mountainFrugal Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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mountainFrugal
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# July 2022
Short write-up. Prepping for backpacking tomorrow.
Image

### WINS
Save the dates sent - wedding plans coming together
Partner's MTB/Gravel Skill Improvement - ~40 mph down a "paved" forest service road. I could barely keep up! Her skills have improved so much in the last year.
Increased the day trip adventure radius in multiple directions - Bike to alpine lake, Run to other alpine lake

### IMPROVEMENTS
Compassion, Attention, Gratitude is really simple and really effective at helping to regulate my mood and daily outlook.

I have a growing list of "side income" projects including and unsolicited offer to buy 2 of my sketch/paintings. (I declined because I did not want to cut them out of the books).

Hammies! Nearly every day!

### NEW DIRECTIONS
NOT SAR - after looking into the details and day to day more, some of the downsides of SAR are actually larger then I expected. Mainly on call for most of the year if you want to continue doing all trainings. No reimbursement for fuel, food, gear, etc. only class training. This is unlike other SAR groups (famous one being Yosemite's YOSAR) that provides lodging, perks, training, and pay while conducting searches.

I am revisiting ERE fundamentals this and next month. This includes rereading Jacob's book and revisiting some ideas from last year in my system. Thanks for inspiration @axelH!


### DRAWING
2 portfolio pieces
17 ProkoYo! Sketches
30 Full Pages
2x sketch crawl with art friend in town. We did a sketch crawl at a bar.
Finished a travel sketchbook (not all this month, but feel great when I finish one). High resolution scan of the pages then organized on the completed part of the shelf.

I have been really focusing on color mixing with a limited watercolor palette. It has really sharpened my eye to color. Mixing darker versions of a color are usually best achieved with opposite colors on the palette, not by adding black. "Black paint is for the weak!" (I think this quote can be attributed to Leonardo da Vinci? ;))


### OUTDOOR ADVENTURE
LOTS OF STATS!


### WORK
Working on mF Nat Geo article. Pitched 5 stories. Figured out general story that combined a few of the ideas. Zettlekasten for the win! Worked hard on the background research, sketchnotes, visuals, etc. Wrote rough draft of text. Will publish parts on blog leading up to final article so even if parts get cut, they can still be used.

### SOCIAL
4th of July weekend volunteering outdoor org. Knots group. Friend introduced us to a magical swimming hole with epic rope swing. He does backflips off of it (in his late 60s!). Friend visits 2x, plan backpacking, backpack, come home and get ready for wedding. Going to need introvert recharge for the remaining month of August.

We are fostering a puppy for a friend's daughter. Reconfirming to ourselves for many reasons that #childfree is the best choice for our lives.

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mountainFrugal
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mountainFrugal wrote:
Sat Jul 30, 2022 8:59 am
We are fostering a puppy for a friend's daughter.
We realized through this foster puppy that we are both unwilling to give up our uninterrupted morning time. While puppy energy is fun and playful, uninterrupted periods of sleep, quiet, and long stretches for thought/writing/work are much more valuable to us in the life we are building together. The puppy is now headed back to the original owner. We were glad to help out for a few weeks during this time of need. The importance of the prototype cannot be understated, especially when caring for living beings.

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mountainFrugal
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Image
# August 2022
### WINS
My partner and I had an art hackathon weekend. We made zero plans outside of just focusing on creative projects to get them off the ground. She focused on a written story, I focused on a full 32 page comic issue. I finished the thumb-nailing all the panels and pages and refined the visual story flow. I took a few weeks away from it and am ready to pick it back up again for September/October. Goal will be to have it at least penciled/inked by the end of October. I will then decide if I want to color it or just the cover.

I had a scientific panel review my work. I got a lot of great feedback from scientists that I do not work with on a regular basis. I also got some good criticism for areas that could be thought about more deeply and potentially modeled better.

My partner and I had a long term house planning session. We wanted to live in our house for a full year, makes notes, and generally see how life was before making any decisions. See below.

I have been ticking off FREEDOM-TO projects all year, but I noticed that some of the physical house projects were just not getting done. 5 whys! General 2022 project outlines here: viewtopic.php?p=255612#p255612

### IMPROVEMENTS and NEW DIRECTIONS
This section is combined this month because it revolves around some minor and eventual medium changes to our house.

