Greetings
When the work first ran dry last spring, my first idea was not to write a novel, that took a week to ferment before I found the idea worth taking on. No my first notion stemmed from having read too many bike blogs. I had started falling in love with the new(old) gadget of the cargo bike. The day dream was to sink a bunch of my capital into one and go about town moving stuff not big enough for a car but too big for a normal bike. I even had a bike in mind but as is typical for me I had idea but none of the smaller ideas I needed to hold it up, let alone the willingness sink so much money into things.
This week has seen me short on sleep. I had an interview on Tuesday I await news from that. I was lucky to even make it there without looking like a drooling idiot. Thanks to having woken up some time between 3 and 4 in the morning and never regaining sleep. I gave the best I had, no word on whether it was anywhere near enough. Of the jobs I have interviewed for it was the one I was most qualified for, this is both a good and a bad thing. Good because I have a chance at getting it bad because I am not sure how much I want it.
The sunk cost fallacy comes to mind whenever I think about the work I have done and the work I am seeking. The flawed logic is, I have done this work before, therefore I am qualified, therefore I want more of this work. Yes I want work, and yes I am more likely to apply for jobs similar to what I had taken on, because I have a chance. Yet I doubt my own seriousness. These days I doubt most things about myself.
It is worse on days when I have slept badly but it does not go away on the good days. The self doubt and dread, the lack of vision, the struggle to plan out a day with more than three points on a checklist. It gets worse as I spend more time away from the working world. There is of course the shame of being out of work which only gets worse over time, yet it feels like that is the least of my emotions. Perhaps because I never get there. No I skip over that one and head straight for the bottom, where my urge to hide in a quiet dark corner starts to dominate. So much of what I find myself doing is trying to keep myself out of that corner. It works most days of the week.
I get out of the warm dark corner, but I don't leave the room. It gets harder to do the hard things that will make life better, maintaining a better mood is much of what I do. Earlier this morning I made a facebook status it read. Today I am tired and bitter. Several comments were made to it, my final comment was my good moods are thin and brittle.
Good moods thin and brittle. I have been using that language internally for some time. It is sneaky, a slow inversion of my internal dialog, where usually the negative has the exceptional qualities.
So what happened to the bike schlepping idea, I asked how would I get customers, I answered I don't know and got scared away.
So now I wait for news if I get the second interview. If I do I might write something shorter, cheerful and less rambling but for today this is my thought process.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
All Grown up. (no not me)
Greetings. I am revisiting the Big Kids table. A mythical world where policy discussions start with a science primer.
This is not an exercise in rigorous science based writing. This is an opinion piece, where hopefully I am not grossly wrong and that my opinions can at least stand up to a visit to wikiwikipedia. That said lets get started.
At time of writing much of North America is experiencing a cold snap. Currently it is raining in Vancouver. This cold snap has caused the adult children in the pundit class to declare global warming a hoax or that it is over. Meanwhile various branches of government in various places are trying to pass off natural gas as a clean and or sustainable fuel. Deeper into the internet people stare at this century's end with a morbid fascination. Wondering if 4 degrees or more of warming is something we should encourage just so we can see what happens next.
Yet at the same time resist branding any current event, as non attributable. Even the green and left leaning media climate change is spoken of in the future tense, which worries me.
So what I delve into a fiction where direct denialism and willful ignorance are unwelcome and politics has a tutor.
***
You are here to have a real conversation about climate change, to discuss the far reaching problems that the world faces, and the tough solutions you are looking for. You show up at the fancy resort surrounded riot police and encased in a thin film of protesters. Aides with laptops and tablets buzz around. You mingle with other men in suits. A very well dressed man whom you know to belong to the fossil fuel lobby (I mean burning stuff lobby), is chatting with a equally well dressed man from A think tank parroting media conglomerate.
You hear Think Tank say, "Well it's -10F in St Louis, I guess we should not worry about Global warming." His accent is very american and his teeth are too shiny. Global warming comes across in the same tone as his distant relations may have said 'Those People' when speaking of an undesired ethnic group. The Burning stuff lobbyist agrees. Think tank is on script.
The first event of the conference is about to start, you follow Think Tank, and Burning Stuff into the lecture hall. Michael Mann, is giving a climate science primer. You take notes there will be a test later. Failing will cost you your vote. Think Tank attempts disprove the speaker, his points are tired and have been debunked thousands of times before. You and the rest of the attendants give Think Tank dirty looks. After the third disruption several heavy set men in far cheaper suits escort Mr. Think Tank out of the hall, his job is done.
You and your colleagues pass the science primer tests, and are admitted to the conference with full voting privileges. You see the Canadian and Australian delegations in a heated argument with the referees. From the published test scores you know they abstained from answering the climate science questions, and have lost their vote. Both delegations argue that they are too important to the world economy to kept out of the debate.
