Andrew's View of the Week

Changes

Posted on 07/02/2017 by Andrew Reynolds

My day job is in software engineering and the little known specialty of build and release engineering. Okay, half of you just stopped reading and the other half your eyes have glazed over. It’s a difficult job to explain. Best way to think of it is this way: Next time your computer, cell phone, or tablet announce that there is a software update – think of me. Somewhere in the computer cloud was an engineer like me who, through dark and mysterious procedures, made the up available to your system.

I often describe my job as “change management.” There are always pressures to change software to fix bugs, or add new features. My job is to figure out how to get those changes from the army of engineers who create them and deliver those to you.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking that my writing and this blog are due for an update.

I started this blog six years ago. It was started with the notion to some discipline around my writing and generally improve. Lately I’ve been feel that I need to push my writing to a new level – levels other than the weekly essay style. Then there’s the problem of time – not enough of it. I am working on a novel, a poetry collection, and have one poetry book I hope to release soon.

Sadly, I can’t do all I want with writing while stilling working at my day job and have time for my woodworking.

With mixed feelings, I am going to change the posting schedule for this blog. Starting this month there will be one essay posted on the first Sunday of each month. I plan for these month posts to be more writing progress reports as I plow through my book’s first draft, and work on polishing my poetry.

Wednesday woodworking will become just two Wednesdays a month, but Friday wisdom posts will continue each week.

I’ve receive a bunch of feedback suggesting that folks like the little gems wisdom I post. Some of these are from my father, some I’ve made up, and I steal a few from time to time.

I’ve enjoyed doing the weekly posts, but in the last few months, they’ve started to become a chore, rather than a joy.

So, it’s time for an update.

Press, “Yes” to continue …

Till next time,

Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged blogging, blogging changes, writing, writing process | 51 Comments

Friday Chemistry Lession

Posted on 06/30/2017 by Andrew Reynolds

H2O is hot water

CO2 is cold water

More learnings next week,

Andrew

Posted in wisdom | Tagged humor, wisdom | 8 Comments

Wednesday Cat Pictures

Posted on 06/28/2017 by Andrew Reynolds

We’ve been busy with the teen grandson, so this week you get a couple of pictures of cats:

Mr. Socks in his tower.

A basket full of Bella Kitty.

Boot pretending to be a laptop computer.

She found a pair of my clean pants on my laptop computer stand thing.

If you need me, I’ll be driving around town trying to entertain a teen,

Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged cat pictures | 25 Comments

June Already?

Posted on 06/25/2017 by Andrew Reynolds

Our 15 year-old grandson is in town for a couple of weeks and much of my “free time” has been consumed by attempting to entertain a teen whose favorite reply to most questions is, “I don’t know.” His favorite questions are, “What’s there to eat? And “What are we doing now?”

At the moment he’s back on Heather’s computer looking at sports news and likely trying to add things to our Amazon shopping cart, while I am hiding in the living room trying to write a post for this week. Frankly writing anything intelligent isn’t going to happen. I had delusions about writing about this really interesting book I just read on Lectio Divina (divine reading), but that faded half way through watching Wonder Woman at the theater this afternoon. Somehow massive explosions and ancient gods duking it out during WWI spoils the whole contemplative mood of the ancient practice of quiet reading and mediation.

Yeah, I did like the movie – come on what’s not to like about massive explosions and the bad guy getting his due. Well, there was just a little too much CG and special effects for my liking and I would have liked more story telling with fewer dead bodies on-screen.

So instead of writing anything that requires real thought, I decided to take the low road and update you on my 2017 goals. Yup, I am still tracking them. Mostly for days like this when life interferes with my lofty writing goals.

The goals with updates in-line:

1. Self publish my cancer poetry book.
Heather is doing some art for me on this.
2. Finish writing my novel.
I’ve made some progress, but unlikely I finish this year.
3. Start a new poetry collection and actually submit some to literary magazines.
Been thinking about it…
4. Keep doing stuff in the workshop. First project is a total shop reorg.
Been doing this. The reorg is about 2/3 done
5. Build a new ladder for the kitties (poor dears only have one).
Sadly, Boots needed a bed more than a ladder.
6. Exercise more and keep my FitBit happy.
I have exercised a bit more, okay, they moved my desk at work ten feet further from the kitchen so I have longer walk for tea. FitBit is only a little happy about that.
7. Participate in a protest march or two.
Did one.
8. Write my elected leaders on a regular basis.
Have written them, but not as often as I wanted.
9. ROAD TRIP!!!
DONE! And all the details posted here.
10. Keep this list someplace where I can find it next year.
Turns out on that the search function on the blog helps me keep track of this.
11. Attend a writer’s workshop.
I signed up for two, wasn’t accepted for one workshop, but am going to one in August.
12. Don’t adopt any more cats – the house is full.
So far, no new cats have moved in.