3-28-05
This is spring break and I am enjoying the time off. It's unpaid time off because I am adjunct faculty, but still, there is nothing more calming than the knowledge that you can sleep in as long as you want. I heard Sue, Lisa and Clint getting up and going off to work, high school and college this morning, but I simply rolled over so my deaf side was up and fell back into a scary dream.
     I was working as a teacher in Seattle and couldn't find my classes. I went to the wrong school for two weeks. Finally I found the classroom and my students across town and promised to be back in 15 minutes with my lesson plans. I had to walk back to my car through a construction zone. The crowd was walking up a makeshift bridge where the muddy planks were barely secured on the trusses. Huge cranes were dropping old beams perilously close the pedestrians jammed like sardines on the rickety bridge. I tried to get off the bridge and walk up the back street but would have had to leap twenty feet down into a rocky, mud and garbage filled gully. I knew I was going to be terribly late for my class but there was nothing I could do.
     It's weird how the mind loves to wallow in horror through dreams. While I have as much right to complain as any middle class white american (meaning not very much), my life isn't any where near as anxiety filled as my dreams would lead one to believe. Yet on they ramble through horror after horror. I wonder if I've ever had a happy dream?
   At any rate, I'm fortunate to have the free time to sit here and ponder such weighty matters. The sun was out when I woke up at 8:30, but it's been gone for an hour now, replaced by light rain from a leaden sky. The trees toss from side to side occasionally as a quick wet breeze blows through. I hear water dripping off the eaves, and a lone moth sleeps on my window outside, it's wings spread against the glass.
    I'll have 5 days of work next quarter: 4 classes and one lab day, which makes me full time...although I'm still considered part time...funny how that works. Only one of my classes is new, and while it's a new third quarter Photoshop class that I've never taught before, the previous instructor gave me his lesson plans, and the class is built around a textbook so I shouldn't have to spend too much time preparing lesson plans. It's the old learn it and teach it routine, something I've become pretty good at over the last three years.
  I'm making good progress climbing the learning curve with php programming. So far I've built a small web site with the following fully functional buttons: register, change password, log in, log out and view users. While this doesn't sound like much to those of you who don't wallow in programming, for me, it's a bright light of hope, and may hold the key to lifting us out of this grinding poverty.
    I'm not very popular around the household when I shut the door to my bedroom/office so I can hit the books. Sue grumbles at the lack of help, and the kids complain when I won't help them with stuff, but they all know I'm learning a new skill that may improve our future.
   The drawing you see here was done 3 months ago during winter break. I love doing these still lifes because it simply feels good to spend time with them, and whether they ever sell or not is irrelevant. It's a lovely way to pass the time. That was the first time I've tried to draw a rose in 35 years. I did a few for my mom in my teen years, but not since. I worked very hard on the values in the rose, but it still looks wrong. I'm happy with the glass and the fabric.
    I started another one out in the garage, but it's been sitting there untouched for 2 months. Earning a living has to take precedence over entertainment..

3-20-05 Climbing snowy ledges
Looks like rain over there, my climbing buddy Mark L. said as we sipped our morning coffee around the campfire.

Where? I said, looking around nervously.

Over there in those mountains on the horizon...must be about 30 miles off. What direction is that anyway? - Mark L.

Well, let's see...the sun is rising over there beyond the cliffs, and the sun rises in the east. Uh oh, that means we're looking at rain coming down the east side of the Cascades.

I thought it rarely rained in this part of Eastern Washington - Mark L.

That's right, I said, I've never seen anything over here except sun and high clouds. If it does anything it usually just get's windy...that does look like rain though.

I think it's getting closer. - Mark L.

