GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Notes

  • Inktober ’25, (eight pack 2/4+Divination and the Four Arts)

    Another week. This one goes quickly, and suddenly you’re halfway through!

    ,

    10/8

    RECKLESS

    It was obvious that this should be written on a background. I got plenty of sheets for that. I vaguely remember using my right hand to write this, to make it a little extra reckless.

    ,

    10/9

    heavy

    The one on a background was just for practice, but I liked the touch of color. Plus “sunrise” felt like a nice contrast to “heavy”.

    1/4

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    10/10

    sweep

    This was rough. I wasn’t happy with any of the early versions. But a week ago, I was reminded about the practice of taping two pencils together to test one’s lettering skills. I tried it with two flair pens, then three flair pens, then two brush pens, and which became four brush pens.

    It still took a few tries to get it right. I started on the letter-sized sheets before going to the tabloids. It was sooooo fun to sweep big letters with a megaplex brush pen! But the smaller composition turned out more sweep-y on the screen.

    Sometimes, more fun is not more correct. But always take that detour.

    ,

    10/11

    sting

    Unlike other pieces, this one was straightforward. It always takes a few tries, but it’s nice to not be tortured for every single assignment. Though S’s are always torture.

    That’s what I wrote when drafting this newsletter. But the morning of the assignment, I thought of a making something with a big sloppy brush.

    It was meant to be rough and quick, but with a wide open Saturday I darn sure overcomplicated it. I suspect the best version is the second shot (single barb, green text on white background), but I played a lot in the computer, including learning how to better play with masks and even the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit encoding.

    Last year, I started Inktober thinking I would single-shot a piece every morning. I did that for a couple of days before architecture-school training kicked in. I’m not competitive but a well crafted work is a sign of respect. So if I’m gonna do it, I have to chase a certain level of respectability!

    ,

    10/12

    SHRED

    I tried a few variations on the stripes, but the most literal (figurative?) attempt was the only version that worked.

    Just before uploading this piece, I realized it would read better with a grey background. Last year, I framed each piece inside of a square format (like that “sunrise” piece from January), but my wife pointed out that it was claustrophobic. But once in a while, it’s the right move.

    ,

    10/17

    Drink

    I changed this the morning of the upload. The first one was fine, but insufficient. For this second version, I started with some ornate flourishes that disappeared over 33 tries to get it right.

    ,

    TRUNK

    I tried to mimic a car trunk, but it didn’t work. Those initial attempts led me into Roman capitals. I tried overlapping letters to fit the page; they decided to combine instead.

    ,

    ragged

    Even with pieces with a crazy background, I always test the graph on a clean sheet. I like to make sure that I can do it straight.

    ,

    I just (re)watched Ponyo with the kids. I’ve always remembered it as a bit slow, but maybe I’ve slowed down. It was an absolutely a visual treat. Definitely recommend!

    Last week was Flushed Away, a movie by the Wallace and Gromit studio that was way better than I expected. It’s trapped in the early 2000’s animation style, but a fun story well told!

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—A Divination Journey

    Art and Chance
    In college I played with chance operations in creating art. It never led to anything spectacular, but I loved the idea of delving into randomness to spur the next move.

    Glass Bead Game
    The Herman Hesse novel. I read it. I remember nothing, except the cover the paperback I owned.

    Tai Chi
    The Christian fundamentalists who are scared of yoga should worry about Tai Chi too. The grand ultimate fist is a practice that also leads to eastern philosophy. The body moves the mind.

    Decktet
    A brilliant double suited deck by PD Magnus, whose book of games included a chapter on divination. Instead of contacting the occult, this philosopher deconstructs readings as randomness interacting with the subconscious.

    Tarot
    Once demystified, a Tarot deck is just a 5-suited pack of playing cards, an obvious game development from the standard European 4-suited decks. Not spooky.

    War
    For a while, I played War with my daughter using a cheap tarot deck. After repeated interactions, the deck became as mundane as that copy of Operation collecting dust in the closet.

    Waite-Rider
    I got one. Not a fan. I prefer pip decks.

    Daoism
    It’s the cool Chinese philosophy in this individualistic age.

    Confucianism
    Yin needs its Yang. During the pandemic I finally read the Analects and realized that this old guy also spoke to my sense of societal order, likely due to my upbringing.

    I Ching
    Wait, Confucius was into this book? I should look into it. No surprise that Daoists dig divination, but if Confucians are studying it too, then that’s an universal text.

    Yarrow Stalks
    Divining with yarrow stalks is the best! The half hour it takes about to determine a reading becomes a meditation on the question, calming the mind before contemplating the answer. Any other practice feels like child’s play.

    Too much Tarot
    In spite of memorizing the I Ching, I fell out of the practice. And then I went on a Tarot deck buying spree. It was bit of pandemic mania, but it’s nice to own these lovely art pieces.

    Calligraphy
    Now that I have a productive hobby, I’ve lost interest in divination. Life is simple—work, play with the kids, and graph when I have time. Why delve into the subconscious? I enjoy enough randomness with each stroke of the brush.

    But I do need to get back into Tai Chi. Then again, I don’t need cards or coins to know that.

    —September 2025

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    PPS—More thoughts on divination

    PD Magnus’s chapter on divination in his Decktet book pushed me past any residual Fundamentalist fear of this sort of “occult” activity. Divination is a randomly generated lens for focused self-reflection. And as an atheist now, what is there to fear?

    I started with a crappy tarot deck at the bookstore which sat unused for a decade until I started playing War with my daughter (the fifth trump suit makes it much more fun than with a normal 4-suited deck). After the deck came into regular use as a game deck, I tried a few readings.

    But the booklet that came with that deck was way too predictive. It’s one thing to say “love is in the air”—your brain can plumb a vague comment to find its own meaning. Totally different beast to predict “you will have problems with your lover”. Such definitive pronouncements will implant counter productive seeds. Who knows how that might manifest!

    I also tried a couple readings with the Decktet. PD Magnus did a great job of using vague typologies for pronouncements, just like how I Ching also avoids the overly predictive problem (it can be a bit of a word salad at times).

    I also tried a couple readings with the Decktet. PD Magnus did a great job of using vague typologies for pronouncements, just like how I Ching also avoids the overly specific (sometimes by being a world said). But I’m still wary that this is toying with fire. Not because of any supernatural stuff, but the potential for this practice to reinforce perverse subconscious feedback loops.

    As such, I don’t practice readings while the kids are awake. I don’t hide the books or cards, but I don’t want them thinking that readings are to be trifled with. I doubt I would have properly handled the randomized subconscious before my 40’s.

