Baron in the Trees, only took me forever to read this.
Like many foreign films, the novel is fun and quirky until but the real world intrudes.
Indeed, this impending sense of doom is why it took me months to finish.
But it was edifying. A brilliant display of sparse deep storytelling.
Jerusalem Windows, a killer $2 find at the library.
As with many mid-century monographs, it comes with a hagiography of the great artist. I kind of enjoy it, in a nostalgic way.
The colors are stunning, and it’s awesome to watch the process from sketches to finished window and detail.
But the allegory in the images are hard to grok, even for a kid who grew up as a hardcore Christian. I need to reread this book. Slower.
Genie’s Banquet, a filler with the kids.
A fine example of a sharp little Japanese card game, common in the 2010’s.
As a cooperative game, this it’s a perfect fit at this moment.
There are some translation glitches in the rules, but the joy of boardgaming is that you can make up the rules when you’re unsure. We made it work.
Dorfromantik, for my wife’s fake birthday, but really for the boy.
Charming and idyllic is exactly correct in describing this game. Normally I want a game to have an edge, but it’s the lack such an edge that makes this game. The SDJ is well earned.
This board game successfully imports the ubiquitous constant-unlock dynamic of the mobile gaming. However, I appreciate that this is non-destructive process (unlike the Legacy series). Most importantly, thank god, there’s no pay to win model with this thing.
I wonder if I should toughen the boy up by playing competitive games (winning, losing, manhood, and all that). In the meantime I’ll enjoy these team games with him. Who knows when he will phase out—they change so fast!
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Having finished my calligraphy notebook last week, I started on our girl’s composition book from first grade. Might as well use up all the paper we got. It’s fun to add my practice with her old studies, and this means I’ll finish another notebook sooner rather than later!
(and yes…that should have been “hungry”, but sometimes you just roll with it.)
At work, I push long term ideas into tasks due on July 4th or December 25th. But this time, there’s nothing on that TTD list for Independence day.
It started on January 9th. I went to a BOE meeting in the morning to get my DMV construction contract approved and then received an email to attend an all-hands that afternoon.
Our Administrator was demoted. A couple of weeks late,r our Deputy Administrator was also demoted.
The Division wasn’t perfect under them—the seeds of overwhelm that pushed me out started under their watch. But the place had changed. Even though I like the guys who stepped up in their void, the Director made his mark.
People often think government workers have a ton of protections, but as a “non-classified” employee, I could be fired for any reason. Once it became clear that anyone would be fired at any time for stepping out of line and the workload had gotten out of control. Why stay?
Only for the projects.
That’s when a phone call from a mechanical engineer fell from from the skies. Or the airport (same difference.) I thought about the offer and demurred.
A week later, she called back and directed me to apply before the deadline expired at 5pm. I was in San Diego about to go to the zoo. Fine! Tippy-tap on the iPad, cutting and pasting from LinkedIn onto the county website.
A few weeks later they called for a first interview, a half-hour time slot.
Ok whatevers, let’s get coffee to see what it’s about. She warned that this was my only shot, there wasn’t going to be a second interview.
Oh! The competitive juices kicked in. If I’m going, go hard. I changed the appointment to an in-person meeting and spent the weekend updating the resume and work sample.
I didn’t open that portfolio during the 48 minute conversation but walked out feeling great. Both about my performance and the opportunity.
I’ve been on many interview committees for contractors and architects for the Division. It was humbling to be at the mercy of other people’s decision again. Fortunately, it was a short wait. They decided fast.
Speedrun through salary negotiations (with the advice of my network), drug tests (a moment in gratitude when I realized I was the wealthiest person in the building), background checks (a long wwwwaaaaiiiittt), and now I’m airport employee.
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Four weeks into the new job, I’m still in the honeymoon phase.
It’s a huge relief to escape the overload from the previous job. I didn’t realize the psychic toll until I had to start using my alarm clock again1. For the past year, I had been so amped up on work nights that I was waking up at 3am and 4am “naturally”.
It’s also a relief to work thoughtfully. When work was creeping up, the first response was to cut corners to save time. Even though I had my supervisor’s blessings, doing slapdash work is its own punishment. Then to add insult to injury, I started doing (uncompensated) overtime to stay afloat in emergency mode. Three weeks ago, I had a sudden jolt, “I can think again!”
