BuJo Initiate

It’s the Ex week again, and like for the past few years now, I’ve taken it as holiday time. It has also been the habit to use the time to do practical economical household craft projects each year during this time, as sort of an advanced preparation for making winter a bit cozier. This time around is no exception. Last year, it was some carpentry to reclaim storage space; other years, it has been canning preserves. This year, I’ve minimized and simplified things even more for a multi-day project.

Over the past couple years or so, one positive habit I have been cultivating for myself is carrying

One template format I'm exploring . . .

around a pocketbook and pen. Sure, a note taking app on the phone is quite handy, but when in a pressured dash or impulse to record, capture, and recover something more instantly and accurately while it is on the tip of my brain, the pen and notebook beats the cellphone. I have been finding my old-fashioned pocketbook to be as indispensable to me as carrying my keys, wallet, and my cellphone. It has helped save me a lot of time, money, and energy, especially in spots when the phone had little to no battery power left.

I like technical innovation a lot, but honestly, only up to a certain point. We think we are doing well for ourselves by organizing our lives with apps on our phones and computers, but this is illusory on some levels. It is ultimately making us comply to a complex system that suits tech companies in finding new ways to control us with ones and zeros, and for them to glean more of our money and personal data from us. In this sense, apps can tend to cheapen the quality of your life, or they at least make the data of it more valuable to everyone except yourself. There is a point where we lose sight of being able to create a very personalized, customized, and more organic system that allows us to stage things better for our own organizational needs, our unique learning modalities, our own personal goals; one that accommodates for recording through our more private and practical eccentricities. Those ones are not for sharing, the non-bloggables: thoughts and ideas best left on a page of paper, with the privacy assured.

One of the things I regret about my formal education, from childhood on through to my early university years, in the days before academic computer use, and before the internet was available, is that I never had any teacher at any time of my life who put any effort at all on teaching me how to do the very essential and elemental thing for excelling in true higher learning. That is, really teaching me on how to organize myself with the practical skill of efficient written planning/journaling, and effective note taking. It seems absurd, but it’s true. Sure, I of course learned literacy, but only mastering merely the taking in and absorbing of information part of it. I always had substandard teachers and mentors for helping me exploit my strongest learning modalities to transpose, and express, what was going on in my head in the way I sensed it, and frame it in the best organized and condensed manner on to a page that was most memorable and comprehensive to me. My willingness to write, or “show my work”, as was always demanded of me, just wasn’t there, and from that I think I suffered greatly in such a way that I was always reticent, reluctant, reserved, made to feel embarrassed, about expressing any form of creativity at all through the written word or graphics for the longest time. I was no dullard, there was lots of thinking going on; but I was always embarrassed with my poor organizational ability of trying to sort it out on paper. Capturing thoughts through note taking was like trying to catch wriggling live fish with soapy hands. I improved a lot over the years, but my journey to get better at it has been a very independent and solitary one, and I missed the most critical of years of when what I know now would have served me better at an earlier time. I’m trying to actively compensate for that even today.

This all brings me now to making a concerted effort at learning something that encompasses serving me as a means of approaching efficient minimalism, enhancing my productivity, and being a creative pastime. Currently, I’m immersing myself in the craft of bullet journaling (or BuJo* for short)¹. Like most of my hobbies and pastimes, it is nerdy thing that is a nice blend of aesthetics that pleases the senses, and orderly precision that gets mathematical, scientific, and data oriented. What I gain from doing it is a clearer snapshot of how my mind works while figuring out goal-oriented objectives. One thing I’m noticing is that there is a great and drastic schism in the quality in my handwriting between the floodlight mind (cursive, observing and fervent collecting a vast array of thoughts instantaneously) and my spotlight mind (block printed, mindfully focusing and methodically organizing them on paper, without the pressure of time and other stressful distractions). Comparing the two is seeing my brain operating and functioning in two different levels, or existing on two entirely different worlds, for each process. I wonder if there is name for the weird psychological anomaly to describe this huge difference between each modality. Examples provided.

My manic, brain-on-fire,
"conspitated looking" as one
of my friends once called it,

cursive writing vs.

My relaxed and focused self

block printing

My goal with this pastime is to get a journal formatted and formulated with templates for the

One template I designed that I may 

use for seasonal tasks. I couldn't

 find anything like this in a stationary 

store. Custom made is the way to go!

remainder of this year and the entire coming new year. What will I do with it all? Well, to automate some plans without the actual need for technical automation; to make cybernetic changes and adjustments without the cyberspace. I’m not trying to think like a machine, but I am trying to enhance my own recording and processing of stuff in much the same way that computers do: more effort to taking a small codified, point/mark, or bit of info to record and ramming it through a formatted program or function to filter out a result. Pixilating points (or customized bullets) to track data is a simple and effective way to record progress. The gist of this being investing in time to structure a perfect (for me) format now so that I can waste very little time and material for recording stuff later. Minimal effort through simple coding that can lead to big results. There is stuff to enter that is not as simple as purely numerical, or a yes/no, true/false, 0/1,

kinds of data. Some stuff, of course, is trackable and traceable only on a spectrum, or layers of spectra, or else needs a full out verbal explanation. The modular nature of this system allows for this too. I’m most interested see what kind of artistic infographics I’ll be able to create and incorporate as well. I want to see if I can progress from being crude to making the great leap ahead of being . . . slightly less crude with my graphical talents. Most of the detailed subjects that I will be recording, and tracking, are too personal to post here. However, I will disclose the broader general reasons for this new objective:

• Shifting from Day to Night Mode – Someday, I hope not too soon yet, I will be transitioning to doing night shifts. It will be a major upheaval for my body and mind to adapt to, with phases of insomnia assured to come; my working memory being the worse off casualty due to that. Hence, I’ll have to get into the habit of writing things down more often to not lose track of things. Also, having lists of things to work through eliminates the burdensome and torturous task of having to make decisions in such a state (or suffering consequences of making bad decisions in that way, read further below).
  
• Total Schedule Reorganization - There then must be a major reorganization of my schedule for my daily activity, have a productive rhythm to my day; to conserve my energy, and my social life and relationships outside of work. 
  
