Terrible Analogies

M.C. Escher’s last work, Snakes, was completed in 1969, three years prior to his passing.  Escher used every possible moment in which he felt well enough to work on this last print.  There was no sign in the print or in the preliminary studies to indicate that Escher was running on his last reserves of strength.  It’s fascinating the will and determination certain individuals can conjure up, even in the face of death, to see one’s passion to completion.  Personally, I don’t know anyone who, mere moment prior to that final curtain call, would opt to paint a final perfect picture, snap an awe-inspiring photograph, or write a best seller rather than slow down, see a doctor, and get some rest.  

Being as frail as Escher was, to be able to produce a beautiful, detailed, final work of art before finally saying, “Well, that’s that then,” is nothing short of miraculous.  Heck, even in my most pristine, sober state, I could never equal a work such as Snakes.

Drawn almost entirely freehand, these are some of the study sketches for Snakes

All of this got me wondering, what will my final contribution to society be before my time is up?  What will yours be?  Anything?  Or will you, along with millions of others, fade away and simply be replaced by the next drone in line?  Who will remember you 50, 75, or 100 years from now? 

It’s this question that bothers me.  Sure, the short-term goal is to provide for my family, but beyond that, what’s my higher purpose?  It’s this concern that has haunted me for many years.  There’s something inside that tells me I’m meant to do something.  I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who feels this way.

Perhaps I’ll find the answer sitting in front of a keyboard, behind the wheel of a large automobile, or even staring down the business end of a shotgun.  Who can say when and where divine inspiration will strike, but believe me brother, it’s not enough to wait for that guiding hand…will I be prepared to reach out and grab hold when it does?

Oh, and kudos to you if you immediately spotted my reference to the Talking Heads. *fist bump*

Forgive me for this self-congratulatory post, but I wanted to share the fruits of our labor this weekend.  As promised in my Friday post, the wife and I spent some time on both Saturday and Sunday to seal the garage floor with epoxy.  This project was both easier and harder than I thought it would be, but was well worth the effort.  For your edification, here are a couple “before” pictures of our garage:

Ugly, I know.  It had to change.  There was no way I could continue to go through life knowing that our garage looked this pathetic.  

And so, after conversing with Karin about the sad state of our garage we jammed on down to the local Home Despot and picked up a couple cartons of Epoxy Shield.  Borrowing a power washer from my dad we got to work clearing out the few boxes sitting in one of the corners, hosed out the garage, then used the included cement cleaner from the kit and gave the entire floor a good scrub then a final rinse.  The entire process took just 90 minutes.  That was day one.  Easy peasy.

Day two, we taped out various parts of the wall and around the garage door hardware, then painted the side walls with hand brushes (which was the most difficult and time-consuming part of this job), eventually working our way to the floor and a hand roller attached to a broom handle.  This last piece was cake, and was actually quite enjoyable.  As I painted, Karin followed up with the decorative sprinkles.  This painting portion took just 2.5 hours to complete.  This is what our garage looks like now:

Ignore the tape along the bottom of the walls. As soon as the epoxy dries we'll remove it

The paint is still wet, casting bright reflections from the sun.

Oddly enough, as we were working on this project the neighbors kept coming by to see what was going on.  I have to admit, we now have the nicest looking (and cleanest!) garage in the neighborhood.  The next step: pick up a couple nice storage cabinets, placing them on a support system that will keep them 3-4 inches off of the ground to make cleaning of the garage easier.  Now, when we want to clean the garage, we can just hose it down and squeegee out the water.  Genius! 

Downside: we now have to wait two days before we can walk on it, and a week before we can park in our garage once again.  No biggie.  It’s a small price to pay for having a finished garage.

I think I’ve found the next sport I’ll specialize in. It seems easy enough to learn, and incorporates teamwork and a healthy spirit of competition.  In short, good, clean fun

But I’m sure my dreams of cheap glory will be squashed once Karin sees what I’m up to. I’d be more than happy to get back to more cerebral endeavors, but ya see, I have an unhealthy fear of my printer.  It’s been…acting up lately.

And as inanimate objects become smarter, it seems as if our household pets are getting dumber.  Take, for example, Maru, who has what can only be described as a strange fetish for boxes.  Watch this through to the end to see what I mean:

I only wish my cat was that cool.

Ah well, I guess I’ll log into my ignored Facebook account and super poke some people.  That always makes me feel better.

Have a good weekend, everyone!  I’m off to epoxy seal the garage floor.  Manual labor…there’s no other way to spend those precious fleeting hours off from week… *sigh*

I’ve been struggling with words this evening.  Within the past hour I’ve written and rewritten passages that would make Clive Barker blush, but in the end, the point I was so valiantly trying to make within the confining lines of carefully scripted flourishes is this:  I am freakin’ excited about this upcoming film.  

As a child I was deprived many things, but the one thing that I did have was an overabundance of reading material.  Among the many tomes that helped shape me as a human being was a well read, worn copy of Where The Wild Things Are.  I’m not sure why I was so drawn to this story, but I’m sure it had something to do with the trippy artwork that, in turn, had a hand in pushing me into the realm of comic books, which eventually led me into working in a comic book store prior to joining the military, which in turn led me into writing, which I’m hoping will lead me into something much more fulfilling than my current position in life.

And while I’m busy bearing my soul to you, let me take this moment to man up and admit to my deep-seated hatred of brussels sprouts, (most) country music, and anyone who thinks that the lyrics to Devil Woman have something meaningful so say.

There….I said it.  *Whew*!  Lemme tell ya, it feels good to get that off my chest…

I was troubleshooting memory issues on an IBM x3650 recently when I noticed this “warning” stamped on the memory sticks:

What exactly do they mean by “hot surface“?   What’s the deal with the unnecessary quotation marks?  By “hot surface” do they actually mean “bacon sandwich”, “monkey granola”, or perhaps even “hoverboard switchblade”?  What’s the message they’re trying to convey?

You’d think that after investing years of development time and spending the millions of dollars required to manufacture a cutting edge DIMM stick that this particular tech manufacturer would have at least one employee on staff with a worthless college degree in English that could tell them when not to use confusing quotation marks.  Heck, should I “be concerned” when my servers start “acting up“, requiring me to “run diagnostics” to discover “where the problem lies“?   

I’ll be the first one to admit that I am not the smartest man in a room stuffed full to the rafters with painfully slow savants, but…..ARGH! Will you please stop mangling the English language?