Balanced Development through ART

When we draw as children we do so for fun and it is part of our natural development.  As you get older and you realize your drawings don’t look like what you are trying to draw most people stop drawing as their internal critic surfaces.  In most cases the reason the drawings don’t resemble what your trying to draw is because of a imbalance in your brains development.  As the left side of the brain, which uses symbols, over takes the right side of the brain and substitutes symbols for what it believes aspects of an object looks like we begin draw the symbols instead of actually looking at the object we are drawing and drawing what we see.

As our critic emerges we generally put down our pencils and stop drawing.  Years later when we reclaim our pencils and attempt drawing again our brain picks right up where we left off as children.  It is a developmental skill set we have to work through as we did with mathematics, writing and reading.  Unfortunately our western society prizes and encourages the skill sets of the left side brain activities and doesn’t promote the advancement of right brain development as it doesn’t see the value in the aspects of right brain skills in relation to activities needed in buisness or science. 

I firmly believe we should encourage aspects of right brain development in its many forms in order to keep the brain balanced in its development and encourage the cooperation of both sides of the brain working together.  Drawing is an excellent means to this end as it can be done with a regular pencil or pen and a piece of paper.  Drawing can be done in many forms and techniques and with simple regular practice can develop your skills and development of the right side of your brain.  The biggest part of this process is shutting down the speaking, logical, left side of your brain.  Not letting it take control and resort to using symbols.  Your left brain has had the majority of control since you stopped drawing and coloring and will not relinquish that control without a a fight.  That fight is the apprehension, tension, and frustration you experience in attemping to draw, silencing the critic, refusing to submit to drawing what you think and instead drawing what you actually see. 

You need to gain control of your hand and fingers to control the pencil to make the exact marks you wish to make.  To use your eyes to actually see what you are looking at beyond the names, predetermined shapes your mind knows and see lines, angles, shades, shapes, and then recreating with your pencil or pen in an accurate representation of what you see.  Start with simple objects for your composition until you can accurately portray them in two deminsions.  Maybe read some art books or basic drawing books to get some hints and pointers.  As you develop the right side of your brain and begin developing it on a regular basis the left side of your brain will submit or share control as they learn to work together. 

Being able to bring the cognitive qualities of both sides of your brain together to solve problems, work out solutions, not only in a logical means but in a asthetic and balanced approach to a solution, entire new avenues and insights will open up for you.  New connections will be made between images, ideas, thoughts and memories.  Besides giving your mind new material to chew over and consider on a regular basis and exercising and forcing both halves of your mind to work together on problems brings about new vistas of ‘ah ha’ moments and insightful inspiration into all areas of your life.

So when was the last time you sketched something, doodled, or attempted to draw a picture?   Does your art work look like examples from your grade school art class?  Those who chalk it up to some people have talent and some don’t are just being stubborn and hard headed about learning.  Isn’t it about time your brought the other side of your mind up to the level of the half you regularly use?  Your inner critic will fight and scream and your left side of the brain will try and remain dominate.  It will quitely try and retain control and have you drawing symbols representations, stick figures for people and other infintile stuff.  Force your left brain to be quite, don’t speak, and force your self to draw what you see.  Let your right brain take control for a little bit.  It will be alright it is still your brain, it is the part you stuffed away and left behind as a child.  Release it’s power, exercise it, let it build strength and power to where it shares control with the left side of your brain and see how it transforms your thinking, your outlook, and your life.

May God Bless You.  Writers get back to writing after you have drawn a picture.  Make drawing a part of your daily exercises and warm up for writing.  It will free your mind and spirit.  More importantly it forces both sides of your brain to work together.

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Posted in: Right Brain Drawing Control pencil

Robotic Lawn Mower/Snow Blower/and Vacuum

As I have stated in my Bio I should have been an Engineer, and the day before yesterday I alluded to one of my many ideas I have come up with over the years, the robotic lawn mower.

The only reason we push a lawn mower, snow blower or vacuum around is because they don't know where to go by themselves.  Many years ago when I was young and the head of MIT's robotic department was building robots in his garage, and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were envisioning the future of computers for the world, I designed a robotic lawn mower.

I never developed the idea.  I did take a day off work and travel to Central Missouri State University and sat down with the head of the engineering department and asked if the school would be interested in helping me develop a prototype.  They were very excited about the idea, and we spent over an hour going over the drawings in my notebooks, schematics, and what not.

They said if I could put up a million dollars up front and into the development that the school would cover the rest of the development to take it to a Beta Testable model.  That was a hell of a deal because product development is extremely expensive and time consuming.  The chance of me coming up with a million dollars was about as achievable as me filling in the Grand Canyon with a house hold shovel. 

