Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Rubble

Showing posts with label Rubble. Show all posts

Saturday, November 2, 2013

NaNoWriMo 2013: The Plan

November 2 and my word count is zero. Yep.

And I’ve been planning on writing a blog post about NaNoWriMo 2013 for about a week now…

Well, we all have to start somewhere.

In a sense, though, I have started because I am taking the rebel route this year and finishing the book I started last year instead of starting a new one. Because of this, I am not going for a “win” this year with 50,000 words.

And I am not even setting a goal of finishing my book.

So why even “participate” if I am not really participating, if I am not even setting any goals?

Because, to me, one of the primary purposes of NaNoWriMo is that it gives aspiring writers a framework to build solid writing habits, and this is something I am in terrible need of this year.

I’ve been a professional writer for years, but it has been technical writing. Honestly, I find it difficult to even call that writing. Most of what I do in that field is layout design, photography, and cutting and pasting. But I’ve always considered myself a writer, it’s just been many, many years since I’ve actually done any real writing.

Last year, during my first NaNoWriMo, I finally felt like I was coming home to the craft I’d been neglecting for far too long. I was writing fiction for the first time in over a decade and I was writing a lot and almost every day. I was building all those good habits I’d been neglecting for so long: daily work, writing even if I wasn’t in the mood, working through blocks and deadspots, staring down the smug cold stare of the blank page and making it my bitch…

It felt good. And the community of writers online, who were all in the same place I was, going through the same things I was going through, added just enough encouragement to get through the tough spots. Writing is usually a very solo and sometimes lonely art, and I loved the community feel that NaNoWriMo (especially the Portland Facebook Group) brought to the experience.

In 2012, things went great. I jammed through my 50K and finished somewhere in the mid-60s. I didn’t finish the book, which was a goal, but it was firing along nicely and I was still working. Then, in mid-December, the next big project came along and I had to set the novel aside for while, but I was fired up and knew that I’d pick it up again, soon.

Then another project, then another project…

In the spring, I decided it was time to get back to work. My break had been long enough that continuity was going to be an issue, so I was going to use NaNoEdMo (Novel Editing Month) in March to re-familiarize myself with the draft so far and get some red inking in to prepare for Camp NaNoWriMo in April… Life got busy, more photography and video projects came rolling through… No editing, no writing… Not even any reading.

And now it is November again, and here I am.

So I will be a renegade in 2013. I will participate this year, but I will have different goals, and the primary one is to build better writing habits that are sustainable while working on other projects. Because of this, I do not want to drop everything and jam through to 50K or even just the end of the book, if that is (hopefully) closer than 50K words away.

I fear that if I set that goal and saw that it was unattainable that I would just bail on November entirely, like I did last Spring when things got busy, and that is exactly the opposite of what I want to do this year.

I also cannot drop everything for one project, and with the heavy demands of my family on my time (I am something like the on-site, full time social worker for my extended family, a role that is my “day job” right now), I need to work on making writing a part of my life most days, not just for insane spurts a couple months out of the year. So even if I could drop everything for a mad NaNoWriMo rush, doing so runs counter to my goals.

A few days back, while trying to find time (see, that is the issue I am trying to fix here) to write this post, an old friend of mine, Mia Marshal posted a great post on NaNoWriMo, about what it has meant to her and on why she is not participating this year.

In essence, Mia explains that “NaNoWriMo… taught me what it means to be a writer.” It taught her the discipline one needs and it gave her the tools she needs and the experience she needs to be a full time, professional writer. However, for her, because she has learned these lessons, now she is in a great place where:

…what I used to call NaNoWriMo, I now just call writing. At some point in the last two years, 50,000 words a month became my new normal, and it’s why I now call myself a writer.

Recently, I found myself in the mind blowing position where I needed to get some business cards printed up for my photography and video work. Not because I wanted them, but because people kept asking me for one. However, at the end of the day, I still consider myself a writer first, so I put that on my new cards, as well.

But Mia boils it down to the brass tacks. I can call myself a writer all day long, and I can consider myself a writer, because I used to do that thing and because I want to do that thing again. But until I can make NaNoWriMo every month, and not a crazy, burn everything except for writing experience but a natural, intergral part of what I do most days, then it doesn’t matter what is on my card or in my heart, because I am not doing the thing that I am claiming to do.

So my goal for NaNoWriMo 2013 is not a word count. My goal this year is to develop the discipline and tools I need to make writing a regular habit, a near daily part of my life, whether or not it is writing 1,667 words per day or not. And yes, I do want to finish last year’s book. But, if I succeed in my goal, it doesn’t matter if I finish it by the end of November or not, because I will finish it. And I will edit and rewrite. And I will start working on the next one after that.

A few years ago I started posting a Photo of the Day on Rubble. I stopped doing that a little over a year ago, because I felt that I’d achieved my goals with that project, which was forcing myself to work on photography every day.

As I wrote when I ended the Photo of the Day:

When I first started the POTD on February 13, 2011, I was in a very different place in life than I am right now. I was in a rebuilding phase and, as a part of that rebuilding, I wanted to put more focus on photography as I moved ahead in life.

Well, if the main goal of the project was to inspire me to take more photos, that is a mission accomplished.

Beyond accomplishing the goal of taking more photos, it also made me a better photographer. When I started the POTD project in early 2011 I was someone who enjoyed taking pictures. Almost three years later, I am going pro, and a big part of that is because I work on it every day in one way or another. At this point, I don’t need an artifical framework to force myself to do this. It now just who I am and what I do.

