29 october 2011

If you've read up at all, here at the site, on the Daybook Project, then you know of my penchant for compulsive typing. It's a file to which I've been adding, nominally as a "journal" - which means "book of days," in French - for the last not-quite eight years.

In the early years, I averaged not quite a thousand words a day, not reaching a million words, total, until late in the third year of the project.

I hit the second million early in 2010, at the onset of the seventh year of the project. And the third million later that year; funny how I suddenly got my game on.

But not that funny, actually - as it turns out, I was assiduously documenting not only my daily life, the humors and vicissitudes, but also the waning and decline of my twenty-year marriage.

I'd known the dame for twenty-five years; she brought a daughter to the relationship, who I learned to raise as a father, so to speak - she does well; I'm proud - and we had a son together, who's amazing in the world in his own right - the best actor I know, for one. I could only caper on a slack rope, close to the ground, even when onstage with prominent roles, but I've seen him prance on a high wire onstage, and marveled, as one does when watching a brilliant artist.

If you scout around the Daybook page, you'll see that I became a "compulsive typist."

I type every morning, with coffee. Having looked at the stats, I was generating about eight hundred words per day, in the early years - 2004 through 2007 - but then we ramped up the word count per day, on average.

In 2010, though, I had lots about which to write, apparently, and began doing upwards of three thousand per day. Previously, I'd done four thousand on a newsworthy day - I think it was my wedding anniversary, when my former wife told me she wanted out - she eventually told me, a couple of years later, that she was leaving, and said this on my birthday - timing is everything.

But in 2010 - after the birthday I just mentioned - I wrote lots every day, and did my first million-in-a-year - having developed the goal of a hundred thousand a month - by early November. The holiday season kept me away from the keyboard, so I only ended up that year around 1,125,000 words. Well over a million, but hadn't done a hundred thousand a month, to which I had set myself.

As with any prudent approach to a big project, I broke the goal down to increments, and set myself to do ten thousand every three days, which - do the arithmetic, or let me - works out to averaging 3,333 words a day. I've become a capable typist, so can knock out three thousand an hour (fifty words per minute, on average), so my daily word count takes a bit over one hour.

I hit my million for this year on 22 October; I'd not only done my hundred thousand per month, but had also been freaked out that I'd have a challenge with the short month of February, and thus went at it so earnestly that I knocked out 125,000 words by the end of the month.

I work with deadlines every day, as a result, which makes me a better typist. I'd love to claim that looking at as many sentences as I do makes me a better writer, but to be modest, how could I declare that? For now, I'll just keep on with being my own amanuensis.

For more on the Daybook Project - what we're busy writing, and what happens to the material once we've typed it - read more, here on the site.

27 may 2011

It's been some time since I posted any new content to the site, but you weren't coming here for the news feed, were you? You don't think I'm the New York Times...? If I were, I'd find a way to shake some coins out of you for your visits here.

I've thought I ought to at least post something, though, for the visitors. I have a number of followers, some abroad, yet many local - one, in particular, seems a lonelyheart, who bookended the toast at midnight last New Year's Eve by visiting bartoncole.com - she (or he? pathetic) was here ten minutes before midnight, and again ten minutes after, and quite likely many of the intervening twenty.

I owe the devotees something (such as they/we are), so here's a tidbit, until I get caught up:

I'll say it's been a busy winter and spring. Among other things (although you won't find it on this site, as it's another page that needs content and updating), my work is frequently outside - I'm a high-end horticulturist and land manager; among my arcane skills is work with drainage, which is fascinating, and also mind-boggling, when one considers the amount of rain that falls on a site in a year, and how much of that water doesn't seep into the ground, but must run off, and how challenging it can be to engineer that - not to mention, execute it.
Although I live on an island, where you might think flooding is seldom a concern, our soil gets saturated, too, and it did this last winter, leading to water flowing over roads in February and March, among other drainage debacles.

That kept me pretty busy; along with my other, customary winter horticultural activities, such as garden prep, pruning, and renovation, I didn't have much idle time. In fact, during March and April 2011, I managed to have five days of no work.

And not only that, but it's time to pull up stakes and move from my little hotel. It's a bit more than I'm inclined to afford, and over the last year, I've felt a bit besieged here. Although it's a nice spot, no doubt Odysseus said the same thing when the Sirens were busy fondling him lewdly, but he had other destinations… as do I.

For now, I'll stick by my little town, for the sake of my darling cat. Much further afield, and we'd run into coyote territory.

Perhaps I'll keep you posted.

Any chums are always invited to drop me a line.

