Yowza! I haven’t written here in three months. Realizations like this feel so cliché. “Ohh, I haven’t written in a while, but I really want to, but I still don’t do it. Boo hoo hooooo.” So shut up and write, you ninny, or stop complaining! No one cares that you say you’re going to do something. They care when you do it.

I’m showing marked improvement in that area this year, and aim to become even better. I’m starting to get things done, hunker down and focus, and see things through. Sure, I still have ideas coming a mile a minute sometimes, but I can’t hope to realize them all. Instead, I’ll focus on the ones that grab me and make them shine.

2012 is the year of me. What are you doing with yours?

Some other random thoughts I’ll elaborate on later:

• Diablo 3 beta was incredibly underwhelming
• My new Creative T40 speakers rock
• I started dual-posting to Instagram (search for Mike Branski) and Flickr, and will continue with regular photos each week to reboot my interest in photography

Today, I got into my first accident.

I’ve been driving for 10 years, and have a spotless record, to boot. The worst I’ve done is get a single parking ticket in Madison when I stopped to pick up a study partner. That all changed today. I got done with work at my client’s office in Waukesha about half an hour after the snowfall really started to stick to the roads. I took things slow, took the freeway home, as I always do, and got off on Moorland Rd. Every stop along the way was just fine: you go a little slower, take your turns carefully, and start braking well before you need to.

When I came up to Cleveland Rd I made my way up the hill and into the right turn lane as I crested the top. Between the snow and coming up the hill, I was probably going 20-25 mph. I started to slow as I made my way to the light, when all of a sudden I wasn’t slowing down anymore and had a truck stopped at the light ahead of me.  I faithfully tried the brakes more when I realized there was no stopping. Although my speed had slowed, I could feel the wheels slipping across the surface of the road. The slush and snow being churned up by the cars had started to freeze, and I found myself right on top of it.

That was the worst feeling in the world, seeing the truck getting ever closer and not being able to do a thing about it. I slid across the slick surface at, I’m guessing, 5 mph, maybe 10, and bumped into the back of the Ford Super Duty pickup truck. The Cube jolted a bit with the impact, but the truck seemed pretty unfazed. He sat there for a moment, then turned onto the street we were both heading on, with me following. He turned right again into the entrance of a bank and business complex, and we got out, made sure we were both okay, and assessed the damage done.

The Cube faired a lot better than I was expecting. After all, I drive a box on wheels and just rear-ended a pickup truck. Fortunately, I think narrowly missed the trailer hitch jutting out from the truck’s end (we’re talking off by maybe three inches). Had it been the Cavalier a whole lot more of the front end would have wedged underneath the truck. The guy’s truck suffered some damage to the trailer brake light hookup next to the hitch, as well as some minor damage to the bumper.

I called the police, and an officer came out and asked each of us if we thought our vehicles sustained more than $1,000 in damage – apparently that’s the threshold for filing a report in Wisconsin. I, frankly, hadn’t a clue, but it certainly didn’t look like that much. The guy said something along the lines of “No, but I think it’s at least that,” to which the officer replied, “Well… you think it’s equal to or more than $1,000, or equal to or less than $1,000?” The guy thought it’d be at least that, then the officer was convinced as well, considering labor, so a report was filed. The officer remarked a few times how it’s alright and these things happen and made a comment about how the weather gets bad and “people forget how the brakes work.” I didn’t forget! He said they even had a squad car end up in the ditch.

We went back to our cars and each filled out a statement (which wasn’t as clear as it could’ve been at the time, perhaps), then the officer came over and said, “Obviously it was your fault,” and laughed (but not in a dickish way). I mean, I did rear-end the guy, ice or not. Then he let me know I’d be receiving a citation in the mail for $88 or $104, he wasn’t sure, but I’d be able to fight it. And fight it I will. I know I hit the truck, but I’m not sure I could have done anything differently given the conditions. I thought I was driving pretty safe, but maybe I could have stopped sooner. Or perhaps not. We’ll never know! I am thankfully it wasn’t worse than the (relatively minor) damage it was. On the way back I passed a van sitting on someone’s lawn with a tow truck nearby, then a few miles down three cars on one side of the road, and two more on the other. So, yeah, it could have been worse.

