1,688 Word Free Write

Once again I have been inspired to write by my old friend Harris Crazyhorse Jackson. That isn’t his real name. His real name isn’t important here, maybe it is, but I don’t typically include last names of real people into my blog, I usually use code names or simply exclude the last name altogether. My friend Harris keeps his own blog, however, and I’m all about advertising for my friends, so I will link to his blog. If you find his last name there, well then, that’s all the better, if you were so interested to know his name in the first place, which you weren’t, but perhaps have gathered enough interest now to actually click over to his blog. Now is when you should do that, here.

Now that you have read the post I have linked to (go do it now if you haven’t) you will see why I am writing. Harris called me out. His intention was to free write 800 words. Somewhere along the line he lost interest or something, and said that it only takes 400 words to expend your mind’s capacity, unless you are Ajax. When I read that, I was quite surprised…pleasantly. I was honored to be mentioned in the blog, and took the challenge to see if it really does take more than 400 words to drain my thought bubble. I tried to leave a comment saying as much, but for some reason the blog didn’t think my Google credentials were sufficient to allow me to leave a comment. Luckily I have my own blog and can leave the comment mixed into the body of this post; mission accomplished.

It doesn’t take much to get me going on one thought or another. Sometimes a TV commercial, sometimes overhearing a conversation in a store, or perhaps a cereal box, but whatever the medium, my mind will spin off like an errant Frisbee at the beach. Eventually that thought gets caught (maintaining the Frisbee analogy) and redirected, lands in the sand, splashes into the tide, bonks someone unsuspecting in the noggin, or drifts weightlessly into the breeze and is carried away into the clouds of oblivion. Typically it’s the first one, or maybe a figurative expression of the second two. Oftentimes it might be the third, and hardly ever is it the fourth. But that’s not true; it’s probably all of them equally, but only figuratively. The only one that could be figured literally would be the first one. Sometimes my thoughts are “caught” (attended to) and redirected, or processed, as in the writings of my blog. I like the idea of something I write bonking someone in the noggin.

Well, I’ve had some ideas lately, and I could blitzkrieg them all here for you, but I won’t because I don’t remember them. I have been struggling to get back into the night shift routine for work. After having half the month of July off for traveling and wedding celebrating, it was difficult to return to the overnight shift. Difficult doesn’t do it justice. I was in pain trying to stay awake. The only way to fix it is to switch completely to be a night person, but I don’t like what that does to people. Think about it, who do you know living on a night schedule that is a healthy and normal individual?

Spiderman tries to do both, be a regular day person as well as a night time super hero. His life certainly isn’t normal, look at how messed up all of his personal relationships are. Batman can go into that mix as well. I think Batman has the luxury of sleeping in and becoming only a night person, thanks to his money; a luxury that Spiderman can’t afford. With being only a night person Batman has the advantage over Spiderman, but it still doesn’t make for a nice life. Seriously, the guy is getting burnt out. Who else? Well I can’t think of anyone else. Except one fellow who I was working with and it didn’t turn out well for him, you can take my word for it. I think it is best for humans to be awake during the day and asleep at night. Unfortunately for many people they have to work at night due to the nature of their job. In these cases I am extremely happy that there are people willing to make the sacrifice, because I am not. However, there are a lot of people working night jobs that probably aren’t as necessary as others. But I don’t know. Work whenever you want I guess. I don’t really care. The point is that I don’t want to be awake at night and asleep during the day, and trying to do both makes you unable to think well, and by you I mean me.

There you have it, 800 words, and the explanation for why I haven’t blogged much lately. But I’m not going to stop there because I had a few lead in paragraphs that cut into my 800 word count of draining my thoughts. I’ll mention one idea I’ve had recently, and then maybe one or two other ideas. But first I’ll mention the one and see where that gets me. Although this one thought really deserves its own post, complete with creative title. I will only mention it as follows, and hope that I will someday soon devote some real thought and energy to it as a unique blog post, the idea is that rather than worry about reducing our “carbon footprint” we worry about reducing our “human footprint,” a term I have made up in my head to represent our individual impact on the people around us. Human footprint isn’t bad, it is life. We all impact the lives of others, just as their lives impact us. Some people have a larger human footprint when they rely on others for everything. Some people have a smaller human footprint when they exercise self-reliance. There needs to be a balance between the two. I think that a lot of the problems in the world could be reduced or solved if we would focus on the impact we have on other people and try to do more for ourselves first, thereby reducing our impact on others, and secondly doing more for others, thereby reducing their impact on us. That wording might not make perfect sense, it doesn’t really to me, but I get the idea I’m trying to convey. I’ll mull it over a little more and devote a full posting to it. I think there is something in there that can be fun to philosophize about. Of course that does nothing for anyone unless someone puts it into practice. We’ll see.

That was a long “only mention” of the idea. So be it. It is a fun thing to think about and it’s got that buzzword worthy language, so even the distracted people who focus on getting an advantage over everyone else can understand. I’ll continue on with my other thoughts, as the well is seemingly still full.

I was thinking about making a chain saw that worked with pulleys. It could be a small housing that you would wrap around a branch or a tree trunk and inside would be a saw chain and a series of pulleys, with cords extending from both sides. You would just pull back and forth on each cord and it would spin the chain. I hadn’t given this much thought up to this point, so I didn’t realize that I have no idea how this would actually work. There was a branch fallen in the backyard that was slightly attached to the tree still, too high for me to climb up and cut it down. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of saw I could throw up there like a rope and cut the branch off. Now that I type it out I don’t think I am the one to invent such an object. Moving on.

What about a rain gutter water filtration system? It wouldn’t be any good for low rain places, but I live in a heavy rain place. Even still, I don’t know that the rain volume collected from a house roof would make much of a dent in the expenses of extracting water from a well or the public water system. People already use barrels to collect rain water from gutters to use on gardens or flower beds, this is just adding in a system of filters to make the water more palatable. I’ve never collected rain water enough to drink it. Maybe that should be the first step in my research and development. Maybe rain doesn’t taste so bad. The survival TV show guys always drink it. I guess I never thought about that either. Why would rain water need filtration? I guess just from running across the rood and collecting debris from that. Really you wouldn’t need much. I don’t remember when I came up with this idea; it might have been late at night, or early in the morning.

I envision pipes running diagonally across one side of a house, two pipes, each one coming from a corner of the house. All of the water collected in the gutters is sent through these pipes into a collection area or into a pipe where it can be used. Inside the pipes would be a series of filters. Gravity would be the force to press the water through. Either the water could then be stored in a tank to use in an emergency or it could run directly into your refrigerator water fountain. I don’t know. Maybe there is something to it, but I guess so long as there is electricity and water being pumped into a house then this isn’t really necessary.

We are now at 1,650 words. I hope you have enjoyed this exhibition of draining words from Ajax’s thought reservoir. Thank you to Harris for the honorable mention of my capacity. I must now work on thank you cards for wedding gifts. The end.