Getting Moving, Again

Posted on March 9, 2021 by SusanG

Like a lot of people, I have noticed that my activity level has decreased. Significantly. And after seeing my nephew’s incredible transformation, and knowing I need to do something similar I’ve decided to try to do something about it.

The good news for me was and still is, that with the first lock down, my Taekwondo Master got innovative and decided to teach his classes on Zoom. Yay. The classes are a little shorter, and not quite the same intensity level. I think that is all circumstantial. There is a difference between kicking actual targets and kicking air. For the most part this is working out really well. And I was continuing to do class 2-3 times a week. Right up until I realized I needed a break because of what seems to be injury. So, I took a roughly three-month break. This was helpful for the injury, not my activity level.

I have been seeing improvements in the injury and solved some other problems that were likely contributing to it and I am starting to kick things into gear again. Which led me to looking for some solutions for better fitness. Yes, I still have the vertical climber that I got early in the lock down. And I do use it, just not as much as I wanted to. It has exposed a weakness in an ankle that starts to hurt after a period of use. I’m working on this because that climber is great exercise.

I saw an ad for a Fitness Boxing game on the Nintendo Switch and thought that would be a good fun way to get some exercise. A couple of years ago I tried boxing in VR on my Oculus Rift and found it to be effective at working up a sweat. But I’ve taken down my VR setup so, I set about trying to get a Switch. They tend to be intermittently sold out everywhere. Which is really frustrating.

Then I tried looking for weight training equipment since I enjoy that sort of exercise. That was super frustrating. Half of what I wanted or needed wasn’t available, it’s all sold out. And then when I could find what I wanted or needed I looked and the price and thought about where I was going to put it and that Switch started looking like a much better option. But. Sold out.

I decided to try to find something for my Xbox or computer that was an active sort of game thing. The Xbox ones all require a Kinect which I don’t have. As I was looking one of the top listed ones was BoxVR for PS4VR. Wait, isn’t that what I have for the Rift?

At the beginning of the lock down I had setup my rift on my laptop and cleared some space in the dining room to use as my “gym”. It wasn’t an ideal setup by any means though I did use it, about three times. Then an announcement was made about Oculus accounts having to use their Facebook accounts. And without really investigating what this meant, I was not at all happy so I took the setup down and removed it from my computer.  

I was irritated by the move and terribly disappointed. I see so much potential for VR for so many things and find it incredibly fascinating. I felt a little betrayed by Facebook and Oculus. Oh. Before I get too much further. Let me explain why Facebook or Oculus can push this requirement to use your Facebook account. Several years ago, Facebook bought Oculus. Just as the headsets were becoming available. At the time I was saddened by the acquisition because I didn’t see it as being a good thing in general. However, I was able to admit that the sort of presence of a big name or known entity being involved could improve the development of the gear, even if it was just through a regular cash flow. So, I grudgingly accepted the event as potentially useful.

My mini-gym

Fast forward a couple of years and the headsets are now more readily available and I decide to take an online VR development course and I want to do the final part for Oculus instead of mobile. It’s a perfect reason to spend the money on the headset and an add-on card for my computer. I can’t say that I used it as much as I thought I would, or maybe thought I should. It sat for many months without me using it. Then I got BoxVR and I was better at using it for a couple of weeks. I had issues with a foot or that ankle, I’m not sure which and then I just wasn’t keeping it up. And then we had the pandemic and it seemed like a good solution again. And then Facebook decided to get even greedier than they already are. And I put it away.

Once I saw that BoxVR was highly rated as a fitness “game” and I realized I have said game, I had to decide if I was willing to go through the hassle of possibly converting my account. As well as, if I had space, and what would the setup look like. This is the Oculus Rift. Not the new one. It requires a tethered headset as well as two sensors. I finally decided that I could give it a try and see what happens. And for the account situation, it turns out that all new accounts must use Facebook accounts. All existing Oculus accounts can use their existing Oculus account until 2023 they just won’t have access to the social features.

I set my Rift up in the living room with just enough space to do the boxing. It required me to move the laptop if I wanted to watch TV or do my Taekwondo class. Which I’ll get back to in a moment. I made the goal to get up in the morning and do about 15 minutes of BoxVR every weekday before breakfast. Then eat and shower and head to my desk for the workday.

I did this for about a week trying to see if I would keep up with it. And in that time, I learned a few things. First, is the hand controllers eat up batteries like crazy. The headset isn’t really sized for someone my size, it’s a little big and I have had to make some adjustments to get it to stay where I need it. I wear glasses, I have to wear them with the headset, and they fog up as I get hot and sweaty during the workout. And I’ve discovered that either, the headset really is too heavy for the type of movement I’m doing or the muscles in my neck aren’t very strong. I think it might be a little of both.

On the other hand, VR boxing is one heck of a workout. I get my heart rate up, I sweat, and believe it or not, I end up with some sore muscles. Many of the workout routines have squats and dodge requirements and they can be quite effective. The first few routines I did, had some squats, and some dodge but the dodge was only to one side. This didn’t seem right to me. I felt like I should be able to dodge both directions. I found a routine that is more balance and does dodge to both sides and I discovered what is probably the source of many of my injury problems. Oh, holy cow, those back and side muscles on that left side were sore. Yeah.

