Month: November 2014

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The Things I Want Are Not Things

(This article was originally written in July, on the 3 year mark from my accident.)

Today is the first time in a long, long time that I’ve been in any kind of pain. Normally, my surgical implants don’t bother me much. Every now and then I might get a twinge, and the scars itch a lot. But I haven’t had real pain from it in probably a year.

My work schedule is very sporadic. I spend most of the year doing documentation, gearing up for that short run where we go into production for a few months. We’re in that production run now, and I’m spending 11 hours a day on my feet, running around helping people. I actually like my job, quite a bit, and I like to think I’m pretty good at it.

But regardless, I didn’t wake up one morning and decide “Hey, I want to become a technical writer for a farm equipment factory.” It’s a job. I ended up here by the grace of God, and I’m thankful for what it provides me.

But in the end, it’s just a job. It’s not my life’s calling, any further than I’m called to provide for my family. Continue reading “The Things I Want Are Not Things”

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Linux Screencasting

I finally figured out a screencap program that works in Ubuntu. I had tried RecordMyDesktop, but had no success. I tried several ways to get it working, but it never did work correctly. (To be fair, it might not be the program’s fault… it just didn’t work on my system running Ubuntu Studio 12.04) After some searching, I decided to try Simple Screen Recorder, and after a few tweaks, I got it working.

For my system, I had to use Jack audio. For some reason, it just wouldn’t record anything from Pulse Audio (no shock there… Pulse’s reputation isn’t the best). So with a hacked .asoundrc file to channel Alsa to a Jack sink, it finally worked!

With this setup, I’ll be able to record some of the guitar and audio software I’m using, as well as games and such. (recording games on Steam requires some tweaking, too). So here’s a short demo! Continue reading “Linux Screencasting”

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The Ministry Of Criticism

As human beings, we are inclined to complain. The Israelites did it, even when God was providing for their every need, and had just delivered them from Egyptian captivity. It’s in our nature to complain, argue, be offended, and critical. I mean, really, we’ve pretty much perfected it.

Unfortunately, this type of behavior is completely unproductive. You would think that people would learn this eventually, but the truth is, we just shuffle it to another location.

NOTE: I’m talking specifically about people’s thoughts, and actions as far as they’re not physically harming or illegal. We can and should criticize criminal activity. But what I’m talking about here is the “grey area” stuff. You know: the Thought Police.

Let’s say I’m offended by bad drivers. (That’s a stretch, right? Lol) I feel guilty when I’m always criticizing bad drivers. It doesn’t fix anything, and only makes my mood worse. I’m still going to act accordingly, of course… I drive defensively because of it. Because I can’t control how others drive, even if it’s stupid and borderline illegal. I’ve done my fair share of stupid.

But the irritation has to come out somewhere. Our very natures are full of selfishness, which is the root of the problem. If we can’t let it out on other drivers, maybe we take it out on our kids. Or our spouses. Or random people who are too dumb to realize that the express checkout line is not the place to be asking questions about what items qualify for a certain discount. *Sigh.* Continue reading “The Ministry Of Criticism”

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The Homeschooling Dad’s Expectations

Some of you may be familiar with the fact that my wife and I homeschool our kids. As someone who was bored stiff in public school (and still struggles with “ADD” to this day) I was perfectly fine with our kids receiving individualized schooling and delight-directed learning. It seemed like such a natural idea to me, it made me wish I’d been able to do it when I was young. Alas, I managed to survive institutionalized learning, and in the process, I even learned a few things.

However, I’ve come to realize that most men aren’t like me, and don’t really understand the benefits of schooling their kids at home. Some of them are pretty hostile to the idea, in fact. At first, I was completely befuddled by this. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

But then I started seeing why, as I learned more about how other men saw things. I spent time reading story after story about men who didn’t have a clue about the basics of education, or why certain things work and others don’t. It’s not that they were stupid, they just assumed (incorrectly) a lot of things about how learning actually happens. When you throw that in with an over-inflated sense of discipline, you get a train wreck of confusion and misinformation.

So I’m writing this to help clear up some confusion, and possibly shed some light on the subject for those who either 1. don’t get it, or 2. are trying to get their spouses to get it. Continue reading “The Homeschooling Dad’s Expectations”

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Writing Tools In Linux

As a writer, you’re probably aware that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I haven’t decided if I’m going to officially participate, but I’ll probably get some writing done anyway. When I sit down to write, this is what my desktop looks like:

Writing

First and foremost, the centerpiece of my writing, is Scrivener for linux. I’ve already written about it here.

Second (and almost as important) is my full-screen “motivational” app, Write or Die 2. It kills writer’s block dead! This is for grinding through word counts, when I have an idea for a scene in my head but it just won’t come out. WriteOrDie gets the words out, whether I like it or not.

For non-fiction, I’m learning to use the program Zotero for annotations and footnotes. It integrates into Scrivener, too.

Thirdly is background music. Sometimes I can listen to rock, but mostly, I listen to ambient sounds, and the best thing for that is SomaFM.com. They’ve got several ambient and downtempo stations, so I’ll play that through RhythmBox. I really like the stations DroneZone and BeatBlender. On the rare occasion I want to listen to something specific, I’ll listen to Pandora with an app called Pithos.

This is how I get my fiction writing done. What’s your writing desktop look like?