Jeez, we'd better get up on the cliffs and do a couple routes before it gets here. - me

We bustled around, got our packs out of the car and hiked up the scree to the cliffs, only half a block away. By the time we were ready to climb we could feel the occasional drop of moisture on our skin. It seemed to be a mixture of rain and sleet and drifted down half heartedly as if not really sure it wanted to ruin our climbing trip just yet.
   I tried to lead the first decent route I found, accidentally choosing a hard one instead of an easy one and backed off with frozen hands. Mark L. went up and cruised right through the hard section. I cleaned it on top rope and went up and down the crux a couple times, trying to find the right holds. There didn't seem to be any easy holds.
  When I got down I complimented my buddy on a great lead and asked a passing Mountaineer what the route was rated. He said it was the hardest one on this end of the cliff, rated about 5.7. Well, no wonder I thought, I always suck at vertical 5.7's early in the season. We did one more route before the rock got too wet to climb and I enjoyed that one as it leaned over quite a bit and was probably only a 5.4.
    We went down to the car and put on rain pants, watching the rain and mixed snow get thicker as we huddled under the tail gate of his SUV. The Mountaineers were still up there climbing in their Goretex rain gear, but they didn't look like they were having too much fun. After about an hour we packed up and drove the three hours back to our side of the state through swirling snow up to Snoqualmie Pass, then rain as we came down out of the mountains.
      I arrived home in time to see my son off as he left for a road trip to San Diego. He and a buddy are going to try surfing over spring break. He should be home in bed as he has a temperature of 102. He'd tried to go to work at the plant nursery but his boss sent him home because he was too weak to load the trees into the customers trucks. I guess his buddy plan to do the driving until Clint gets better.
   I think I've got the bug now. No surprise there, my students have been blowing germs around for a month, and I'm the last one in the family who hasn't been sick yet.

3-18-05 Movie Star?
Starred in a one hour educational film yesterday on making a logo in Adobe Illustrator. It will be shown on College Vision cable TV at some point in the future after they finish the post production work. This is the second time Leslie from College Vision TV has asked me to do this. Several of the instructors here have gone into the studio to record what are essentially infomercial's that showcase what we do in the Media Design program.
   It's pretty strange sitting in a cavernous TV studio on a little stage under the bright lights, staring into the cold unblinking eyes of two, thirty thousand dollar tv cameras. Leslie was in her glassed in control room monitoring the 4 feeds (laptop, voice, left camera, right camera) while her two cameramen stood at the cameras wearing headphones, giving me hand signals as I worked through the lesson.
   It's essentially just another classroom lecture, but done for the viewing TV audience instead of a room full of live students. As I talked my way though the lecture, speaking to the camera in the perfectly quiet sound proofed studio I tried to imagine that there were people out there, through the glass of the camera lens listening to me, struggling to grasp what I was doing.
    Leslie said I did really well, and her cameramen, seasoned veterans of Channel 11, were equally impressed, giving me big thumbs up gestures as we wrapped each of the three 20 minute segments. She tells me I'm an awesome instructor, and I hear that from the students as well...I suppose it's true. Funny that I don't get that much job satisfaction from it anymore. Yeah, it's a great job and helping the students gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, but the lesson plans are just killer and I'm getting tired.
     The reason I'm a good teacher is that I am willing to spend untold hours of my unpaid personal time creating great lesson plans. And therein lies the rub. If I'm going to work this hard, I want to be paid for my time. But as teachers everywhere know, you don't do this job for the money. Sigh...

On a brighter note, since this is Friday, my day off, I have all day to study php programming before I begin my weekend adventure. I've got a date with some friends and the weather looks like it will be great. Ideally I should be preparing lesson plans for the new class I have to teach next quarter...nah, I'll put that off until the break. We have 6 days off for spring break, should be plenty of time then. Never do now what you can put off 'till later!

