{"id":1011,"date":"2021-06-05T08:02:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T18:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2021-06-05T08:05:17","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T18:05:17","slug":"creative-slump-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/05\/creative-slump-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative Slump Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>So I&#8217;ll admit I have been very sporadic with posts due in no small part to COVID, but also because I&#8217;ve felt like I haven&#8217;t really had much to share that&#8217;s meaningful. I always feel weird just yammering on about my day since that&#8217;s pretty boring and wouldn&#8217;t really help anyone who is looking for ideas, tools or a sounding board for their depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here I am in the uncomfortably humid weather trying to determine what I could put out there. There was a time I felt more artistic and enjoyed being able to express myself behind the lens through photography. These days my &#8216;shooting&#8217; is with gunpowder and there&#8217;s definitely no art there (Though I am intrigued by people who use gunpowder to burn art onto surfaces). With the weather being as hot as it has been this summer (and even now in Oct) I&#8217;ve also found myself struggling to find fun baking ideas. I suppose I could try my hand again at chilled desserts too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Motivation is always a challenge with depression and this season has been especially rough for me. Ammo prices are a little ridiculous so I can&#8217;t target-shoot as I&#8217;d like. Weather is painfully still hot and humid, so baking is a no-go. That leaves me with every little. I have managed to find one slightly more affordable hobby. Being an IT person by trade I finally bit the bullet and starting playing with Raspberry Pi&#8217;s. Not food pie, but a small ARM based micro-computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"1013\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/05\/creative-slump-time\/fde4077a-6b3c-4763-8802-fde402af8a0d\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?fit=938%2C938&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"938,938\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?fit=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?fit=840%2C840&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?resize=426%2C426&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1013\" width=\"426\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?w=938&amp;ssl=1 938w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/FDE4077A-6B3C-4763-8802-FDE402AF8A0D.jpg?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 426px) 85vw, 426px\" \/><figcaption>Raspberry Pi 4, 4GB model in a passive cooling case<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It may seem weird to think of a micro computer as being a fun outlet but it&#8217;s allowed me to dabble in server work, a little bit of light programming in a very small and fun package. The accessory market for these devices is almost ridiculously broad and there&#8217;s plenty of projects. If you&#8217;re a parent, the options for DIY with your kids is also something I found really interesting. While I may not creatively be able to express myself; especially with external factors being what they are; I can still enjoy trying to battle back against depression and the strong urge to just be idle and get back into bad-habits by trying to expand my skillset. If tech isn&#8217;t your thing, try simple crafts or something to at least scratch a creative itch. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;ll admit I have been very sporadic with posts due in no small part to COVID, but also because I&#8217;ve felt like I haven&#8217;t really had much to share that&#8217;s meaningful. I always feel weird just yammering on about my day since that&#8217;s pretty boring and wouldn&#8217;t really help anyone who is looking for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/05\/creative-slump-time\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Creative Slump Time&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-slice","category-depression","category-projects"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PG4O-gj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1014,"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vraxx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}