The Simple Things

Lobster
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

The rain patters outside my window. Like little padded feet the droplets drum the leaves and I feel warm inside.

The rain pauses for a moment, all is quiet, but then it returns with a maddening roar, increasing for a time, hurling water at the defenseless plants in a deafening crescendo. But not for long, it subsides again, exhausted for the moment. Waiting for a time until it can gather energy for another return.

Being inside on a rainy day is one of life's pleasures, a simple thing.

The only element that could make this experience better is a cup of piping hot, crude oil, black coffee.

And so I fetch me a cup. It's as black as a moonless night in the mountains. What could be simpler?

It's quiet now, it's just 5:30 a.m. No one is stirring. All is quiet in the house, except for the burping of the final water through the coffee maker, and of course, the sound of the rain. It's gentle now.

I can hear only a faint hum of the notebook I type on, but only when I pause to think. When I start up again, there is just the sound of the clicking keys.

I type into my text window, but other windows appear beneath, tempting me to click on yet another site on the net. Some windows still show moving images from the various web sites I've visited this morning. I've visited many. One window shows 75 simple things people enjoy most.

For example, people enjoy breakfast with a friend, tea in a park, or bicycling through their neighborhood. These things cost little, is available to just about anyone, but most of all, they bring great satisfaction.

Interestingly, people who win lotteries still find that that the simple things in life bring the most joy.

And that all makes sense to me. If I had all the money in the world and spent a month buying whatever I wanted, what would I do next?

Buy more stuff? Yeah, why not?

I think I need a new bicycle and a new neighborhood.

...dave
If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to either of you for the rest of the day.

Theoretically Related Posts

• Simple Stuff
  

new sketching fonts

illustrated journaling
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

It's always exciting to find new fonts that can be used in my sketching.

It's great to have an initial large cap to start a paragraph or two in the journal. Or maybe a font that I can use while sketching a sign on the street.

I found these in a scrapbooking book at B & N. I copied them into this journal page. It's simply a double line colored. I used some simple highlighters in my desk.

By the way, while I was manually sketching these into my journal the lady next to me was taking pictures with her phone of an entire book! That's a great idea. Why didn't I think of that?

...dave
Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.

The Smoothie

smoothie
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

I was feeling under the weather. (What does THAT mean, we are all "under" the weather.) English no make any sense.

Anyway, I tried all kinds of stuff to snap out of it. I was lethargic, exhausted, and even had a sore throat.

I finally decided to try to find a Jamba Juice place, or a least something similar. It turns out, after doing a store search, that Jamba Juice is only in 20 states. But alas, mine is not one of them.

So I settle on Planet Smoothie. It sounded so good. I remember how good one of those smoothie drinks went down just after having my wisdom teeth out. I can't wait. I pulled myself into the car and motored down there, just a 10 minute drive from my house. It was closed.

Rats.

I drove around aimlessly looking for something similar. When I'm not looking for those places they seem to be on every corner. Now I can't find an open Planet Smoothie anywhere on the planet.

I find a health food store and decide to make my own. I find a packet of nutrition that has 200% of the daily requirements of vitamins A to Z. I buy two. I drive to a Whole Foods and buy blackberries, strawberries, and two kiwis (the fruit, not the people).

I blend it up into a purple drink (the blackberries had some influence here) and chug it down. It's refreshing, soothing, energizing. Wow. I ought to open my own shop. This is easy.

I feel better by the afternoon and do some study and reading. At 8:40 p.m. R and I decide to go for a 2.4 mile walk. We risk our lives walking back to the house through the darkness.

...dave
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." - Groucho Marx

Remotes

shadow people
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

Why does my remote have 40 buttons on it? 40! What are they all for? I use only four buttons.

The problem I have is that while watching TV in the dark I can't find MUTE, or FAST-FORWARD so I keep hitting the wrong button. They are very close together. They are very small. I need to select them with a pencil point. I use my fingernail. It would be helpful if the buttons lit up at night.