    But I also rue missing out on playing with I Ching chance operations in my undergrad art classes!

    —August 2021

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    PPPS—The four arts

    With my recent discovery of the joy of sketching, I realized that I am pursuing the Four Arts in a 21st century way.

    Qin (琴) Music
    I need to get on a regular practice schedule but a ukulele and banjo both got strings and make noise. Occasionally I get the timing right and you might call it music.

    Qi (棋) Go
    I got two bookcases of boardgames. A proper scholar would focus on one game, but I like variety.

    Shu (書) Calligraphy
    Well, I’m not writing with a brush. But I am writing a lot, tapping into my poetic side. Plus, with thirty months of as a professional hand draftsman, I’ve got great handwriting when I want to show off.

    (Update: two years later, calligraphy has completely taken over my world. I now understand why the ancients took calligraphy so seriously—it’s endless practice distilled into a moment. And the brush doesn’t lie.).

    Hua (畫) Painting
    Again, no brush. And not silk. But my motley collection of fountain pens and notebooks seem close enough.

    Bonus—Divination
    Hard to be more Chinese than consulting the unknown with fifty sticks. But I’ll also happily check out the Tarot as well. Both have been great ways to delve into the subconscious.

    And so here we are, what’s old is new again. In a new way.

    —August 2023

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    PPPPS—Practice

    March 2025

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  • Inktober ’25, (eight pack 1/4+Dominion)

    This year, I focused on the words. My spring explorations of folded cards pulled me away from the 5 Word Poems and the summer detour into the ruling pen (which loves big) didn’t help with the resuscitating the 5WP format.

    ,

    9/30

    inkTober ’25

    This was done with a dryish brush with old clumpy ink. It made for a great texture on the page, but left a few spot marks on the scanner cause I rushed to get them into the box.

    I cheated slightly, pulling the “ink” to overlap the “Tober”. Even though I try to avoid over processing, I’m not above digital. These compilation posts are my confessional booth.

    I’ve been playing a lot with Gothicized Italics, so it naturally became a big part of this year’s scripts. This was my last assigment for Inktober since it was more important to complete the daily pieces first.

    Last year I tried to make each piece on the morning of the challenge. That’s hard! This year, I finished everything in September while convalescing from the that liver infection. So now I’m posting leisurely and enjoying what others are sharing.

    So really, my true #inktober is copying flourishes from Arthur Baker’s sample books.

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    10/1

    Mustache

    This was made with a ruling pen, dipped in a grey wash of saved water after cleaning my tools.

    I’m really happy with this piece, a strong start to the month. I wasn’t as happy with all thirty-one pieces, but that’s life.

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    10/2

    weave

    Confession: I digitally swapped the final period from bronze to blue.

    This piece is a direct variant of my August experiments with overlapping Gothicized Italics in a notebook.

    8/25

    ,

    This crown was slighted tilted, but the crossed O felt like a gem.

    10/3

    This crown is well balanced and I prefer the curved n as a mirror to the C.

    crOwn

    The red and blue design was a second series after scanning in the initial set. Even so, I’m still not happy with the final piece—calligraphy is an ocean of practice poured into a single moment, that might not go your way. If this was my profession, I’d be obligated to hit perfection, but as a hobby, I can settle.

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    10/4

    murky

    This was made with a Dreaming Dogs Layla ruling pen, which has a slight curve. Videos show that you can make a very wide line, but since I was using the thin grey wash, this is about as wide as I can get.

    I love split line effect when you go really fast with this pen.

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    10/5

    deer

    I had a brutal time with this one. I tried to capture the leap of the Deer using cursive, but was unhappy while scanning it. So I tried making a logo. Again unhappy. Finally found something by starting with a lowercase “d”.

    Fortunately the paper is thick enough to reuse the back of the sheets. Even after failing both sides, they become the background for experiments before attempting finished pieces.

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    10/6

    pierce

    Unlike deer, I had a concept that executed beautifully. There were several pieces that were presentable, but this one stood out with the bleeding red.

    Even then, I’m still a tad dissatisfied with the piece. The piercing action would have been more pronounced if I stopped it inside the opening of the “p”.

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    10/7

    Starfish

    One of my mantras is “when in doubt, add noise”. The ruling pen gave a little splatter, but it had more promise by using the back of a practice sheet. Right before posting this piece, I utilized a new mantra “try inverting”. I don’t love this digital crutch, but it works too often to ignore.

    ,

    That first week in October just flew by. While I’m certain my body is still quietly recovering from my liver infection, the most noticeable thing is catching up at work. Being semi-chastened with that medical scare, I’m now much better at letting things slide into tomorrow.

    There’s always more work.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—Dominion

    My daughter and I have been playing Dominion a lot.

    Even at seven, she reads darn fast. Enough to play a game with lots of text.

    My wife hates wordy card games, but the girl has a lot of fun because she enjoys buying stuff.

    For a while we played without attack cards, but she’s warmed up to the inclusion of such cards when I promised I wouldn’t purchase those cards.

    She also prohibits deck thinning cards. She senses the power of this strategy but has no interest in trashing old purchases.

    The original 2008 base game is better for playing with a child than the revised version. The new deck manipulation cards are fine for lifestyle gamers, but sometimes simplicity is better.

    Either way you can’t go wrong. Dominion is an amazing game. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it when I was gaming every Friday night.

    Then again, it’s damn cool to explore it with my own kids. That’s a trade I’d gladly make, eight days a week.

    —August 2021

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    PPS—Dominion Prosperity

    Top tier awesomeness is hearing your daughter claim Dominion as her favorite game when introducing herself to the 2nd grade class.

    Admittedly, we’re not playing competitively. She’ll take credit if she’s winning, but if she’s losing then we’re on a team while her stuffies take the fall.

    But no matter, she enjoys playing.

    The strategy is simple. Spend all game buying stuff that lets you buy more stuff. A nice intuitive mechanic—even the 3-year old has taken to directing us to “buy” this or that.

    She still won’t let me play the attack cards, but I’m just happy to be able to watch them in action.

    If you like money and buying stuff, Dominion Prosperity is a great addition to the base game. Based on this article by Donald X. Vaccarino, I suspect I’ll be buying Empires for Christmas.

    Is there a better endorsement than continued patronage?

    —September 2021

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    PPPS—Dominion Empires

    Unlike his sister, the boy grew up with an older sibling who gives no quarter.