The referee calmly informs them that we are not here to have a debate but to actively seek solutions to well defined problems. And if they would kindly review the literature and demonstrate a working knowledge of the material they would be most welcome. You think to yourself if they wanted to sit at the grownups' table they should follow the rules.
The Canadian delegation turns to leave. As they do so a once well known environmental researcher makes eye contact with you and shrugs defeatedly, her handler quickly steers her back into the hurd.
***
Above is a little fantasy, in a world where science and politics have the close ties they should have. It centers on the belief that we should be working from agreed upon facts not debating those which have already been proven false. Politics like engineering should work with current but not necessarily bleeding edge knowledge. That knowledge base should be updated regularly .
To prove ourselves smarter than Yeast we have to address the very real issues facing the environment and the societies and animals that live in it. In this day and age it appears unethical to make policy not informed by up to date research. I want to know we are smarter than yes, and currently we are showing signs of not being so.
Yeast one of our oldest companions, the secrete behind many drinks and foods. Yeast, a single celled life form that will if given the chance poison itself in its own Carbon Dioxide waste, a fate we have the ability to create for ourselves. A scientific note, I don't believe we will drive the carbon Dioxide concentration up to the 2% or so it takes for gas exchange in human lungs to be compromised. We don't have to we only need to warm things enough to remove the foundation our civilization is built on. Destroying the world is not on the agenda, destroying our world is. So lets go back to my day dream.
Taking a closer look at what might be on the agenda for a this mythical conference. Or lets be frank, what my eco-socialist biases want there to be on the agenda. This is my fantasy after all.
Energy, its not just about burning stuff any more. Global and regional power solutions.
Advanced nuclear power, Because sometimes you just really need a lot of megawatts and you don't have the room to do it any other way.
Don't like nukes, don't have enough light, wind , water to make traditional renewables work, consider investing in space based solar. Its like Wifi for electricity, FROM SPACE.
Don't let the foreigners take all the best beaches, a guild to the post modern fishing village, now with Wifi.
Biofuels and synthesized petroleum, because sometime you still need to burn stuff to get the job done. Here is how you can do with the least cost and mess.
Natural gas, its still stuff you burn. Don't trust the PR.
Low car urban design. Building so you don't miss your car.
Learn to be happy through non consumption. Often being green is as simple as doing nothing.
That's all I can think of for now. This has as often is the case came out quite differently from what I planned to write. Which goes to show I should plan better.
PS
The NSA key words for today are. Sponge Bob Square Pants, Urey Teller mechanism, and Anton Knows about the gadget.
This is not an exercise in rigorous science based writing. This is an opinion piece, where hopefully I am not grossly wrong and that my opinions can at least stand up to a visit to wikiwikipedia. That said lets get started.
At time of writing much of North America is experiencing a cold snap. Currently it is raining in Vancouver. This cold snap has caused the adult children in the pundit class to declare global warming a hoax or that it is over. Meanwhile various branches of government in various places are trying to pass off natural gas as a clean and or sustainable fuel. Deeper into the internet people stare at this century's end with a morbid fascination. Wondering if 4 degrees or more of warming is something we should encourage just so we can see what happens next.
Yet at the same time resist branding any current event, as non attributable. Even the green and left leaning media climate change is spoken of in the future tense, which worries me.
So what I delve into a fiction where direct denialism and willful ignorance are unwelcome and politics has a tutor.
***
You are here to have a real conversation about climate change, to discuss the far reaching problems that the world faces, and the tough solutions you are looking for. You show up at the fancy resort surrounded riot police and encased in a thin film of protesters. Aides with laptops and tablets buzz around. You mingle with other men in suits. A very well dressed man whom you know to belong to the fossil fuel lobby (I mean burning stuff lobby), is chatting with a equally well dressed man from A think tank parroting media conglomerate.
You hear Think Tank say, "Well it's -10F in St Louis, I guess we should not worry about Global warming." His accent is very american and his teeth are too shiny. Global warming comes across in the same tone as his distant relations may have said 'Those People' when speaking of an undesired ethnic group. The Burning stuff lobbyist agrees. Think tank is on script.
The first event of the conference is about to start, you follow Think Tank, and Burning Stuff into the lecture hall. Michael Mann, is giving a climate science primer. You take notes there will be a test later. Failing will cost you your vote. Think Tank attempts disprove the speaker, his points are tired and have been debunked thousands of times before. You and the rest of the attendants give Think Tank dirty looks. After the third disruption several heavy set men in far cheaper suits escort Mr. Think Tank out of the hall, his job is done.
