Chore Day, September 12, 2020: It's Hazardous to Breathe

Fun with blending modes and Clip Studio Paint EX

At 6:45 pm the air quality in the Rogue Valley is 506, hazardous to all breathing things.

Today I made two batches of purple sweet potato flatbread. It’s surprisingly good, a lot like naan bread.

I also did the laundry and went outside for about 15 minutes to water a few suffering shrubs and trees, then I scurried back to safety. I feel like I’m visitor to dystopian world now. The smoke never goes away. All of the news is grim, about the Pandemic, about the fires, about the reckless, uncaring politicians.

But I’m still excited about my book and about Japan. Every day I spend time practicing Japanese. I can say things like “I like yellow cars,” and “My aunt doesn’t like cats.” How cool is that?

Chore Day, August 22, 2020: Laundry and Computer Stuff

View fullsize

I spent half the day figuring out how to share files on my local network. I did the laundry, pruned two trees, and raked up a barrel of sequoia needles that had grown to a foot deep under the massive tree that overshadows our house.

I’ve been search for a new style. Along the way I decided to try pointy-chinned kids with manga features. Wow! Check out those cool dark classes!

Chore Day, Aug 15, 2020

Wow. Today is the 16th and I just realized that I didn’t make a post yesterday. I was having so much fun that I simply forgot to write a post. Oh well, I’ll just say I did the laundry, worked in InDesign a bit, and had a lovely day with my family.

Chore Day, Aug 8, 2020: Cleaning Up Everything

Brush tip swatches for some custom Clip Studio Paint brushes.

The chore today was to clean up everything that’s been cluttering up the yard and property. Monday we’re tossing it all into a dumpster. Good riddance, other people’s trash!

Most of the junk was lumber from the previous owner’s renovation project. Now, seven years after we moved in, we decided to clean up the mess in preparation for our move to Japan…in 2025. I know that it sounds like we’re getting ahead of ourselves, but sometimes we just get the bug to do something now that we’ll inevitably have to do later. When the writing is on the wall, we read it. That’s the way we roll.

Chore Day, August 1, 2020: Laundry and Resurrecting My 2009 iMac

At 6 am I started the day with a hour-long walk in the hills around my house.

My main chore today, after doing the laundry, was to connect my retired iMac to my Thinkpad W530. Certain iMacs will work as second monitors and my 2009 model happens to be one of them. All it takes is a displayport connection, which my Thinkpad provides. I’ll be using this setup for my upcoming temporary job starting at the end of August.

The 2009 iMac on the left is my monitor for my Windows PC. On the right is my 2017 iMac and my Cintiq 22.

Here’s what I look like when I’m drawing. Normally I’m in a chair, but here I’m testing a kneeling chair, which I didn’t like.

This chair doesn’t work with my current table. I have to adjust the chair too low for comfort. To make this chair I would have to raise and I would have to elevate the Cintiq on an Ergotron arm. Too complicated!

What the Heck is HEIF ? -- The Mysteries of iCloud Photos

For today’s chores I did the laundry as usual. I also cooked up a vegan meatloaf for my furry companion, who is an incredibly fussy eater considering that most dogs will eat almost anything. Not him! The meatloaf is a high-protein dish made with tofu, oatmeal, and whole wheat bread, with a full serving of essential minerals and vitamins.

The rest of the day was spent organizing family photos. Today I discovered that I hadn’t added my iPhone photos to the mix. I figured out how to download them from iCloud. That’s when I noticed that the iPhone images were no longer JPEG images: they’re now compressed using the High Efficiency Image Format. Just when you think you know what’s going on, everything changes. Live and learn.

Chore Day, July 11, 2020: Laundry and Hiragana

Today’s chore was to do the laundry and to finish curating family images. I’ve also started learning Hiragana as part of my planned move to Japan (five years down the road). I practice every morning for 30 minutes and review my work for about 10 minutes before going to sleep at night. Learning Hiragana is not really a chore: it’s exciting and fun. I’m looking forward to the day that I can read manga in Japanese.

Chore Day, July 4, 2020: Doing Laundry, Curating 85,000 Pictures, and Watch Movies

I started the day with a 6am walk down to the Nature Center. When I got home I had a kale/banana/chocolate smoothie, then I did the laundry. Doing chores makes me hungry, so I had a lunch of udon with vegetables and soy curls. After eating I completed the first stage of curating 20 years of digital photography. This job has taken about six weekends. All in all there were 85,000 pictures to go through. There were many duplicates resulting from years of making backups to many hard drives. Although I tried some software for removing duplicates, I ended up using the Windows File Explorer. After culling ouf the duplicates I now have a directory with about 4,000 images. Next week I’ll begin selecting images for the picture books I’m making about our family life.

Tonight we’re going to have a little fun watching Independence Day.

Chore Day, and a New Goal: Learn Japanese

Today I created a plan to learn to speak and read Japanese. I will accomplish this task over the next five years. In 2026 I will move to Japan to live. I’m going to apply my “inch a day” strategy to learning Japanese. I understand that only a consistent effort will work. I’ll be self-teaching myself Monday through Friday for 30 minutes a day in the morning before I go to work. I’ll be using the lessons in Japanese for Busy People. I’m going to start on Monday, June 29 and I’ll complete the book my June 29, 2021, at which time I’ll continue on to Japanese for Busy People, Book Two. One inch at a time works. You just have to do it patiently and with true dedication.

Chore Day, June 13, 2020 -- Cleaning, Cooking, and Going Through Pictures

View fullsize

This week my chores were vacuuming the house, cooking up a veggie meatloaf (tofu, oatmeal) for Willie, my furry friend, and going through my digital photos, thousands of them. I started by collecting all of my images into a single folder, then removing the duplicates. The next step, which I’ve only started, is to manually examine all of the images to find my furry family members and copy each image into a special folder. I’ll use those images to create physical picture books. I’ll need about six volumes.

The pictures go back 20 years. Seeing my companions again was simultaneously happy and sad. I’m grateful and happy for the time I had with them, and I’m sad that they are gone.

The picture above is a sketch I did this morning while having a cup of tea — pencil and pen. It’s Jimmy Jay looking middle-aged. He’s not wearing his shoes in this picture.