I was thinking about what I would do during my retirement years. Yeah, I know that they are probably still 25 to 30 years away but when I get there I plan on:

• Painting
• Reading all the books I didn't have time to read before
• Solving math problems
• Writing stuff down that I remember

I've been drawing a lot lately. Nothing serious... just scribbles in the sketchbook. I ordered a bunch of sketchbooks from Cheap Joe's a few weeks ago so I figured that I better start churning out something. This is, by the way, exactly how successful artists are successful: they churn stuff out. The idea is that if you dig up a hundred rocks then one of them is bound to be a gem. Of course, none of the stuff I've been churning out are gems exactly, but it's keeping my hand loose for more important projects to come later. Anyway... the churned-out stuff is all on the (Almost) Daily Pages. Check 'em out. The rain was coming down last night like cow pee on to a flat rock, so I was inspired for the daily page for March 30, 2007.

I've been thinking a lot about commercialism lately and how our economy has matured from Capitalism to a post-Capitalist economic structure which can only be described as "consumerism." Most people have an idea of what we mean by the term consumerism, but I'm not sure we've ever thought of it in terms of how our economy works. Here's what I've noticed: years ago... I'm talking like in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries... people and companies made goods to satisfy the actual needs that people had. You needed a shovel, you needed a sewing machine. Then somewhere along the way, we stopped needing things so much as we started wanting things. It used to be that you needed a car, so you bought something sensible and you made it last for like 20 years. Now, we want a new car after three years.

The fashion industry works like this. Consumer electronics too.

You ever notice how some people wouldn't be caught dead wearing last year's iPod?

I probably don't have to point any of this out to you. It's pretty obvious what has happened. In fact, our economy... our entire standard of living, depends on most of the people in the United States spending most of the money that they earn as soon as possible. If we suddenly started only buying the things that we actually need and delayed or put off spending on what we want then we'd all be rich bastards in short order. THEN, and I know this is a radical idea, a lot more people would have a lot more money to give to, say, the poor, worthy charities and foundations, save-the-baby-harp-seals and stuff like that. You could not only afford to send your kids to college, you could also send their friends too. I think that the world might actually be a little bit better place, don't you?

I don't know if doing such a thing would cause our economy to sprial out into inflation or recession, but I for one would like to find out.

Okay, so this is what I've been thinking about and I started thinking that this would make for a good book. Then last month I was listening to NPR, actually it was this program called MarketPlace, and I heard this guy, Benjamin R. Barber, talking about his new book Consumed. Then a little bit later I caught him on The Colbert Report. This guys writes about mostly what I've been thinking so check him out...if this kind of thing bothers you that is, otherwise buy a stupid DVD or a People magazine instead.

All kidding aside, this is important stuff that we should all be thinking about.

You know those times when it's all going right and the breaks are coming your way and when it seems like life is taking you with the current and this time you actually want to go with the current and everything seems to come so effortlessly? When you write, the words come pouring out like someone is whispering them directly into your ear as you type it out and when you draw it's like drawing something you know so well that you could draw it with your eyes closed? You know about that?

Well, that ain't me right now, man.

I'm just coming off of a spell where it all has to be forced out like that last bit of toothpaste. At least I hope I'm coming off of it. The muses have left and gone to Playa del Carmen for the Fall. That creative force has withered away. No momentum, no spark, nothing. I haven't really drawn anything since before I got sick in July. I hope that changes soon.

I need to look back over the sketchbooks to see if this correlates any with the anti-depressants. I hate to use that as an excuse for apathy, but then again it has been awful difficult to motivate myself to action other than the assignments from art class. Maybe I lack discipline? Maybe I lack a real desire to do art? Maybe I just don't feel enough of anything so that I can do something with the experiences... either write it down, paint it, or draw it?

I think Plato said that "the unexamined life ain't worth living." I sometimes wonder if I do too much of that stuff.

Perhaps, the overexamined life ain't worth lining either?

Perhaps I should just shut up and draw?

I've been sick and really busy at work lately so I posted three "one-pagers" in the (Almost) Daily Pages section to make up for the recent lackage of drawings.

Actually, I have been drawing a little but the daily pages in my sketchbook are either in blue pencil (and not inked) or else they are in very scribbly, messy pencil. Maybe I'll clean them up and scan them in some day.

Yesterday (July 17) it was 108 degrees outside. I don't recall a hotter day in this area since I've lived here (although the news says it was this hot three years ago). And... to heap misery on top of that: it was also kind of humid. Of course, this is nothing compared to those awful summer days in Chicago where the temperatures only reached the upper 80's but so did the humidity. Let me tell you, that is the definition of misery.

Ah, well, gotta go now, Jon Stewart is on and talking about the weather is boring.