You and your colleagues pass the science primer tests, and are admitted to the conference with full voting privileges. You see the Canadian and Australian delegations in a heated argument with the referees. From the published test scores you know they abstained from answering the climate science questions, and have lost their vote. Both delegations argue that they are too important to the world economy to kept out of the debate.
The referee calmly informs them that we are not here to have a debate but to actively seek solutions to well defined problems. And if they would kindly review the literature and demonstrate a working knowledge of the material they would be most welcome. You think to yourself if they wanted to sit at the grownups' table they should follow the rules.
The Canadian delegation turns to leave. As they do so a once well known environmental researcher makes eye contact with you and shrugs defeatedly, her handler quickly steers her back into the hurd.
***
Above is a little fantasy, in a world where science and politics have the close ties they should have. It centers on the belief that we should be working from agreed upon facts not debating those which have already been proven false. Politics like engineering should work with current but not necessarily bleeding edge knowledge. That knowledge base should be updated regularly .
To prove ourselves smarter than Yeast we have to address the very real issues facing the environment and the societies and animals that live in it. In this day and age it appears unethical to make policy not informed by up to date research. I want to know we are smarter than yes, and currently we are showing signs of not being so.
Yeast one of our oldest companions, the secrete behind many drinks and foods. Yeast, a single celled life form that will if given the chance poison itself in its own Carbon Dioxide waste, a fate we have the ability to create for ourselves. A scientific note, I don't believe we will drive the carbon Dioxide concentration up to the 2% or so it takes for gas exchange in human lungs to be compromised. We don't have to we only need to warm things enough to remove the foundation our civilization is built on. Destroying the world is not on the agenda, destroying our world is. So lets go back to my day dream.
Taking a closer look at what might be on the agenda for a this mythical conference. Or lets be frank, what my eco-socialist biases want there to be on the agenda. This is my fantasy after all.
Energy, its not just about burning stuff any more. Global and regional power solutions.
Advanced nuclear power, Because sometimes you just really need a lot of megawatts and you don't have the room to do it any other way.
Don't like nukes, don't have enough light, wind , water to make traditional renewables work, consider investing in space based solar. Its like Wifi for electricity, FROM SPACE.
Don't let the foreigners take all the best beaches, a guild to the post modern fishing village, now with Wifi.
Biofuels and synthesized petroleum, because sometime you still need to burn stuff to get the job done. Here is how you can do with the least cost and mess.
Natural gas, its still stuff you burn. Don't trust the PR.
Low car urban design. Building so you don't miss your car.
Learn to be happy through non consumption. Often being green is as simple as doing nothing.
That's all I can think of for now. This has as often is the case came out quite differently from what I planned to write. Which goes to show I should plan better.
PS
The NSA key words for today are. Sponge Bob Square Pants, Urey Teller mechanism, and Anton Knows about the gadget.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Not Again
Greetings
2013 was not a great year for me. It made me think, it gave me too much time to think in since not much happened. I thought about the past a lot. My history with work bounced around my head. The jobs I have hated, the jobs that half worked, the gaps between. It is the gaps that I have on my mind today, and have had on my mind for sometime. My professional history seems to be a series of entry level technical jobs whose upstream career options were either unattractive or have remained unavailable. I have been bitter about my jobs before and that is not where I am going today. Today is about the other bittering agent in my life, unemployment.
In some ways my professional life exists as a negative, as much defined by the what is not there. Layoffs and the very slow claws back to employment are not new things for me. In this respect 2013 was too much like 2008 and 2009. Yet 2013 was worse. Previously several things had remained untested, and I believed I could safely return to a line of work that has since precipitated a burnout. As I start to search out jobs a nearly identical list of alternatives to geology work enter my mind. I applied with roughly the same success as I had back then. It is all I can think of, because at least it touches on what I know.
And that's a lot of my troubles, I focus on what I know, because I can't reliably call in on who I know. Largely because I don't know many people, especially in the professional world. Every employment resource I have seen since I was 21 has barked endlessly it's not what you know it's who you know. This message has led to the desire to throat punch the people delivering it.
It is not that they are wrong, the Canadian job market is a series of nested old boys clubs. No the problem is I hate the process, and can't even say I like the people. The process an endless series of phone calls or emails towing the line between a sales pitch and begging. Any source of advice starts to feel like a used car salesman. No matter how well I try to play that game I always get results through dumb luck, or craigslist. Or so it feels.
And this brings me to what has made 2013 such a downer year, and why I delayed the job search from the beginning. It feels as though there is no return on investment. The networking done in 2009 was just enough to land me a practicum in 2010, I had just enough leads left in the geology world to land me a job that spring. Those resources did not carry forward. No for me each time it feels as though I am starting anew. There is this sinking feeling that despite nine and a half years of off and on professional employment I am no more employable than when I started.