Starting a similar process with my fiction writing? That is my goal for NaNoWriMo 2013.

It is November 2 and I still haven’t re-read my draft from last year, so that is where I am starting. Organizing my notes and re-reading the existing draft. After that, I’ll either continue working towards finishing that draft, or I’ll start a complete re-write, depending on what I find over the next few days. Either way, it will be a little time before I break zero on my word count.

But this is good. Because I am doing it and not just thinking about it. It’s been too long since I’ve been doing and not just thinking about it, and I look forwards to getting to know my characters again. I’ve been away from them for far too long and, I promise, it will be different this time!

A Bookkeeping Note…

For the last year or two, I was posting these sorts of posts on my Rubble blog. However, over time my plans for these blogs have changed and evolved. At one point, Rubble was going to be my blog for all things arts oriented and this was going to be my blog for personal stuff, whether it was posts about family oriented issues, pictures of the kids, or just self-indulgent navel gazing.

I suppose that over the last year, I’ve come to realize that posts like this one are probably more in the self-indulgent navel gazing category rather than in the arts category.

Well, that may be a bit harsh. But as my artistic and professional life has evolved over the last year or so, so has my plans for these blogs. I was originally going to write a series of articles on my son’s special needs and dealing with life with a son with ASD and other such things for this blog, but I really don’t have the time now to do such a thing (oh, and it also turns out that ASD was a mis-diagnosis).

So one reason to move these posts from Rubble to SE2 is so I’ll actually have stuff to post here! But still, they are more personal and I want to, from here on, at least, keep Rubble for other sorts of less personal posts.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

One Day On Earth: 12.12.12… So it begins

Pretty much the same post I threw up in late October about NaNoWriMo 2012.

Between working on this project and finishing the NaNoWriMo novel (I did get over 50,000 words in during November to “win” the event), I won’t be posting much on the blogs until 2013.

I wanted to do something quick and easy for One Day since the more complex idea a friend and I had will be impossible, since I am in Sacramento and not Portland, but things happen and after doing some planning and discovering that there is a theme for this years event, my idea for this year will be pretty complicated to edit.

Of course, I won’t be filming until Wednesday 12.12.12, but before then there is some prep work, and after there is going to be a whole bunch of editing. And a whole bunch of writing on the novel. And a whole bunch of major life stuff.

So the blogs will remain on hold for the time being.

Yes, this is being reposted everywhere…

One Day on Earth - Film on 12.12.12 from One Day on Earth on Vimeo.

One Day On Earth - 11-11-11 - Gresham and Portland, Oregon (720p) from A. F. Litt on Vimeo.

http://www.onedayonearth.org

from tag NaNoWriMo

from tag Earth

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Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Final Cut: Family Photos–Winter 2012

Cross-posted from Rubble: http://rubble.blogspot.com/2012/04/final-cut-family-photoswinter-2012.html

January 2012

January 2012 Family Photos on Facebook: Click Here

February 2012

February 2012 Family Photos on Facebook: Click Here

March 2012

March 2012 Family Photos on Facebook: Click Here

from tag Bella

from tag Ex

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Monday, February 13, 2012

A long way back towards home…

Note: Cross posted from Rubble.

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A long way back towards home... Tiger Mountain from the Volunteer Park Water Tower. Seattle, Washington. June 30, 2011. Photo of the Day, February 13, 2012. First Anniversary of my Photo of the Day.

This is a picture taken on a trip from Gresham to the neighborhood in Seattle where I lived for ten years, looking east towards the town where I grew up. In my original blurb about my photo of the day, I mentioned that some pictures would be chosen for sentimental value over technical value and this would be one of those.

I do like this picture, but I doubt it is the best picture in my files that has yet to be featured as the photo of the day. I have years worth of unedited pictures to go through and I am sure that there are some really spectacular shots in there that I have overlooked so far. This one is merely nice, in my book. But because of way the subject matter intersects with the date, this shot spoke to me as I put together today’s post.

The tallest peak in the background is Tiger Mountain, the dominant geographical feature in the town I lived in from ages four to eighteen.

Larch Mountain seen from Gresham reminds me of Tiger, but it is more distant, not looming over downtown itself as Tiger looms over Issaquah. I find the familiar profile comforting, though. It is one of many things about Gresham that remind me of Issaquah.

Which is strange to me in some ways. During the ten years I lived on or near Capitol Hill in Seattle, if you asked me if I would ever want to return to Issaquah or to live in a town that reminded me of it, I would have laughed you out of the room.

So many years later, with children of my own, I still have little desire to return to Issaquah. That time of my life is behind me now. Beyond that, the town I grew up in has changed so much that it is practically unrecognizable to me. Even if I wanted to go home again, I could not. The town I lived in does not exist anymore, I have no family there any more, and most of my friends have scattered across the country. There is little there for me now.

But raising my kids in a town that reminds me of the town I grew up in is very nice. I had a pretty good time growing up in Issaquah. Though, technically, I grew up in Sammamish, that town did not exist when I lived there. And I did go to high school in Issaquah proper, right at the foot of Tiger Mountain.

It was a good place for me to spend my childhood. I hope Gresham treats my boys as well as Issaquah treated me. If you’ve ever really wondered what the Part Two on my Suburban Eschatology blog represents, well, there it is in a nut shell.