Basically, our small workshop in the garage had too many projects out that were not getting put away. It was getting impossible to do ANY project without first cleaning up previous projects. I made a workbench extension and repurposed some cabinets for an electronics work station where the components could remain out. I have built various electrical systems and equipment before, but I am not an electrical engineer. So the projects are relatively slow and it helps if they stay out so I can form a mental model of each part and how they fit together before any soldering or attachments are made.

We added some old hooks from the van to hang packs and helmets in our mudroom. This makes a post biking dedicated spot for this stuff instead of on the work bench!

We also did a longer term plan of the backyard. My partner is now leading that project. The main goal is to have a nice place to hang out, cook outside, and enjoy the garden while also being wildfire safe with materials. These are fine constraints and all of them lead to the gradual replacement of stupid grass. Green grass is actually fairly fire safe though so we are minimally watering until we have the design finished and the garden hackathon weekend to get after it. Likely October for a push when the temps are lower before the leaves/acorns fall again. We will do another one in the spring after the snow melts.

I want to get into making my own gear to replace items as they wear out beyond repair. I want to make a new quickdrying wide brimmed running hat and a water resistant fanny pack style bag that will fit an A5 sketchbook. https://learnmyog.com/ has some cool projects that I could modify. I usually settle for quick sewing, fabric glue, or colored duct tape for gear repair. It would be nice to do proper repair that would last longer and look less janky. Although a heavily duct taped puffy is a badge of honor around here. I know there are some sewing threads (;)) on the forum that I need to research more. The plan for the winter is to borrow a sewing machine from a friend and see if I actually like using it. I made a snowboard bag for my friend in middle school for a "Home Economics" class. It was a nice gesture, but was not actually measured to his snowboard so ended up being way to large and he never used it. I need to read through @sky and @sclass's posts on sewing projects (any others?). The long term goal is to turn adventuring into an infinite game that relies less on the marketplace. @jacob reminded me of Ray Jardine as a potential idol in this realm https://www.rayjardine.com/ray-way/index.php .

### DRAWING
I have made my art dates a weekly event. Turns out my art buddy is a practicing mustachian! I had some suspicions of this, but now we talk PF in addition to other stuff. He has a cool situation and just works on his house, cars, bikes and does art since he retired 4 years ago. He does not need to make money doing art, but is gradually hustling to sell prints and paintings. He is really good at color mixing and always has nice suggestions for me. It is really fun to just drop into art technical talk with someone and I always leave the hangout sessions full of energy and wanting to do even more art. We are co-organizing a monthly art meet-up/sketch crawl for our town at a local shop/bar as a way to support this new small business and create community. Fun times.

I have been working on pen and ink technique all month (real and digital). This pairs well with quick water color washes for nature/town scenes. These techniques are used directly when on the sketch crawl and drawing from life.

The online proko group is also going well. Interesting posts and discussion around AI art. DM if you want to join for some art accountability.


### OUTDOOR ADVENTURE
Went backpacking with a trail running friend. We had to change our plan last minute due to wildfires/smoke near our original plan. A lot of bushwhacking and off trail hiking trying to find the overgrown trail for the last 2 days. My hiking partner is an Eagle scout so we talked about all the merit badges. I learned that there is one called "Personal Management" and it is one of the hardest ones to get. Lot's of personal finance wisdom taught to Eagle Scouts. Overall, it was fun to navigate overland by map and compass again and use rock features as general direction waypoints.

We ran into some horse packers that were camped directly on the trail (in a well defined area). It was a super strange back-country interaction because we announced our presence well before getting into their camp, their dogs were going absolutely nuts and there were rifles hanging from various tree limbs in the camp. Guns do not bother me at all, but they were not happy to be seeing anyone midweek. Bad vibes. We added 4 more miles to that day to get out of that basin.

Various exercise/adventure stats. I analyzed all my heart rate data leading up to my race and created some summary functions for my slow rolling exercise data analysis package.

### WORK
See main win above. I finally read through Taking Smart Notes and implemented many of the ideas into my research workflow. I wish this book existed when I was an undergrad. I used this to write up my two blog posts this month and to continue working on the mF NatGeo style article. I am wrapping up a collaboration project by rolling some analysis pipeline steps into functions and then packaging them together. I am unsure if I will try to get the package accepted on CRAN, or just use a dev tools install. There is interest at work in a workshop on package development so there could be a meta-opportunity here to turn this process into blog posts and then have a workshop based on them.

