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Book stuff

Book stuff, Life
Movember
11.01.10 | Permalink | Comment?

I have had no interest what so ever in blogging or doing anything on the computer besides my daily work (which I really don’t feel like doing either). When I last mentioned being done with the Post and Beam book, I of course spoke too soon. James called me a few days later with 27 pages of corrections. Some were text edits (which are relatively quick and easy), but a few were image changes (quite a bit more work depending on the nature of the changes).

I quickly made all the edits over the next few days, then called to check if he’d found anything else that needed to be rectified before I finalized it and sent it off to him again. He said he’s decided the introduction needs to be rewritten (for a fifth time) so it doesn’t sound so “text-book-y”, and he’s found a couple more little errors. I told James that I’m moving on to the Bents book for now. I have a bunch of image corrections to make before I start editing the text in that book. I figure if I go on to those, that should give him enough time to sort out the remainder of the Post and Beam corrections, so I can do all those edits at one time and finally (please let it be finally) put this book to rest.

So far the image corrections are going well. I have managed to edit a large portion of the ones I’ve fixed so far in Photoshop, which eliminates quite a few steps (recreating the image in Sketchup, exporting the image, deleting the old image from Illustrator, importing the new image to Illustrator, scaling the new image appropriately, aligning image text, and then removing the image text left behind by Sketchup as a place holder) and speeds things up a lot. With any luck I hope to have all the images done before Holly and the boys leave for Disney on the weekend.

If I do however, I might be incredibly bored while they’re gone. James is wrapping up one course and starting another, so his schedule is pretty full. If he hasn’t found time to do more edits, then I’ll literally have nothing at all to do. That might not be so bad as long as I can get a vehicle and a paycheque. I’m hoping to head over to the Royal Winter Fair on the weekend, and I’d also like to go get the wood for Holly’s shelves which I have yet to build her.

Aside from that, I plan to focus my efforts on growing back my moustache for Movember.
Angry Art, Book stuff, Gaming, Life, Sketchup
Cobras, computers, contradictions
10.15.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Once again it’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog. This time the main reason is my growing hatred of all things computer, mixed with my recent acquisition of Dead Rising 2 (contradiction?). Since my last post I have been paid in full and this morning I sent off a freshly revised edition of the entire first book (two versions actually – one has photo spreads that will go in the middle, but in an effort to save money in printing costs of student copies for editing the other has no photos). I actually sent a copy off last night, but literally 5 minutes later James called to tell me he found a mistake he missed until now. I told him to disregard the email I had just sent, and that I’d revise and resend it in the morning.

I really hope this is the last time I have to make major changes to any part of that project. I still have to wait on James to sort out the ISBN number (is that like saying ATM machine?) and UPC code (again, redundant??) for the back cover. I did a fake back cover for now. It has a listing of all the books that are intended to be in the “Master’s Guide Collection”, and then I hid this little logo at the bottom.

I should probably register that name. Maybe I’ll end up doing lots of this type of work if I can’t find a job building, and then it will come in handy. I should also just make a website where I can post all my stuff. If someone stumbles upon it and wants to offer me work, then I’m game.

If all goes well with the next two projects, I should be looking for a new job soon. Maybe by this time next year, I’ll be teaching at the ISBA. I still have to finish the lessons I had begun before my whole laptop data dump debacle. There was almost 200 pages of step-by-step images for building a basic post and beam structure within Sketchup. Maybe this weekend I will spend some time writing that stuff since I can do it on the copies Holly printed for me and avoid the computer for a little longer.

I’d like to have the title of instructor, but I also want to make lots of money and build Holly and I a sweet house. Maybe I’d be better off spending my time resume writing. I’m just so bad at it.
Book stuff, Life, Sketchup, Timber framing
Cobra cooperation ceases without cash compensation
10.03.10 | Permalink | Comment?

As mentioned previously here is my finished version of my cross-sectional view of wood at a cellular level.

If you’re saying to yourself “Shit, I thought when he said ‘realistic looking’ it was going to be awesome, this sucks.”, you’re right. However, I made the decision to stop putting effort into this at all on about the 8th day of waiting for money owed to me for this project, and didn’t just fail at it.

In fact, I have basically the entire book finished with the exception of the revised table of contents (which I plan to have done over the next few days, I’m just waiting on a printed version to come home with Holly tomorrow), and a single glossary entry. At this point though, I’m not sharing until I get paid.

I submitted hours on the 17th of September and was assured a cheque would be in the mail that afternoon. I’ve spent the last two weeks stressing and staking out the mailman. I am beginning to hate both James and the mailman. I can’t understand how it’s taken this long to get paid. Clearly they didn’t mail it when they said they would, and probably only sent it when I called flipping out the other day. Now it’s two weeks later and I deserve another cheque.

