In the Absence of Something Substantial

Sister Liz's Quinoa & Cream Zucchini Soup

2012-01-12T23:28:00.000-08:00

Alright Sis! I promised, and here it is! Sorry it took so long:

Ingredients:
1 Medium Onion
1 Large (or 2 Medium) Zucchini
1 Boneless Chicken Breast
Bacon
Chicken Stock
White Wine
Half & Half
Quinoa
Rosemary, Bay Leaf, Salt, Pepper, (Unsalted) Butter, Olive Oil
Plantains, Cooking Oil

Prepare the quinoa, and set in the fridge to cool to about room temperature.

Take half of your zucchini, and dice into small pieces. Dice the onion, and put both the diced zucchini and onion into a sautee pan with some butter. Cook over medium heat until onion becomes translucent. Add approx 3/4 cup white wine and 3/4 cup chicken stock to the pan, and bring to a boil. Add rosemary, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Continue to simmer until the sauce reduces to about 50% of it's original volume.

Meanwhile, cut the rest of your zucchini into 3/4" discs, and wrap in uncooked bacon. Place into a pan, and put in the oven at about 350 until the bacon is cooked. If possible, the zucchini rounds should be raised so they are not cooking directly in the bacon drippings. Remove from the oven when finished, and set aside.

In a second (large) sautee pan, add a small amount of olive oil. Salt & pepper the chicken breast, and cook in the sautee pan over medium/medium-high heat. It's okay if the chicken sticks to the pan a little bit (we will be deglazing the pan in a little while).

Once the white wine/chicken stock sauce has reduced to 50% volume, remove from heat. (remove and discard any rosemary sprigs or bay leaves) Add to a blender, food processor, or immersion blender, and blend until smooth. The mixture shouldn't be too thick. If necessary, add additional chicken stock and/or white wine to thin the sauce. Set aside.

Once the chicken has finished cooking, remove from heat and set aside to rest. After the chicken has rested for 3ish minutes, you may cut it into slices.

In the pan you cooked the chicken, add the sauce from the blender. using a wooden spoon or spatula, scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any of those delicious chicken scrapings. Add half & half to the pan, mix with your spoonula, and allow to reduce (stirring regularly) to aboug 66% volume. Or desired consistency.

You have cooked all of the parts! Now it's just presentation!

Form a ball of quinoa, and place in the middle of a wide bowl. place your zucchini/bacon rounds and chicken slices around the quinoa. Garnish (if you feel fancy) with a sprig of rosemary. Pour the cream zucchini into a small bowl or mug, and serve alongside. When you are ready to eat, you pour the cream zucchini soup over the quinoa bowl and enjoy!

Because quinoa reminds me of Peru, I prepared fried plantains to serve alongside. (Easy, plantain bananas cut into slices and fried in a pan of peanut oil. Remove from oil, dry, and salt).

Enjoy! If you have any questions, let me know!

Brad, your Black Bean soup is next!

You did notice the part of the title that says "Absence," right?

2011-12-19T23:20:00.001-08:00

Maybe six of the best paragraphs i've ever written, the beginning of a short little fairy tale i'd like to finish someday...

It was a dark and stormy night, except that it wasn't. In fact, it was not stormy and hardly dark at all, a fact which made it exceptionally difficult to be night, unless the place of our story were nearest the north pole during summerstime. It's not. It is, actually, noplace more simple than Kansas, or less simple for that matter, being Kansas itself. Though this hardly may seem the location for such an extraordinary tale, it may be that we place too much emphasis on the extra and not quite enough on the ordinary. As any good storyteller will explain, the value of a story lays in the revelation that something believed to be quite ordinary was alltogether all along quite extraordinary.

This is why the story could hardly be about me, for i am extraordinary, at least partially so. Retired. This story, as most all stories are, is about a boy and a girl. A (not-so) ordinary boy and a simply extraordinary girl who was simply all wrong in life.

Perhaps it was a switching at birth (these things happen quite often in fairy tales, you know) or maybe her mother ate a bad fruit and suffered a mild indigestion on the wrong morning, but for whatever reason, the girl, whom we shall affectionately know as Mellie (who's actual name was Melody but her friends being simple on account of them being children felt that was too many syllables to pronounce), was born and grew up not quite in step with everything else. Either one-half step ahead, or one-part step behind, it was a clumsy method of growing up for an already awkward girl.

But as is the case with so many awkward young girls, Mellie (who believed it was only a matter of time before her friends grew weary of saying as many as two syllables in her name) grew up into a decidedly less awkward young lady, and at age 16 proved to be rather extraordinary. This was quite apparent to all of the men and boys who spoke with her and noticed their IQ's dropping, their stutters increasing, and their eyes shifting much less subtlety than they believed between their shoes and places they should not be glancing.