So… This post is supposed to be about the photos of the day, not this particular selection. Well, there is a reason for those sentimental musings, but for now I’ll turn to this on going series of photos…

I’ve been at this photo of the day thing for a year now. It, too, has treated me pretty well. All the goals I mentioned in the original blub about it have been met in spades. It has kept me focused on my photography, it has forced me to become a better photographer, it has gained me a fan or two… All good things.

This anniversary comes at an interesting time in my life. There is a reason why I chose a sentimental picture for this milestone. I find myself at a crossroads where I will soon be returning to work for the first time in a couple years and I find myself spending a lot of time thinking about what directions I would like my career to head in from here.

I must admit that, for the last ten years or more, I have been wandering a bit. I became a tech writer by trade because it was what I had become in practice already. Though it was not my specific title until 2007, it made up a large share of my job description in every position I’ve held since 1999.

But I never really chose it as my profession. It just sort of happened. It is not a bad way to spend my time, it pays my bills, but it is not where I imagined myself when I lived in the shadow of Tiger Mountain, nor when I lived on the hill with the water tower.

Likewise, I never really wanted to be a “Photographer,” though it has always been a hobby of mine. I’ve been taking pictures since I was in the first grade and people have always liked them. My only formal training was a couple of elective classes in middle school where I learned how to work in black and white and where I learned that I love working with enlargers making prints and that I hate the actual process of developing film.

In high school, I was the photo editor for my school’s newspaper for two years, along with wearing some other hats on the paper’s staff. After high school, though, photography faded into the background for the most part. I could not have a dark room in my apartments and in the pre-digital era, it was hard to be a “serious photographer” without access to a darkroom.

In Seattle, by the end of the 1990s, I didn’t even have a decent camera any longer, though in the couple years before I moved to the Portland area, the photography bug would pop up from time to time. Recently I started running through and scanning a shoebox full of pictures I took during those years. Some of the later prints were shot with disposable cameras, but I still managed to get some decent pictures. I am sure these will be trickling out into my photos of the day over the next few weeks.

I was given my first digital camera in 2002. It was a pretty sad little piece of gear, but it was better than nothing, and as I’ve written before, I was happy to have it. But the 2000s were a difficult period for my family and I. It wasn’t until the second half of the decade that I was able, from time to time, to get out and take many photos beyond the obligatory snapshots of the kids.

I didn’t really start taking photography seriously again until I bought myself a somewhat decent point and shoot camera in April 2007. With a decent digital camera and access to some mediocre photo editing software, I found that I didn’t need a darkroom any more for “serious photography.” A clearance priced HP Photosmart, a bundled consumer photo editor, and I was back in the game. Still, I didn’t think of photography as anything more than a minor hobby.

Though that is not entirely true. In my role as a technical writer with ESI, photography actually played as big of a part of my job as writing and editing. In fact, I was hired not because of my writing, but because of my photography skills. The manager who hired me was looking for a photographer more than a writer - a technical writer, for sure, but one who actually had demonstrable photography skills as well, and tech writers such as this were a bit harder to find.

For the duration of that contract, I spent as much time working with cameras and photo editing software as I did actually writing and editing text. For that time, at least, I do feel that it would be acceptable to call myself a professional photographer. As acceptable, at least, as it was to call myself a professional writer during the years where I was writing a lot for work but it had not yet been promoted into my official job title.

Still, in my own mind and in my heart, photography was not my passion, it was merely one of many activities that I enjoyed. As Joseph Campbell would have put it, it was not my bliss.

When it comes to the arts, I’ve always thought of myself as a writer first, a musician second, and a photographer as a distant third. While I did start taking pictures regularly a little before I started writing, first grade versus second grade, and while I didn’t start playing music until the fourth grade, I’ve spent much more of my life working on my writing and music than on my photography.

So, photography rising as my primary creative outlet over the past year has been quite a surprise to me in some ways. Sure, I have been taking a lot of pictures since 2007, but I wasn’t doing anything with them except throwing a few up on Facebook from time to time. I did not consider my pictures to be anything more than a mild hobby and sanity saving distraction, not a serious artistic or professional pursuit.

Over the last year, though, I haven’t had the focus or attention to work on much writing or music. For me, those are solitary pursuits and I have not had more than a very occasional hour or two of solitary time over the last 15 months or so. When I was in California, I did have a lot of time to work on some research and development for a novel I will write eventually, but when I came home and took on the challenge of getting my boys put back together, that project was put on indefinite hold.

But one thing I have been able to do is to take a lot of pictures. Rather than being an artistic pursuit that keeps me away from my children, it is something that I can work on while spending time with my family. I want to go take some pictures? I throw the boys and dog in the car and off we go and everyone has a good time (though there are the occasional complaints that I stop too often on our hikes and walks to take pictures).

And photography has helped to keep me sane through the past year. With so many challenges coming from having two special needs children (not to mention their disabled mother crashing in their room since last June), having to put my entire life on hold for the last year to put them back together, photography has been the one piece of me that I have been able to hold onto, to not set aside for my family, and to find some comfort and refuge in.

So, at risk of being a bit overdramatic, for the last year, photography has been instrumental in keeping me from going bat shit crazy.

Now, a year into my photo of the day, I find myself approaching a crossroads. Where do I go from here with my career, now that it looks like I will be able to resume one?

For the first time in my life, I really do consider myself to be a Photographer. Not a writer who takes some pictures, not as someone who likes taking pictures, but as an actual, capital P, Photographer. For the first time in many, many years, I would actually consider making a career out of this. And for the first time ever I could see it as not being a subset of my job, but as it being the primary focus of my job.

