Latest project: a book nook!

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Last I backed a Kickstarter campaign for these Dreamy Mini Alley book nooks, and a couple weeks ago it finally showed up! I opted for the DIY kit rather than getting a pre-assembled one because I love putting these kinds of things together.

Well, I started working on it yesterday evening for a few hours and then worked on it some more today for the last seven or so hours. (This is why I didn’t get around to writing a response to today’s daily writing prompt about pets.)

All it needs to be fully complete are some AA batteries for the lights, and it will be perfect. I did make sure to test the electrical components (by using a 2-AAA battery holder I have for another project)  after they were assembled to make sure things lit up and the switch worked. So I know it should work just fine.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some pictures!

There’s a little mirror acting as the back wall to create the illusion of further depth and to see the other shop door correctly (it was designed to be mirrored.)

Some mistakes were made along the way, and it wouldn’t be a fun DIY kit if I hadn’t made any mistakes, but I corrected them along the way. I think it turned out great!

To work for free

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Daily writing prompt
What job would you do for free?
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I’m going to keep this Friday post brief since I ran short of time today.

So long as people need to provide for themselves in a way that requires an exchange of goods or services for other goods and services, then no “job” should be done for free.

That being said, if we lived in a future where our every need is provided for in a way that we DIDN’T have to worry about money and living paycheck to paycheck, where we could pursue whatever work we wanted, I would probably do all the writing I want to do but don’t really have time for now!

It would be so easy to just sit down to write for hours and hours without worrying about money.

Happy Friday!

What Olympic sports I like

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Daily writing prompt
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
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My family used to watch the Olympics, both Summer and Winter, a lot when I was younger. As a kid I wasn’t all the interested and it was just kind of something that was on. We would naturally hope that the athletes from the USA would do well, but I never cared much.

As an adult, I still don’t care much, but I have a much deeper understanding and respect for the athletes. The things they do for training, the lifestyles they have to lead, just to be able to perform at the “Olympic” level is fascinating and also a little sad sometimes. So, for the events/sports that I do end up watching, I can appreciate the action better and actually feel somewhat invested. That being said, I don’t typically watch a lot of the Summer games (and there are a LOT of events for the Summer Olympics.) I much more prefer watching the Winter games, especially the ice related ones.

I did a little bit of skateboarding and snowboarding (briefly) as a kid, so I naturally gravitate towards those events for the Olympics, but I’ve grown to enjoy most of the ice-based sports for the Winter games, which means I watch a substantial portion of the events as compared to the Summer games. The Summer games I enjoy, outside of the skateboarding and BMX events (which go hand in hand for me as part of the “extreme sports” grouping I grew up with), are typically the martial arts ones. On occasion I do enjoy seeing the archery and fencing events, but they aren’t top of the list.

A final note on all of this, though, is that despite me saying I enjoy these events I’m not a big sports guy to begin with, so it should go without saying that I don’t follow the teams or individual athletes and have no vested interest in their practice, progress, and success. I just watch whenever I feel like it (when the games are on, of course.)

Community improvement

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How would you improve your community?

This is a tough question…

On one hand I can approach this less seriously and throw around (potentially) lofty ideas regardless of feasibility, and on the other I could do what I usually do and analyze the hell out of it while only sharing a small amount of my thoughts.

I’ll just stick with the “lofty idea” one.

Lofty idea: more public events/classes for teens and adults, like the fun ones through the library system. Space/class sizes would still be limited but if there were more of them then people wouldn’t have to miss out too often because the classes/events wouldn’t be “one and done” on an annual basis (because it already feels like they don’t exist.)

Meeting people and making friends as an adult is already a challenge, and modern dating can be even more of a challenge, especially when it feels like the only thing to do out here is go to the bars. (I live in an area where there are, on average, more bars than churches by a fair amount.) So, why not introduce more ways to be social without breaking the bank AND finding people who might have common interests? Or even just having activities for date nights that aren’t just going out to dinner and maybe a movie? How about an hour long class on archery? Or a two hour stained glass session?

A community is only as strong as the bonds we forge together in a personal way, face to face. Not digitally where everyone can hide behind a keyboard and avoid reality. (I say all this knowing full well how introverted I typically am and avoiding social outings with strangers.)

My life post pandemic

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Daily writing prompt
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
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I’ve talked about it before multiple times but only really as brief mentions for other topics.

The way I adapted to live during and after the pandemic.

During the pandemic, I ordered a LOT of food through DoorDash and Grubhub. An embarrassing amount, considering I was basically confined to the house and could have cooked my meals anytime I wanted. Afterwards, when restrictions lifted and I was going back into the office nearly everyday, I try to avoid that and remind myself of just how much money I could be saving by not using those apps, but I still do use them on occasion. It’s nice to be able to have something delivered to the office (on very rare occasions) when I know I’m going to have a busy day full of meetings. It’s also nice to use those apps purely for reference too! I can pull them up, see nearly every restaurant near me, and check what hours and menus are for each. Then I can either order for pick up or remind myself I’m not really THAT hungry to warrant ordering out. The cost of convenience is not really worth it anymore.