It is only a feeling, the list of interviews, and recruiter enquiries this session hint at the opening up of a better class of job, but I don't have one yet. My fear, and what has drags down my mood to the point that on bad days I will hid in the bed at midday and cry to myself, is that I will have to do it all over again. It is not a fear failing time around, but that the job will fail again. That I will have another job that dies after two years because the money behind it walks away. The fear that I will not escape this cycle. The fear that at 36 or 37 I will be dropped again because I am only employable at boom times. Only to have to do this all over again. And again. The fear that I have already had the highest salary I will ever have, or that the knowledge base I gain at a job will not be enough to gain the next one.
Now that I have stopped shaking I can work on this next paragraph. The low points in 2013, grew out of this fear, and fleas. These worries are grounded in truth. None of which was helped by my cat's running away, or her long convalescence and all the stresses and stressors that came with that. This is why I started writing, I did not want to face a reality where the work I did before gained me no advantage. This job search loomed, the very idea dragged me down, so I wrote. I occasionally flung resumes at the internet like a monkey flings feces, but with worse aim, and far less enthusiasm. Currently nothing has really stuck.
Now I should try to keep my head up for 2014.
PS.
Also since I am hosting this on Google's blogger, which uses US based servers. Happy New Year NSA. Do you think if I use the words, Yellow cake, centrifuge, device, and physics package, that you could drive my this blog's traffic up. K thanks bye.
2013 was not a great year for me. It made me think, it gave me too much time to think in since not much happened. I thought about the past a lot. My history with work bounced around my head. The jobs I have hated, the jobs that half worked, the gaps between. It is the gaps that I have on my mind today, and have had on my mind for sometime. My professional history seems to be a series of entry level technical jobs whose upstream career options were either unattractive or have remained unavailable. I have been bitter about my jobs before and that is not where I am going today. Today is about the other bittering agent in my life, unemployment.
In some ways my professional life exists as a negative, as much defined by the what is not there. Layoffs and the very slow claws back to employment are not new things for me. In this respect 2013 was too much like 2008 and 2009. Yet 2013 was worse. Previously several things had remained untested, and I believed I could safely return to a line of work that has since precipitated a burnout. As I start to search out jobs a nearly identical list of alternatives to geology work enter my mind. I applied with roughly the same success as I had back then. It is all I can think of, because at least it touches on what I know.
And that's a lot of my troubles, I focus on what I know, because I can't reliably call in on who I know. Largely because I don't know many people, especially in the professional world. Every employment resource I have seen since I was 21 has barked endlessly it's not what you know it's who you know. This message has led to the desire to throat punch the people delivering it.
It is not that they are wrong, the Canadian job market is a series of nested old boys clubs. No the problem is I hate the process, and can't even say I like the people. The process an endless series of phone calls or emails towing the line between a sales pitch and begging. Any source of advice starts to feel like a used car salesman. No matter how well I try to play that game I always get results through dumb luck, or craigslist. Or so it feels.
And this brings me to what has made 2013 such a downer year, and why I delayed the job search from the beginning. It feels as though there is no return on investment. The networking done in 2009 was just enough to land me a practicum in 2010, I had just enough leads left in the geology world to land me a job that spring. Those resources did not carry forward. No for me each time it feels as though I am starting anew. There is this sinking feeling that despite nine and a half years of off and on professional employment I am no more employable than when I started.
It is only a feeling, the list of interviews, and recruiter enquiries this session hint at the opening up of a better class of job, but I don't have one yet. My fear, and what has drags down my mood to the point that on bad days I will hid in the bed at midday and cry to myself, is that I will have to do it all over again. It is not a fear failing time around, but that the job will fail again. That I will have another job that dies after two years because the money behind it walks away. The fear that I will not escape this cycle. The fear that at 36 or 37 I will be dropped again because I am only employable at boom times. Only to have to do this all over again. And again. The fear that I have already had the highest salary I will ever have, or that the knowledge base I gain at a job will not be enough to gain the next one.
Now that I have stopped shaking I can work on this next paragraph. The low points in 2013, grew out of this fear, and fleas. These worries are grounded in truth. None of which was helped by my cat's running away, or her long convalescence and all the stresses and stressors that came with that. This is why I started writing, I did not want to face a reality where the work I did before gained me no advantage. This job search loomed, the very idea dragged me down, so I wrote. I occasionally flung resumes at the internet like a monkey flings feces, but with worse aim, and far less enthusiasm. Currently nothing has really stuck.
Now I should try to keep my head up for 2014.
PS.
Also since I am hosting this on Google's blogger, which uses US based servers. Happy New Year NSA. Do you think if I use the words, Yellow cake, centrifuge, device, and physics package, that you could drive my this blog's traffic up. K thanks bye.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
My Brain has Fleas
Greetings.