During the time from middle school through the end of high school, I did see photography as playing a big role in my future career life. Through those years, I wanted to be a journalist and I saw myself eventually working both as a photojournalist and a writer. By the end of high school, I was in a position to have a very successful career as a journalist. However, some experiences during my senior year of high school soured me on those plans. Those are stories probably better saved for Democracy In Distress, though, rather than Rubble.

After the last year, though, for the first time in twenty years I find myself drawn to journalism as a career path because it seems like such a perfect way to combine my writing with my photography, the same draw that profession held for me so long ago. Unlike back then, this time around I actually could see myself working purely as a photographer, though I would still prefer it if there was some writing involved.

To me, for my abilities, I just think it is the best way for me to tell stories, with words and pictures .

Over the next few years, instead of continuing the aimless career drift that I’ve been suffering for the last twelve or thirteen years (this is not entirely true, I had definite career plans while I was back in school from 2004-2008, but my education was completely derailed by the continual health and stability issues that have plagued my family for the past decade and those plans are now indefinitely, if not permanently, unattainable), I really see myself steering towards journalism.

This is not to say that I am going to drop everything and completely start from scratch, just a couple hours ago I submitted a resume for a likely looking tech writing contract, but I will start looking for more opportunities in the journalism field, and I will pursue them when I find them.

Tomorrow I will start this process by applying for a position as a monthly columnist for a national website. A position that would not be full time work with a self-sufficient income if it is offered to me, but one that would be a nice foot in the door with a little supplemental income as a bonus.

I also have a couple of other photography related goals that I will pursue this year as opportunities present themselves, ones that are more artistically oriented.

So, I’ve come full circle. From Gresham, through Seattle, and back to Issaquah. What do I want to be when I grow up? Exactly what I wanted to be when I drove to school in the shadow of Tiger Mountain on the first day of my senior year of high school, a little over twenty-one years ago.

I will admit that I’ve recently been feeling the ache of so many “lost” years. This will be a harder profession for me to break into now. Back then, I had contacts and references from Washington DC elite and cabinet members of the National Press Club. Today? A year’s worth of photos of the day, a few good references from work in semi-related fields, and some blog posts. But that is a lot more than nothing.

I have to remember that I’ve played the hands I’ve been dealt to the best of my ability. Sometimes my ability was lacking and, here and there, I blew some pretty good hands, but there was also some long periods where I was dealt nothing but crap. I blame no one but myself for my mistakes and I have faith that God wanted me to learn a few things from the tougher hands in life, so I try not to be bitter, but sometimes it can be a bit dispiriting.

Sometimes it too easy to look backwards and see so many junctions in life where slightly different choices could have lead to me being in very different places in life today, probably more secure places, as well. A couple different twists and turns in the past, in the days under Tiger Mountain, or on Capitol Hill, or even more recently here in Gresham, and I could very easily have achieved many of the goals that I am just starting off towards today, but where I am in life today is exactly where God meant for me to be in life today. Without that simple truth, I am lost, but with it, I can find a tremendous amount of strength.

It is easy to get lost in the woulda, shoulda, couldas… It is best just to avoid them.

Fortunately, even more than this sad, semi-remorseful and frustrating sentimentality, what I have been feeling recently is a lot of optimism. For the first time in almost two decades, I feel like I am really at a point in my life where I can finally apply all the lessons I’ve been learning and find some success and security for myself and my children. I feel like I am at a junction where all the different experiences of my life are coming together in such a way to really prepare me for some solid successes in the near future.

That is a very good place to be in life. When I look backwards ten years, twenty years, it is easy to feel frustration and regret, but when I look ahead ten years, well… It looks pretty damn good from where I stand right now.

My photography, and my photo of the day series in particular, has a lot to do with this optimism.

So tonight I spend a moment looking backwards towards a home that no longer exists. Tomorrow, though, I turn towards the future and all the promises of hope that greet us as we awake each morning at dawn.

Products featuring photography by A. F. Litt:

deviantArt: Prints, cards, mugs, mouse pads, magnets, puzzles and other products.

Cafe Press: Calendars, etc.

from tag Work

from tag Rubble

from tag Music

from tag gazing

from tag Job

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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Burnout Tastes Like Burning… Welcome Solstice & Goodbye 2011

From 2011-12 (Dec)

8:15 PM
I talk about this later in the post, but I wanted to let everyone know right at the top that this will, probably, be the last post until 2012. I am taking a break. It’s been a heck of a year, and I’ll be back, fresh and ready, after Winter Break!

This includes the Photo of the Day on Rubble. One sign of my burnout is that the Photo of the Day has become the photo of every now and then. Daily posts will return in 2012.

2:30 PM
Winter Solstice today, thank the Gods! Now the days start getting longer. Happy day. It was also my birthday yesterday. These days, though, other anniversaries feel like bigger deals than just making another trip around the sun… It was a nice day, though.

The sun is out and The Big One and I are going to take the dog out for a long walk. Hopefully I can take some pictures and keep on getting to know the new camera I received for said birthday and for the upcoming holidays.

Yes. Burnout. I am very burned out. It has been a long year. The new year is not here yet, but I am a year older and the days are getting longer, so this seems as good of a time as any for a 2011 wrap up post.

This is the last task I am knocking down before stepping away from the computers for a couple weeks. No Photos of the Day (or of the every few days, as it has been going recently), no posts to any blogs, little to no activity anywhere else. Stick a fork in me, I am done. Break time.

For the next couple weeks it is about the kids, books, cameras, watching some movies and catching up with some Breaking Bad, Rescue Me, and some other badly neglected shows.