I am now in deeper conversations with a big-5 consulting firm on some part-time consulting work next year. This would be ideal for many reasons. It would allow me to get paid to work as a generalist on some data science, environmental/sustainability and AI projects. I would have complete control over what projects I said yes to and there is a culture of self-starter/learners there I could tap into. I will not need the money, but am interested in seeing where it leads.

### SOCIAL
Final wedding of the year! It was in a small coastal town next to a harbor. I got to sketch a lot of boats along with the ceremony. I generally enjoyed the cooler ocean air with morning fog/mist for runs. Our botanist friends visited for an evening as they were passing through. We did a hike in the alpine and we found a new (to me) species that they found out exactly what it was within a few minutes... not using a guide... but asking a botany slack group! haha.

We have been participating in the Wednesday social hill climbs and had a BBQ with some of the trail running crew. Our friends hosted a Paella Party for our shared dinner this month. Thank you Spain for these amazing dishes and for generally being attractive people. ;). The pans are so open and inviting to have a conversation around while the chefs are cooking. Our friends learned from a master in Eugene, Or during their yearly Paella festival fundraiser. I am not sure if a patio Paella party is traditional or not, but a tradition that we want to incorporate into our lives. Yum!

Thanks for reading!

mooretrees
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mooretrees »

Always really interesting and inspiring to read your monthly updates. I'm always excited to see that you posted something in your journal. I think of your partner bombing down the hill at high speed when I ride my brakes down my hill during my bike commute to work. It's so cool to be able to roar down the hill!

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

I just love how integrated your life is, with new elements and directions springing organically, and occasional hurdles being handled elegantly and as yet extra growth opportunities.

There is a sense of balance, calm and stability and yet a constant brimming and humming of activity, discovery, exploration and wonder, expectation and delight.

There is purpose and dedication. Vision and praxis.

A homey home and an inviting outdoors.

Science and artistry.

Physical prowess, mental acumen, emotional groundedness, mindful sensing.

Individuation, intimacy, friendship, sociability.

I just can't express how motivating your journal is.

Chapeau bas, et un grand merci!

---

A few days ago, I read a great four-book comics in French, with an original/unsettling story and immersive, haunting visuals, which I thought you might enjoy. Well, I found out it has been translated in English.

It is called "Blast", by Manu Larcenet. Do you know him? Expect a PM if not!

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mountainFrugal
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mooretrees wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 8:06 pm
Always really interesting and inspiring to read your monthly updates.
OutOfTheBlue wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 4:07 pm
I just can't express how motivating your journal is.
Thank you both for such kind words! It made my day! I think of it as the mF WOG rolling through time, space and social situations adapting as it flows along and takes in new information. I am glad that writing and cartooning about it can provide inspiration.

@mooretrees - I channel your energy when engaging with strangers and asking to borrow things now. People are always more than happy to engage and help. My partner was happy to hear she inspires your commute hill bombs!

@OutOfTheBlue - I have not read Blast, but checked out some of the pages online. Looks really good! It also looks available on comixology so I will add it to the November binge month que (2 per year where I sign-up for comixology and get graphic novel art drunk).

Slight aside: In general I am a huge fan of European style graphic novels where the environments are main characters. One of my favorite artists is Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) with The World of Edena as an A+ example of his work. His work is full water color pages/environments that are incredibly immersive. The color choices are also incredibly important to the story telling and he made all of them, not relying on an external colorist (more common these days). As another aside, he did a lot of the concept art work for Jodorowsky's Dune (never completed). There is a documentary by the same name that I highly recommend watching for any sci-fi or art/design nerd. The concept art for that never made film was repurposed into many of the classic scenes of 80's science fiction movies as the creators moved onto these other projects. Jodorowsky himself was also super interesting. As an example, he cast his own son to play Paul Atreides and signed him up for a grueling schedule of daily physical, intellectual, and martial arts exercise to get him ready for the role.

OutOfTheBlue
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by OutOfTheBlue »

That's great! I am glad you've added Blast to your upcoming comic reading spree.

And thanks for recommending The World of Edena by Moebius. It will be a discovery for me! Of him I think I have only read XIII, Zoulouland and L'incal series/books several years ago.

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mountainFrugal
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My sketchnotes from rereading ERE book and some posts, watching some of @jacobs lectures, and applying to my WOG. Enjoy!

