I’ve been working on building styles and themes. Learning about fonts and typography and styles. Contemplating going back and getting a design degree. The more though I devote to going back the more I ask the question, why? What do I want to do with this degree that I can’t do on my own.

The answer is simple, there is a ton I want to learn about illustration and design. There is artwork I want to make. Ideas that I’d like to realize. The rub is that I don’t have to go to school to learn to make these things. I can start with the knowledge and abilities I currently have. I can learn the skills along the way.

This leads me to an area where I’ve been curious but never invested time, Color Theory. The goal for my learning here is to understand how to use color to convey emotion with my color choice in my designs. I think of one of my favorite illustrators, William Jennings, and how his art always has such contrasting vibrant colors. How does one pick colors for designs? This is the question I’m out to answer.

I’ve started by collecting a handful of books and starting to read them to learn about colors. I started painting earlier in the year and I’m hoping to come back to that and bring it forward as I create more art and explore the colors available to me.

So far, all I’ve really learned is about the color wheel. It’s funny, while I knew that blue and yellow made green, I hadn’t put together that blue and red made violet and red and yellow make orange. This is simple, obvious stuff I probably learned in college, but haven’t thought about it in years. The journey continues and I will tell you more about it as I learn.

Sailing has always been a part of my life. Before I was 12 my parents had me in sailing camp at the local public beach during the summers. Learning how to sail was something my father really wanted to pass on to his kids. He had learned to sail as a kid and wanted us to find the joy there. While all of the sons sailed at least a bit, I really got into it. So much so that even when I lived in CA, I would come home to RI and rent boats in the summer and go sailing.

Fast forward to last year when my parents purchased a sailboat in Newport, with plans of keeping it Florida in the winter and Newport in the summer. I asked if I could join the trip south, and my father acquiesced and got the Captain to say it was it was okay.

Last years trip was my first long, out in the water trip. I bought true fowl weather gear. It was a 12 day trip with stops in Cape May and Charlotte on our way to Aventura. The boat was new to the family and through the journey we had countless problems with the engine and systems on the boat. It was a very trying, yet fun experience.

The boat made it north in April or May and for various reasons I wasn’t on the journey up. But when my father asked if I wanted to go south again this year, I said yes and the quest for Florida was born anew. The captain was new to the family, but had been on the boat before. We honestly didn’t talk much before the trip. I figured we would get to hang out on the trip so why spend so much time on land chatting when we have a week+ on the boat to chat. Even with my level of loquaciousness, a week is a long time to be stuck in a small place with people. No reason to exhaust chat topics beforehand.

Many insurance companies have rules for larger boats about not heading south before November 1st for weather reasons. To this end, the trip was planned for November 1 departure. There were three official crew and myself for total of four sets of active hands. I hesitate to call myself crew because these guys were serious and I was just having the time of my life.

This years trip could not have been more different from last years trip in so many ways. For one, Brandon, this years captain, does not like stopping. Brandon likes to move when he’s on the water, no waiting. Stopping adds time, so Brandon intended to do as much of the trip as possible without stopping. Stopping for Brandon is when you need fuel and that is it.

Also to this end we used the motor almost the entire trip. We motor-sailed to reduce the overall pull on the fuel tanks and the engine. We had pretty favorable wind almost the whole way. Towards the end we had to cheat the wind a bit because we being driven close to the Florida shore, but the for the most part we had beam or broad reach wind almost ever day.

With the favorable weather and the intent and focus of the Captain we made incredible time. The only challenge was really our Auto Pilot that stopped working about a day and we had to the remaining six days by hand steering. Watches were 2 hour solo affairs, but because you were hand steering, it was very hard to fall asleep during your watch. Making about 200 miles a day we made it to Miami just over 6 days of sailing.

We made it in just in time too. Nicole, an incoming hurricane is supposed to make landfall on Thursday and we are heading home on Tuesday. Pretty darn perfect.

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So we are done for this year and it is time for my parents to move down to Florida. There is a chance I’ll visit, but not super likely. So with sailing done for the year it is time to work on my own boat and get it ready for next year when I might be able to take some more fun adventures.

I lived in Kentucky for a year when I was 16 years old. As I started to drink alcohol, around the age of 23, I started to learn that I had an affinity for a drink often know to hail from the region of the United States called Bourbon. Now, all whiskey is not bourbon, but all bourbon is whiskey. It’s a subclass of whiskey. I’ve heard several differentiations of what constitutes bourbon, from where it is made, to the ingredients to, and several others. The thing is, I don’t really care about that. What I care about is that it is a drink that I enjoy. I enjoy drinking it on the rocks. I know it waters it down the whiskey, but if it is how I like it, why is it wrong?