I was going to post the following 2-page comix in the (Almost) Daily Pages section, but since I thought of it a long time ago and it was not really associated with any particular date, I guess it belongs here. Enjoy it at my expense (click on the images to read the full-size pages):

Oh, the title of today's entry? I dunno... just thought it would be catchy.

Okay, Art Class is over... not offcially, I still have two more classes, but the work was completed tonight (5-8-2006). Five drawings of supposedly the best work I am capable of doing. Only two of them, I think are actually worthy of that lofty categorization. The other three are okay. I drew some daily pages about it, and I'll be posting those in the next day or so.

I suppose the question of the hour is now "What do I do next?" I have some paintings to exorcise, as well as an idea for a book. I also need to do some retraining for the ol' day job. Maybe I won't even address any of that. Anyway, I kind of feel like I'm at a crossroads or a fork in the road. That's a stupid metaphor, but you know what I mean. Anyway, there are two ways of looking at any fork in the road: logically and emotionally. Logic will talk you out of taking other paths, until the safest one is the only choice left. The emotional choice is almost always the riskiest choice, the one that will ensure that the ship of prosperity will crash and sink against the rocks of harsh reality. This is because so few of us are able to fashion livelihoods out of our natural talents and interests, or our hopes and dreams. Still, there's a siren beckoning from those rocks, the voice of irrational exuberance, that gently whispers that you can have it all. I almost bought into that this week. Oy! That'll provide a few choice sentences for the memoirs.

On the other hand, I'm a reasonably above average guy. Mr. 80%. Maybe I can figure our a way to make a go of it?

DID YOU KNOW....

Gameboy cartridges can survive a round trip through the washer and drier and come out just fine. An iPod Shuffle, alas, cannot.

I was drawing the other night in the kitchen. It was a still life of a basket and some fruit. One thing that you have to understand is that drawing is easy. So easy, in fact, that a child can do it. Ummm... yeah... ok. Anyway, the hard part about drawing is the concentration part: you have to pay close, very meticulous, attention to the details of what you are drawing. Example: you are drawing a face. Now, we all know what a face looks like and if you are impatient you will end up whipping out a circle, an arc for a smile, and three dots for the eyes and nose. But a real face is much more complicated. A nose never actually looks like a nose when you are in the details of the thing.

The whole point is that you must concentrate, young grasshopper. And concentration takes time. And taking too much a lot of time with something is a thing that we Americans regard as a "waste of time."

Yet, to draw well requires a lot of time because it is mostly concentration. I could teach you how. Really.

Anyway, I was thinking about this and then I was also reading René Descarte's Meditations so I then thought about the enormous investment of time that these great artists, philosophers, writers, and theologians of the past (people like Descartes) had made in order to produce the fruits of their labor. Then I reflected on the sad state of things today, when no one is expected (or able) to focus on anything for more than the length of a television commercial.

You see, our modern lifestyle has been achieved by speeding up time... or rather, speeding up ourselves as we travel through time. We're always rushing from one meeting to another, one little league game to another, one grocery store trip to another. We've ceased making things and replaced that with doing things. Remember when we used to make our meals? Make something out of scraps of wood in the garage? Make a drawing? We can't do that anymore because we have to be doing something all the time. And making or creating something apparently is no longer considered doing something. It is seen as a wasteful, frivolous activity. Instead, we must consume things. If we are not consuming something all the time, then we must not be doing anything and if we are not doing anything then we must not be of any use.

In some ways, I think we have made ourselves consumable. Think about that for a while... but not too long.

In addition to the perennial favorites like stop biting my nails and switching to the metric system, this year I resolved to do something that I've been wanting to do for many, many years: take some art classes. It's only January the 16th, but this thing has kept me awake at night (and biting my nails) for the past month or so. Should I take a class? Isn't this kind of selfish and self-indulgent? Time is precious and I'd rather spend it at home with my wife and kids. There's all kinds of chores and other much more important stuff to do around the house. In the end, with a little bit of encouragement from Deb ("go ahead, I don't care" ;^) ), I decided to plunge in and do it.

Besides, I like going to school. At least I thought I did. Then I went to register.

The Admissions office was swarming with sweaty, shabbily-dressed kids. Here I was, an old man standing in line with them... still in my work clothes. They probably thought that I was a new instructor who was lost and ended up in the wrong line. I wanted to blend in but that was clearly impossible.

Three long lines and two hours later I was done. I swear I almost walked out of there several times. Anyway, now comes the next big test: showing up to class tomorrow night.

I feel somewhat like a poser, taking art classes with real artists! What was I thinking?

Q - Why do computer geeks celebrate Halloween on Christmas?
A - Because OCT 31 equals DEC 25. explanation
Hint: OCTal 31 converts to Binary 011001 which converts to DECimal 25

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week.

We owe so much to the Egyptians... we should treat them better than we do today.

