Category Archives: General

A Little Too Creative

By lytspeed Posted in General Leave a reply

Hello again. It’s been a while. Sorry I haven’t written.

I do have a small creativity-related anecdote to share, though. I have a really cool chair at work. It’s a mesh back chair with lumbar support and adjustable armrests. The armrests are the really cool feature, because not only is their height adjustable, the top of the armrest is formed to fit a forearm and can rotate inward or outward to allow good typing posture.

I love this chair. Until recently, I had one small problem with it, and I was determined to solve it, even at the expense of some of the chair’s functionality.

On the left side of the chair is a lever that moves about 1/2″ in and out. It allows the chair to lock into upright position or release into recline position. Unfortunately, the 1/2″ throw is too short, and occasionally the lever would work itself out and pitch me backward in the chair without warning.

I examined the lever and determined that there was some kind of pin inside the housing of the chair that kept the lever in its limited range of motion. Since I don’t have much of a need for the reclining position, I tried to figure out a way to hold the lever in place so it wouldn’t pitch me backward. After removing the base from the chair and taking apart the housing, sure enough, I found a pin on the shaft of the lever.

Thinking back to the section of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in which Persig’s character uses the metal from a beer can to create a shim for his motorcycle’s handlebars, I found a tin can in the break room trash. Then I borrowed some tin snips from one of the people in the warehouse and proceeded to cut a couple of strips from the can that I could wrap around the shaft of the lever between the pin and the housing, effectively holding the lever in the locked position. I wrapped one piece of tin around the shaft, and it fit almost perfectly. I felt pretty proud of myself for coming up with such an ingenious idea.

About that time, our safety director, who was visiting from another facility, walked in and asked what I was doing. I began to explain what the problem was, and how elegant my solution was. About halfway through the elegant part, he interrupted me and said, “Why don’t you just tighten up the spring so it doesn’t tip back as easily? Then you don’t have to make any modifications and you still have the full functionality of the chair.”

I guess sometimes it’s possible to be a little too creative.

Let it Snow

By lytspeed Posted in General, Signs o' the Times Leave a reply

At this point, with the war coverage dominating the airwaves, perhaps half of the U.S. has heard that Denver got its worst snowstorm in nearly a century during the past week. It started on Monday night, the 17th, and continued in earnest on Tuesday. My work released us early on Tuesday, and I got home at about 3:00 to find 18″ of snow in the common driveway of our town home complex. I drove the car in as far as I could, then dug myself into the garage from there, as well as digging two neighbors into their garages.

The next morning, we had a fresh 24″ of snow, with a 48″ drift behind my garage door. The pictures below offer a roughly chronological document of the period from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. (Apologies for the capabilities of my cheap digital camera.)

“Doot-doot-doo looking out my front door …”

The mess I made Tuesday getting into the garage.

Wednesday morning at about 5:00 AM.  The snowflakes reflected the flash.

Wednesday morning again, snow is about 30″ at this point.

Split branch on the tree in my neighbor’s front yard.  This branch hangs over my side of the fence, and is about 6″ in diameter.

The view from my garage Wednesday morning.  The drift behind the car is about 4 feet high.  Remember, I had already shoveled this the day before.

This is the same driveway as above, with the ruts from my car covered in fresh snow.

Wednesday afternoon, after I had shoveled out my driveway and my neighbor’s.

A neighbor attempting to negotiate the narrow path we cut to the street.

Some neighbors and I cut this path so we could get out late Wednesday.  No one showed up to plow the driveways until very early Friday morning.

On Haitus

By lytspeed Posted in General, Writing Leave a reply

As you can tell, I haven’t made many entries in the last month. A few things have come up, and I don’t need to go into detail about them here, but I’ll give a quick update about some of the highlights.

Kim and I went to Key West last week for a manager’s meeting. I really enjoyed the trip, and I must admit that Key West during Fantasy Fest (possibly NSFW) was an eye-opening experience for a small-town Colorado boy. The most tasteful expression of Fantasy Fest clothing that I saw was a woman wearing only a custom-made brass ring mail halter top and a sarong. (There was nothing under the halter top except flesh, of course.) Believe it or not, it was a very classy and beautiful outfit.

The least tasteful personal expression of Fantasy Fest that I saw was a burly, bearded guy handing out 2-for-1 drink coupons outside a clothing-optional bar — with his manhood hanging out for all to see.

The sunsets were beautiful, the weather was perfect, and we had good times shooting pool and having dinner with some friends from my work.

On the plane ride to Florida, I managed to finish the rough draft of “Chesterfield Gray.” I’m not happy with it, but at least I now have something that I can look at and revise.

That is, assuming I do much writing in the near future. I’m not sure I’m going to have the time or energy for a while, so “Chesterfield Gray” may have to sit and percolate. Consider this an official statement that my creativity journal entries will be sporadic at best in the near future. Please keep checking back, but don’t expect an entry every day.

No Writing, Just Rooting

By lytspeed Posted in Family, General Leave a reply

The family went to the Rockies-Diamondbacks game tonight, then watched fireworks after the show. I always enjoy watching my two favorite baseball teams duke it out at Coors Field, and this is the last chance we had to do so this season. The stadium staff passed out funky polarized prism glasses to use during the fireworks show, and they were fun for a while, but I eventually took them off to enjoy the pyrotechnic beauty of the show. We’ve had enough rain recently that I didn’t feel guilty about participating in a fireworks show; besides, there isn’t much in the way of grass or other flammable natural materials in the parking lot behind Coors Field, so I probably shouldn’t worry about it anyway.

Oh, yeah. The Rockies won. Again.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

By lytspeed Posted in General Leave a reply

Terrell Davis was ready, but his knee wasn’t. TD took the field on Monday Night Football in full dress, knowing that he’s probably played his last game, barring some miracle surgery that can rebuild his knees. He’s still holding out hope, but reality indicates that the on-field career of the the best-ever Broncos running back is over.

For my part, I wish to thank TD for his commitment to Denver, the Broncos, and the fans. Oh, and for his part in the Super Bowl victories, too.

What does this have to do with creativity? Not a damn thing, and I need to get back into the flow of things. But I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to say thank you to Terrell for all his hard work. I’ll get back to creativity topics soon enough.