Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Predictions, Press, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
OK, this is so cool:
Japan’s melody roads play music as you drive
Motorists used to listening to the radio or their favourite tunes on CDs may have a new way to entertain themselves, after engineers in Japan developed a musical road surface.
A team from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a number of “melody roads”, which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel.
The concept works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the road surface. Just as travelling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes.
I love it!!
Why am I so excited about this? Because here is the first page of the prequel to Communion of Dreams, titled St. Cybi’s Well:
Darnell Sidwell had just crossed the Severn Bridge on the M4, heading west. He read the highway sign: “Sound Sculpture Ahead. Move to outer left lane, maintain speed of 70 kph”. He pulled the little GM rental hybrid into the left lane carefully, and thought about setting the cruise control, but was unsure where to find it on the unfamiliar right-hand drive vehicle. At least the damned thing was an automatic, meaning he was spared having to learn to shift gears with his left hand. He chuckled at this thought, appreciating the irony of a space shuttle pilot intimidated by having to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road.
But he had wanted to come visit Claire, his sister. And before he headed into the north where she had her little community, he wanted to check out this ‘sound sculpture’. It had been designed by an old friend back in Missouri, an artist who used to run a gallery in Columbia but who had a penchant for large conceptual works.
The GM crossed the first warning rumble strips. Darnell turned his attention to the sound of the tires crossing the strips, and a few moments later was treated to a long, drawn-out rumble over a series of carefully spaced and specially shaped strips, which distinctly said: “WWWWW-ELLL-CCCCOOOOOMMME-TOOOOO-WWWWWAAAALLLESSSS”.
That’s from the artist’s book I made about four years ago, just before I closed my gallery of fine art. It even has a .pdf of the explanation of how this would work.
In other words, another prediction jackpot!
Man that makes my day. Yeah, sure, I didn’t get such a road made, but, I clearly came up with an idea which works, and possibly before this other guy in Japan did.
Hehehehehe.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Predictions, Sleep
Last Friday I dropped a note to the Library Director I’ve mentioned in this post about this big project, basically asking why I had yet to see payment for my work when I’d been told I should see it as early as 10/19. I got the following reply right away:
Thanks so much for letting us know. We turned in the invoice and will go tracing the situation. Again I apologize for this delay. You should not have to ask these things. We are in a transition period with a “temporary” agency helping us out in our business office until we can hire some staff. I’ll ask Mr. R to also help us with this situation and we will write you probably next week with any details.
*Sigh* Beginnings are fragile times, as we learn to dance with someone new. Is this delay a portent of things to come – will I always have to hassle them to pay their bills on time? Or is it just a fluke, an unfortunate glitch which means nothing? I replied this morning:
Thank you – any help you can provide to expedite payment will be greatly appreciated. I’m somewhat distracted by our hospice care-giving for my mother-in-law at this time and don’t have the attention to spare trying to track such things down.
So we’ll see. And I mention this because it does sort of sum-up how I am feeling now, as we enter into the closing weeks of my MIL’s life: distracted, tired. Yes, we’re now getting more sleep, and that helps a great deal – but still, the emotional stress has cranked up along with the demands of routine care giving, as I have tried to outline in all my posts related to this. I do have work to do, as does my wife, and then there is the routine of just getting through the needs of ‘normal’ life. But to a certain extent such concerns fall by the wayside as we turn more of our focus to giving my MIL a good death, as comfortable and pain-free as possible – all the while trying our best to pace ourselves, since we have no way of knowing exactly how much further this marathon has to go.
Jim Downey
*** Update, 10:00AM November 5 ***
Got word back from the client:
Good news. The check was sent out Friday (November 2), so you should receive it within a day or so. As suspected, the turbulence in our business office is to blame for the delay. We apologize again.
So, provided nothing gets ‘lost in the mail’, looks like we’re off to a decent start. With institutional clients, I usually expect them to take upwards of a month to process payment, and this client would not be tardy.
Fingers crossed.
Jim D.
Subsequent to this post, just thought I would share note I got from the Head of Acquisitions at the Seminary this morning, following the presentation of the books I worked on last week to their Board of Regents:
Thanks for your work on the pieces. The regents were awestruck.
Yeah, baby!
Jim Downey
I’ve written a lot about the toll that comes with being a full-time care provider for someone with Alzheimer’s, and how the lack of sleep completely compromises my ability to think and function. I’ve also mentioned that I worry about whether or not I’ll really be able to pick up the various threads of my life again, once my care-giving time is over.
Well, I know now that I can bounce back. At least to a fair degree. This past week, between having the new overnight aide and my wife generously being “on call”, I was able to get a more-or-less normal amount of sleep for five nights in a row. And this week I was also able to get a lot of time in doing conservation work, with very good results.