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AnalyticalEngine
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Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Very cool stuff. The Semi-ERE vs ERE-Lite time layout is cool. I could see that tracking time that way might make the time-saving benefits of quitting FTE for ERE more concrete and therefore more actionable.

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

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Nice! Personal merit badges is a neat idea. How'd you settle upon the time blocks for your semi-ERE and ERE-lite schedules?

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mountainFrugal
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@AE and @theanimal - the time blocks are more or less observed time data. I did not track everything religiously during my ere-lite sabbatical experiment or my current job. I like to do creative work and learning in the morning, technical writing and programming in the afternoon, and have an exercise break in-between. If I have a meeting, I schedule my exercise/shower/lunch right up to the start so I am fresh. In reality it is much more fluid then the schedule appears. If I have work stuff due later in the week, then I inevitably spend more of my morning creative time starting at 6 on whatever work creative thing there is (diagrams, plots, presentations, etc.). So these are more of an average snapshot.

The one thing I have noticed since starting to work again... is that I am less likely to use my vacation time for extended adventure trips. We had a number of weddings this year and I have a work trip coming up that I will tack on a few days off at the end of to explore a city. I miss being able to take off for a few weeks or to really get into a physical project for a few weeks and go deeper. This is the main tradeoff I see. It is relatively minor since I spend so many of my weekend days out wandering the backcountry. With true ER everyday would be a weekend day. My partner would still be working so "weekend" adventures would still be common.

The personal merit badges would be some sort of system to say "I am competent enough to make money doing this". If I learned tattooing I could make an ERE business... anyone interested in merit badge tattoos? ;)

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

Heh, yep! You planning on learning electric or poke?

Really interesting stuff! I liked seeing the C^6 bar graphs change over time.

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mountainFrugal
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AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 5:21 pm
Heh, yep! You planning on learning electric or poke?
I have read about poke tattoos when reading about making inks. This is the extent of my electric knowledge (watching this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcHSd-SXnTk

If you want a merit badge tattoo of a skill that you have earned enough money to pay for a merit badge tattoo... then you could get a full sleeve from me for a song right now at my skill level. ;). I would at least practice a bunch on some pig skin (https://www.tattoomachineequipment.com/ ... ce-pigskin).* My art/drawing skill is not zero though. :).

*pig's feet with the skin still on is also a cheap way to practice sutures. Cut or rip the skin at different depths on different folds, suture back up. Use the left overs for soup broth. This I do have experience doing.

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mountainFrugal
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Minor update after discussion with EcoMMG. The sound tracks of the mF mind/cadence are exemplified by the manic forward momentum music of The Mars Volta. They are an excellent mix of Prog/punk/emo/noise/metal. Thier music should be consumed as an entire album (not for everyone). Tension and release. These are the two albums I can listen to while writing, coding, running, or drawing.

The Mars Volta- De-Loused in the Comatorum: https://youtu.be/8l7Ix-LfSBA
The Mars Volta- Frances the Mute https://youtu.be/-2puUdO4YBg

For hard ass Zone 3/4 workouts this Snapcase Album is the most representative. The most iconic over-tightened snare drum in punk and hardcore of all time. Usually the snare drum tempo keeper fads into the background. Let it guide you as a main player in this album through rough terrain or fast AF cadence!

Snapcase - Progression Through Unlearning: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpCO ... __q433UiQq

edit: I cannot sleep to these albums. This might be obvious. :lol:

Western Red Cedar
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Oooh - I love De-loused in the Comatorium. I enjoy it during workouts or on long car drives. I still vividly remember the first time I heard it. My brother and I were visiting family in England and my uncle wanted to show us his new car stereo. I remember the transition between the first short track to the explosion of the second track, and thinking who the hell is this and why is someone my uncle's age listening to it?

I actually haven't listened to Frances the Mute since the late aughts so I'll have to give that a spin this week as well. Thanks for the reminder - and rock on!

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# September 2022 Windows
Image

### Wins
While the weather has been awesome I have been walking around town, sitting and sketching. I saw this classic rebuilt truck. I did a quick sketch and finished the colors from memory. I saw the truck again a few weeks later. As the owner was parking it and got out I showed him my sketch. He offered me $20 on the spot. Incidental income! There are many people who I think would pay for quick sketches of their classic cars so I plan to hit up the classic car show in town next year (early summer). Practice and cash.