This is about a story, and I’m fine sharing it, because I don’t think anyone really reads my posts. A couple of years ago, some of my friends moved to California and for their move in, I brought over a bottle of Bourbon. I didn’t know which one to get, so I bought one called Blanton’s. It turned out that we really enjoyed the bottle. I’ve ordered it since, but haven’t really bought another bottle. That is, until the same friend said that she was having trouble finding a bottle for sale anywhere. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked past a bottle for sale at about $60.

That is why when my friend asked me to get her a bottle if I found it, I thought it was going to be an easy request to honor. Turns out not. I’ve been looking and haven’t seen a bottle. So I started to call around and see what I could find here in Rhode Island. I called 4 liquor stores that I thought might carry it, and none of them had it.

It turns out that over the past couple of years, bourbon has been becoming harder to get a hold of. Bottles that were in the fifty dollar price range have shot up a ton. I know this is my liquor of choice, not scotch, or rum. So I am committed to learning more about this drink. Yes, I kill it with ice. Yes, at this point I don’t really know what I’m talking about when it comes the drink. But there was a time when I didn’t know a thing about coffee either and now all my friends describe me as a coffee snob.

So I guess what I’m trying to say, is here to diving into yet another area to learn enough become a whiskey snob.

This is a the first in a new series of pet poetry, written in the voice of the pet in the picture. This was inspired by the book I Could Pee On This which I highly recommend for the humor value.

I see you there.
I’m sitting here
In my metal throne with arm rest
I suspect you are up to no good
I will find out what you are keeping from me
And when I know I will administer the required sentence
For I am the queen of this space I allow you to inhabit with me
Do not test me…

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Details: Cat’s name is Case, and he belongs to a friend of mine.

Recently United States launches its first astronauts into space since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. SpaceX and NASA just launched at 3:30 pm eastern on Saturday May 30, 2020.

DTBG is an abbreviation for Dare To Be Great.

I was first introduced to the acronym when I joined RelateIQ in 2014. It was our official company motto. We had signs up in the office to remind us to D.T.B.G. and the number of times I’ve uttered either the phrase or acronym is probably incalculable.

It was probably years after I started using the term that I began to understand the phrases origin story. It stems from a speech from President Theodore Roosevelt titled Citizenship in a Republic delivered at Sorbonne in Paris, August 23, 1910. The speech is long, and there is a key section that is called The Man in the Arena speech. Here is that section:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

This quote is at the start of Bernée Brown’s book Daring Greatly. Throughout the several hundred pages of her text (which I have listened to once and am in the process of re-reading), Bernée talks about the work that we as humans need to go through to actually dare greatly. She talks about shame and vulnerability and many stories and asides along the way. There is more to the book and more that I will write about once my thoughts have fully been collected, but using this quote caused me to look at it again.

Here’s the thing, I’ve been misunderstanding DTBG from the beginning. My understanding was that I shouldn’t just strive to do okay, but should strive for the highest honors and the greatest achievement. Going all out for everything at all times. Leave nothing behind.

After reading more of the speech and dissecting the the paragraph above I’ve come to a very different conclusion about this passage and the meaning of Daring To Be Great. Yes, Roosevelt was talking about achieving greatness, but the way to get there isn’t what I thought. There are going to be moments where swinging for the fences is the right thing to do, but more than taking a big swing, getting off the bench and swinging at all is the important thing. We have to try. It’s about the trying, win or lose. It doesn’t need to be about winning but playing the game.

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In the present time with so much going on, I’ve been stuck on how to contribute, how to stand up and play. Between the Black Lives Matter and Covid 19 crisis, I’ve felt extremely powerless. I don’t know what to do. Not knowing what to do has kept me in a place of sitting on the bench. A place of thought and criticism. I’m afraid to DTBG because I’m afraid of hurting or offending others. I’m afraid of standing up and taking time and space away from other voices that need to be heard.

But greatness isn’t achieved by those who sit by and read. By those who criticize others. Who judge one thing as the wrong thing to do be done and another as the right thing. The act of doing is the art of learning. I’m hoping to follow this motto that has been in life for over six years now, and I’m finally just beginning to understand.

Cover Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash