Category: Life

Four Weeks Later

John Winkelman

So here I am, unemployed for a month. Just got word that earlier today, four more people were let go by my former employer. So that is five of us, pounding the pavement, chasing after the almighty dollar. I have had some luck; got some contract work early on, and meeting with some folks over the next couple of weeks. I still haven’t finished the paperwork for unemployment; psychologically, it feels like that would be acknowledging something I don’t quite want to acknowledge yet.

In my free time I have been reading a lot, and spending more time with my girlfriend, and taking care of things around the house. My days have been surprisingly full, actually, and it makes me wonder how I ever managed while I was working 45-60 hours a week. In the last ten days I think I have got a full eight hours of sleep at least three times. Last time I did that was, umm…college, I think, when sleeping in until 1 in the afternoon on a Tuesday was a point of pride.

The one serious project I have completed so far has been to move the website for From the Heart Yoga over to Drupal Gardens. That’s right; the CMS which caused me such grief over the past year is now my go-to solution for almost any standard website I might be called upon to build. I actually learned a few interesting technical things, which will be the subject of upcoming blog posts of the “I had to figure this out for myself; here are my notes so you don’t have to” type.

Other than the lack of health insurance, I would/could comfortably do this for a long time. Except…

Except…

There are a lot of other people out there who are also unemployed, or under-employed, and who do not have the prospects I do, and to whom I feel obligated. I have a lot of friends who are hurting right now, and, if I can’t actually get them back on their feet, I feel that I should get myself back up and running so that I am in a better position to help them if the need should arise. What kind of friend would I be if I have the opportunity to help someone else, and deliberately put myself in a position where I can’t?

Yeah, having time to think has definitely broadened my horizons.

The Psychology of the Freshly Unemployed

John Winkelman

Here it is, five days in. I picked up a couple of hours of contract work yesterday, which was nice. Trying to get my head into the game today. The constant rain makes me want to go back to bed. I have a couple of dozen projects which are half-completed, several of which I could get done by the end of the week. I have a few new skill sets I need to work on (mobile web, Android app development, AIR development, augmented reality), but I can feel myself beginning to succumb to option paralysis.

My instincts tell me I am still a full-time worker, and that I am home during the late morning hours means I am either on vacation or this is the weekend. This triggers my “I’ve done enough work this week” reflex, which makes it more difficult to want to spend time in front of the computer. Another oddity is that I am unemployed, but everyone in my peer group is working right now. I am out of synch with the greater part of my life.

Today I am cleaning up my house; clearing off surfaces and removing distractions. Every space can be put to use as a place to think, or meditate, or reflect. Or play. I have discovered that the TV show NUMB3RS is surprisingly inspiring, mostly because the obsessive-compulsive geek part of me can identify with Charlie Eppes.

I also applied for unemployment yesterday, which was the first work-related thing in the past week which has felt “real”. If I have the numbers figured correctly – and it’s a big “if” – unemployment should cover all of my expenses for the next few months, which means I will have time to learn some new skills and do some serious networking. Suddenly being a contractor/freelancer is a lot more appealing. Two years ago this would have been devastating. Now it is kind of invigorating.

My Toolkit

John Winkelman

I spent my tax returns this year on a new laptop. Specifically, a 16″ Sony Vaio, with a 1.73 GHz Intel I7 processor, 4 gigs of ram, a 500GB hard drive, and a mobile video card with 1Gb of onboard RAM, pushing a display with 1920×1080 full HD resolution. My desktop PC, a stupendous bad-ass of a gaming/development rig, is about five years old. In fact, it was the first thing I bought when I started my recent ex-job. While still a fine machine, it is not so good for freelancing or contract work as I can’t take it with me to different job sites. Now that I am between jobs, it seems appropriate that I spend my suddenly available time setting up the new machine as a money-making tool. At worst, I hope to make enough money with it to pay for it.

The great thing about the type of development I do is that all of the tools I need are free. So here they are, roughly categorized:

General Web Development
Notepad++ – my favorite text editor. Been using it for about six years, since Bock turned me on to it.
I.E. Tester – Tool which allows users to test their web sites in multiple versions of Internet Explorer. You can see how your work looks in seven(!) different versions of IE, if you choose.
FileZilla – easy-to-use FTP client
XAMPP – one-click installer for an AMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack.
Drupal Gardens – A web host which specializes in Drupal 7. Basic accounts are free, but full-featured, and make great test environments.

Flash
Adobe Flex SDK – open-source compiler for Flash and Flex projects
Adobe AIR SDK – Tool kit for developing AIR applications
Adobe Pixel Bender Toolkit – specialized tool for advanced image manipulation

Mobile
Eclipse – Java development environment
Android SDK – bundle of tools for developing and testing applications for Android phones
Appcelerator Titanium – Andy turned me on to this one; it’s a tool kit for developing mobile and desktop applications.

