Life Between 0 and 1

Inspired by Nerd in the Brain

Bring the happy!

Splatter Painting

I recently found a box of stuff that I had hand packed from my old house specifically for my office in the new house.  This is one of the items that I had fought to get, hang up, and of course keep.  My wife never really liked this painting, but it’s not the painting exactly that I identify with.  It’s that a 4th grade class created this painting with the intention of auctioning it off at a Spring event so they could donate to the local fire house.  I’ve been a fan of Jackson Pollock my entire life.  I also identified with the colors; red, white, and blue for this one.  It looks like black, but I can attest that it is actually blue.  Now that this painting, directly in front of my desk so I can appreciate it, is out of my wife’s sight and therefore, safe from the trash bin.

First State Quarters of the United States Collector’s Map (1999-2008)

This was a gift from my crazy Grandmother for Christmas in 1998.  She had some of the most, well, interesting gifts to give us as she was slowly declining into dementia.  I believe this was accompanied by a 2-year-old Claxton fruit cake and a set of mismatched dish towels.  Over the coming 9 years though, I managed to procure a quality quarter from each state and get it pushed into the map.  The last quarter prompted me to take it to a local art store and get it custom framed.  As with the splatter painting, my wife never wanted it to be hung up, so it stayed in its paper wrapper until recently, when I hung this in my office as well.  This is one of the handful of items that make me remember my Grandmother from a time when she could function normally.  Although it was difficult to see her slow decline to finally passing two years ago, this is still a happy thing for me as it makes me think of her when it was enjoyable to visit with her.

Office 2016 Black Theme

Now, for a tech geek theme happy thing, I’m in love with the Office 2016 black theme.  I’ve always, always, always loved dark themes.  I’ve had a dark theme of some sort since the days of Windows XP and now, I can make some of my applications dark as well.  The grey theme was adequate, but the White and Colorful themes for Office made my peepers hurt if I looked at it for more than a few minutes.  So, here’s to the “makes me happy” dark theme for Office, it’s not for everyone.  It is a lot easier to look at when its dark or dimly lit though.

Adding something new to each TTT post, I’m adding a weekly music recommendation that I discovered through Spotify at the bottom of my post.  We all love music even if we don’t always like to admit it.  Here is this weeks recommendation.

TTT Spotify Music Album Recommendation:  Divided We Fall by Flaw