Anyone that knows me and quite a few that don't know my cat is lucky to be alive, and I am very happy about that. To recap, she was gone for five and half weeks and given up for dead. Once she rescued and accessed she had lost her tail, broke her pelvis, and dislocated her hip. It would later be revealed that she took a bite to the shoulder that developed into an abscess. Somewhere in her adventures, or during her hiding in her deathly hallow she picked up fleas.
Fleas could be expected from an adventure like that. This neighbourhood is full of dirty corners, wild animals, and wild people. Soon after her rescue she was treated and showed no signs of active infestation when I took her home. The treatment was never designed to be a once off, and was intended to be coordinated with careful management of the environment, none of which I knew in the first month I had her home.
Not understanding the first thing about the problem I made several errors. that extended the life of the problem. I failed to get a second dose of the topical treatment before they emerged. So I started treatment again only after having seen fresh evidence of the fleas. And at that time I underestimated the need for environmental management, and so I had failed to give things the deep cleaning needed. This was all happening during a period I was particularly depressed by the prospect of searching for work. The war effort was partly held back by a lack of the proper tools, at the start my vacuum cleaner could barely get the cat hair off of half a foot of carpet let alone the couch. In any case the fleas came back a second time.
Now a bit about the enemy. Fleas are tough. The adults may stretch to 3 millimetres but their small size is to their advantage, they can hide in places I couldn't image cleaning. But the adults are only the top 5% of the population the remainder being eggs, larvae and pupae. The eggs and little white points they'll slide right off the fur into the environment, they are impervious to most forms of chemical warfare and are plentiful. You can kill the larvae but they can slip into many deep corners. The pupae share the egg's near indestructible nature. So I am faced with a foe who at two stages of its life is near impossible to kill, looks like dust and dander, and could be anywhere. I learned this during the second outbreak. This outbreak occurred after she had gained the strength and mobility needed to gain the run of the houses, including keeping my feet warm at night.
So one morning I awoke to my kitty scratching too much, and with that scratching the black specks that are flea feces. She was exiled from the bedroom at that moment, and I started an OCD cleaning process. That morning started the process of my brain getting fleas.
After I shooed her out of the bedroom I changed the sheets, and started the process of washing all the things. During that morning I found the carcass of an adult flea in my bedding. My bed and bedroom felt instantly unclean, and over time so did I. It did not matter that I cleaned myself, my cloths and my bedding regularly, I could never be sure they were gone. I took to worrying about every minor itch, any millimeter sized grit that found its way onto my bed, dander is treated with suspicion. Questionable and large debris were interrogated with my 10X or 30X hand lens, always to answer of inconclusive.
I updated my vacuum cleaner during the height of this paranoia. The tool I started out with was never up to the task of clearing up behind two hair mammals in a carpeted apartment. It has helped, both on the physical front with its ability to clear more dust from a greater depth, things felt cleaner the instant I started using it. Even with multiple washings, vacuumings, dustings, and an absence of hear evidence of their return I still worry.
On a bad day of which there are plenty, when mood is down, and my housekeeping falling with it I will question every iche, distrust all the crumbs. If such a bad day occurs near the time I should change my sheets I will sleep badly, a process that starts with checking the pillows for suspicious dander, as I continually fear that I have become a host. I am getting better, on nights when I am over tired I may still pull out the hand lens and head lamp to check on questionable grit.
In the end I can understand why traumatized cats will groom themselves bald after having fleas. Don't let your pet or your brain get fleas.
Anyone that knows me and quite a few that don't know my cat is lucky to be alive, and I am very happy about that. To recap, she was gone for five and half weeks and given up for dead. Once she rescued and accessed she had lost her tail, broke her pelvis, and dislocated her hip. It would later be revealed that she took a bite to the shoulder that developed into an abscess. Somewhere in her adventures, or during her hiding in her deathly hallow she picked up fleas.
Fleas could be expected from an adventure like that. This neighbourhood is full of dirty corners, wild animals, and wild people. Soon after her rescue she was treated and showed no signs of active infestation when I took her home. The treatment was never designed to be a once off, and was intended to be coordinated with careful management of the environment, none of which I knew in the first month I had her home.
Not understanding the first thing about the problem I made several errors. that extended the life of the problem. I failed to get a second dose of the topical treatment before they emerged. So I started treatment again only after having seen fresh evidence of the fleas. And at that time I underestimated the need for environmental management, and so I had failed to give things the deep cleaning needed. This was all happening during a period I was particularly depressed by the prospect of searching for work. The war effort was partly held back by a lack of the proper tools, at the start my vacuum cleaner could barely get the cat hair off of half a foot of carpet let alone the couch. In any case the fleas came back a second time.
