Engagemnet Blog

The time has come at last. After four wonderful years with Novia, I got up the nerve to ask her to marry me on Sunday May 18, 2014 at the Getty Villa. She immediately went into planning mode and we are aiming for May 23, 2015. I have started a WordPress blog at Brama-TheWedding.com so that our friends and family can follow along with the year long journey from Engagement to Wedding. I will be double-posting some things, usually with expanded content on this blog.

Reading Again

I have been reading again.  For the first three months of 2014 I didn’t start a single book, and now I have finished 2 in April. I finished two very good books in fact.  I read “Ancillary Justice” by Anne Leckie and “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.” In addition to that, I read a novella called “The God Engines” by John Scalzi. I am not going to go into too much detail on each one because you can all find plenty of reviews on amazon or wherever.

“Ancillary Justice” was a brilliant example of world building. There is so much in this book if you are present enough to read it: class structure, the privilege of noble birth, gender identity, individuality, and revenge.  I highly recommend it to any fan of science fiction.

“Mr. Penumbra’s…” was a lighter and more fun story of a mysterious bookstore and a secret society. This book seems to be directly aimed at millennials and it struck me as funny and fun.

“The God Engines” came to be by way of Humble Bundle and it also had excellent world building. The story takes place on a spaceship powered by a captive god. The story was very short but had a lot distinct and interesting background. The culture of the ship, the religion of the people and the social-political pressures were fascinating.  I wish there was more in that universe to read about. The story also had an amazing opening line “It was time to whip the god.”

All this reading is happening in what is supposed to be Camp NaNo month. My little sister invited me to participate with her this year and I agreed (somewhat hesitantly because of my school schedule). I have only a single sentence for my own story. “His name was the last thing that he left along the path.” I am not sure what I am going to have at the end of the month. More ideas unaccompanied by prose? Skeletons with no flesh?

Writing

I read a lot of online content. I follow plenty of blogs and read several webcomics. I am fairly active on Facebook and although I don't tweet often, I do follow several thought leaders and read what they post.
Most of the things one sees online are short article on obvious things. I can't tell you how many times I've read an article on productivity and seem the tip "get a full nights sleep." Some things get covered over and over. There are also a number of times when I will see contradictory advice like "keep your workspace clear" vs "don't waste time organizing instead of getting things done." The immediacy of online content can sometimes lead to a shallowness or a lack of originality. 

Today I read an article about writing by a man named Brad Feld who I had not read before. It was posted to twitter by Tim Feriss whose books I have read. The author recommends writing for at least an hour each day for mental clarity and productivity. This resonated with me because I have struggled with the concept of being a writer for some time now. What does it take to be a writer? A few of my friends have written novel-length manuscripts (alas none of them have been published), but I don't think that any of them call themselves writers. A couple of my friends have been published in scientific journals but I don't think they call themselves writers either. The creative urge does pull me in that direction. There is very little infrastructure barrier to entry. I could use one of my three different computers or even my tablet to write. It is not lack of ideas or tools that stops me but lack of focus. Everyone has their own methods and styles that work for them. I think that the one hour per day may be something more sustainable.

I think I will give it a try. My hope is that if I can more consistently produce writing in the form of blog posts, emails and prose, then I will be able to get some of my ideas down and clear my thoughts on a regular basis.

And plus: if I am writing regularly then I would be a writer!

Separate

Novia left for a cruse with her family on Saturday. I haven't seen or talked to her in a couple days. It is very difficult for me to describe the feeling of being without her. It is not like I am lost without her, but I do feel a certain amount of loss. It is also not like she is really gone. I carry her voice along inside my head. When I see something that she would like, I smile thinking about how she would get excited or amused. I look at our shared space and I feel her absence and her imprint. There is a certain lack of excitement and a pause. I am waiting for her to come home, and be back as part of me.

We all carry impressions, approximations, and echos of the people in our lives. I have a version of each of my dearest friends, and they have a version of me. This can be a pitfall where we get stuck with an impression that is no longer valid or it can be the solace that holds together the bonds of two friends that are otherwise separated. I would hope that my friends hold positive images of me. I know that I have a reputation for saying outrageous things and for being "an asshole" but I try to found these shenanigans in honesty or obvious jest. There is no real way to truly know what other people think of you, to see yourself through their eyes.

We each even have a version of ourselves that we believe to be true. This version contains all of our own internal reasoning and justifications for our actions. This is our intentions, our loves, and our shames. Is this internal version the real one? I would have to say that it is only the story we tell ourselves about ourselves and that the reality of it is as subjective as any other impression. Real is for scientists, consciousness and friendship is the stuff of poetry. Literary truth is subjective and has very little to do with objective literal fact.

