The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 231): Fixing Mistakes

We started going over the plans that the architect had given us to find a solution to the problem he had admittedly created. Once we did, we sent him an e-mail outlining our frustration with the number of errors and sent him the planned out solution for him to draw up.

Other than that we relaxed, watched movies, and read. At 10:30 PM, I started trimming my beard down for the first time in months. I have no idea why I started the project at 10:30, but it was done relatively quickly.

Monday (Day 232): Battle Royale

The only issue was in the morning where I had a 40 minute run in with my architect because we have differing opinions on what an architect is or isn’t. It got pretty heated at points, but I don’t think that I’ll hire an architect again. It seems like a massive waste of money.

#1GF! had the day off, so we watched movies, read and played web games most of the day. The movies sucked so badly that I had to shut one of them off and was actually angry at the television before #1GF! calmed me down. I was irritated that the movie was made at all.

I finished my second book of the week, How to Write & Sell Your First Novel, which gave me a little more information on the way book publishing works, even though the book was written in 1986. Despite having to ignore antiquated tips about using new typewriter ribbons, the book was slightly inspirational. I just wished it was a little more condensed. Afterward, I started another book for writers called 100 Tips That Every Writer Should Know that was a little more recent, but provided little unambiguous information. The first three quarters of it were little more than inspirational, although there was a little bit of good information toward the end.

Tuesday (Day 233): Directionless

Got up and continued reading my book. I made #1GF! lunch and shuffled her out the door. I had every intention of working on the new site or developing a premise for a novel, but got sucked into a post until 2 PM. That killed a lot of momentum, so I went to the store and bought groceries with #1GF!’s money. I felt directionless most of the day with the exception of a 30 second period where I thought, “Hey, you chose this. A lot of people would like to be in your shoes right now, Mr. Hobosapien.” For that brief period, I was pretty content. I ended the day by making Alfredo and broccoli for #1GF! and calling my sister to see how she was doing.

Wednesday (Day 234): The Web Is a Wasteland

First thing that I did was watch a movie about bull riding while I ate my breakfast. I wondered what the hell happened to the guys in the movie that made them ride bulls and drink so much. None of them looked the least bit happy.

After making #1GF! lunch and getting her out the door, I updated my phone, ripped my xmas CDs to my hard drive (and phone), cleaned up my office a bit, answered some e-mails and comments, and finished 100 Things Every Writer Needs To Know. All before 10:30. Then, I looked for free desktop publishing software and had lunch. At 1PM< I drove to the library and got a couple of books off our Recommended Reading List. After I checked them out, I went to a section of the library that I haven’t sat in since I was a teenager. In those days, there were girls around to distract from the school work to be done. Today, it was just me and some old wood. Carvings. On the walls. Look, I wasn’t sitting in the library alone with a boner. That’s creepy and weird. I got home at 4, washed the dishes and started back in on the new site design that I had been working on a few days before.

I’m starting to think the web is a wasteland. I think it’s great that there are no barriers to entry, but that same lack of barriers creates content that is a massive waste of time. Even informational sites can be complete and utter bullshit. I’ve spent the last six months reading things almost solely on the web, and now that I’m getting back into books, I can see what a major difference a barrier to entry can make on quality. The web is starting to look like a dixie cup.

Thursday (Day 235): New Site Work

Besides setting up appointments with the contractor and the builder, I spent the entire day doing a mockup of a new site. It didn’t come out well, but by the end of the day, I really didn’t care. I was still stuck on that overwhelming feeling that the web was a huge waste of time, so I decided that I should try to write some fiction. After a couple of pages, I couldn’t get even a small story off the ground. Thank goodness #1GF! surprised me by bringing home pizza. It was sad, but that pizza ended up being the highlight of my day.

Friday (Day 236): Inkskape Tutorial Day

Spent the whole day annoyed with the internet and reading inkscape tutorials. I learned to make things that were shiny, and started writing a post about how much I hated the internet. then I gave up on it because it required the internet to publish.

I think I’m losing my way. I write forever and have had a distinct lack of wins on the web lately to make it look like it’s a worthwhile pursuit. Even though my last job bored me to tears and no one cared about my wins but me, it was a decade of wins. Now that I’m out on my own I don’t expect it to be easy, but you have to be able to chalk up some wins once and a while to keep yourself going. It gives you hope that you’re going in the right direction. If you can’t rack up the occasional win, it takes its toll.

Saturday (Day 237): Decisions, Decisions

We started out the day by going to the store to pick up an onion because I was going to make up a batch of sauce for the first time in a long time. We ended up going to a local bakery, and #1GF! got some coffee that tasted like penicillin. From there we hunted for a “yard sale” that was actually a “my bakery is going out of business” sale. We didn’t buy anything.

Next, we went to another grocery store to buy milk because the first grocery store didn’t have doors on its dairy case. I find that milk that is stored this way goes bad faster than milk stored in a case. Unfortunately, this grocery store had no doors either, so we got a small carton of milk to tide us over until I could get to another store. I wasn’t about to drag #1GF!, because there is no need to impose my unique brand of crazy on her any more that I need to.

With the milk and onion in hand, we headed home for a bit and then decided that I’d forgo making sauce in order to see if we could get some decisions made on the house before the contractor asks us. It took a couple hours of driving before we figured out that independent lumber companies close up before 1 on Saturdays. The best we could do was head over to the Home Depot to get coffee and stare at all the decisions we’d have to make. It took us another couple of hours to narrow down some of our decisions to at least general directions, but by then we were fed up with the decision making process.

We decided to get dinner at a local chain restaurant, and the waiter kept unintentionally sneaking up on #1GF! and scaring the crap out of her. He did it at least four times and never once thought of changing his approach. Like an elderly couple, we finished dinner by 5:30 and headed home to read and eventually watch a movie.

What I Learned

• I’m tired of the web.
• Everyone needs to be able to put a win under their belt every once and a while.
• I don’t think I’d hire another architect.
• Writing a book seems easy until you actually sit down to do it.
• I learned how to make things shiny with Inkskape.

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