Re-Designing My Life — Writing, House, and Vehicle Projects

Home > About Mark > Creative Projects

Some of My Creative Projects

Most of my creative projects involved writing, houses, and vehicles—mostly bikes, and a few cars.
This page presents examples of each type of project:

My writing projects.
My house projects.

My vehicle projects.

This page briefly describes some of these projects, all of which involve inventiveness, which seems to be an underlying theme and perhaps one of my biggest passions.

Details of My Writing Projects

I first thought that I had a chance at being a professional author when my seventh-grade teacher read my first technical document (she made us write about "how to tie your shoes"). Even though it didn't impress the girl I had a crush on, it made me feel confident in my skills and hopeful that I could someday express my thoughts and feelings in books.

My second big experience in writing was when my 11^th grade english teacher, Sam Baseler, told us about journaling and gave us several assignments in his "Modern Problems" class. I loved being able to write about what was going in inside me, which I now know as "processing". I have benefited greatly from having this "inner observer" working for me (instead of against me, as it first tried to do as only an "inner critic"). By the way, when I started reading Bucky Fuller books last fall, I was reminded that Mr. Baseler had introduced us to a Bucky notion that specialization would weaken a species' ability to survive.

My third set of big experiences with writing was on term papers for several high school classes. I discovered that I liked to read and contemplate/analyze the writings of others, and to think about life in general. I like to learn, either from direct experiences or the experiences of others, and I like to write about my thoughts and feelings of these experiences. I love to process.

My fourth big group of experiences was in writing papers for science and engineering courses. I liked to write about the subjects more than I liked to do work in them, such as doing the lab work. For example, I spent as much time writing about the history of computers in my senior engineering design project report as I did in designing the microprocessor-based writing tool I'd chosen to develop. This love of writing didn't really dawn on me until I was in an engineering job and found myself enjoying writing more than designing and testing the circuits.

My first paid writing experience was when I wrote a chapter of a book about how a voltmeter works, for a product that never made it to market. I didn't care, because I had a great time researching the audiences' needs, organizing my thoughts, and then putting it all down on paper. One of my most prized accolades was from another writer, Stu, who said "Very impressive first effort. I hope you'll be in this group a long time." I was a technical writer for seven more years, and then managed other technical writers, then consulted with writers and their managers on documentation quality, then managed writers again, and finally wrote technical documents again for four more years... before I finally realized that I had spent way too much time writing about computer programming—an activity that I enjoyed tinkering with but didn't really have a passion for. I left the company, Hewlett-Packard, after 17 years of trying to make myself like detailed design. I'm much more of a big-picture person, as I learned from taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality inventory. Actually, its a way to determine your preferences for interacting with people, gathering information, making decisions, and then carrying out those decisions.

I also had some great writing experiences in the field of psychology and mental health. My first one, during my second year as an [unhappy] electrical engineering student, was when I was to pick out my favorite personality theorist(s) and explain why. It was the most enjoyable writing assignment I'd ever had, and I almost quit the engineering degree to switch to psychology. I did think that "I will like electronics much more once I start doing some real work, and get paid for it". What I didn't realize was that I would be doing the same things on the job as I did in my least favorite classes—circuit-design labs. I also didn't realize that money doesn't really help you to like the tasks involved in a job. As I said before, I'm a person who loves to make high-level designs, not detailed designs. For example, I did enjoy designing a power-supply circuit in a couple of hours one day, but I didn't enjoy spending months locating parts, and tweaking the design, and testing it under all sorts of horrible conditions. Bor--rrr--ring!

My next writing was also in the mental health field, for courses in my masters degree program. I loved these papers, for the most part, because they allowed me to figure out "how things work" (specifically "how people's minds work"). I was a counselor for a few years, and I enjoyed the experience... until I worked with three depressed, resistant clients at the same time (not in a group, but with three separate clients individually). I found myself becoming frustrated, because I've always wanted to look at world-wide problems, not at narrowly focused problems. I kept wanting to look at a client's problems and then try to generalize how his/her whole life was or was not working, and then re-design their entire thinking and living processes. I decided to take a bit of time off, and so I added enough rooms onto my house so that I could have enough rental income to pay my entire mortgage. Now I have the luxury of having time to direct my learning experiences using heartfelt intuition and inspiration.

I did some website authoring while in the high-tech company that I worked for 17 years. I did that part-time from 1992-1995. In 1996, I also created the first webpages for the CSU career center.

I wrote about 30 pages of a self-help book. I've not settled on a title, or even whether or not I'll finish it with the same intent as when I started it. It could be called something like Creating a Life You Really Want.

I also developed a simple website in 1999, which was a really helpful experience for me. I started out by thinking of how I could put my resume online, and then expanded that into a portfolio. After reading these two documents, I realized that someone else who reads them might want more information about my beliefs and related experiences. I found myself wanting also to share some of the excellent information I've found in the past few years about comprehensivism and constructivism, and then I realized that I love these two belief/thought systems because I have utilized them—albeit in less-refined forms. Now that someone has articulated them more completely, I can enjoy them even more.
This website (the one you're now perusing) has also been a very helpful experience for me. I wrote a lot about what I believe, what I've done in my life, and what I want to do in the future. I've also documented how I go about changing my life, which I call The Life Pyramid.
I've recently begun writing several articles about how one might improve individual lives as well as a few social institutions.