    So unless it’s Snorta, he only plays cooperative games. As such, Dominion Empires has not gotten much play.

    Two summers ago, I found a cooperative variant. He had fun a couple times as I basically played for both of us. Last week, we watched My Neighbors the Yamadas with subtitles so I realized that he can read at the level to play the game proficiently.

    It worked OK, they enjoyed the time. But she still doesn’t fully enjoy the cooperative version and he still has no interest in playing Dominion competitively.

    —October 2025

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    PPPPS—Practice

    3/5

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  • Leaping into Spring (five pack fifteen+Monkey King+New Tales of the Monkey King)

    The italics is strong in this one!

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    3/4 Inktober 52 (2024), week 18

    breathe
    spirit
    in
    each
    stroke

    I cheated a little in this one, moving some of the words in the box to fine tune the composition. I never feel great about digital manipulation, but as time passes, I feel less guilty about it.

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    3/6

    dirt
    our
    home
    to
    be

    I love how the colors came out on this one, especially the inversion of the colors with the words.

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    3/8 Inktober 52 (2025), week 10

    a
    chain
    of
    black
    daisies

    This 5WP was banked on inverting colors in the computer, but the image of a black daisy won out.

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    3/9 Inktober 52 (2024), week 12

    spring
    forward
    lose
    an
    hour

    It’s interesting to revisit the layering of colored words months after graphing the pieces.. Clearly the top example was the best, but it took a few shots to explore the possibilities. I often compare calligraphy to hitting the slots.

    The greatest thing about the constant practice is that once I land on a good composition, I am supremely confident than I can get it right. Unlike the previous Inktober, I don’t worry about whether I can replicate a good turn of hand from a practice sheet onto the final sheet.

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    3/10 Poetry Haul #9

    try please love
    turn vulnerable

    unraveled sweater
    we broken burden

    alive date
    new fresh chapter

    More play with italics.

    ,

    I am constantly in awe of the Monkey King. I never thought I had any affinity to superheroes until I saw my kids watch old Sun Wukong videos and read the books myself.

    Then I realized I did have a favorite superhero all along, planted when my mom would read stories from old Chinese picture books to me and my sister when we were little kids.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—Monkey King, Wu Cheng’en, trans. Julia Lovell, 2021

    I’m typically too snobbish to read abridged versions, and now I’ve gone through two of them with the Walden audiobook and this Lovell translation.

    In some ways it hearkens to the proscribed system in How to Read a Book where one takes multiple passes at varying levels of detail. I’m pretty good at skimming books, but it certainly helps when someone has done that work for you.

    As for this book itself, it’s one heck of a story. The introduction warns you that this is satire, and it follows through on the promise. The Taoists are venal, the heavenly bureaucracy is minimally competent, the Buddhists aren’t much better, and I don’t think there is a single happy marriage in the book. Our gang of pilgrims are least dysfunctional bunch of the lot, which isn’t saying much.

    As an abridged book, some of the stories are cut as was most of the poetry, which seems to be a distinctive aspect of the original novel. But that’s all good, it’s a fun read and it enticed me to read an unabridged version. Hard to give it higher praise than that.

    After reading an unabridged translation by Anthony C. Yu, I must admit that cutting out the poetry quite impoverishes the experience. As much as I appreciate that this abridged version introduced me to the original, without the poetry it’s like reading a screenplay and ignoring the movie.

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    PPS—A Field Guide to Roadside Wildflowers at Full Speed

    Any excuse to bring up this gem makes it a good day.

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    PPPS—New Tales of the Monkey King

    I guess this TV show was a fun romp.

    I don’t particularly mind the cultural appropriation because it’s way different than the original book and it’s Australian. I got enough problems in my own continent, I can’t get bothered over what they do on the other side of the globe.

    But the first season was just OK. It certainly wasn’t anything that I would have watched without its nominal relationship to the 西遊記.

    Yeah there’s a monk and his/her three disciples. The disciples are all gods in exile, and there are demons in this world, but then it goes off into its own universe.

    Unlike the clear heavenly imperium of the original, the screen writers went for a good versus evil mega-battle—the bane of all superhero comic book movies. It’s a complete change from the original book. Instead of four folks on a long journey, they’ve been dumped into a Manichean struggle.

    Even so, I enjoyed watching how they took an old story and modernize it to a contemporary popular medium. I can’t fault them for taking inspiration from the source and blazing their own trail.

    But I must quibble with their depictions of Monkey and Tripitaka.

    Monkey is depicted as a vain illiterate creature in this show. He’s certainly vain, but he’s a fucking badass. He’s quite literate, he should always be depicted as a Superman.

    I’m fine that they recast Tripitaka a woman. One of the problems in the original story is that it’s a sausage fest. However, the screenwriters are much too kind to Tripitaka whose defining feature should be his helplessness. I dislike that she even learned kung fu in this show. I get that they are trying to avoid the damsel in distress, but if so, they should have chosen a different character to gender shift.

    My the ultimate judgement?

    I never watched Season 2.

    I don’t regret the time spent on the first ten episodes, but if I want to know what happened on this TV show, I’ll just read the Wikipedia synopsis.

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    PPPPS—Practice

    2/24

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  • quacking into march (five pack fourteen+The Mentor Leader+The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck)

    The Portland trip took a lot out of us. The trip was great, but planning and then recovering took a bunch of extra time before and after the actual time off. And then we followed it with a jaunt to San Diego right before school started. Travel is fun, but it eats into “free” time for sure.

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    2/25 Inktober 52 (2024), week 21

    quack quack
    sexy selfie sandwich

    How did duckface became a social media phenomenon? I guess every era needs its thing.

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    2/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 20

    we don’t see our
    mythology

    I went light for a white on white vibe. Then reversed it.

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    3/1 Poetry Haul #8

    somewhere we assemble wonder moon
    meet rich star light award
    fall and honor sun girl

    I had some fun with extended italics as I wrapped up February.

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    3/2 Inktober 52 (2025), week 9

    lamp
    with a fresh genie

    The flat brush runs fine, but I’ve continued to have trouble with cursive with a pointed brush. The Pentel brush pen works great, but I’ve never gotten the hang of normal pointed brushes.

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    3/3

    touching
    hands
    through
    a
    loupe

    I had purchased a collage by Duane Toops and zoomed in with a jeweler’s loupe. Collage is a tactile art, I could see his hand in the cuts and ridges of paper on paper.

    The cursive looks like it has regressed, it might be time to add it back on the list as a monthly focus.