8 march 2011

In 2010, I discovered that my gentle and benign (and rather sophomoric - I'll be the first to admit it) website, geniusweirdo.org, had been banned in ¢hina.
You can read more about it in the design notes at coraxdesign.com - there, you'll see a bit about the purpose (? - some of us are laughing) of the site, and a note about the ban (although there's no explaining it).

I feel a bit like a freedom fighter, but there are other, much worthier sites, being banned there - sites documenting human-rights abuses, or other dangerous attributes of ¢hinese society.
Now, I'm not knocking the ¢hinese - I don't really want to run afoul of them - after all, they represent a huge percentage of the web users on earth; I'd prefer for them to see my content, even if it's nothing ground-breaking, earth-shattering, or otherwise flashy - after all, some birds are demure sparrows, and some are stunning, colorful parrots. They're all essential.

Besides, the ¢hinese are an emerging economic world power - there's more investment in "green" technologies there than anywhere else; they're trying to find their way, just as the United States of America once did, and still is trying. I'm not knocking them; like anyone else, they could try a little harder, and have more regard for the human resource.

But come on, guys - banning geniusweirdo.org?

As if that weren't enough, I discovered, just a week or so ago, that another of my piddly, middling websites, argyle9.com, was on the ¢hinese docket for the ban.
What the f**k?

Now, argyle9.com is another rather foolish site - I enjoy it, as have some others (the ones who have reported back). If it has a purpose, you can read up on that in the design notes at coraxdesign.com…

I learn of these things with the handy web-development tool, Statcounter, which enables me to monitor usage statistics in many formats, including maps with pins, etc. From the map, I can check the links that preceded the visit, and the exit links, and all that… and also get a look at the content the user gets to see. In the case of the abrupt and widespread map pins in ¢hina - I was quite intrigued that the site was suddenly hot all over the country, there - I found my way to the page ¢hinese users visiting geniusweirdo.org got to look at, instead of what I wanted everyone to see.

This,

instead of this.

Certainly not what I had in mind.

Upon seeing a similar configuration of user stats in ¢hina for argyle9.com, as abrupt as the other site a year ago, we can only draw one conclusion - well, a host of them, but principal among them was that I must be a subversive and dangerous fool. In response to the ¢hinese xenophobia, I created a bit of new content for argyle9.com - in which I pay homage to art, events, and whatnot, with the argyle9.com imprimatur - updating a classic photo from the news of the 1980s.

You can see my homage at argyle9.com.

Note: why am I using the deprecated "cent" sign in place of the letter "C" in ¢hina and ¢hinese?
I don't want this gentle, useful, and engaging site to get caught in the ¢hinese web-crawler dragnet - so I don't want the proper spelling to show up as a keyword. Just trying to be a quiet neighbor.

5 january 2011

The advent of calendars enabled all sorts of stuff - keeping track of the celestial events, so we'd know when to plant our crops and all that. Perhaps we're overly fond of commemorating anniversaries, when the calendar has wheeled around another year, or several - I think I might be overly fond, at any rate.

You have to confess: there's something compelling, even for those not astrologically-inclined - such as me - about the earth and all the rest of us being in the same celestial orientation as it we were during events we've deemed important, such as birthdays, deaths, or others of scale.

Birthdays are the most common and obvious events to commemorate, but they acquire a particular tang when one pairs them with other events, such as the time my comrade in the space capsule said, "I'm opening the hatch and leaving; I don't give a fuck if you don't have your helmet on…" and out she went (read more, below).

This was just last year - you can imagine my panel lighting up all in red, lights flashing, as the air in the capsule was sucked out, along with anything that was unsecured - papers, books, pens, cigars…
But we managed to stabilize things, and kept from crashing into the alien landscape below - so far, at any rate - but as we've completed an orbit and regained some of our altitude and velocity, we think we might be fine. Sure did have to dodge a lot of crap, though. I'll go through the logs and hopefully add some of the interesting and pertinent details - but it's sure been bracing.

I hardly know where to start; much funny stoof, and heaps of actual irony.

An interesting year: people coming, people going, people coming-and-going, often without warning or much fanfare, but frequently with interesting, perhaps not-always-pleasant consequences (one arrival was briefly pleasant and perplexing, like a waxwing showing up out of season...)

12 december 2010

closing down 2010; a recap of sorts...

An ironic year - although that begs the recent question: which is more ironic, irony, or the lack of expected irony?

For starters, early in the year, I found myself abruptly alone, after more than twenty years of being around my increasingly-experienced family, for whom I cooked and generally looked after, among other things.

My thirty-year-old daughter already lived, worked, and by all accounts, was thriving, in Manhattan, and my son was due to move to america - to Seattle; Capitol Hill, actually - apparently one of the hip places on earth, so they say (here's my own corroboration of it); perhaps there's something to it...