I mentioned that to do my Taekwondo class requires moving the laptop. Well, the week before I setup the Rift again, I was feeling better injury wise and decided to try a class. I did some of my forms on my own and didn’t hurt from them, so I thought it worth a try. So, I tried a class and made it all the way through to the end.  Right now, I’m trying to go slow with it and do one day a week. I think it’s getting better and I can tell that what seems to be the bigger antagonist for my ‘injury’ is sitting too long in the wrong position. That doesn’t mean I can just jump right in. After three months the legs aren’t as flexible and not quite as strong. I am making progress, and I feel good after either a Taekwondo class or workout, and after the BoxVR workout. And that’s the point.

That was a couple of weeks ago when I first started writing this post. Things changed a day or two later. I was doing a more extended BoxVR session and got frustrated that suddenly the program couldn’t see my controllers. There are a few possibilities that I could think of why this was happening. They all came down to possible technology issues that, coupled with the headset frustrations sent me looking to see if there was a Switch available.

I reasoned that if the Fitness boxing was as good a workout as the BoxVR, or even close, then it would solve the headset issues. No heavy headset and no fogged glasses. And maybe it would solve this technology issue. My biggest worry was if I would use it enough to justify spending the money on it. Then I thought about my gym membership. I paid per year for my membership at the gym what the Switch and the game will cost. I went to the gym only on the day I met with my trainer. Once a week. If I use the Switch and Fitness Boxing once a week, it’s really very similar to what I was doing. If I use it every day or even three times a week, it is very much worth it.

My search was fruitful. I got the last one available at my local big box electronics store and it was ready in less than an hour. There was a demo for Fitness Boxing 2 so I downloaded and tried it out before I made the full commitment. I liked it. So, I purchased Fitness Boxing 2 online from Nintendo and it downloaded to my Switch. It has a lot of nice features that BoxVR doesn’t have. There is much better tracking of your progress. And there is guided, to an extent, workouts.

As far as the “game” is concerned, I had to start back at square one. I don’t think that is a bad thing. The timing is different, and the instruction for the different punches is better. Also, I think, having more difficult stuff unlock as you get better, is a good sign of progress. And I have progressed. Not just by the “game’s” standards, also by my own. My shoulders aren’t sore every morning when I start. They still get sore during the workout so there is still room for improvement there. And there are a lot more routines to work up to. I have finally progressed to the squats and dodges. And the workouts with the ducks and weaves are a good challenge.

And a weight bench.

An interesting side effect to the workouts with the shadow boxing games is that I started feeling a lot better and I wanted to add more to my workouts. That had me thinking about that weight gear again. I don’t really have the space for it. And yet. It would make a difference and I don’t want to join a gym just for that. So, I did a little more searching and found a few items, that would help, and I could add on from there. I found a bench and a heavier kettle bell. Those have arrived. I combined them with some of what I already have and created a workout for myself. After years of working with various trainers, I have a wide variety of exercises I already know and can pull from to develop a nice workout on my own. It was effective. I have done that workout once, and it took a couple of days for the legs to recover. I also ordered a convertible dumbbell/barbell set. When that arrived, I got a good workout getting it up the stairs.

And yes, that has been the big news and events of my past couple of weeks. Well sort of. There was also the recognition that I have a bunch of additional stuff I need to learn for my day job and that got a little overwhelming. I have a handle on it, I think. I have identified what will be the most widely useful thing to learn and what I need to focus on for accountability, as well as what I need to get a rudimentary understanding of for discussion and likely future implementation. That’s a start. At one point I was just exasperated by all that I need to learn because, I still have more to learn for the stuff I currently use and do. And now I have all these other things. What that means is that right now a lot of my non-work time is taken up with trying to get up to speed on stuff that will help me with work.

I have always fought this. I perceive it as a lack of balance and feel like I’m somehow being robbed of personal time and my personal interests. However, I’m hoping that if I dive in and try to tackle some of this, to the level I need to know it, and not fight it, then it might go more smoothly, it might cut down on my frustrations, and even possibly make my day job easier. And perhaps it will clear up some brain space for more art and music.

At least, all that is how things stand right now. As I was looking at those things I need to learn, and the ones I want certifications for, I found some study modules that I missed for one thing I thought I had completed. That’s ok. I was planning on going back through all of that again before I started to prepare for the test. And I would like to get that test taken and passed. That means, that, with trying to increase my activity level, and studying, I have not been getting to much else. That will have to do for now. There is too much going on at work for me to try to make my after work life complicated or stressful. I’ll still have updates to share though. And, as much as I shift from one thing to another, you never know what else I might get into.

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Finally A Place for That Stuff

Posted on February 11, 2021 by SusanG

Last week as I sat down to write this post, I had all this stuff that I was going to share about technology and getting the right stuff and getting rid of the old stuff and things that work nicely together. I was two or three pages into it and realized it sounded like a really boring lecture. Yeah. So here I am trying this again.

