(no subject)

[degringolade]

 

Monday Early AM:  Coffee is being drunk, consciousness is returning.  

I have to work through the processes needful for accessorizing my descent into sloth (read here: retirement).  I will need to start on the weekends as little mini-laboratories for the creation of the routines/things that need to be done in order to live within my means and have a good life.  

The actual processes will be greatly simplified.  Two hours a day will not be needful getting to work.  But about an hour and a quarter of these two hours are spent walking to and from the train. So I have to keep the hour and a quarter going but plug the 45 minute hole.  

The 8.5 hour hole that will chasm open when sloth-time occurs will need to be filled.  I am thinking that if I can get used to spending a two or three hour period writing every day outside of this diary, I might be able to finish a bigger project, this particular bete noir is something I have attempted and failed at before.  Maybe what I need is just time to figure out the technical details of a project such as this without the day to day world constantly sticking its two cents into the equation.

The hard part of the process will be to re-establish how to be a student.  If I am going to write something, it will need to be well-researched.  That kind of stuff is a habit that goes away once you leave the University.  Even skilled “researchers' ' usually don’t bother with decent research, what is called “research” in today's world is merely stretching a procession of technologies as far as they can be stretched in exchange for a paycheck.  

Nope, gotta get into the discipline of reading and taking notes and then digesting the notes into a clear form and then spending the time needed to make sense of the vagaries, deliberate omissions, and errors that constitute any serious piece of work of any type.  Then you have to write this down and put it out there so that people can spend the time needed to point out the vagaries, deliberate omissions, and errors that your work entails.

I have been spending time doing this in a minor way with the data from Rona.  I went into the CDC’s site and dredged out the mortality statistics and worked them over to get the numbers to display something useful to me.  I was flattered that some folks actually took me up on my offer to share the info.

Now the big problem over the next 680-some-odd days I have remaining at the mill, is to figure out what it is I will be researching and the way I need to come up with a plan to get something done with the research.  It kinda sounds trivial when you phrase it like that, but I have a feeling it will be a somewhat painful process that will require a significant amount of alcohol.