Hobos Of The Internet

Meet Hobo Flo. 

One day, she was an ordinary student, ready to live out her life. Until she received a text from her friend. Normally, this wouldn't be dramatic, but during the course of their conversation, they decided they should make a career change. 

They should rid themselves of their former identities, their former lives, and use their as-yet-undiscovered superpowers to don the identities of hobos. 

They are, Hobo Flo, Hobo Moe, and Hobo Zoe, Hobos Of The Internet. 

These are their stories. 

Yet Another Harp Update... with designs!

This has actually been a while in coming, however I've been very slow to update you guys on it.

I got most of my materials so far, just waiting on one last thing before we can really get started.

I also drew out what I want it to look like.

This is the soundboard.

yes, i know one side is bigger than the other, when it's supposed to be symettrical. I can't slice things in half freehand. I didn't have a template for that. 

This is the stringy thingy that I can't remember the name for.... I know it has a name, I just can't remember what. 

also, somehow, these pictures managed to turn themselves while getting sent here. it doesn't make sense. 

But those are my designs for my harp. We'll see how well they translate to wood, but we'll try our best. 

How to Prevent Your Child from Being a Children's Villan

Today, during my Sunday School lesson at church, my teacher asked us a question. He asked us to think about the best advice we've ever had from our parents was.

Naturally, at that moment, my mind went blank and I couldn't think of any advice.

Fortunately for me, the moment of blankness didn't last long, and I remembered some advice. And I can quite honestly say I know the best piece of advice my parents have given me so far in my life, and it is this.

Don't be them.

This has been reiterated to me in several different forms, from "do as I say, not as I do," to "you're supposed to be better than me," to "be yourself."

These usually come up when my mother and I are arguing (usually over something stupid) and I get mad at her logic, and point out that she has made the same mistakes I do. I point out that she's actually made some worse choices than I have.

My mother and I are very similar. We look alike, our tempers are similar, and to a certain extent we share the same tastes. This is both a good and bad thing.

My father and I are very similar. I share many physical features with him, and we share the same sense of humor and several personality traits and ways of thinking. We share a lot of the same tastes. This is also both a good and bad thing.

However, despite being a mold from taking random traits of my parents and smashing them together, I am not them. I am my own person. I am myself.

I listen to music both my father and mother abhor. I have talents they don't have. Going through school was a different experience for me than for either of them. I'm not my parents.

I don't want to make the same mistakes they did. That's why they went through life first. So they could mess up, and then they could tell me about it so I could make different mistakes and learn from them.

Parents, despite how much you want your children to be like you... they're not you.
This is a common mistake parents make, if Hollywood is to be believed. Parents don't understand their children. They shove on them their hopes, their dreams, making them do everything they didn't get the chance to do.

My mom never got to do choir during her school years. I've been in choir since the fourth grade, and she's mentioned at times how she regrets that she never got those same chances I did. However, her lack of ability to do that didn't force me into choir. All she did was teach my how to sing. What I did with that was my own business. I started choir because I wanted to, and I stayed because I fell in love with it.
When, after I graduated, I decided I didn't really want to do choir anymore, and I wouldn't take it in college, my mother was fully supportive of my idea. She too, during the choir experiences I went through, was probably burnt out. But she would have supported me no matter what. She wasn't going to make me continue choir so she could live vicariously through me, thereby not setting me up to be a Hollywood villan who's goal is to destroy all the choir teachers because my mother forced me to be in choir. Maybe she deprived me of getting the chance to be a corny villan, but I'm glad my mother has never forced me to do something I didn't want to do, especially because she didn't get to do it.

It's the same with my father. As I've mentioned, we share several tastes, especially in music. However, as I've gotten older, I've ventured out from his genres he likes to listen to, and found lots of several different kinds of music I like to listen to. And I listen to them with great gusto and lack of apology. When he hears me listening to it, he gives me funny looks and teases me, but since he does that to everyone, it's not like he's forcing me to listen to his music. As he would put it,
"I recognize that you're taste in music is sometimes different from mine. I also recognize that your taste is bad."

So, dear parents, you want to provide your children with such wonderful backstories that they have to reason to become villans for children's book and shows, let them be themselves.

Children, as much fun as being a villan might be, I'm sure you can find better motivation than that. Be yourself. You don't have to be just like your parents. Being different is a good thing. You can learn somethings your parents never even knew.

A Moment of Writer's Block... And The Solution (It's Not What You Think)

The other day I had this wonderful idea for a blog post. It would be witty, hilarious, and garner several laughs and compliments. Like several of my other wonderful ideas, it came at a time when I couldn't exactly stop everything and get on my computer to write it. In this case, it came while I was biking to work, so I couldn't even stop to write down my idea. 

However, I still remembered the idea when I got home from work, so I started writing the post. But after writing the first sentence.... I was stuck. And I had other things to do. So it got put off for a few days. 

When I finally got around to writing it again today, I discovered something. It wasn't quite as funny as I wanted it to be. It wasn't witty. It was boring and it didn't quite make sense. I couldn't write this post anymore. 

