Talking with a friend, I had a flashback to a previous career where I tracked and calculated MTBF using FMEA techniques — started at GE with Navy CASS test equipment, carried over into sewer diagnostic sensors and ended with computer peripherals. Seemed like I studied the mathematics in statistics class, too.
Memories…where and who would I be without ’em.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Jogging in my neighbourhood is an adventure encountering wild nocturnal animals.
Last night, an armadillo literally scurried under me, going perpendicular to my path as I was in mid-running stride, its claws clickety-clacking on the asphalt pavement — the scene triggers a funny phrase in my thoughts: macadam, I’m Mac, Adam, and I’m having a Big Mac attack.
Tonight it was a juvenile raccoon I scared up a tree.
I’ve almost run over a possum more than once.
Tonight, a young woman walking her dog in the darkness almost ran over me, the dog’s bark scaring me out of my shoes and sending me light on my feet at a fast jogging pace away from woman, leash and territorially protective canine companion.
“Territorially” is not the best adverb in that last sentence is it? I’ve gotten sloppy in my writing lately, haven’t I, giving too much weight to the thoughts behind the written words than to the grammatical deconstructionismalarianisms.
Interjecting an exclamation! Yes I am! Declarative statement! Maybe?
In any case, it’s nice to relax my thought patterns, if not my core (head, torso and arms) just yet.
In a few hours, it will be the day of the 27th wedding anniversary of me and my first wife.
Yes, that’s right, I’m not counting the girlfriends who’ve filled my dreams with fancy holidays on the Riviera (that’s the 1969 Buick Riviera rusting in the backyard — you knew that, though, didn’t you?).
Ahh…deja vu all over again, deja vu all over again…we’re sorry that we didn’t have time to include Matt Damon in this sketch. However, we have time to plug a few holes in the plots of films, including any good Bollywood movie that puts the beautiful love interest and well-timed dancing scenes ahead of a logical storyline.
A shoutout to Bill Neiland, president of Haul Couture; Rainy, Dream, Ferdie and kitchen at Thai Garden (Rainy, my dear, we’ve got to take you on a spontaneous weekend getaway with whomever you want to make the trip the most fun!); John Carroll’s new self checkout configuration at Walmart; Mapco; the Iafrate construction crew and their state trooper support; Peyton Powell and his new job at Volvo equipment rental; the Toyota repair shop, which is having fun quickly fixing all the small items that keep breaking on our 2013 Avalon; anyone I’ve met lately, such as Amber at Rebath, whom I haven’t named.
Even though two Thai teas usually keep me awake, tonight I’m tired enough to sleep, my conscious conscience cleared of old thoughts and ready to tackle a new project at the light of day tomorrow.
Mars needs my attention!
That truck was mooovin’!
I am totally excited because this project, which I’ll detail in a later update, is a sure winner.
I know you’ll love it.
But, before I launch the Kickstarter project, I want you to join me as I walk the path of a soon-to-be successful entrepreneur.
Success requires planning.
LOTS and LOTS of planning.
And research.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into some research.
Before we get started, let’s create a folder on our Internet-connected notebook PC and call the folder something fun.
How about “Kickstarter Project Xceed Xpectations“?:
A good place to store our research.
Easiest next step, conduct an Internet search for Kickstarter business plans:
Probably the most important point about launching a project on Kickstarter is actually knowing what kind of projects you can launch on Kickstarter. Not exactly rocket science here but it pays to be attentive!
Let’s jump over to Kickstarter and read some of their basic requirements:
Well, good news so far. We can fit our Project Xceed Xpectations easily into one of the categories.
But what about a good Kickstarter-based crowdfunding business plan?
By now, the Internet is well-noded with suggestions about a successful business plan but let’s just stick to two videos:
The second one first, which can be boiled down to two important details. Yes, two again.
Okay, that’s enough for today’s Kickstarter update number one. I’ll conduct some more research and come back to you with my business plan.
I might, just might, give you a hint about the project itself. Who knows?!
In this moment, I recall the story of the children in an orphanage of wartorn Yugoslavia, before war broke up provinces into countries.
One boy had lived in a crib for the first few years of his life and no one taught him a language.
He had his own logical babble that included a few words he had picked up from overworked caregivers.
He had a broken arm, they said, because he beat on the crib walls to get any kind of attention he could, unceasingly, never giving up hope that someone would pay attention to him, having broken his arm before and seeing it gave him temporary attention.
They also said he was unadoptable because he was so far along in his formative years he was unlikely to appear and act normal enough to appeal to a young couple looking to raise a child of their own.
