Learning a New Skill

After spending years developing a skill, you take for granted the ease with which tasks using that skill are accomplished. Even the very toughest tasks cease to be a question of “if?” or “how?”. After you have become really good at something, the only significant question left is, “how much time will it take me to complete it?”.

I have spent many years programming, and I would like to think I have gotten pretty good at it. I have practically forgotten what it is like to look at a compiler or linker error and have no idea what it means, or how to fix it. Breaking complicated problems down in to smaller, solvable chunks is now routine.

Let me contrast that with the immense amount of effort and pain involved when I am trying to move a single point in 3D space to an aesthetically pleasing position. Or, if I am being honest, to move that 3D point at all! “Why is it moving that way?” “I didn’t select that!” “Woah, now where did it go??”

I don’t think it is much of an exaggeration to say that it might take me less time to build some of these models for real than it takes for me to model them. However, I am seeing slow and steady improvement. And, with that improvement, I now present to you this anatomically-correct milk jug.