CAVEAT: The design described here has fatal flaws. I’ve since re-designed it, and have left this here as a way to document the process and share the realities associated with designing even relatively simple things with whoever might read it. The current design is available here.
I don’t seem to be able to function well without some kind of project. Usually I have several waiting patiently for my attention. However, at the moment all my current ones require either time, money, or energy I just can’t afford to give. I have a coding project to finish the user interface for … Read the rest
How often do we casually ask someone we encounter how they are? Passing a casual acquaintance in the grocery store isle, the nearly universal greeting is to ask how they’re doing. Run into an old classmate you haven’t seen in a few decades who has their arms full of kids and is clearly on their way somewhere, and we ask how they’ve been. I know I’m guilty of it, and I’m pretty sure almost everyone else is too. This kind of callous or ignorant questioning needs to stop. We don’t really want to hear about our former classmate’s recent divorce … Read the rest
When I was young my parents would take us over to my maternal grandfather’s house almost every Sunday evening. I have a great many memories of that house and the people in it.
My Grandfather’s house was a small pale-green concrete-block structure built shortly after World War II in Kearns, UT. As originally constructed, it had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a small kitchen, a living room, a small family room, and not much else. I doubt it was much more than about 1200 square feet. Grandma and Grandpa occupied the master bedroom with its rather small attached bathroom. As you … Read the rest
I don’t have a lot of patience for quitters. I’ve spent so much of my life pushing hard through difficulty and frustration to accomplish whatever it was I was working towards that it irritates me deeply when someone (especially someone close to me) gives up on something that is ostensibly important. To some degree, giving up feels like a moral weakness or failure. Setting something aside for a while is one thing… An inevitable thing in mortal existence… An uncomfortable but bearable thing… An acceptable thing. Giving up with no intention to circle back and try again later is quite … Read the rest
My uncle John giving me my first salute as a Second Lieutenant
One of the core principles everyone who has ever gone through basic training will understand is that being invisible has it’s advantages. When your bus drives through the installation gate for the first time on your way to training, you develop a pit in your stomach and start to wonder just what you have gotten yourself into. As you watch others get chewed on, you try to shrink into oblivion and do everything you can not to get noticed. At least, that was my experience. No sooner had … Read the rest
It’s supposed to be fun, I return exhausted
To a pile of work not done
And no extra time to do it
With a wallet that’s empty
And experiences I could live without.
For almost a year, I’ve been trying to get spare change together to have a collection of poetry I’ve written printed. However, I have teenagers, and the unfortunate thing about teenagers is that they are expensive. In spite of my best efforts to sock away a few dollars here and there, every time I had almost enough cash set aside something would come up, and I’d have to start over.
In the mean-time, though, I’ve gotten occasional feedback from the few people who were actively waiting for the final result. It seems they are getting impatient. As a result of … Read the rest