    ,

    Again, it feels like I’m trying to just get something in before another month disappears. Things have been super busy at work. But it’s a good busy. I’m doing good work on great projects.

    I just need to slow down the pace. As much as I hate to admit it, things at the airport can wait, especially as time with the wife and kids continues to drip away.

    I didn’t get this posted in time for August, and then my body revolted to put September on hold for three weeks.

    Even worse, after returning from the hospital with my liver abscess, another family member went to the ER after dropping a bunch of weight and experiencing serious discomfort in the gut.

    The family is going through a bout of organ revolts. We’ve had a good run, so I guess we were due.

    Health shouldn’t be taken for granted, and yet, that is exactly what we do during the good times. One can’t live on permanent high alert, but I need to cultivate a practice of gratitude to savor the quiets between the storms.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—The Mentor Leader, Tony Dungy, 2010

    In 2021, I stopped reading self-help books—I got what I needed out of them.

    After starting a work-related newsletter, I tried to restart the habit to grab some professional ideas to go with my artistic interests.

    Naww, I’m past peak Self-help.

    There’s nothing wrong with this book. This book matches Tony Dungy’s public persona—a quiet dude who makes everyone around him successful.

    I blasted through the book at 2x speed. His main point is that a mentor leader should be humble. Being humble means receding into the background; success is found in elevating those around you.

    I dig it! I bet I’m less humble than I’d like to believe, but I appreciate the appeal of his message.

    Tony goes heavy on Christianity, but given my recent forays into ancient wisdom literature, that’s fine, even as an atheist.

    Worth a quick listen if you’re in the mood for a generic leadership book, though you might remember nothing from it four years hence.

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    PPS—The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson, 2016

    It’s kind of amazing to listen to a self help book and have nothing to say about it, even after trying to come up with an interesting take for a few days.

    Just standard tough love, self-help fare, with a lot of F-bombs. The title is perfect for this book. If you pick it up, you’ll most likely dig it.

    I didn’t disagree with Manson’s main points. There are only so many ways to approach life and his recommendations match how I see things, in spite of his crass delivery.

    • Pick your priorities (chose your f’s).
    • Control your reactions.
    • Owning your world is better constantly being the victim of your own psychodrama.
    • Avoid highs—chemical, relational, any type. They’re temporary and the crash only gets worse the longer you delay.
    • Commitment is freedom. It creates depth versus breadth.
    • Don’t pursue the results, pursue the process. Or if you don’t enjoy the process, give up on the results and chase what you enjoy doing.

    The unconvinced will not be persuaded, but the book is fine if you want another take on such riffs. Another listen for 2x speed.

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    PPPS—Practice

    2/19

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  • Fried Butterfish (five pack thirteen+window decal+emails)

    My cursive in February hit an apex after a January of practice.

    It was also when I finally gave up on the square format for whatever aspect ratio that the piece wanted.

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    2/18 Inktober 52 (2024), week 26

    suddenly
    aware
    the
    butterfly
    slept

    Almost three weeks into February Italics, I was getting a bit more confident with the script, while still playing with brush.

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    2/20 Inktober 52 (2024), week 23

    dino
    with
    batter
    fried
    chicken

    One morning, I spilled a bottle of ink wash. My first move was to grab a sheet of paper to soak up the mess. Made for a great texture!

    ,

    2/21 Inktober 52 (2025), week 8

    fish
    fish
    pisces
    two
    fish

    GIMP has three different ways to invert a piece. In this option, the original colors were kept, except for white and black.

    Inverting a piece absolutely feels like a cheat, but if it works, who am I to refuse the delights of the machine?

    ,

    2/22 Poetry Haul #7

    dream flight
    hosting remote realms

    black haze
    guarding seven wishes

    deeper songs
    access slumbering people

    I love the when a page shows layers of partial stanzas frozen in messy process.

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    2/24 Inktober 52 (2024), week 24

    off
    on
    knock out
    over

    I am super comfortable with the Pentel brush pen, but have not found a straight brush that feels right for calligraphy. Trying to do so would be an expensive pursuit. Art gets really expensive when you forsake satisficing for maximizing.

    ,

    I can’t believe we’re in mid-May. How does a year fly? I need to internalize the Cult of Done Manifesto and push things out faster.

    Or maybe just enjoy the pace I got. It’s a balance when navigating internet hobbies, especially when work is super busy.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—Fuck you and your family

    During the pandemic, I took daily walks and found a black Honda Pilot plastered with obnoxious bumper stickers and window decals—stick figures in various poses, a few f-bombs, and this window decal.

    This was the only one that was remotely amusing.

    I get a kick out of other families’ windshield representation of themselves. The basic stick figure trope as well as Disney, Star Wars, football, and this version cursing at everybody.

    I’m not impressed with crudity for its own sake. Curses lose their sting when used wantonly, but this window decal was playful.

    Subverting expectations is too highfalutin’ a descriptor, but at least it had something beyond the other gas station bathroom humor on that car. The occasional zag against the mainstream can land, even if being a dick just makes you a dick.

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    PPS—Waiting for emails

    The start of the school year was rough. The school district’s distance learning program was totally overwhelmed with new enrollees in Fall 2021 due to the sudden rise of the Delta variant.

    Even though we had been enrolled for a months, this fresh turmoil meant we did not receive any information. So we headed into the first day of school not knowing her teacher, when we should meet, etc.

    At least we picked up a Chromebook and some textbooks earlier in summer.

    This wait was a special sort of torture, hitting refresh on my email every few minutes hoping to receive a missive from her new teacher. I even waded back into Facebook to check in on other parent’s frustrations. Misery loves company.

    Then I would blame myself for the anxiety. Sure, it would be nice to start with a special sort of excitement. But who really cares if it day one is a whimper or a bang?

    Soon enough, none of this anxiety would matter. She would hard at work with whichever teacher she got. Who cares if she misses out on a few days of second grade instruction? We’ll still be in here.

    (Ultimately, it turned out to be a bigger mess than I feared. The first month was a wreck with a substitute trying to learn her way in the worst possible circumstances. Fortunately, the school district enticed a cadre of devoted teachers to tackle a second shift and our girl ended up learning in the evenings that year. It’s all an ancient memory as she heads into middle school).

    In that moment, life reminded that in spite of our era of instant communication, we don’t always get what we want when we want it. Even if it felt necessary.

    Character traits are earned by doing, so I guess I owe the gods some gratitude for this chance to practice patience.