Once I got home I called up insurance, but the guy had already filed a claim 5 minutes earlier. He also told the insurance company his neck was stiff… Given the speed at impact, and how his truck didn’t seem to budge, I’m not sure about that. I know a lot of people do get stiff necks shortly after a collision, but all things taken into account it would seem unlikely, but maybe! Regardless, I do hope he is fine. An assessor is coming out tomorrow morning to check out the damages to the Cube, and I should be receiving my papers from the police station by next week. All in all I feel like crap: guilt, anger, frustration that it happened, but also thankful it was a minor as it was. Everything will get resolved in time, and I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. Just gotta make sure to take it slow, and realize that, sometimes, accidents do happen.

I also very much need something new. New work, new (and more) fun, less stress, and more focus. I’ve been in what might be my all-time-low; I’ve simply been dragging my feet with most things. I’ve been doing so much of the same thing for enough time now that I really need to break out of my mold and strike out on something new and exciting.

2012 will be the year of me, and I am going to take the chance of a lifetime. It’s time to do something great.

Sure, getting a stream of “Happy Birthday!!1!one” messages on your wall may make you feel important and liked, but, this just in: it doesn’t mean a damn thing. The only thing it’s indicative is that a bunch of what-could-be random strangers saw it was your birthday in their feed and took 6 seconds to tell you as much. Heck, Facebook even prompts you to do just that now. What? You don’t really know this person? Who cares! Wish them a happy birthday even though they could die in a fire tomorrow and you wouldn’t skip a beat!

So, to add fuel to the brightly burning fire of empty wishes, you have the ability to automate the entire damn, fake process. I think I’m going to start shifting my birthday around the week of my actual birthday. At least that way I know those who wish me a happy one are doing so because they really want to, and not because Facebook or some other social site is insisting on it.

Alas, if you’re on Facebook and see it’s someone’s birthday, at least make your birthday wish a little creative. Show them you took the time to give them a personalized greeting and put some thought into them on this day.

Couch-to-5K

I started this program last week Thursday, and did my second run on Saturday. Each week is broken up into three workouts, and I have my final one of the first week tomorrow. I don’t like running much, but I think that’s largely because I can’t do it for very long, and it’s not very fun when you’re no good at something. So, I’m tackling this plan to gradually build up my running endurance in incremental steps to see if I enjoy it more the better I get. If not? Well, hey, at least I can say I ran a 5k and can focus entirely on biking! Not a bad thing at all.

Yesterday

Although I thought it was going to be a lot higher, I actually came in decently under budget. A light breakfast and lunch helped offset snacking with friends later.

Today

No real workout today. I was on a photoshoot from 12:00-7:00, but there was a lot of driving to different locations in the car, and standing behind the lens, so I logged it as 1.5 hours of slow walking. I opted for salad with light dressing (instead of fries) at dinner because I knew we were going to get ice cream afterwards. I could have split mine with Mel, but I splurged and ate the whole thing (don’t worry, she got her own!). Oscar’s doesn’t have nutrition info online, so I cobbled it together based on estimated servings of the ingredients, and I think I made it slightly higher than it might have been, but I’d rather over estimate than under.

Today was the only day I went over my allotted calories, which I’m not happy about, but no exercise and an ice cream can do that. Plus, I do not think my lunch was entirely accurate: 180 calories for a serving of organic tofu from Noodles seems very high – there wasn’t all that much of it, but I could be wrong.

Weight

I went up .4 pounds from yesterday to today. Given that you fluctuate all the time, and I had a higher-calorie day, I was happy that it didn’t go up more. Just gotta make sure I stick with it and stay on track again for tomorrow. I think it’s okay to go over once in a while (but obviously aim to stay on track most of the time), as long as I don’t make a habit of it. Tomorrow Mel and I are packing our workout clothes and hitting the gym right after work. Here’s to week two.

What was the point of this? Really, for me it was a way of identifying a number of the things that have been floating around in my head. Some of them are abstract, such as “friends”, while others are more concrete (e.g., “language learning”). The goal was just to get most of them out of my head and on paper erm, the screen. There are other things, too, like home improvement projects, building out my bearded dragon’s enclosure, etc. Heck, I feel like I should add those in even as I’m writing them here, but I’ll leave it at this for now.

Reboot

Since I’ve been feeling burned out, and generally lost, I thought writing down a number of the things I’d like to do would help me identify them and form a clearer vision about how to achieve them. For the more abstract, such as “friends”, I can tackle it two ways. The first is by setting aside more time to get together with friends I don’t see nearly often enough. The second is by tying in other interests from my cloud above with my friends. For example, set up game nights and play Magic: The Gathering, or run a D&D campaign — which in turn would tie in writing!

