I'm back...
Well, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since I last posted. And while some things were most excellent, others were not quite so good. Work stress boiled over in February, so I took a month's leave to try to gain some perspective.


Essentially I burned out big time, owing mostly to the continuation of the project from hell. It was originally supposed to end in September, but that was unrealistic, so the deadline was shifted to October, then November... you can see a pattern here. By December I was assigned to new projects, but the project from hell still demanded the lion's share of my attention. This was a big problem, because the new work was being put off, causing it to be near or past due when I started on it. By the end of January everything was overdue and there was still no real sign of an end to the project from hell. Major stress set in, and quality of what work I was producing started to take a nose dive. By February I was delivering complete crap (not my usual style) that was badly behind schedule. Everything started to fall apart, my work, my home and social life.

The one real shining light through all of this was Rachel--and what's worse, she has had her own major stresses throughout this time. (Her mother got out of the hospital, but was not fully recovered and has since returned with pneumonia, and the work load at her job has kept her working late nights since January.) I have no doubt added to her stress, and have not been there to help her as much as I should like to.

So, I finally decided to seek professional help. I have been seeing a psychologist for nearly two months now, and took the entire month of March off to try and gain some perspective. I highly recommend seeking help for anyone who needs it and not debating about it or putting it off... I had originally thought of asking for a referral back in the fall, before everything fell apart.

While I can't claim that I have sorted everything out yet, I have been able to get a lot of mental gunk up towards the surface so I can at least begin to work through it.

Some of the realizations that I have had include: recognizing that I'm far more motivated by doing a job well and getting good results than by financial compensation, realizing that I have a tendency to hold on far too tightly to things (including projects at work) when I should be less attached, and letting myself get upset by things over which I have no control. These are coupled with a tendency to get easily distracted and to loose focus at critical times. Not an easy mix to cope with.

I returned to work on April fool's day (no particular significance there) and have been back working on the project from hell--but I have not had direct contact with our business partners, which seems to make things easier--and we are finally winding the thing up (more than six months past our rescheduled due date).

I'm not out of the woods yet, but I am feeling a lot better than I was in February and I'm continuing to see my psychologist, which seems to be going well enough.


While I was off I finally took a blacksmithing course. Only one day (split into two half days) it was really good to be able to pound on some metal again. I realize just how soft and weak I am, I had a monster blister on my thumb and the muscles in my right arm had turned to jelly half way through my fist day.


I had been trying to get a weekend course with a blacksmith out in Westport, Ontario (Highland Forge) but nothing has yet materialized, so I started to poke around locally for supplies and equipment and decided to look up local smiths to see whether they would give me some pointers. That's when I happened upon Michael Kinghorn across the river in Wakefield, Quebec. Turns out that he offers classes in smithing, so a deal was quickly struck.

I got an exposure to drawing and tapering, as well as rounding and twisting. For my final project I made a set of garden stakes with coiled tops, rounded and tapered ends and twists. Three of the four coils look really good (the first one Michael did to demonstrate, and the next two which I did under his supervision--the final one I did by myself and it is a little shabby). All in all it was a good first step. Sometimes you only need a little push to get started, and this has certainly whetted my appetite.

Since that first taste, I have been collecting all of the tools and equipment to set up my own forge at my father's place (it's not very practical to heat metal to several hundred degrees and pound on it in you backyard when you live in the middle of the suburbs). I have nearly everything that I need--including an old Buffalo forge that a friend of my father has graciously donated and a 224 lb anvil that is in excellent shape. Now I'm waiting for the weather to improve enough for my dad's backyard to dry up (it's currently a swamp) so I can get going. I have been studying a couple of books: New Edge of the Anvil by Jack Andrews, and The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander G. Weygers. Both of these have helped with the theoretical side of things, but all I want to do is pound, pound, pound until I have mastered the basics, and then I want to begin to develop ideas starting from quite simple and getting as complex as my ability allows.


In other news, my good friend Colin and his lovely wife (I was best man at their wedding five or so years ago) gave birth to a happy, wriggling, little boy by the name of Alexander around three weeks ago. He is super cute, and has very large feet (he will probably make an excellent swimmer if the proportions stay the same as he grow up).

Speaking of things doing with water, I am trying to get back my enthusiasm for diving, but the cruddy weather keeps sacking my will to get wet. I had originally thought of hitting the water by the beginning of April, but now I might wait until mid may.

Rachel is off to Le Cordon Bleu school here in Ottawa for a short course (4 Saturdays) on Chocolate. Mmmmmmmm.... She is incredibly talented in the kitchen and enjoys cooking a lot. I hope she is having a good time there.

I must now run out and do some shopping.

Cheers,
Sean.