Creativity Week is almost here — three days away, in fact. I’m excited. So excited I find myself thinking of creative things and having to reign in that creative spark, saving it for next week [can a person bottle-up creativity? is it safe to do so?]. But can I overcome my tendencies toward procrastination and pull off a full, action-packed week of creativity? Stay tuned . . .

Motivation is admittedly elusive in my day to day life. I tend to have many hobbies — many, many things I love to do [and so little time]. More often than not, I end up getting nothing done. So, I am a little concerned about Creativity Week.

However. The show must go on. Creativity Week will be a success.

Motivation. One of my main goals for Creativity Week is to get an insight into the processes involved in motivation. That’s really my main reason for establishing this whole creativity week thing: self analysis. If I were more motivated, I would be unstoppable in whatever I wanted to do with my life. That is a fact. [luckily, I would only use my powers for good]

There is a point, however, when motivation, creativity, and procrastination are just empty words — what counts is action. Get up and do something.

“Do or do not . . . there is no try.” -Yoda

Creativity Week: Feb. 26th - Mar. 4th — what are you planning to do?

It’s not a very . . . creative title, I’ll give you that, and the only references I found with Google were elementary school projects [you know, paper-mache masks, sculptures, et cetera]. But this is what I had in mind: a week of creativity overload, multiple instances of creative projects throughout each day of one particular week, documented on this blog as the week progresses. Original? Maybe not [those elementary schools beat me to it, for one], but it sure sounded like a good idea.

Now, I know many when confronted with a creative task throw up their hands in defeat before giving it a try — forgive the mockery, “…ooooh, I’m not a creative person…” — I just thought I’d invite you to join me in giving this creativity-week-thing a try. What can you do, you ask? I’ll tell you:

• post a comment below: I need ideas [you know, creative ideas -- lots!]
• prepare yourself for creativity week — get any supplies you might need ahead of time
• have some way of documenting your creative projects during the week — this can be a simple log of events on paper
• if you’d like to share, email me a brief run-through and any photos you took — I’ll post them here along with my own report

That’s it. Oh, and I need to decide on a week . . . next week — there! So, February 26th through March 4th [my birthday] will be my Creativity Week. Okay, I’ve got a week to prepare for this so I’ll really need your help. Please post a comment below, giving me ideas on some creative things I could do and, of course, encouragement — it’s gonna be a long week.

Several years ago I built this very computer on which I’m typing. Since then I built one for my mother and one for my brother and assisted my cousin in building his own. I’ve tinkered with three or four older models around the house, trading parts and trying different operating systems, never satisfied with leaving “well enough” alone in regards to computers. So all of this I’ve disclosed as background information to my present dilemma: I’m itching to upgrade once again.

I’ve thought it all out — a four-phase roll out plan, each stage following the next in logical order, the first phase being the most expensive but offering the greatest increase in performance [a triple bypass operation concerning the motherboard, ram and cpu].

So here I am, the situation clear: I need a goal to reach, something just lofty enough to warrent a phase-one reward [that's all I ask]. For the reward is waiting; it cannot be ignored for long. The reward is waiting.

It’s February, six months after Hurricane Katrina came through, devastating the gulf coast and overwhelming the levees of New Orleans. My wife and I were among the lucky ones; our house and pets were unharmed, and life has returned to normal. But storms leave scars and Bogalusa is no exception. We still have two large oak trees down in our yard and the vacant lot next to our house [pictured below] is a maze of fallen, tangled trees.

Around Bogalusa: fallen trees and automobile-sized rootballs can still be seen along the roadsides; traffic is held up occassionally by tree removal workers; Bellsouth vans are still actively fixing phone lines around town. Some folk are still waiting for insurance checks and many have still not recovered emotionally.

Mostly, life goes on. [I have internet again, as of last month, so I'm happy]