Why Write?

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Money.

Author Mickey Spillane died last week at age 88. He was the creator of hard boiled detective Mike Hammer.

I don’t recall reading any Mickey Spillane, but I must have. I’m a huge fan of hard boiled detective fiction — a la Chandler and Hammett. But reviewers don’t usually use the names Spillane, Chandler, and Hammett in the same sentence unless it is to comment on how Spillane fails to stack up to the two masters of the genre.

Spillane’s writing has been called “hard boiled boilerplate,” full of cliches and odd visualizations. The critics were not kind to him. But he didn’t write to please the critics. He wrote to make money, as CNN’s obituary piece confirms:

Spillane, a bearish man who wrote on an old manual Smith Corona, always claimed he didn’t care about reviews. He considered himself a “writer” as opposed to an “author,” defining a writer as someone whose books sell.

“This is an income-generating job,” he told The Associated Press during a 2001 interview. “Fame was never anything to me unless it afforded me a good livelihood.”

Which got me thinking.

I’ve often been criticized by writing acquaintances — you know, the folks who want to be authors and are always working on short stories and novels but never actually publishing them — for “selling out.” In their eyes, writing non-fiction (computer how-to books, of all things) isn’t quite as impressive as creating art by writing fiction.

But they obviously don’t understand why I write computer books. It isn’t because I love composing sentences like: “Choose File > Open. The Open dialog appears. Locate and select the file you want to open. Click Open.” It’s because I like to eat, have a roof over my head, and buy cool toys like helicopters.

Yes, it’s true. I write computer books for the same reason most people go to the office every day. The same reason Mickey Spillane wrote books with titles like The Erection Set.

As Spillane once said,

“I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends.”

Ah, if only I could have as many friends like that.

Surprise Valley Drugs

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One of my favorite shots from my August 2005 road trip.

Surprise Valley DrugsYes, it’s the side of a building. But it’s also an old billboard for a drugstore that probably doesn’t even exist anymore. And there’s something about it that I really like.

I took this photo at the end of the second day of my trip. I was spending the night at Cedarville, CA, in a little motel on the edge of town. Cedarville was a quaint, undiscovered farming community. I’d passed at least a dozen huge California barns, hay fields, and horse pastures on the last half hour of my drive. I was exhausted and this quiet little town was like an oasis in the desert.

This billboard had been painted on the side of a row of shops. I don’t know how long ago it had been painted or whether the Surprise Valley Drug store was in Cedarville. But I snapped the photo to remember.

The next morning, after stopping back in town for a some car noshing supplies, I’d seen a similarly interesting shot across the street. But there were people out and about and I felt silly about taking the photo. Someday I’ll go back and snap it.

And to readers of my Maria’s Guides eBooks, if this looks familiar, it should. I used it for the cover of one of my eBooks.

Buy on RedBubbleThe full-frame version of this photo is available for sale as cards and prints at RedBubble.com

Zen and the Art of Ikea Furniture Assembly

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I experience a Zen-like calm while assembling Scandinavian-designed shelves and cabinets.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating. But it certainly was pleasant — at least for a while.

Our storage shed at Howard Mesa was in desperate need of some shelves and mouse-proof cabinets.We needed the solution to be cheap.

In a fit of confusion, we’d gone to a Wal-Mart in Prescott and bought some crappy, Chinese-made modular shelves. Of course, we didn’t know they were crappy at the time. Although I hate Wal-Mart and hadn’t stepped foot inside one for more than two years, for some reason we thought we could find what we needed there. After all, Stan raves about the place. Maybe it had changed in two years. It hadn’t. (People say I’m too hard on Wal-Mart but I know I’m not.) And the “furniture” we bought was so poorly made that we brought back all the pieces we hadn’t assembled. We’re still trying to figure out what we’ll do with the three pieces we did put together.

Back to square one.

I was going to try Office Max when Mike suggested Ikea. There’s one down in Tempe, near Phoenix. I didn’t think they’d have what we wanted, but got online to check their catalog. That’s when I found the Träby series of cube-like shelves with optional doors and drawers. We went down to Ikea with the truck to see them in person. They were exactly what we were looking for. And — surprise, surprise — all the pieces we needed were in stock. I loaded up the cart, checked out, and loaded up the truck. Yesterday, at Howard Mesa, I began assembly.

If you’ve never assembled Ikea furniture, you really are missing out on an experience.

First, open the box in which the item’s pieces are packed. You’ll find the box completely filled in with furniture pieces, bag-wrapped hardware, and the minimum number of foam inserts. There’s no wasted space in that box. Since Träby had a natural wood finish, each piece was wrapped in clean, blank newsprint paper.