Artistic and Media
Miro Video Converter – easily converts video files between multiple different formats. Especially useful for web-based video.
Audacity Audio Editor – great tool for editing and manipulating sound files
Picasa – Photo storage, cataloging, and editing
GIMP – open-source Graphics program, in the same family as Photoshop
Blender – 3d model creation, animation, and exporting
Processing – Java-based tool for creating abstract art. Can also be used to create Java applications
Inform 7 – The Inform system is used to create text adventure games (think Zork, or Leather Goddesses from Phobos) using natural language both to create the games and play them.
Photosynth – awesome tool which can stitch photographs together into a 3d model or scene.
Google Earth Google’s virtual model of the Earth
Flickr – Where I keep all of my photos. 16,000 and increasing every day.

Writing, Management, Documentation
Google Docs – If you have a gmail account, you get this for free. Word processing, spreadsheet, and much more.
Open Office – Free, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.

I will update this list as I discover new or alternate tools.

Day 2

John Winkelman

…it’s not that I’m worried about finding work, or making money. It’s more a sense of bewilderment. Though I have expected this day for over a year, and have been preparing things for the eventuality, actually walking through that door was a bit of a shock. I have abruptly gone from too much to do in too little time, to the opposite – all the time in the world, and no clue what I am going to do with it. Not having the pressure of a restricted schedule makes lessens the drive to make efficient use of any given moment.

Back at the beginning of the year I made a list of about thirty chores and small jobs which could reasonably be accomplished in about fifteen minutes. Given two hours of free time a day, fifteen minutes is a lot of time. With sixteen hours or more a day, yeah, fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes.

This is the third job in 23 years from which I have been let go. The first one was a produce factory in Eaton Rapids. I was a green-season employee, took a sick day, and was fired the next day. A couple of years later I spent a few weeks working as a landscaper. Started fun, ended badly when the company went out of business. Such is life.

I think my first act will be to spend a week clearing my head. Next week I will start making decisions.

Squash

John Winkelman

Hubbard Squash 01

What started as this grotesque thing ended up as food enough to feed a large family for a day, or a small one for several days. The best part? A gallon of soup, the recipe for which follows:

Ingredients
6 ½ pounds Hubbard squash, cut into 1-2” cubes
3 medium tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1 large white or yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1” ginger root, peeled and grated
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 small hot pepper (optional) finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 limes
enough stock (vegetable or chicken) to cover all vegetables

Directions
Grind the rosemary and thyme in a mortar and pestle.

Pour oil into a large pot, heat, and add onions, garlic and ginger. Saute for a few minutes, until onions begin to turn translucent.

Add tomatoes and saute, constantly stirring, for another couple of minutes.

Begin adding squash, a handful of cubes at a time, stirring all the while, until all of the squash is in the pot.

Add the stock, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Cook until the squash is tender. This will take about half an hour.

Remove from heat and let the soup cool. Once it can be handled safely, puree everything with a blender. This will probably have to be done in three or four batches.

Return the soup to the pot, and add salt and pepper, and stir in the juice of 1-2 limes, adjusted for taste.

I documented the whole process. You can see the rest of the photos here.

This Is My Radish

John Winkelman

My first harvest

There are many like it, but this one is mine. I pulled it out of a small garden I am growing in an under-used flower bed in front of my house. It was one of sixteen growing in an area a foot on a side. This area is part of a larger grid, four feet on a side, which I put together back in the early part of April. The grid is in a box made of cheap pine boards, eight inches in height, and filled with good potting soil. It is one of two such boxes in the old flower bed.

I have been growing food here in downtown-ish Grand Rapids since the summer of 2006. That year it was hot peppers in pots. The next year was peppers and tomatoes in pots. Last summer I ripped up all of the plants I had put in previously – including prickly-pear cactus and indestructible yucca – and planted hot peppers and tomatoes in the flower bed. The peppers loved it, but the tomatoes did poorly. Grand Rapids soil tends toward sand and clay, especially in the proximity of old houses.

This year I tore out everything except two burning bushes and put in two square-foot garden boxes, each of them four feet on a side. Three days ago I filled in the last square in the grid with a small strawberry plant I purchased at the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market the day before.

For peppers and tomatoes, I purchased some specialty seeds from Amazon.com: thai birds-eyes, tabasco, and bishop’s crown. All of the tabasco sprouted, four of the thai, and none of the Bishop’s crown. I also have some Japanese Black Tomatoes, which are doing nicely.

So here is what I have growing in the boxes.

