Chez Louise

Today, as I do once in a while, I read through a forum where the current topic of discussion is, or rather, is supposed to be, "How can economies balance economic development goals against carbon reduction goals?".

The reason I don't spend a lot of time reading forum posts is that they tend to get off topic quickly, and frequently result in flame wars, ego-boosting tirades, or just plain ignorant talk. The reply I read today, though, is so out there that I'm not even sure which logical fallacy this would fall under. I'd have to brush up on my fallacies. The comment was in response to some other posts, but it doesn't really matter what those were, as this seemed to come more or less out of nowhere and can stand alone.

You seem to draw your own conclusions from whatever the data and how they were taken about 'burning of fossil fuels and plant decay' before asking for reason, as seems to be en vogue with the scientific community. You should realize that there are very few labs out of millions or more in 'the scientific community' that even start their tests with right ingredients. They order from catalogs that are in the business of making provisions for testing equipment and supplies. Usually, the 'scientists' don't even know where their equipment or supplies come from, or how they are produced. Why, then, should I accept the authority of the origins of the data that such equipment and supplies generates when the scientists themselves don't even know the origins of their own equipment and supplies?

Now here's someone with an axe (looks like any axe will do) to grind. From what I can gather, you can't trust scientists because they buy (as an example) glassware from glassware suppliers without tracing the glass back to the sand dune it came from, and therefore any results obtained by using such glassware can't be trusted. Huh?

Wow, I can't believe so many months have flown by since I last wrote. I need to learn consistency! But never fear, I am going to try to resurrect my blog, if only I can think of something to say. After all, since I last wrote, I've only bought a house, taken up fiddling, and started college certificates in both technical writing and graphic design. Plus the usual suspects of dance, orchestra, and extra concerts this time of year... Same old, same old - nothing much to write home about. :-)

 

I need a vacation! And maybe a car.  I have a nice little house but I live waaaaaay out in one of those brain-shaped suburbs with few sidewalks, and I don't have a car. Possibly not my best move. I have a big corner lot, and I have a push mower (and some biceps now). (And a neighbour who is suggesting I should mow my lawn and even offering me the use of his gas mower. My lawn's not that scraggly!) I have all these grand visions of what I would like my garden to be, and fantasies of puttering around in it, checking on the lush greenery and plump veggies, but right now, I barely have time to read a seed catalogue and the only thing growing lush and green lately is the chickweed in the front garden... oh well.

 

Will write more soon!

On Saturday, I somehow managed to surf myself onto the PassionPuzzle site, which is basically supposed to help you find what your passion is and help you apply it to finding a career. I do like my job, but I was actually thinking more along the lines of a side business I could start up, to help increase job security a bit. I still have a job, but now I'm close to the stage of buying a house and in these unstable times, who knows what might happen job-wise.

Anyway, so I'm on PassionPuzzle, and before I started the puzzle, I was thinking it would be cool if this would reveal what my passion is, but I didn't think it would generate anything clear-cut. After all, I'm pretty wishy-washy. I'll try something, try something else, but I haven't found anything where I'm like, wow, I would love to do this 24/7 for the rest of my life.

I did the puzzle, and what surprised me was that while I didn't think I had any obvious passions, it was awfully clear-cut when I answered the puzzle. What do people say you are good at? Writing. What did you love to do as a kid that you still do now? Writing. Which part of your job do you lose yourself in? Writing. (Noticing a trend?) The funny thing is, I do like to write, but I'm not the Steve Irwin of writing, i.e., I don't really idolize very many writers, and couldn't be bothered to even take a university-level English class. I guess the key thing is I just want to write what I want, when I want, i.e., be able to get up at a sensible hour and actually see the sun shine for a while during the day. And, more and more, I would like to be more in charge of my own destiny. I'd like to start a business. Not sure if it would be a writing business exactly though.

In short, PassionPuzzle told me I'm supposed to be a writer, but I just want some of my own time, freedom, and sunlight back. And, I need a topic to write about.

That said, today I did finally manage to sit down and reverse-engineer the outline out of my two NaNo Novels which I'd like to merge into one good novel. I've discovered a few things along the way:

• This novel will require a total rewrite. Virtually none of the text is salvageable.


• There are some good ideas in there, but some 'what was I thinking' ideas as well. Will need some serious re-plotting.


• Serious re-plotting would be needed anyway, since there are some galaxy-sized plot holes...

Oh well. Time to finish my draft (A draft, ANY draft), so that I can edit the tar out of it for the remainder of the year, per my 2009 New Year's Resolution.