Traveler’s mug

I’m a particular fellow. I work a certain way to make my way through any project. Most of the time it involves a copious amount of caffeine, other times involves the right music being played. But of late i have moved outside my comfort zone. At this point i could create an audio podcast in my sleep. I’ve done audio editing, and producing to create crisp clean content for well over 4 years. but video is a new beast, and i hate doing things poorly.

I have heard its better to get the content out and the process right rather than focus on the pretty. But i delayed starting the Caffination for 3 months because i didn’t have a good intro. I took the plunge and created the video content but now i’m worried about delivery, dispersal and all other types of problems. It helps to get the content out because if its boring or worthless no one will care anyway.

So we’re going to try and push on, perhaps bunching the content shoots together will help, i’m just not sure. Other than that I’m brainstorming. if anyone has any comments or helpful tips i’d love to hear them.

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So the best laid plans have gone awry. between the work on the house breaking my hand then my finger two weeks apart, and a host of other excuses my grand plan for a book during the course of this month has gone no where. I’m sitting at 2,500 aproximate words when i should be at 25,000. So i think i’m going to set a weekly schedule for blog posts, and work in consistant work on both books. The editing of last years novel and the finishing of the plan for this years book. I feel good about both works but the execution hasn’t been there this year.

my best work has been done when i set goals and stick to them. i should have learned as much by now. One can only get by working at the last minute for so long.

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So we have a new dog, at this point she’s been around for a couple months and we’re still getting used to each other I guess.

She’s a Yorkie Poo, a rather frilly name, or a Porkie as the neighbor kids call her. Which happens to sound funnier and means we’re gonna need to feed her a lot more, who wants a skinny Porky? Her name is Suki, which follows the Muller rule that most pets need to be named after food. No we don’t watch True Blood, and her name has nothing to do with that.

She had previously been caged at night and during the day, probably because she is a bundle of energy. Well we have slowly weaned her away from the cage. She tends to sleep downstairs. And when she was caged she barked at any noise that happened outside, since we let her out she has calmed down a lot.

Last night however I spent a good hour trying to get the dog to go to sleep. I usually relax for a bit on the couch to get her to settle down before I go up to bed. Last night was the exception to the norm.

1:00AM : Sat down on couch to check email, read some news and get the dog to relax passive aggressively…

1:20AM : Everyone resting close laptop head towards stairs. Dog jumps up runs across couch, as if she had been waiting and brings a toy. Growling and play barking ensues. Shush dog and sit down on chair try to get her to come over without playing.

1:40AM : Dog finally sits down and i pet her till she’s nice and calm. Cat (Chili) walks over arm of couch pushing my hand wanting me to pet her, purring loudly…

1:41AM : Dog chases cat

1:42AM : Cat smacks the crap out of dog

2:00AM : Head upstairs since everyone seems calm. Dog waits until i lay down to run into Paul Jr’s bedroom and jump on his bed, licking his face.

2:01AM : Boy calls for me, grab dog. drag out of room. Give boy his water and silently curse dog out.

2:05AM : Dog goes downstairs, I wait in the doorway to see what she’ll do. She waits 2 minutes then runs back up the stairs after the cat into Paul’s room. He wakes back up

2:06AM : Drag dog out of Paul’s room, calm him down. After i get downstairs I curse the dog out to her face

2:08AM : wait upstairs in doorway to see what happens. Dog again runs upstairs i catch her before she runs into Paul’s room

2:15AM : Dog goes downstairs to chase cats around hardwood floors, slams into wall. I hear the boy call me and ask if the dog is going to come back up and scare him. Assure him that won’t be the case.

2:20AM : Refill dogs food bowl which she tipped during one of the cat fights, take her out again, where she runs around the yard barking like she never saw sky before. Finally get her to relax after she comes back in.

2:30AM : Lay back down only to have the cats start to fight, settle their dispute and wake my wife while scratching on the clothes hamper…

Mental note…  need to take the dog on a nice long walk tonight to tire her out, and possibly drug the cats

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So I recently found out I’m a mutant… this is a good thing. Apparently us super humans need less sleep on average then you normal folks… even scientists have defended my lifelong position that i work perfectly well on less sleep.It has been brought to my attention that i drink a lot of coffee to stay as productive as i do.My perfect amount of sleep is 5 hours. Any more and I feel sluggish, any less and I need help getting through the day in a productive manner.

First off. I drink less coffee than people think i do. Surprise I know, but its true. While their is a badge of honor element in drinking coffee like its going out of style i find little practical value in doing it all the time.

My problem of late is getting quality sleep. We have a son who is potty training like a fiend right now, and a dog that think far off amulences need to be warned off of our property. The dog also has the added bonus of barking at her reflection in the window… If i can get back tyo having my solid 5 I’ll be good. If i need to belly upt o the espresso bar a couple more times then you’ll know the type of night i had.