Now a bit about the enemy. Fleas are tough. The adults may stretch to 3 millimetres but their small size is to their advantage, they can hide in places I couldn't image cleaning. But the adults are only the top 5% of the population the remainder being eggs, larvae and pupae. The eggs and little white points they'll slide right off the fur into the environment, they are impervious to most forms of chemical warfare and are plentiful. You can kill the larvae but they can slip into many deep corners. The pupae share the egg's near indestructible nature. So I am faced with a foe who at two stages of its life is near impossible to kill, looks like dust and dander, and could be anywhere. I learned this during the second outbreak. This outbreak occurred after she had gained the strength and mobility needed to gain the run of the houses, including keeping my feet warm at night.
So one morning I awoke to my kitty scratching too much, and with that scratching the black specks that are flea feces. She was exiled from the bedroom at that moment, and I started an OCD cleaning process. That morning started the process of my brain getting fleas.
After I shooed her out of the bedroom I changed the sheets, and started the process of washing all the things. During that morning I found the carcass of an adult flea in my bedding. My bed and bedroom felt instantly unclean, and over time so did I. It did not matter that I cleaned myself, my cloths and my bedding regularly, I could never be sure they were gone. I took to worrying about every minor itch, any millimeter sized grit that found its way onto my bed, dander is treated with suspicion. Questionable and large debris were interrogated with my 10X or 30X hand lens, always to answer of inconclusive.
I updated my vacuum cleaner during the height of this paranoia. The tool I started out with was never up to the task of clearing up behind two hair mammals in a carpeted apartment. It has helped, both on the physical front with its ability to clear more dust from a greater depth, things felt cleaner the instant I started using it. Even with multiple washings, vacuumings, dustings, and an absence of hear evidence of their return I still worry.
On a bad day of which there are plenty, when mood is down, and my housekeeping falling with it I will question every iche, distrust all the crumbs. If such a bad day occurs near the time I should change my sheets I will sleep badly, a process that starts with checking the pillows for suspicious dander, as I continually fear that I have become a host. I am getting better, on nights when I am over tired I may still pull out the hand lens and head lamp to check on questionable grit.
In the end I can understand why traumatized cats will groom themselves bald after having fleas. Don't let your pet or your brain get fleas.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
A temporary Resolution
Greetings.
It was brought to my attention that the post I wrote a couple days ago was a near carbon copy of one written in June. It is perhaps an embarrassment that I nearly doubled the size of the project while not properly addressing the bug, but it leads to a conclusion and a solution. Create the voids.
So last night I stayed up past my bedtime, my cat trying to eat my toes through the bedding and a notebook in my hands. In doing that I concluded I do want a least one other perspective. I also am revising the technologies that exist in that universe, this will force me to reconsider how some things fail, and will remove some redundant scenes. Again parallel perspectives will make this work far better. Some of these ideas I have considered before but they more clearly set now.
My Nanowrimo project was a failure in that I did not reach 50,000 words or tell a concrete story, but it did produce 10,000 words and do some world building. Thankfully for my intellectual laziness, the story is set in the same overall universe as the main project, there may be a gap of several generations but the basic backdrop is consistent. This left me with historical and technological elements that I had not build. Including evidence for advanced alien technology older than 500 million years, weathered beyond comprehension. This is not panspermia, or ancient Aliens did it.
So as I used the cat to keep my feet warm I created a new set of outlines both for the expanded opening and second half of the tale. Admittedly the many of these are little more than a single line, merely a chapter title, but they hint at how the story will playout. A little inspiration does make me feel better.
It was brought to my attention that the post I wrote a couple days ago was a near carbon copy of one written in June. It is perhaps an embarrassment that I nearly doubled the size of the project while not properly addressing the bug, but it leads to a conclusion and a solution. Create the voids.
So last night I stayed up past my bedtime, my cat trying to eat my toes through the bedding and a notebook in my hands. In doing that I concluded I do want a least one other perspective. I also am revising the technologies that exist in that universe, this will force me to reconsider how some things fail, and will remove some redundant scenes. Again parallel perspectives will make this work far better. Some of these ideas I have considered before but they more clearly set now.
My Nanowrimo project was a failure in that I did not reach 50,000 words or tell a concrete story, but it did produce 10,000 words and do some world building. Thankfully for my intellectual laziness, the story is set in the same overall universe as the main project, there may be a gap of several generations but the basic backdrop is consistent. This left me with historical and technological elements that I had not build. Including evidence for advanced alien technology older than 500 million years, weathered beyond comprehension. This is not panspermia, or ancient Aliens did it.
So as I used the cat to keep my feet warm I created a new set of outlines both for the expanded opening and second half of the tale. Admittedly the many of these are little more than a single line, merely a chapter title, but they hint at how the story will playout. A little inspiration does make me feel better.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Stuck In a loop.
