Play fort update

I was digging through old blog posts today looking for something and came across this:
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I want a play fort!

A silly post today. Maybe it's the temperature, or maybe I seek more security in this time of economic uncertainty but right now, I have this strange desire to build a play fort to curl up in when I sleep. It gets harder to find appropriate fort building items as you get bigger. Maybe I should rectify that when I get my own place.

As a small update on my play fort situation, I took my old childhood building materials with me when I moved out two chairs that fold out to form beds, but you can roll the sections into a fort. It's a little tight, a tad hard and a bit short. I do like my fort though.

A more average life

As a hypothetical, what would my life be like if I was more average and spent most of my income instead of what I do now? This leaves me with about another thousand dollars to spend each month. How much of this would be broken down in consumer durables and more on going expenses.
Maybe I'd take up driving, $300-$400 a month (car, insurance, maintenance, fuel, parking) it's a stab in the dark guess
or living in a nicer place, ~$200/month
Film photography ~$40/month
Eating out a bit more $100
The Odd Movie $20
snacks $40
That leaves about $200-$300 for replacing durable goods. Most of it disappeared in a few large categories. Maybe I'm just not being imaginative enough. I'm sure my place would look a lot different. Maybe it would actually be an unshared space, though that would have to cost more than $200 more a month. Well, maybe I could find a basement suite.
I don't think it'll make me any happier though. I'm facing the larger purpose of life issues and the biggest deficiency in my life isn't material, it's sleep.

Very Bad Sign

After a week of working, I slept an extra four hours on the first day of my weekend. Didn't know my sleeping pattern was that bad. I've really got to do something about that.

Walk in the park

Last night, I went out on a photography walk and there was a part where I was completely surrounded by deer. That made me feel so connected to the world. The sunset was also amazing. Trying to decide what sort of lighting I like better, when the sun is high in the sky, the lighting is far more even. Is it more interesting though? Either way, I had fun in the hours leading up to sunset.
I'm now eyeing a digital SLR now that I'm thinking of putting a few large prints on my wall. Also considering a new point and shoot to complement that, but going to put that off for a while. While I wasn't blogging, I actually picked up a film camera, which I'm learning to use now. It's a good camera, with good lenses that can be used on newer digital cameras.
I'm still learning to use my film camera and I've been running under the philosophy that my 50mm prime was one of the only lens I needed. Next time, I'm going with my zoom.

If life were a checklist...

I'm just starting to realize that I've done a lot of neat stuff in my life so far:

1. seen the curviture of the earth
2. seen a real nuclear reactor
3. planted a forest
4. fought of forest fire
5. operated a wind tunnel
6. worked on a full scale tractor-trailer wind tunnel test
7. worked on what'll hopefully get the title of the world's largest optical telescope
8. been head of a corporation
   
9. visited the forest moon of Endor filming location
10. been stabbed
11. gone a day without food
12. been inside a trash compactor
13. experienced zero gravity
    

I'm sure we've all had our own little adventures, some a little more adventurous than others.

Interesting thought while shopping

I was wandering around and ran into an item that I didn't expect to see. It was a package of plastic balls, kids play in big pits of them. It was an interesting moment for me, I was laughing and arranged them in a stack a few different ways trying to estimate the volume of them. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that it would take about a week's pay to create a modestly sized personal ball pit. More importantly though, I came to the conclusion that I really can have what I want, no matter how eccentric it is. Nothing would have stopped me from pouring pack after pack of those into a kiddy pool, or for the depth I was eyeing, putting four pillars on a piece of ply and surrounding it with a tarp. I just have to figure out what it is that I want and as long as priorities are covered, most things aren't too outrageous.

I need a hug

I don't know why movies like that affect me so much, but I suspect that it highlights something that I'm missing in my life. Anyway, just finished watching Charlotte's Web and I need a hug.

Feel good moment

Proving to myself that I'm still a good person is an important thing to me. I kind of feel that I've gotten a little scary lately and to a point, I suppose I'm blaming myself for a break up I had earlier. Last week, I found a cell phone on the bus. Gave it to the driver for the lost and found. Had the same driver yesterday and she told me that the person who got off on the stop that I got on was the owner of the cell phone. Apparently, he's very happy to have it back. I like getting closure on things like that. Makes me feel good.