Also, like so many awkward young boys, our hero—who was called Jay by his friends (of which he had a very few), his enemies (which consisted entirely of a small group of bullies who rather liked pushing Jay into puddles of mud), and those who rather rarely thought much of him anyway (truth be told, a category which most people, up to and including his parents, teachers, and most unfortunately nearly every girl ever)—grew up into a decidedly more awkward young man, and proved at the age of 16 that it was possible to be more awkward than Jay had been at age 10—something to which there had been a great debate concerning feasibility, probability, likelihoodability, and a great deal of other words which may or may not have ended in “-ility.” It is very difficult, you must understand, to form one's own identity when your name contains no more than one simple letter, and not a very popular or exciting letter at that.

At an age when girls and boys think less about kissing and more about mud pies, it became entirely commonplace for an already awkward girl to spend her afternoons running and playing with an equally awkward young boy. And so it was that Mellie seemed strangely immune to Jay's awkward growing up, having been privy to it all along. He was, in so far as she was concerned, a tag-a-long little brother or a harmless puppy. This was not the case with Jay, who was increasingly aware that his own awkwardness grew exponentially according to his proximity with the decidedly less awkward Mellie, and struggled valiantly and hopelessly to keep his eyes from shifting away from his feet to places they probably should not be glancing.

Music of the Day

Eisley, The Valley (it may or may not be true that I once asked one of the Eisley girls to marry me. I think she ignored me, which was probably one of the smarter things she's done in her life)

Reading Assignment of the Moment

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (I don't know why I thought of this comparison--actually, I do, and if you ask, I'll tell you--but Tarzan would kick Batman's ass any day of the week, and then he'd ask for seconds)

A (Brief) Review of Four Books I Read in the Last Month

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: I read it. It was a book, about a man, a man who did things, true things.
Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller: It was a book, about a man, by a man, a man who did things, things he said he did, things he probably made up.
In The Garden of Beasts by Eric Larsen: There were Nazis (I hate Nazis) in this book. There really wasn't a plot. It was a biography, or a history, or a history of a biography. There were politics, spies, a little violence, a bit of sex, one Chevrolet, and an auspicious amount of Nazis. Also, true.
The Drowning Pool by Ross MacDonald: Also, a book. No Nazis, but there were gangsters. Also, violence, sex, and a couple of segues that combined scenes that made me think it was originally 3 completely different stories amalgamated into one. Not as good as The Moving Target, also by MacDonald, which was good. Untrue, from start to finish. Unlikely to read more MacDonald for a little while.

Are you still reading? Shush. Go away, and do something valuable with your time! I'll let you know when I'm back.

Whistling for the Choir

2011-11-03T23:20:00.000-07:00

I really hate how sitting in traffic, doing nothing but flipping between mediocre radio stations, is simply exhausting work. I can't imagine doing it every day. It was difficult to scour up the desire (or the countenance in the absense of desire) to venture to the gym tonight when i got home. But I did. I did Krav on Monday, and Wednesday, and the gym today. I'll hit the trail or something for about 6 miles on Saturday. Maybe a short run on sunday too. We'll see. I may be doubting that. I didn't do my distance run last saturday, but that's because I hiked up Mission Peak with Jesse. It was still 6 miles, and half of that was a 2000 foot ascent. The other half, then, must've been a 2000 foot descent. I always forget just how much going down can be as taxing. Ascending is more physically challenging. Going down, more mentally challenging. in fact, i recall from my treks through the Andes Mountains of Peru that I preferred going up. Well, except for Dead Woman's Pass. There's very little activity you can do at 13,400 foot altitude that's enjoyable; except enjoy scenery and sitting down. Thankfully these two things may be accomplished at the same time.

It seems that today may be picture day. Woohoo! Let's go with that theme!

oooh, I guess that means I owe Nick a picture, since he requested a girl in a bikini...so...here you are! Rita Hayworth! Maybe not what you expected, but there's something to be said for the classics. Me, I love a bikini as much as they next guy, but how often do you see a disco ball with a fedora? That was some quality action. But for something equally incredible, and just about as improbable as me dating a hollywood starlet, a penny, when dropped, lands perfectly on it's side. True story. You can't make this stuff up.

So, Soup Challenge. I know I've been quiet on the soup front, but it's not for lack of activity. Liz, your Quinoa and Zucchini soup is nearly ready--I just need to fine tune the quantities. Brad, my first attempt at your black bean soup failed, but I'm not giving up! I still have an idea and a plan to go on it! All hope is not lost, though! I am prepared to share some potato soup success!

