Nebraska (How do you know when you're done?)

 Nebraska?    from Planetaria Obscura - August 2016 Issue

Having three different doors, offices, projectors, configurations, dome surfaces, chair groups, music systems, roof coverings.  I thought of it romantically but practically - why did people stop in Nebraska when they could’ve continued on to Colorado during the great western expansion?  Why did they go THAT far when Ohio was good enough.  I think maybe we go as far as we can go with something until we convince ourselves this is far enough.  Or we drop in exhaustion. This land will make a THE farm.  Others keep going till they run out of land, some never left where they were born.  Some change things over time and never settle. I just changed them till I couldn’t change them any more. And one day in Nebraska, I thought - this is far enough.  It feels right.  People love Nebraska. Some of them must.  I now love my physical planetarium.  I’m home here in Omaha.  Or is this Lincoln?  WHERE’S THE WALMART??  Oh ok.   I felt lost there for a minute….   Home is where the stars are. 

Lets Get Physical

 Lets Get Physical        From Planetaria Obscura - August 2016 Issue

Physical, I want to get physical - lemme here your building talk.  Your building talk.   I’m halfway there!  I still don’t love what I DO in the building, the shows or lack thereof, but I’ve finally built my stage. Why is that important?  Well for one, I may have to take it on the road.  If we do sell our farm in 10 years due to creeping senility, I can reconstruct this somewhere else.  I don’t want another one in some garage some where. I want THIS ONE in some garage somewhere.  It took me many many years to get this one.  I think I could dismantle most of it and move it.   Sort of like when people retire and downsize.  My parents left it all behind and bought totally new furniture.  My wife’s parents brought the same furniture to their new retirement home and set up sort of the same rooms in a new house.  I actually prefer that approach.   I’ve become somewhat obsessed with PORTABLE, after spending 30 years here thinking, feet first, only way I’m coming out of here is feet first.  Actually, everywhere you go is feet first I finally decided (unless you have a really big nose), and those feet were made for walking!  And that might be just what they’ll do.  Maybe not.   Gotta live one day at a time. But planning for 65, or 70, or 80 years of age, you begin to envision that time when the next owner says, well after we knock all that down, we’ll plant tomatoes back here.  Like I should have done maybe. But by then, if I left, and its not decided but it might happen, by then I would have set it all up in some other garage or barn.  Because it was permanent but portable.  Don’t build anything you cant put wheels on.  Or grow tomatoes in.