C.D. Wight's Blog

Paddling Against the Storm

Oh, creativity. It required time, energy, and at least some level of peace, quiet, and mental space. But for the past three years I dealt with an overabundance of “you have to’s” that resulted in very little free time, energy, or quiet. In a most remarkable turn of events, at the end of a three-year marathon of obligations I was rewarded with a noteworthy and glorious gift: the first full week off at home in fifteen years, and during a national holiday no less.

In any given “normal” week I wa...

A Basic Necessity – FINAL

Almost all of Americans were in either of two groups when the Great Housing Disaster of the early 2020’s hit. For the most part, neither group realized there was a housing disaster at all. Group One consisted of the people who already owned a house, and Group Two were the people who could not afford a house to begin with.

There was also a Group Three, a very rare species of prospective first-time homeowners who were equity poor, debt-free, and cash rich – but who were still unwilling to bet t...

A New Slacker and More

This January I engaged in a couple of projects that absorbed all of my spare time, forcing me to put my usual creative activities on hold. First there were the holidays, which was always a project unto itself, with all the obligatory get-togethers, visits from extended family, and gift coordination for the kids. A couple weeks before the holidays my wife had instructed me to get a personal computer for our oldest boy. I put it off until January, knowing what an effort it would be. I was also inf...

A Basic Necessity – Part 4

Why did we return to America after ten years in Japan? Our primary goal was to expose our kids to American culture, to give them alternatives to the Japanese education system’s conveyor belt to forty years of corporate servitude. Next, we wanted to be close to my family. That goal was quickly satisfied, and didn’t seem so important now. We also wanted to enjoy some of the unique things America had to offer (for example, National Parks), and to give me the opportunity to work from home. Most of a...

Adventures In 3D Printing

A couple months ago I bought a 3D printer to satisfy my interest in the technology, and for the more exact purpose of creating miniatures for tabletop gaming. Years earlier I had researched 3D printing for my novel Tokyo Green, and now I was excited to explore the technology first-hand.

My excitement abated somewhat as I struggled to overcome a steep learning curve and understand why some prints failed. 3D printers had improved in price and performance in recent years, but they weren’t ex...

There Are No Sides

No title could be more ironic than “there are no sides” on the day of U.S. mid-term elections of 2022, but ultimately it’s true. Americans have been duped into hating each other to a degree not seen since the Civil War in the 1860’s. This observation was by far the most jarring of all the facets of culture shock I experienced upon returning to America in 2020 after a decade in Japan. A lot happened in America during those ten years, but as horrible as some of those things seemed to be for both o...

The Demon Inside

There was a demon inside of me that had to be exorcised every so often before it devoured me from the inside out. The demon’s name was Creativity, or, in more poetic terms, The Muse. The demon was a fallen angel, of course. My greatest challenge had always been including this pesky bastard in my daily routine where work and family came first.

My favored means of exorcism was writing. It was the creative skill I had developed the most. But for over a year I had been too shell-shocked from the ...

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

A Basic Necessity – Part 3

“What can we buy?” This was what most prospective home-buyers asked. It was the wrong question. The right question to ask was “what should we buy?” Or, “should we buy at all?”

For us it didn’t make any sense to buy, even though we had zero debt, enough cash, and liquid assets. “Cash” sounded great in years when the markets were down, but it was the worst possible situation during times of super-inflation and every equity market at record highs.

So we needed a place to put our cash to prote...

A Basic Necessity – Part 2

Housing is not a right…

The other day I went to the local hardware store to buy a 1’ x 6’ board to make some shelving. At the register I was shocked to find this single plank of wood cost US$65. I took it back to the lumber section and asked them to cut it in half. Three feet would do. Back at the register, I remarked to the cashier, “Holy crap, wood is expensive! Good thing I’m not building a house.”

“You can thank the president for that, honey,” she replied.

At first I thought she mea...