It is going to be some time to get some perspective, to get some rest, and to get ready for 2012.
This past year was a strange one and not an easy one. 2012 looks to be very different. No less easy, but definitely more stable.

2011 was a year when my life was on hold. I started in California helping my mother with several issues, and ended in Gresham helping my children through several issues. Those tasks took up the whole year.

But that leaves me in a strange place where my plans for my life in 2012 look exactly like my plans for my life in 2011. This is not to say that I did not accomplish anything in 2011, far from it. The work with my family has been tremendously productive and rewarding. But in 2012, the main goal is to resume work on my own career and to start earning some damn money.

This also not to say that the work with my family is done, of course it is not. The boys have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go, a lot of healing left. Their wounds are no longer bleeding, but they are far from being back to normal. The Big One still has a long ways to go before he is back up to speed with school. The Little One, well, he has a long way to go before he’s back up to speed with life.

However, the progress they have made since April and May is amazing. Some solid foundations are now in place and they are both further along than I would have guessed they would be at this point. They are far enough along where I am feeling pretty good about heading back to work.

There will be challenges, of course, with this transition, but I think they are part of the growing process now, challenges encouraging growth, not obstacles hindering it.

Time to get out in the sun for a few. More later.

From 2011-12 (Dec)

6:00 PM
Dog walked, boy walked, errand ran, dinner cooked and served…

Burnout.

I’ve been putting a lot of work in on the RubbleSites for the last couple months, a lot of posts, but even more time spent behind the scenes getting this and that set up. I feel, for the most part, this work is coming to a close and that, after a few small projects that will be completed after winter break when the boys are back in school, that I am at a point where I can pretty much just focus on content creation.

And that is a good thing, because once I am back to work, there is going to be little time for anything else. Posts may get shorter, and fewer and further between… I think my goal at that point will be one decent post for each blog per week, with some other, smaller “feature” type stuff thrown in here and there too.

Of course, I’ll be keeping up with my photo of the day and throwing music I like up on Retrovirus Lab, too.

So, the plan is, after the break, to take two weeks to finish the construction of these sites and to put a new portfolio together. Then my full time work and only major project will be landing a new writing contract.

One of the things that has been a little rough the last month or so is that I’ve fallen into a strange schedule with life. Since most of the uninterrupted work time I have these days is at night, after everyone is in bed, I’ve become rather nocturnal these days. I get a few chores done during the day, then the afternoon and evening has been spent working with The Big One and his homework, cooking dinner, usually more work with The Big One and his the homework (let’s face it, it has been more homeschooling than helping with homework), then getting everyone to bed.

Only then have I found the time to get the serious work done on the bigger projects I’ve been working on, like the One Day on Earth video, the Occupation photos and videos, etc. Since The Ex One gets up early, she’s been handling the mornings, getting the boys out the door to school. Through the end of November and up until the last few days, I’ve been going to bed about the same time she’s been getting up to get her and the boys’ day started.

This schedule actually worked pretty well for that period, for the most part. The Ex One was fresh for the mornings, and I was fresh for the afternoon and evenings, and the boys were spared dealing with a tired and grumpy parent!

Now that the boys are home, though, this schedule is terrible! Today we hardly got anything done. I have a few chores I need to complete before I start my break, the day is almost done and I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. Of course, on the old schedule, my real work wouldn’t have even started yet, but I am done with the nocturnal thing.

Once I start the job hunt, I will need to be on a normal schedule. Since it would be murder on me to swing back and forth between day and night schedules every two weeks for the next month or so, I am not. I am just going to switch to a days only schedule and keep it there.

After break, my days will be compressed into what I can get done while the boys are in school. That means I will probably be a lot less productive, but there are no big projects, just a few small ones and wrapping up some big ones, so that should be fine. The challenge will be not getting sucked into any new big projects.

So, for the rest of break, I am taking some time for me. I might get caught up editing a few pictures here and there, but that is pretty much it. I have a small project, also, that I need to complete for my mother’s Christmas gift, but that is a small project. I might also finish the One Day video, but probably not until the boys are back in school.

That is the project, the One Day On Earth video, that was really burning me out, and it is still not done. I put a lot of time into that video and, at this point, I am not crazy about the results. With the limitations of the camera I shot the video on, well, there’s not much more I can really do with it.

I took a break from the video for the last 10 days or so, once the deadline was extended for a month, to get some distance from it and to make some decisions about it.

Pretty much, I needed to decide if it was something that I wanted to put another 40 to 80 hours in to or was it something I wanted to just wrap up and move on from. The break was good. It is time to put a few final touches on it and to move on. I was thinking about recording new music for it, nope. I was thinking about re-cutting the whole thing in Lightworks, nope.

I do need to put a couple more hours into it, but that is all. Upload it and move on. But it took several days of distance from it to realize that this was the best thing to do here.

The other big project I still need to finish is editing and posting all the Occupy Portland material. Of course, that stuff was sort of time sensitive, so the longer I go without posting it, the less relevant it becomes, the less of a priority... Still, I do want to get it up while it is still something of a current event and before it becomes history. But at this point, January is fine.

And that is about it. All that stuff, in a nutshell, was 2011. And since I am putting everything not done at this point off until 2012, that means my year is done. And I am tired. It is time for a long break and a lot of rest.

See you next year. It should be an interesting one!

from tag Rubblebase

from tag SE2

from tag Rubble

(more..)