What started it was me trying to setup one of my previous desktop computers for someone to use to test out something. I, fortunately, wasn’t very far into the process when it just quit on me. Shut off. I spent enough time trying to figure out what the problem might be, as it looked like a problem I had experienced a couple of years ago, before I finally gave up. It was done working and I didn’t have the patience for going through all the possible swap out of things that I could with an even older desktop computer. So, I delivered the news to the intended recipient and then had to figure out what to do with the computer.

This was not the only piece of electronics equipment that I had that I needed to do something with. As noted, I had an even older desktop computer and a few other items that were well past their use by date. I’d been collecting them because I was going to try to do something responsible with them, like donate them to a makers group or a charity or something. I have never gotten in touch with the makers group and I am guessing, like many of the charities, they either aren’t open or aren’t taking in donations at the moment because they don’t have someone available to process them. What to do.

A few forgotten items to recycle.
Otherwise a clean closet floor.

As it turns out my local big box electronics store does take in electronics for recycling. They have guidelines on their website for how much they take in general, but each store has their own rules. I decided to put all the electronics stuff I was ready to part with in the car and see what they would take. As it turns out, the store I went to doesn’t have a limit on the number of items per household per day. They took it all. And I was over-joyed. Most of what I dropped off had been sitting in the floor of my coat closet for well over a year and in most cases several years. I can’t even tell you how good it felt to have that taken care of. It was huge weight off my shoulders because I no longer had to find the ‘responsible’ thing to do with it all. And, of course, as soon as I got home, I found a couple of other items that I could have taken. I guess I’ll be making another trip. I don’t think I will let it stack up for as long this time.

Another cool bit of computer technology stuff has to do with software. I think I shared that I finally figured out the advantages of cloud saving for things like the Adobe products, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco and so on. It was really cool to be able to go from my iPad to my desktop with a piece of digital art I was working on. Well, turns out there is some Microsoft stuff that does that sort of thing too and it’s just as cool. That’s the Office 365 subscription. I might have mentioned it in a previous post.

I was a bit reluctant to subscribe to the Office 365 for quite a while. For a number of reasons. Some practical and some just blind stubbornness. Ok, and how many other places, besides your hard drive do you want your files to be. Or maybe this is just old thinking. Anyway. I was not quick to embrace the whole concept. With my newest computer, which is now running Windows 10 like everything else, when I was setting it up I needed to choose between an open-source office suite and MS Office. I opted for the MS Office product. But, instead of purchasing the ‘box’ copy I went with the subscription. Partly because I could have it on everyone of my Windows 10 computers, and even on my iPad. It happens to come with some cloud storage and synching as well. Which I admit, I didn’t use at first.

This one lives in the office/art room.
It’s the newest computer.

One of the things in the Office 365 suite is something called One Note. I have always rolled my eyes at this piece of software. My first experience with it was some new hire at the day job, who I think was straight out of college, wanting it on his pc and we had to find a copy of it. Yes, you did just here my eyes roll. I have a friend who is an enthusiastic user of One Note, or I’m pretty sure he is. Anyway, I’ve heard about it, but I hadn’t really embraced it, or looked at it for that matter. Until my manager suggested we might use it for keeping some notes on a project we/I am working on. And then I came across some information in a course I was taking that I wanted to make some notes of, but I didn’t really want to write it down and Notepad just seemed messy. So, I opened up One Note. Hey, I need to figure out how to use it for work, so I’ll start here. I started finding it helpful, but I didn’t grasp its true usefulness until this last week when I wanted to make notes for things for my day. I had made my bed and had all these thoughts of what I wanted to do, things I should check, stuff I needed to keep in mind for work, and I wanted to write them down so I wouldn’t forget them when I got sidetracked by whatever. I grabbed my Surface, opened up One Note, started a new section and a new page and made my notes. I went on about getting ready for the day and when I got to my office, turned on my personal computer, as well as my work computer, there were my notes, on my personal computer, ready for me for the day. Now, finally, this stuff is getting useful. Really useful.

Yes. I maybe a little late to the party on some of this. There are reasons. I’m working on it.

Just because I am a little slow in embracing our cloud computing overlords doesn’t mean I don’t find some of the cutting-edge stuff really cool and exciting. I do. I went to school to study VR long before it was ready for prime time.

A few years ago, I was playing more video games than I really have time for now. And I was looking for something interesting. I was at the game store, working with a salesperson and asked about a game called ‘No Man’s Sky’. He didn’t really think I would like it. So, I didn’t get it. Now at the time, one of the things I had read about it was that it had a bunch of planets to explore and that they were ‘procedurally generated’. The short, not entirely accurate explanation for that is that there is some basic code that the program is given and from that it creates the planets and everything on them on its own. A programmer doesn’t have to design and code every single planet and everything on it.

This lives wherever.
Right now it’s in the living room.