East box:

Garden Box East, 2009.05.23

  • butternut squash – 1
  • black tomatoes – 2
  • green onions – 25
  • Lilac bell pepper – 1
  • Tabasco pepper – 2
  • Beets – 9
  • Radishes – 16
  • Carrots – 16
  • Spinach – 9
  • Broccoli – 4

West box:

Garden Box West, 2009.05.23

  • Beefsteak tomatoes – 2
  • Zucchini – 1
  • Tabasco pepper – 1
  • Jalapeno pepper – 1
  • Strawberry – 1
  • Green onion – 25
  • Buttercrunch lettuce – 4
  • Pak Choi – 1
  • Swiss chard – 4
  • India mustard – 4
  • Beets – 9
  • Radishes – 16
  • Spinach – 9
  • Carrots – 16

Containers:

  • Cilantro – 4
  • Dill – 4
  • Parsley – 4
  • Okra – 2
  • Basil – 2
  • Thai peppers – 3
  • Kale – 4
  • Tabasco peppers – 4

I also have a few more peppers and tomatoes sprouting, as well as around a dozen Goji plants, for which I have high – if perhaps unrealistic – hopes.

My goal, other than to have a steady supply of fresh produce for the next several months, is to break even. That is, I want the retail value of the food I pull out of my garden to equal the money I put into the supplies and infrastructure.The potting soil was the most expensive part of the project, but also the most important. Using the square-foot gardening techniques has made this whole endeavor quite manageable for one person and, so far, the maintenance take about fifteen minutes a day.

Yesterday I harvested the rest of my radishes, a total of 32, at around an ounce each. So: two pounds of radishes. The greens are quite good sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with Chipolte seasoning, The bulbs, of course, are excellent raw.

I will check out prices the next time I hit the Farmer’s Market, and see what it would have cost to buy two pounds of radishes. Not much, I expect, but I have already re-planted, and should be able to get three or four more harvests this year.

I will post updates as more plants mature. You can see the rest of my garden photos here on Flickr.

The Condition My Condition Is In

John Winkelman

Well, howdy, y’all!

The past several weeks have been more chaotic than usual, which, considering the past year, is saying something. Ergo my reduced presence on the www.

After the car accident I made several immediate changes in my day-to-day life, cutting out a lot of frivolous expenses, opening up some free time, and taking stock of Where I Am In My Life. It seemed the appropriate time to do so, as so many things in the world have recently entered a state of transition: Western new year, Eastern new year, new president, new car, additional debt, changing global economy, my impending 40th birthday…the whole bit. I decided it was time to concentrate on more tangible things.

Oh: And I had problems with my home internet connection for about three weeks, and only just got back online a few days ago. I will probably post something about that here for any other Comcast subscribers who have problems setting up a wireless connection.

In my enforced down time I have buried myself under a pile of books, including, but not limited to, the following:

The Chronicles of the Black Company (ten books!) by Glen Cook.
Drood, by Dan Simmons
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan is one which I find particularly interesting, because it points out the futility of basing a complex system on predictable events, when it is the *un*predictable events which drive the system. We only need look at the current state of the economy to see where this would be useful information to have.

After the average temperature around here moved back above ZERO, my girlfriend and I ventured outside to explore some more of the open spaces in West Michigan. Two weeks ago we drove to Duck Lake State Park and wandered around on the Lake Michigan beach for a couple of hours.

P1010542

Click here to see the rest of the photos in this set.

More focused updates on my life will appear anon.

2008 Goes Out With A Bang, Crash, and A Boom

John Winkelman

So there I was, driving Rick home from tai chi practice. We were heading east on Logan, at the Madison Ave intersection, when I noticed the stop sign. I hit the brakes, but on the fresh-fallen snow even ABS gave me no love. At about the middle of the intersection I saw “GMC” fast approaching my side window, so I let off the brakes and gunned the engine.

Apparently, I was half a second too slow.

The Escalade hit this side.

The Escalade hit my car about even with the driver’s side rear wheel, which spun the back end of my car around, up onto a curb, and into a telephone pole. The pole made contact just behind the passenger side rear wheel, and spun us back the other way and into a snowbank.

A telephone pole and a curb hit this side

We sat there for a second, making sure all of our parts were in the correct places, then jumped out and ran over to the SUV to make sure everyone was okay. Other than a smashed grill, there was not a mark on it. According to the tire tracks, the Escalade didn’t even slow down appreciably when it swatted my car out of the way.

Fortunately, no-one was hurt in either vehicle.

That was all last night about 9:30. I just got back from Wealthy Body Shop, getting some personal things out of the car. Seeing it in the daylight gave me a serious case of the shakes. The specific damage is not as bad as seeing that the car is no longer symmetrical, left to right. The whole thing is…warped.

my car is no longer bilaterally symmetrical

This is the first accident I have been in where I was at fault. It sucks.

Eye on Gustav

John Winkelman

Given that my dad lives just north of New Orleans, I have a vested interest in keeping an eye on things down there. Therefore I have made this page to be a repository of links relating to the approaching storm and (eventually) the aftermath. It will be updated regularly.

Webcam Lists
Master list of New Orleans webcams

Specific Webcams
NOLA.com Bridge Cam
Post of New Orleans

News and articles
Wikipedia page on Hurricane Gustav
Hurricane Gustav links at Google News