Details of My House Projects

I built my first "house" when I was six, with wood my Dad gave me from a nearby peach-crate factory. It was a two-story clubhouse, nailed to the back of our garage.

I built my second "house" when I was about nine. It was an underground dwelling, covered by 2x4s and cardboard.

My first "real" remodeling job was when I helped my dad add onto our house. (We added a covered patio and a recreation room, and then turned the patio into a dining room a year later.)

I've remodeled all eight of my own houses, in small or large ways:
1. My most recent house remodel (FC, 1992-2004):
  - Re-decorated (re-painted everything, inside and out; repaired roof & rain-gutters; re-drywalled or repaired plaster in 13 of 14 rooms; replaced shower tiles; replaced carpets with vinyl flooring, and tore up lots of carpet to refinish hardwood floors; replaced bathroom & kitchen cabinets).
  - Completed re-wiring of whole house (from six breakers to 21).
  - Added two bedrooms & a living room to the attic.
  - Turned the garage into a greenhouse, then a studio (with 3/4 bath & wet-bar).
  - Added a 3/4 bath to back entryway.
  - Added a mezzanine to the living room.
  - Lowered the side yard 24" (for existing garden-level apartment).
  - Re-fenced the back yard.
  - Built two bike sheds and a larger workshop shed.
  - Re-landscaped the entire property.
My newest building project is an ecologically friendly cabin on my 1/3-acre mountain property.

Details of My Wheeled-Vehicle Projects

I've loved "wheeling" as long as I can remember. I loved it so much that I kept riding my trike, my only wheeled-machine, even when one of the back wheels fell off. I learned to ride it on two wheels—only in counter-clockwise circles, unfortunately.

I later built some custom vehicles. The first I built by nailing my roller skates onto boards—my first "skateboard". The second I constructed out of slats and wooden boxes—"look at this cool spaceship, Mom!".

I was about nine, repairing my two-wheeled scooter one day, trying desperately to interest and teach my neighbor Frankie how to fix it and his bike, when I made a key discovery about myself. I wanted to open up a "fix-it" shop, and so I painted up a little sign that said "Mark and Frank's Fix It Shop". Then I climbed up my mailbox post and nailed it proudly to the top of that post. I was crushed when nobody came to me for help with fixing anything. I reasoned to myself that the neighbors were not very smart, because I wouldn't have even charged them any money to fix their things—unlike my entrepreneurial neighbor Robin, who was always painting rocks and peddling them to all the neighbors' parents.

I owned several bicycles, all of which I enjoyed taking apart, lubing up, and perhaps even modifying slightly. In junior high, I had a friend who had a 24-inch-wheel bike that we rode around in the dirt. I wanted to put gears on it, as well as fatter tires. (This was part of the inspiration of my first home-brew mountain bike, described in the following paragraph.)

Later, in 1978, I found myself wanting to build my own "dirt bike", and so searched bike shops for just the right parts. I located some BMX and ten-speed bike parts, and combined them into what was one of the first mountain bikes I'd ever seen. A salesman named Owen had watched me searching for parts, and must have felt compassion for me, because one day he snuck me into the back of the shop to show me his mountain bike. He'd special-ordered several parts from California, where guys like Gary Fisher were taking beach-cruiser and paper-boy bikes, putting derailleurs and cantilever brakes on them, and racing them down fire-access roads. Later he helped me locate more parts for my new creation. I was more thrilled with putting that bike together than I was with any circuit or software that I had designed or perhaps would ever design—at least in a manufacturing environment. I built up two more bikes from parts, and got almost as much satisfaction from those projects as from the first one.

My sons and I worked on a "mini-bike"

. We painted it, changed the scrub brake to a drum brake, and added a padded sissy bar.

We also modified a go-kart , which my Dad directed us to (after his death). This one is perhaps the biggest completed project yet.
I am currently working on designing and building a three-wheeled recumbent that is: lightweight; ultra-fat-tired for ice, sand, and mud; multi-geared for speed and efficiency; and just plain fun. I'm also putting together an electric-assisted bike. It doesn't get much funner than this.
Oh, yes, I've owned 22 cars, not nearly as much fun as my trike, bikes, or other human-powered vehicles: 1962 Corvair, 1965 Mustang, 1969 Fiat 124, 1972 Fiat Spyder, 1977 Audi Fox, 1981 Honda Civic, 1979 Volvo 145 Wagon, 1974 Toyota Pickup, 1972 Volvo 144, 1979 Dodge Van, 1972 Datsun 240Z, 1980 Saab 99, 1982 Aerostar van, 1983 Subaru Wagon, 1987 Jeep Cherokee, 1983 Toyota Pickup, 1984 Volvo Wagon, 1985 Mazda 626, 1989 Mazda 626, 1993 VW Passat, 1994 Dodge Spirit, 1996 Geo Metro (perhaps my all-time favorite, due to it's 50-mpg fuel-efficiency—oh, and also its superb elegance and stylishness).