Fast forward to the recent holidays and my reading holiday vacation. I picked up a book that looked interesting called ‘The Simulation Hypothesis’. In the book they happen to mention the game ‘No Man’s Sky’ and the procedurally generated worlds. And this made me want to revisit playing the game. After some dithering about the cost and would I play it, I found a solution and got the game. I like it.

It is not a fast-paced game, and unlike a lot of games, it doesn’t have a combat focus. It focuses on exploration and crafting for trading or to improve your base and ship. It is easy to get caught up in trying to gather all the resources you need to make the next thing you need. And it is really easy to get lost in exploring a planet and fill up your backpack to capacity before you can get back to your base or ship to make use of the resources you’ve gathered. There is definitely some engineering and planning that goes on as you decide what you need and how to get it built. And then there is the space exploration. Which I haven’t done much of yet. At least not on my own. It seems I still need to upgrade a few things before I’ll want to do that. I’m not far into playing. I think over three weeks I’ve spent about eight hours. Which while it sounds like a lot of time, I know people that play other games for that long in two days easily. I’m looking forward to getting to spend more time exploring the game. I have learned to be a bit more discerning when someone is telling me I won’t like something.

Lest you think all my time has been taken up lately in the computer realm, I have an update on the sanded gesso on paper trial. I first decided to try it on watercolor paper and that was not a really good choice. I didn’t like the dips that the watercolor paper has. It made it difficult to get a smooth layer of color. So, I decided to try it on some Bristol. It’s a smooth paper to begin with so no dips. The only caveat is that I don’t have a small pad of the Bristol. I thought I did. My solution was to take a sheet from the large pad I have and cut it down to size. Then, I made sure to tape the entire perimeter of the paper down before I started the gesso process. I still had a little buckling initially, but it took very little to flatten it back out.

This turned out to be really handy for really
embracing the possibilities of One Note

Now as far as testing it out. I haven’t gotten back to that. I wasn’t enjoying my original test piece. For a few reasons I suspect. I have what I think will be a better subject in mind so, I hope to get something going on that soon to see how I like it. Now that I’m not fighting the watercolor dips.

There have been some really big changes to Blender recently. All of them sound like they are good things. And they may not be impactful to the stuff I do in Blender yet. However, listening to the reports of them, I feel like I have completely fallen behind again. As a result, though I have a few things to work on in Blender, I haven’t gotten back to them. Of course, with all the other studies, and exploring ‘No Man’s Sky’ I’m struggling for time right now. Hopefully soon.

I think that is all for the moment. Your coffee is probably cold or needs a refill at this point. I do have more to share. I’ll save it for the next post. And maybe I won’t take so long in between posts this time. I’m staying busy, though, I’m not sure how important that busy is. But as my grandfather used to say, ‘it keeps me out of mean-ness’ so at least there is that.

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Trying to Keep Up

Posted on January 27, 2021 by SusanG

I give up on trying to keep up with what is going on. When I first sat down to right this post I was going to comment on things that had happened and before I had finished it, something else happened. I have lost track of how many times I have sat down to write this post. I am calling ‘uncle’ on this. I’m going to write this, hope it makes some sense and post it.

The last month in this country has been a whirlwind of stunning and amazing events. If you could get whiplash from it, we would all be suffering for sure. Like many, I am hopeful for the year and years to come.

I have an update on the Mantis Shrimp pastel painting. I finished it. Yes. It is done. I’m quite happy with it. As happy as I am with the subject, meaning the shrimp, I think I might be just a little more pleased with how the background turned out. It may have opened whole new doors for me in creating art. Particularly in pastel. Possibly even in digital when I get to it. I have a whole new, better, more fuller understanding and respect for layers.

Completed Mantis Shrimp pastel painting.

Yes. Layers. I thought I understood layers before. Particularly as a way to keep parts of your art separated so that you don’t mess up the part that you already have the way you want. Or to have the sketch in the background so you can work over it, using it as a guide. I’ve even started to grasp the idea of layers for blending. Though, not completely. With the Shrimp painting, I inadvertently used layers for making my background, simply because I was spray fixing other areas so they wouldn’t get smudged while I was working on some of the detail. This is cool and has me excited.

I expect, with the digital painting courses that I have purchased, I will be getting a much better understanding of layers in digital art and how they can be set to additive, subtractive, multiply, overlay, and whatever else they have for options. I’ve watched enough demonstration videos on Instagram to understand that understanding what I can do with layers and their modes will make a big difference in my digital art as I create it.

As I usually do when I finish a piece of art, after I finished the Mantis Shrimp, I decided to clean my art desk. I realized, as I was doing that, that I had several boxes of soft pastels and pastel pencils and they were all taking up extra space on my desk which limited my workspace. So, I decided to order better storage for the art supplies, or at least the pastels. I ordered a spice rack spinner thing at the same time because the spices were another better storage needed situation.

Now I can see what I don’t have.

The spice spinner arrived first and I set about putting it together, taking all the spices out of the cabinet, putting the spice spinner in place which required raising the shelf above it so it would work best and then putting all the spices on the spinner in the cabinet. Oh wow. What a difference. And even when I closed the door. It is amazing how a change to such a small space, even behind a closed door can make such an impact on how a room feels. And now I can more easily see that I don’t have the spice or herb I was looking for.

