I guess, in retrospect, I’ve been working on this redesign of tealart for a few days, but I have it the final push tonight, and I’d like to present you with a completely overhauled, and completely original¹ TealArt. It’s pretty nifty.

I’d like to hear what you all think. It’s a very simple design, and it doesn’t have any fancy web 2.0 crap stuff happening, which think is just as well. It’s all CSS and XHTML.

My biggest concern is that there’s too much happening, and that there’s not enough whitespace. My second biggest concern is that people won’t see the mono-spaced font for the comforting kitsch that I see in it.

• I have subscribed to tristram shandy, via email. In 212 parts. In less than six months I’ll be one step closer to being even more of a dweeb. you should read tristram shandy with me.
• I’ve started a tealart redesign. I predict more serifs in our future.
• knitting is progressing, as is writing. I think I was in a stuck place for a while, but despite not getting more time in my life, I’ve been able to be more productive.
• if you’re waiting for an email from me, I’m probably writing it. you should ping me though.
• I’m about half an inch from the crazy cool part of this sweater. The end is near, this means that I need to have a better idea about what I’m going to do next. Ha!

Sorry for the general lack of updates. I’m still thinking of you and of tychoish.com.

Welcome to Part 2 of Station Keeping “Network Upgrades.” I’m sorry for the confusion of not mentioning until yesterday that the story was “to be continued…” Well it is/was (and the post reflects that,) and here’s the continuation. The usual suggestions go about `reading the rest of station keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_, and `participating <http://tychoish.com/particpate>`_ in TealArt and Station Keeping. For those of you keeping track at home, the conclusion of #10 part 2, means that there are only two more episodes of the first run of Station Keeping left before our first break. Never fear, we’re already planning out whats going to happen in SK2 and SK3, so stay tuned, and know that now is a great time to get involved.

Last time, we saw Marc and David in the the bar, Another Round, waiting for the station’s network tech, Julia, to come buy and reinforce the network connection, read on to see how this little portrait of life on Hanm Centre concludes, and please do enjoy this continuation.--cheers, tycho

“Please do,” he said. He looked at Marc, who had a sly and pleasant grin. The good doctor still looked weary, but at least weary and entertained. Julia immediately found the access panel and plugged in her equipment with

David remained mazed with the speed, authority, and detail in Julia’s speech and behavior: not to mention her deft ability to deflect the conversation away from a topic that she didn’t want to talk about. He realized that despite her appearance, her subjective experience of age, that her chronological age might be a lot less. Relativity and interstellar did strange things to this society.

David found that his hands had gone back to dusting, and Marc had somehow produced a portable computer terminal and looked to be making some sort of notes, although they were both just trying to appear busy to decrease the awkwardness of not really having anything to do while the technology guru worked.

Almost before she had begun it seemed, Julia unplugged her gear, and replaced the panel. She stood up, “There, done. With the hardware stuff at least.” She brushed a renegade strand of hair behind her ear, exposing the contact points for a node interface.

David would have mistaken the contact points for jewelry, if not for their number and placement, well, in a away, despite their function, they were jewelry in a certain sense.

“Most of the reinforcement process happens in an algorithm script, actually. But you still have to get the hardware ready for the process. You’ll be up and running by the end of this shift, if that’s ok.”

“That’s certainly fine. We’re not opening till next weekend. You’ll be there I trust?”

“Of course, wouldn’t miss it, particularly not with a reinforced drop like this.” She smiled, wondering why she had said something so silly; everyone knew that she had the best connection on the station. “I guess they don’t call them pleasantries for nothing,” she thought. “Well if you need anything, you know where to reach me.” Then she was gone, almost as quickly as she had come.

Marc stood up and walked toward the door, to meet David who was toggling the lights beside the door. “What did I say?”

“You’re right she is good.” David conceded. “Who else is like that on the crew that you haven’t told me about.”

“Well you could come to staff meetings and find out.” Marc said: he didn’t try to stifle the grin.

David laughed. “Maybe then I could prove your wrong about my doodles.”

“We’ll call it your ‘Post-Late Period: A Revival.”

“Don’t you dare.” David chuckled and playfully elbowed Marc in the ribs, as they made for their quarters.

“Network Upgrades” was written by, `tycho <http://tychoish.com/tycho>`_, the creator of `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and `Station Keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_. He is a student and knitter by day and a science fiction writer by night, you can read his work elsewhere on `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and at `~/tychoish <http://tychoish.com>`_.

I mentioned the kernel of this idea [here]¹ and I wanted to take some time to expand upon this. Here’s what happened. I was listening to a podcast, where Cory Doctorow wrote about apparoching writing as something that worked best if you didn’t approach it as a ritual, and rather as a habit.