Greetings.
So November passed, I started Nanowrimo, made it 10 days and 10 thousand worlds before other things took my attention off the project. This project suffered from a lack of a plan, the story was borrowed from a short I never made an progress on. The details needed to build it up to Nano's 50,000 words did not add much. This however did get me thinking about the other novel I had been working on. In there I added a few more words and realized why the project had been so hard to pick back up.
I have gotten my self good and stuck. The core of the story is the failure of a deep space mission, inspired by both Scott's and Shackleton's expeditions to the south pole. Things going wrong and scraps being salvaged is par for the course. As I circled what has been since the story's first version a pivotal moment I realized I was doing it again and again. A similar scene had been played out several times during the various chapters that preceded what I was trying to write, it was tiring.
Now being a disaster story, where most people will live, and living will involve improvising some scenes of the mechanics of the universe and the ship are needed. There is value in knowing first what they had and how little of it they keep, but too much time has been spent on those mechanics. The interludes are too small, and fail to build the characters into people I either want saved, or will be missed if I kill them off. It is a first draft of something far larger than I have ever worked on before so flaws are expected, massive flaws should be considered normal. Some of the flaws are simple I started too close to the middle, I did not know who was who before I started throwing near death experiences at them. I am unsure as to the view point, I have drifted in and out of the first person, and currently have only one character's view point. There is a real reason why the interludes between disasters are lacking, they are the hard part.
In writing about a stranded starship crew I am facing my experiences in the North. Perhaps I have not spent mucht time there, the bulk of two and a half years, mostly in one space. A world that was ripe with adventure when I first got there but became tiring toil quickly. When I left the last time long after having lost the heart to work so far from home for so long I was angry and despondent. It was a world I did not fit it, beautiful but I never made an inside of myself, I seldom do. It was out there I nearly blew a gasket trying to change a tire on a pickup on the side of an ice road. It was a different patch of ice that swallowed a company truck and took one of its passengers with it. A man I had worked with loosely for a year and a half or so. So I find myself taking on the easy parts, the stark white on white of the depths of winter, but avoiding the hard things.
The old advice of write what you know has value. I hated the advice when I was 21, in a way similar to how I still hate the advice of "It,s not what you know it.s who you know". Now I have had time to live, even if I have not built a top notch network, and it has given me material to add to writing. Unfortunately getting into those head spaces is the hard part. Also, just keeping focused on a task can be frightfully hard, and it gets harder as my life stays empty of external pressures longer.
So the novel got stuck somewhere between the beginner and the middle. I added a introduction and parts of opening chapters that will build the characters and world, but to really make it work I fear it needs a massive restructuring. That weight, knowing that even if I push forward to new parts much of what is behind me will have to change. Now the truth is non of this is new, non of this should keep me from writing, ultimately I have also been lazy. Both these things need remedied.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Part one the approximate now.
Greetings, and a warning this is going to be a rambling stream of conscience.
Logging on to Blogger I looked at the posts from the last few months. The titles and what I remember of the content based on those titles tells me most of my writing has been about looking back. Perhaps a few flirted with a couple ideas on how to go forward but little thought has been put into that, and similarly little progress made. The short answer is I don't know what to do next, the better answer is I have never been able to imagine what I wanted to do that is still true.
When my work is heavily self directed and or the number of tasks is small a failure to commit to one early in the day compromises my effectiveness at both. These days I will wake up and ask should I write today or apply for jobs. The answer will be yes. Unfortunately I don't ask which task gets priority, once the indecision takes root ways are found to avoid doing either, and damn my laid back personality from not beating me up over those failings.
In applying to jobs I submit to postings that come within throwing distance of what I had done in my last post. Now the thing with me and throwing is I am often off by 30 degrees in 5 different directions. So the returns are low. Here comes the part where I blame external forces. In what approximates my profession, I exist in a small niche a user of an obscure software suit for a recession pron industry, a suit I like little in an industry I am indifferent to. When my search steps away from the industry I started out in the jobs become more interesting but less accessible. Yet I apply, with varying amounts of care and attention bordering on The Onion's take on job applications. Online job applications are like a monkey flinging feces, without the passion, aim, satisfaction, or results, when a monkey does it a least something is covered in shit. I have had a few nibbles a couple real interviews and a few calls from recruiters who neither understood my work nor the industry I have worked in.
Now I have tried to make this post about going forward, but right now I am thinking more about trying to get back to where I was, if not in job description but a steady job would be great. So before I explore some other options or decide to delay them for another post I will address the next thing people tell you to do, network. I hate that term, it always brings to mind people dressed better than me with confident smiles, I can not pull of a confident smile for a sustained period. Now I understand that in order to connect the services I can offer with the needs they can fill connections have to be made but the way the process is sold makes me feel unclean. It is at this point in the dialog someone will chime in with the patronizing advice of "It's not what you know, it's who you know". That may be true, but I will hate you for saying it. It has always had the effect of devaluing the knowledge I spent time and energy gaining.
