Project: Insomnia

My daughter had a cold today. It was a modest problem that made her needy and made me bummed out. She sat on the couch and we played Lego Star Wars. Her fever came and went. In the past year or so, when she was sick, I would juggle work and care for her; and do both poorly. Today, despite some bedlam at work, I took the day off to hang with her and tend to her.
She took a long nap and I took the opportunity to try to wrestle some lousy data into shape. This legacy data involved in my job has been the bane of my existence. Alot of common rules have been busted; a lot of exploits sit there as plain as day. I honed and tried to eliminate unneccessary elements to make the query more wieldy. No dice. Try as I might, the data is too lousy to force into use. Tomorrow, one of my many tasks will be to programatically use the data.
I have a saying: "If you try to slog through the mud, you may miss the hill you are climbing." I have been in the mud for more than a year.
By the time 6:30PM rolls around, I usually fall asleep; like a puppet with its strings cut. Like a small-town Ebling Mis.
I shelve a good idea every day-- sometimes they come back and sting me. A great idea I could run down and do something with. It's one my problems: I have too many ideas to carry out; and too few means to delegate the idea to others to carry it a ways. And I have carried the load for others. I am largely nagged by the idea that a finished idea can sort of succeed; an unfinished idea will never succeed.

Here's my current to-do list:
Drupal book - Stalled at 40%. Data ages. Tech books really age. If I don't finish this in the next few months, I should delete it. I should cut to the chase and delete it tomorrow. That will get it off of the to-do list.
A bathroom reno - It's going to be a modest affair leaning on known strengths. We planned on getting this done last Fall but if things happened at a pace of my choosing I would be sleeping at night and not typing into a blog post...
Dayswithout - A simple Facebook app to track how many days you have done without something (smoking, coffee, a sense of contentment). According Adonomics.com, some applications like Funwall are worth $21M (sure, why not?). Can I scratch out a $50K app? I lock down about one function per day. At the end of most days, I am left too burnt out to echo $helloworld; so this is the most I can hope for. I front-burnered this project to line up with New Years resolutions. On February 12th, this seems a little moot.
Crowdpublishing - A collective publishing tool. As above. My boss saw what I had done and wants to know what it would take for me to finish it. As above.
A photo site for a friend - A small project that comes largely ready-built. All I need to do, is put 10-20 hrs. to it. He's a good guy and I can do this.
A photo site for the Victoria Grid Project - Not a large project, but I need a full head of steam.
Prefabsite - A way to push-button your day to a complete website. Real easy to finish if I can get underway. I've said that every month or two for the last 16 months...
Drupal Training Course - Teach what I have learned. Tee-pees on Prefabsite and the soon to be anti-published Drupal book.
Videos - I love to dream-up, produce and edit videos. I have 14 hours of tape waiting to be editing and worked over for use. That amount grows by 30 min. per month.
Sculpting - I try to sculpt, but that takes space and we lose a couple of square feet every month. I have the Cthulhu project going, but like a lot of my projects, it requires the absence of rain peppered with a couple of hours. Our patio looks like a landfill as I try to close off experiments and have to give them up half-way through.
Writing - I used to write. I used to do a lot of stuff. What I do nowadays is put stuff in boxes or throw it away quietly in the hopes that if no one notices and no one reminds me, I can forget it too. Less isn't more. Less is my constant.

This list is held up like a tee-pee-- all of the tasks prevent the remaining tasks from being accomplished.

Friends of mine are starting to hit their 40th birthday and celebrate it in their different ways. I know, I read about what they did on Facebook. In a couple months, I am planning to either let this next birthday slip quietly by as a burdenless affair; or email people from where I am.

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