• Monitoring Health – Another offshoot of switching to nights is needing to actively check myself over for signs of physical deterioration due to the odd hours and unnatural rhythm of wakefulness. Knowing and marking the ideal time to exercise, and what and when to eat during this (mal)adjustment period is critical also, since “breakfast” kind of doesn’t work (doesn’t feel right) as a meal option in mid-afternoon. Alcohol consumption periods are things to be mindfully reckoning with too. What gets measured gets mastered.
  
• Impulse Grounding – One of the things I have noticed after long bouts of insomnia is the poor ability to make sound decisions. The likelihood of acting on impulse rather than think things through rises significantly. For example, this is especially bad when I want to commit to a minimalist lifestyle, but then act on a reckless spending spree for impractical things after too little sleep. BuJo is a way to do a brain dump and check your thoughts outside yourself, with some frame of order, to analyze and weigh pros and cons. At the very least, the very act of doing this is a much cheaper alternative of using one’s time rather than falling into an impulsive habit of mindless consumption of whatever it is that one could possibly become addicted to.
  
• Cheap Hobby – It only needs: a writing instrument of your preference, and a good quality dot

  

  My entire Bullet Journaling kit.

  (or grid) paged journal for the basics. For refined line forming for edging and bordering and such, a cheap geometry set from a dollar store works. Additional lettering stencils and templates can be found cheap in an arts and craft shop, or even in a dollar store. Just engage the imagination, and that’s it. A minimalist’s dream come true! Very portable, and it doesn’t need a battery for power (except maybe just a good source of caffeine). It’s a big step upward from an adult colouring book anyway, and far more practical to use as well.
  
• Veering Away from Toxic Social/News Media – Simply substituting a bad use of time for a better, more constructive, one. I will have a genuinely more enriching time working on a means to sort my own life’s issues, and creating my own viable solutions for approaching problems and goals than thinking and believing, that during these turbulent politically charged times of the election season, that any government or other social institution, is going to be genuinely interested in doing that for me. It’s my time to opt out of indiscriminately spending too much time and attention on negative news and social media during these times of waiting for our nation’s federal election coming this October, and the bloody ridiculous circus of the still 454 remaining days of campaigning until the American election. Working on my own betterment through my journals will be a nice retreat away from all this.

The most satisfying and enriching thing about using BuJo as an analogue system of note taking and calligraphy²: purposely taking a plain word and page space and embellishing it such as to make it so strikingly elegant and distinctly vivid enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Imagine then how much more powerful it would look when it is applied to a whole written thought or idea. Goals are made to appear to have an esteemed meaning, as truly worthy goals should. It somehow makes your own ideas and listed tasks and duties appear more alive/animated. Even the duller things on a to do list can then look like they could be integral parts of some overall grand adventure.

A potential syllabus list

with flipped open pages

to record book titles

journaling is the chance and choice to be liberally creative and expressive with stylish lettering and artwork in one’s journal, thus further stimulating and empowering one to use the entire brain; not just the analytical and logical left hemisphere. I really believe there is some weight to this as a benefit, adding artful flourishes through doodles, and calligraphy.

I’m coming closer to understanding why monks in the medieval era were charged with the tasks of illuminating pages, making copies of calligraphic manuscripts, and other such scrivenery. Apart from being just merely literate, to do such a job well very much requires and demands a deeply focused, disciplined, and meditative mind. It can be very relaxing. However, I’m certainly not a monk. The best advice I could give as a novice for starting a page template is just to dive right into it. It is 100% guaranteed that it will be imperfect at the start, making lots of mistakes in your initial formatting, lettering, and page section alignment. So, once that is all done, set it aside for a long while, have a drink or two, then come back and review it, and then be totally relentless, ruthless, and absolutely merciless with editing it, and redo it until you get the right design and style that really satisfies you. You are allowed be your own harshest critic since you are going to be the only one interacting with this material; you have no one to please but yourself by taking such a measure.

The first mess . . .

. . . then the final product. Custom made and adapted for a coding 

matrix system unique and personal to me, and again, 

it can't be found in any regular stationers shop.

I have nothing more to include with this entry, except for this last thought from a quote by the author of my guidebook:

“Each Bullet Journal becomes another volume in the story of your life. Does it represent the life you want to live? If not, then leverage the lessons you've learned to change the narrative in the next volume.”
― Ryder Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future

*- I like Bujo because sounds more to me like some unique, Zen-based, Japanese term for some sort of work ethic discipline, like kaizen.

1. The initial resource I used was The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll. I solidified the reason why I decided to undertake this; after that though, I’ve been finding a multitude of ideas for personalization on Pinterest.

2. I’m not ashamed to say, as a guy, that I love the artform of calligraphy. Before you scoff and think by default that it’s a sissy craft to do, consider this: the most instrumental class that Steve Jobs said he ever took (before he dropped out of college) which he said had been the most influential one for the inception of the Mac computer wasn’t a software programming class, wasn’t a computer science or engineering class; it was a calligraphy class. In a roundabout way, the practice of it forced him to see things differently through the elegance of design, and natural forms and ease of interface that made one want to engage with using a computer. Proper design is powerful stuff!

Abstention Project 1: January - The Shopping Moratorium

“If men liked shopping, they'd call it research.” - Cynthia Nelms

“A bargain is something you can't use at a price you can't resist.” - Franklin P. Jones

Prelude: The post-Christmas holiday spending hangover is a good enough excuse to allow one to commit to doing this project first. Admittedly, I don’t really dig shopping to begin with, so it’s probably the easiest and most fitting one to have for the inaugural challenge of the dozen. On January 8^th I realized that I went the whole first week of the year without doing any extra shopping beyond essentials, so I thought I’d just continue for the rest of the month. The crappy winter weather of January doesn’t inspire or motivate one in moving too far away from the comfort of home either, it becomes easier to opt not to go through any trouble to frequent any shopping centre, or anywhere else where one can spend money, and thus makes it easier take on a personal crusade of anti-consumerism. Along with the (futile) measure of trying to avoid contact and exposure to people who were stricken with colds and influenza, and trying to avoid getting sick myself, I also put myself on a push back against covetous greed and affluenza.