Potato Soups are a dime a dozen, and most of them are quite delicious. My mom made the world's simplest potato soup when we were growing up, and I'll be quite honest, I liked it then and I still like it now. But for Brad's Challenge Potato Soup, I decided to approach the soup more or less like a fully loaded baked potato. So here you go...

I'm not one for quantities, usually, so you can adjust things as you need it.

Start by cooking up bacon. I recommend cooking it to a nice and crispy state, but you can do it however you like it. For delicious soup, you can save the bacon grease. For healthy soup, you may discard. Chop up some red potatoes into 8ths or 12ths (depending on the size of the potato, you want healthly bite-sized pieces). It's important to use red potatoes (or gold ones) rather than your standard Idaho bakers, because the red and gold potatoes will retain their shape without dissolving into mashed potatoes. Dice up one onion. Add the potato pieces and diced onion to the bacon (and the grease, if you saved it. If you did not, splash some EVOO over it, thank you Rachael Ray). Cook these over medium to low heat for awhile with a little bit of salt. You don't have to cook them very much, you're just trying to work the flavors together a little bit. After you've let them cook for a bit (10-ish minutes), add chicken stock (for a soup that will thicken more upon standing, use chicken broth instead). This is the liquid base of your soup, so add enough to submerge everything pretty well (save just a very little bit, 1/8 to 1/4 cup, for a little bit later). Bring to a boil, and simmer for 20-30 minutes (until potatoes are tender). In a seperate bowl, mix together the chicken stock you set aside with some sour cream and about 1/8 cup instant mash potato flakes. Slowly add this mixture to the soup, stirring as you go. You may now add even more instant mash potato flakes the soup, as much or as little as you would like. The more you add, the thicker the soup will be. Let cook for another 10 or so minutes.

Your soup is now ready to serve. Serve topped with grated cheese of your choice, and chives.

Last, then, but not least:

Music of the Day:

The Fratellis, Costello Music (let's be honest, boys and girls, I had another album by the Fratellis before this one, but the cover certainly helped inspire me to pick up this one)

Remember, Remember, the First of November...

2011-11-01T22:48:00.000-07:00

I don't think that's how it goes! But i should say, if you are not otherwise disposed, you might want to watch V for Vendetta on November 5 (or, if you're a comic book snob, you could [re-]read the original comic). Because Guy Fawkes may or may not have been the man. That's for you to decide.

Also, if you're planning to switch banks, that's sort of useless. I used to work for a bank. they're all evil. Don't get me started. I have an entire anti-bank rant, but I'll save that for a day that's other than this one. But in the meantime, faults or not, i will continue to keep my accounts with megabank Chase. They seem to have something of mine that would be very difficult to conduct commerce in the US of A without. Money. Mine. Which they have.

It's been weighing on my mind a lot lately that I've completely slacked. I mean, I wrote a few words last last Monday, but that was like a decade ago. Relatively. I mean, if you were moving at relativistic speeds, it may have been an actual decade for me and a few days for you. Which, I suppose, any speed is a relativistic speed, the question is whether or not the distortion is perceptible.

And, for your viewing pleasure, a discoball with a fedora:
I'm not going to bore you down with the details of things I've done since we last spoke (or since you last listened to me spoke), but I will talk briefly of running (which I do a lot, I suppose).

Some days you go running, and it sucks. And then you finish, and it sucks even more because you realise your pace was slower than normal and it still sucked. But then there are days, like last Thursday when i was running at the gym, when you seem to glide over the ground and you're done and it's this big sort of surprise because you keep waiting for that part of it that sucks, the part which doesn't show up. Love those days. My current goal is a sub-24 minute 5k, a perfectly reasonable goal, and I'm pretty sure i'll be there soon enough.

Also, weighed in at the gym at 196 lbs. Ladies and Germs, that's the lightest I've been since high school. This is not news to those of you who read my facebook. i was really excited. I still am. I'm also paranoid that when I go back next time it will go up. Without adding any further muscle weight, i think i've still got another 10-ish pounds of which i want to get rid.

So I guess NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writer's Month) started today. I'm not participating. Not that I have anything against it, I just know that i would not complete the goal. Fall behind a little bit would be just the excuse i needed to quit. I can't do that, I've slowed down too much as it is.

That being said, I wrote a little bit tonight. i've lost the romance. I guess the novel-writing honeymoon period is over. right now it's sort of that time where you're not really sure you want to do it anymore but you kinda have to or just quit and since you can't right quit yet you sludge through it because you have to figure a little drugery will pay off when you get excited about it again. I hope I didn't waste all my excitement in the months planning before i actually started writing. I'd imagine if I start reading an excellent novel, it will inspire me further.