I’m certain the meetings and intensity will creep up, but it’s a good sign that they aren’t throwing the new guy right into the fire. As a planner, my work with affect everyone negatively—who wants to work inside a remodel? So politics will rear its ugly head soon enough. But so far so good. My team is chill and everyone has been super welcoming.
Plus, the airport has offered me more food in a month (two lunches and popsicles) than six years at the Division! I guess that makes up for getting asked “Do you even speak English?” at a termain…then getting berated by the drunk passenger when I couldn’t stifle a nervous giggle at getting hit with this schoolyard taunt as my very first question from the public.
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I wonder if I’ve been posting less because I now have an audience on Substack. Or maybe Ockham’s Razor just says, “Dude you’ve been too busy at work!”—after all, it’s hard to post much when I haven’t been writing at all.
But Grizzlypear is the digital archive of my life since 2008. I need to excise that pressure to “provide value” to “my” readers. That’s not why I’m here. I appreciate y’all and I hope you enjoy my blatherings, but I hope you don’t mind that this place is more of a blog than a “newsletter”.
That said, here is a listicle of self help nuggets from this job change.
Always have the conversation. I learned this adage from my last boss in private practice and I almost blew an amazing opportunity by initially declining the conversation.
Sometimes it’s a favor to sell harder. I don’t want to own your happiness, but there are times when it’s appropriate to push back. I’m grateful that the mechanical engineer told me that I was making a big mistake. A couple of days ago, the PM who took over my old projects gave me a call. It felt good to be helpful, but I also felt “Thank god I’m not doing this no more!”
If you need to leave, don’t stay. I feel bad for the projects I left behind. I would have been the best PM for those jobs. But they’ll be fine, the agency always takes care of itself. But I wasn’t fine—and I didn’t even realize it until I left. Corollary: If you’re not certain if you should stay, you need to go.
Draw boundaries. Definitely easier said than done. But I didn’t do the Division or my projects any favors by taking on so much work that I gave up and left. I should have been disagreeable early to nip the overwork in the bud. If I wasn’t overloaded, I’m pretty sure I would have (been dumb enough) to stick to my guns and not-apply for the airport position.
Learn when to offload. A huge perk at my old job was the freedom to innovate. As often happens in corporate life, if you grab responsibility, you get stuck with it. I should have been insistent on offloading ancillary tasks to others after my improvements had morphed into maintenance mode.
Be nice. Even though I’m cocky enough to think I was the ideal candidate for this job, I only found out about the opportunity because I defended a mechanical engineer during a stressful project with a bad client ten years ago.
Never hurts to remind people that you exist. It’s a chore to pick out a photo and gussy it up for a holiday email each December. But it’s fun to hear back from old colleagues every year. And what’s the ROI for being top of mind when a new opportunity pops up?
Funny how getting paid changes your perspective. I never thought passenger jets were beautiful. But they are so sexy now that my paycheck is tied to them. I love watching the tail of a jet slice through the air like the fin of a shark. What troglodyte would resist the romance of flight!
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This weekend I finished a calligraphy notebook with this tiny poem. It shouldn’t have taken five months to fill up this notebook. But I’m going to do Vegas Ordinary for July before re-evaluating which daily practice to practice daily.
suburban saturday
breakfast organic corn with toast
rush! rush! off to basketball class!
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I know, I know! I shouldn’t need an alarm clock, especially since I’m a morning person! I need to start going to sleep earlier so I can wake naturally in time for my work schedule. ↩︎
Introvert Drawing Club posted a badge that caught fire, cause we’re sick of the cheap plagiaristic garbage being shoved in our faces online.
This morning, Beth Spencer posted a note that she was only 53 badges from 1k.
Let’s make that 52!
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The image was hand drawn with fountain pens in and edited in Pixlr. This morning I added the text as a markup on my iPhone, with the PNG export done in Pixlr after deleting the white background. You can see the badge in action on my photo on the about page.
If it looks familiar, it’s because I made the original image last year in a post about alternatives to AI art. There is so much great free art made by real people, why would anyone outsource our visual world to thieving machines?
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Bonus! I originally wrote the badge with “Made”. Since it’s not doing any good by itself on the computer, here it is if you’d prefer this wording.
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Check out the IG page for all the other #HiBadge2024.
Things have been so busy that I can’t focus on anything outside of work.
So I picked up a daily practice that can be instantly completed at any time since we are tethered to pocket computer cameras at all waking (and sleeping) hours.
The title of this project is inspired by Shimzu Akira’s fun newsletter JAPAN ORDINARY.