This made me very sad, because my idea showed so much hope and promise, and it was all quite true to life and happiness and rainbows and growing up. 

But my delivery would not have been very good, so I didn't write it, thereby sparing you. And me. 

It's a sad moment when a writer has to face the fact that their idea really doesn't work. However, trying to work through or around that idea can be even harder. Like how I'm trying to write this post right now. I feel like all my creativity has been depleted, since I couldn't come up with an answer for how to write the post I originally wanted to. 

This is also known as writer's block. Which really isn't very fun at all. My friend Amber is sitting next to me write now, trying to write the next chapter for our story, and she's having writer's block. We're both stuck, somewhere where we don't want to be, with not much of an idea of where we're going. 

I mean, we're both listening to the Piano Guys, and their super motivating music, and it's not helping us. 

Update: Amber decided that she should not work on our chapter at the moment until she gets her groove back and can write something that makes sense. She's writing a different story, and suddenly she turns to me and goes:

"I love how random questions come up in my story. Like, what diseases do sheep get?"

In a fit of brilliance, I start naming off ways sheep could get sick, and possible diseases they could get. I then ask her how on earth that came up in her story. She explains that some farmer's flock of sheep just had about half of them die. 

My response?

"Poison."

Immediately. I just assume poison. This is what happens to you when you become a writer. Unless maybe you write children's stories. I also start listing off other ways half a flock of sheep could suddenly die. I can't finish a simple blog post, but I can easily list, off the top of my head, with no research whatsoever, half a dozen or so ways to kill a large group of sheep. 

This is what sucks about writer's block. At this moment I can help solve everyone else's problems, but I cannot solve the problem of what to write about in a simple blog post. 

However, with this conversation, I was suddenly struck by a way to end this post. I would talk about this conversation and how sometimes the solution to writer's block sometimes comes in unexpected ways. 

So, if you're ever stuck with writer's block.....

Kill half a flock of sheep half a dozen ways. Maybe you'll figure out how to start that blog post. 

No sheep were harmed in the making of this blog post. 

If I Had the Words For Sorrow

If I had the words for sorrow,
I would write a lovely song.
And sing those words of sorrow
To try and right the wrong.

If I had the words for laughter,
I could tell a thousand jokes.
I'd make the world feel better
And lift up a little hope.

If I had the words for loving,
with all the kindness contained therein,
I would show the world how loving
people lets everyone win.

If I had the words...
I could do so many things.
But even without words,
My example can show everything.

I can cry the tears of sorrow,
And laugh with my dear friends.
I can cuddle with small children
Until the daylight ends.

So when the sun goes down,
And you have no words to say,
Don't worry.
Chances are they'll know anyway.

Just tell people that you love them
And live up to what you say.
Your children will adore you
Your friends will not betray.

And you will be the better
For while you do good,
You'll find the words you were looking for
To use and change the world.

Harp Update

This makes me really happy. If you can't read the photo, it's an email I received saying that my harp pieces have been shipped and shall arrive in 1-2 days.

1-2 days. DAYS. I'm super stoked. If I could come up with something witty to say about this, I would. But I don't know any harp jokes.

Do you? I know, like, one, but it's not very nice to the harp.

If you want to give me your harp jokes, I would greatly appreciate it.

My Eating Habits Are Determined By Colors

There is nothing quite like the experience of eating with a young child. One fundamental aspect of eating with any young child is the inevitable pickiness.

No, this does not refer to food pickiness, although that creates so much joy in feeding little kids.

I was referring to the fact that if there is any slight difference among the dishes that you use to eat, your young child will pick a favorite. If you don't give them their favorite dishes to eat off of, they will immediately pitch a screaming fit and refuse to eat off the rejected dishes. However, the person that has the favorite dish might find their food disappearing into the mouth of the young child. True story.

This malady is not merely limited to every single child in our family, however. No, it's limited to every single young child able to tell the difference between red and blue.

In order to resist the urge to give in to your young picky children, I have devised the following ways to get them to eat off the unwanted dishes anyway.

(Disclaimer: While most of these methods have been tested and used by yours truly, I cannot guarantee 100% success. I can't even guarantee any success.)


1) Give all your children assigned dishes for their own personal use. This will eliminate arguing between the children on who gets what dishes. Although one would note that if there is one group favorite among all the dishes you own, someone's feelings will get hurt. In that case, I would suggest that you hurt everyone's feelings and don't give the dish to anyone, possibly keeping it for your own use.

2) Get rid of all your dishes. Buy new ones, making sure they are all identical, and use those instead.

3) Tell them to suck it up, life isn't fair, and eat off the unwanted dishes anyway.

4) Lie to them. If they ask for a blue cup, tell them the green cup you are holding in your hand is blue. They won't know.

5) Gather all the children together. Tell them you are going to give them a lesson in letting go of material objects. Destroy the beloved dish in front of their young, innocent eyes. You may have to worry about them needing therapy later in life, but the lack of whining at the dinner table will be worth it.

There you are. Save some precious sanity. Prevent children from making your eating habits determined by colors.