My TV remove has glow-in-the-dark buttons. If I put it under the light before turning it off, it's easy to see the buttons. I wish my satellite remote was like that.

And the buttons have inconsistent shapes. They are not all raised. Some are indented, some are rocker style, others are flat. Why?
If they were all the same size and shape my fingers could count the bumps as they glide across them. But now they scrape along, hit a dip, and press the change channel. Rats, how do I go back? Where's the previous-station button? I can't find it in the dark. I turn on the light and press another button. It doesn't work. Instead it pauses the show. So now I'm paused at a show I don't want to watch.

If they can send a man to the moon, build a space station 220 miles from earth, and take pictures of the Titanic 12,500 feet underwater, why can't they design a simple remote?

Mine would have four buttons.

I think I'll go outside and do something that doesn't require a remote.

...dave
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards. - Fred Hoyle

Pile of journals

Pile of journals - daveterry

I remember when my son was just about nine years old he was blessed with a fantastic teacher. She encouraged him to write. In fact, she encouraged all her students to write just one page a day in a journal.

My son wasn't excited about this project. He didn't like writing so much. So in an effort to support him and his teacher I promised him I'd keep a journal too. We went down to the store and bought two impossibly small journals, the ones with the tiny locks on them. We figured that if we got small diaries we wouldn't have to write too much. We also bought some manly contact paper to cover the girly print on the covers. (It's the black and white checkerboard journal at the bottom of the stack.)

We took our journals home, covered them with contact paper, took out our pens and . . . stared at each other. We didn't have a clue what to write. I'd never kept a daily journal so I wasn't much help to him.

Many days passed and as you may know 21 days makes a habit. Before long we had stuff to put down in our journals. We thought about it all day so already had an idea by bedtime.

When the year was up we were sort of relieved but at the same time depressed. We'd lasted through a year of this journaling, had read several entries together, and now it all seemed to be coming to an end.

So we went out and bought two new journals. These were bigger than the earlier ones because there were some days, in fact, many days when we simply ran out of room in a single page.

And we haven't stopped since. Just like brushing our teeth at night, it's a habit. We can't sleep without the journal entry for the day. I guess in a way that habit became the mantra for this site: 365 Journal Entries. My goal was a bold one: To continue to journal daily at the blog.

There's a small boy I know today, about the age of my son when he started journaling, who heard me say something about a "journal." He asked me about my journal and to better explain I went out and bought one for him. But before I handed over a blank book I went through it and wrote several questions in random pages. These journal prompts are questions such as:

What's the best vacation you've ever had?
If you could visit any place in the world, where would you go. Draw a simple picture of what you imagine it to be.

He was very happy to get his journal. That was a year ago.

The next time I see him I'll have to ask him how it's coming along.

...dave
Journal writing is a voyage to the interior. - Christina Baldwin

Walking

I've been doing a lot of walking lately. Well, actually I've been concentrating on doing more walking. I park further away from the entrance at work. I walk up and down the stairs for meetings. I park far from the store doors when I go on errands. All for the love of walking.

Actually I want to see big numbers on my pedometer. It's the scoreboard of my game. It's not really a pedometer I guess, it's more like a step-o-meter. I got one of these step counters from our Health Group here at work. (I guess they're trying to cut back on the heart attacks.) It doesn't tell me how many miles I've gone, just the number of steps I've taken. I guess these little things are simpler to manufacture. There is no calibration setting on the device, just a reset button. Calibration is needed for a pedometer since the length of each person's stride varies. With the step-o-matic all I have to do is measure my stride and multiply the steps at the end of the day to determine the miles walked. Step counters are simplest and work just fine.

Anyway, I've been averaging two miles a day. I'm now shooting for four. Here's the trouble with these things. They make a subtle clicking noise when I walk. I can't sneak up on anyone. I can't walk to the printer without folks knowing about it. And the color of the thing is white. I wear dark pants and black belt. It's noticeable.

There's all kinds of web sites on tracking your walking. Blank books, PDFs of walking logs, and even a Google map to track your distances.