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    PPPS-Practice

    2/5

    I started my daily practice with extra printed templates that I used on the lightbox. This was the last of these printouts before transitioning to binder paper. It’s much cheaper and they’re lined on both sides!

    Then again, it was fun to be reminded about how I would maximize these sheets with layers in light colored ink—a habit that I’ve continued during my morning meditations.

    One day I should try out cross-cursive.

    .

  • Mixing it up (five-pack twelve+Bissell Vaccum+Stainless Steel Pans)

    It’s a pain to track which goes with what…so I’m mixing up the Inktober 52 prompts with my own 5WP’s. Bon Appetit!

    ,

    2/10 Inktober 52 (2022), week 51

    flickering
    victorians
    pacing
    gaslit
    verandas

    This was the last 5WP for an informal series on magic using Inktober prompts. I had a rough time composing this piece. When I was younger I would be disappointed the deflation that comes with the end of a project. Now I’m just used to it. On to the next!

    ,

    2/11 Poetry Haul #3

    shoulders cry pleading
    seeking peace

    hibernation silo
    free body struggle

    frequently understatement ever
    vigilant rights

    You really can’t cross the same river twice. In early February, I had just come off of a month of pointed brush work. I don’t think I could do this right now. Even though I’m still practicing daily, I’ve lost the edge that comes with focusing on it solely every morning.

    To do this again, I’d have to relive January, like the Borges story where Pierre Menard creates a life to spontaneously re-create Don Quixote.

    ,

    2/13 Inktober 52 (2024), week 28

    ratty
    rebels
    raided
    royal
    realms

    I save of all my scrap sheets. This was graphed on a test page for my team holiday cards. Of course, many attempts to work on such sheets also don’t turn out, so they just get blacker over time!

    ,

    2/16 Inktober 52 (2025), week 7

    4
    triangles
    make a
    pyramid

    I love calligraphy due to its handcraft. But the final deliverable is always on a screen. So am I a digital artist?

    Maybe. Two months after the initial publication, I can’t remember the original ink color (turned out it was pink). The background was obviously an addition after the fact. And actually, this is version 2 because I had originally uploaded one where the script color opacity came out differently between the sky and sand backgrounds.

    So yes, this is absolutely a piece of digital art. But in this digital age, is everything digital art? Maybe that’s a meaningless distinction? Everything flits across a universe of flickering rectangles, while the “real” work sits inside an old cardboard Sun Chips box.

    ,

    2/15 Poetry Haul #6

    vision notified
    no cold hope

    dismiss despair
    supply prove dream

    remarkably somewhere
    slam hot truth

    Like clockwork, I start publicly running the script of the month after two weeks of practice. After fourteen days, I’m comfortable with the muscle memory even if it hasn’t hit full smoothness.

    On the third week, it gets locks in, edging towards boredom. By week four I’m playing with variations on the script.

    By week six or seven I feel like I’ve already lost the script, or that it’s merged with the new script of that next month.

    It’s a slightly depressing cycle, but no skill is permanent.

    ,

    If even knowledge is impermeant, I guess a cardboard box of papers ain’t a bad parting gift.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—Bissell Vacuum Cleaner

    We’ve tried a few vacuum cleaners over the years. We have a $400 Miele in the closet, and we’ve also spent similar sums on a couple of cordless Dysons.

    But our workhorse is an $18 Bissell. We’ve bought four of them. The first one died. The second for my mother-in-law and then we accidentally bought two more online when we were moving into our place. No matter, just keep one up and downstairs.

    It’s just a little handheld vacuum with a handle extension and a flat insert to let you push it along the floor.

    That’s the magic. So cheap you’re never scared to use it. Dirty kitchen. Suck it up. Laminate floors? Without brushes, this vacuum can’t ruin anything. No bags to track. Just dump it out and wash the filter.

    And no batteries! This thing runs forever. Light and nimble, well worth the hassle of occasionally swapping plugs when vacuuming a large area.

    The cheapest product came out to be the best one. At least the most regularly used everywhere, and is there a better definition of “best” for a household appliance?

    ,

    PPS—Stainless Steel Baking Pans

    We bought an 8″x10″ baking pan, a few years ago. Small enough to fit a toaster oven. Works great. Flat plate of stainless steel with a slight rolled rim. Nice and shiny.

    And a second one last year, so we could swap back and forth, but we gave one to our in-laws.

    But I got cute with the third one. Intsead of reordering the exact same item, I got one that came with a little grill rack.

    It was so small!

    I double checked. The dimensions were super close, just off one inch in each direction: 7×9 versus 8×10.

    Do the math.

    63 square inches to 80 square inches. I bought something that was almost a quarter smaller than the original!

    What an embarrassing display of innumeracy. My mental math is great…if I use my brain.

    But the rack is nice. We’ve gotten good use out of it. No complaints.

    .

    PPPS—Practice

    2/12

    Around mid-February I realized that I would totally lose the straight brush if I didn’t practice it regularly. So I started filling the empty lines between the main scripts with cursive.

  • Cursive, Uncial, Italics (five-pack eleven+Word by Word+Bird by Bird)

    I’m procrastinating on taxes by compiling this post. Taxes are a cost of society and a lovely spring buzzkill. On the bright side, we’re about to head out to an airshow at Nellis, so I’m getting our fair share of entertainment (and propaganda) for these taxes.

    ,

    1/29

    daddy, you look more chinese!
    (without glasses)

    The boy is still earnestly drops lines of joy. I wonder how much longer it will last; it’s all so fleeting.

    ,

    1/30

    fried
    onion
    topping
    my
    cereal

    I do love fried onions.

    For a week in January, I played with funky Uncials, and it’s on the list to revisit for a full month. I wonder if I will ever stumble into a particular script that “is it“. Likely not—I’m a too into variety and impatient for perfection.

    ,

    1/31

    unruly mindless fake constitutional scholars

    unforgettable kerfuffle eggheads evaporate around

    senior space gang, andromeda chapter

    These poetry hauls can be challenging! But it’s always fun to make them work. I love the mental picture of an alien biker gang who faux-studied our founding fathers.

    ,

    2/5

    … and the pursuit of Leisure

    This was inspired when Thomas J Bevan announced a Symposium on Leisure. I’m super happy with both of these. A couple months later, I’m not confident if I could do this today. The downside of picking up new scripts is losing old ones along the way.

    ,

    2/9

    trauma rejection surpass interior style

    diversity through self illusion recognition

    analyze capital ammunition beyond currency

    I made a mistake on “interior” so I rewrote the poem on a single page—which I immediately recognized was the right format for these poetry haul exercises. Sometimes you gotta keep doing something until the right format arrives. Repetition is the heart of process.