In training for our hill climb (next month's update), I paced my partner on a training run of a local peak. She crushed it and is currently the second lady on Strava. Next summer she hopes to be number 1. I think this is within reach and also think she could set the female fastest known times of a few of the local trail runs. She is a badass and I love her. :).

I finished up the workshop tool storage, electronics station, and woodshop area. I have to tidy everything and think more about actual use for tool placement. I have a decent amount of tools I have accumulated over the years, but they are crammed into boxes from living in apartments for so long. With so many projects going on between us, it has become hard to keep track where everything is. Scatterbrained professor style organization works well with one person... less so with two prof brains.


### Improvements
Fire season is effectively over locally with the rain we have been having, but we had to make some quick decisions and get ready to leave with go bags when a building fire moved into a forest in a nearby town. Our van is the bugout vehicle with the MTBs in the back ready to be deployed if roads are impassable. We can further subset the go bag et al. into our backpacking setup.

I found a workbench vice, grinder/sharpener, a bunch of large clamps (need some de-rusting and TLC), hand drill with ~15 bits, and some garden tools all for ~$65 from estate sales this past spring/summer. We have been borrowing a miter saw on occasion, but I am looking on craigslist/ebay to purchase one. I have a number of projects (including van interior finishing) coming up this winter that always having access to one is going to make things way easier to start.

### New Directions
I established a sit spot in my backyard. Now I need to develop a daily habit of sitting and observing nature. Outdoor time is usually for "getting things done". Gardening, chopping wood, leaf and acorn management, etc. Becoming a keen observer is part of becoming a master gardener/naturalist. Putting in the "observation miles" is the way forward.

On my yearly goals I had that I wanted to do artist deep dives. Well I have yet to do that. So I set a schedule for three artists with different art styles but really good story telling. I made a production schedule for my 32 page full issue. This month was going to be drop all other projects and focus on it (Jan 2022 thoughts), but I have too many other things that I need wrap up for that to be feasible. So convert all the thumbnails to page layouts and shapes with quick value studies for each panel. November will be penciling in the details. December for finishing line work and doing a color cover at least. Coloring takes the longest per panel for me. Anyway... we will see how it goes.


### Drawing
I did a commission for some friends. It was fun to practice their faces enough from photo reference that I could come up with a new pose for them that actually looked like them. LOTS of ERASING!

My drawing buddy and I went to Portland Comic Con. $50 for the ticket. The trip was multi-faceted. I have a longer term goal to kickstart an indie graphic novel. I wanted to see how to actually "table" an event to see how indie creators sell books. It was a bit of a mixed bag on this front. I learned alot, mainly that I do not want to do that at all and that you should have an online indie following prior to even considering the expense of a larger show. This is mainly because selling books cold seems to be much harder than if someone already is familiar with your work. The only way I would consider this as a viable option is if I had a few books that were successfully kickstarted. Then you would at least know there were enough folks out there that were interested that might also go to a con.

I also attended a social media marketing panel for indie creators and cosplay folks. Generally informative and once again reaffirming that I do not want to be spending time doing social media marketing for stuff. In case this helps some rando out there... the easy way to be a good cosplayer is to be an attractive female with DIY sexy constume versions of characters (pics, camera feeds etc.). The other way is to be 6 foot 7 inches tall and be REALLY INTO DARTH VADER. So I am sensing cosplay success follows a power law distribution for some reason... There are people that make costumes of their own characters. This could be fun. You make a book, make the costume for your character, then go as your own character to the con.

On the major plus side, my art buddy and I spent the entire weekend sketching around the city. Live drawing classes with models are kind of expensive and are non-existent in our small town. We both filled pages and pages of sketches/poses of all the shapes/sizes/costumes of con goers. We participated in a drawing competition hosted by one of the major comic publishers. There were hundreds of participants sketching for 15-20 minutes following prompts. No wins for mF here, but we did meet some cool costumed folks who let us sketch them across the table. It was generally the most fun I have had in a long time. No pressure of anyone waiting on me for 2 days... coffee... art... coffee... art... beer...books (Powell's books). I managed to spend $0 at Powell's. I just took a 2 hour book bath. Glorious bookstore. Considered getting a comic con tramp stamp as my first ink ;). JK.


### Outdoor Adventure
Another month of consistent training stats despite 2 smoky weekends. I made up for them doing longer weekday runs with better air quality.