The simple step counter just makes me cognsant of my progress. It's a great little motivator. I sometimes take my journal and sketch on the way.

...dave
Drawing is just a line taking a walk.

A Walk in the Park

ParkWalk
Originally uploaded by daveterry.

After work I met Ruth and we went walking in one of the parks nearby. It was a little cool but no bugs.

Lots of people jogging, biking, and walking. No one is very friendly. I'd nod or say hello but none responded. Ruth likes that. She like the anonymity. A simple "hi" though might have been nice.

I shot another image I thought might make a good HDR. You can see the results here. Actually I shot three images. My D70 has auto-bracketing. I've got it set for three images at 1.5 f-stops apart. I'll take the right exposure, then one and a half stops above and below that. When I got home I merged the images. This is the result.

We walked about two miles and got back to the car before dark. We felt safe, although someone reported a car break in. The police were there photographing and taking statements.

...dave
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

Sitting by a lake

I didn't even know this was here -- a lake by Smyrna's "Public Library." It's not really a lake, it's more like a pond but want do you want for the middle of town? (I put "Public Library" in quotes. I'll explain later.)

There is a small pond near work where I can go and read, eat, or just rest. This little pond is about 300 feet across with a water feature in it's center. (A water "feature" is just a fountain in common-speak.) It's absolutely beautiful. I don't have wireless Internet but that's just a few hundred feet away in the library itself.

Arranged around the pond are a few picnic tables, benches, and even a love-seat hanging swing. Lots of trees give the area great shade in the hot summers here. They are all marked with those cute little brass tags that tell you that the tree next to you is a "Water Oak." Hmmm, I thought all oaks liked water.

The fountain provides that constant white noise. It's thrusting 30 foot bursts rain down against the water's surface making that slapping sound. It is calming. Why is running water so relaxing?

There are fish in the pond. Occasionally I see carp jump above the water's surface and snatch a quick bug snack.

Last week I was in the library itself. Just outside it's doors is a sign that reads: Smyrna's Public Library. I didn't have my Cobb Library card but asked the guy re-loading the shelves if I could check out some books if I provided a drivers license. "Sure, no problem, but you'll pay a 25 cent penalty for not having your card." I've never been in trouble for so little a cost.

So I picked out the books I wanted, brought them to the counter, and flashed my driver's license with photo ID. I was reaching into my pocket, ready to produce the penalty, when she asked me if this was my current address. "Yeah, it is." I told her.

"Well, I'm sorry, you can't checkout books with a Cobb Country library card."

Huh? So it turns out that Smyrna's tax paying community who put the library in place, does not honor another county's library system! Who thought up this? So I said to the nice lady:

"Ah, so this is really not a Public Library then?"

Nah, I didn't dare. She didn't make up the policy. It's not her fault. She didn't make the rules. But this just smacks of backwardness. Who thinks up such silliness? One county doesn't recognize another's library card?

I did tell her that I worked just down the street and spent lots of time at my desk, almost as much time as home so it's as good a living there. But none of that logic worked.

"But you can buy a Smyrna Library card for the whole year for just $30."

No thanks, I'll just enjoy the free park.

Nothing is free anymore.

...dave
"Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion" -Jim Gaston

Thinking with a pencil

I found a gem of a book. Wow. I'd say this guy is the father of diagrams.

The initial page reads: "With 692 illustrations of Easy Ways to Make and Use Drawings in Your Work and in Your Hobbies."

He has illustrated every kind of drawing you can think of: people, graphs, objects, flora, fauna, 3 dimensional mechanical objects, drapery, lettering, and more!

I got my used copy through Amazon for about a buck + $3 shipping.

What a wealth of information in this 350 page book.

If you are looking for examples and approaches to sketching for hobby or work, this is a must have.

Here's just one thing I learned:

When drawing objects behind other objects, stop your contour lines of the objects behind just before they meet the objects in front. He shows examples in the book. (And I'd post them here if it weren't for copyright infringement.)

Great stuff!

...dave
"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time" -Abraham Lincoln

Drawing breakfast

In an effort to sketch everyday, sometimes I sketch my breakfast. Trouble is, if I take too long, my food gets cold. Fast sketching is good.

