December 30, 2007

Sunday, December 30, 2007 6:26:06 AM

Yesterday was an interesting day. I was able to start the day getting a lot of planning done with respect to my future schedule. I was pretty happy with what I came up with. Like a set of cloths that looks good on the rack I will need to try it on to know if it is as comfortable and nice as it looks. The schedule allocates a default of 38 hours of work a week which I think will be plenty if I am working on the right things. I tried to use what I had learned from uncle Erik about using a 3 day cycle of 1 day administrative, 1 day execution and 1 day recharge. 

It is amazing to me how much does not fit into a week. It is pretty obvious to me looking at the schedule why I am not currently getting to my journal on a regular basis or exercising on a regular basis. I am not sure I will really need an hour nap every day especially after I get exercising on a regular basis but I want to leave the nap in there because it is the kind of thing that will give me a nice buffer to prevent burn out and keep my efficiency up. It may also easily turn into my journaling time although I may also push journaling into morning prep.

Mike Owens came over yesterday to show me the tool blender. It is used for creating 3D images. Blender also has a game engine. I was very impressed with the tool. It left me quite confused because it made it seem tempting to believe that I would be able to develop a 3D game with a lot less effort than I had originally anticipated. It also looked like a nice way to develop graphics. I will admit that I am a little worried about relying on a freeware tool because it seems that a lot of times the freeware tools do not have their seams covered as well as commercial products. I was disappointed to learn that After Effects was not a commercial version of Blender. I was very overwhelmed as I tried to figure out how to do things in After Effects. I also started to wonder about the wisdom of paying $2500 for software when I may be able to get software for free that would do the same thing. The truth is that it doesn’t do the same thing it is just that After Effects is a lot more video focused than 3D object focused. I think Photo Shop has some 3D modeling capability as does illustrator but I don’t think they offer what I saw in blender. With that said there isn’t a reason I can’t use blender in parallel to what I do in other programs. What has me overwhelmed right now is that I feel like I need to have mastery of several programs which I do not. I just need to slow down and accept that it will take me time to learn the software and acquire some new skills that I do not currently have.

Acquiring new skills is a large part of my objective in changing my endeavor however I don’t want to get caught in the trap of always learning and never doing. I think my project schedule will help keep me balanced in this point. I am going to make a learning project which will allow me several hours to get familiar with each program and each concept as well as a couple of learning projects.

Lexie and I have been yelling at the kids way too much lately. I think it is because we are feeling more and more stress as the day to leave gets closer and closer but it doesn’t seem like the work needing to be done before we leave doesn’t seem to be diminishing at the same rate time is disappearing. It seems like it takes most of our available energy lately just to keep up with the messes that the kids make. Yesterday it seemed like they just went from one activity that generated work for us to another. We need to figure out a way to teach them to pull weight at least to the point that we don’t lose our day just chasing their messes. I am hoping our trailer life helps in this respect in that there should be fewer things to do and we should have better visibility of what the kids are doing at a given time. One of their favorite tricks lately is to go to the floor we are not on and make a mess there. Actually they just make a mess where ever they are it is just that the messes get a chance to get a lot worse when the kids are out of sight.

I am finally getting to what I wanted to put in my journal this morning and that is a lecture for the kids. I want to come up with something simple enough for them to understand but comprehensive enough to cover enough that we can operate with a clear understanding. I’ll give it a try now …

Children, sometimes small people are asked to do big things. Now is one of those times. The things in the world that some people think are the most important are not the most important things after all. Money and power are not the most important things in the world. Having everybody accept and understand you is not the most important thing in the world. Being true to God is the most important thing in the world.

We are going on a great adventure. We are going to have a lot of fun. Mommy and Daddy believe that the trip we are going on is something God wants us to do. The trip is not going to be easy all of the time. Things are not supposed to be easy all the time. We get the strongest when we work the hardest. We want to be strong. We want to be smart. We cannot be strong or smart if we are not willing to do the things it takes to become strong and smart.

I love you children and your mother more than anything else in this world. I am very glad that I get to share my life with you. I am very excited that we are going to get to spend more time together when we go into the trailer.

What mommy and daddy are doing is very scary for grown ups. After daddy leaves on the trip we won’t be getting paid from a company anymore. It is not certain when we will be able to have money. Many people decide not to do what we are doing because they are too scared of the thought of not having money. We think that living a good life and having love in the family is more important than money. Things are going to be hard for mommy and daddy. Mommy and daddy need help from the kids. We are a team. What we are doing is so hard that mommy and daddy can not do everything that needs to be done. Mommy and daddy need the children to help to accomplish the goals of the family. The bigger you are the more you are going to be able to do. The things we need the kids to do are:

Love one another avoiding fighting. We live in a world where there are many bad and ugly things. We want our family to be a good and beautiful thing. The people in our family are our best friends and the best part of ourselves. A fight with someone in the family is a fight against ourselves. Let’s think of lots of nice things to say to each other and lots of nice things to do for each other.

Clean up messes. There is a lot of work that needs to be done every day so that we can have food, cloths and shelter. It even takes work to play. As a team we need to share the work. We all need to do some work that helps everybody and we need to be sure that we do not cause extra work for anybody. If we make a mess it is our responsibility to clean it up. It is not fair that someone else needs to clean up a mess that we make.

Work hard in school. It is everybody’s individual responsibility to learn. We can not learn things for you. The trip we are taking is going to cost a lot of money. The reason we are going to spend so much money is that we believe that you will be able to learn more things if you are able to see more things. It would be very sad if you saw things but didn’t learn because you were not working hard. Of course you will not be able to learn everything all at once and you will not be able to remember everything that you see however if you always work hard to learn things you will be able to learn many things.

Obey mom and dad. What we are doing is not as safe as living in the house. We are going to go to many strange places. At the house you have learned what places are safe and what places are not safe. In the places we are going you do not know these things. Mom and dad are going to work hard to be able to keep you safe. We cannot keep you safe if you do not obey us. Important things for example are when we tell you to come we need you to come. When we tell you to stay in an area you MUST stay in that area.

 

Children we love you so much. We want you to be happy. We work hard to do things that will make you happy. When you are our age we expect that you will be very, very happy that you were able to go on such a neat trip. We think that you are going to be able to have more fun than you have ever had in your whole lives. We are going to go to lots of museums, we are going to go camping, we are going to go rock climbing, we are going to the beach, we are going to Disney Land, we are going to go to the Grand Canyon and we are going to do many more things. We are very, very happy that we can do those things with you. We love you.

--End of Lecture. I think that covered most of what is on my mind but doesn’t quite meet my brevity requirement yet. I might go back and refine it and possibly even video tape it. Sometimes it seems that the kids pay more attention to the TV than me anyway… Something nice about a video tape is that it can control its emotion a bit better and isn’t threatening.

***As an after the fact note I did video tape this leture and it was very effective. The kids would watch the video up to 5 times in a row to delay bed time. They also refer to it often.