I think it’s important to have goals and dreams and ideas – and I know many people would agree! But I think it’s also critical to be able to formulate some kind of idea for achieving them. Having them in your head is great, but it’s another thing entirely to put them into action and see them through.

Your Turn

Sit down and take a few minutes to jot down the ideas and goals you’ve had floating around in your head. It doesn’t matter how crazy or unachievable they may sound right now. On the flip side, no goal can be too small or unimportant seeming, either! Want to be able to run a mile? Put it down! What to be able to run 10? Fantastic! Want to simply get out and walk your dog more often? Go for it!

Don’t feel like you have to make it look nice or fancy. Grab a napkin and a marker if that’s all you have near you, and just start writing down your ideas. Once that’s done, sit back and take a look at everything you wrote down. What items are related? What ones are you already working toward? What would you like to achieve next, and how can you go about doing it? Pick a item and run with it. Heck, pick two or three if you feel like it! Just make sure you can see them through in whatever way you define. You may get part-way through one and decide it’s not for you. If that’s truly the case, then so be it! Drop it, take what you’ve learned, and move on to the next thing. But never stop dreaming. Push yourself to do new things and step out of your comfort zone Get out there and explore.

Here’s to the new you. Here’s to the future.

Left Right Designs

A few notes about Left Right Designs… I started LRD in 2005 during a semester of college as a creative outlet for my digital work; at the time this was exclusively for my web work. I was posting my photography to a different site, which in turn was different than my blog. Over the years I came to realize I never updated any of them because I didn’t always know where to put something. So, I merged my photography and blog into one, and let LRD die out over time.

Naming Conflict

Coming back to now, I recently decided I wanted to start selling my creative works online, starting with my photography and eventually branching out into things like graphic designs, illustrations, posters, t-shirts, etc. This left me with a conundrum. While I was previously doing my photography and sporadic freelance web development under my personal name, having a Facebook profile and artist page titled “Mike Branski” seemed a little weird. I also didn’t want to come across as that guy that thinks so highly of himself that he feels he needs his own fan page. At the same time, I didn’t want to be spamming my friends with stuff about my works for sale if they really didn’t want to hear about it.  So, today, the day the domain was set to expire, I renewed LeftRightDesigns.com and set it to redirect to my Facebook page.

What Does This Mean?

Well, it simply means I’m going to try to walk that line between personal and business life, but, my creative works are greatly influenced by, and are a reflection of, who I am as a person, so there can never be a hard separation. I’m going to talk about my stuff for sale through my personal avenues, and you’re going to see my personality and aspects of my life come through my creative pieces. Indeed, this is how I believe it should be.  So there’s going to be some crossover, and that may annoy some people, but it is what it is, and now you know why.

It also means I’m going to become more decisive, so allow me to introduce to you Mike D. Branski. Instead of fretting about where I should post something (personal or Left Right Designs), sometimes I’ll post to both, giving them different spins by relating them to the audience who will be viewing each. Or I might just post to one or the other. But what I don’t want is to not post something at all, like I did for so many years.

Enter Left Right Designs by Mike Branski. Sit down, get comfy, and enjoy the show.

Early Years

I’ve always had my fair share of chub. Even in grade school and into high school I was definitely overweight. Come sophomore or junior year in high school (it was May… can’t recall the year now), I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, it was many months before I knew that’s what I had. During that time I had practiclaly stopped eating most foods for fear of getting sick (that was my “O” in OCD). I ended up losing something like 60-70 pounds (unhealthily, I might add!) in that very short time. People would make comments without really knowing my situation, such as, “I wish I could lose weight like that!” No, you really don’t. Anyway, I had tons of support and help from my friends and family, learned what I had, and worked to beat it.

College Life

Over the years my weight came back up as I started eating much more sensibly again. Then I got lazy. Not lazy as in I never did anything; quite the opposite. I was incollege at the time, working at a retail store which included constant moving around and working in the warehouse with deliveries on a regular basis. I was getting a decent workout and feeling great! But I wasn’t watching what I was eating. Slowly I creeped back up and regained much of the remaining weight I had lost in high school as my body took in all the things I once again enjoyed.

Canada

After college I moved back home for a few years before falling in love with a French-Canadian and venturing up to our neighbors in the north. That is when my healthy transformation happened. I was eating less food, but not only that, I was eating healthier food. I found that people as a whole were generally more conscious and vocal about the foods they ate and health choices they made with regard to diet. It was great; I was eating plenty, losing weight, and loving it! I even continued this healthier lifestyle 10 months later when I moved back to Wisconsin. I sustained that for a couple of months, but then something changed.

