We did it! We hit the 100 mark! 

Thanks to you, amper­sand fan & loy­al sub­scriber, Amper­Art #100, Mile­stones & Goals, is the one-​hundredth issue of an Amper­Art poster, for which my goal has been one per month since this project began in June, 2011. 

I have issued, with­out fail, one Amper­Art piece per month (even if it meant stretch­ing the month to the last hour in a remote time zone that had­n’t yet reached mid­night, such as Bak­er Island & How­land Island, tiny out­ly­ing islands of the US).

Until now.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Iron­i­cal­ly, I missed the dead­line on this mile­stone achieve­ment, the one-​hundredth cre­ation of Amper­Art, Mile­stones & Goals. This was to be issued dur­ing April, 2017. It nev­er made it. 

Why? Because I could not come up with an appro­pri­ate title for the theme of “one hun­dred.” Should be easy, right? A big, impor­tant num­ber like that?

On the oth­er hand, I’ve had #101 in the works for months. That one’s easy: black spots all over a white back­ground, allud­ing to one of my favorite movies of all time, espe­cial­ly for the snap­py pencil-​drawn styl­ized effect — and the first to use the Xerox process for ani­ma­tion which gave it that dis­tinc­tive style.

Isn’t 100 supposed to be an important number?

A title for #101 is easy. But #100? I fig­ured there would have been a sur­plus of phras­es, idioms, themes, ideas that allude to the num­ber 100. But Google was prac­ti­cal­ly dry. There’s the 100th Anniver­sary stone, the dia­mond. And the anniver­sary col­or, pur­ple (not my favorite col­or; can’t use that). There are plen­ty of news sto­ries about 100k marathons. But noth­ing all that sig­nif­i­cant about the num­ber 100 itself. I thought & thought & thought, but just could not come up with anything. 

April 30, 2017 came & went, and the string of one Amper­Art per month was bro­ken. Fran­ti­cal­ly, I tried to think of oth­er titles to cel­e­brate the 100th issue: Grin & Bear It, Dead­lines & Quo­tas (that would­n’t do — I missed the dead­line), Day Late & Dol­lar Short, Slow & Steady, Con­grat­u­late & Celebrate…on & on. 

Final­ly, I had to rely on the philoso­phies of Live & Let Live as well as Patience & Deter­mi­na­tion; just let it go until I come up with the appro­pri­ate title. I’ll issue two pieces in May.

Finally, a milestone

Yes­ter­day I hit on the word “mile­stone” and real­ized that would make a nice title. Not about the num­ber 100, but about an impor­tant mile­stone. So, what to pair that up with? Mile­stones & Achieve­ments? Mile­stones & Dead­lines? (After all, it was each month­ly dead­line that kept me on track to achieve this mile­stone, even though in the course of most projects & busi­ness teach­ings it’s the mile­stones that lead to meet­ing the deadline.)

I had Mile­stones & Dead­lines all set to go, when I came across the phrase “goals & mile­stones.” That sounds sweet­er to most peo­ple than “dead­lines.” And it’s real­ly what I am try­ing to accom­plish: my goal is to keep churn­ing out one Amper­Art per month (okay, on aver­age) until I’m dead. So, I guess “dead­line” would be mean­ing­ful after­all, but I chose to rewrite the title as “Mile­stones & Goals.” (Goals & Mile­stones makes more sense, but it sounds weird & looks weird­er.) Final­ly, here’s the April 2017 Amper­Art, #100 Mile­stones & Goals…in May.

Our little secret

I feel defeat­ed about miss­ing the dead­line on such a mile­stone piece, and I hate to be dis­hon­est. So here’s the deal: You, my dear Amper­Fans, are privy to the truth. But between you & me, no one else has to know that I blew it. It’s just eas­i­er to con­tin­ue boast­ing “I’ve issued one edi­tion per month since the very first” than con­fess­ing “I’ve issued one edi­tion per month since the very first except I missed the dead­line for the one-​hundredth which was such a mile­stone piece I feel like a worth­less piece of crap.” Or maybe I’ll just admit I’m human. We’ll see how it goes.

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