I’m not sure how long to keep it up, but it will run at least through June. It’s been a fun way to record the change of scenery at my new job.
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Puzzle.
5/4
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Lavatory.
5/5
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Morning.
5/6
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Desk.
5/7
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Read.
5/8
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Durango.
5/9
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Yard.
5/10
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Stairs.
5/11
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Mouse.
5/12
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Boxes.
5/13
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Dishes.
5/14
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Strip.
5/15
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Graduation.
5/16
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Shadow.
5/17
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Trash.
5/18
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Park.
5/19
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Drugs.
5/21
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Logistics.
5/22
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Summer.
5/24
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Panels.
5/25
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Knot.
5/26
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Nuts.
5/27
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Fluorescent.
5/28
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Dishwasher.
5/29
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Flower.
5/31
Door.
5/31
Basin.
5/31
Concrete.
5/31
Up.
5/31
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While contemplating my birthday in May, I realized that my piles of projects and want-to-do lists keep growing as my time continues to shrink.
To balance the desire to start new projects, I need to close out old projects. (Ironic to write this on a post showcasing a new photography series!).
So I’ve created a new limitation – onePractice and one Project at a time.
1P-1P 顽皮-顽皮 “naughty naughty” (also the nickname of my parents’ neighbor’s cat who chills in their house all day)
Practices could be something like taking a photo every day, playing the banjo, practicing calligraphy, writing poetry, or sketching my hand.
Projects are specific endeavors, like finishging my Alphabet Magic series or planning our summer vacation.
We’ll see if it helps wrangle the fuzz in my brain.
Even so, June has turned out another whirlwind. See y’all in July!
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(Unless you follow me on Substack Notes…then you can get my next Vegas Ordinary as soon as tomorrow!)
Now that we’ve finally put our books up on shelves after a decade in the garage, I pull random old books to enjoy before bedtime. The bedroom is getting crowded with a pile that needs to go back downstairs.
Here are some notes before sending them back into the stacks.
Staying by the bed
Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino—I’m still slowly working through this book. I paused to read Cosmicomics and might get distracted by T-zero but I want to finish it sooner rather than later.
Letter on Ethics, Seneca—I enjoyed listening to the selected letters audiobook by Penguin so I picked up the complete letters translated by Margaret Graver last year. I finally started reading them; I’m enchanted by their brevity even though (spoiler warning) the later letters seem to run long.
The Unbroken Web, Richard Adams—This collection of stories has that pan-religious vibe from the 70/80’s. I most likely would have sent this back onto the shelves but I wrapped it up as a self-birthday present so I might as well give it a solid try in June.
Carlo Scarpa, The Complete Works—I borrowed this volum many times in college so I finally bought it as a birthday treat. In the past, I only looked at the images, but after spending 100 euros, I’m for damn sure reading the essays. Good lord, that’s some turgid writing. Architecture criticism at its finest.
Going back up
Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino—I’ve tried reading this many times over the years and finally broke through. It’s a tender collection of short stories based on scientific principles. I wonder if aging and kids have given me an appreciation for love stories.
Zhuangzi (Burton) & Lieh-tzu (Graham)—Always good to revisit two of the key texts of Daoism.
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess—The boy was curious about chess so we played a few times. I pulled this book of the shelves because I find chess utterly impenetrable. I’ve never been good at with spatial games, much less a perfect information abstract. I slogged through a couple exercises before giving up even though I’m still enchanted by the structure of this book.
The 26 Letters, Oscar Ogg—Delightfully of its time though I wonder how it holds up with the historical scholarship over the past sixty years.
40 days dans le desert B, Moebius—Absolute classic. Trippy as fuck.
The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry—I borrowed this book from the library when I thought I’d take my poetry experiments more seriously. Instead, work took over my life. In stressful times, the pursuit of quality may have the paradoxical side effect of stifling production. Time to send it back to the public library.
Under the Jaguar Sun, Italo Calvino—I was searching for something to calm the mind, but this was a bit too intense. Turned out that my subconscious was close, since the correct answer was Cosmicomics.
Journey to the West(Yu)—Always good for a romp Great Sage Under Heaven. Plus a little poetry.
Charles M. Russell—Nice overview of the artist’s work. Holy hell, the wild west was indeed wild. Life of all types was cheap back then.
