos mixing his contemplations on life as a father and the early passage of his own father paired with interviews with interesting folks around Toronto. One of the privileges of the internet is watching the start of amazing projects!
I have no idea how Sam Kahn has the ability to range so widely and deeply, but Castalia is a one-man intellectual journal publishing deep provocative essays every other day.
On Saturday Mornings, Charlene Storey hosts a community post of “Everyday Magic” that have been a highlight of my weekends. Her Haver & Sparrow letters are gentle reminders to work diligently in the face of difficulty. She dances beautifully on that delicate line of being kind to oneself while avoiding self-indulgence.
Here are a couple before-after images. The “K” was drawn with a Pelikan 14k Medium nib The “L” was drawn with the FPR Steel Ultra Flex.
This “L” doesn’t take advantage of the power of the flexy-flex, but the The nib pops when I’m doodling hard, as I did below. (The top two alphabets are the flex nib, the third one is the Pelikan Medium nib.)
Understandably, the steel isn’t silky smooth like the gold nib, but it’s a great value at $30 (half for the body and half for the nib). Plus I’m willing to push a $15 nib to the limit, while I doubt I would have the courage to do that with one that costs 10x).
Time to start practicing if I want to wield its power and breath life into my lines.
An hour of horrific life choices followed by twenty-five minutes of consequences with a miraculous rescue in the last five minutes. Happy it worked out for the couple, but I remember why I’ve never liked this movie.
The fact this movie is so popular makes me wonder if dominant American culture is just more optimistic than those with Asian cultural backgrounds. It felt hollow without consequences (aside from Ursula’s fate)
Maybe that’s why I’ve always been too timid to contemplate life as an entrepreneur? I don’t think folks would accuse me of having an abundance of moxie.
But dammit, Disney knows how to make song and dance numbers like nobody else! You go Sebastian!
The kids were intrigued by the lychee shells that mama peeled for an after dinner snack. We filled up a bowl to float little pink boats. A miniature ocean for little folks.