On a training run we visited this really old grove of alpine conifer trees. The ultimate teachers in sufferfesting. Wind, cold, hot, UV, snow, drought, occasional fires... slow steady growth can handle it all. We will see if they handle increasing competition as gradually higher temps push sub-alpine species up. We traveled to our hill climb (will update for October).

### Work
I presented at an AI conference (online). I had some good questions and feedback. My boss's boss was there and really liked my talk. So now I am meeting with him this upcoming week to see about options for extending my contract to continue some of the work I am doing and what other projects we can brainstorm that I would be stoked to work on that fulfill the general direction of the org. This would be ideal if I were to stay employed full time next year. Back-up would be consulting part-time and make comics the other half. Or just make comics full time. Depends on where the interests and stoke is.

I am writing a small grant to National Geographic directly for seed money to support a larger project based on ideas of my mF Nat Geo syle article. Not trout based this time, but essentially the same idea applied to other environmental questions that are more aligned with current projects. The grants there are really competitive, but this has helped me refine some ideas for that type of audience for the article I am writing. This is also showing me that it is a lot more fun to work on these types of general science audience projects with visuals than academic papers. My collaborators and I are nearly done with a draft of a research manuscript. Fortunately, I am second author on this one so it might actually get done in a reasonable amount of time. That would not be the case if I was driving. My stoke is on these more generalist projects. I met up in person with some work colleagues for pizza. I got to meet my close collaborator for the first time IRL. It is strange when you really have no sense of how people take up space and move outside of sitting in front of a screen. Everyone is essentially the same height/size on a screen. There is so much communication that happens through body language that we are generally ignorant of. It is much easier to spot when interacting with people on a screen only prior to IRL.

### Social
Drawing buddy and I organized a monthly drink and draw/sketch crawl. The idea comes from the urban sketching community. Agree to meetup at a place and time, sketch, move onto the next place. There are a number of artists in the general area (surrounding towns included). I got the nearest art store involved and made a flier. I posted a few around town. The art store posted it on their social media along with the 2 bars. I redownloaded social media apps to see how the information spread and used some of the techniques of engagement I learned at the comic con panel. This again reinforced my previous reasons for not wanting much to do with these apps. I am not sure how much my personal actions on social media helped, but there were 22 people that showed up and sketched. So, we are going to continue with once a month and see how it goes. 12 of the people I had never met before then and had seen the flier or heard about it through someone who had. Overall, a great success for a small community. With a few people we met we are going to organize a nature journaling club. This was my original goal and through social coaching from @mooretrees, I am finally here. Thanks @mooretrees!

In rural towns information spreads very quickly through word of mouth. It was fascinating to see this important lever of system intervention work in near real time for the sketch crawl and when there was a nearby fire that temporarily knocked out power. The neighbors exchanged information by just going out onto the street, clustering together, and sharing what they knew. No app necessary and in fact because the cell towers were being hammered from communications all at the same time they were temporarily useless. The immediacy of figuring out potential threats breaks down any perceived barriers in human interaction set up by politicians. In the end we mostly care about others as neighbors regardless of what stupid empty political slogans are represented on various plastic yard signs. (I am not joking on my street that there is the entire political spectrum represented).

My post-doc friend visited. We did a bunch of trail running back in the day. She is now a Prof at an Ivy. I am so glad I did not go that route. She is also questioning it even though she has been really successful.

One of my older renaissance friends in the next town (written about previously many times) is an excellent gardener and used to be an executive chef in Denver. He has given us a few tips already on our garden (few tomatoes, herbs, and young fruit trees), but we are going to lay out a more detailed food production plan for next season. Most importantly he is dialed into the micro-climates caused by the mountain topography. I looked over his house while he was out of town and got to harvest whatever from his garden that was ripe. Quite a trade because everything seems to be ripe in September! He also hosted my partner and I for a 90% garden/foraging dinner. He is good enough at fermentation to make a dry blackberry wine that does not taste terrible (I do not like fruit wines). A lot to learn.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm
Generally informative and once again reaffirming that I do not want to be spending time doing social media marketing for stuff.
I looked into this too when I was looking into how to self-publish, and it reaffirmed that I too did not want to spend time doing social media marketing stuff. My solution to this problem was to decide I'm going to wait until my writing skills are amazing and my book is all done before I even touch this. :lol: A lot of the successful writers I know make videos for either YouTube or TikTok, which seems like a whole other set of skills you need to get popular.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:25 pm
My solution to this problem was to decide I'm going to wait until my writing skills are amazing and my book is all done before I even touch this.
I think "process art" can be another cool way to connect to people. I am sure there is a reasonable middle ground of sharing some stuff while also focusing much more on the craft itself. I suppose the danger of waiting until you are "amazing" is you might never put anything out into the world. Maybe we should be focusing on always improving in our respective crafts? An occasional share here and there to have a record, but not get sucked into feeding the algo.