My wife surprised me, though - although I've been hearing for some years, "When Max moves out, I'm leaving" - true enough; rather like a Sword of Damocles, I'd say - she announced her impending departure, and then left, a good month-and-a-half before his announced launch.

Ironic? Oh, indeed, but mildly, I'd say.

I learned of her plan, if such it was, on merely the fifth day of the new year (this year of a million words, although I didn't know that then).

an odd birthday present

Ironically - indeed, yes - it was my birthday, the day upon which she chose to spring her news. I even learned a couple of days later that she had already informed our son, but the day before my birthday. Her reason: "I want your dad to have a nice birthday."

If you can see the logic in that, send me a note - I've never quite understood it...

Well, some may say I'm plucky, as ever, and I'd hope to agree. I dealt with all that in the highest-road manner possible.

Oddly, then, a girl showed up, who'd represented something of a sparrow-between-the-bars, at times when I felt alienated and misunderstood in my own enclosure.

I'd seldom seen her, in the last few years, and suddenly, was seeing a lot of her. I found myself declaring my affection for her, and my regard, to which she enthusiastically responded - effusively, as if a cork had been removed from her bottle.

And then she completely vanished, and would no longer respond to efforts to communicate - her existence became an act of faith on my part, as the Ivory Billed Woodpecker would be to a swampwalking birdwatcher.

was she just a random, psychotic seal?

That was the winter and spring; in the summer, she resurfaced again, briefly, long enough to acknowledge that her behavior, as she put it, was "confusing, bitchy, and rude." I had to agree with that, but was congenial - for one, I was curious about her programming, so to speak; what odd physics determined her actions and reactions?

But then, of course, she promptly disappeared again.

Autumn came around, and sure enough, here's an email from her again, and it seemed that I was going to have a chance to actually see her - I could imagine myself with an intimidating clipboard - as I had finally expressed to her, while endeavoring to conceal my annoyance, "Maybe you could just help me fill in some blanks?"

While calendars were being compared, she abruptly went off the air again.

Not only was I severely annoyed and somewhat affronted - I've become rather vocally intolerant of disregard - I found I was also, perhaps generously on my behalf, concerned about her well-being. Had some mishap befallen her?

I finally deployed the fail-safe maneuver; I'd been reluctant to all along, but I called her mother. I just wanted to know if she was alright, or had ended up in some ditch or other.

what was really going on

"No, she's just being a flake," her mother said. She had many other eye-opening revelations, too - such as that the girl is with a young man because he's not as smart as she is - "She can teach him things," she said, "but she didn't think she could teach you anything." No doubt I've intimidated her, as many others, but such an attitude is simply immature.
My goodness - she keeps a boyfriend like a dog?
So she can train him?
What, to not pee on the rug?

We find our fulfillment in odd ways, I suppose.

Still, I had grown weary of the whack-a-mole nature of her appearances and disappearances, so sent her a last email, which began, thus:

I'm sick of your bobbing up next to my gentle, well-meaning boat like a random, psychotic seal, so that's not going to happen any more.
The best way I can guarantee that is to load the water with a karmic barrage...

I followed that up with an articulate salvo; a sortie of my final opinion, rather along the lines of "...ravaged our coasts, plundered our seas..." - as in the Declaration of Independence, in which King George III was told, quite clearly, where he had gone wrong, and what was being done about it - a pretty final, clear, and persuasive document. I suppose, as it could be taken to be a "hostile email," it was old-school flame, which the D of I would have been, if they hadn't had to hand-deliver it.

Still, in a previous episode, the girl had sent a note saying, "You make me so mad I never want to check my ~~~ email again!" I had no idea, then, what it was I had done - my curiosity wasn't requited on that one, among other questions - but no doubt, this last note should ensure that any of her dark ambassadors would be recalled... back home to the bong and the playpen, as I imagined it.

and through it all, the cat

Meanwhile, my estranged wife had moved out of town, and then back into it - and it's a little town (see the maps page), which made for odd, random encounters, generally unpleasant.

But thank god for the stalwart cat - the year has been fraught with far more confusion and ironic circumstance than a year ought to contain. If not for the well-meaning and devoted ministrations of the inscrutable cat, we're not sure how things would have ended up.

7 december 2010

As a result the miasma, the morass, and the mire of irony, being one who writes, I've had much to write about this year. Although I have a "blog" (but don't like that word), I've got another domain all set up to document the chronologies, vicissitudes, happenstance epiphanies and ironies, as a "blog," but don't have the content arranged or formatted. Goodness knows I have enough of it, though.

Here at the site, you can drop in on my exploration of my daybook project; you'll find, there, that the big news is that - as part of this long, verbose odyssey,

I've managed to write over a million words in a year.