Mission: To spend absolutely no money on extra things apart from my regular scheduled bill payments for the month of January.

Exceptions:

·         Fuel (only enough of the estimated amount rationed out to keep my car running until the end of the month)

·         Medical/Operational emergency expenses (if need be): e.g. cold/flu remedies*, car repairs/roadside assistance, household disasters, potential vet bills.

·         Redeeming collected points for purchases from my customer loyalty cards, and only on items absent from the home and on discount offer (an arbitrary value exploited, but no actual money used)

·         Using funds that were already allotted and loaded on a reloadable credit card (less than $50, used for one single indulgence of an online ticket purchase, it doubly served as some means to reunite with someone special (even if was for just a brief while). Somethings are worth bending the rules a bit for.

Reasons, Facts, and Figures:

·         Reason 1 – Always follow the money first: if you want to get a real sense of all other possible wasteful/destructive habits you might have that you need to change. You really have to see the categorical breakdown of where and how your finances, and thus consequently, your time and energy are potentially being squandered. This is what is called the Latte Factor¹ by one author I’ve been resourcing.

·         Reason 2 – Actively avoiding shopping for everything shows you (sometimes harshly) the reality of what you tend to covet as a consumer.

·         Reason 3 – Careless wastage makes me angry; I need an exercise like this to correct any fault in contributing to it that I may have. Mindless shopping and over-consumption creates waste.

·         Personal Fact 1 – My biggest purchasing sins: (cheaper) technology, as in poorer quality computers and peripherals, the kind that goes obsolete quicker than average. The kind bought at a bargain at clearance sales, but then have hard drives that fry out quickly, or generally lack capability in terms of speed and memory. If had I invested just a couple hundred dollars more at the time to get a higher quality/capability premium PC unit, I would have had something that would have lasted me at least 80% longer, plus I would have sidestepped the need of the extra expenses of one or two more cheap-ass PCs, or other components to replace. That’s the difference between being cheap and being frugal. I noted that as I was cleaning out and sorting stuff from my closets, I shocked myself by how much of this useless junk I have still lying around, plus all the extra useless cables and cords, plus the packaging they came in. At least I’m purging it now to go get processed at a better proper recycling facility, rather than pitching it out earlier at a time when it all would have went straight to a landfill. Another wasteful excess I’m seeing in my analysis is alcohol. I purchase too much of it for someone who brews his own beer, and for someone who doesn’t drink as often any more (see next month). My least wasteful expense category: clothing. My need to buy new clothes is decidedly lower than average. This leads to the subject of trash bound fashion. Perhaps this is the better coinage of the word trashion. We should be more like Jacobim Mugatu from Zoolander and try to capitalize on it instead of wasting it.

·         Random Fact 1 – Several thousands of tons of used clothing that are being donated to aid agencies and end up getting shipped to Africa, often end up just being incinerated or buried in their landfills there. The fact that the poorest of the poor don’t even have use for this amount of retired clothing is something to make you shake your head at for this surplus of dross. If that’s not enough to piss you off about this manner and level of wastage through reckless consumption, the next point is another fact that might further put me at risk for dissuading some from ever wanting to make any other charitable donation to Africa (specifically, the Republic of Congo) . . .

·         Random Fact 2 – One of the worst cultural examples I’ve found about fucked up priorities based on affluence-oriented conspicuous consumerism: despite living in one of the poorest regions of Africa (more than 45% of them living below their nation’s poverty line), and receiving charity in donated clothing, many Congolese men spend what amounts to more than a year’s income (up to 3000 euros/around 4500 CAD) for designer fashions like Armani and Gaultier suits, and parade around like a bunch of peacock dandy boys. And it’s not something confined to a single corrupt despot in power and their cronies and lackies, but extending to any of the men there, regardless of what occupation or social status each one has, who really don’t or wouldn’t have that kind of money at their disposal to afford this. The fact that social corruption is so rampant there assures that many of these high end fashion garments are acquired by disreputable means (theft, extortion, bribery, etc.), all for the sake of putting on airs.*** This all part of cultural institution there is known as Les Sapeurs, abbreviated from the French name from  “Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes (or “the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People” in English). Spending that kind of money to pretend being some sort of aristocrats while most likely depriving their wives and kids of food and other life essentials to do so, is one of the most depraved, disgusting, and atrocious marks of pompous, self-centred arrogance there is. It may be a holdover from whatever animistic religions they may practice there, where relics, fetish and material objects and charms are highly prized. I guess it might be a move to at least have a pretty suit to be buried in, since the average male life expectancy there is only something like 47 years. Once they are dead, it is reputed that these suits can be stolen by grave robbers soon after burial before the material gets ruined by putrefaction. Coming to a close second in terms of covetous, greed-driven, stupidity and “keeping up with the Joneses” lemming march, I find examples here closer to home. I’m talking about many of the oil patch workers around AB and SK, specifically those who dumped and sank so much of their money, and abused credit, on high ticket toys and other rapidly depreciating assets that they now can’t sell and are getting repossessed, and then had nerve to complain that they were so hard done by and “suffering” when the downturn in oil prices came and job losses happened. No tears shed for them here. According to Stats Canada, Alberta is supposed to be the richest province in this confederation, and yet has the highest household debt levels out of all the provinces of the nation compared to the national average. Sadly, Saskatchewan is doing as badly over the years in following that trend and trying to keep up with Alberta it that respect since the oil boom hit.

Substitution Materials, Activities, and Alternate Behaviours:

·         Using my stash of frozen food instead of buying more groceries, thus avoiding creating and collecting more leftovers

·         Using my food allowance at work and eating at home, no need for restaurants*

·         Instead of filling hangers, drawers, and closets, I’ve been clearing them out and reclaiming some space for myself

·         Drinking only what already remains of my brewing stock and whatever was left in my liquor cabinet (which flows into the next project)

·         Other free entertainment from multiple avenues, including finding and claiming some free collectable books from the give away table in my building

·         Exercise in my reclaimed office space, and now hopefully some Nordic skiing after work if the weather can warm up

·         Investing mental energy into learning/practicing other languages

·         More research on cryptocurrencies and investing

·         Outlining and planning for more upcoming projects for the course of the remainder of the year

Feedback Mechanisms:

·         My chequebook app. It graphed out all my spending categories and gave me an honest breakdown of what my good and bad habits were. It also showed me where savings were made through this trial.