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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by guitarplayer »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm
Scatterbrained professor style organization works well with one person... less so with two prof brains.
I will take this remark with me!
mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm
Our van is the bugout vehicle with the MTBs in the back ready to be deployed if roads are impassable. We can further subset the go bag et al. into our backpacking setup.
Bug out setup has been on my mind for quite some time, thank you for writing about it. DW is from a war thorn country so this comes super naturally to her to have one, and this recent @Ego posted article about Russians fleeing conscription - perhaps it is time for me to think more actively about it.
mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm
I established a sit spot in my backyard. Now I need to develop a daily habit of sitting and observing nature. Outdoor time is usually for "getting things done". Gardening, chopping wood, leaf and acorn management, etc. Becoming a keen observer is part of becoming a master gardener/naturalist. Putting in the "observation miles" is the way forward.
Such a neat observation, and indeed just what permaculturists say, e.g. Holmgren and Lawton. Might adapt it and adopt to my new urban setting for observing the urban landscape here.
mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm

On a training run we visited this really old grove of alpine conifer trees. The ultimate teachers in sufferfesting. Wind, cold, hot, UV, snow, drought, occasional fires... slow steady growth can handle it all. We will see if they handle increasing competition as gradually higher temps push sub-alpine species up. We traveled to our hill climb (will update for October).
This would have been very enjoyable for me also.
mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm

It is strange when you really have no sense of how people take up space and move outside of sitting in front of a screen. Everyone is essentially the same height/size on a screen. There is so much communication that happens through body language that we are generally ignorant of. It is much easier to spot when interacting with people on a screen only prior to IRL.
That's interesting. Would you think of upsides and downsides of one form of collaboration over another?
mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 6:19 pm

One of my older renaissance friends in the next town (written about previously many times) is an excellent gardener and used to be an executive chef in Denver [...] A lot to learn.
It is for such opportunities that I occasionally contemplate getting a vehicle other than bicycle.

Thanks for sharing @mF!

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: mountainFrugal Journal

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:57 pm
I think "process art" can be another cool way to connect to people. I am sure there is a reasonable middle ground of sharing some stuff while also focusing much more on the craft itself. I suppose the danger of waiting until you are "amazing" is you might never put anything out into the world. Maybe we should be focusing on always improving in our respective crafts? An occasional share here and there to have a record, but not get sucked into feeding the algo.
This is also a good point. There's always a tension as an artist between doing the art you love and doing art other people love. Too much solo art and your work is never seen or never makes an impact. Too much other people art and you lose the soul of your work.

Pre-covid, I had a social media account with a decent following (1.5k+) for my art. I got that many followers by drawing fan comics of other popular comics, and that did end up being a good way to network and meet other artists/fans. However, I eventually stopped because I found myself feeding into the algorithm by chasing likes more than actually focusing on my art.

I suppose this is where it's useful to identify what goals you have as an artist. Making art as a hobby or for passion, even if you share it with others, is different than wanting to sell it enough you can make a living off it. All the artists/writers I know that make a living basically get noticed via making YouTube videos reviewing popular books or instructions on the craft itself then encourage people to join their mailing list where they advertise their projects. That can be one way to make a living.

Another option is to focus on community audiences by joining artist/writer organizations in your area and go to their classes/critique groups/shows. I've joined three such organizations in my area and they have been good for meeting local audiences/improving my work. I might jump back into social media once I feel like I've maxed out on the local connections, but for the time being, this is helping me cultivate areas of my audience/my skills that I was otherwise missing by focusing only on social media.

At the end of the day, whatever strategy one uses can be cultivated toward one's own end goals. But I do think it helps to view social media as work instead of fun to help avoid the addiction/algorithm hell.

Btw, I like your project of organizing a life drawing group the way you did. I might look into organizing something similar here through our library and local arts department. I've found driving to stuff limits my desire to do it, but the town I live in has more than enough people to support a small life drawing hobby group. Time to take the initiative!

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