Now unwrap the hardware and sort it out. There will be pieces you’ve never seen before (unless you’ve assembled Ikea furniture in the past). You might want to sort out the furniture pieces, too. Each one will be slightly different and have tons of holes pre-drilled into it.

Open the instruction booklet. The whole thing is pictures. Line drawings of furniture pieces and hardware with arrows and numbers. In fact, it looks a lot like a coloring book before a kid has gotten to it with crayons. My favorite picture is the one of the man with the pointy nose on the phone; they phone wire is connected to the Ikea store. In words: Call us if you need help.

Next, get your tools ready. You’ll need a philips head screwdriver. That’s it. Okay, sometimes you might need a hammer, but if you do, the hammering job is so light that you can use the heel of your shoe or the handle of the screwdriver.

Now sit on the floor with everything around you. And follow the numbered pictures in the instruction booklet. You’ll screw in weird, tall screws that stick up an inch or more, then stand a panel on top of them and use round do-dads to hold it in place. It’ll be rock solid when you turn the round thing, as if there are ten more screws doing the job. Back panels slide into slots and are held in place with other slots.

What’s amazing about the assembly process is that everything is so incredibly well designed that the pieces can only go together one way. When you’re finished assembling a piece, you feel as if you have performed the final function in a long string of tasks that bring that piece of furniture into existence. You feel as if you’re part of the Ikea team. Like there are a bunch of Europeans nodding their approval at you from across the ocean.

I say Europeans because Ikea is a Scandinavian company and the Träby shelves I bought were made in Poland. The workmanship was quite impressive for such inexpensive furniture. And everything is designed right down to the last screw hole.

The cabinet doors went on just as easily. The only hard part was bending my body in such a way to get the screws into the right pre-drilled holes. The hinges had all kinds of adjustment screws, but I found that if I just used the center setting for each screw, the door hung properly — the first time, every time. Sheesh.

Things changed when it came time to do the drawers. I’d bought two sets of them. Each set had a big drawer and a small drawer. When I opened the box, I got a shock: the drawer insides were lavender. You know. The color. Popular around Easter.

I followed the instructions to assemble the drawers and found that the pieces fit together admirably well. But I hit a snag when I screwed the roller tracks into the cubes I’d already assembled. I kept stripping the screw heads before I could get the screw all the way in.

Now this was weird. I’d been screwing things in all afternoon and hadn’t changed my technique. I hadn’t stripped a single screw up until that point. Now I was stripping the heads on every single screw, unable to get them all the way in. What had changed?

I looked at the box the drawers had come in and saw my answer: Made in China. I guess Poland wasn’t cheap enough for the folks at Ikea headquarters. They’d outsourced to China, like everyone else. The Europeans who’d been nodding their approval were now snickering at me.

I got fed up and stopped only halfway finished with the job. I’ll need Mike to get two of the screws out so I can try again with a fresh set. I’ll go to the hardware store today and buy new screws. Hopefully, they won’t be made in China. Or, if they are, they’ll be made with slightly better quality metal.

Lessons to be learned here? Cheap is cheap for a reason. Even Ikea outsources to China. The best-designed furniture can still be rendered useless by poor-quality hardware.

Today I’ll put together the last shelf cube. With luck, I’ll get that same feeling I had yesterday at the end of all my successful assemblies. But when I feel those Europeans nodding their approval, I’ll ignore them.

As for the Träby shelves and cabinets — they look great and are rock solid.

[posted with ecto]

Ikea, furniture, Poland, China

At Howard Mesa

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I begin a short stay at our vacation place.

If you’ve been following these blogs at all, you might know that Mike and I bought 40 acres of “ranch land” north of Williams, AZ (south of the Grand Canyon) about six years ago. The “subdivision” — for lack of a better name — is called Howard Mesa Ranch. We’re on the east side of route 64, at the very top of the mesa. Our land is five miles from pavement, up a maze of partially maintained dirt roads, and is “off the grid,” meaning it has no utilities.

The idea, when we bought the place, was to build a small summer home up there, somewhere we could escape the heat of central Arizona, where daytime temperatures typically exceed 110° F in July and August. The reality was that it was extremely difficult — if not downright impossible — to get contractors to do work at our place. Heck, it took over a year for a contractor to put in our septic system. So although we might be able to get a mobile home hauled up to our lot and installed on jacks (like our next door neighbor did), it would be extremely tough to get a real builder to build us the tiny custom home we designed and had drawn up. To make matters worse, Mike’s work kept him tied to the office throughout the summer and we didn’t spend nearly as much time at Howard Mesa as we’d hoped to. So the building plans are on hold, at least for now.