·         My count of freezer containers of leftovers emptied (17)

·         The cleared balances on my scheduled bill and credit card statements (no biggie here, that would have been done regardless of this project)

Progress: I already have had the fastidious habit of tracking all my income and expenses long before starting this project. It’s a good foundational habit to have in place, and of course continue. However, this occasion was one of the rare few times that I’ve actually seen the weight of what my own personal inefficiencies and deficits were in terms of acquiring needless excesses. Starting the year with this project was especially important, as I said, to reckon what other things I could stand to bring under control through monthlong forbearances throughout this year. All in all, after assessing all this stuff and if gender roles were reversed, the verdict is that I’d actually be someone’s heavenly ideal of a very “cheap date” when I compare what I like to do with my free time, and what it costs for me to actually do such stuff.

Violations (Stakes and Penalties): The penalty for making any unnecessary purchases – time added on to this moratorium to commit to for each needless purchase made. A full day for each one. My 31-day abstention period for shopping really culminated into 33. The two purchases I made during the month of January that didn’t qualify as an absolute necessity: a purchase of some 50/50 tickets at a sporting event. The other was an admission fee to a fitness facility, with more time used the steam room as therapy than to actually work out. Not huge purchases, both were around $10.00, but violations all the same.

Rewards and Final Words: The material prize for me for committing to and completing this was a couple of new shirts, since I rarely shop for clothing. They are certainly not Armani or Gaultier, but they are what’s practical, cool, and comfortable for me. Cleared space, and some renewed gumption to get up and move again was another bonus. Reconnecting with frugality, listing and being cognisant about more than a hundred different ways I can spend time fruitfully without dropping a dime is always good to do too. Upon seeing a botched merger with two loyalty programs here, I reclaimed all my accumulated points afterward at the grocers before things got worse. This post-trial grocery trip ended with me spending only my loyalty points plus $25.00 secured me with enough food for my home to last for more than two months if I plan on process it painstakingly and wisely**. Another thing was managing to squirrel away a little bit of extra money to place into a reasonable risk investment, I’ll see later if that really will turn out to be rewarding or not. A shaky start, but I did give myself a few grey areas, where I could have exploited more chances to rationalize and really sabotage myself. The fact that I didn’t do that to the max is a success in and of itself. I’d say that overall I did OK for this first abstention challenge. For February’s project though, there won’t be any such flexibility like that at all. Wait and see until then.

Bibliography and Resources:

1.       Bach, David. The Automatic Millionaire (Canadian Edition), 2003, Doubleday Canada

*- Which includes the natural ones, since I can’t do a lot of over the counter pharmaceuticals any more; chicken soup being one of them, and there is no other more potent decongestant remedy form of it that I know of than whatever is in Vietnamese broth. I haven’t the time to craft it, nor can I make it as perfectly or as cheaply as any one of my favourite pho joints here in town. Getting some was the one restaurant expense I could justify making; a lesser evil than a drug-form remedy with stupefying side-effects, or possible contraindications. Without it, I’m sure I would have been a big snotty mess for more than a week.

**- Cheaper yet, and for a longer duration of supply yet if I didn’t buy any meat. More on this down the road.

***- Sure, there may be more notable and visible examples of over-the-top flamboyant, materialistic, vanity-laden, and ultimately unjustifiable and unwarranted displays, and useless squandering of wealth in places like Dubai, and other wealthy regions in the oil-rich Arab world: like sports car traffic jams, building 7 star luxury hotels and super huge malls that only very few can shop in, and the competitions of who can erect the tallest phallic symbol dessert tower, but these are people who actually already provide for their families and have the excess money to throw around and to sink into such bullshit.

The Last Cruise of Itaru Maru

Saturday, Thanksgiving Weekend

It’s one of the last few lovely sunny days left of this year before drearier or winter-like weather slams the door shut on this autumn. I was awake since 3:00 AM for some crazy reason, so I phased my paperwork and other chores of the day in much earlier, so I now have the liberty of the rest of this Saturday to chill and maybe nap before catching a ride for a road trip to be with family for Thanksgiving later. One of the things done today was to have Ella accompany me for a car ride to my other errand stops, as it helps to pacify her before I trick her into having a bath. Ella, loving car rides as she does, fancies this car almost as much as I do, so I couldn’t let her miss out on having the possibly the last cruise in Itaru with me. I’ll elaborate on that in a moment. I try not to be either sentimental about cars I have had, or covetous about the ones I’d like to have, but I realize that today was special in that it probably is one of the last drives, if not the last drive with my current vehicle. This is the only car that I’ve had enter my life that I’ve truly appreciated.

If there is one thing I am thankful for during this Thanksgiving season is that I can officially put an end to the hell of shopping for another vehicle. I sure as hell don’t want to be bothered with it when winter comes. As much as this one has delighted me, my needs are changing, and rather than having to contend with another round of maintenance for this one, I decided to front up for an investment into another one. Another has been found, and I’m acquiring it this weekend. The hell of car shopping, and my spiel of kicking tires yielded to me three choices: a nice little VW Golf (but with lots of kilometres racked up on it), a sweet gently used older Volvo S60 (one of the reliable ones made in the factory in Gothenburg, Sweden; not one of those inferior ones assembled in a Ford plant in America), and the one I ultimately purchased (keeping this private). It beat the other two out because of the lower mileage and price, and cheaper future maintenance costs. I got practical instead of lustful, but now not disappointed with going that route. I’ll just say that I got lucky.

I don’t often admit that I’ve given my car a proper name, but it has been christened Itaru. I don’t see why there should be any weirdness or shame in admitting that. Before we drove cars, we named the horses we rode, and ships we sailed have been somehow given more animacy through christened names for millennia. Hence, where is the wrong in giving one’s own personal vehicle a name? We go so far as accepting that the model is a distinct name (like Tiguan, Mustang, or Renegade), with the exception I suppose of the blander series numbers of some European makes (like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo*), and in that case, they sound like names for Star Wars droids. Why not go further in naming the vehicle as a distinct individual apart from its other cloned brethren manufactured models?