I will not be sending a finished version until I get paid in full. Not that I don’t trust him, but I’m tired of doing tons of work, getting bitched at because it’s taking too long, doing things over and over because he can’t make up his mind, and then not getting paid for work I did and probably undercut him hours on anyway.

I still haven’t gotten Holly’s wood for her shelves (although I have gotten hold of the person I needed to) because I can’t afford it now. Once my cheque gets here, it’s going to be gone right away. Tomorrow I’ll stake out the mailman again. After it’s clear whether or not my cheque is coming, I’ll head to the bank. If I have the cheque I’ll have to cash it, and convince them to not hold it. If I don’t, I’ll have to ask them to give me (for a third time) all the info Naomi needs to directly deposit into my account and try that again (fuck). Then I’ll call her, request they cancel the cheque in the mail, and make one large deposit into my account covering all my hours over the last four and a half weeks.

I try to budget and I get nowhere. I work hard and currently make the highest hourly wage I ever have, but I’m constantly fucked. Why should I work so hard for someone who makes my life so difficult?

Shawn had a great idea the other day for how I can get back at him. Instead of quickly sending him an email with a link to a .pdf of the finished book, I’m burning him a CD and mailing it a week or two after I tell him I sent it.

I believe I’ll enjoy every phone call or email I get asking why it isn’t there yet.
Book stuff, Log building, Sketchup, Timber framing
Copying cross-sections makes cobras cross
09.20.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

This is what I’m currently working on. It’s the first of several images James neglected to mention appear in the second appendix of the book. I just got them last Friday and started this that afternoon. I’ve put quite a few hours into it already, and I’m probably only about half done (if I’m lucky). It’s pretty difficult to wrap my head around how to make this look realistic, and not like it’s modeled in 3d on a computer.

The finished version won’t have all the dark colours (those are just because I was playing), and will hopefully look perfect when it’s scaled down to fit the text. It’s supposed to look like the image below, and give people an idea of what wood looks like on a cellular level.

I should be done it later tonight, but right now I’m being lazy and watching Enterprise. I was supposed to be getting wood, but it looks like I’ll have to do that another night. I’ve tried calling the person I’m supposed to meet about 30 times today, and now I’m giving up.

Once I finish all these images, there is just a few corrections to make to one drawing, then some minor layout adjustments, followed by some photo spreads and finally a revised cover. Ir’s getting closer and closer, but when I break it all down like that it sounds like a lot to do.
Angry Art, Book stuff, Fuck Microsoft, Life, Music, Sketchup
The chances of anything coming from Mars…
09.07.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

…Are about as good as the chances of one of my peripherals lasting more than six months. My previously unexplained remedy to an unknown problem decided to completely fail on Sunday morning, leaving me with no choice but to make a trip to Future Shop and buy another new mouse. I picked up a Logitech LX8 which fires red lasers with deadly accuracy. It, mixed with the fact that I’ve been repeatedly listening to The War of the Worlds on my mp3 player (it would appear that I have yet to mention how much I love this album on here… weird, it’s one of my all time favourites) while working on the book, lead to me needing to model some tripodal Martians with deadly heat rays. I also needed a new desktop background since mine got deleted recently.

I also decided to mess with some animation things, and see if I could create one where the lasers appeared to be firing. I only spent a few minutes, but I have figured out how I could make some cool animations fairly easy. Currently I’m rendering a version of the above image in Indigo, but it probably won’t be ready until tomorrow.

I have finished rebuilding all the tools I lost last week, and now I just have to redo all the structural engineering crap for the last part of the appendix. James has started sending me photos he wants to appear in a spread somewhere in the middle of the text, but so far none of them seem appropriate. I’m going to get Naomi to send me all his photos, then I’ll have to go through them all and find some that will work. I may even just end up using my own photos from when I took P&B at the ISBA. I wonder if I do, if I get credited as photographer as well?

I also sent James an email yesterday with links to sites where he can secure an ISBN number (or series of numbers since we’re creating multiple volumes now) and UPC codes. Hopefully he gets that sorted out soon, because once the appendix layout is complete it’s just a matter of correcting some text and redoing the Table of Contents (booooo!).

*click either image for a larger/cooler version, unless the small ones already have you crapping your pants (in which case, you better go change your pants).
Book stuff, Life, Sketchup, Timber framing
Cobra appendix take two (get it?)
09.04.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Today I finished correcting all the text in the Post and Beam book (remember, we’re back to 3) and making it all uniform size. I finished two full days ahead of schedule, which might be the first time I’ve ever been in that position on this project. I sent James a draft to look over this afternoon, and checked to see how he was coming along with the edits to the manuscript. Since flip-flopping back to the original 3 book idea, the main thing that needs to be changed is the introduction. Other than that, the text stays fairly close to the same (or at least that’s what I’ve been told…).