In the meantime, we used the land to “camp” during the summer months. We have a horse trailer with living quarters (which is for sale, if anyone’s interested) and I lived in that two summers ago when I flew for Papillon at the Grand Canyon. Last summer, we brought the trailer back to Howard Mesa and I stayed there with Alex the Bird, Jack the Dog, and our two horses for over a month. We’d had a pre-constructed, portable shed brought up to the property to hold our camping gear so we wouldn’t have to tow a trailer back and forth. I spent the month making that usable, blogging, and getting little else done.

Now I’m back, at least for a few days, using the shed as my base camp.

I drove up yesterday with Alex, Jack, and the horses. It was a long drive made tolerable — if not interesting — by podcasts from NPR and Slate. I accumulate podcasts on my computer at the office and keep my iPod updated with them. Then, when I’m stuck in the car for a long period of time — like for a drive down to Phoenix — or sometimes when I’m flying alone, I listen to them. It’s a great way to catch up on what I’ve been missing and feed my brain.

The horses were happy to get out of the trailer after the 3-hour drive and immediately began grazing — there’s enough grass right now to sustain them. The first thing we did to the land after buying it was to fence it in so the horses could roam around. Oddly enough, although they have 40 acres to roam, they spend 95% of their time within sight of our camp. In fact, one of their favorite poop spots is about 50 feet from the shed. Never thought I’d have to fence them out.

(A little side note here. Our friends Matt and Elizabeth live full-time on the mesa, on the northwest side. The mesa is open range, meaning that cattle can — and apparently do — roam around, grazing. Recently, a herd of cattle invaded Matt and Elizabeth’s property, destroying their garden, drinking all the water out of their fish pond, and breaking their patio blocks. Unfortunately, the law in Arizona says that if you live on open range land and want the cows off your property, you have to fence them out. Last week, Matt and Elizabeth put in a fence to protect their home from the cows. Now I’m thinking about putting in a little fence to protect our camp from our own horses.)

It took me about an hour to settle in. Then I spent much of the day assembling some storage shelves and cabinets I’d brought up in the back of the truck. I had my iPod settled in the i-Fusion speaker do-dad I bought (and wrote about in this blog) a few months ago so I could listen to music while I worked. Outside was cooler than inside by about 10 degrees — not much air circulation in a shed, even if it does have six windows — so I’d step out periodically to feel the breeze.

The weather was constantly changing. Mostly overcast, I could see thunderstorms moving off in the distance.

One of the things I love about our place at Howard Mesa is the views. We’re on top of the mesa and can see the horizon in almost every direction. (From the second floor of the house we designed, we’ll be able to see the horizon in every direction.) It’s monsoon season now in Arizona and isolated thunderstorms roll through every afternoon. From our camp, I can see them moving through, sweeping across the flat, barren desert to the northwest or west or the mountainous terrain to the south and southeast. I can see storms when they approach and prepare for them before the sudden downpour. But sometimes those storms I see coming pass just to the north or south of me with just a drizzle for all my trouble.

Yesterday was like that: more action elsewhere and very little rain on our camp. Only one storm was fierce enough for me to close the door and lower the windows on the shed. And even then, it was just for ten or fifteen minutes. When the rain let up, I opened everything back up to let in the cool, moist air, heavy with the smell of the rain.

The other thing I love about our place up here is the solitude. Sure, there’s a house across the road, about 1/4 mile away. But that’s the only one I can see. And there’s hardly ever anyone there. It’s a big event when someone drives by. And the fence and gate — with its No Trespassing sign — keep out the occasional real estate investor who wanders up here, sent by a Realtor too lazy to show him the lot in person.

Sunset was a glorious thing, with the sun peeking out from behind thick clouds on the horizon, illuminating in silhouette the mesa I can see miles and miles away to the northwest. The rain was falling hard there and the sheets of rain glowed orange. To the east, the tops of the thunderheads shined puffy white. Then the sun dipped below the horizon, turning the cloud bottoms to the west gold, salmon, and violet.

I called it quits for the day, made my bed, and took a short shower. Water is precious here. We don’t have a well; hardly anyone does. The water table is far below the surface — much farther than most people can afford to drill. So we have water tanks — two of them — and normally pay someone to fill them up. I figure I have about 700 gallons of the 2,100 gallons total capacity. The horses drink 30-50 gallons (total) a day, depending on how hot it is. So we use water like the precious resource it is. That means a three-part shower — wet down, soap up, rinse off — with the water turned off for the middle part.

