Now

What I’m Doing Now

(This is a now page, inspired by Derek Sivers’ now page.)

I am working full-time in Durham, NC, as a contract software technical writer for a federal agency.

This Blog

My blog serves as logbook, diary, open-research notebook, and curated ephemera. Posting irregularly. I am looking into using micro.blog or Ghost for the brownstudy.info site. Flying blind here, folks, following the winds of my whims.

This Squarespace Site

My blog used to be on WordPress, but I switched to Squarespace in 2017. I am still coming to grips with it. Recently purchased a new domain that I may use as my “official” work-related site and Squarespace might be better used for that.

Vinyl Digitizing Project

I’m digitizing our vinyl collection as part of our overall downsizing project; not every record, just special ones. I’ve worked out a pretty good workflow; not yet tackled a record with horrible defects. Haven’t done these in a while though, since I spent most of May finishing my iMovie project.

iMovie Project

In 2017, I created a short video documentary/interview with my banjo teacher. I’ve since taken the 8 hours of video I shot and from them have crafted two smaller packages of videos so prospects have a sense of his style and approach. I recently finished a draft of the final package, which are brief 1-4 minute interview extracts. He’ll use these videos for his web site. Learned some good iMovie tricks from this.

Bull City Commons

We have joined a developing cohousing community called Bull City Commons. We are both serving on circles (ie, committees), doing BCC homework, attending about 4 meetings a month, and holding positions of various responsibilities within the community. I’m currently serving as delegate/secretary for the Steering circle, secretary for the Social sub-circle, member of the Governance & Policy circle, leader of the HOA Covenants helping circle, and member of a Sociocracy study group.

The Three Principles

The Three Principles is an understanding of spiritual psychology that explains how I make up the world in my head — which is in effect the world I interact with every day. I still do not fully understand the principles, but I am persisting. Even with the partial understanding I have, many implications fall out from that.

Reading/Watching/Listening

  • Reading. Graphic novels: The Complete Peanuts Vol. 7: 1963-1964, Special Exits by Joyce Farmer, and Batman in The Brave & Bold: The Bronze Age.

  • Watching. Yesterday we saw the documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World. Today we saw Late Night. Current dinner-time TV: Big Bang Theory s11, Brooklyn Nine-Nine s5 (?), Bob’s Burgers s8, and Shrill. On my own, I’m watching the second season of Castlevania because of Warren Ellis.

  • Listening. Warren Ellis’ newsletter is sending me down the road of dark ambient, which I’m finding gets me into a zone at my day job when I need to focus. Interesting. His recommendations mostly come from Bandcamp, such as Transient Lunar Phenomenon, The Blackening, and All is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre.

  • Learning. Working through Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain online course.

Updated: 2019-06-23