3-17-05
While sitting at the computer this morning balancing my checkbook I was surprised to see a bright light suddenly illuminate the keyboard. I looked around and realized it was the morning sun shining through the sliding glass patio door. I usually don't work at the computer before breakfast, but this morning I woke up at 6 and had this wild hair idea to get my checkbook organized before I jumped into my programming book.
     It's surprising that the sun can get in here at all. The computer is 30 feet away from the window, and there are about 40 tall fir trees in the green belt between our house and the neighbors house through which the sun has to shine. But there it was, lighting up my dusty old food encrusted keyboard like the 4th of July. I could probably boil this disgusting thing and make a nutritious soup.
     When I bent down to stare directly at the sun (just for a second) I had this deja vu feeling and spent a few moments pondering the improbability of the whole thing. I mean, how could something be that bright, and be that far away? Beats the heck out of the household lights. As I waited for the blind spots in my eyes to fade away I wondered whether some little dinosaur stood in the same place a million years ago and wondered about the improbability of it all.
   Our lives get so incredibly complicated, yet in the grander scheme of things, one individual life is no more important than a little ant scurrying around an ant nest amongst a thousand other ants. We think everything we do is so terribly important, and yet in 200 years it's all dust, and you'll be lucky if anyone even knows your name.
   I was helping a client (Judy D.) after work a couple days ago. She manages the colleges weekly ezine and hires me on a contract basis for html advice.

"I've got one more question for you Mark"

"Well, I hope it's not about the meaning of life, because I don't have a clue"

"What, you don't know the answer to that one?" - Judy.

"No, tell me" I said, happy to take a break from geek speak.

"What are your intentions? Ask yourself that question and you'll know the meaning of life." - Judy.

"Well! That's kind of a cheezy answer. You're answering my question with another question," I complained.

"But it's true, don't you see?" Judy said earnestly, "If you know what your intentions are, then you'll know what's important in your life and you'll understand the meaning of life."

On the way home I was pondering what she'd said. Judy is a very wise lady somewhere in her late fifties or early sixties. She's a wordsmith and a photographer (journalist) by trade and has survived on her communication skills for many years. Steering my car through traffic, dodging all the lane wandering bozos yapping on cell phones I tried to come up with the answer to her question. My intentions are, and by connection, the meaning of life is:

be happy and create lasting beauty while showing respect for my fellow travelers on this journey we call life.

3-16-05 Programming Monkey
Got my php page to connect with the MySQL database today. I know that sounds like greek to most of you, and a month ago it would have sounded like greek to me.What is surprising is that I've been able to teach it to myself from a book. One of my colleagues teaches it here, but he's only spent about 5 minutes with me answering questions, I've basically done it all by myself.

this is a 17 line sample of my latest page, which had 130 lines of code:

// check for a username
if (empty($_POST['username'])) {//check to see if the username is empty
$u = FALSE;
$message .= '<p class="red">You forgot to enter your username</p>';
} else {
$u = $_POST['username']; // u stands for username, simplifying the later typing syntax
}

// check for a password
if (empty($_POST['password1'])) { //check to see if password1 is empty
$p = FALSE;
$message .= '<p class="red">You forgot to enter your password</p>';
} else { // there is a password but...
if ($_POST['password1'] == $_POST['password2']) { // there are passwords but are they the same?
$p = $_POST['password1']; //they are the same and p = password1
} else { //ok, the passwords aren't the same
$p = FALSE; // p1 does NOT = p2
$message .= '<p class="red">your password did not match the confirmed password!</p>';
}
} //end of the if else password checker sequence

I thought actionscript in Flash was complicated, but this php is quite a bit harder. The hardest part so far is simply training my fingers to find the weird keys on the keyboard. Who would have thought I'd ever need to know how to use the bracket keys, and the dollar sign? I need to invest some time in one of those typing programs like Mavis Beacon to get my typing speed up.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm really proud of myself for getting this far in programming. It's exciting in a geeky sort of way. I miss the visual satisfaction of Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash, but once I learn the php I can bring those elements back in and build a truly state of the art web page. I have some outdoor adventure planned for the weekend, hope this rainy weather goes back to California where it belongs.

