I learned a hard lesson last night, and realized I have made a large mistake. I spent the summer building an extension to the shop, and it is not legally within building code. I am very happy with how it turned out otherwise, and I have learned a lot in the process. Now it seems I will continue the process of learning how to take it apart. Luckily I always build everything with bolts so that it can be taken apart, and not demolished as is most common! There were some things I am not happy with this time around, so I hope to fix those issues next time around. I'd like to make the most of this, so I'm starting with accountability.

The theme of last week was 'knowing when to bend'. I was hell bent on making my living from designing and building Drupal websites. Except for the last few years every step of the way learning about drupal and web design in general was agonizing. The web is a place of great power and flexibility, but with all that comes a great variety in the way one can achieve a given goal. This ultimately is a very good thing, but to someone who is not innately able to look at and manipulate code, the innards of the web are a total nightmare for those of us who are used to having a few buttons to click to make something work. Drupal is getting ever closer to the dream, but simply having passion for the web and what we humans can do with such awesome connected computing power does not alone qualify one to be a builder of the web.

I salvage "waste" building materials and build home furniture and crafts, such as this picture frame, out of it. One of the beauties of the craft is in saving perfectly good materials from the landfill where it would become the next generation's problem. On a walk today, I saw this scene(picture) at a new development in our neighborhood. The typical building process is so wasteful, it makes my heart heavy to think about. At large scale "cookie-cutter" development, there is no room for mindfulness of resources. Waste is just factored into the cost of business. Whats worse is that new construction uses such crappy materials that not much of it is even worth salvaging. Most of my salvage comes from remodels and rebuilds. In these cases they are removing good, sturdy older wood and replacing it with laminates(particle board), flimsy aluminum and plastics.
This craft is one of symbolic beauty more than anything, and it is very satisfying. It is tough to want to build ones livelihood from it since it would be necessary that our building practices stay the same, not to mention it is logistically tough. Financially it wouldn't necessarily be impossible if one found their niche among the population that could afford to purchase it. But again, this would also assume the status quo in building would remain, else you'd be out of a job.

I began substitute teaching in Spanish classroom 14 at Hyde middle school. Four school years later I finished my substitute teaching life in Arts/Crafts classroom 15 right next door. After a month-long transition and reflection period, I am happily a stay-at-home dad and part-time web-designer! The years I spent in the classrooms of my childhood school district were eye-opening, mind-bending, fun, often frustrating, disappointing, painful, hopeful, soulful, always special and an education further than I could have ever imagined would come from those rooms, hallways, blacktops, teachers and most of all, the students.
I have undergone 4 years of on the job training, I am going to spend the next 3-5 years working on becoming a 'real' teacher, as the kids always asked me to become. I have a rough idea of what the road to an art credential looks like. I know it will involve a lot of explaining the unexplainable and participating in an education system I have a hard time reconciling my feelings with, but I am committed to getting my credential in Art and Industrial Arts so that I can return to the classroom and get to know the next generation of kids.

One of our favorite yoga teachers said that she was going to start sending out a monthly "newsletter" yesterday in class, and I thought to start writing about my yoga experience as well. I have never really been too into religions in practice. I was raised Catholic and lost interest in that very quickly growing up. I never really rebelled against it since my parents were very open and didn't shove it down our throats; I was just not excited or moved by it. When I started to discover Buddhism after college I became enthralled with the philosophy but only dabbled in the practice of sitting meditation for some time, but could never seriously get into a solid practice. I was introduced to yoga by my friend Lisa in 2003. Since then I have been building my practice to where I am now actively practicing for 3-6 hours a week under (mainly) two teachers. I am an active person and need to a physical outlet to feel alive and connected and happy. The Yoga experience combines the physical workout I crave and the mental aspects of Buddhism. It has helped me immensely in life.