He said, basically that there are lots of things we get done because they’re rituals. Personal hygiene, reading before bed, and so forth, and that writing should be done in the same sort of way. Get up, read the paper, write an idea down, shower, write 100 words, get on the bus, outline, and so forth. The second part of this “habitual” method is that you always write (or do whatever it is you do) weather you feel like it or not.

For instance, I almost never want to eat breakfast until I’ve been awake for a couple of hours, but I’ve learned that I need to make myself eat something when I wake up regardless.

Interestingly, and this is where I thought it broke down is that Cory also said that you should be able to write at any time, if you have a moment, and avoid building rituals around your writing habit. Now I have to say that habits tend to be pretty ritualistic, so while I think we’re talking over a very fine line here, the mindset that he proposes I think is a pretty good one. Be able to write anywhere and anytime that you have an idea and a moment. Don’t get yourself hyped up so that you can only write in the mornings after your second cup of tea, if your email is answered, and you’re listening to your ipod in your noise canceling headphones. It becomes very hard to satisfy all of these conditions, and if you happen to be in an off day, who knows how long it’ll be till you have a chance to write again. Don’t set yourself up for such quandaries, it’s more important to get material written.

I’m also a big proponent of being protective of your time, and attempting to firewall my schedule so that, for instance, I can wake up in the morning and write from about 8:30 till 12, do chores in the afternoon, and take care of other tasks in the evening like coding, website design, and correspondence. Sometimes I get a second wind between about 7:30 and 11pm and can do more writing then, but often not. This isn’t because I’m not able to write in the afternoons, but I know that I can work best in the morning, so I take advantage of that, I guess.

I do know that it’s really easy to get “I work best in these circumstances” confused with “I can only work in these circumstances,” and that’s the larger point. The one thing that sticks in my head about this whole segment is that Cory said that when he was writing he felt like some stuff was great and some stuff was crap, but when he went back later, he couldn’t tell the difference, and upon reflection, I think he’s probably right.

I’ve been had a James Thruber quote in my email sig file for a while, “don’t get it right, get it written,” which came to my attention via my father (an aunt told him that when he was embarking on graduate school v.2,) and I like the sentiment.

cheers, tycho

Welcome to Hanm Centre for this week’s Station Keeping this is installment #10 of our first season, and it will be posted in two parts, one today, and one on Thursday. I hope you enjoy. Remember, as always, that SK is a community project and we would very much enjoy and encourage your `participation <http://tychoish.com/>`_, and as always we welcome your feedback to: tycho@tealart.com. It’s time for Station Keeping. --cheers tycho

Marc walked into the bar, “Another Round,” as the sign now read. He had just gotten done with a tiring but ultimately uneventful shift and was ready to change into more comfortable clothing. “It looks like you’re almost done here, you’re opening next friday?” Marc hadn’t been by the bar in a week or so, David knew what he was doing, or at least pretended well, and didn’t much need his input. Despite his worldly academic credentials and lengthly service record he was really mostly a homebody.

“Yeah. It’ll be good to have this weekend off, and I’d rather not have to deal with the opening and finishing up all at once.”

“You ready to head home?” He asked pointedly.

“Yeah, I’m done; but I agreed to hang around to let the tech admin come in to reinforce the network connection here, I suspect we’ll need a lot of pull when this place is full.” So mostly I’m just biding my time. He picked up the rag he was dusting with. “You have a good shift?”

“I did, but it was long, the usual run of the mill complaints mostly,” Marc said taking a seat at the bar and holding his head up with his arm. “Which is for the better, I’m afraid of what this closed system will do once we have anything more virulent than a flu, or some such,” he continued, pausing for a moment to remember anything else from the shift. " I’m never quite sure what Doctor Reese is going to do, but she’s effective and people seem to like her. Anyway, I only had one meeting today, and got a chance to work on some research: so not a bad shift just long." Marc rambled on, for a while and then paused. He checked his time piece, “When did she say she was coming by to do the work?” he asked finally.

“About twenty minutes ago, I think. She said she’d been busy…”

“She’s always busy. The woman doesn’t work, it seems to me. You’d like her she’s got personality, or something.” Marc paused, and chuckled. “Actually you should see her doodling from our staff meetings, they rival your ‘early period,'” he said, the laughter perking him up a bit.

“Oh, come on, my later doodles were better, I was just in charge of the meetings during my ‘late period,’ I think I deserve some slack.” David retorted, grinning by now: of all their “canned arguments,” this one might just have been his favorite.

“Sorry I’m late,” Julia said as she walked quckly and abruptly into the bar. The lights weren’t on, but the door was unlocked, and David had told her to just walk in incase he was in his office or the store room. “Network drop reinforced, you said?” She asked, not wasting any time on pleasantries.