See, I had to deliver the first batch of books back to the Seminary, so they would have things to show off to their Board and donors the first of next week. It was important that I get enough work finished, and that it looked impressive. And I was able to do just that, billing 30 hours (11 of which were on Thursday alone) without killing myself.
And the feedback I got when I delivered the books yesterday was quite satisfying. After going through the books with the Head Librarian and their Head of Acquisitions, explaining what work had been done and being complimented on how everything looked, I handed over the invoice. The Head Librarian looked at the bill, looked at the books spread out on the big library table, and then looked at me and said: “That’s a great price for all this work.”
That’s *exactly* what you want to hear from a client when you hand him a substantial bill. You want them to always feel like they got a deal. He will now take that enthusiasm for the project to the Board and their donors, and we’ll be off and running on making sure that this whole collection is properly treated.
Yay!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, Feedback, Habanero, Health, Hospice, Science Fiction, Sleep, Writing stuff
I’ve been busy this week trying to finish up the first batch of books for the new client, and have to deliver them tomorrow. So I apologize if postings here have been a bit light. But I thought I would post some updates on recent events . . .
My MIL is still doing pretty well, in spite of my concerns in Fever. Her fever did abate for a while, but yesterday it was back up, and higher than previously. We still cannot identify the source for it, but the Hospice nurse will be here today to do a check-up, and we’ll see if she has any ideas.
I’ve slept every night this week! Amazing what a difference it is making already, even if I haven’t fully settled back into sleeping deeply on the nights when the respite person is here. Normally, my wife and I will split the other four nights a week, but she helped me out by taking the Tuesday night shift so I could be well rested for doing my conservation work (see above). I will probably still need months of regular rest to be fully restored, but at least now I no longer feel like I am constantly dragging. Remarkable.
Hits here to the blog crossed the 6,000 level yesterday. As it turns out, downloads of the novel may well have crossed that threshold yesterday as well – I’ll know later today. It’s close, anyway.
Oh, one last item . . . I wrote about the First Habanero some weeks back. Well, now I’m happy to say I’ve harvested and dried and given away dozens of the Red Savina habs, and have even gotten a few of the Devil’s Tongue. The garden season is wrapping up, but I hope that I’ll still get a bunch more ripe habs, and will undoubtably have a whole bunch of green ones (which have a nice flavor but don’t develop their full heat).
Well, I need to get back to work. May not post again until tomorrow night, or this weekend.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, Comics, Health, Migraine, OOTS, Sleep
I’ve suffered periodic bouts of migraines since adolescence. I know there are some food triggers, and I know that physical and emotional stress also can start a cycle. I even have “stress release” migraines, when some particularly difficult or demanding situation is over. I know several different types and intensity of migraine, from the ones that just make you a little miserable for a few hours to the ones that make it a almost impossible to get out of bed for two or three days. But most of all, I know that modern medicine offers me no real hope of relief from the damned things, and the best I can do is deal with them symptomatically with a range of mild to powerful narcotics.
Yeah, I’ve got a migraine. Been keeping it at bay for the last few days, having sometimes to resort to the least powerful of my Rx meds. Gah. Makes it hard to get anything done, and I have a *lot* to get done – a book conservation project I promised a client two weeks ago, a trip to pick up the first installment of books for the new client tomorrow, interviews with a reporter about being a care-provider, et cetera. Charming.
But at least OOTS is back from hiatus!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Book Conservation, General Musings, Google, Heinlein Centennial, Peter Diamandis
Yes, I should write about the Google X Prize. I’ve even met Diamandis, at the Heinlein Centennial. But it’s been getting substantial coverage in the media. I do have some thoughts beyond “that’s cool” – but am, I think, understandably preoccupied with other personal matters right now. Perhaps this weekend.
OK, things are still sinking in, vis a vis my post yesterday. To a certain extent I feel like my life has just undergone a paradigm shift, as nothing has really changed and yet I see most things in a different light altogether.
A couple of friends have been a little surprised at my wariness about this change. I guess that I have been so conditioned at having people not do the right thing that I am somewhat stunned that this institution is going the right direction with this collection. And, honestly, I’m not used to the notion that things might be going the right way for me, as well. But I meet with the head librarian next Tuesday to iron out details and get the first installment of books, so it really looks like this is going to happen.
I’ll need to make some actual changes in how I work. Since closing the gallery, I’ve been fairly casual about my work hours and the ‘business end’ of the business. I think that’s understandable, since my primary concern has been caring for my MIL, not being a conservator. So I need to lay in some additional supplies, get a large fireproof safe, sort out my accounting software, streamline some of my work habits, establish standardized tracking procedures for handling this volume of work, et cetera. All stuff I know I can do – I ran an art & framing business which had multiple employees and scores of artists we represented for five years – it’s just a matter of getting all the procedures and software set up properly.