Signal to Noise, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean—The art holds up. The writing is what you’d expect from a 30 year old writing about a protagonist twice his age. I loved Gaiman, but I’ve soured over the past few years. One day I’ll revisit Sandman, but I’m dreading the potential realization that I’ve outgrown this as well.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi—A collection of his prints. If drawn accurately, the scale of the ruins are unimaginable, towering over the inglorious lives conducted under these decaying edifices. Quite unsafe to stay in those shadows, though I guess you’ll take what you can get in the heat of summer. Beyond antiquity though, his renderings are sick. Beyond rad.
Carlo Scarpa—In college, I picked up this Taschen survey on the (relative) cheap. It’s a passable intro to his work, though with the obnoxious style repeating text with multiple languages on each page. Then again, it reminded me of the greatness of Scarpa which lead to my big birthday purchase (noted above).
In January, I wrote a letter to a colleague who is rejoining to our team. Selfishly, I’m excited that she returned.
This was my first tiny poem-calligraphies to leave the house. It was also one of the last ones that I wrote.
It’s been a long 2024, and we haven’t even started the biennial budgeting season—that hits tomorrow.
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Unfortunately, my publication schedule will continue to be sporadic. After we get our budget season assignments, it’s off to the races through June.
Beyond the increasing workload, it has been a tumultuous time for our team. Hopefully things will settle down, but it’s not surprising that my Commute Music project has stalled on Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult over the past month.
I just started moving again with Blue Mitchell. Yes, I’m slightly out of alphabetical order. It was a necessary fudge.
Hopefully I’ll get another post out in May, and then June, but frankly it’s been all about work for the past quarter. I’ve already told my supervisor that I’ll try to keep up the pace up through July 1st, but after that it stops. (He’s the best boss I’ve had, but we’re all going through it together). Maybe I’ll breathe again.
When buying the house we agreed to address a few minor plumbing issues. Easy enough to do during the negotiations, but the work still had to be done. We changed the innards for two of our toilets, switched faucet stems, and installed a new kitchen sink with our own RO filter.
That sink took three days, five trips to Home Depot, and a couple angle stops.
Yes, hiring a plumber would have been more sensible but I learned stuff and enjoyed the challenge (aside from multiple trips to the hardware store!)
Shoutout to YouTube…there’s no way I would have started this project without all those tutorials. That site is the greatest DIY reference library ever assembled. It has so many videos for every task, with a myriad of angles and opinions.
I hope more folks make use of this empowering free resource. Simple repairs are one of the easiest ways to earn a feeling of accomplishment on a weekend afternoon.
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David Auerbach, Carols in the Caves
The sound engineers tried to capture the essence in being a massive cave, but the whole album sounded distant. Everything felt flat.
This might be a good holiday background album, but does not have presence as the central audio feature for a drive.
The album cover looks great.
Babyland, You Suck Crap
Last week, I complained about noise. This one is all about noise, but I had fun.
Sampling a multitude of instruments (and implements) gave the audio palate an enjoyable richness. I suspect growing up with electronica and hip-hop makes me prefer variety when getting bashed over the head.
I wish I had detailed memories of attending that concert with my landscaper colleague. Sadly, I just don’t remember much from such events. A few visual flashes and a plastic disc is all I have from 20 years ago.
Elevate, The Architect
While looking up this album last week, I learned about the genre “Math Rock“. I had to give it a second shot now that I know “It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures, and extended chords.”
Still very noisy. Most likely still not my thing, but the architectural cover makes a lot more sense with the music behind it.
Am I enjoying this album more because I’m now aware that it’s supposed to be sophisticated? Is the emperor clothed or nekkid?
The first week of the commute music project started well. I listened to Aceyalone twice before slogging through a lot of guitar noise.
Aceyalone, A Book of Human Language
I don’t know enough about hiphop to judge the rapping.
Clearly catered to art school nerds who want deep subjects and big words over late 90’s gangsta bling.
Love the sonic landscape, especially the bass riff in “the Hunt” (sampled Coltrane’s Ole).
Aerosmith, Classics Live!
Following the complexity of Aceyalone, this was a wall of noise.
Lots of electric guitars and distortion. Is this rock? I’m listening to too much jazz.
Thoughts of youth culture, what will my daughter think of the pop characters of her childhood when she’s in her mid-40’s?
Al and the Transamericans, Analog
Plenty of electric guitar, but not as frenetic.
More melodic and borrows from old tunes and instruments. Very Americana, the banjo makes an appearance.
Slightly awkward, in a likable way.