    ,

    Between commenting on two-month old 5WP’s and editing four-year old blog drafts, these newsletters have become an exercise in archeology.

    I do appreciate each of y’all who read and comment on them. Thanks for joining my delve into the past!

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—Word by Word, Ann Lamott, 1996

    Bird by Bird is such a classic that the library has a long wait for the audiobook. So I started with this recorded seminar that she gave in Austin.

    I dig it—I’ll be reading Bird by Bird.

    Three key takeaways.

    1. If you’re gonna be a writer, then write. Getting published is only a result of writing.
    2. Find a writing group to work through this all together.
    3. Draw deeply from reality.

    I appreciate her suggestion for writer’s block. Give yourself permission to think. If you can’t write, then maybe force yourself to not write for a while. Sometimes your brain needs space to recharge.

    ,

    Here are a few other exercises that sounded fun (though I haven’t tried them in the four years since I listened to that workshop).

    • List 10 favorite words.
    • Spend 300 words on someone you truly hate.
    • Describe yourself in detail five and ten years from now.
    • Where you would want to live, do it in exquisite detail.
    • Why you are here, why do you insist?

    ,

    PPS—Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, 1995

    Vulnerable, crass, funny. Brilliant! I see why it’s a classic writing workshop in a book. Anne explores the difficulty of the process, and exhorts the reader to do the work.

    She doesn’t shy from the benefits of the writing life, but reminds us that outside success isn’t all that special. Our personal problems don’t disappear after our shell gets polished.

    So, it’s about sitting down and writing. Work and make it happen. Taking things one “small assignment” at a time. Finding a cohort to work with.

    Don’t be disappointed when a project always ends with a whimper. (They all do.) Life keeps moving. The process stays going.

    TLDR: Sit down every day, jump in, flail around, do a bit at a time, gut yourself to examine the innards, deliver, and do it again tomorrow. It’ll add up to a good life.

    ,

    Speaking of Process, a friend and I started a journal of student work at Berkeley that lasted for two issues. It darn near killed me both years. For the longest time I thought it was a waste (aside from meeting one of my best friends). As a middle-aged man, I’ve learned that friends are rare. A buddy is one helluva a haul for a project.

    ,

    This book is nominally about writing, but her subtitle is perfect: “Some Instructions on Writing and Life”. Her notes on completing a book mirror too closely to the work I’ve done as an architect. Writing might be her profession, but this book transcends her medium.

    ,

    It is refreshing to read a self-help book by a great writer. The book shines; you don’t have to trust claims of her excellence in some other field—the proof is right here, page by page. Her display of craft makes her advice all the more visceral as she bares her soul and wrestles with the difficulty of life.

    .

    PPPS—Happy Year of the Snake!

    .

  • another month of 52’s (five-pack ten+10 bits for a creative practice+self help junky)

    I’m now distant enough from these pieces they’ve become surprises to revisit. I should to accelerate the release of these five-packs, but things are about to crazy at work. If I fall further behind, that will let them age longer as old surprises to uncover.

    ,

    2/6 Inktober 52 (2024), week 19

    world
    floating
    in
    a
    jar

    I had a rough time with the composition, and I need to take a month to practice the sign painting script to hit right. Even so, I’m happy with this final version, even if it took a little computer magic to make it work.

    ,

    2/7 Inktober 52 (2022), week 9

    uhoh
    them
    mops
    gots
    buckets

    In retrospect, I the sign painted UH-OH would have worked better, but in the moment I pushed the cursive in the finished versions. I’m looking for a good pointed brush outside of my Pentel pens, but it will take a few tries to get right. That’s gonna be an expensive exercise since it requires buying individual brushes.

    ,

    1/25 Inktober 52 (2025), week 4

    aquarius
    poor
    ganymede
    mixing
    nectar

    I’ve been starting my mornings by practicing the my script of the month. Pushing the finished piece with the hue function gave it a nice watery feel, by changing the colors. My main practice inks are yellow and pink because they are quite dry (so they don’t heavily on cheap paper).

    BTW the original Aquarius myth is sad, if not traumatic. Them Greeks told things real. Same for the Bible, even if we normally gloss over those parts.

    ,

    2/1 Inktober 52 (2025), week 5

    we’re all in this zoo

    As always, there are so many little decisions that must be made after the overall concept. Again, the practice sheet came to the rescue, adding a little extra noise to give the composition presence.

    ,

    2/8 Inktober 52 (2025), week 6

    a light in the swamp

    The top two versions are tweaks of the same scan. All versions were done as black/grey ink on white paper and then inverted in GIMP. After that, it’s about how hard to push the dials.

    ,

    As much as I’d prefer to do it all perfectly on the page, the computer is an integral part of my process. These discussions about process are my penance for relying so much on the box.

    Similar to the writing seminar in undergrad, I suspect my most influential class in grad school was the digital photography course with Frank White. As an architectural photographer, he unapologetically embraced the computer as part of the process.

    Of course, the process is a lot harder if you don’t start with good inputs, but the final piece is the final piece. Excuses about what happened along the way don’t matter for the deliverable.

    That’s how I do it here. I’m not above the occasional process photo to flashthat I can do most of it in real life. I’m not hiding anything, whether it came from the pen or was pushed in the computer.

    It just is.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—10 Bits For a Creative Practice

    I wrote this as a response to someone’s post in early 2024, but the records have been drowned in the endless feed of content. I liked this enough to save it as a draft and it’s finally time to reshare it.

    1. Show up every day.
    2. Jump in! FFS just start.
    3. Study the greats.
    4. Celebrate your peers.
    5. Don’t freak out about bad work.
    6. Tension is the trigger to breathe. Relax.
    7. If you can’t do it slow you can’t do it fast. No rush.
    8. Pivot freely.
    9. If the crop feels wrong, the crop IS wrong. (Trust your gut)—an aphorism I learned in that photography class.The concept of trusting default triggers has served me well over the decades for many things beyond images.
    10. Do it again tomorrow!

    .

    PPS—Self Help Junky

    Another response to someone else (exactly who lost in the endless feed).

    As a former self-help junky, I’m a big fan of the anti-self-help movement. Of course, a moderate approach is generally best in life, but if you could only pick path I’d recommend skipping self-help.

    But I’m moderating this reactionary stance after reading Kenny Werner’s Effortless Mastery.

    I wonder if the question for judging a book is “how” versus “what”. Don’t invest in books that tell you what to do (or avoid). But there might be value in books that explore how to get somewhere that you already want to reach.