I then moved on to laying out the first part of the appendix. I spent most of the evening fixing models of tools and remaking a calculator that got eaten by cyberspace singularities last week. I was going to stop there, but I kept going until I had the first page of the appendix roughed out (above). Then I emailed it to James and called him to get his opinion on the layout.

He had a brief moment of terror when he turned his computer on and saw that his email inbox had 4o11 new messages from someone named Facebook. A minute or two, and a bunch of confusion later he figured out he was signed into his teenage son’s account and he managed to calm down a bit. A minute or two after that he figured out how to sign in, and we were in business. He said the layout looked great, and to carry on with what I was doing. I told him I was packing it in for the night, but that I would be back at it first thing tomorrow.

An hour after that I finally walked away from the computer (no, not this one) having completed the rest of the text layout for the entire first section of the appendix. Tomorrow I have to model a new electric hoist, and block and tackle (fuck you cyberspace!) before I can finish the next part of the appendix. Hopefully they are both easier the second time, because I just realized I also have to redo these. Fuck.
Book stuff, Life, Sketchup
Cobra cash-flow cures Cobra woe
09.01.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Yesterday I finally got paid for the hours I submitted on the 20th of August. It took forever, and I got dinged $30 because it got wired as opposed to direct deposited, but at least it’s finally here. I can now put my mind at ease, and also start to pay back Holly for all the help and support she’s given me since we’ve been together.

It turned out that the bank had given me the wrong account number, and Naomi had added an E to the end of my last name. Once that was all sorted out it didn’t take long to show up in my account (minus $30 though). I’m a little confused as to how the first direct payment actually came through, as she would have used the wrong account number that time too, but it still worked. I asked the bank, but they seem to never give me a straight answer (plenty of attitude, but no answers).

When Holly got home from work she handed me 25 resumes and cover letters she had printed for me, then helped me fold them after I signed each one. Then she took the boys and I to her friend Heather’s house for a barbecue and swim. We relaxed on the patio and had some drinks while the boys swam, then Roan taught me how to properly eat a “wish-chip” (above) while Holly and Heather got dinner ready.

This morning I had to email Naomi some images of the log house they build at the ISBA log course (can YOU spot the Cobra?). She had called last night, after we got the bank stuff figured out, and asked if I had any images so she didn’t have to use the same old shitty pictures they had on file. I sent her a few different views of the project building, then sent her a bunch of my notes from when I took the course. I’m not sure if they’ll use the notes, but I know if I was a student and I had the option of James’ two second chalk drawings or one of my highly accurate (and detailed!) renderings, I’d choose the latter every time.

After that, I rode my bike over to the bank and got money, then mailed all those resumes. Now I’m blogging for an hour or so while I enjoy a coffee and some sanity, then it’s back to perfecting the first, of what could possibly be many, volumes of the Master’s Guide to … Everything.
Book stuff, Life, Timber framing
3 books, 1 book, 3 books, 1 book, fucked up notebook
08.31.10 | Permalink | 1 Comment

We went to see Jon on the weekend, hoping he’d be able to rescue some of my lost data on my laptop, and so Holly could go to her favourite Mexican restaurant. We were there until almost 3am and had no luck at all trying to find any of my files, or repairing the file system. So now I have officially lost about 30-45 hours of work for James, about 30 gigs of photos/videos of Holly and I, about 400 hours of personal work, 2 complete sets of questions for Dallas and Roan, and who knows what else (I’m sure plenty more, but I can’t be certain because I don’t even remember all of what was there.

Even though it wasn’t good news to find out, I’m still glad I know that it’s gone. I have had a rough couple weeks now, and I need to sort my life out. When I thought there was still hope to save some of that data I was avoiding redoing the work and carrying on with other important things. Now that I know better what I have to do (work-wise) in order to get back on track I can start moving on.

As for my financial stress, it hasn’t been even remotely alleviated. Last week I applied for social assistance, got home, got a phone call from James assuring me he was depositing money in my account, called and cancelled my welfare claim, and rejoiced slightly. That was last Friday. As of this moment there is still $5.07 in my bank account. I’m doing my best not to stress, but I’m about ready to give up. I can’t seem to get ahead of the game at all, no matter how hard I work.

So, as it stands now, I’m currently continuing to work on the book (possibly for free it seems) and actively seeking a job in Timber Framing. I most likely won’t be attending Disney with Holly and the boys in November (mainly because of money, but also because I spoke with some Ontario TFG members who said they’d have a booth setup at the Royal Winter Fair, which takes place the week we’re supposed to be at Disney.