The next day the storage for the art supplies arrived and I set about getting that all sorted out. I had to think about how I want it to work and what would be easiest to use. If I don’t have everything in the right order, meaning something should be in the top drawer instead of middle, I at least have things grouped properly and just moving which drawer is where is easy enough. I also got rid of I’m not sure how many boxes and tins that hold the supplies. I have more space on my desk and things are easier to find. I sat here stunned for the first few days. It was a lovely sight. And, after I tidied up the art desk and put the supplies in their new storage, I cleaned both my other desks, the one for the day job and the one for my personal computer work. Talk about a shock to the system.

It wasn’t just the routine cleaning after finishing the painting that prompted the need for storage. I also ordered some additional pastel pencils and soft pastels. They arrived just before I did my cleaning and contributed to the realization that I needed a better way to store the pastels and pastel pencils. Pastels and pastel pencils weren’t the only thing I ordered. I also ordered a gesso primer for pastel. It’s a textured gesso. It’s supposed to work on a wide variety of surfaces and supports so that I can use many things to pastel paint on, not just pastel paper. I had that in mind when I decided what to do for my next art projects.

Art desk covered in pastels and supplies before storage.

The worst part about finishing an art piece for me is if I don’t have an idea of what I want to work on next. And I didn’t. I was really struggling with what I wanted to create next. So, I sat down and started working on the Gretsch point painting again. I got a bit annoyed with it and went to set it aside. When I did this, I managed to smear some of the still wet ink. At this point, I was disgusted with the piece. I’m not one to completely destroy or trash a piece most of the time so I opted to just take it off the desk and move it to storage and not work on it. And that’s when I figured out what do for the next pieces.

The first piece is an experimental piece, meaning to experiment with materials or such, like the new gesso. The idea is to do a small piece that doesn’t need a large canvas to see how I like the gesso, if it does as they advertise, and what other techniques I might want to keep in mind for working with it. I’ve started it. I may stop and try again because of the choice of paper. I chose some watercolor paper since it’s a fairly heavy stock, and because I have some in roughly standard paper size so it’s not too big. This is a little frustrating because all the valleys in the paper that are meant to hold the watercolor paint. This makes getting the really smooth looking color coating more challenging than I was hoping. What I may do instead is to take a piece of the Bristol board and cut it to a smaller size and try the gesso on it and start over with that.

The second piece will be a little larger. I’m not sure yet if I will use the gesso or just use pastel paper and spray fixing frequently to complete it. It will depend on how I like the gesso. The piece will replace the Gretsch point painting. At least that’s the plan right now. I think I will like it better. And I think I will like doing it in pastel better.

All the pastels and such neatly organized.

The third piece will be much larger, possibly as large as the Blue Footed Booby picture I did end of 2019 and finished in the first part of 2020. This one will probably just use the pastel paper and the spray fixing methods. I expect there to be more detail and more need for depth that I feel like I get with the spray fixing of layers. This will be another underwater creature. In fact, it’s one I have intended to do for years, in black and white using the same point method I was using for the Gretsch. I have a few animals I have done that way and it was next on the list. I’ll share more on that when I start on it.

Things are starting to set a rhythm. I’ve got studies for the day job still. That will be a bit of an ongoing thing. I finished the one set of lessons I was doing for the Azure stuff. I’ve started a different set for Azure as well as some for Chef. I’m rapidly approaching the project that I was hoping to use Chef for a part of. It’s a minor part but a good exercise in using the tool that doesn’t risk breaking anything too bad.

I finished the Rhythm Guitar course and have decided to spend some time practicing what I learned there and really getting it into my fingers before I start another guitar course. While I’m doing that, I’ve replaced the guitar course with a Web Development Bootcamp course. I started it over the summer and then for various reasons got sidetracked and had not gotten back to it. So that’s what I’m working on now.

So far I am really enjoying the web development course. Most of what has been covered up to where I am at, I have already learned or encountered over the years with different websites I’ve built. Though, I will say I now have a better grasp of how to use and create tables in html. Not that you would really want to, at least not for layout, which is how they were used at one time. Next up will be some CSS. Which is also something I have had a little exposure to. So, I am not expecting too many revelations. Though, I don’t doubt I will still find something new to learn.

And now I have desk space to work in

One of the things I am enjoying about the web development course is somewhat similar to what I am finding with the German I’m working on at Duolingo. Either because of how Duolingo has structured their learning or how I am approaching it or a combination of the two, my grasp and comfort with German and the idea of using it has started to creep up on me. So that when I was speaking with a colleague the other day instead of greeting him with ‘good morning’ I used ‘gute nachmittags’ which is ‘good afternoon’ and more appropriate for the time of day where he is. I feel like the web development course is doing something similar for coding. It starts with a simple to understand ‘language’ to create a very basic web page that anyone who has been on the internet can grasp what it is. And the course will progress to not just the markup language and then the stylization language, it will also get into things like PHP and Javascript that are closer to ‘regular coding’ than HTML and CSS. And I think that, that bit by bit slow progression helps to build comfort with using coding or scripting as a solution to different things on the computer, either for personal use or for the day job. So, I’m really excited about working on the web development course.