The funny part was they asked excitedly if I had anything else I had maybe been working on that was smaller in scope.  My only other really good original idea at that time was my vacuum ship idea.  The size I envisioned for the first prototype of one of those was about 500 feet wide by 950 feet long and standing nearly 400 feet in height sitting on the ground.  Roughly just bigger than a World War II Battleship!  I went back to my day job.  I wondered how Einstein felt as a patent clerk thinking about relativity in his spare time.

I could possibly find my old notebooks somewhere on my bookshelves or crammed into a corner of my garage and scan in the pictures and schematics but I thought as I am a writer now, that I would just do my very best to describe the machines, challenges and functions of each of them.

This description of the lawnmower blade setup will be very easy for the older members of my audience as we will remember the old rotary push mowers that were around in the late forties and into the nineteen fifties.  It had no engine, two large wheels on the outside and a handle coming back to a T shape to push it.  Four twisted rotary blades that moved via gears connected to one of the wheels is what cut the grass.  It basically cut the grass and threw the clippings everywhere.  My design starts with a smaller lighter version of one of those blades.  It was explained to me that the spark from the spark plug of a modern Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine would wreck havoc with the computer circuits designed to run the machine.  So it would be run by a small electric motor and a belt to turn the blade – no spark.  The motor housing and belt drive would be in the bottom of the base unit while the blades would be detatchable so they could be hosed off for cleaning, no electrical parts in this piece, all mechanical.

I designed a plastic hood to cover and direct the clippings into a grass catcher that would pop on and off the top of the machine. 

In the body of the machine would be the 8088 or at that time the new and amazing 286 processor for computers which would be the brains of the machine.  In the middle of the base would be the drive motors for tracks which will actually move the mower around the yard.

The Tracks -  These would be like tank tracks which I surprisingly have some intimate working knowledge of from a few years of driving and working on the tracks of tanks.  The difference would be that these tracks would be encased in plastic, designed to snap off the side of the mower and contain only metal or plastic pieces that would be made up of suspension parts like what are used on radio controlled monster trucks.  These would have to have no electrical parts, completely mechanical and designed for removal so they could be prayed off with a hose to clean and set aside to dry for later re attachment to the recharged mower for more action.

Back to the base.

A further component of the drive system which will provide turning power to a shaft which will turn a drive wheel in the attachable tracks would be a shaft encoder.  Basically this is a wheel with slots in it attached to the drive shaft.  On one side of the wheel is a LED light and the other side is a photocell.  This will create a electrical blip which can be counted and feed to the computer and so many blips equals one revolution of the shaft.  By knowing how many revolutions creates one circuit of the track you can calculate how far that side of the vehicle has moved.  One of these for each side of the base.

A series of four microphones for receiving signals from sound beacons placed strategically at three or four spots in the yard.  The system will work very accurately with three sound beacons, but four would be optimum.   The beacons could be solar powered and left out year around or moved to the driveway for winter application of the snow blower attachment that would use the lawnmower powerbase and tracks.  The beacons would transmit a sound outside of human hearing range that the microphones would receive.  The computer would have a subroutine to triangulate the position of the base in the yard and make corrections to the steering program which would be using the input from the shaft encoders to figure where the base is on its programmed path around the yard.  Between the shaft encoders and the sound beacons it could have a accuracy of within a quarter of inch over the size of the yard.

The base would need a mercury switch setup installed so if the base is lifted to too extreme of a degree it shuts itself off.  I would also build in a mechanical switch into the tracks so if the weight of the base is removed from the tracks, i.e. something has lifted or raised a track off the ground it shuts down.  Temperature sensors located across the front of the machine looking for anything over 90 degrees in temperature would shut the mower down.  You don't want it running over children, or animals in the yard.

The base would hold the rechargeable batteries and the computer.  A floppy disk drive was to be used in my design but today you could give it cell phone capabilities and your PC or phone could call in the changes in programming to the base from in your house, while you're at work or wherever.  Originally the drawings I had used a 5 1/4 floppy drive – state of the art- for reprogramming or changing parameters to your programming for the base.

A retractable power cord was in the back of the base along with the recharging apparatus for the batteries.  The top would be the grass catcher which would have to be manually emptied.  With today's technology you could design a yard grass can to allow the mower to automatically dock to and empty the catcher – recharge the batteries and send it off on another run where it left off from the last time.  Always working and cutting the grass unless it is raining.  The 'grasscan' could also double as a weather shelter for the machine while it isn't running or during storms.  A humidity sensor and today's computers would let it figure out when to run for cover by itself.  Today's computers could even tell it to pay attention to the lawn sprinkler system and to wait for a certain amount of time after the yard has been watered before starting up its work again.

