Episode 7: The Big Circle

We love you Fran. As soon as I get paid tomorrow I'll be sending $20 your way. You got this and NEVER EVER GIVE UP!!

Hi Kendra, another of Fran's patrons here. Where are you, the Movieola, and the Magnasync located? If not too far, i'd be interested in helping you out. I'm in mid-Maryland, USA.

Interesting insights. You or someone else could still pursue a similar design. I am wondering, are you going to totally scrap what you have? Throw out the hardware and keep the research only? Keep everything? Your thoughts about your life are provoking. I am retired very early, also single, and spend my time trying to help people fight zoning and government (nuts, right?). It's draining. I ask myself, is this all there is? Am I doing all I should be to be a good person?

Sometimes you have to cut your loses and walk away. You can let a project consume you or let it go and live to fight another day and have a crack at other projects. I'm trying to complete a project that's been 3 years in the making, I am so close to market but I know there is still work to do. My problem is I have a demanding full time job and a wonderful partner that need my time, so when I'm doing everything myself (Software dev, PCB design, CNC programming, assembly, technical writing, testing, marketing, social media... ) there just isn't enough hours a week to get it over the line soon. The risk is I will either be beaten to market or simply not have it in me to complete the project, I have thought about this and my view is I am lucky that I can even embark on such a journey and my mental health and relationship is more important than a little box. For what its worth I believe you made the right decision, sure its a shame your DSKY didn't work out but I am looking forward to what is coming next in the world of Franlab.

You could have pulled it off if you had not been hit with a number of disasters (having to move, floods and unreliable services). And we all face similar issues at times. Business projects are canceled regularly and personal projects become obsolete (do you want a 16mm Movieola and 16mm Magnasync recorder - we have to move and they will be junked is no one wants them). Even people with money and time move on. This is not a failure - redirection perhaps. And you learn everytime.

Kendra Akin

Stay strong beautiful. Don't be too hard on yourself. ❤️

You put all that so eloquently I didn't know what to add. 9 years ago I'd joke that "I used to be pushing 40 and now I'm dragging it behind me." Pushing 50 seems like it's getting worse, like all the things you mentioned—deteriorating stamina, decreasing focus, forgetting skills, and less functional time each day. [Edit: paste carriage returns] I think the DSKY project is so unbearably frustrating because you didn't actually fail, just realized it was beyond your abilities right now. I mean, it's one thing when you complete something and it doesn't work (even if there's no way to get it to work without starting from scratch), but quite another to just have the project sputter out. I've got a ridiculous big project that is dead in the water because I have no way to finish it; there is no "next step" to take, and even if I could move forward, the insurmountable problems I already foresee make it not even worth it. Nonetheless, I did learn some new software and design techniques from it, but that's hardly rewarding.

Jason Olshefsky

Fran - You are not alone.

John N Nelson

Fran... Thanks for casting this. Moving is one of the most stressful things in modern human experience. You just went though a lot and it took a lot out of you. Give yourself a gift and schedule the worrying for next week. This week will be worry free. You need that.

nj Phil

I was thinking along similar lines. A project does not necessarily utterly succeed or fail depending on how it aligns with its original goal. A project like this one typically creates its benefits during its course, not at the end of it. It is a series of little successes and failures, thought trains, interactions with other people, moments of self confidence... and some of despair. All of these create a flow that is one thread in life. Your life. And... because you shared that thread, OUR LIFE. I would say that particular project is already a success. I am inclined to think it is a substantial part in the success of your patreon and gofundme operations. We can all relate to how these things work out in your life and we sympathize with you for it. You are not afraid to share with the world how real life works for you. Most of us are. If you would prefer to knit some sort of financial closure to it, you could pick one or two of the objects you created along the way for yourself and auction off the rest, instead of putting it in a box indefinitely. I could see myself bidding a fair amount of boring cash for an original Fran Blanche glass tile, you know, the girl who was so passionate about humanity's dream of going to the moon when she was young, that she decided to rebuild the whole hardware over again. The stuff that dreaming about dreams is made of.

Erik Broeders

Fran did you ever watch the documentary Plane Crazy where Bob Cringely tries and fails to design and build his own plane? He completed the project as an object lesson in enthusiasm versus cold hard reality but what I loved about the show was it's honesty in telling the story of a fatally flawed project and how he bounced back to complete the series by saying "Hey! This is OVER! but maybe I can kinda sorta still do something". Maybe you can still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat here and sign off the DSKY project in a similar way? Set time aside for a final "here is what I did and what I have learned". Bob had a series to finish and had pressures to produce SOMETHING or risk personal ruin so I can see his incentives were greater but I just wanted to mention it