Impulse

I’ve spent the last several weeks maniacally resolute on getting this thing built - which is why I’ve been offline for so long. I started this project in January 2004 with the purchase of a room full of equipment and a naive idea that it can’t be that hard to build a room in my basement. I figured I’d have it done in a couple months. Twenty months later, I’ve found enlightenment.

The difference between myself and a carpenter is: they know what they’re doing. They know why its important to put studs every 16 inches. They know how to make a straight cut over 8 feet long. They can hang a door in under eight hours. They’ve been doing it a long, long time. Curiously, I found my knowledge of device drivers and PC bus architecture did not translate to these tasks, nor did my engineering degree prevent me from drilling though a water pipe.

It seems, right angles only exist in textbooks along with other fantasies like straight lines, level floors, and frictionless pulleys. Molding and baseboards aren’t to make the room look pretty; they’re to hide the mess. This project was a great challenge to my perfectionism and patience. In fact, once I realized that it was impossible to build a room in an 80 year old basement and have everything fit perfectly, I tossed perfectionism right out the window. My productivity went through the roof. So did the quality, weirdly enough. I didn’t care about being perfect, I cared about doing as best I could and hoped that was Good Enough. There was a lot of work to do (this is where patience comes in), but in the end, it all came together very well.

I’m going to make a sign to hang over the door: “Abandon all perfectionism, ye who enter here”.

And so, with the smell of ammonium thiosulphate and selenium wafting through my nostrils, we return to our regularly scheduled programming. I’ve got several Cool Art entries, more musings, and even a few short stories, in the queue. Stay tuned.

(fyi: I’ve been getting flooded with trackback spam so trackbacks are turned off for the moment).