Category: Life

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Effective snow fence

snowfence1One of the things I love about driving to Texas from Colorado is passing through the wide open spaces. Our normal route crosses the northeastern corner of New Mexico, where there is much beauty to be seen, if you are willing to stop for it.

We visited Capulin National Monument during one of our trips, five or ten years back. Well worth the hour or two we spent there.

I was struck by the effectiveness of this snow fence along Highway 87. There was hardly any snow for miles in each direction, but drifts were piled up just below the level of the porous slatted fence.

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Not going to buy it

souvenir-mugHaving access to a digital camera is so freeing. I no longer have to buy things. I can just take a picture, and all it consumes is a few megabytes. Virtually no money is involved. No cubic feet, inches or centimeters need to be occupied in our cabinets. No children need to take trips to the Goodwill (charity shop) after I’m gone. No decisions in the morning of which mug to use.

But I do have a nice reminder of the visual texture a few hundred mugs provide.

Take only pixels, leave only footprints.

(By the way, those of you who know me realize I would not take one of these mugs for myself, even if it was free. And this is not a comment against those of you who like to collect mugs. I do collect physical – and virtual – toothpaste. I have my vices.)

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Advice that should be given

horse-head2One of the most memorable moments of design school was when the lead professor (Frank Cheatham) said, “If you are here to learn to draw better horses, then you are in the wrong place.”

That always stuck with me. When we enter a learning experience with too strong an idea of what we want to get out of it, we will probably not learn very much.

Somehow I wanted to work that thought around to my next idea, but I couldn’t figure out how. Maybe it’s that the above advice should have been given a long time ago to a young person I know. They are in a program that is just not suited to them. They are so far down the road that it’s too late to do something else. They seem to be happy enough (though the course of study is quite a challenge), but no one has ever given that advice.

They are (proverbially) drawing a lot of horses. Hours and hours, days and days, spent drawing more horses.

I’m a bit ashamed that I did not have the courage to say something.

Would you have said something?

The horse painting – it’s copyright-free from Dover Publications. And the artist must have enjoyed creating it.

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Just the right amount

mail-truckHave you ever looked closely at a mail truck? (If you’re in the UK, substitute a milk float.)

It’s a crude design… The bolts are exposed. The gas cap is visible. The corners are square. The windshield is nearly upright.

But so what? Most of the time, it travels no more than 30 mph. Aerodynamics – no need. Style – why should they bother? Speed – next to none. Cushy ride – well, the postal worker might appreciate better.

The cheapest car you can buy has a much smoother design. Its interior is way more refined. But its intended function is different. And car manufacturers have hugely more competition for than mail truck creators.

Takeaway: Don’t put too much effort into something that doesn’t need it.

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A tale of grace

a-tale-of-graceMy friend Dave is shown with his last-born son Liam. What a blessing he has been to their family. And this picture shows how a newborn baby can be truly cute!

I would go into more details on why Liam is a tale of grace, but I respect others’ privacy. (I am baiting Dave by asking him to blog again… ever so discretely.)

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More ephemera

cold-waterOne of the things I will miss about winter is cold water. In Denver during the winter, water comes out of our taps at just above freezing. I love that for drinking – but not for our water heating bill.

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Gone – ephemera

DHLI love the word “ephemera” – it means quickly gone – like vapor.

DHL used to deliver packages within the USA. (This waybill was from those days.) Now they only deliver from the US to other parts of the world (and from other countries to other countries). They wisely decided that it was best to leave the internal US market to the US Postal Service, UPS and FedEx. It does not work for there to be too many players in one market.

Takeaway: How can you reinvest your energy to an area where you can be more effective?

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I will never understand

detritus…Why people throw things out the window of their car. That is a mentality I just cannot get a grasp of.

I remember a friend in Texas who grew up in New York state. He married a woman from “the Valley” of Texas – way south. Whenever he visited her family, he was amazed at how many people there threw their trash out the windows of their moving cars (or trucks, as the case might have been).

Their marriage did not last. I don’t think their differences in trash placement was the reason.

Anyhow, I am the opposite of a trash-thrower. I actually pick it up. If it’s recyclable, I’ll do that. (My immediate family usually nods and smiles. And I try to not pick up any if we are in the company of others we know.)

Finally, my little tale of redeeming some of the bad effects of trash… when I was in Kenya, I created photographic art out of the rubbish I found on beaches & along the sides of the road. Here are a few examples.

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What’s important

whats-importantSo my kids have this thing about leaving the lid off the toothpaste. Whenever I go in the bathroom we share, I see the lid missing. I get mad. I raise my voice.

Heather, being the balancing agent she is in my life, reminded me that I was making a big deal out of something small. I agreed.

How important is it if the toothpaste dries out? Not very. Is it worth paying three times more for toothpaste that has a magic lidless dispenser? No. Should I fight my kids over something so small? No.

Takeaway: Focus on what’s important today. (Reminder to self.)

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