Today I successfully finished assembling our bicycles so that we can take them with us to Cornwall. They are pretty nice bikes, and I hope to get a decent amount of use out of them. I need to buy some helmets tomorrow.
In other news, it turns out that Ryan isn’t leaving until mid April, because of some errors with paperwork and some confusion with the admin people….so that’s nice in a way. I think we’ll be in Cornwall when he leaves, so we’ll have to say goodbye before we go down there.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve always been interested in doing a web comic. After all of this time, it is finally going to happen. I’ve been writing content and providing it to Steph and she’s been drawing the comics. We’re probably going to register a seperate domain for it and we’ll both link it from our websites. I’ll post more about it once we have the first comic up for viewing. I just hope people like it, because my sense of humor has been known to be quite dry. I tend to laugh at things nobody thinks are funny, so I don’t know if we’ll get a massive cult following and earn fame and fortune…but it should be fun.
As for woodcarving, I haven’t had a chance in the past few days to do any. I’m looking forward to getting started on it again, and I’m going to order a leather strop and some stropping compound to make sure my tools are as sharp as possible. It should make things much easier.
Lastly, an update on the spider situation: Our cat Truffle (the British Blue Shorthair) conducted a raid in the dark of the night and eliminated her mortal enemy. I feel a bit sorry for the spiders that wander in here, but Steph and I are both terrified of them and the cats are usually at them before we realize they are there in the first place.
It’s been pretty windy and wet here lately, but I’ve been trying to get outside and take walks when I have the time. I really enjoy it, as I can feel the power of nature and witness winter in a way I hadn’t really appreciated before. I’ve written a few haiku based on my walks. Being out there seems to inspire that sort of thing.
I’m feeling good right now. It’s been a really intense month or two at work, and I was having a lot of problems dealing with it. I’ve always had a hard time dealing with stress, and working extra hours and being under a lot of pressure didn’t help things. I think I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can deal with things properly, though. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the past, but as long as I give myself enough time for meditation and reflection, I think things will stay good. I just need to use the time I have wisely instead of avoiding things in my life.
I’ve been reading a book called The Places that Scare You by Pema Chödrön which contains a lot of techniques which have helped me lately. I’ve really enjoyed it, and I may read some more of Pema Chödrön’s work. I think I’ll also reread some of my Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn books as well. Both of their teachings have really helped me in the past.
Steph got me a couple of books which I think I’ll enjoy. I’ve been meaning to read something by Nietzsche for a while now, so she got me Basic Writings of Nietzsche. She also got me Goethe’s Faust which is awesome, as I’ve always wanted to read it. I still have yet to get stuck into Walden, so I’ll have to read that as well. It looks like I’ll be busy during my week off this month.
I still haven’t edited my photos from our America trip yet. I keep meaning to do it, but it slips my mind. I’ll try to post some when I get a chance. I hope all of you have a wonderful season, whatever your holidays or beliefs may be.
I took a few pictures around work today and yesterday.
There are some more on my flickr page. As I don’t have a paid account, my 3 sets are already created so the recent photos are in total disarray. I hope everyone has a nice day. Sit down, relax, and drink a cup of green tea. It’s good for you.
Cracked lips spew forth words across the tattered conference room. Like so many dry dust motes, the words float toward me. I bat them away in irritation and chase pen and paper dreams.
mess of paper
on the table
three o’clock meeting
I drew a character I like to call BatDogMan, and another character called Verbiage. Verbiage is a monster consisting of the word verbiage, some squiggly lines, some sharp teeth, and those raised up eyes people use when they are drawing snails.
I had an interesting exchange of words today about my evident lack of desire to be at work. Believe me when I say that this shouldn’t be a surprise. I have 30 days of leave available to take per year. My leave total accrues 2.5 of these days per month, and am free to take these days whenever I see fit. For some reason people in leadership positions understand and admit these things, yet get angry when someone does what they have been instructed to do. They all have obsessions with emergencies. For reasons I don’t understand, they think that I should maintain at least 14 of these 30 days per year for emergencies only. It is as if they expect my life to consist only of one hardship after another. If there are any hardships that never dissipate, they would have to be work itself and their constant meddling in my affairs. I take my leave when I want so I can be happy in life. I’d rather not base my existence after some robotic entity which would probably work forever only to be rewarded with some lube and a box in which it would store itself.
I’m home now and I’m happy. My cat is meowing so I’d best go poke her in her belly.
I ordered The Kite Runner today. It looks pretty interesting. I’m on a reading kick at the moment, but I’m hoping to start the whole writing thing up again soon. I haven’t written any poetry in quite a while, so maybe I’ll try again soon. I might even try a short story or something.
Work is great as usual. Not really… I don’t imagine normal jobs are great either, but the military is so dumb sometimes. Oh, we got a sandwich toaster today. You know what that means! TOASTED SANDWICHES. There are these really good rolls we’re going to use….and we’re going to put the ingredients in those rolls, and then put the assembled structure into the sandwich toaster. I can’t wait to taste one of those.