The front mower section was to be able to fastened and unfastened so after you sold people the robotic lawnmower the following fall you could sell them the snow blower attachment to hook into the front of it.  No catcher for the snow just an adjustable shoot with an added blower to help throw the snow.  I thought the snow blower could use gears instead of a belt and a much bigger and faster motor to power to it, with slight adjustments to the bade designs where it isn't empty space between the blades for more of a scooping and throwing action.  It would drain the batteries faster but most driveways are not as big as people's lawns.

Once these fine products were up and running and selling to the world.  I would come to my manufacturing team and explain how we want to redesign the lawnmower but make it about the size of a small to medium sized bunny rabbit.  We want to make it look like a rabbit!  Only this would be a robotic vacuum cleaner and we would call it the Dust Bunny.  It would spend its life plugged in recharging or whenever you leave the house turn it on and let it clean your floors.  I had not come up with any nice way to make this work with people who have pets except to sell insurance policies for the vacuum cleaner or make them cheap enough for those with dogs and aggressive cats to just buy new ones every so often if the pets destroyed it.

Losers to this would be current lawnmower, snow blower and vacuum machine manufacturers, and small engine manufacturers.

Future enhancements would be large Industrial versions for schools, businesses, complexes, and golf courses.  Automated Street cleaners to rove around keeping the city clean while we sleep.

I do have to say it is much more fun spending weeks and months planning out a story and working at writing and editing a story I can actually sell than doing months of research, planning, math and computer work for a product idea which would never see the light of day.  I pray somebody finds my notebooks someday and goes through them and says, "My God!  This idiot was brilliant and ahead of his time.  Why did he waste his life writing Science Fiction books?"  The answer to that question is it is infinitely more fun and less tedious than designing crap that nobody will ever see or use.  At least I can sell my books when I finish them!

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Posted in: robotic lawn mower vacuum snow computers

March Author Interview

March First, the first day of the new month!

All sales are back to zero, still have writing works in process, the day job, family and everyday chores and responsibilities.

So to Start the New month off right, a brilliant children's author, Jo Barker, has done an author Interview of me and it is posted on her website, and at Goodreads dot com.  I really enjoyed the questions she asked and thought it was an excellent interview for aspiring authors to read for guidance and motivation!  So please if you get a chance, please check it out.

http://www.jrbarker.info/interview-with-an-author/

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2153740-interview-with-an-author-thomas-d-wilson/

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Posted in: Aspiring Authors books Goodreads motivation

The Music of Your Life

Growing up my Dad always said he enjoyed mowing the grass.  I could never understand this because to me it was stupid senseless work.  The only reason I was pushing a lawn mower was because the lawn mower doesn't know where to mow!  I even designed a robotic lawn mower to mow my grass for me (Robotic – entirely independent, not radio controlled), unfortunately I am a better designer than I am a builder.  If anybody read my post about the light chasing robot you will quickly understand why I am still mowing my own grass.

As I have gotten older I realized I long for mowing the grass.  Not because I enjoying mowing the grass, but because I actually like getting out and working outside a bit, it is a break from my job and family, and it makes my tiny square of the world look more pleasing to me.  I can do it while listening to an MP3 player, a device my father never had, or took the time to learn to use when the knowledge and product became available.  This is what really makes it nice for me and embarrasses the ever loving shit out of my wife.  Inevitably I will come across one of my favorite songs and forget people can hear me attempt to sing along over the roar of the mower.  My horrid attempts at singing and doing so in public where we live are what embarrass my wife.

Last year I somehow sweat into the case of the MP3 player and fried it guts outs.  It was ancient anyways and for just over twenty dollars I got a new one that is one quarter the size and holds all of my music with tons of room left over.  So I totally wasted an evening syncing my music to my MP3 player, copying music from my CD's to my computer to add to my portable collection of music.  OMG!  I had the time of my life listening to music creating a new and improved play list with twice the songs that I had previously had and then syncing it to this new player. 

It dawned on me that with the music speaker thing I have in the house that allows my Kindle to read to me, I can also listen to my personal collection of music around the house, while driving, and while riding my motorcycle with this new player.  It had dawned on me before how I can listen to my music collection all the time with really embracing this technology.  How much happier could the world be if we all could spend part of everyday listening to the music that makes us happy.  Music that lifts our soul's energy levels to higher states.

Warning:  You shouldn't drive with the ear buds in!  You shouldn't drive EVER while listening to the William Tell Overture, The Peter Gunn Theme by Henry Mancini, or the Hawaii Five 'O Theme by the Ventures.  It just isn't safe for you or the general public!