“Yes. That was the plan.” David said. " You’re…"

“…Julia, we talked earlier,” she said quickly, unable to come up with a more witty response sooner.

“The tech systems administrator?”

“Aye, Sir.” she said goofily, showing the badge. on her shirt.

It was the first time that anyone on Hanm Centre had called him “sir,” in a situation that didn’t make his skin crawl. realized that she might not realized that he had been Navy. “Aren’t you a bit young for that. There must be 15 people on your staff or something.”

“Well, I have 20, right now, but I’m still looking for a few more. You know any Enhancers that want to clean up?” Julia retorted.

“Not yet, but I’ll keep you out here. Is it big out here? Enhancers, that is.”

“Bigger on Grish, they say, but I haven’t been there in the flesh for,” she paused and thought for a moment obviously counting in her head, “Well lets not try and count that one out. But yeah, there’s some on Hanm, but not enough. The node here is pretty big for the rim, and I just need more people to keep it working well,” Julia said. “I’ll get started?”

*to be continued…*

“Network Upgrades” was written by, `tycho <http://tychoish.com/tycho>`_, the creator of `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and `Station Keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_. He is a student and knitter by day and a science fiction writer by night, you can read his work elsewhere on `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and at `~/tychoish <http://tychoish.com>`_.

I’ve gotten to a number of important place markers in my knitting these past few days. Just to make note of them:

• I’ve gotten to the beginning of the heel flap of my first successful toe-up stranded sock. Its good, and I’m surprised that the shetland, is some how, not itchy on the foot at all. Magic, I tell you.
• I’ve recently started the front-neck steek of the stranded sweater I’ve been working on for the past 6 weeks, or so. 13 rows until the large short row section start.
• I’ve completed the gusset decreases on the second of a pair of plain worsted weight socks. This is going to be an awfully fetching pair.

At the same time I have not:

• decided what kind of shaping I’m going to use on my next sweater, or even if it’s going to be a cardigan or not. (I have picked out the patterns)
• made any progress on the great sleeve slush pile.
• bought any more yarn
• started any additional socks.

I have developed a small list of things that I want to knit in the future:

• hats, I need more/new hats, including both watch-clock and tam/barets
• more sweaters and fewer socks.
• cardigans, and I want to experiment with more yoke styles

And just for grins, a list of yarns to get in the future:

• more harrisville shetland, with particular attention to blacks, grays, and blues.
• more domy heather from old mill.

A good thread on 43folders about creative productivity, and indeed a lot of what I tend to think about. At the same time its my sense that the thread is populated entirely by people talking about webdesign and not, say, writers, but these things happen.

Link here

Well it’s been an eventful, if not entirely productive week. As I’m sure you saw on tychoish, my plans to go to graduate school next year at the University of Chicago, fell apart. While this is certainly a wrench in the machinery, I’ve taken the opportunity to tighten some bolts, and I think I have a plan. Although I spent much of my free time last week watching the fourth season of Farscape, which was utterly enjoyable.

My knitting projects are progressing, and the novella is about 1000 words long after it’s first week, and I’m pretty happy with that. I’m still having this crisis over how to write the gender (or more precisely, lack thereof) of a couple of characters, and I’m trying like the dickens to just get into the story and not blather too much, despite wanting to blather a lot. I expect to finish up Station Keeping, Season 1 this week. We’re almost there, so it’s just a matter of pulling some stuff into shape. I have articles and article ideas floating around my head so there’ll be essays.

Though I can make no promises, I’m also feeling a design impulse coming on, so there might be a new design sometime soon. We can only hope.

There’s new SK, of course, but here’s the deal… The end of the season was rushing up on us, and we had a lot of things that we wanted to get done, and my installments were getting a bit long. So rather than just post one long Station Keeping episode every week, we’re going to break it up. New Station Keeping on Tuesdays and Thursdays this week and next, and the following week--the last week of Station Keeping for at least a month---there’ll be new station keeping every day. They’re individually a bit shorter than what we’re used to every week, but in the end you get more.

As always I want to remind you about particpation in TealArt. This is a community project, and it isn’t all about me, and what I have to say. You’re a part of this project as well. While we won’t be posting Station Keeping for a while, we are going to be working quite feverishly on the project, in addition to our regular content, and you’re of course invited to participate. I hope to hear from you.

In terms of other content, I’ve decided to move “Better Living through Regular Expressions” to Fridays, because I think that sort of lighthearted good fun, is more of a Friday thing than Wednesday thing. For wednesday, I have the first in a two-part productivity/writing related musing. I think you’ll enjoy it.

We’ll be in touch. Have a good week.

cheers, tycho