The practical side to giving my car a name is that it’s a convenient mnemonic device (though a cryptic one) to help me remember things like my plate number and some other VIN info and spec details. It’s a proper Japanese name assigned to a Japanese make of car. It’s a complicated story of how and why I chose the full name, Itaru Maru, for my current car; only that I noticed that many Japanese sea vessels** are christened with “<some Japanese name> Maru”, and Itaru was conveniently an authentic Japanese name that suited my other mnemonic purposes, and sounded quite lyrical along with Maru. As silly as this all might sound, in that name are 16 other mnemonically tagged pieces of information about the vehicle that I can have instant access to should there ever be an accident or incident to report for my car. Out of curiosity, I researched why many ships hailing from Japan have Maru in their name, and it still isn’t clear to me why that is so. The Japanese word Maru itself means “circular” or “round”, and another meaning of the word is for “excrement”. When referring to my car, the round pieces of shit that the word Maru may directly be describing is probably the state of my tires. With crappy malfunctioning tires, my car might as well be a drydocked boat. Just when I was ready to put it up for sale, it came to be my typical luck with tires (bike or car) that one should be irreparably flattened before that could happen. Thankfully, I found a good deal on a suitable replacement. As much as one tire has given me grief lately though, I still love the car itself, it makes me a little sad to have to part with it.

This next car I believe will be named Kikuchiyo; I’ll probably drop the Maru this time. Because again, it’s another Japanese make and model, and the name accords well with some of the specs I want to tag and process mnemonically. If you have seen the classic Akira Kurosawa movie The Seven Samurai, you may remember that Kikuchiyo (played by Toshiro Mifune) was the wild, undisciplined, impulsive and rambunctious bugger of this septet. Those qualities (I hope) won’t be seen in this next vehicle.

UPDATE: Tuesday evening, the day after Thanksgiving

Itaru Maru was sold tonight, to a guy who works as a mechanic specializing in Volvos, oddly enough. We had a great chat, and reached a deal that was mutually convenient and satisfactory for us. I am grateful that Itaru will be well cared for in the hands of somebody who will appreciate him as I did.

*- If I had bought the Volvo, I was going to name him Ingvar: the combined characteristics of the car being Swedish, and the owner being notably frugal and thrifty, like Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA. The Volvo I could have been driving away would actually have been newer than the Volvo that Kamprad, as multi-billionaire, drives for himself ( the cheap old bastard . . .). If the VW was purchased, Heinrich was going to be its name . . . long story there.

**- Including fictional spaceships, like the Kobayashi Maru, mentioned in Star Trek.

5Q5A: Small Online Indulgences

It’s a Friday evening. I’m expecting it to either rain or storm later. I've been put in a spot medically where I’m exercising caution and teetotaling tonight, so I’m trying to rediscover some simple long forgotten bliss of just sitting and snacking on tea and cookies in the refreshing open air. Hence, I’m not confined inside just passively watching TV just by simple spatial logistics. Reading here outside to combat boredom was a thought, but the subject material I borrowed from the library* was about global economics: a topic that, I confess, I'm woefully ignorant about in general. I'm trying to make myself take a more vested interest in it, but it still comes across to me like too much bullshit and gobble-de-gook, and I can't seem to trouble myself to do it tonight. I'd be better off reading the Big Blue Book of Fairy Tales and find something with more sense and logic in it. Another topic, for another time. The urge to do something more interactive (yet without the annoyance of other people) became stronger. I chose to write up a snapshot of what these activities look like on an evening such as this. More to clear and decompress my bothered mind than anything, and to be appreciative of these little things for what they are.

Q1. Latest New Wits-Tester?

A1. A video game downloaded from Steam, The Long Dark, by Hinterland Studios, supported by the Canada Media Fund – It’s rare that I ever get so captivated by a video game, but this one is special. Firstly, it is 100% Canadian in both production and (virtual) game environment, with the setting being somewhere in the boreal wilderness of Canada. The mission: to survive the elements alone after a plane crash. The conditions are post-apocalyptic, but there’s no terrorists or zombies to battle. Just you in the first person. No other humans around, just the elements of the cold of winter, the scarcity of food, the struggle to find shelter, and facing the prospects of starvation, hypothermia, succumbing to accidents, or being ravaged by carnivorous predators. Nothing more complicated than that, but so real-life in terms of the weighed consequences of the hazards in dealing with such an environment. I’m a fan of shows like Les Stroud’s Survivorman on OLN, so this game is particularly intriguing to me. You use whatever resources you can scavenge, salvage, and exploit from nature. The community online is graced by a smaller set of international players with same-such personalities akin to mine; of whom I never thought I’d ever find. It’s a very respectful group, and we can even interact with the developers for idea input and feedback. Really cool stuff, not only to be a player, but to be a voice in its future development. This is the game that puts my wits to the test and fascinates me because it is reflective of what I wrote sometime earlier of what I claimed I would do in the hypothetical scenario of spending a winter in cabin alone (Cabin Pleasures vs. Cabin Fever) and getting a prize for it. Games like this are the more comprehensible primers and interactive courses for economics: for making decisions about what to do with finite resources in an environment of scarcity with a finite amount of time before you could possibly meet up face to face with the Long Dark. Now, if I download another similar type game with zombies or bananas in it, it might make the material in the book I'm trying to focus on now a bit more understandable.

Q2. Online Window Shopping?

A2. Scouting and hunting through eBay and Amazon targeting for my vintage Russian Submariner Watch, an authentic (yet cheap) Moroccan Tagine cooking vessel, concert T-shirts from Rockabilia, and checking out cheap flight prices for a non-tropical** holiday perhaps for next year.

Q3. Music Streams?

