Daily Pill
A weekend without the kids
It's been really nice having some time to spend with Becky and not have the girls around. We went and checked out the Brookings Art Festival where I met some other carvers. I didn't realize how much of my time was occupied with taking care of the girls. Between breakfast, lunch and dinner, the laundry & dishes and constant battle to keep their stuff from migrating from their room to the rest of the trailer I don't have a lot of time to just enjoy myself. The past few days have been quiet & relaxed which is really nice.
I am looking forward to the kids going back to school so at least I will have some part of the day where I can have some time to myself. There are a lot of projects on the back burner these days and I am anxious to get one or more of them started. I have a Halloween website that needs to be migrated and updated, a book to write, this blog needs to be overhauled and many new carvings to create.
The Halloween website has taken off over the past few years. Traffic is pretty astounding and I really need to take it in the direction I've been meaning to go for many years now... I have quite a few home built prop plans that need to be written up and brought up to date so I can post them for sale on the site. I also want to move away from Microsoft FrontPage. While it was a very easy (i.e. lazy) way to build the website when it was smaller (and FrontPage was cheaper), it's grown to many hundreds of pages and far to complex for FrontPage to manage. With my new Windows Vista computer more of a pain in the ass every day I have decided to no longer use Microsoft products and have switched over to open source (and free) replacements. I have a dual boot machine now running my old Windows XP Pro and Linux in addition to my new Vista machine, so my move has been to software that is supported on both Windows and Linux whenever possible. Instead of shelling out hundreds of dollars to upgrade my Microsoft Office Pro Suite, I switched over to OpenOffice. While it does not come with a direct MS Publisher counterpart, it does come with a replacement for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access and a program called Draw that does flowcharting and graphics. Best of all, it reads and saves in all of the MS Office file formats as well as being able to publish documents in PDF! No buying Adobe plug-ins anymore. Anyway, I have not yet done the research on the best HTML/PHP editor, but I want to find one that runs on multiple platforms and can replace my FrontPage websites with as little work as possible.
I am working on a book. It's about the changes that take place when you go from living in the world of debt and full time corporate "life" to total freedom. It's a tough journey and involves a lot of internal struggle and compromise. If I had had a book to help with the sometimes scary situations and feelings that come with living a lifestyle that takes you away from the majority of societal expectations... Well, I couldn't find one. There are scary religious, anti-society and or survivalist style books that tell you how to be afraid of the world, hide out & stockpile weapons, food and ammunition. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any books that help you integrate into society and yet keep your individuality and independence. So, I am writing one with a working title of "Getting out of line - a guide to personal freedom in a society built on conformity".
This blog has been an outlet for some of my feelings and thoughts on life and the world around me. Unfortunately, it's quite often taken the wrong way as I do not see life from the same angle as most people. Which is why 75% of the posts I write are either drafts and will never be read by anyone other than myself or I have simply deleted them to save myself the bother of replying to hoards of emails and comments. So, I have decided to make this a fully public blog (AKA boring) covering the day to day things that might be interesting to close friends and family, but will not stand out and attract unwanted attention in any way...
Going to the arts festival this weekend I saw a lot of nice work. I intend to have my own booth at next year's event. The work I saw there was nice, but OMG overpriced! I saw pieces that I can create in a day with little expense going for thousands of dollars. I don't think that is reasonable (or even ethical), so I plan to compete directly. I might not make any friends, but then I am not part of the exclusive "artist" crowd. I'm just a guy with a few chainsaws and some free time to play around with ideas and dreams... We'll see how it turns out in the long run.
I am looking forward to the kids going back to school so at least I will have some part of the day where I can have some time to myself. There are a lot of projects on the back burner these days and I am anxious to get one or more of them started. I have a Halloween website that needs to be migrated and updated, a book to write, this blog needs to be overhauled and many new carvings to create.
The Halloween website has taken off over the past few years. Traffic is pretty astounding and I really need to take it in the direction I've been meaning to go for many years now... I have quite a few home built prop plans that need to be written up and brought up to date so I can post them for sale on the site. I also want to move away from Microsoft FrontPage. While it was a very easy (i.e. lazy) way to build the website when it was smaller (and FrontPage was cheaper), it's grown to many hundreds of pages and far to complex for FrontPage to manage. With my new Windows Vista computer more of a pain in the ass every day I have decided to no longer use Microsoft products and have switched over to open source (and free) replacements. I have a dual boot machine now running my old Windows XP Pro and Linux in addition to my new Vista machine, so my move has been to software that is supported on both Windows and Linux whenever possible. Instead of shelling out hundreds of dollars to upgrade my Microsoft Office Pro Suite, I switched over to OpenOffice. While it does not come with a direct MS Publisher counterpart, it does come with a replacement for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access and a program called Draw that does flowcharting and graphics. Best of all, it reads and saves in all of the MS Office file formats as well as being able to publish documents in PDF! No buying Adobe plug-ins anymore. Anyway, I have not yet done the research on the best HTML/PHP editor, but I want to find one that runs on multiple platforms and can replace my FrontPage websites with as little work as possible.
I am working on a book. It's about the changes that take place when you go from living in the world of debt and full time corporate "life" to total freedom. It's a tough journey and involves a lot of internal struggle and compromise. If I had had a book to help with the sometimes scary situations and feelings that come with living a lifestyle that takes you away from the majority of societal expectations... Well, I couldn't find one. There are scary religious, anti-society and or survivalist style books that tell you how to be afraid of the world, hide out & stockpile weapons, food and ammunition. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any books that help you integrate into society and yet keep your individuality and independence. So, I am writing one with a working title of "Getting out of line - a guide to personal freedom in a society built on conformity".
This blog has been an outlet for some of my feelings and thoughts on life and the world around me. Unfortunately, it's quite often taken the wrong way as I do not see life from the same angle as most people. Which is why 75% of the posts I write are either drafts and will never be read by anyone other than myself or I have simply deleted them to save myself the bother of replying to hoards of emails and comments. So, I have decided to make this a fully public blog (AKA boring) covering the day to day things that might be interesting to close friends and family, but will not stand out and attract unwanted attention in any way...
Going to the arts festival this weekend I saw a lot of nice work. I intend to have my own booth at next year's event. The work I saw there was nice, but OMG overpriced! I saw pieces that I can create in a day with little expense going for thousands of dollars. I don't think that is reasonable (or even ethical), so I plan to compete directly. I might not make any friends, but then I am not part of the exclusive "artist" crowd. I'm just a guy with a few chainsaws and some free time to play around with ideas and dreams... We'll see how it turns out in the long run.
posted by VirP at
8:17 AM
2 Comments:
I stumbled upon the old bus site one day, read through it, and this blog. Good stuff. I'd buy the book! :-)
Same for me (stumbled in from the bus adventure)
I actually like the occiasional rants, and am interested in your world view. To each their own, eh?
I have two kids, and would love to take them on as many adventures as possible. It's what makes life rich!
- Noah Musser, Kansas
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