Sunday, November 20, 2011

A strange trip through the past year…

From 2011-11 (Nov)

I didn’t re-read everything I migrated over from the old Live Journal blog tonight, other than glancing at a few paragraphs here and there…

The last year was an uncommon year. An unusual year. And it is a year I hope not to have to repeat ever again.

A lot of “spam” out to the social networks today. Looks like Facebook and Twitter quit taking the Hootsuite posts. Maybe I should have scheduled them. That would have been more work than it was worth, though.

Now, as I go back through the remaining nine years worth of posts, I am not going to post them at the top of the blog, I am going to back date them. But I knew this was a lightly posted though eventful year, so I thought it would be interesting (okay, maybe a few years from now) to have the details sorted out in order like this. Of course, since they are out of sequence now, I may never be able to find them later!

Blah. A couple chores and then bed. Long day tomorrow.

The main reason I wanted to jam through all of that, though, was to test out the new posting system, and I would call it a success. Also, I was able to populate delicious.com with a lot of posts from all four blogs to help get the new “Related Posts” app up, running, and functional.

Yea!

from tag Hootsuite

Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Sunday… Test Driving Microsoft Live Writer on a self-declared National Day of Nothing

from tag Rubble

from tag SE2

from tag Facebook

(more..)

Permissive parents: Curb your brats

Originally posted on Live Journal: Suburban Eschatology Part Two

@ 2011-07-07 10:34:00

Note: November 20, 2011, 6:55 PM

Been working on tweaking and changing some of the tools I use to post, and the new method makes it very easy to migrate posts from one blog to another. Eventually, I would like to move everything over here from the old LJ blog, but that is not a huge priority right now.

However, working on the system for doing that, I did want to move a few over tonight. I posted a couple on their original publication date and posted a few for tonight.

In the future, I will probably just sneak most of them in behind the current posts on their original date.

I will also be working on a couple years worth of posts that were pulled down off of Rubble when it was repurposed and never put up anywhere else, the new SE2 or the old.

Permissive parents: Curb your brats - CNN.com

From the article:

If you had "the look," you wouldn't need to say much of anything at all. But this nonverbal cue needs to be introduced early and reinforced diligently with consequences for transgressions, just like potty training. And whenever a kid throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the shopping mall it's just as bad as his soiling his pants to spite his parents, and it stinks just as much.

I have seen a small child slap her mother in the face with an open hand, only to be met with "Honey, don't hit Mommy." I have seen kids tell their parents "Shut up" and "Leave me alone" at the top of their lungs -- and they are not put in check. I shake my head knowing it's only going to get worse from here.

I've seen what worse from there looks like. It is not pretty and not good for the child, let alone anyone else.

And how to get there, this is a great article... This is essentially the system I am using at home with my metaphorical pants soiler.

Behavior Modification (www.healthcentral.com/adhd/treatment-160825-5.html)

Setting up a behavior modification program takes hard work, dedication, commitment and cooperation between parents, teachers and caregivers. The following seven steps will help you to create your own system, catered to the individual needs of your children.

ADHD is more of a problem with the big one, not the little one who was recently having some serious behavioral crises, but these approaches have been working really well with him. I just read this article for the first time today, but it pretty much sums up what I am doing at home to get the little one back on track.

Comments from the original post…

freerangemama.typepad.com
2011-07-07 12:13 pm (local)

I saw that CNN article and was very put off by it - I think it may be a fashionable viewpoint, but is a simplistic way of looking at human behavior.

I could go on, but here are a few bloggers that mirror my thoughts a bit:
http://www.raisingmyboychick.com/2009/10/dancing-between-the-tables-on-the-personhood-of-children/?wpmp_switcher=desktop

http://freeplaylife.com/?p=4621

I also read the behavior modification article you posted. I realize that every parent has to do what works for them, but I cringe at the idea that rewards and consequences are some sort of magic bullet. Of course I'm from the Alfie Kohn school of thought on rewards, so it's not my thing to begin with, but I think raising well-adjusted children is so much deeper than just behavior.

Behavior is a symptom, not a cause, imo. One thing the article does get right, I think, is the idea that the parent needs to really look at their own behavior. Any time I have ever felt that my kids were not behaving appropriately, I try to look at myself first to find the problem. It's always there - my attitude, my expectations, my language, the behaviors I'm modeling, my choices. When I modify my own behavior, the kids' behavior follows.

I'm not suggesting that you change your approach - your family is in crisis mode,and you are not starting from a baseline of happy connectedness. You have do what you can. What I am suggesting is that behavior modification might get you to a place of order, but if you want to get to a place of happy connectedness, it takes going much deeper. I wish you all the best.

aflitt
2011-07-07 12:18 pm (local)

Of course, this stuff is only about 1% of being a parent.

from tag Rubble

Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Permissive parents: Curb your brats

from tag SE2

from tag Parenting

from tag Family

from tag Video

(more..)

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Evolution Of The Blogger: Which Type Of Blogger Are You? [Infographic] - SocialTimes.com

From 2011-11 (Nov)

This is pretty good... I've been doing this since the early days. I remember the sudden transformation from "weblog" or "links log" to "blog" very well. I thought it was annoying then. Now, I suppose, I am just used to it. The majority of these, yeah... I've been one at one point or another.

The Evolution Of The Blogger: Which Type Of Blogger Are You? [Infographic] - SocialTimes.com:

Blogging has roots all the way back to the early 1990s, when forum members would keep accounts of their day-to-day activities and in 1994 the first real blog, Justin’s Links, hit the web. Blogging has come a long way since the ‘90s, with over 156 million public blogs in existence as of February 2011. Everyone is blogging, from moms to techies to artists and politicians, and a fun infographic from Flowtown examines the blogging ecosystem.
...

