Posted 12:29 PM by Tim
Been a while since I've blogged again. Not that I don't have things to say anymore. It's just that I don't have the same amount of time to say them all.

I've picked up a new short-term project. A friend of mine has asked me to paint one of his miniatures for him. I love the idea, so I'm going to do it for him. Cheaply too. About $10 to get it done up. If it works out like I hope it will, I'll post the work up somewhere, and point ppl to it.

Posted 11:20 AM by Tim
It's been a bit since I've had a chance to get at the blog, so I'm updating now. Work has been pretty good lately. I've been listening to the Harry Potter books while I work. I wasn't sure that I could work while listening to a book being read, but it actually seems to help me focus. Or not focus. Anyway, my work schedule is from 4 until 12, but I'm booking in an extra hour after shift, which means that I get home about 2 am. Given that I still need to get up at about 8AM, I'm not getting a lot of sleep. So little, in fact, that I don't know what today is. I've got this notion that it's Thursday, but something in the back of my mind is telling me that it's actually Wednesday. I'll have to check.... yep, Thursday. Ok, I'm not too far off track then.

In other news, there isn't any real news. Nothing happens at 2AM, other than some interesting TV, and trying to sleep during the day is more difficult than it seems.

Speaking of interesting TV, other other day I was watching Baby Blues, a cartoon on the cartoon network, based off of the comic strip of the same name. On it, the lead female character was listening to a CD, and singing the lyrics: Buried in the basement, starting to smell/buried in the basement, please don't tell/Or you'll be buried in the basement. Personally, I think this would make a great song. So much so that I wanted to find out if the song was real. Nope, according to Google, which sees all and knows all, the song isn't real. Too bad. Then again, I could write a song with those lyrics in it and nobody can sue me for it. Now all I need is a guitar.

Posted 7:25 PM by Tim
A bit of news before the main post. NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month website is gearing up for the 2003 writing month. Looks like November will be the month, and I'm getting my story ideas in place. Sign up starts October 1! If you think you've got the stamina to write 50,000 words in a month, you should definately sign up!

And now, a thought from work. A reading of the novel, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, recorded on mp3 has a runtime of about 488 minutes. That's just over 8 hours. Today, I worked 8.5 hours while listening to the book. I've got only 8 minutes left in it. I figure that those minutes are related to the time spent getting up and walking about today. I'll finish that book off tomorrow, and start right in on book 2.

In other news, I've got weddings on October 25, and november 15 to attend. Not sure yet where I'm going to be staying, nor how I'll be paying for where I'm staying, but I'm sure that I'll figure out something.

There's so many things that I want to do in my time off, but I'm finding it very hard to get anything started. For some reason, I can't get past the desire stage and into the motivation stage. I have been doing a little bit of writing, but it's been very sporadic, just here and there, and only for about 10 minutes at a time. What I need to do is finish off a few of the dangling projects that are around the house so that I get that feeling of accomplishment. Maybe that will motivate me to do something more.

Just FYI, if you're the least bit interested, some of the things that I've been meaning to do lately: write, draw, paint, edit, crochet and sew. All of my creative outlets at once. Of course, the knowledge that there is a craft show coming up in about a month or so has lead me to some strange ideas. One of those strage ideas combines drawing, sewing and possibly crochet. That is, fashion design. Yeah, it's a little known secret of mine that I like fashion design. I do take some note of what people are wearing and fashions, they just don't affect me directly. I've wanted to do some fashion work for a long time now, but I never get around to it because of the all of the skills that I am lacking. For example, I'm not very good at drawing people, and much less so with clothing. So, creating designs isn't easy for me. I've had ideas before, but they've never gotten anywhere. Also, I'm not a very good seamster (that's "person who sews." Sower isn't right, and sewer just doesn't read correctly). I suppose that I could simply practice and get better, but I don't have a lot of time for it, even if I had enough motivation to actually get started. Besides, I've already got enough projects started.

I don't think that I could keep up with the demands of the fashion industry anyway. The major labels come out with a new line of fashions every season. That's a new collectoin of clothes every 3 months. A very fast pace. Even if I tried to make just a few items, it would probably take me forever. I suppose that I should at least be thinking about Hallowe'en costumes now, and get them started. That'd give me enough time and practice to do something, eh?

Posted 1:13 AM by Tim
I'm learning to drive a standard. Well, trying to learn anyway. We had to get another car so that Bren and I could both get to work. We've got a little red Firefly. Sometime small, for commuting. I don't get any chance to drive it myself unless I take it out late at night. Everyone else is asleep, so nobody is using the little car.

It's not a bad time to try learning either. There's very few drivers on the road, so there's little chance of collisions if I don't get the braking right, and I'm not likely to bump anyone if I have any rollback on hills or whatnot.

My main problem is with getting started from a stop. I can't seem to get the car to get moving right. Either I stall the car (yes, bad for it), or it jerks me around like I'm some kind of pinball (yep, also bad for it). I know that my problem has to do with the timing between my feet. I need to let out the clutch enough that it starts to catch, and then give it gas so that the engine doesn't stall. But, too much gas makes it lurch around. I had about 1 good start tonight out of about 8 tries. I eventually get the car to get where I want to go, but I figure the other people on the road are just pitying me and my car. What else can you do though? Where else (other than a professional track) are you going to get better experience with the whole clutch thing?

I'm sure that a few more nights of driving will help me to figure it all out.