If you don't know those titles – check them out.  And for the older crowd that knows those titles, check out "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance.  You can probably find a video of it on line.  I thought the cheerleaders in the gas masks were inspired.  If you judge people by their music collection I'm screwed and headed for a padded room in the future.

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Posted in: mowing music MP3 Hawaii Robots

Stuff that Sucks – The Rebuttal

I had several different ideas of stuff I wanted to write a Blog post on instead of posting an apology to Mr. Nicholas Sparks for possibly hurting his feelings in any of my past posts about how I hate what he writes.  Then I got a blog update that I felt I needed to respond to publically!

I have stated before in previous posts that I have a problem with swearing from time to time.  If reading swear words really offends you do not click on the link below and read the Cranky Old Man Blog Post and DO NOT READ my rebuttal of said post which follows.  Just tune in tomorrow where I hopefully will behave in a much more civilized manner after having washed my mouth out with soap.  Don't worry your probably not missing much, but at least I am not apologizing to Mr. Sparks today!

http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/

My Rebuttal

Broadway plays, especially musicals – I am a real man and I can handle sitting through one of these to please my wife just as I expect her to sit through watching cars smash each other in a demolition derby.  Sometimes if you're lucky, you get to see them make mistakes and flop which you never get to see in the movies.  Plus with Television and movies you don't really see people dance and try to sing as you do during live performances.

Opera – Never actually been to one so I can't be too critical as that might be hypocritical.  Having never been to one lends credit to how much of a real man I actually am.

Ballet – Falls in with Opera, never been!

Competitive swimming – Not the same but I remember the diver who dived into the diving board below him – That was brutal!  It was like NASCAR the way they kept replaying it.  But if you want to pick on a sport WTF is that crap where they slide the fucking rock across the ice with the stick thingy and broom!  I agree with the - if nobody can get hurt it probably isn't a sport.  The rock thingy could get swapped with a land mine and use a whole team dressed in bomb suits sweeping it and blowing themselves up!

Frankly I am privately promoting the rise and introduction of Segway Jousting! 

Shakespeare – Yeah, I just don't get it, never will, as it is the same with poetry.  Those that do probably haven't ever driven a fucking TANK for a living either!

Quiche – I get promoted in the Man Club for not even knowing what this was.  I had to look it up!  Seriously!  Doesn't have to be steak but meat and potatoes for sure and if you add Gravy to it, it makes it a meal!

Figure Skating – This will turn some heads but I grew up in the Great North, Idaho!  Everybody had their own ice skating rinks as Winter is one of the two seasons they have there.  I got my first pair of used Hockey Skates at age six.  Everybody skates unless they are handicapped.  When I got my first figure skates I couldn't figure out why hockey players weren't using those because they are barbed in the front!  I didn't know what figure skating was. 

As I am older and know about the sport, if I could go back in time being heterosexual and a skater and getting to enter a sport where you get to hold and play with women in that kind of manner and skate, I can't figure out why so many guys are playing hockey instead of being figure skaters.  I sure as hell can't figure out why so many male figure skaters are not straight!

I traded my ice skates for in-line roller blades and still skate even today I just do it in the street.  FIY roller blade wheels melt in about four minutes at forty to fifty miles per hour.  When they melt and the wheels ooze up the through the trucks – YOU STOP QUICKLY!  You think I would have learned that fact the first time I melted a set of wheels.  3X means I am just freaking stupid!  But man what a RUSH!

T.V. Award shows – I like it when once and while a genuine person gets an award they are actually blown away by the fact they have won.  I love the fact of how things change with these shows like the First, One and only and last award for Disco went to Gloria Gaynor for "I will survive."  I also like the fact I can't listen to that song without thinking of the movie "The Replacements".

Dancing – I can't dance but like to believe there is enough alcohol and that’s why God invented Scotch was for the further invention of playing the Bag Pipes and men trying to dance with their women.  I make the Bag Pipe comment because if you ever heard anybody learning to play the Pipes it sounds like your strangling an animal.  The first person to come up with it had to be two Scottish men having some fun with their buddy while all three were having a wee bit to drink.  Leave it to the Scottish to turn the joke around on the jokester and turn it into a traditional beautiful sounding instrument. 

I like Cats because of their fuck you attitude in spite of the fact they need us to take care of them.  If they could take care of themselves or didn't think they owned us for pets they would take over the world.  I am not really a dog person because they are too social and needy!

Finally Mauve falls into the Quiche category and just moves me up a notch for not knowing what it was!  A color really?