So, while I still feel astonished, and pleased, I’m less frightened. Typical for me: I can face just about anything, so long as I have good information and the freedom to sort it out and come to terms with it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, General Musings, Hospice, Predictions, Society, Writing stuff
Well, that’s a bit of a surprise. More than a bit, to be honest.
I wrote back in May about meeting with an institutional client concerning a large collection (some 7,000 volumes) they had recently acquired, and how the initial expectation on the part of the administration at this institution was that all the books needed to just be rebound to look pretty. I mentioned that my suggestion of proper conservation treatment was completely foreign to them, and that I really didn’t expect that they would want me to do the work for them.
Well, I guess the conservation treatment I gave the three books I worked on as an example of what I do changed their minds. Because I found out this morning that they want me to do the work.
Frankly, I’m astonished. And pleased. Also a bit scared.
“Astonished” I’ve explained. “Pleased” is probably self-evident: this is a worthy collection of significant historical works that deserves proper care, and I know I can provide that care. And this is a multi-year project, meaning some security in terms of income and planning.
“Scared,” though? Well, yeah. This means a lot of work – good work, granted, on my own schedule, but the client will (understandably) want a large volume of books cared for and returned on a regular basis. And right now I can barely manage to concentrate sufficiently to do conservation work for a couple of hours per week.
Now, they don’t expect me to start handling that volume right from the start. I had told them from the beginning that I would need to ramp-up how much work for I did them, as I met previous obligations to other clients. I didn’t tell them about the other major factor limiting my time and energy, though: caring for my MIL.
My wife and I discussed this issue when I was first contacted by this institution, because frankly there is no way I can do the conservation work at that level and still be the primary care-provider for my MIL. So now we’ll need to sit down and sort out how we proceed. I could basically swap places with my wife, in terms of my “working” four days a week and her being home here to care for her mom (she’s an architect, and with some logistical shuffling she could do a limited amount of work from home). That’s one option. We might also consider others, perhaps making more use of the services available through Hospice.
And, of course, my MIL could die this week or next and make all question of needing to worry about such things moot. But that’s not what I hope for, nor how we can plan. Rather, we need to plan as though she is going to be with us, and still requiring substantial attention and care.
So, this means change. Perhaps a little sooner, and in a different manner, than I had been thinking about recently. And change can be a little scary.
Not that it’ll stop me, or even much give me pause.
Well, speaking of such things, I have conservation work that needs doing . . .
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, Feedback, Flu Wiki, Promotion, Publishing, Writing stuff
Brief note – thanks, I think, in large part to folks from the Flu Wiki, I’ve had over 600 downloads of the novel in the last 36 hours or so. That puts the total downloads over 5,100.
I guess I really should get off my butt and contact some agents again. Too bad I’m exhausted – my MIL had a rough night of it (I was on call), and I have a backlog of conservation work to catch up on.
But I thought I’d share the good news. Maybe more later today – right now I need a nap.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Depression, Harry Potter, Health, Sleep, TGV Rockets, Writing stuff
One of the hallmarks of major depression is the energy-sucking nature of the disease. For someone in the throes of such a depression, it becomes almost impossible to even get out of bed, and regular correspondence, routine tasks, et cetera, all slide by the wayside, piling up and contributing to the downward spiral.
I suffer from a mild form of bipolar disorder – what is commonly called manic-depression. The arc of my mental state can be influenced by many things, but typically runs about 18 – 24 months through a full cycle. I have never suffered through a full major depression, but I’ve been down into it far enough to have glimpsed that hell, and know I want no part of it. I’ve learned to cope with my condition, and know full well that if I were ever to slip further I would want professional help to deal with it.
One thing I find in being a care-giver for someone with Alzheimer’s is that as my charge slips further into dementia herself, the toll that it takes on me and my wife comes increasingly to resemble suffering a major depression. Basically, with the prolonged lack of sleep and growing effort to help her comes an increasing difficulty in having the energy to accomplish anything else. Last week I read the new Harry Potter book, and the effort left me completely exhausted and suffering a prolonged migraine by the end of the week. If I can get the focus to spend a few hours at the bench doing book conservation in a given week it is a minor miracle. Just contacting clients or suppliers becomes a task I cannot confront. I’ve promised someone an article on Pat Bahn of TGV Rockets, which I really want to write, but finding the energy to do so is another matter altogether.
And yes, my own mental health is stressed by all of this. I am constantly at risk of falling into the trap that I should be doing more, should be stronger. That’s my image of myself. And when I put my mind to it, I really can accomplish some remarkable things. So the temptation is to push myself further, to goad more work out of myself, to criticize myself for being “weak” for not having the focus or the energy to do this or that. That is a dangerous path.
So, I do what I can, when I can, and try and cut myself some slack the rest of the time. And this afternoon, while my mother-in-law naps, I think I will can some tomatoes. There is more conservation work waiting for me, and other writing I should do. But the tomatoes are ripe and ready, and it will be a nice change from the other tasks.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 