James has told me to go easy on the number of hours I devote to the book (or should I say BOOKS, as he’s once again changed his mind and decided to go back to the original plan of 3 separate books – makes perfect sense considering how close we are to finishing the project as one book), so I’m taking that as more incentive to seek out the job I really want when I’m not working on the book(s) (which could be pretty often if that fucking money doesn’t show up soon).

I’m trying my best to stay positive through all this, but with a lack of money comes a lack of pot, and therefore a lack of patient, calm cobras. Thanks to everyone who has helped me out over the last week, and an extra big thanks to Holly for not only helping and providing for me, but also enduring my insanity (something no one but me should ever have to cope with).
Book stuff, Life, Love
Cheer up Cobras
08.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

In the last 3 days I’ve gone from being extremely motivated and positive about the future, to wanting to curl up and die while the things I struggle to cope with overwhelm me.

First I lost an enormous amount of data and work, that I doubt I’ll be able to get back. This happened with one little click at around 12:30am Tuesday, while I was wrapping up a 12-15 hour work day (I suck at keeping track of hours). As a result I had a massive episode of panic, fear, anger, and suffered a huge blow to my motivation. I slept like shit and woke up completely devastated. I was already getting down about my money situation (nothing new really), and this was just something I didn’t need to have happen.

I decided to call James and let him know that the next deadline he and I had just discussed, was now going to need reevaluating. I was hoping he’d be supportive and maybe provide a little bit of a pep talk (something he’s done in the past when I was struggling), make things seem not as bad as the are. Instead I got to hear about his financial misfortune, and how I shouldn’t expect to see another paycheque for a while. He then said that the way he sees things, I can either put the project on hold until his funds are sorted or I can continue to work on it and get paid when he can afford it.

I’m not sure if I was just shocked, or if I’m as big of a pussy as Holly thinks I am, but I didn’t even think to ask him if I would be getting paid for the hours I had submitted the week prior (about 130 something hours). Instead, I just told James how badly I wanted to finish the book after investing so much time and energy into it thus far, and said – “Well, I really don’t want to pass this off to someone else, nor do I want to put it on the shelf with the intention of coming back to it some day (in case it never happens), so I guess I’ll just try and get it done as fast as possible, so you can start printing it and generating some money.”.

That would be fine if I still had some savings, but I don’t. I literally have $5 to my name, and even that should belong to VISA. I’m starting to bring Holly down with me, as she’s always willing to help me out. I feel like shit because I constantly fuck up, make wrong choices, and then I let it get so out of control it starts making the lives of the people I love difficult or miserable. I want to be a contributing factor in this family, and I feel like if that doesn’t start soon I need to remove myself before I do anymore damage. Holly shouldn’t have to worry about anything other than Gage and Roan. Me being in the equation just over-complicates things. I don’t want the boys missing out on anything because Holly had to cover my share of something. That’s not fair to her or them.

Today I officially stop working on the book (which is also sad because it so close to finished), and start looking for a job. In the meantime I’m hoping Social Assistance will be able to offer me some help. Holly sent out a couple resumes last night while I sat and tried to figure out how she writes cover letters so well and hated myself for sucking at it. There really isn’t much around here, but a couple positions we saw looked ideal for me. It may just be my negativity talking, but I really don’t expect to hear anything from anyone.

I have to find something positive in the immediate future. I can’t hide my misery at all and that’s not something the boys or Holly need to be exposed to. The only things that made me smile in the last two days was this card and a couple videos of the boys.

Roan is such a sweet kid, and I often give him a hard time because I’m an idiot. He spent an hour yesterday making me a card to cheer me up. It may not have solved my problems, but it definitely made me smile and melted my heart.

It’s things like this that make me think working a shitty job can’t be that bad if it means I get to still be a part of Holly and the boy’s lives. Now I just have to find a shitty job. Wish me luck…
Angry Art, Book stuff, Sketchup
Getting lifted lifts lift modeling enjoyment
08.23.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Yesterday morning I did some modeling and killing before we left for a day of birthday celebrations. First I finished off my electric hoist I started the night before, then I got a start on a block and tackle. Both of these are for the book’s appendix, which I plan to have finished by week’s end.

These were the last two tools I had to model, but I still have quite a few drawings to finish before the entire appendix is done. Some of them are impossible to decipher because the fax came through so shitty, but I’m trying to get all the ones I can see out of the way before I go clearing it up over the phone with James (which always has potential to take hours). Most of those drawings are simple (from what I can make out) and shouldn’t take much time. Today I have to edit the spreadsheet data in each section of the book (booooooooring), then I’ll finish what drawings I can.