Here I've sketched the greatest deal of the century. A Loaded Omelet for just $2.79 available at our company's cafeteria. It even comes with salsa. (That's the squiggly stuff in the upper center.)

What a life: egg omelet with salsa, a fresh cup of Peet's coffee, a blank journal, and a Uniball Vision Micro pen. You gotta love it.

It's easy to make excuses for not drawing everyday. Sometimes I get hung up on not having the right sketchbook or pen or pencil. I imagine that I'm doing some masterpiece and need my special sketch tool. Hogwash all of it. As Michelangelo said to his apprentice: "Draw, draw, draw. Stop wasting time, draw!" (This statement is accreted to Michelangelo but as yet unverified by me.)

The point is: I'm NOT sketching a masterpiece. Just sketching. The objective: To be lost in the moment. The right brain takes over and time slips by.

Sometimes I'll add watercolor to my sketches. I've been using a Uniball Vision Micro pen. The ink in them is permanent and acid free. Which means, I can watercolor over it without the line bleeding into a blur AND it'll maintain it's jet black color. The micros have a very fine 0.5 point.

This sketch was done in my daily journal. It's got a leather cover and clean snow-white pages. I bought it at Borders (where else) last year on their 50% off rack. It was just 15 bucks. To create my page-a-day journal, I added a date to each page using a date stamp. After stamping 365 pages I still had pages left over in the back for indexes, quotes, ideas, and special lists.

It's a great book for sketching and journaling.

...dave
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Sketching in the square

This last weekend we decided to take a day off together, Ruth and I. We went to Marietta Square.

The Square is an old southern thing you'll see in these parts. It usually consists of a fountain and some park benches. This square has a small train for toddlers to climb through. There's also a bandstand used for free music in the summer.

Anyway, we found a cafe with a few outside chairs and began to draw people and things in the square. I soon had two guys staring at me who finally come over to see what I was doing. They saw my little book with this tiny sketch of a shoe and sock. "Wow, look at the detail in that sock. Cool." he said as his buddy come over to join us.

It's a bit unnerving sketching in public. I fight the inclination to hide my book as people pass by but in the end, who cares? I'm doing it for some simple afternoon enjoyment and relaxation. Who cares if I hear giggles as people pass? Or have some kid lean over my sholder and say: "If you're so good, why don't you have your own art studio?"

Go away kid you bother me. And stop dripping your ice cream cone on my knee.

...dave
"Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together." - Georg Lichtenberg(1742-1799)

Sunset

The other night it rained hard and then suddenly it cleared. I glanced out at the sky and discovered a beautiful sunset. I never tire of sunsets.

Our house faces the west so we just glance out at the sky from our office. The rain clears the air so the combination of after the rain and a sunset makes for a beautiful picture opportunity.

I wish I could have ran to a different spot for a simple view of the trees and clouds but as it turned out I got a little glow from the house down the road. It adds warmth to the picture.

I like the way our home is situated in our subdivision. There is no house across the street. This gives us an unobstructed view of the sky and some trees. Since our backyard it thick with trees, we have a little bit of privacy around us but with the safety of other homes nearby.

...dave
I think that I will never see, a billboard as lovely as a tree. Indeed unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all. -Ogden Nash

Early to bed, early to rise

I climbed into bed early and was out within a few minutes. But that means that my body woke me up at 4:00 a.m. Arrrggghhh.

So here I sit and type at our kitchen counter eating Shredded Wheat with blackberries. I love blackberries. They have got to be my favorite fruit now. I remember passing blackberry bushes on the way to school when I was a high school kid. They are green prickly bushes that you don't want to tangle with. So it was always a graceful dance, plucking the blackberries when they ripened. I never thought that the bushes might belong to someone. Like, for example, the homeowner who watched me pick their fruit from their window.

But I digress...