3-13-05
The php programming I've been studying every weekend is getting easier. I've arrived at the part of the book where they begin introducing the database called MySQL. I've never used any kind of database before so it's somewhat interesting in a geeky sort of way. Normally in bright sunny weather like this I'd be out painting or rock climbing, but I've decided to devote my spare time this spring to learning a programming language. We need more money, and programming is where the money appears to be in this field.
    I tried to work on php yesterday but kept getting interrupted by life:

• I started my day by getting out the huge stack of bills and organizing them by what needed to be paid now, and what could wait until later.
• At 9:15 I left to meet my friend Rick L in town to talk about some business. He has been maintaining a large web site for a client and had recommended me for the job, knowing that I needed the money more than he did. Thanks Rick!
• When I got home around noon I went for a wimpy twenty minute roller blade around the neighborhood, booted up the computer again and started paying bills online only to be interrupted by Sue calling from town: "Mark, can you come pick me up? I just got out of the doctors office and I want to leave the car here so I don't have to drive back in when Lisa gets off work."
• Picked Sue up, did a little shopping for food and got back home at 3.
• From 3 to 6 I finally got all the bills paid and my checkbook balanced.
• Ate a brief dinner then studied MySQL until around 10 PM.
• Veg'd out with a book until midnight and hit the sack alone. Sue has bronchitis and a tweaked out rotator cuff injury and has been sitting up on the couch the last two nights.

And here I am, Sunday morning back at the computer again getting ready to study more programming. I keep telling myself that studying this boring crap is going to make me more employable, but outside the sun is shining, it smells like spring and I want to play. Still, I have vivid memories of how poor we have been over the last 6 months and programming looks like the only solution.

3-6-05
My devotion to work is making me feel like a monk. Other than brief periods of exercise and a three hour spell on the couch with a book after dinner, I've voluntarily chained myself to my laptop. As usual, there is no money involved, at least in the short term. Friday I tore myself away from the blinking cursor long enough to drive down to the gallery to pick up my 6 unsold paintings. She has many artists in her gallery but one in particular was very good and Deb (the gallery owner) said that the artist was almost living on her skills....breaking even was the term Deb used.
   This particular artist paints her pastels very much like I do, except that her skies and clouds are flawless and full of emotion and texture. I would love to learn to paint like that someday: deep, rich, fully rendered landscapes...instead, I sit at this keyboard trying to master a skill that will pay the bills. Sigh.
     Had a big argument with my daughter last night about when she was supposed to be home. She wanted to be out with her boyfriend until 11. They hang out at a friends house here in our development and it's only a short 10 minute walk across the development. Her boyfriend doesn't get off work until 9 PM which doesn't leave much time for them to hang out on a Saturday night.
    I told her that it wasn't my problem that he had a lousy schedule and that 10 PM was late enough. I knew I was being (somewhat) unreasonable but found myself backed into a corner as she got madder and madder, shouting at me that I wasn't being fair, she didn't have a life any more, Clint got to stay out late all the time etc., etc. When I pointed out that it was different for girls than it was for boys, that girls can get in more trouble, she got even angrier, throwing my past into my face: "At least I don't smoke dope like you did when you were 17!"
   Our argument went downhill from there, and after a flurry of phone calls I was surprised to see that she bagged her plans entirely and stayed home for the evening, slamming things around in her bedroom. She'll be out most of the day today with "the boyfriend", and plans to attend an expensive dinner theatre play (free tickets) with her girlfriend in the evening. She has a life, although I can understand how high school, homework and the part time after school job make it seem grim at times. She stays out late regularly at school dances and overnights with her girlfriends and really has no real basis to attack me. I think she was just in the mood rattle the cage.
   I've finally finished the last lesson in my Dreamweaver class. This was the final for the quarter and stretched to 11 pages of handwritten text illustrated with carefully captured screenshots and hand drawn pointing call outs. What a pain! Part of me actually likes creating these because it's kind of like writing a book, and gives me a sense of job satisfaction. However, I don't get paid a penny for devoting 10 hours of my weekend time to creating these very popular lesson plans. I do it strictly because it makes my lectures easier. There is nothing worse than trying to give a lecture from cheesy lesson plan. These are top notch, better than any textbook I've seen.
    That being said, I'm glad it's done. Now I can move on to something that actually stands a potential of bringing in money, like studying programming. Sue and I may go for a walk or ride today, but, if I'm going to be a good boy I'll write php code all afternoon. They call it a life I guess...

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