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Massive thunderstorm and a belly full of espresso make for a long night. I always love sitting through thunderstorms, the skys open the clouds split and the full range of sounds cascade down around you.

The dog barks at the storm, poetry or irritant at 1 am? If the dog barks and the storm abates did the dog win, or the storm pass?

The boy sleeps with us tonight, poor little guy, scared of the storm.

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The entire house is in shambles.

About 2 weeks ago now, The boy was playing ball in the house and threw a ball at a mirror, which broke. This left a hole in the feng shui of the main floor of the house.

Which led to me moving my iguana’s cage into the basement lair, it was a massive 6 foot tall by 2 feet deep, by 3 feet wide dark wood enclosure in a room full of blond wood, so it had to go. Iggy likes living in the lair much better so far.

This opened up the living room a bit, which led to use moving furniture. After moving some furniture and cleaning up the boy’s toys we found the rugs in the dining room where disgusting, and we had been unable to clean them convincingly.

SOOOO I pulled the rugs up in the dining room to reveal the lovely hardwoods underneath, the floor is a lovely red oak with great grain.

This in turn made the hastily slapped up wood paneling on the accent wall look badly out of place, so that had to come down.

Which in turn revealed a covering of wallpaper that needed to be stripped.

All the while my lovely wife has commenced with her devious plan of painting the kitchen yellow, something up until now i have resisted, i don’t like yellow.

I think she waited until i was involved elsewhere to make her move… sly girl that one is.

So now the dining room is sanded, almost completely sealed and looking great, which means i need to strip the rest of the walllpaper off the wall and paint it at least a primer before Saturday… because we’re having extended family over to celebrate the September birthday’s…

All the while this feels like the Sesame Street book where Ernie has a goldfish in a cowboy hat.

“Ernie tries to put a pot on Bert’s head. Bert asks Ernie why he’s doing that, and Ernie says that he broke a cookie jar. Ernie has to put the cookies somewhere, so he put them in the sugar bowl – and put the sugar in the flowerpot, which meant that he had to put the flower in a milk bottle. He put the milk in the soda bottle, and the soda into the fishbowl, and the fish in Bert’s cowboy hat. Bert asks, “Now what am I going to wear when I want to play cowboy?” Ernie puts the pot on Bert’s head and says, “Ride ‘em, cowboy, Bert!”"

It might just have been simpler to buy a new mirror in hindsight.

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8 years ago, you’ll hear a lot of that today. But 8 years ago seems like a lifetime, and its getting closer to being one. This is my experiance. I was in Philadelphia Attending Temple University as a Junior.It was a beautiful Tuesday morning and i had just gotten out of weight lifting class. Class ended at 9:40.  There was an odd buzz in the air as i saw my then girlfriend, now wife walking towards me.

“Did you hear? she said” Then the day sped up at a lightn ing pace. First reports of a horrific plane crash, then an attack. We stood in the middle of 13th street in front of the Campus library. There was a bright yellow honda civic parked on the street, the type thats all chromed out, and souped up with a loud irritating stereo. This day that car had a crowd of people standing around it, the doors and trunk open wide to let the sound carry. The radio was blasting the sounds of news radio. The driver sitting in the car dumbfounded.

All around us people where trying to use their cell phones to call their parents. A small group of us wanted to see if we could find a TV. Jen, Myself and her friend Dan walked into Mitten hall where they had a Tv set to project on a big screen to watch the news unfold. We saw the second tower collapse on that TV then tried to make it home.

SEPTA, the transit company,  had shut down the regional rail lines going in or coming out of the city while we were on the train. The train stopped in a tunnel and the conductor came over head and said our train was being check for bomb. across the aisle a young woman already jumpy broke down hysterically crying. An older gentleman in a buisness suit sat down next to her arm around her and told her everything was going to be ok. He slowly rocked her until the train got going again.

The rest of the day was spent either getting home through throngs of scared people, taking half heard bits of news and trying to formulate an opinion or make a plausible one up. Everyone has a story, but there are some that got cut short that day.

Tell your story of then, or reach out to those that are important to you. Please read Chris Penn’s Challeneg for the Day, if you had but one hour who would you write to, and what would you say.

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I want to know what the fascination with people watching me walk the dog is. Kids snicker as i pick the poo up, bag in hand. I feel like old man-ning it and flipping around to give them what for, but thats not going to work, no would it end well.

For some reason i see an uptick in kids who go to great lengths to be seen. Whilst walking the pup last week I was followed by a band of morons sitting in an office chair scooting it down the street… signing. When I looked at the kid in question he had a big toothy grin on his face and sang louder. It doesn’t bother me that he’s an attention seeking teenager. What i can’t seem to grasp is why the gang he was with thought it was hilarious to sing louder when i turned around to see what the noise was.

I’m no stranger to acting out in teenage years, having been quite the irritant. But i guess i just don’t get it anymore.

These are the things i think about when i’m followed by morons.

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