Noise, NOC and New Chapters

The word of the week is tenacity.

Aug 6 - Having a Fit?

Not having a car is great! No worries about payments, insurance, repair bills, careless people with shopping carts or birds with bad bowels on sunny days. The careful choice of WHERE to live has really paid off and I'm enjoying every minute of it - while it lasts. I'm not fooling myself into believing that I'll NEVER need a car again( though the thought appeals to me ): car sharing and the occasional rental notwithstanding, life is about change and the pendulum may swing back towards the pedal again one day.

In the meantime, I still keep my eye on the car market, if only for the technology. I've mentioned before that the Honda Fit has always appealed to me, for its design looks as well as its technology. Just this summer a new version was announced: an ALL-ELECTRIC Fit! It's only being offered on lease in the USA at the moment and while the range is limited to 100km,. I wouldn't need to go further than that anyway. It's a very advanced car indeed, with lots of zip and next-generation regenerative brakes that act as cruise control even on downslopes, which is really efficient. In a few years, we may see them everywhere.

Aug 7 - Still Searching For Work

The job search continues its glacial pace. Today I spent a few hours in a workshop, defining my skill areas, interests and other Facets Of Me using the NOC system. NOC is the National Occupational Classification developed by the Canadian Federal Government to standardize job classifications, which helps in job searches - makes sense, right? I plugged in my data and came up with a list of 40 occupations, some of which I hadn't considered. Guess what Number Four on the list was?

Writer. *grin*

That was encouraging to see; I may well be on the right career track by writing my novel, though I don't bank on it paying any bills anytime soon. Getting a job to support my 'writing habit' has always seemed like the best course of action to me and as the tired writer's saying goes: "Don't quit your day job."

I didn't take the advice earlier this year yet I feel I'm the better for it - so is my writing!

Aug 8 - On Blogging

Sometimes I don't know what to write - for my blog, that is. Some of my days go by in a blur, others are masterworks of routine. Right now I'm really liking the routine days, as they tend to garner the best times for me to work on my novel and produce little in the way of blog fodder. In fact, the very best times seem to be between noon and four o'clock, as there's little noise either here in Victoria or at my mum's place in Langford. I'm not certain why, but it works and it's meant that for three of every four days we've tried, there's been good long uninterrupted stretches during this block of time to Get Writing Done. It's helped a lot to recognize this pattern and to take advantage of it, as the Creative Flow is easily interrupted by barking dogs, noisy kids or a host of other distractions. It's surprisingly difficult to hear the voices in my head or visualize a scene when someone's yelling at their dog to fetch outside.

But then if it were easy, everyone would be a writer, right?

Aug 9 - A Galaxy of Choice?

Okay, I won't go on about how I'm trying to make peace with my HTC Desire HD phone; suffice to say, we're looking at an early separation as soon as possible. I really want to jump ship and get a Samsung Galaxy III but there's no way in hell I'm going to sign another 3-year contract for a phone, even if the thing costs as much as a mid-range laptop( how's that for whacky? ). No, I'm going to wait until 2013 sometime until the carriers in North American get the NEXT version of the phone, the one with the QUAD-CORE CPU inside. I'll bet you didn't know that there was such a beast, did you? Right now the model that all the carriers are flogging is 'only' a dual-core CPU, which is fast but I'm one who's willing to wait for the better unit if I know it's coming. The rest of the world DOES have the SIII with 4 cores, so for now I'll just sit back and wrestle with my Desire( see what I did there? )until the 4-core appears.

Then it's all Galaxy, baby!

Aug 10 - Chapter 25

Oh, I WISH more of my writing days were like this one!

It was time to write Chapter 25 of my novel today, a chapter I've been looking forward to since I finalized the rough outline back in early 2012. It's a chapter that ties together several of the loose threads of the novel and was just damn fun to write; the words flew onto the page as fast as my thoughts could free them!

Speaking( dictating... )the novel has been VERY freeing, an experience I've come to really enjoy as it feels like I'm telling a slow-motion story in many ways. I can pick each word with care and the following ones seem to line up in my head, with each part of the scene falling neatly from my mind's eye into written form as I go along. It's a lovely, organic way to write and given the minimal outline I've prepared it gives me a lot of freedom to let each scene form on its own. So far, I've been extremely pleased with the results!

Just ten chapters left to go… roughly. :-)

Aug 11 - Hoverbikes for sale!

Ever since the speeder bike chase scene in The Return Of The Jedi, I've wanted a hoverbike. Funny thing, since I don't like motorcycles and heights aren't my thing either… but a personal flying machine has been the goal of many people ever since the Wright Brothers first flew a century ago.

Chris Malloy has been working on that dream for a while now and he's come up with a design( see the video above )that looks really viable. It's all the more impressive in that he's doing it on his own, without the backing of any major( or even minor )company; just him and his workshop. Which means that it will be a while before he gets it on the market; he's current; at only $75K of his $1.1 million dollar goal. Maybe he should thing about getting a Kickstarter project going for this; flying bikes are right up a tech geek's alley, I think!

Aug 12 - Old Men and Me

I don't ask for much. Not even respect, though that does find me in odd ways sometimes. No, all I ask is to be let alone to pursue my own interests; peace and quiet are part of that. I understand( VERY WELL )that living in a city means you have to deal with other people; I've learned that from an early age and done so with a fair amount of success. Or at least less failings than I've seen in others. I do feel that, really.

Today sorely tested me though; I was shaken out of bed a little after 7am by the pounding of little feet above me head. POUNDING, as in 'making no attempt to walk softly or not leave dents in the floor.' Which is the purview of kids, you know: kids will be kids. But the parents should know better, especially when the first words out of said parent's mouths when I met them were "Sorry about the kid's noise." So if you're AWARE that your children are… acoustically challenged, why not DO something about it?

I don't know. Ignorance is to blame, perhaps. I despise being the person who moderates MY noise not so as not to bother the kids above me but gets NOTHING in return save the desire to leave my home day after day to escape the audible hell beating it's way through the drumhead that is my ceiling. I've left several notes, pounding on the ceiling during the worst of the cavalcades( that were rattling ALL the glasses in my cupboards )and turned up my music, then put on headphones to try and work. Nothing has stopped the daily audio assault, though there have been some days when they have left for a few hours at a time. Once for most of a day; that was bliss.

I'm not an 'old man' as some people smilingly tell me. If I had the money, I'd buy said some people a ticket to fly out here and spend a week IN MY APARTMENT to see how much they enjoy it. Changing their sleep habits would be the first step, to wake between 6 and 7am and learning to leave for less noisy places( such as a park )for hours at a time would quickly become obvious choices if they wanted to keep their health intact. Or maybe it wouldn't bother them.

I don't know. Again. It's very wearing to move from my old noisy place to this one and not have a reduction in noise. To give others respect and not see it return also hurts; does one stoop to their level and so perpetuate the cycle of mutual ignorance through a breakdown in communications and compassion?

I don't know. All I do know is that I have to find a positive solution soon; I need the peace of mind.

I don't have much to add; I'm viciously tired and lack the energy to be angry any more at how simple ignorance can so impact a person's life. Not being able to do much about it also doesn't help; I'm not a vengeful person but tonight I hope to dream about sheep with large fangs invading the dreamspace above me.