We begin with the early categories of bloggers—the Emo Blogger (that favored LiveJournal), the Angry Blogger (that used the web as an outlet), and the obsessive blogger (that wrote about a single area or topic). These blogger types paved the way for a variety of other bloggers—political bloggers, travel, tech and food bloggers and more which, in turn, paved the way for Apple fan boy bloggers, gaming bloggers, activists, DIY, fashion, art & design and other topics. Today we’ve got bloggers blogging about virtually everything.

'via Blog this'

Friday, November 4, 2011

~26,181 Views Last Month: October Statistics Wrap-Up

These numbers are a bit rough, but I believe that they offer a fair account of the activity involving my sites, pictures, etc. across the web.

I am surprised. Basically, this is all since March or so, with a few exceptions here and there.

So, 62,387 views of my stuff on the web, mostly since March.

And things are starting to take off, since approximately 26,181 of these views have occurred in the last month. I do not know if that growth rate will continue or not. I would be surprised if it did, but hey... This is not a bad start for the Rubblebase sites and their associated content.

Taking over the world? Not yet. A decent start? Surely.

A closer look:

Rubble:
Last month: 1,531
All Time: 8,106*

Democracy In Distress:
Last Month: 4,198
All Time: 9,395*

Retrovirus Lab:
Last Month: 1,282
All Time: 1,615**

Suburban Eschatology Part Two:
Last Month: 368
All time: 602**

Panoramio.com:
Last Month: 5,101
All Time: 13,236***

Photobucket:
Last Month: 3,685
All Time: 17,325****

Picasa Web Albums:
Last Month: 1,719
All Time: 3,811*****

YouTube:
All Time - Channel: 208
All Time - Uploads: 562

And now for the very new kids on the block. Considering that these properties are not being promoted in any real way and contain little actual content, it is more than I'd expect for them.

Rubblebase:
Last Month: 114
All Time: 114

A. F. Litt:
Last Month: 85
All Time: 85

This has been a fun post. The internet keeps crashing out, so I've had about a five minute break between each entry here. Fun. Throw your router out the window fun. And this is the new, "good" one.

* Blogger has been keeping stats since May 2009, these blogs have been around much longer. However, since they were essentially dormant until March 2011, they do reflect the activity on these blogs during their current, active incarnation.

** These blogs were created in August 2011.

*** Since August 2011, when I first started posting on this site.

**** I hate Photobucket and rarely use it. I believe 11,007 is the total since May, not March, since I had 10,909 hits on June 15. I've arrived at this static by adding the monthly counts since June to 10,909, which is probably more accurate, but still leaves 15 days worth of hits unaccounted for.

***** I began recording statistics on Picasa in March, 2011. I was posting to the site earlier, but not by much, so this should be a fairly accurate statistic.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Photo of the Day by the King of Spamalot & "Mountain Cats" by Talkdemonic

From 000-FB Photo of the Day

Photo of the Day, October 12, 2011. Taken October 17, 2009. Butte Creek Scout Ranch. Near Scotts Mill, Oregon. October 17, 2009.

View this photo and buy prints on deviantART.

I am the King of Spamalot. I just had an email go out through ReverbNation to about 56 people I know about being a part of a mailing list I am putting together (though will probably never use). I didn't think much of it, since it is to people I know.

A few minutes later, though, I realized that my name might not be on it anywhere, just Retrovirus Lab. So yeah, that was me. Let's see if I just got myself kicked off that service!

On top of it, as I am connecting with some other groups through these sites, my social networks are getting pretty jammed up with notices. I am trying to keep them on the Retrovirus Lab page, not on my regular Facebook page, but they tend to go their first before I can get them off. Only leaving the really good ones up there.

Good ones like these folks below. Here is a song, just for the hell of it... Discovered them on my travels through the interwebs today... Probably won't get to a picture today, either. So I threw one up at the top of this post and am calling it the Photo of the Day.

Meanwhile, everyone was home sick today. Everyone, but me, is feeling better now. Blah. Maybe that can be my excuse...

Cross posting this everywhere...

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Too Much 21st Century

Yes, too much. I am feeling overwhelmed with life issues, internet issues, hardware issues, etc. There is a lot going on right now. Yesterday, I was busy here and there and even ran out of time to post my Photo of the Day.

So, what all is going on?

Well, first of all, a whole lot of life with the boys. The little one is doing great. He is down to one real issue at school (and at home), and it is one he has progressed tremendously on since April, though it was the one he had the most distance to travel on. Overall, he is happier and healthier than I have ever seen him. No exaggeration.

The big one, not so much. At home he is happy and healthy, but this school year has been a real challenge for him so far. It's required a lot of work with his case manager and teachers down at the middle school. I think we have a good system and routine put in place for him now, but it will still take a lot of work to get him up to speed with middle school and the seventh grade. In some ways, I fear we may have done him a dis-service in letting him continue on to seventh grade after, essentially, skipping the sixth, but it is too late, for now, for that. We do have a meeting coming up later this week to review where he is and where he is going at school...

And that is the main thing right now, and it is a lot of work. But of course, I can't stop and I still have a couple hours here and there everyday to work on some personal stuff.

So, what else?