On 17 November 2010, I landed on my own planet of a million words in a year, and planted my flag, and then wrote about it.

Now, I'm knocking at the door of another milestone - tomorrow, I'll exceed three million words over the nearly-seven-year life of the project. If nothing else, I've become an excellent typist.

23 november 2010

Domain names are cheap, generally, and before I had any web clientele, they were an inexpensive way to develop a portfolio. Also, I think I had some of the delight of one with access to a server for the first time, and so enjoyed the file-transfer process. I've used domains and server access for any number of useful things, such as posting images of sketches and whatnot, for a team of collaborators - rather than emailing an image, I merely send out the link, so they can look at it on the web from anywhere, and all that (here's a sample of a theater set piece I designed and built, for the scenic designer to assess and approve - still on the server; as an example, I guess).

And along the way, having an account with a registrar and access to my-goodness-how-affordable domain names, I picked up this one (bartoncole.com) first - so of course it's one of the last to get content); birdjoint.com, to feature the bird-dwellings I designed and build, using found materials (just like birds!), and enabling materials of varying and random thicknesses; coraxdesign.com, to feature my web and graphic design work; geniusweirdo.org, because I liked the sound of it; same with argyle9.com; same with 23crows.com (which since became my blog); I'm devoted to a clever web coding concept using the "empty span," so snapped up "emptyspan.info;" for now, until I make a site about the coding practice and technique, I've collected things my clever friends (and others) have said. I bought zencrow.com, because I liked the name, and have facsimiles of correspondence from an actual Zen Crow, there. Et cetera, et cetera.

Now and then, some of the sites get content - as for instance, scanning the envelopes and putting images of them on zencrow.com. Just so there's something there, and hopefully something of perhaps not merely marginal interest.

But once in a while, I go for it and create a complete site, or entirely rewrite an existing one, as I did in the Spring of 2010 with coraxdesign.com.

And this site is an example - there has been the merest of content at bartoncole.com for some time, as I didn't know which of my interests, vocations, or avocations to feature… so came up with a modular plan that lets me feature them all. It also enables me to develop the site as I go, adding content (rather like I do at geniusweirdo.org) when I have it.

going live with bartoncole.com

So here it is - perhaps it's odd to announce the launch of a website at that website, but - this is it, we're having a big party any day now - by the time you read this, we had it (mostly without incident) to celebrate having the site up and running.

.

going live with douglassquirrel.info

Back in April of 2009, I was working on some bramble removal in my little town, and had encounters with a Douglas' Squirrel and a Townsend's Chipmunk during my day. I keep cracked corn and black-oil sunflower seeds with me for those occasions - I can hire a job-site buddy by putting out seed; a squirrel will be working on it most of the day, scampering off and caching the seeds, when not actually eating them.

These guys were such a presence during my lunch, like a pair of gray jays (one of which has eaten out of my lap in the mountains); I got my camera, and while I sat there eating my bread-and-cheese, snapped nearly two hundred pictures; some were so close you can see my reflection in the squirrel's eye, even with my little Canon A590 p&s.

I was so excited - when I got home, I immediately bought douglassquirrel.info - for a dollar - and within a couple of hours, had a little page written with this amazing close-up picture of a Douglas Squirrel.

Since then, I've gradually acquired other content, bit by bit - extensive information from the Curator of Squirrels at the Smithsonian Institution, and excellent and informative pieces of text, with permissions, from noted natural history writers. I've been scouting for recordings of their highly-characteristic calls, but to no avail - the only samples available featured low-fidelity and roaring wind in the microphones.

Recently, though, a technical colleague and audio-visual specialist has captured excellent samples of a range of calls, with superior fidelity and quality. Truly amazing; one clip sounds like he had the guy in the studio; merely a snapping twig is all else you hear.

And my colleague has been out shooting high-definition digital video, so we'll have access to those excellent clips as well.

Just with my own library of images, I have extensive archives, but also have permissions and access to a broad range of image sources.

Truly, I have the means to create the complete compendium of information about Douglas' squirrels; the ultimate resource. So once this site is done, I'll be

going live with douglassquirrel.info.

And after that, I'm working on birdjoint.com, in time to have resources available for the 2011 nesting season. And of course, there will be the other odd projects for clientele (available for design and development work, ladies and gentlemen), so we'll have plenty to keep us busy. And again, although I may have already boasted of it on this site, all my work is hand-coded, and we do all our own image sourcing, generation, and editing, as well as all our own copy work.

Not because we're cheap and can't afford specialists at these things, but because

we ourselves are specialists;

nice to have a shop with a capable driver, and a capable mechanic.