A3. Mostly in a retro/vintage Alternative and folk/nostalgia/shoegaze Indie mood tonight. Memories from my mid-20’s onward, to more modern stuff. My sample set of favourite songs played thus far, I list them as they come:

·         Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

·         Make You Better – The Decemberists

·         I Wanna be Adored – The Stone Roses

·         Hot on the Heels of Love – Throbbing Gristle

·         You Trip Me Up – The Jesus and Mary Chain

·         Airscape – Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

·         A Forest – The Cure

·         This Must Be the Place (Naïve Mix)- The Talking Heads

·         Girlfriend – Matthew Sweet

·         Backsliding – Radiohead

·         South Central Rain – R.E.M.

·         The Only One I Know – The Charlatans

·         Fake Empire – The National

·         Seether – Veruca Salt

·         Picture You – The Amazing

·         Shovels and Dirt – The Strumbellas

·         Skinny Love – Bon Iver

·         Love Is All – The Tallest Man on Earth

·         The Night We Met – Lord Huron

·         Time - Tom Waits

·         Red Hands – Walk Off the Earth

·         World Spins Madly On – The Weepies

·         Gigantic – The Pixies

·         Serpents (Basement Version) – Sharon Van Etten

·         Summertime – The Sundays

·         I Know It’s Over – The Smiths

·         Suedehead - Morrissey

Q4. Adult Stuff? (the responsible stuff; not pornography)

A4. Testing the waters again with FOREX trading, and more serious study into the technical analysis involved with trend watching for the rise and fall of currency pairs. It seems sensible to research, as nowadays, money itself has been making more money than labour or other resources has. Also, looking for online classes for SQL, advanced Excel script programming, and other database management courses. All stuff I started to study, but have long since forgotten.

Q5. Language Lessons?

A5. Je continue à apprendre plus de français avec Duolingo, mais j’ai sauté quelques leçons. Ma motivation devient faible maintenant.

*- The book is Zombies, Bananas and Why There Are No Economists in Heaven by Jessica Irvine. I thought with a delightfully oddball title like that, it might actually find some chords to strike within me that I could relate to, but I still see that it has its work cut out for itself. I will say that finding an economist with a sense of humour in itself is like finding a diamond.
**- My lungs still won’t let me breathe well in elevated heat and humidity, as proven throughout this past week. It’s been like breathing through a wet paper bag. So, why would I opt to go to some tropical place with that extra extreme, plus 60% less quality in medical service if I should ever succumb to it? It’s either Eastern Canada (in fall), or Northern Europe, that I have left as options.

5Q5A: Summer Holiday Stretch 2017 (Part 1)

For the past while it seems, I’ve been becoming very paranoid every time I book holiday time: because it feels like I’ve been jinxed or cursed, for the past few times in frequent succession, by something that either afflicts me negatively health-wise, or else presents itself as some other crisis to respond to that gouges away at me financially, robbing me of funds to do anything more adventurous. As a result, lately I haven’t been too committed to even make any travels or definite plans for extended leave, just out of pessimism and cynical belief that some recurring pattern of this will happen: with something coming along and ruining things for me anyway. So far, this time around, some whammy, bad karma, or some other force of malevolent juju hasn’t befallen me (yet). However, now I’m deprived of anything of novelty to do, and starting things off in this suck-ass rainy weather of today doesn’t help. I turn to writing as my last resort to noodle things out, and to try to put things into perspective in 5Q5A format, to also hopefully prevent me from rambling on too much.

Q1. If I can’t away anywhere, what things can I do to at least “mentally vacate”?

A1. My regular weekend routine involves just doing my own laundry/housecleaning, or hacking food

My favourite thing to do alone as a kid was

assembling model airplanes. Here's what I

walked out of that store with: a cheaper

than plastic option, and a whole lot

more to build for a cheaper price.

to pieces and applying some form of heat to them, and maybe preserving this stuff. All still labour-intensive projects; all still a lot of work, and it’s certainly not 100% leisure. I thought I was going to try to test how far I could still run with my infarct-afflicted lungs. Of course, that didn’t happen given the rain. One other thing I thought of doing was taking a prolonged break from all this “being-an-adult-with-responsibilities” bullshit. The trick then is to think like a kid. With me not being, or having been a parent, I have never had many opportunities to view the world vicariously through the eyes of a child: watching them grow, or interacting with them as an adult through play. If brought up right, kids are usually uninhibited in using whatever creativity, wonder, and genius they have: before too much progressively invasive adult reality dulls that shine away from them. To get back that quality involves finding some place where adults go to supply themselves with stuff to exercise some new creativity, and the place to spark that kind of stuff was Michaels art supply shop, to find some sort of craft supplies. I did find something that tickled my fancy, and made me a bit nostalgic of my own childhood. My next stop will probably be at Lee Valley, to collect some precision tools, if making little airplanes isn’t going to entertain me.

Q2. What was the thing that came closest to being bad juju then at the beginning of this holiday?

A2. My beloved coffee grinder, one that was gifted to me over 20 years ago, finally kicked the bucket - a bad omen perhaps. It served me well. I always have whole bean coffee here; never that stale pre-ground crap. There is no shooting off into new realms of inspiration or creativity here from ground control without the right kind of caffeinated rocket fuel early on in my day. And with nothing else to grind my beans, that is a problem. I tried using my blender for grinding them, but unfortunately, the resulting grind was too course and it just couldn’t do the job right. Thankful, I found a replacement for a bargain.

Q3. If expense and travel time weren’t factors, what would have the plans otherwise been?

A3. Something like the list of the following things, on some madcap adventure throughout Northern Europe spending time:

·         Exploring the local castles

·         Picking random stops along the London Underground, and just wandering around for days staring up at the architecture

·         Cycling around Copenhagen and Amsterdam and taking in the outdoor markets and cafés

·         Touring the Viking Museum in Roskilde, Denmark

·         In a jacuzzi full of Swedish bikini models*

·         Gorging myself on fresh seafood in some seaside bistro along the Brittany coast of France

·         Visiting the D-Day battlegrounds and memorials (Juno beach)

·         Having my ass-end warming some barstools at various pubs in Dublin, and in other Irish communities

·         Doing whatever else Anthony Bourdain would be doing in those regions, and taking time to write some memoirs of these jaunts (He’s a lucky son of a bitch, and I am so envious for the job that he has!)