By now, that child is an adult, if he is still alive.
Does he still have hope?
What does he do?
Did he ever learn a useful communication system such as a formal, common language with which he can express himself to others?
If not, what goes through his thoughts?
What is his physical/emotional support system?
Does he understand the concept of having a reason to live?
Keep anyone, any living thing, in a cage long enough and normality is such a skewed condition compared to the rest of the world that making comparisons is unuseful.
How am I like that boy? What walls hold me in but also provide a protection against my own naive actions in the bigger world? What do I perceive as normal that is far from normal to most of the rest of our species or to large subcultures or even to the local, smaller subcultures around me?
Morning meditation time is over. It’s after 8 a.m. Time to work on my business plan, such that it is.
I almost started this blog entry with an apology to readers for delving too much into thoughts and not enough into actions lately but only because I’m looking at a set of stamps entitled “MUSCLE CARS: AMERICA ON THE MOVE,” which invites me to jump behind the steering wheel and burn rubber.
A song jumped into my thoughts this afternoon: “I Heard It On The Grapevine.” What a doozy!
I have a business plan to complete tomorrow and a video to record later this week as my Kickstarter campaign nears its launch date. Not sure which parts to include as part of a robot construction package. Also, should I have a combined campaign or launch a separate project on PledgeMusic?
My mechatronic children are going to miss their new playmates, I can tell you — a desktop lamp has its shade pulled down in sadness, for instance.
But that’s okay. Change is good.
With only 13401 days to go, I’ve got some significant fundraising to promote.
I can no longer sit on the fence and watch the world rush past me at this crossroads of life.
I admit that sitting here is scarier than taking action, action which takes up my energy and reduces me idle thoughts.
That’s okay, too. Variety is good.
I can slip in and out of the colloquial without noticing.
What I’ll discover is the difference between a person who hugs politely, a person who hugs for comfort and a person who doesn’t hug at all.
Just like the fact that land wars are declared in order to test new technology and deplete the stock of old technology.
For whom are the lyrics of a song written? What undertones and undercurrents are designed into the melody?
I know if I want the brass ring, it’s not going to jump into my hand, no matter how far outstretched it may be, then I better make the grab while I can.
The person who can jump in and tell the story with me the quickest — that’s what I’m talking about.
A true model citizen.
What are you looking for in the long run — a single person to be your one and only or a plethora, a cornucopia of tastes?
I hope to make everyone I meet a better person than before, whatever better may mean in the moment.
How many of us can keep putting ourselves out there and give and give and give without end? How do we recycle energy to keep recharged?
What defines us? Our vocation? Our social network? Our possessions? Our family?
When you’re talking alone with someone, is your conversation any different than when someone else is in the room?
The years of chronic pain in the tensed muscles of my shoulders hunched over in anticipation of being beaten by my father are slowly dissipating. I no longer have to fear his passive-aggressive love, never sure if a hug was coming or a smack in the face, physical and/or verbal.
Hugging someone without fear is a tremendous feeling. So is dancing with someone without fear while letting my emotional state and set of thoughts rest in my fingertips, palms, forearm, biceps, shoulders, neck and back.
The passive-aggressive relationship with my father is partially tied into the relationship between my wife and me and it is damn hard work to overcome old habits tied to responding to passive-aggressive people as a chameleon personality.
Maybe I should summarise this blog in a single phrase: dancing is mental AND physical therapy.
Abi, as our dance instructor, is like my father — I’m never sure from moment to moment if she’s going to praise or criticize me. Last night, when I saw a deep-seated fear briefly flash in Jenn’s eyes, I realised that the old fears of my father were showing on my face and in my reactions to Abi, and wanted to run as fast and as far away from the dance studio as my legs and lungs could take me but I was attached to Jenn, who herself seemed to have withdrawn a little.
It was a revealing moment for me, if not for her, showing me why dancing with her was so much different when only my wife was watching us than when Abi and my wife were watching.
Enough of thought set reconfiguration, although it is fun to write about what goes through my thoughts in these personally enlightening moments to complete the circle of the mental/physical therapy.
Time for action, assisting my wife, Abi and Jenn get whatever it is out of me, this humble set of states of energy, that makes them better than they were before, maybe even happier — some of our goals are aligned but not every single one of them, as it should be. Hopefully, I’ll be better and happier, too. I sure plan to be!
Thanks to “C Note” Clarissa at KFC; Degarius at Taco Bell; the whole team at Yellowhammer Roofing.
treetrunkdings 