New Job

Following my time in Canada, when I was completely self-employed, I picked up some contract work when I moved back to Wisconsin. In June of 2010 I started a new assignment, and that’s when things went downhill for me. You see, at this new place of work they provided free lunches. Every single day. It wasn’t terrible “cafeteria” food either. Oh no, this food was, by-and-large, quite edible. More than that, it was downright delicious on many counts! And so I ate. And I ate. And then I ate some more, until I had racked up a a sizable 15-20 pounds, putting me closer to – but thankfully still a bit off from – what I weighed just before moving to Canada. That said, I wasn’t happy about this recent change.

Enter Now

Ten months after starting this new contract, I’ve had enough. I can’t keep eating the way I’ve been and gaining weight like I am. It isn’t healthy and I’m not happy. So what am I doing about it? Recently I’ve checked out a few different calorie helpers and weight loss tool, mainly LiveStrong, Shape, and Lose It!. All three have their benefits and drawbacks, but I’ve finally settled on Lose It!, at least for the near future.

I’m still finding it challenging to resist the urge to grab an unhealthy snack, or opt for the healthier option for a meal, but I’m working on it. I’ve come to realize that, although you can lose weight just by altering your eating habbits, I need to mix exercise in with my dieting. This will not only help expediate my weight loss and allow me to splurge on higher calorie treats more often, but it will also help me tone my body and actually get it in shape and not just shed pounds.

And so here I am, weighing more than I’d like and not being in the shape I desire. I’m going to kickstart this weight loss and healthier eating lifestyle by heading to the Wisconsin Bike Expo Sale this week and hopefully ride out on a brand new bike. Bicycling is my favorite outdoor activity, and I’ve never had a truly nice (non-department store) bike. Now let’s just hope for some nice weather so I can put it to use!

To avoid overwhelming myself, I’m not going to try to do them all at once; that would seem just a bit silly. However, there’s no reason I can’t poke around with a couple of them simultaneously, so long as I’m actually progressing with one of them at any given time.

List of goals

• Become conversationally proficient in a foreign language
• Learn Blender for 3D modeling and animation, and bring my short story to life
• Build an application with Adobe Air
• Write an ebook
• Create an e-reader cover

Become conversationally proficient in a foreign language

I’ve begun learning French, and it will be the most practical for talking with my girlfriend’s family and friends. However, I’d also like to learn Japanese, or possibly some other Asian language.

Learn Blender for 3D modeling and animation, and bring my short story to life

I wrote a short, 10-page script in college that I want to model and animate. Blender seems like a good candidate because it can do everything I need (I think) and it is free. The biggest potential hurdle will be finding good resources for using the latest (currently beta) version, 2.5.

Build an application with Adobe Air

It would be cool to write cross-platform applications in Adobe Air 2.0, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for them, despite it’s potential. That said, a cross-platform novel writing app was always something I thought about creating.

Write an ebook

I really do like to write, but I often put it off or neglect to do it entirely. Perhaps I’m not meant to be a writer, but the thought of it always excites me. Is it the writing itself that I find enticing, or something else?

Create and sell an e-reader cover

Having received a 3rd generation Kindle not too long ago, I’m pretty disappointed with the lack of well-designed and useful cover offerings – and I’m definitely not alone. Sure, there are a lot of pretty nice ones out there, but none of them quite fit the bill for me and many other users. I have rough plans jotted down on paper for an initial Kindle version that I’d love to produce, and eventually offer it for other e-readers like the nook and tablets such as the iPad and Xoom.

Day Two - Big & Small

Both of my sources for this theme’s entry are from Flickr. We have small plant by baarah, and Sequoia Wonder, Big Trees State Park, California by moonjazz.

Brad’s entry was significantly different than mine, and I like how his turned out. He also did more creative work in Photoshop as far as image compositing and editing goes.

Brad - Day Two - Big & Small

Let me take this moment to deviate from the topic at hand and say that I am thoroughly confused by WordPress’ image library tools. I just want to upload an image, provide a thumbnail of a dynamic size (so, have WordPress generate a custom thumbnail size), and have a click-through to the full-size image if I so choose. This has to be possible – I have a feeling I’m just missing something. Since this is the first I’ve really used it in a long time – we’re talking years – I think that’s a safe bet.