Q4. If then resorting to cheap(er) thrills, what are they?

A4. Not exactly a cheap thrill, but being in a rut of boredom, depressed by the dark sky and rain, and otherwise void of inspiration, I made a trip to the casino, and thankfully won a little money, just enough to cover some of the cheap thrills I bought throughout the day. The beer I brewed last month has cellared long enough to sample; I’m at least well-stocked with that. The best score so far for this early part of holiday time in terms of simple things (apart from a bargain priced new coffee grinder, and model plane book), has been an ample supply of . . . super fresh Black Mission Figs. The first time I ever had a fresh fig in my adult life seemed like a religious experience**.

Foccacia Bread baked with fresh figs, unripened goat cheese,

and seasoned with mint, pepper, and a little drizzle of salt

and olive oil. This, plus some olives, and some wine cured

dry salami as some chacuterie was my lunch. The rest were

just simply eaten raw, and some were reserved to be pickled

in balsamic vinegar.

That happened several years ago in St. Catherine’s, Ontario. For that I thank a certain Mr. Testa, an old gentleman Italian immigrant, who is also my cousin’s father-in-law, who offered me the experience of what one of these things actually taste like in their perfection: fully ripened, and eaten within seconds after being plucked off of its tree proper. Simply amazing! The fig tree he had grown and husbanded himself was his personal treasure. It stood only about two meters tall, sheltered in the very centre of a very orderly greenhouse, as if presented there in a shrine-like display, surrounded with all the other pots of herbs, pimento peppers, and various other plants he used for crafting his own homemade canned antipasti. The tree was itself a product of carefully and mindfully placed grafted scions, according to some tradition of his Old Country, which gave it a perfectly sculpted symmetry. It was like an oversized, fruit-laden, Bonsai tree. Amidst the branches of this tree were smaller pots of soil, tied and secured to them. The soil surfaces in these pots were contacting the bottoms of the crooks of the smaller boughs. These pots were triggering root growth on those nodes of the branches, which when established, he would then cut these rooted branches away from the main tree body. It was his method of propagating new cuttings, which he either further nurtured separately, or sold as new little fig trees; I was very impressed with this resourcefulness. The tasting a fresh fig now always reminds me of this sort of ingenuity and pride. The same kind of pride my Dad had for his blossoming apple tree earlier this spring. Fresh figs are a rare find in this town, so scoring some by happenstance was a real bonus. So, I grabbed up as many as I found practical to use, given how perishable they are.

Q5. What is the next thing to invest in for having a decent summer holiday locally?

A5. Given that I’m conveniently only a block away from the riverbank, I’d really like to explore the

city, and the southern riverbend, from rowing around on the South Saskatchewan itself. The only watercraft that I might be able to carry there and back by myself is a shorter (2.5 - 3 m) kayak. The only things that keep me from outright getting one is the question of storage space (it would have to be hung from the ceiling of my balcony, a possible condo regulation infraction), the question of how to transfer it safely in and out of the building (I mentally engineered a pulley system from my deck, like casting away a lifeboat), and the fact that if I capsize the thing, my own comfort and ability to swim equates to that of a thrashing, drowning cat - even with a life jacket on.

Although thankful that I won’t be at work for a while, it feels like the grip of boredom and a mindset dulled and numbed by previous stessors has to be shaken off me in a drastic and desperate manner: like Houdini escaping from a straight-jacket in a tank of water kind of deal.

I have eight more days to reckon with all this.

*- I struck this out, not because it was a thing I had already accomplished (I’m sad and sorry to say), but because, if I weren’t travelling alone, if I ever did reach Europe, I’d ideally be traveling with a female companion, and I wouldn’t think she’d approve of this sort of frolicking and cavorting on my part. Secondly, of all the things on that fantasy list, this one would probably be as likely to happen as me being struck by lightning not just once, or twice, but thrice!

** - Buddha himself allegedly found enlightenment just sitting meditating under a fig tree, so perhaps it’s not some sacrilegious hyperbole to say such a thing. It makes me wonder if he indeed partook and relished in eating its ambrosia-like fruit.

The 12 Month Random Resolution Game

There has been a long lapse between entries, mostly because there has been so little that has been good or positive, or of any importance to comment on. Four months of this year that I wished to make better have been stolen from me, and I've simply been trying to make moves toward getting back to some sort of normalcy: if there ever was such a thing for me. People who know me know that I've just been trying to work and move towards a full recovery, which has been progressive, but going so slowly in my mind that it has been a real test of my patience. Physiotherapy can be refreshing and relieving on one day, and then torturous on another, as micro-traumas are being worked out of the joints and muscle tissues in my arm. There is some noticeable nerve damage, but thankfully it's only slight. Given what I had going on during the initial days after the accident, things could have easily turned into something much worse. On top of that, I've been depressed and disappointed about the elections down south, and the state of the media coverage used to be corruptive for such an affair already laden with controversy and conspiracy. It was a shameful display all around. The latter third of this year can be summarized in three words - it sucked balls. There's nothing at all about it that I really want to recollect or recount.

Year's End is just 20 days away, and I'm already making plans for trying to have a better go in 2017 even before I attempt any Christmas shopping. I invented a sort game for myself: something that has meaningful projects and acquisition targets set up for me to try and gain for each month of the coming new year. Perhaps it's a flaky idea: one that evolved out of the combined urges of defeating some boredom, wanting to play cards (but no company for it), to play with odds and sort gamble a bit (without staking any of my Christmas shopping funds), and inventing a game of chance where I'll somehow always win*. I found a way to deck my halls with a deck of cards. I am sharing it for those who are also wanting to use it to make a more hopeful and prosperous coming new year.