The truth for me is that I am, and will always be a work in progress. I am constantly looking at myself and checking the view from my most trusted friends, and making corrections on the course. I know that I love my Novia and I miss her, but she is also right here in my head and in my heart. I know that she is missing me right now, but I am right here waiting for her, and I am also right there in her heart teasing her for having ice cream every day, and telling her that she is "the pie of my pies." We will be together again soon, and for a long time.

GWW XVI

I always leave SCA events feeling conflicted and Great Western War XVI was no different. As with anything else in life you get out what you put in, and my camping group (we call our camp Shanty Town and we are thus Shantinians) tends to skim the surface. We spend our time relaxing, disconnecting from our mundane lives, and partying. This is in stark contrast to our friend Liam who has dedicated himself to the game.

Years ago it was my brother that first got us to go to SCA events. He had somehow managed to jump, with both feet, into a widely known group with a serious reputation. We, however, were in no way serious enough to hang out on that level and so Shanty Town was born. We were a shabby group, but we were fun. We started almost immediately to define our sub-subculture. We were opposed to drama and sobriety. We were for friendship (new and old) and creativity. We (being college students or new to our careers) couldn't afford the expensive "period" tents and other camp supplies so we made do with what we could. We had a set of nylon tents for which we built burlap covers. One of our many mottoes became "we aren't dumb, we're poor." 

Now its been years and a couple of us have period tents, all of us have jobs. We have more of the infrastructure and experience that could turn us into a more legitimate group, but our free-spirited origins stay with us. At this event, we brought home made mead and cider, jugs of cheap Carlo Rossi sangria (upon which we had first founded Shanty Town), and expensive rum, whisky, and gin. We are a mixed bag. Maybe it is our inconsistency that keeps us young. We only make it out to a couple of major events each year, so we skim the surface without putting in deep roots.

Now Liam is a knight. He has spent years getting to this point. He hasn't camped with us in a long time. He has found a group to belong to and call family and he is well respected there. He has come a long way and I am proud of him, even if this journey has taken him away from the rest of us. He is a strong man, a good husband and father. His knighting ceremony was at this event (even his father made it to the campsite even though he does not play). I had no idea that it was going to happen, and when some of us went to see him the night before, we were rebuffed by clipboard wielding keepers. Its like we were at different events.

Now I am back in the real world. There are so many more rules here. There is so much to do. I have to prep old computers to go back to the leasing company and deploy new ones to replace them. I have to study physics models of balancing forces and calculating energy lost or gained. In short, I have to get back to reality. Around the campfire, the ideas for new projects grew fast and grand. We want to make all kinds of things, but to what end? I go to an event about once a year, and I hardly need more clutter in my life and my space. Now I am home and the SCA seems so frivolous and far away. I wish I could be more involved, but I just can't.

First kiln firing

I have finally fired my kiln!
On Saturday I fired my first bisque and on Monday my first glaze. Neither firing went perfectly but the results were better than I dared hope.

The bisque firing was supposed to be cone 06 but I ran out of time (I was going to see One Night in Miami by Kemp Powers for the fourth time) and had to turn the kiln off early. I am not sure how close it got to the right temperature. My 05 and 06 witness cones survived unscathed but the ware was within the bisque range so it must have been close enough. I had a teapot, 4 cups and 7 bowls. I did loose one bowl to cracking but I believe it had been weakened by handling before the firing.
For the glaze firing I gave myself all day to get it done. I was aiming for cone 5 so I set the kiln for normal speed, 2150°f, and put the time at 12 hours, which is the longest it will go. After 8 or so hours I started using my shade 10 welding goggles when looking in the peephole to check the cones. After 11 hours the #4 come had bent over completely. By 12 hours the #5 cone had bent to 90° (pointing at 180° for those of you who love polar coordinates) so when the timer went off (sounding like a kitchen egg timer) I shut everything off, and went to bed. I unloaded the next night.

I fired the teapot, the 4 cups, and one bowl all with the same Laguna Clay forest green (ms-4) glaze. The glaze all melted nicely and the kiln wash on the shelves saved me from the sleight drips I had on one of the cups. The application was a little spotty because I did not have enough glaze to dip the pieces and had to apply it with a brush. There was a fair amount of flow of the glaze and the lips of the cups came out a bit thin but nothing to worry about. I got a little pinhole-ing of the glaze and clay sagging on a bowl that was on the bottom shelf so I may need to be careful what I put down there.
The teapot and two of the cups are a donation to an auction held by a charity called More Than Me that a co-worker of mine works with. I am proud of the way they came out and I hope that it can bring in a good donation.

All in all a success!

Kiln test

This weekend I tested the coils in my electric kiln. I was told to check that all of the columns were working by placing a slip of paper behind each coil and turning on the kiln. I performed this test and every coil charred it's slip. Now I need to read the manual and do a first firing. I am going to aim for this weekend. I just need to finish some cups first.