When I as a kid, my favorite breakfast cereal was LIFE. Great stuff. Now? Now it's too sweet for my taste. Shredded Wheat is like LIFE without the sugar. The wafers are slightly bigger. I get the three-in-one packet kind of Shredded Wheat. They're not bite sized. You have to break them up as you drop them into the bowl. That's part of the fun. I like to breakup the "hay rolls." That's what they remind me of: hay rolls. You know the kind I mean. They are those huge rolls of hay dotting the green fields off the long stretches of highway in the country.

Anyway, I went to bed early and now I pay for it.

It's been insane at the Enterprise. I'm drawing ever more frantically. Every minute the diagrams change because someone wants me to add this or that to make it complete. I've got another new boss. How many have I had since I joined in 2002? Six or seven? I burn them up very quick. I guess I push my bosses pretty hard.

It's time to get rocking...it's 6:20 and time to book!

...dave
My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can. -Cary Grant

Time for Tea

Maybe I haven't mentioned this before but . . . I really love White Tip Earl Grey tea from specialteas.com.

I was first introduced to it by Kevin Walker in California. I was telling Kevin that I have to get off of coffee, at least for a while. My system was shutting down and I needed a replacement.

He said: "Wait right here and I'll be back in five minutes. You'll drink something that's fantastic!"

He was gone in a flash while I sat outside in under his trellis of posies. The sun was setting, his outside water feature was calming and I began to close my eyes and rest.

I heard Kevin say: "Try this."

I opened my eyes to a carmel colored cup of hot tea. It's fragrance was divine. Kevin had placed a very small amount of sugar to give it a sweet honey taste.

Kevin told me he has this tea each morning before starting his day. I was hooked.

In appreciation of Kevin's suggestion and gift of some of his tea, I wrote this poem.

Some six years later I'm drinking the same liquid.


I use a simple tea infuser, a 10 cup white tea pot, electric tea kettle, electronic tea timer, and of course, White Tip Earl Grey.

It's great any time.

I still drink my Peets Coffee in the morning and after a heavy Italian meal (Blend 101 is fantastic), but I still have my tea anytime.

...dave
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea. -Sydney Smith

Funny Wisdom

He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way. -Georg C. Lichtenber

Those who cannot remember the past will spend a lot of time looking for their cars in mall parking lots. -Jay Trachman

The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left. -Jerry M. Wright

Sir, you are like a pin, but without either its head or its point. -Douglas Jerrold

Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home. -Bill Cosby

I am NOT paranoid. Who told you that?

John Brown is filling his last cavity. -Dentist's Tombstone

I told you that I was sick! -Georgia Cemetary, USA

Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake; Stepped on the gas instead of the brake. -Pennsylvania Tombstone, USA

I saw Elvis. He sat between me and Bigfoot on the UFO.

...dave
Start off everyday with a simple smile and get it over with. -W. C. Fields

pocketmod.com

In the spirit of GTD (getting things done), this site offers a VERY cool free application. It's a small little booklet you can make from a single 8 1/5 x 11 piece of paper.

Go to the pocketmod.com web site and read about it. Click on the right "create a pocketmod" and you're off and running. Very simple. You just drag the sheet you want to the page in your booklet, print it out, fold and cut, and you have a small booklet you can put in your wallet or purse. Very cool.

I kind of got carried away and created a Word document that does the same thing. The advantage of the Word document is that you can pour your own text into the booklet pages. If you want to include calendars in your pages, simply visit timeanddate.com where you can create your own calendar to import into Word.

...dave
Simplicity is the essence of happiness. - Cedric Bledsoe

Gentle Rain

Gentle rain is very calming. It's overcast now and the downspouts empty their contents in a stream. The stream is steady now. There is no noise outside but the gentle rain. A distant dog barks. I hear him no more. I'm feeling sleepy.

I'm in this black wood framed chair. It rocks me gently, slightly. It could put me to sleep like a baby in his mother's arms. This iBook is warm in my lap. My palms rest on the eggshell colored support near the keyboard.