Materials:

• pen and paper (enough to create up to about 144 slips, plus to write a category list)
• scissors (for cutting such slips)
• 12 sealable envelopes
• a deck of cards, OR alternatively, if you aren't a card player . . .
• a pair of dice, or a 12 sided gaming die (if you are a Dungeons and Dragons geek)

Method:

1. Make a list of 12 categories of 12 things or deeds that you what to have or do during the new year. They can be of anything you want: charitable or selfish, serious intellectual pursuits or something fun and foolish, skill building or talent oriented, material possessions or intangibles, whatever, so long as each category involves things that genuinely go towards your sense of well-being, happiness and life satisfaction. Have them be all affordable within a month's budget, and overall achievable within a month's time, and such that they can be available to have or do at any time of the year. Here's about 12 things as examples that may or may not interest you. (Some of) these categories below aren't necessarily reflective of mine. It's deeply personal thing, so make up your own 12 categories of 12 things to list in each. Strive for 12 things to list in each category, but if you can't, you can repeat some items to make up twelve if practical, or stick to some number under twelve. Some examples here are: 
• 12 career skills you want to build on
• 12 tools/implements you want for your workshop/space
• 12 items you want as home decorum, or things you want to change in your home
• 12 thing-a-ma-bobs you want to collect
• 12 subjects you want to study intensively
• 12 people/places you want to visit
• 12 books you want to read/memorize 
• 12 songs you want to learn to play on your[whatever musical instrument you have]
• 12 charities you want to donate time/money to 
• 12 exotic ingredients you want to sample/experiment with
• 12 restaurants you've never eaten at yet, but wanted to try
• 12 novel liquor ingredients you want in your cocktail bar**
2. Take one category, and write each of the 12 items you listed from that category on a seperate slip of paper. You'll have 12 slips of paper if you've listed 12 items in the category. Put them face down on the table and mix them up.
3. Lay out all the 12 envelopes on a flat surface with the open side up.
4. If using playing cards, take a full red suit out of the deck to use, discarding the king. Shuffle the 12 red cards and place one card, face up, on each envelope. Then, take a full black suit out of the deck, discarding the king. Shuffle the black cards and put them face down on the table. Draw a card from the top of the black card stack. Take one of the face down slips of paper, not looking at it, and tuck it into the envelope with the red card with the matching face value as the black card (i.e., if you draw a black 3, put one slip of paper in the envelope with the red 3 on it.). Turn the red card over, or remove it to indicate that this envelope has been loaded. Repeat the same steps for each draw of the black cards in the rest of the stack. Once all the slips of the category have been put in each of their respective envelopes, re-shuffle each stack of the red cards and the black cards, shuffle and lay out the envelopes again, open , side up, and repeat for the 12 item slips of the next category. Repeat until all remaining category list slips are packed in the envelopes. Alternately, if you prefer handling dice . . .
5. If using a 12 sided die***, arrange the envelopes such that you can visually mark them as 1 to 12 (like the face of a clock, for example). Roll the die and place the slip into the corresponding envelope that matches the number on the die. Turn the envelope over once it gets its one slip. Remember, no peeking at the slips! Reroll the die if the number is repeated, and continue rolling, and filling the corresponding envelopes with their single slip of paper until the slips are gone. Shuffle and redistribute the envelopes again, turning the envelopes open-side up again, and repeat for the slips of the next 12 items in the next category. Repeat this process until all categories are done.
6. Once all the envelopes are filled, seal them and shuffle them. Select one and write "January" on it, select the next and write "February" on it, and so on until each envelope is labelled with one of the months of the year from, January to December****, inclusive.
7. Keep these envelopes in a safe and secure place. On the first day of each month, open the envelope labelled for that corresponding month. Set an alert on your smartphone calendar if you need to be reminded.
8. Start, do, or get the stuff listed on the 12 slips of paper that you find in there. You have the entire month to plan and/or try to commit to whatever is listed on those 12 slips of paper throughout it all when you start on day one, be it starting page one of that book, or collecting materials for a month long project. It would be a good idea to journal your progress, or monitor your interest while you do it. If you failing at it, or if your interest is waning, you get to ask yourself "Why?"

I rationalize things with this betterment/resolution "game" this way. The road to hell is usually paved with good intentions. Resolutions are usually broken because people pile up all their ambitions at the start of the year, which only serves to overwhelm them. Some then drop them within 12 hours of New Year's Day. It's not a good way to practice kaizen - that is small and continuous progressive steps toward improvement. The lesson, if any, that I'm drawing from doing physiotherapy, is that small and continuous steps eventually build up to some more powerful things. Committing to major resolutions, more likely than not, involves throwing one's life out of balance which one is rarely prepared for. I've had enough of life out of balance happening since August - thank you very much; yet I still seek structured improvement for my welfare. The novelty and excitement withers away quickly too when things are over-planned, and there is no chance for surprise and spontaneity.  I hope this strategy is one way to improve upon that. Twelve things per month, be they leisurely or ambitious, amounts to about three things a week with which to reward or better oneself. That's as many times per week as I do PT, and I'm getting results for the better. That sounds enriching and progressive enough for me.

This is also a very deliberate way to exploit stuff that I already have, it's just the element of pacing and time that really is the thing that needs to be adjusted. For example, lots of people have books on their shelves that they haven't touched yet, so list them and use them. The same goes with other stuff that they may be hoarding. This then becomes a practical measure to prevent thoughtless and impulsive spending. I hope calling this a game will perchance draw some kind of fun into the whole process, despite the fact that it does involve some discipline. The cards/dice aspect of it brings in a bit of a mysterious element of divination of sorts. I just like the math and probability calculation of it. It is making a personal lottery where you can (choose to) win every time. All in all, after dealing with the spells of bad luck I've had, my true ambition is just to be somehow happier. We'll see by the end of next December.

Since I have nothing else to reflect on, or share for the rest of this year, I'll only bid everyone happy holidays. I hope that I'll have better things to share for 2017.

*- Because I was playing a video game, and became too frustrated at being stuck at one level with monster robots constantly blowing my head off. A not so productive way to use my recovery time.

**- Unless you are already in a 12 step program with AA, disregard this idea.

***- If using a pair of six sided dice, the last slip of paper left of the 12 in the category automatically goes into the envelope designated as #1.

****- If you would rather devote your time, money, and energy for preparing for Christmas (or other primary holiday month), just simply play this game with 11 envelopes, 132 paper slips, and pull out the red and black queens (if using cards), disqualify the 12 roll if using a die/dice. The parameters are thus adjustable.