It is so much easier to look back. I know what I did, what parts were enjoyed what parts were endured, it is easy to imagine something the same but different. I have orbited the same but different since I started working. It is the easy thing to do conceptually. The work I did for two years at Independence was the dull end of an interesting field and leaving open the prospect that I could land better work employing similar tools must be considered. It is only the start of my GIS profession and getting started is the hard part. When the commodity prices were high and I was still taking Geology jobs, offers were more frequent, a healthy reminder that I have be employable in the past.
I have romanticized the notion of landing in a totally unexpected field or weird new job that fits me perfectly but honestly I have no idea how that could happen. What value is it to most people that I can break open a rock efficiently, or that I can actually use my 30X handlens, and if you give me a few weeks and leave me alone I can cobble together a simple program. If I squint just right I feel clever and can believe that I can be of good value to people. Yet I see a job market full of short term contracts demanding specialized skills, and feel useless again.
Damn it I was trying to think ahead. Currently I have rambled on about the now. The question of how to land an interesting job, possibly within GIS or the geosciences remains poorly considered. Mostly I have reminded myself that mostly I have learned what I don't want to do. I am not done with this pondering. I will revisit the subject soon and perhaps move beyond complaining.
Logging on to Blogger I looked at the posts from the last few months. The titles and what I remember of the content based on those titles tells me most of my writing has been about looking back. Perhaps a few flirted with a couple ideas on how to go forward but little thought has been put into that, and similarly little progress made. The short answer is I don't know what to do next, the better answer is I have never been able to imagine what I wanted to do that is still true.
When my work is heavily self directed and or the number of tasks is small a failure to commit to one early in the day compromises my effectiveness at both. These days I will wake up and ask should I write today or apply for jobs. The answer will be yes. Unfortunately I don't ask which task gets priority, once the indecision takes root ways are found to avoid doing either, and damn my laid back personality from not beating me up over those failings.
In applying to jobs I submit to postings that come within throwing distance of what I had done in my last post. Now the thing with me and throwing is I am often off by 30 degrees in 5 different directions. So the returns are low. Here comes the part where I blame external forces. In what approximates my profession, I exist in a small niche a user of an obscure software suit for a recession pron industry, a suit I like little in an industry I am indifferent to. When my search steps away from the industry I started out in the jobs become more interesting but less accessible. Yet I apply, with varying amounts of care and attention bordering on The Onion's take on job applications. Online job applications are like a monkey flinging feces, without the passion, aim, satisfaction, or results, when a monkey does it a least something is covered in shit. I have had a few nibbles a couple real interviews and a few calls from recruiters who neither understood my work nor the industry I have worked in.
Now I have tried to make this post about going forward, but right now I am thinking more about trying to get back to where I was, if not in job description but a steady job would be great. So before I explore some other options or decide to delay them for another post I will address the next thing people tell you to do, network. I hate that term, it always brings to mind people dressed better than me with confident smiles, I can not pull of a confident smile for a sustained period. Now I understand that in order to connect the services I can offer with the needs they can fill connections have to be made but the way the process is sold makes me feel unclean. It is at this point in the dialog someone will chime in with the patronizing advice of "It's not what you know, it's who you know". That may be true, but I will hate you for saying it. It has always had the effect of devaluing the knowledge I spent time and energy gaining.
It is so much easier to look back. I know what I did, what parts were enjoyed what parts were endured, it is easy to imagine something the same but different. I have orbited the same but different since I started working. It is the easy thing to do conceptually. The work I did for two years at Independence was the dull end of an interesting field and leaving open the prospect that I could land better work employing similar tools must be considered. It is only the start of my GIS profession and getting started is the hard part. When the commodity prices were high and I was still taking Geology jobs, offers were more frequent, a healthy reminder that I have be employable in the past.
I have romanticized the notion of landing in a totally unexpected field or weird new job that fits me perfectly but honestly I have no idea how that could happen. What value is it to most people that I can break open a rock efficiently, or that I can actually use my 30X handlens, and if you give me a few weeks and leave me alone I can cobble together a simple program. If I squint just right I feel clever and can believe that I can be of good value to people. Yet I see a job market full of short term contracts demanding specialized skills, and feel useless again.
Damn it I was trying to think ahead. Currently I have rambled on about the now. The question of how to land an interesting job, possibly within GIS or the geosciences remains poorly considered. Mostly I have reminded myself that mostly I have learned what I don't want to do. I am not done with this pondering. I will revisit the subject soon and perhaps move beyond complaining.
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