I can click on the browser and be anywhere in an instant, but I wont, I don't. I want to be right here. In the moment, spewing text from this machine and posting it out to the world. What contentment. An umbilical connection to my friends, regardless of their location. I can communicate easily, quickly, or even not at all. Umbilical connection. This is why the blog is so popular. It goes back to connections. Connections with friends. Friends that may be very far away, but still connections.

And so I type and not sleep like my body tells me I should. The rain falls gently. The shutters are drawn like eye lids over windows of the soul. The sounds of the keyboard are all I hear. And I rock ever so gently. Eyes closing now, then they force themselves open to finish this post. What's a post without the final signature and quote? It's no post at all. And so I close. Close this post for sleep. Sleep induced by gentle rain.

...dave
"'I love walking in the rain, 'cause then no-one knows im crying'" -Anonymous

Red Top Drive

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It was 77 degrees out and perfect weather for a "top down" drive.

So in the afternoon Ruth and I decided to go for a ride, a sort of picnic date. I know it sounds sappy but we really had such a good time that we may just make it a habit.

We headed up north to Red Top Mountain. There are several boat ramps, campgrounds, and picnic areas up there. We chose to hang out at the boat ramp where several jet boats were out skimming the lake.

We found a concrete picnic table where we spread out our sandwiches, chips, soda, tea and cookies. Yeah, we may have go overboard on the simple lunch. There was a gentle breeze across the lake that made the temperature ideal.

There's a green trestle bridge that spans the lake. Boats and jet skis were passing underneath. A father and son expedition got underway just as we finished lunch. The young boys, about 8 and 10, helped dad push their fishing boat out and off they went. One guy came back with an ice cooler full of fish.

We pulled out our study materials after lunch but people must have thought us nuts. You're supposed to go to the park to relax NOT study. But we are committed to our Chinese studies regardless of how crazy we seem. That reminds me of a time I went to lunch at a small restaurant. It was crowded. I found a table alone and after my noodle soup I pulled out a book and a highlighter. The restaurant became quiet and still, I thought that odd. I looked up and was suprised that the entire place was staring at me as if I needed a straight jacket. One of them said: "Look at this guy, what is he trying to prove anyway?" I went back to my studies but I was feeling very uncomfortable and left soon after.

Learning a foreign language has been very interesting because my enthusiasm vacillates. Some days I don't want to push my brain another inch and other days I can't get enough.

We packed up and drove around looking for some deer. Last time, a group of tourists decided to take a picture of one. Trouble was they stopped on a blind curve. We came around and almost plowed into them. On another visit we found a group of deer grazing in one of the small valleys.

It's always the simple things that matter most.

...dave
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. -Hans Hofmann

The Simple Things

It's true, simple things make life enjoyable.

As I sit here and write this I have my cup of tea nearby. It has such a clean, pure taste. I tilt the cup and warmth spills into me. Wonderful. I always add just a small amount of sugar, about a half cube and it's perfection.

A simple cup of tea makes life enjoyable. Of course, White Tip Earl Grey tea is preferred whenever possible. Also, not necessary, but certainly preferred, is genuine white crystal sugar. It's best when mixed with a hot cup of White Tip Earl Grey.

Now I know that you're thinking: "Wusseys drink tea, real men grab a mug of black coffee." But I beg to differ. I know a construction contractor who has his tea every morning under his trellis of posies. You don't know what you're missing until you drink a premium cup of tea.

Whenever I'm writing by hand I always use a journal, a leather journal. As you open the journal, the tanned leather aroma reaches your olfactory cells (the nose). Ah, the simple life.

Life is about a White Tip Earl Grey cup of tea with a few nuggets of rock sugar while writing in an aromatic tanned leather journal using a gold-tipped fountain pen. I didn't mention the gold-nibbed fountain pen? Did I forget that? You gota have a fountain pen. You should have a fountain pen with a gold nib for smooth, glass-like writing pleasure. It's part of those simple things I've been talking about. But I digress.

It's true, you COULD just drink a cup of water while writing with a #2 pencil on a scrap piece of paper but wouldn't that be sort of, you know, barbaric?

...dave
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. - Ray Bradbury