Author: Peter Jones

I finally got back to working on my desk the other day as I’ve been doing other stuff lately. Drilled out my next few holes so I could finally get to assembly. Lines up parts and screwed in screws.  They didn’t catch strong enough to hold any weight. Last night I went to Fred Meyers to get nuts and bolts. I guess a buck fiddy isn’t to much to spend on parts. I’ll probably need to drill out my hikes again but that shouldn’t be too much effort and then I can get back to building. I think I’ve of the reasons I push back on stuff like this is post project depression. It’s a lot mire fun to think of what you’re going to make than use what you did make.

If I remember right, it takes about 5,000 hours to master something.  Not be the best, but have the infinite confidence that you know what you’re doing.  A few years ago at work I had a moment when I realized I want making educated guesses anymore, but straight up knew what the fuck I was taking about.
Due to changes in my industry, I sometimes get concerned about holding the line long enough to get the wife through nursing school. At a minimum I need to float for another 2+ years, and I’m sure I’ll do fine, but.  I like having a plan.  It doesn’t have to be good; it doesn’t have to even sound good; it just needs to exist. I have a plan, not really fleshed out but it works.  I just want it to work better. 
If I devoted 3 hours a day to my ‘hobbies’ that would be 1,000 hours a year, meaning 5 years until mastery. If shit goes sideways, I’ll have a lot of spare time on my hands, which means I just ramp up hard. Like the Poe song

There’s a broken beam inside of the big, big bridge
I guess that whole thing is caving in
Maybe it is time I learn how to swim
I’ll be a dolphin

Prolly my favorite song by Poe. Obviously by the lyrics it’s actually about love or some shit, but it’s also about just rolling on. When shit goes sideways, straight up pear shaped, rather than trying to make it right again, fuck it, turn sideways too.
I can never decide which (to/too) I should be using in the situation above.

Hell I hate the words even.  Btw, I had to teach my phone the word hell but not btw.  That’s bullshit.  The problem with social networks, is that for the most part, any one I have on my lists are also the people who know people I might write in regards to.  Even bitching to someone  in real life means that it’s only 3 jumps or so.  Screw you Zuckerburg!

Just occurred to me whenever I’m instructing someone else I say my only goal is an iterative improvement over the last time.  If that was really true I’m pretty sure I’d get a lot more done.

I’ve got as lot of things in the works right now, mostly in the planning stage.  Some things I have a couple of quick sketches, some things just a note to self. The worst ones are those I just talk about.  Someday I’m going to do something. Someday I’m not going to talk for my own edification. Someday I’m going to not say someday.
I think I use a desire for knowledge as an excuse to not do.  Every time in my life I do things the right way I fail.  Years ago I was all hardcore taking AP classes.  I took physics, chemistry, calculus and studio art. Doubling down on that I also took the exams for composition and literature.  The only class I even tried to do what the teacher told me was studio art.  That exam was my only failure with a 2 out of 5. I quite honestly got the score I deserved. My portfolio was lacking in passion and technique. Later in life, my art got that something special.  It got a flavor unique to itself.  Still totally missing technique, May as well be a 5 year old painting with split pea soup.
Note in my majority, I get an idea. I have a burning bush of inspiration, and then I think. I say how. I say when. Creation can’t be held back my reality. Fuck that. I don’t fail at things I try, I only fail to try things. Worse case scenario is I kill some time, maybe toss away something that was already junked. Hell, I like breaking shit.

Three screws are in, holding two cases together. Have myself two more cuts in just-now-drilled metal. It’s because I’m a genius out some shit. While I’ve been taking pictures, I’m not posting any yet because I want to get my situated image handling done first. Of course that’ll be part of the new theme do maybe I should just hand edit them and work on automation layer.

Feeling like ass, I had a canker sore that’s so fucking annoying I couldn’t eat let alone do shit. It’s gotten better, or more likely, I learned to ignore it already. As it is, I still worked on my desk for a solid half hour between doing off Shanna at a barbeque and the witching hour starting up. Using a framing hammer and a galvanized steel screw, I indented wherei was intending to drill and now I’m drilling the metal like tortured, screaming butter.
Next issue is I’m trying to figure out how to align the holes from one case to the next. I started clamping everything the cases together using a couple of cloud I had from silk screening, and a copy of “The Caves of Steel” as a spacer when needed. The paper template is too inaccurate given the irregular surface of the cases, so I’ll probably have to either mark through the holes or full in one shot.

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow I start working on my project backlog, I need to pound some metal like I pound my beer.  Fast, and as a necessity, never leave a wounded soldier.  Semper Hacer!
But really, the other day the wif knocked the kittie off the couch, not realizing that he was going to fall into the “pile of death”.  I’ve got more stripped parts than a Kardashian but at this stage they’re just as useless.  I’m assuming that pounding a galvanized screw in will do the trick.  Once you make one of these jokes, they just keep coming.

Six Dollar Teddy has had no progress. I should do something about that. I surround myself with a lot of individual projects on paper, but when it comes down to it, there is done sort of holistic law that describes their relative order. Though 100% completion I’d never required, and in fact never defined well for my endeavors, preliminary work is almost a requirement in other projects to complete the current project. Long story short, I need to build my new desk before I even start on Teddy.
Beagle Bone Brain Box, I totally have primary shit to do in my to-do list. Again, build desk, organize workshop.
Website Realignment, this is something I doubt is even on my list. At least one a year I decide I don’t like my theme, and then I remember I don’t like building themes, I don’t like using other people’s themes and really is this theme so bad? It’s not, just seeing as how the content don’t match the drapes if you know what I mean. This means within the next year I’ll read every resource I have about the current state of html and css, cobble something together, religiously test it, find it fails miserably, kill it with fire, find an almost identical theme to the one you see right now, change some colours and add a header image.
Computer Desk is being a sheet metal dick. I just had teach dick to my cell phone. Dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick. The still bid I had weren’t make a dent, let alone a whole hole. Got a bit designed for sheet metal, thing is still not drilling. Jokingly told the wife I should just get a torch and teach myself to weld, she was down. I love my wife. Later I told her I had an idea of just building myself a tool for punching holes in sheet metal. She was cool with that even sheet I mentioned I would do it by hand casting parts in scrap iron.  Probably just going to use a hammer and nail.  As much as I like fuego, and fuego is very sexy, the visceral feeling of pounding the every living fuck out of shit, while not paying one red cent is where I find my greatest satisfaction.

…got some good hours into it, but still seems really short.  I was thinking of picking up Breakdown, but that only adds some ancillary content, and more difficulties in a tiered fashion like Diablo.  I want a bigger map, but with hill people, none if this military bs like in Lifeline.
I fired up Europa Univeralis, and if it wasn’t crashing on a regular basis, woulda had an awesome gaming weekend.  Continuous crashes are a buzz kill.  Especially when I extricate myself from an ally’s war with France, with me giving in a couple concessions just to get out of it, and then I crash before the next auto save.  Did that 5 times…