Course change

It has become clear that an ability to arrange words in an order that conforms to the rules of a language (in this case English) with clever and meaningful usage, proper spelling, more-or-less proper punctuation (there's so much debate, there really is), and appropriate grammar is not considered a valuable skill. At least not unto itself. It seems this ability must needs be coupled with some other skill, and in these cases it has been my experience that the writing skill is such a distant second that the light from the star that is the first skill will take several decades to reach the planet that is the writing skill. That's a pretty long way to go to say "a distant second," but I like that it's a geeky way to go.

To that end I have decided it is time to again delve into intensive learning, and this blog will be the record of the devlopment of whatever new skills I choose to learn. Among my choices are members of the Adobe suite to develop graphic arts skills; HTML and CSS to develop my hand-coding website skills (for the brainbottle.com site I rely on a blog-type interface that is provided by Yahoo); or C++ to develop a series of apps that I have in mind, acting as a springboard into 3ds Max or Autodesk Maya.

What I have learned from my blacksmithing self-training, though is a handful of useful lessons. Given the amount of time I have to devote to an avocation, I can be good at one thing (forging metal) in exchage for being less good at some things (working with wood for handles and scabbards) which leads to being utterly useless at other things (casting metals). So whichever of the above I choose I expect I will encounter a similar best/better/good/poor hierarchy of skills.

I already have some experience with HTML so that makes the HTML/CSS project an early favorite. And I have enjoyed the projects I've done with photoshop, making the Adobe suite clearly in the running. I did not enjoy the c+ programming I had to do in college, but apps are written in a c++ cousin.

At any rate, whatever I decide will be logged here for posterity. Brainbottle will continue to be my online portfolio for all projects that are fit for the web, and I expect there will be a little tangential crossover with my blacksmithing site as I develop the pages and graphics thereon.