Sorry, I couldn't find anything to post about, Mr. Sparks, your apology will have to wait until another day.  The first day my faculties fail me and I can't find a thing to post about I will get right on that apology for possibly hurting your feelings.

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Posted in: Real Men Sports Skating Quiche

SPB Roundup

SPB ROUNDUP

~ A Gallery of Self-Published Books

http://www.spbroundup.com/fiction-2/science-fiction/

Both my books are listed on the first page of Science Fiction!

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Posted in: Gallery Self-published Books Science Fiction

Censorship Versus Freedom of Speech

Recently, PayPal has come down on Smashwords dot com about some aspects of Erotica.  They claim the pressure is coming from the banking Industry that they deal with.  Smashwords in turn has had to take steps against certain aspects of the erotica published through its site to survive to fight another day in the name of free speech or the expression of the right through the freedom to publish.  I have noticed the extreme amount of material that is available on the site in the form of Erotica, but I am comfortable with it for several reasons.

1.  It allows it to be published above board, legally, not underground illegally and part of some criminal element.  If as a society we legalized and taxed prostitution, and drugs it would take away the criminal element of it.  Allow it to be regulated and controlled by aspects of the government instead of flying under the radar tax free and supporting illegal behavior.

2.  The site has a prude filter you can set to on which hides all this type of content if you desire not to see it but still enjoy the many other elements of Independent Authors work.

3.  By allowing it to exist on websites like Smashwords you do not hinder anyone's right to expression or others rights to purchase such works therefore not threatening or holding back anybody's right to freedom of speech.

Censorship is most prevalent in the United States where Freedom is supposed to reign more than anywhere else on Earth, provided it censored!  Come on!  It's time Americans stand up and put our freedom to the test!  If it offends your narrow minded views or virgin ears shut it off, don't look, don't listen and for God sake quit talking about it and fighting for censorship!  Freedom is allowing it all, even the offense crap!

Here is a test for every red blooded flag waving AMERICAN who reads English, believes in the Constitution and ALL that it stands for! 

1.  Vote for NO CENSORSHIP! On the Web, On Television, On Radio, and especially for books!

2.  Vote for LEGAL Prostitution and Drugs, taxation and regulation of such to help pay the national debt.

We will never get it, because organized crime (which doesn't exist) would shoot any politician pushing to take away their livelihood, or threaten to tax and regulate it.  They get paid for regulating; controlling and distribution of said services and get to do it tax free already.

My question is who in the Banking Industry or at PayPal is reading these books to determine said offensive material is in said books?  It appears they have a problem with erotica books that deal with bestiality, rape, and incest!  I am not saying I am for or against these topics or for or against erotica.  Somebody is going to write this stuff, somebody is going to pay for it, and somebody is going to read it.  They successfully block it and it goes underground and joins the realm illegal activity, off the grid.  How do we know it isn't illegal interests trying to block the stuff to maintain control of their interests?

Somebody has to be buying said books and reading said books to even know there is something offensive there to begin with!  If I am supposed to believe some religious person or group of business individuals has purchased one of all these books to read them and then wants to start a crusade to save our souls by threatening our freedom of speech and to publish materials but will still allow the Holy Bible and other religious works to openly be published and sold.  The Bible has elements of the worst strewn throughout it!  The worst sins imaginable are committed and discussed in its pages.  I am just stating when we cave in on one count of Censorship – where is it going to stop?  Who decides which books to burn and which books we are allowed to read? 

Our own Declaration of Independence, the writing of it, standing up for it, and definitely the signing of it would have been cause for being hung had our founding fathers lost the war!  Yet we are going to purposefully say this can't be said, that can't be shown or said on TV, and this can't be written about or sold, because it offends someone.  Are we letting narrow minded people determine the limits of our freedoms that have been bought and paid for by the blood of our countries men and women?  Or are we letting criminal elements keep control of their wrongful deeds rather than letting them be exposed to the light of day, taxation and other respectable enterprises.  I have noticed since I was a child that countries with much less freedom than we claim to have seem to have more freedom to express themselves in the way they see fit, with much less censorship! 

Grown men and women should have the right to censor themselves, shield themselves, just as we should have the right to express ourselves freely on the different forms of media!  It is our right, for good and bad!  It disgusts me that I have to stand to see a fellow citizen exercise their rights by burning our flag, yet you get fined for saying something like "Beaver" on Television!  That's moronic and the true state of affairs in our country.  Censorship doesn't work it will only force it underground and breed more crime!  In the Immortal words of Dr. Johnny Fever, "Booger!"

Hell, that's going to show my age and taste in television from years gone bye.

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Posted in: Censorship Freedom Speech Criminal Beaver