Technology and the home work setup changed during and after the pandemic in a way I never really thought I would feel okay with accepting. I need my separate spaces for work and home. During the pandemic this sucked because I basically lived in my bedroom for 20+ hours a day. Work, eat, play, sleep. At the time, I built a room divider to help separate my bedroom into sleeping area and gaming/working area. (It’s just a 4×8 sheet of wood cut to a 4×7 shape with a cube storage shelf screwed onto it for stability and organization.) After the pandemic was more or less ended, I moved my computer setup back into the basement along with the room divider so that I could kind of shut it off from the rest of the basement for some privacy and to serve as a backdrop for when I was streaming.

Before the pandemic hit and everything shut down, I used to go to Walmart and other late night stores all the time. 2:00AM and can’t sleep? Walk around Walmart and do some light shopping. Although technically I did that a lot anyway because I enjoyed the peace and quiet of shopping when nobody else was around. Now I can’t really do that, unless I wanted to spend time at gas stations that are open 24/7. I’ve had to adapt to the idea that I’ll just have to be quick and methodical about my grocery shopping excursions and plan them as best I can at times of the day when the crowds are lightest. That usually means early mornings are an hour or two before close.

I’m sure there are probably some other ways I’ve adapted to life post-pandemic but if I can’t think of them off the top of my head they probably aren’t as broad or significant as the things I mentioned above. Oh well, life changes all the time and I’m sure I’ll have to adapt to new things again in the near future.

The current morning ritual

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Daily writing prompt
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?
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My morning ritual depends on Weekday versus Weekend but they’re still fairly similar and simple.

Monday through Friday, as long as I have work, I get up around 7am. I take my morning meds, brush my teeth, shave, shower, all that bathroom stuff, and then get dressed for work. Then I’m off! I live relatively close to work so I don’t typically worry about morning rush hour traffic. If I happen to be working from home I like to stretch out the morning routine a little bit, but only in so much as I can log in by 8am, check emails and see what meetings I have for the day, and do my morning routine in between those kinds of tasks.

Saturday and Sunday are similar in that I wake up around the same time to take my morning meds, which only takes a minute or so if I have my water bottle filled, and then I go back to sleep for a couple hours (typically because I stayed up late playing games or reading.) When I wake up for the day I go about the rest of the morning routine. That’s just about it. Nothing special. No “ritual”, just the standard types of things people do in the morning.

Happy Easter 2024

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Today was a really busy day and I didn’t get around to answering the daily prompt like usual, but for good reason! I’ve spent just about all day with family for the Easter holiday and a belated birthday dinner for me.

For those of you out there that celebrate Easter, I hope you had a wonderful day!

Tying my name to something

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If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

This is a tough question to decide on, not because it’s going to be a serious answer but rather that it CAN’T be serious. I have nothing noteworthy to tie my name to, to have something be named after me and carry on a legacy of sorts.

I’ll just go through a couple ideas.

I think it would be neat to have a technique named after me, the Taylor Technique, and it could be in something like construction. No idea how or why, I just think it would be amusing to me and neat to see.

Or maybe a demolition technique. The Taylor Topple? I don’t know, it’s silly, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Laughing at things

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What makes you laugh?

There are a lot of things that can make me laugh. Sometimes it’s just a matter of mood or circumstances.

I enjoy dark and morbid humor, but I respect that there is a time and place for it. I won’t always laugh at it but I can definitely still see the potential ramifications for why it would make someone laugh even if the current situation is very serious and not a laughing matter.

More often than not, though, I am enjoying silly humor, dirty jokes, terrible puns, and creating stupid portmanteaus for situations. Kind of like the silly and clever names for the daily special in Bob’s Burger’s.

I’m not a big fan of situations where someone is harmed or injured. If I was a part of the situation or present for the incident and I can look back on it years later with everyone, then that’s a different story.

Honestly, there’s quite a lot that can make me laugh.

When I grow up: perspective at five years old

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When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I can now say that this was over 30 years ago for me, so I can’t really recall if I had ever answered this question when I was five. Not that it really mattered then and I only cared about having fun. In the eyes of five-year-old me the world was very different and much smaller, so I probably gave stereotypical answers like wanting to be a firefighter or astronaut.

While I can’t recall what I might have thought at five years old, I can at least say that somewhere between the ages of 11 and 14 I had wanted to make games for a living and was even looking into how to enroll at Digipen in Washington. That obviously never happened, but that should give you some idea of how differently my life turned out by going from Colorado to South Dakota instead of Washington.