My assignment board
At the beginning of 2014 I created an assignment board, it looked like I would finally have time to do some of the things that I have wanted to get done for a long time. I scrawled a bunch of categories and created lists of things under each that I needed to do. Throughout the year I crossed off quite a few of the items, and put an x by the ones that were partially done, but there remains some stubborn projects that I could never seem to get to. This is not a bad thing, I have been slowly re-establishing a work routine by which I could get more accomplished. (I talk at length about this in my next blog.) First and foremost, I worked on paying assignments; the idea was to create a backlog of financial stability in order to have time to do some of the non-paying bits of creativity. Others were things that I had started years ago and just wanted to finish. Getting the novel and cartoon book done were really a dream come true, a self-imposed burden of guilt finally taken care of and crossed off.
Since my life was somewhat changed around a bit in 2014, I have been cleaning out a lot of previous junk left over from years of work and travel. I am somewhat fond of pins; I usually buy one or two whenever I visit someplace that I haven’t been before. I kept finding more and more of these as I went through old boxes and drawers and decided to put them up on my assignment board just for fun. By the end of the year, as you can see, I had found quite a few of them and in the coming year I hope to add a few more. Some hold fond memories such at the heart-shaped SF pin given to me in 1976 by the late, great science fiction author, Robert A. Heinlein. The STS-5 pins and patches from 1982, where we watched the fifth launch of the space shuttle in Florida. 2002 Winter Olympic pins from Salt Lake, National Park pins, various work pins and my Civil Air Patrol patch from my old uniform. With some pride I recently showed the board to my wife, Lynne. She smiled and congratulated me on my accomplishments. As she turned to leave she suggested a new category of things to add to the board that really needed to get done and soon; house and yard projects. You know, some people are just never impressed.