Elevate, The Architect When writing this post, I found I had swapped the band and the album title. Oops, but I like having it on the first page of the binder.
More noise. I’m not built for rock.
I do buy things for the cover. In this case, the cover and the title. I’d do it again, even though this will be my one and only listen through this album.
Google image search led me to the Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. When it works, the internet is amazing. Fun fact, the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper took 21 years to restore (1978-1999).
Bonus (?) Last February, I shared Ruthie Foster’s rendition of “War Pigs” to mark the first year of Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine. October brought further horrors with Israel-Palestine. Let’s hope for better in 2024.
I’ve mentioned it before but thought this is worth repeating. I’m no fan of AI, but it’s appearance has unlocked my acceptance of imperfection.
It wasn’t a coincidence that I started drawing after two dormant decades after Dall-E and Midjourney hit the mainstream in 2022.
Before this happened, I would have guessed that generative AI images would finally smothered the last embers of my interest in drawing.
Instead, I was freed from the self induced constipation of accuracy. I picked up the pen and started laying ink on paper again.
They’re rough. There’s no undo button. No edit function. All you can do is start over, again. Try not to mess it all up with the last few lines on the page.
These aren’t perfect, but I can vouch for their provenance. My hand was there when each molecule of dye nestled into the fibers of these pages.
Here’s to many experiments in this year of the Dragon!
I wasn’t super happy with the purple, but it was “good enough”…until I messed up the last two letters of this page. Lettering in ink demands full attention. The simplest mistake can be catastrophic. This was on a good track, and then I got cute with his beard and ruined the dragon. Again, the last thing killed the whole page.At this point, I didn’t even try to outline the dragon. I didn’t have energy to try a fourth time. I kind of like how the dragon is a bit atmospheric on the page…but that might be a total rationalization for wimping out.
Three weeks ago, we moved to our new house. Here are three last shots from the old place.
The kids made a car on their penultimate night at this home. They filled the trunk with stuffies, turned off the lights, and drove the dark roads following the sat-nav until they found a motel.
Here are the last two pieces of bread that I baked in the building. The gods gave me a run of good loaves for the past few weeks. (If you want a great sourdough info, check out Chapin‘s newsletter).
Finally, the last morning routine in this bedroom with a quick gesture sketch, continuous line drawing, and tiny poem. Shoutouts to ashlyn,Citlaflor, Hazel Burgess Art, Beth Kempton, Wendy MacNaughton, and Nadia Gerassimenko for helping mold this regular morning jaunt…which has unfortunately become irregular after I was coincidentally dragged back into the office after four years of working from home after this same weekend.
So in both ways this was the end of an era. Four years ago, we were living with my in-laws. Their tenant left this rental house a few months in late 2019 and they had not found a replacement before the before the pandemic hit. Given the parents’ age, I exiled myself to this place for a several long months—which included my first grind through the brutish biennial budgeting season as a state worker.
After things settled down the family joined me here. The kids were 6 and 2. They kept growing. I guess we did too. At the end of 2023, we bought our own place. The kids are now 10 and almost 6.
The “real Vegas” is not the spectacle of the Strip. It’s our quiet lives in these beige stucco boxes carpeting the Valley. Like most of suburban America, it’s a splendorous existence that we barely appreciate.
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It’s been three weeks at the office. It’s a treat to regularly hang out with my coworkers in person. But that marginal benefit is far outweighed by the cost of commuting every day.
There are so many things I’d rather do than piloting a metal box across the town to accomplish tasks that I’ve done at home for four years. But I’ve also heard horror stories about workers who have taken ill advantage of remote work. So I get why my massive organization settled on this brute solution.
I can’t complain too much. Commuting is a mere annoyance, even if the unnecessary nature of this blanket directive makes it particularly irksome.
So I thought up a new project to redeem the time. I’m going to march through my collection of CD’s in alphabetical order by performer.
I will listen to each disc at least once through. After that, I can re-listen and skip tracks before I move on to the next album. If I buy any new CD’s, I’ll listen to them once and then slot them in line.
This project popped into my noggin while listening to an ambiance album featuring the didgeridoo. I was underwhelmed, but I thought about the artist. I presume he thought it was a great piece of art, at least the best he could do at the time he published it. At that moment, I decided to give each of my musicians at least one generous, full hearing.
For three decades I’ve been listening to the spoken word—sermons on tape, talk radio, and podcasts. As I get older, I’m being overwhelmed by the verbal clutter. Let’s fill that metal box with music.