Toast or toasting was born in Egypt around 3000 BC... shortly after the Egyptians discovered invented the methods of baking bread as we know it today. If you have ever made fresh bread yourself, either in the oven or in one of those nifty bread-making contraptions, you soon make an amazing discovery of your own: you have to eat the bread right away, or else it gets really hard the next day. It will also sprout mold pretty fast too. So, how does Mrs. Baird's and Sunbeam solve this problem? In a word: preservatives. Yeah! Anyway, I digress. The Egyptian bakers did not know much about microbiology on a theoretical level, but on an applied level they did find that drying bread in front of open fire or by lying it on a hot stone made the bread stay mold-free much longer.

So, toasting bread in ancient times was a practical and easy means of preserving it. The Romans picked it up from the Egyptians and spread toast all over Europe, even up into Britain. The word 'toast,' in fact, comes from the Latin word tostum, meaning scorch or burn. Since toast is basically burnt bread, this name is logical. Latin and logic seem to always go together... at least in school they did. In the 16th century English colonists brought toast to the Americas. It was a minor hit: a bit less popular import than horses, but more popular than smallpox.

Toasters had to come next, of course. Early models were wire frames that sat next to or over a fireplace, you can still get something like this at Wal-Mart or any store that sells a lot of camping supplies. The widespread use of electricity led to the invention of the modern toaster and the first commercially successful toaster appeared in 1909. The first automatic, or 'pop-up', toaster for the home was the Toastmaster, developed in 1926 by the Waters Genter Company. There was even a knob that the user turned to determine the degree of darkness. The Toastmaster also came with a repertoire of hundreds of anecdotes, recitations, and testimonials, suitable for any after-dinner speaking engagement. By the 1940s, most toasters were automatic and the horse-powered toaster quietly disappeared. Today, 88% of all U.S. households have a toaster.

Toast, along with the egg and the ham sandwich have become the proletarians in the world of cuisine. However, it is still possible to respect toast. Although at first used simply to preserve bread, toast is also crunchier and easier to spread things on than regular bread. Many people, myself included, actually prefer the taste of toast to plain bread. Toast has also influenced the development of peanut butter, butter, and jam. Sure, you could spread any of these items on something else, but it just wouldn't be the same without toast.

My favorite toast recepies:

• Cinnamon toast: toast bread, then butter it. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over it. Handy to have one of these, if you make this with any regularity.
• Toast with Peanut butter. The peanut butter sticks to your ribs so well that one slice can tide you over until lunch.
• Toast sammich: Toast and butter three slices. Slap it together and enjoy!
• BLT on toast.

Visit Dr Toast for toast recipes, related links, and so on.

The saying goes: "Whoever dies with the most stuff, wins." I have been thinking about all my stuff (I always do at Christmas time). I'm thinking that I need to get rid of a lot of it. The mental and physical energy that is required to keep up with, play with, maintain, wash, register, park, feed, repair, winterize, backup, de-moth, paint, sanitize, replace batteries, and vacuum has made much of what I posess a drag. Ironically, much of it was originally purchased to "Save Time and Money." This cracks me up.

Look for boo-coos of auctions from me coming soon on EBay.

I have big plans for this winter. BIG plans. There are paintings to be painted and sculptures to be, uh, assembled. Google had their Summer of Code and I am going to have my Winter of Art. This is why I love this time of year: there is no lawn work to be done nor Little League practice to tote kids to, so you have gobs of free time to create something.

I like algebra. It's the practical person's math and I am proud to say that I use algebra almost every day. Actually, all of us use algebra every day. We just don't recognize it. A good example of this is in driving. When you see the idiot driver in front of you slam his brakes on, your brain quickly develops a simple polynomial equation and you fill in the variables and solve and recalulate the equation several times a second until you either reduce speed to an acceptable rate, or rear-end the vehicle.

Anyway, there are 7 fundamental laws of operations for algebra and they follow some of the rules that we all learned in arithmetic. So, without delay, here are the Laws in plain language:

1. The sum or product of quantities is not changed if their order is changed. So, 3 + a = a + 3 ... easy!

2. When two numbers are equal, and other numbers are added to or subtracted from them, the sums or remainders are equal. In other words, if a = b, then a + 3 = b + 3.

3. Zero is obtained by adding a positive and negative number of equal numerical value. Duh, 4 + -4 = 0 and -2 + 2 = 0.

4. Numbers whose signs are alike give positive products, whose signs are unlike, negative. This is why 4 x -2 = -8 and -2 x -2 = 4.

5. The product of zero and any other number is zero. Any number times 0 equals 0.

6. If the product of two or more numbers is zero, then one of the numbers must be zero. Does #5 make this a little redundant?

7. Division by zero is not permissible. I think this is because zero is not really a number, just a vague, idealistic, idea... kind of like socialized medicine.

Finally, my favorite algabraic equation is from Albert Einstein: "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x, y is play, and z is keeping your mouth shut."