There have been the computer and home network issues. I've got that mostly taken care of, though it was real fun (sarcasm) having to rebuild my frankenPC twice in a month. But it is worth it and it is humming along very well right now, as is the home network. Unfortunately I still have to spend a lot of time this week copying files from the laptop to the frankenPC, which is repeated work, which I hate. I just finished that project when one hard drive died and I accidentally formatted one of the other, good drives, erasing all the files that I'd just finished spending hours moving. No permanent data losses, fortunately, just a lot of wasted work

Of course, in the process of setting up a "new" computer (twice in a month) and network, there was an opportunity to take a fresh look at a lot of my software solutions... primarily my email and my calendar.

So I've bounced from my stupid, evil crash happy Microsoft Calendar program to Yahoo. Since I am back and forth between two computers (and hopefully getting back to work in the next couple months, as soon as the issues with the boys get a little more stable), an on-line solution seemed to be the best replacement. So I spent some time getting everything transferred and updated and set up as I like it.

The only real downside I have right now is that I have to be online to access my calendar. Not a problem with the network issues sorted out, but it can be a problem later, and if I start wandering out and about with my laptop more... Plus there are the longer term goals of having a calendar that both Jenna and I can access to keep each other up to date on boy appointments, especially when she moves...

But then, of course, while updating everything on the frankenPC, I found that the best solution for me might be using Microsoft Live... and then I need to move back, essentially, to where I started while keeping all of the flexibility I have now while still being able to access everything while off-line. Or I could move to Google, which Jenna just started using and also seems to offer an off-line solution.

And then email. Found a new email program that really works well for my computing needs right now, but that, also, is making me look at moving the calender to integrate it with my email program. Blah. Also, I decided that after using the same email address for over a decade that it is time to start with a fresh one. That old address has been around for so long and used as a mask on so many spam emails over the years that it triggers way too many spam filters. It is time to start over. Nothing dramatic.

I will still receive email at the old address, but from now on I'll be sending from a new one and, when I give it out, I'll be giving out the new one. Not too worried about having people update their existing contact information for me, though. I plan a slow transition here. If you want to know the new one, it is the same as the old one, just at Hotmail instead of at Yahoo.

So there is all of that. No brain surgery, but a lot of little nit picking stuff.

Moving on... Still buried in pictures I need to edit, still trying to populate my Panoramio account and to get a big presence on Google Earth and Google Maps... Still trying to find some time to get the tags set up on my current blogs and to repopulate this blog with old entries taken from Rubble when it was re-purposed. Now, having moved, I'd also like to move the old entries from Live Journal, but that will take some time and it is not a huge priority for me right now.

My main project, in general at this time, is to be setting up my web presence for the upcoming job hunt. To get everything well streamlined and portfolio ready. Eventually, this means creating a portal style home page for all these little blogs and photo collections and everything else everywhere. A portal site, yes, but also a home for an actual portfolio, housing photos, clips, work samples, etc. This is something that I feel I really need to get done before I seriously start job hunting.

However, before I start building that site, I want to make sure all these little corners of the internet are stable, well put together, look nice, are well copyeditied (yeah, right) and so forth. So that means making a couple changes, and is why this is being posted on a new blogger blog instead of my old LiveJournal.

I hated the way LJ looked. Plus, I want to make this site consistent visually with my other ones. While I could have tweaked and prodded and poked LJ into looking better, it just seemed easier to re-start it here where I can knock everything but the header/logo design out in under an hour. Since I also, right now, have several years worth of old entries sitting on my laptop, in limbo between Rubble and SE2, this seemed like a good time to make this move, before I started moving them onto LiveJournal, only to have to move them again later.

When I start that project, I will start from the oldest to the newest, going all the way back to some pre-Blogger material I have from 1999 and grokSoup.

Beyond that, I decided to make a new blog to support my music. Sure, it will sit there empty for quite some time until I have the time, energy, funds, space, and other resources to start working on my music again, but since I am in the process of setting up my interweb network of sites and blogs right now, I wanted to put that part of the puzzle into place now.

But of course, that means more work on formatting a blog site, header/logo design and all of that fun stuff. Not to mention some further time spent trying to hack back into some old web pages with forgotten passwords and tied to dead email accounts, and then getting around to posting up some old songs...

All of this design work also means more work transferring more files from the laptop to the frankenPC, where I have better design applications to work with.

Finally, I have a lot of repair work to do on everyone else's hardware. Once I've got my two computers' issues resolved, then I need to get the big one's netbook back up and running for him (it recently went nipples up), and Jenna just bought two, cheap ancient laptops for the boys that she'll need me to spend time on, discovering if they are functional and then, of course, getting them functional and set up for the kids.

Of course, I still want to be throwing new content up online through all of this so I can keep driving my hit counts higher, which is important to my short and long term career goals.

Blah. It is a lot. It is hard to remember to take care of my own health and sanity through all of this. It feels like a lot of pressure, because this is all stuff I feel like I need to get through ASAP so I am ready to hit the job market as soon as the boys are ready for me to be away a bit more. It is hard remembering to take care of my own needs right now. However, I just have to take things one step at a time, keep is all broken down into bite sized chunks, and to not sweat the small stuff or to smell the sweaty stuff.

Yes, I have been struggling with feeling overwhelmed right now. But I also look at everything going on, and everything accomplished since April on all fronts, and it all seems very worth it. Life is good right now, and it is only getting better.

Especially after I post this and take a nap. Then it will be freakin' awesome!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

A Bookkeeping Note…

Sunday, December 9, 2012

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January 2012

February 2012

March 2012

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Monday, February 13, 2012

Products featuring photography by A. F. Litt:

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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

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