A Valentin’s Day Story

It was just after sunset on a cold January Sunday when I pulled into the grocery store parking lot.  The sky was dark and a slight wind was starting. Sodium-vapor streetlights cast an unearthly orange over the cars and in the air was a slight odor of turpentine.

After shopping the scent of turpentine was still there and my mood was depressed and pensive.  At home I put the single serve lasagna in the oven and turned on the computer.

In the word-processor window I typed, “The air smelled like turpentine as he walked into the night air.”

From that sentenced flowed 2,000 more words of a story about man who wakes up in a world where his car won’t start and he is only one left in the world  In time the man walks to a park and finds a woman there.  She is painting the sky.  They talk and he remembers who he is – a dreamer.  Then he remembers her, the artist, the one who painted his dream in the sky.

He tells her a new dream and she paints a new sky.

I titled the story, “Turpentine,” and showed it to a few friends.  It was somewhat autobiographical.  It was something of a wish for a lonely heart.

A few months after I wrote that little story, I started dating Heather.  I showed her the story and realized that she was my artist.

That I needed her to paint the sky.

Writer and artist, joined in a common need to create, were married 18 months after I wrote that story in January 2000.

Never dismiss the power of creating and the love to make dreams come true.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General, Writing | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

Friday Wisdom – The Here After

After father moved into a retirement home, he would often say:

I believe in the “here after.” Every time I walk into a room, I ask, “What am I here after?”

How many of you believe in the “Here after?”

More wisdom next Friday,

Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged , | 27 Comments

Wednesday Woodworking – Canvas Carrier

My wife attends a painting class each week and transports her supplies and work in progress around in a little cart.  One problem has been how to transport wet canvas from class to home with them getting messed up.  She did a little drawing of a box thing that she could use to hold the canvas and keep it from banging around.  I built it this weekend.  It looks like this:

The finished box.  It's made from 1/4 inch plywood.

The finished box. It’s made from 1/4 inch plywood.

Here's the top view.  There are two slots so she can carry two paintings.

Here’s the top view. There are two slots so she can carry two paintings.

Here's the little pull cart with all her supplies and a painting she's working on.

Here’s the little pull cart with all her supplies and a painting she’s working on.

While I am posting this Heather is off at her painting class.  When the painting is finished I’ll post a picture of it.

This was just a simple box made to measure.  It took a couple of hours to make and involved using one of my favorite tools: The table saw.

Next project up is a table saw jig to make picture frames. I’ll have progress pictures of that next week.

If you need me – I’ll be in the shop

Andrew

Posted in woodworking | Tagged , | 24 Comments

Changed

The office move is completed and I am safely in my new building at a new desk.  Thought I’d update you all on the predictions I made last week.

1. My new key fob won’t let me into the building or parking garage.

Mine worked and I was able to easily move past the line of people who’s keys didn’t work.

2. The boxes I carefully packed will be delivered to the wrong cube, possibly a different building.

I only packed one box thinking that they couldn’t lose one box.  They did. It was no where in my cube when I arrived.  I went to the move help desk and filed a report.  30 minutes later it arrived.  No information was given where it went.

3. It will take me two hours to find where my monitors are.

Only took me one minute to find my monitors as one of my coworkers came by and asked, “Are you cube eight?”  I was.  Turns out she had about 10 monitors delivered to her cube and was very interested in finding them good homes.

4. The people at the help desk, will just give me new cables rather than trying to find the ones I packed.

Turned out not to be needed. Nope.  You see I packed all my cables in my box and before I arrived an IT person came by, looked at my cube and must have thought, “Oh my, he has no cables,” and they left me a couple of extra sets plus a couple of laptop power supplies.  I was popular for a while in my row since I had plenty of cables and power supplies to give to the less fortunate.

5. The network connection in my cube won’t work until I complain to the VP of engineering.

Mine was working fine, but the VP went to the help desk to get an IT person to fix his connection.

6. The IT group will have changed my wifi password without telling me the new one.

Wow, it worked, no problems.  I was so stunned that I couldn’t work for 15 minutes.

7. My favorite English Breakfast tea won’t be in the kitchen, again.

It happened, my favorite tea wasn’t there.  Nope. But they had something better.  There is this brand I really like, but never buy because it’s so expensive.  Yes friends, they are stocking the expensive tea I like. And they now stock real milk.  Not that fake stuff in the little plastic cups, but real milk in a half-gallon carton.

8. The boss will again send an email to the catering company asking they stock my tea.

He won’t admit this, but I think my boss had words with the caterers before we moved.

9. I won’t like my new cube furniture.

I don’t like it.  I don’ hate it.  It works, but won’t win any awards for the best looking office.  And I won’t be buying any for my house.  The surfaces are flat and strong enough to hold a cup of tea.

10. My new cube will be smaller.

It is, two inches shorter.  Two whole inches.  Okay, not on the major complaint list.

11. The special ergonomic changes I need won’t be in place, even though the nice facilities lady made careful notes on what I need.

Just the opposite, the chair and desk are so ergonomically adjustable that it took me 30 minutes to read all the little manuals and play with all the adjustments.  It’s kind of cool, you can waste 15 minutes each morning checking and rechecking the setup.

12. There will be a major problem with my production servers that will need to be fixed before I can set up my computers.

I was a bit disappointed here, everything worked fine and I was forced to take a long tea break and walk around visiting my coworkers.  Talk about a tough day.

There you have it, my full report.  I should say that over all the move went much better than expected and overall the building is much better than the one we were in.  Sadly, I signed an NDA with the company when I joined that prevents me from sharing pictures of my new office and workspace.

Such is life in high-tech, moving and secrets.

Till next week,
Andrew

Posted in General | Tagged , , | 28 Comments