    In that spirit, here is a quartet of self help books that might be of use:

    1. Fail-Safe Investing, Harry Browne (great life-finance advice, though do your own research on portfolio composition because the specifics are dated)
    2. So Great they Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport (good compilation of career advice for someone entering the workforce)
    3. Several Short Sentences about Writing, Veryln Klinkenborg (this book goes beyond writing to life, even if a bastardized version of his advice has infected LinkedIn with punchy shallow drivel.)
    4. Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner (a slow approach to practice, nominally about music but it applies to anything. It’s a distant second best to Tai Chi training at a good school.)

    All that said, the Bhagavad Gita would trump all of these books, even if it’s profane to place this text next to self-help fare. May the gods forgive me.

    But always be ready to ignore anything that you read in these books. Never confuse the author’s confidence in their advice for it’s applicability to your wild and wooly reality.

    .

    PPPS—Black to Yellow

    For giggles I took a brush pen with black in and put in a cartridge with Lamy Mango Yellow. The first sheet shows the transition from pure black (marked with the cyan slash on the second line) to yellow.

    1/24

    Interestingly, when I went back for more practice, there was still some more black that came out of the brush.

    1/24

    The next morning I made the “aquarius” 5WP (above), which had more black sneaking out (every other line was made with that black-mango ink, the other lines were made with the former mango pen, now filled with a pinkish ink).

    Funny how these things play. The joy of the real world!

    .

  • 40 words (five-pack nine+Wisdom Books)

    It’s fun to revisit old 5WP’s in these compilations. Some of them far back enough that I’ve forgotten that I made them!

    ,

    1/14

    present
    is
    time
    right
    now

    Decades ago, I watched Mike Ditka spout “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift—that’s why they call it the Present.” I usually quote it ironically, but I can’t deny that it stuck.

    ,

    1/16

    one
    glance
    aged
    the
    strainer

    One afternoon, I looked at our metal kitchen strainer and realized that it had been thoroughly beat up over its years of service. I never noticed the kinks and divots in the frame, and I’m back to being blind to it. The power of the thing overwhelms the thing of the thing.

    ,

    1/19

    lost long blame empty vessel

    interstellar crime missing alien gem

    phenomenal floating history endless wish

    More fun with the pointed brush cursive and the Artstack Poetry Haul challenges. Between February (italics) and January (pointed brush) it seems that it takes about two weeks of practice to get confident in running a new script on the 5WPs.

    ,

    1/21

    bright
    flashes
    through
    plastic
    slats

    Las Vegas lights up with illegal fireworks on July 4th and New Years Eve. This 5WP was surprisingly tricky. I tried a few arrangements that fell flat, including this one. It was rescued by my old axiom “when in doubt, add noise” with the wash lines for slats.

    ,

    sing this pen on page

    time passing in this book

    I finished another notebook on 1/24/2025 (started 10/14/2024). Turns out that bound composition books are not fun to graph on, especially at the end when everything feels wrinkled. One day I’ll find at good use for the ones still at home. Until then, I’m sticking to spiral notebooks for quickly graphed 5WPs.

    For this psuedo-triptych, I included the back page of the journal where I had started practicing with the brush around November. I’m really happy with the refinement that happened over three weeks of daily practice.

    It wasn’t fun to start with the pointed brush, so it’s a nice reminder to get uncomfortable because that’s where the new growth is hiding.

    ,

    I am finally finishing my Alphabet Magic series. The sketches were completed in 2023, but the publishing of those sketches and photos has dragged on (the calligraphy detour didn’t help!)

    Last week, I made a big push to edit the images. I had been annoyed by the Windows photo editor but I’m super happy after using GIMP (which I learned due to the calligraphy detour.) Plus these posts pair great with new and ancient drafts of those Penny Delight poem-proses.

    It’s awesome to close out a long unfinished project. I am a firm believer in just pushing stuff out there. In the process of publishing, synchronicity swoops in and creates connections that can’t be planned in advance.

    Keep exploring and cya next time!

    ,

    PS-The Wisdom Books, Robert Alter

    As part of my wisdom kick, I picked up a copy of Robert Alter’s translation of Job, Proverbs, and Qoholet (Ecclesiastes).

    Job is an enigma. A good dude gets crushed, argues about whether he deserved it, and God pops in to yell at everybody.

    In a world with a human-ish diety, it reads weird. This book makes more sense for an atheist. We might have some agency, but we’re buffeted by the whims of grand forces beyond our control—society, fate, nature. We don’t matter. We’re fleas on the tiger, hopefully it takes us to a good place, but there ain’t no guarantees.

    Arguing about fault is fruitless. The competing monologues between Job and his accusers are just Tweet-storms between opponents talking past each other.

    I respect canon and the filter of time. Anything from the ancients that made it to the present must have something worth reading, even if I reserve the right to pick and chose what to believe from the good book. One day, I should read the rest of the Bible without god. I wonder if I will enjoy it more.

    Robert Alter’s introduction and commentary helps make sense of an otherwise befuddling text. I really enjoy his opinions on the development of the text. It’s hard to kick the reflexive perspective of hardcore divine inspiration, so it’s nice to have someone say, “yeah the text is corrupt here.” The confusion isn’t all on me as a puny reader. At a practical level, the formatting (using the main text over footnotes on the same page) is superb, the information is always immediately at hand.

    ~

    Unlike Job, Proverbs did not hold up, in spite of fond memories reading this book many times as a kid.

    It did not utterly bore me as the “Wisdom of Solomon” (all sizzle and no steak), but there was more noise to signal than I had remembered. The memorable images are still there (the lazy man rolling back and forth on his bed like a door), but I had forgotten all the chaff that came with this book. It burns pages selling the beauties of wisdom. Bro, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t already buy in!

    This time, I was struck by it’s optimism—do good and good stuff will happen. Maybe that was a better fit three decades ago, with America as the global hegemon and an apparently principled Christian conservatism on the rise. But such sunny optimism doesn’t feel right in the wake of two failed wars, a mismanaged epidemic, bipartisan ineptitude in federal power, and the flagrant cruelty of the evangelical church.

    I suspect the reception of these ancient works are intimately tied to current events. Maybe I’ll find more resonance in old testament prophets, demanding repentance and a return to righteousness….maybe Proverb’s calls to wisdom weren’t misplaced after all.

    ~

    Ecclesiastes is beautiful.

    I never noticed this before, maybe because this book demands that you age into its reading.