The reading over the Holidays idea worked out really well. I read or finished reading a reasonably good number of books. Of course, I have probably purchased as many or maybe twice as many books as I finished. I tried to limit my book purchases so I could get a little more caught up on the unread books I have. I had set a goal of only purchasing one book for every two books I read. That only worked for a little while. Maybe what I will try next is choosing the books I am going to purchase each month, and then…. Never mind. That’s not even remotely realistic. I’ll just have to work on keeping up with my reading just like the rest of my studies. That covers what I think is noteworthy for now. What I manage to work on each week, as you know, varies. And with some of the things I’m working on there doesn’t really feel like a lot to tell. I’ll do my best to keep up and keep you up with the news and cools and adventures.

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Just About Ready

Posted on January 2, 2021 by SusanG

I think I am ready for the new year and to jump back into things. The idea of taking the holidays for reading and not trying to work on anything else has been really helpful and mostly motivating.

I haven’t finished quite as many books as I had hoped when I started out with the idea of spending the holidays reading. Though, as of this writing, they aren’t quite over and I consider the time between New Year’s Day and the next workday to be part of the holiday as well, so I still have some time. I did finish up a couple of books that I had been working of for a while. I was really glad of that. One of them was a re-read. I was reading the first Harry Potter book again because even though I have seen the movie dozens of times since I read the book, the book is different than the movie and since I want to try to ready Harry Potter in German I thought I should read the English version again. Of course, English vs. American is possibly up for a debate. I’m not going to go there.

Adventures in cooking: What’s in the refrigerator vegetable soup.

One of the things I have been working at, consistently since I got my iPad is learning German. There are a few reasons for this and probably the best one is because I have been trying to learn to speak and read German since I was in high school and I am determined to do it. I’ve been using duolingo.com to learn and I am making progress. At least I am being consistent. I finally figured out that the way I approach my lessons there will work for other things I’m trying to learn. And yes, I have started Harry Potter in German. It’s going to take a while. There are a lot of words I still don’t know and have to figure out, guess at, or look up as I go.

The way I approach my German lessons is to do just two lessons a day, minimum. I can do more if I feel like it, but if I’m not up to it I just get in the two lessons. This is working out really well for me. Much better than how I had been trying to approach things where I was trying to assign an amount of time that I had to spend on whatever I was studying. And for whatever reason, the amount of time I thought I had to spend on something each day was at least an hour. I don’t know about you, I really only have 24 hours in my day and a good chunk of that is taken up by either sleeping or working and I also have to feed myself. So, if I have 3 things I want to learn and think I should put and hour to each every day, well during the week, that doesn’t really leave time to even eat most days. So I’m going to try doing what I do for German for my other studies. This only just clicked with me. I haven’t been doing it long enough to know yet how well it’s going to work. Given I have study for work I need to get going on starting next week, and I have so many Udemy courses that I want to work through, I figure it is worth a try. And I am trying to keep it reasonable. I’ve got the German, the study for work, and one other course, whatever it is. Right now I’m finishing, or trying to finish up the Rhythm Guitar course on Udemy. I’m almost half way through it so I might as well.

Mantis Shrimp wanted some attention.
Still a work in progress.

The reading has been interesting. I finished the Harry Potter book and a book on the future outlook of the Space industry. I also started and finished a book on the history of the Bayes Theorem. That was really fascinating. It is even relevant to my day job. Its history and recent events and events involving it, I think, have a lot to do with some of the amazing improvements, and progress we have seen in the last 25 or so years. It was worth the read.

I started one book that, while it did keep me reading it, it turned out to be a bit demotivating for me. Instead of being inspired by it, or fascinated, or energized by it, it was enthralling the way a train wreck is. You can’t look away and yet it isn’t an uplifting thing. When I realized that I decided I didn’t need to finish the book. I have moved on. I now have three books that argue for my attention each time I sit down to read. And that’s about the norm for me. So things are currently right with my literary world.

Even though I said I was spending the holiday time focusing on my reading, it isn’t the only thing I have done. I have done a bit of experimental cooking, with a few more experiments still to come. And I have worked on a couple of pieces of art that tugged at me and said either, come work on me, or you need to draw me now. I’m really pleased with both. The one that has tugged at me to be worked on is the painting of the Mantis Shrimp. I have it now to the point that I am ready to start on the background. I was a little surprised as I worked on it and made areas darker and more saturated, how it was coming along and how nice and bold it looks. That makes me feel good about the direction it is going.

Those blobs are my blue, blue cheese dressing.
I’ll add more blue next time.