I made a cup of coffee and sat outside on the picnic table in my pajamas, watching the light show to the west. To the east, another thunderstorm was on the move, flashing white lightning to announce its arrival. Some coyotes howled. I heard an elk call. The horses were milling around in the corral, nibbling on some alfalfa I’d left out for them. I went in for the night.

Believe it or not, I watched an episode of Monk on my iPod. On a whim, I’d downloaded the two-part series pilot a few weeks ago. I set the iPod in the i-Fusion and settled down to watch it. The iPod’s battery made it through the 47-minute first part. And the tiny screen isn’t so bad when it’s just you watching it and it’s twelve inches from your face.

I slept terribly. Part of it must have been the coffee. I used to drink coffee all the time and it never kept me up. But now I usually have just one cup a day and rarely drink coffee before bed. And I’m getting old. I guess I’m going to have to buy some decaf.

The other part of it was the mice. The shed has a mouse problem. Every time we arrive after being away for a while, there are mouse droppings all over the place — that means I spend the first hour or so of every visit vacuuming and washing everything in sight. At night, when it’s really quiet, we could hear them inside the walls. One morning, one ran right past where we were sleeping. We’ve caught four of them in the past and I regularly leave rat poison around when we leave at the end of a weekend.

Last time we came, Mike brought an inverter and three mouse repellant noise makers. (The shed has a pair of solar panels and can generate DC power.) He set them up right before we left. When I got here yesterday, it was pretty much clean. Those silly things really do work. The one in our garage has kept it mouse-free for over two years. But I can’t stand the sound of them so I can’t keep them turned on when I’m around.

Anyway, I was worried that they were still in the walls and would walk over me while I was sleeping. So that kept me up.

And my neighbor’s light woke me up, too. Imagine a dark, moonless night in the middle of the desert, high on a mesa. The only lights are miles away in the distance. Then, suddenly, a bright light flicks on, piercing the night. It shines right into the window where you’re sleeping, right into your face. Of course you’re going to wake up. Especially if you weren’t fully asleep in the first place. I’m not sure why it went on, but it probably has a motion detector. An elk or coyote must have triggered it. It was on for about three minutes, then went off. The darkness closed in around me again.

I was sleeping quite soundly this morning when a noise outside woke me. I knew what it was without even looking. My horse, Cherokee, was trying to get at the bird food in Alex’s lucite travel box, which I’d left outside. I yelled out, “Cherokee!” and heard him walking away. But the damage was done. I was fully awake.

I made some coffee and came outside. It was still overcast, but obviously raining to the west. The sun was just below the horizon and, for the first time ever, I saw a red rainbow — the whole arc, stretching from northwest to southwest. As I watched, she sun rose and the rest of the colors filled in, crowding the red to the outside where it belonged.

Today I’ll finish my shelf assembly project. Then I’ll drive down to Williams for a visit to Java Cycle (my favorite coffee shop), where I’ll have a green tea smoothie (or whatever they call it), send this blog entry, and check my e-mail. I’ll hit the True Value hardware store and Safeway to pick up a few things on a list I’ve been keeping. Then I’ll drive back up to the mesa and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing.

Hopefully, it’ll be raining by then and I’ll be able to listen to the sound of the falling rain while I read.

[posted with ecto]

Crater Lake

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The country’s deepest lake.

Although misnamed — it’s in a caldera, not a crater — Crater Lake in Oregon is among the most beautiful sights in the country. It also holds the honor of being the deepest, at over 1900 feet deep.

image

I visited Crater Lake for the second time in August 2005 during my 16-day road trip. Although I didn’t really have a reason to make the drive up to the lake, it wasn’t far off my path and it was certainly worth the drive. I had the ingredients of a picnic lunch with me and enjoyed it in the shade not far from the path along the caldera’s rim. Then I took a short hike around the main visitor area, which was being renovated.

I’ve been to the lake twice and both times it looked exactly the same. Crystal-clear blue water with a smooth, glassy surface, surrounded by mountains studded with tall pine trees. The water reflects the color of the sky, which always seems to be clear deep blue.

There are two islands in the lake — this one is called Wizard Island and it rises over 700 feet above the water’s surface. It was impossible, with my camera, to get a photo of the entire lake because it’s quite large — five to six miles wide. This shot came out best of the ten of so photos I took.

You can learn more about Crater Lake at the National Park Service’s Crater Lake Web site. I do recommend seeing it in person, though. It’s quite a treat and not nearly as crowded in the summer as some of the other National Parks.

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