    Robert Alter’s prose certainly helps, as well as the formatting of the page as a true prose essay. However, I checked my King James Bible and noticed that it read great as well, even though the copy was chopped into verses and was full of anachronisms breaking up the flow.

    Growing up, I primarily read Proverbs. That might be right for a young mind, keeping them on the search for wisdom and avoiding laziness. But after hitting a certain place, it’s impossible to avoid the bigger things in the world. It’s not so sunny out there.

    If wisdom is the way, how do we explain this insanity?

    Strangely enough, the gentle hedonism of this book is one way through. Pursue the wisdom, but don’t expect it to work out. Enjoy the fruits of your labor if it comes, but don’t kick yourself if it don’t.

    Years after reading the bible, I did not expect to have a fully aesthetic moment in reading this book. Other parts of the Bible must hit such heights. Maybe the Sermon in the Mount. Is it hiding in the minor prophets?

    Time to start digging.

    ,

    PPS—Nothing deep here, just messing around with the banjo and recording it for giggles (January 13).

    ,

    PPPS-Pointed Brush Progress (February)

    At the start of the year, I went through all my scripts and put them in a book (black ink). After January, I ran the pointed brush to see how it improved (red ink).

    I don’t think the printed text improved much, but that’s because I got totally sidetracked into the cursive, which I adore. I don’t think my pointed brush cursive here was the best, but I guess it’s good to have an “average” example.

    That said, there is no greater feeling of flow than graphing with the brush pen while feeling the “edge”.

    .

  • three and two and three make (five-pack eight+Scratch 3.0+ODDADA)

    Before end of the year, I pushed out a few 5WP’s there were trapped in my phone. And starting with the new year, I’ve jumped into the “Poetry Haul” challenge by ARTSTACK.

    ,

    1/7

    dawn
    flickers
    through
    stucco
    tracts

    Morning sun is always inspiring, even through banal suburban neighborhoods on the way to work.

    ,

    1/8

    divine
    subconscious
    confirmation
    bias
    machine

    Using the I Ching and Tarot, I occasionally indulge in randomness for self insight, even though I don’t subscribe to new age woo. I treat these practices as public-domain versions of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s “Oblique Strategies“.

    Even without the woo, divination must be treated with the proper respect. Consulting the unpredictable is a powerful way to recontextualize the moment. It’s also the perfect way to tell yourself whatever you subconsciously wanted to hear, a dangerous game.

    ,

    1/9

    gently
    ready
    to
    explode
    anytime

    As far as I know, I’m well liked as a Project Manager. If that is true, it’s because I try to be gentle and kind with my consultants. On the other hand, I also make it clear that we have standards which need to be met.

    It’s a weird dichotomy, partly from my own personality. I’m really nice until I suddenly flip out. That second part ain’t great, but I’ve been getting better at avoiding rabid foaming mouth moments as I continue to grow up.

    ,

    1/10

    parenting is slowly letting go,
    first yourself, then the child

    I’m certain older parents have a more perceptive opinion of this wild aspect of being human. But this is what I got as a dad of two kiddos.

    ,

    1/11

    acrimony
    broken
    phones
    shattered
    hearts

    lingering
    silence
    chill
    moonlight
    pearl

    greatest
    time
    lost
    through
    memory

    Artstack started posting a poetry challenge sharing ten words for a week. Add five extra words and we got a triptych of 5WPs!

    ,

    With my recent focus on dip pen copperplate and straight brush calligraphy, the Pilot Parallels have been neglected.

    I could feel the rust in my fingers while running these Foundational Hand letters. But I’m super happy with how the brush has progressed, so I guess it was a worthy tradeoff.

    I’ve kept my interest in calligraphy so far by keeping things fresh. Normally, I don’t have a ton of patience for refinement. Maybe one day I’ll hyper-focus on greatness at one detail. In the meantime, I’m happy with getting pretty good at something before tackling another challenge.

    Cya next time!

    ,

    PS—Scratch 3.0, MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Lab, 2019

    My friend’s boy was taking a class in Scratch. I thought, this might be interesting. And a weekend in 2021 disappeared.

    Scratch is a magnificent simple block programming system designed for kids. It was easy to jump into and my daughter and I were having fun drawing and programming a sprawling game with multiple minigames.

    That might not be the right way to create a long term habit, but it got our feet wet.

    With our (still incomplete game) I took over the reins of the programming, letting her do the drawings. The next step was to unleash her on the computer, so I borrowed a couple of books for a more structured training that lasted a month before we lost interest.

    Inadvertently I had stumbled into “paired programming”, where two programmers share a computer. This novel technique is said to increase collaboration and concentration. For a few weeks, it turned out to be surprisingly effective. We collaborated and learned together, pushing ideas back and forth and a live example of by stumbling through the modern instruction manual—YouTube.

    The part that really makes Scratch tick is its social aspect. Given the dark side of Facebook and Twitter (now “X”), it is not something I compliment lightly. Every Scratch program allows you to “see inside” giving you a resource to cut through frustration.

    But like many moments in childhood, the early interest faded quickly. We pushed out a couple small games and that was that. The boy is now old enough to play with Scratch, but the little rascal prefers sneaking off to play games.

    Still, it’s a great resource, kudos to MIT, even if we haven’t used it to its full potential. Yet.

    ,

    PPS—ODDADA, Sven Ahlgrimm, Mathilde Hoffmann, Bastian Clausdorff, 2024

    I found out about this game on Friday with this excellent review on Good Game Lobby. Slept on it overnight, and bought it on Saturday. They played it all afternoon. He also played it most of Sunday until we dragged away from the computer to read books.

    Obviously, this is “composing” on “easy” mode, but twenty songs in and we’re still having fun with more variety to explore.

    The sweet spot for a computer game “enjoyable but not addictive”. I’ve spent too many hours on Civilization which is why I’ve avoided that narcotic after the first version. Hopefully sandbox games like this will find a proper balance.

    Six months later, I have to admit that we rarely play this game. There is only so many things to do, and composing music isn’t their thing. That said, he saw me looking up ODDADA on the computer and asked to play it after dinner. So he still likes it.

    Still highly recommend.

    ,

    PPPS-Practice

    1/16

    .

    PPPPS-Happy Trails

    In January, the IT pro at SPWD left for an awesome opportunity. She happened to be in town so I ran a card over to her. While graphing it out, I ended up with a second card, which I just gave to the guy who instituted the GIS system at our airport, apparently one of the most sophisticated airport systems in the nation.

    .