The other piece of art, the one that said draw me now, was an anthropomorphized carrot. Yes. A carrot. With a face. It also said it wanted me to use Procreate on the iPad. So I did. Hey, some pieces know exactly how they want you to approach them. When that happens, it is best not to argue. It was a really fun thing to do and to use Procreate because though it is one of the reasons I wanted the iPad and learning to use it is a goal of mine, it isn’t always the most intuitive tool for me to pickup and work with. Doing that piece also inspired me to look for some digital painting courses or tutorials. I found a couple that look interesting at Udemy and watched some of the previews, and learned something. Just from the previews. So I’ll be looking into one or two of those for either Procreate or Photoshop or both.

I also came across an artist on Instagram whose work I have really enjoyed watching in speed up mode. It has me reconsidering my feelings on painting. And thinking about, considering, giving it a try again. Though not right away. I think I’ll learn digital painting first, less mess. I think that is the key to trying most things. Finding something about it that makes you think or wonder if maybe you could do something like that, or if that style, technique, skill, whatever, might be the answer to what you needed for something you wanted to do. I have had that happen with cooking for sure.

That piece that just knew how it wanted to be created.

I generally cook to feed myself. I don’t treat it really as a creative expression. Though my sister does. Oh my. It’s a good thing we are several hours from each other or my scales and my jeans would be groaning. Anyway. Though I will get in a routine eating the same handful of meals for days or weeks, I get a little bored with that. A couple of years ago, I happened on a cookbook that has recipes from the game World of Warcraft. Having played the game, I thought this was fun and some of the recipes looked interesting. I got the book and I have tried a few of the recipes and some more than once. Like the bread recipe. That is one of my favorites. I recently came across a cookbook for Star Wars Galaxy Edge, which from what I have read is the Star Wars area at Disneyland and it’s a big hit. I’m not a major Star Wars fan, I have seen the main nine movies as well as Rogue One, and I have been watching The Mandalorian. So when I first saw the book, I was thinking of it for someone else. Then I poked at the contents and some of the recipes looked fun and interesting. Like Polystarch Portion Bread. It’s a single serving of bread made in the microwave. Really. So I ordered the cookbook and have been trying a few of the recipes.  And I think the bread is pretty good. I have also tried one of the drinks. It’s non-alcoholic and I won’t be drinking that again. I might make it for someone, I won’t drink it. It tastes ok. The ingredients are migraine inducing for me. So, no. Now the blue, blue cheese dressing is quite tasty and a nice change from the lemon vinaigrette I have been making for a couple of years now.  In fact, I’ll be having on my salad again this week because, yum.

Of the movies that were premiering of various formats over the holidays the one I have been looking forward to the most was ‘Soul’ from Disney and Pixar. This did not disappoint. I was originally drawn to it because of its musical, jazz in particular, theme. And the previews looked interesting. Then Disney+ had a show about some of the creators and artists behind some of the different animations and I found that interesting. There are at least two people featured in that who worked on ‘Soul’. The story is great. It’s impactful and inspirational. And the music is great. I will be watching ‘Soul’ again at least two more times and probably more. I want to watch it and focus on the art, the visual style, and animation. And I want to watch it to pay attention to the music. The background and ambient music as well as the music when it is the focus of the scene. Jazz is the style of music that I aspire to be able to play on guitar. I don’t spend enough time practicing it. Maybe I will start to change that.

I had one final success to finish off the year. That project to mount the bicycle racks is complete. My neighbor picked up the requisite drill bits and we were able to get the holes drilled and the screws in and the bikes on the racks. And then they came to my garage and helped me with mine. So. Three bike racks successfully mounted and three bikes off the floor. That was a big win. Now I need to clean my garage.

Still a work in progress.
This one has wanted a lot of attention lately.

Going back to the music from ‘Soul’ for a moment. One of the things I lamented after I moved to Charlotte, was that I couldn’t seem to find a good Jazz station on the radio. Over the air radio has a lot of things here, including a really good Classical Music station. I just haven’t found a good Jazz station. I had not really recognized what a loss this was for me until recently. I have some CDs, yes, CDs of different Jazz artists and they work for short bursts but if I want to put on music to just listen to with a variety and not have to worry about they don’t quite do it. Yes, Spotify has Jazz as well, and that is ok. What I like about radio is the thing that I think some people must not like. I like the occasional commentary offered by the DJs. In a lot of cases I get to learn something that adds to my appreciation of the music. I finally gave in and added my SiriusXM to my Alexa and get to see how that works out. It has, so far, been a nice treat.

And that’s the year ended and a new one started. There is no telling how things will go this year. I hope for everyone that it is a good year, happy, prosperous, and peaceful. As for what I have in mind next. As I mentioned, I have studies for work to get started on. I want to be a bit more ambitious with that this year and I think with a new study approach it can happen. I have art pieces that I want to do, and new things I want to learn there as well. After some of the things I’ve worked on recently, and some of the things I would like to learn, I am reconsidering pieces that I had planned on creating. I may choose not to create them, or I may approach them differently. As for the music. I’m not sure yet. I’ll of course keep playing and practicing because I like to do that. I may spend more time with the surf guitar music that I so enjoy, and I may start to dip my fingers into learning to play jazz. Those are just the main things I’m looking at for the near future. I have no doubt I will find additional things to get into.

