2019 started with high hopes for diving back into EPUB development. I put huge amounts of time into redesigning my EPUB books to be able to have their text on a separate layer, so different translations could be done, and to allow the artwork to be user-selectable between finished, sketch, and thumbnail versions.
Weeks were spent trying to get the image outputting from InDesign to work correctly, and I had more or less cracked it, and knew theoretically how it would all be achieved.
Unfortunately, updates to Apple’s books platform broke the core functionality I relied upon, and all my books on the Apple Books store are now broken.
My uncle, Travor Ashton, a wonderfully generous man, sadly passed away.
I entered a major outdoor sculpture festival, and put a bunch of work in to applying for a grant to cover training costs to refresh my welding skills.
Unfortunately, my grant application was unsuccessful, and the sculpture, once repaired, displayed some significant structural weaknesses when exposed to driving wind, that meant i would be unable to install it at the event, so I had to pull out.
I had a new residency project, Noosa Mnemonic – a VR recreation of Noosa, based on people recreating in VR, places they love in Noosa, working only from memory. The goal was to have all the separate places added together into a single VR environment. I created a really interesting new VR location, and arranged for other artists to contribute locations.
Unfortunately, by the end of the year, it seemed to have become moribund, lacking for funding, and a reduced scope that makes the vision more of less moot. After breaking myself on the previous year’s major project for the Drone Racing course, I resolved to be less emotionally invested in this project, so C’est la vie.
I did some more VR outreach projects for the Library Makerspace – I really wonder if I’ve missed my true calling, because I love doing public outreach events.
My bike was serviced, and I was able to get back into riding periodically. It’s good for my mental health. The bike works better now than it ever had since new. I bought a helmet-mounted action-cam, and took to videotaping all my rides, so as to protect myself from incompetent drivers.
We sold my late father’s house, and dissolved his estate. It was finally over. I find myself on occasion missing him, missing that ability to have someone to talk to, who was largely removed from my life, but towards the end, there wasn’t much left to say. His ideas and opinions had been so poisoned by the right-wing internet, that in the end, I was left with very little in the way of happy memories about him.
I started investigating drop-shipping my photo prints as I dipped a toe into Instagram, but then Instagram changed the ability to see metrics of user interaction with posts, and it became yet another platform that one has to question if it’s worth the effort.
More upgrades and updated to my 10 year old Mac Pro tower. it’s such a dependable tank of a machine, frankensteined to hell as it is.
Toward the last third of the year, gearing up for internatonal travel to Japan, gained a sense of urgency, and I designed and had fabricated a set of camera mounting plates to let me better mount my camera on a backpack, while remaining connected to my sling-strap. The design was a pretty amazing success.
Then, I was in Japan, and three of the happiest weeks of my life. Magical country, and I wish I could live in a country mountain town, with the constant sound of running water. The cities weren’t so much my thing, but I could spend months travelling around on local trains, seeing the little farming communities.
Once I came back, there was a lot of lost time – administrative things, medical things – I saw The Sisters Of Mercy play live – a lifelong ambiton, and they were “meh”.
The year ended sitting on inflatable pool chairs with friends, drinking margaritas in the pool, watching Return of The Living Dead on a projector I’d rigged up to screen onto the side of the building.
It was a year of highs and lows, but then aren’t they all?