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Nothing Cool

Posted on December 21, 2020 by SusanG

I’ve tried a couple of times to write this blog post and have not been able to finish it. I get part way through it and realize that I don’t like the way it reads or that it’s a bit boring. I finally realized why I have been having so much trouble. It’s because in my brain, I’m not working on anything cool so why would I write about it.

Christmas Stocking I had in mind.

It isn’t completely true that I haven’t been working on cool things. I have, just not quite the same and not as consistently. I kept getting stuck. It was having trouble figuring out why I was getting stuck until just recently. First some of the cool things that I have been working on.

It started with a shower. I was in the shower and for some reason my mind drifted to how to model a Christmas stocking. I was thinking of how to start it and all of that. So, of course, when I finished my shower and dressed, I had to try it out. I sat down at the computer and opened Blender and before I new it several hours had gone by. At the end, I had a stocking, just not quite the Christmas stocking I had intended. I forgot to use a reference photo or two.

Stocking I got when using no reference

I still wanted to model a Christmas stocking. You know, the one that looks a bit like a snow boot. This time I looked up some reference photos before I started. I’ve got something much closer to what I want. This time I used a cube to get started, the first time I used a cylinder and had some weirdness with the end cap as I was trying to model the toe area.

I learned with the first one, from finishing the tree more recently to starting it, that if I wanted to use the cloth sculpt brush I was better off to not add a solidify modifier to it before using that brush. I forgot that when I made the second stocking so I ended up fighting with the cloth sculpt brush to get it to do anything helpful.

I may try the stocking again with what I have learned and remembered. Hopefully I will get closer to what I want for it.

Tree up!

I have also done something cool that isn’t on the computer. Or music related. I met some of my neighbors when I was out for a walk. I try to take a walk through part of the neighborhood or at least to the mailbox daily. I try, it doesn’t always happen. And yes, I do wear my mask. Because you never know when you might meet someone or come across someone who needs help. Anyway, I met a neighbor and her daughters. After quite a long chat we exchanged phone numbers for texting and so I could send her some links. A couple days later, she texted me to ask if I know how to put together a bicycle. Not specifically. I can read instructions and figure things out. So off I went to help her. We got it half done that evening before it got too dark and finished the rest the next evening just as it got dark. It turns out that this was the daughter’s holiday project. She wanted to learn to ride a bike on just two wheels. She pretty much nailed it. The next day after we finished it, I got a video from my neighbor of her daughter riding the bike. The next project is to hang the bike racks.

Tree decorated too!

I have managed to setup my Christmas tree. I got it out of the storage and put it together and placed it on the table. It sat like that for at least a week. I considered leaving it that way. Then I decided to pull the box of decorations down off the shelf in the closet. I wanted to see it the lights work. They do. I ended up fluffing out the tree, putting the lights on it and decorating it at lunch one day. Now not only is my tree up, it’s decorated.

So what kept getting me stuck? A cool project that I was working on. I haven’t finished it. It is still stuck. Remember that leaf I did? Well I have this cool idea of something I want to use it for. I need a digital version of it. I don’t want to try to scan or photograph my picture of it to use. So I thought I would make a new version of it starting in digital, using something like Photoshop. I’ve started it twice now. Once I was trying to use my Cintiq and found that frustrating. And just last week I decided to try using my Intuos tablet, which is like the Cintiq only not a monitor, just a drawing tablet.

That was an interesting experiment. I setup my laptop and the Intuos on my dresser in my bedroom. It turns out that it is the perfect height for me to be able to work standing. I did this for a few days. It was kind of interesting and I felt very productive. I also felt like I was doing a lot of work and not getting what I had in mind. So I stopped. And I haven’t gotten much else cool or creative done since. Very frustrating.

Make shift workstation

I don’t consider getting my new desktop setup to do the Microsoft lessons really that cool. Though, I should. I did do that. I was able to install the software that I needed as well as activate the sandbox for the lesson that I am on. I really should consider that a cool thing. I just see it as normal stuff that needs doing. I still have other training stuff that needs to be setup on it and if I can get it to work, that will be cool. Not just because of what it is, also because it was a pain to set it up on my laptop.

I know, so why set it up on the desktop? Because I realized that, as much as I like working on my laptop and find it really convenient when I am comfortable on the couch, for really digging in and working on something, my desk and my desktop are really more comfortable. And the screen is bigger.

What’s next? At first I wasn’t sure because I had only just figured out what had me stuck and what to do about it. I was still shifting my thinking around and moving the leaf project into the area of my brain where it doesn’t get forgotten, it just gets low power and fewer processing cycles.  Now, I think, for the next couple of weeks I’m going to follow a modified version of the Icelandic tradition where they give books for Christmas and then spend Christmas Day reading. I think I’m going to focus the next couple of weeks on some reading. I have a few books started and a few more lined up to read once I finish those. It’s quite an eclectic selection too. I’m excited about it.

After that I think I will be ready to jump back into other things. Like my studies, Blender scenes, art pieces, and some music.

Some of my favorite Christmas ornaments.
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