So, that being said, this is my to-read list (in no particular order):

If you can't see, that's:
In the Garden of Beasts; Unbroken; The Perfect Mile; Trouble is My Business; Bel Canto; Hondo; Tarzan of the Apes; The Goodbye Loook; From the Prairies to Peru--and Beyond; Black Dahlia; Double Indemnity; The Ivory Grin; Middlesex; Blue Monday; Good Morning Blues; 2666

Not included are the 4 books scattered in my life I'm currently (re)reading:
The Drowning Pool; Born to Run; Goin' to Kansas City; The Savage Detectives

Slightly overwhelming, to say the least. How do i get myself into this sort of thing?

So, with all of that, I'll leave you on All Saints Day with this one last bit...

Music of the Day

See you tomorrow? That's the idea. We'll see.

The Best Part About Mondays: they only happen Once a Week!

2011-10-24T21:45:00.001-07:00

I feel like I'm apologizing more about not writing posts than actually writing posts these days. Life gets busy--you all know what that's like--and you make decisions, which may or may not be good ones. Sometimes the decisions you make are to take the free tickets to the Foo Fighters concert in Oakland and run with it. There's very few times in my life I would consider that a bad decision.

Funny thing is, I've had more concert tickets than albums for the Foo Fighters (3 vs 2). That's not a knock on their albums--I've always been a fan. Dave Grohl is a great songwriter. Great musician. Really catchy songs, and that means a lot in my book (not my actual book, the one i'm writing, but my metaphorical one, the one about me, that biography written in a car, or something). But for all that he is on tape, he's all that, a bag of chips, and a snickerdoodle live. By far one of the best live shows I've ever seen. Like Garth Brooks good. He knows how to work a crowd. He always goes out and gives 100%. It's almost like he's having fun! go figure! And when he's having fun, he doesn't see any reason to stop. 3 hours later...hoo. Also, any concert that involves dueling guitar solos is all right in my book (that's the same book we already talked about).

What else have I done since we last talked:

Gym (less sore than last time. Excellent.)
Krav Maga
6.5 mile run. It's not supposed to be in the 80's, hot and sunny in late october! Also, alternate route taken home included a lot more hills than expected.
Caught up on Eureka. Good thing too: I hardly have enough time to watch all the shows I want now, and the Walking Dead just came back on...
Got lost in ridiculous bumper-to-bumper traffic in Oakland...on a saturday afternoon
Got pulled over by a cop; apparently i have a tail light out. Ticket. Suck.
Played two church services deep in the hood of Oakland for the 54th anniversary of the American Indian Baptist Church of Oakland (one service--saturday--was all bad; the other--sunday--all good)
Managed to not get shot wearing my bright red Chiefs jersey deep in the heart (hood) of the Raider Nation ("...beyond doubt the sleaziest and rudest and most sinister mob of thugs and wackos ever assembled..." not my quote) on gameday. You laugh, because this is sort of a joke. But it sort of isn't. Ok, kinda really isn't. Across the street was a candlelight memorial for someone who wasn't as lucky as I was the other day.
Enjoyed one of the best 3 1/2 hours of football in a long time (Go Chiefs!)
Researched recipes on how to prepare crow. Not for me. For thee of little faith.
Interior decoration
one book (The Perfect Mile) from Half Price books, and two (Unbroken and In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin) from Amazon
three cds (Jazz of the 20's Greatest Hits, Louis Armstrong Greatest hits, and Swinging the Blues 1930-1939 from Count Basie) from Half Price Books.
and, finally, today, decided to write a few words in my novel. This chapter isn't hard, but I'm having a hard time motivating myself. I've lost momentum, and I've gotta get back go writing regularly

Music of the Day:

Skin and Bones by the Foo Fighters

Joke of the Day:

A woman had two sons. One ran away to join the circus; the other became vice president. Neither was heard from again.

That's all i've got. Don't knock it. Something>nothing

The Unbelievable Soreness of Scones

2011-10-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since we visited, now hasn't it? I feel like last wednesday was so long ago, so many days. like it was all the way last week. Crazy that. Did you miss me? You should practice more; your aim is off.

in the meantime, i have been busy. and lazy. In alternating altercations. Which is sort of how I like to live my life.

I went to the gym on thursday after work and started my new(ish) routine. I figure I'll follow this pattern until the end of november, and then I'll go back to more full time distance running for december and january (in case i decide to run the SF half marathon again in the beginning of Feb). So i figure this is what I'll do: Mondays & Wednesdays I'll do Krav Maga, as I have been. Thursdays I'll go into the gym. i'll start with running a fast mile (for me fast) on the treadmill, and slowly increase the distance on that until i hit the 5k distance at the end of November. the idea behind this is not necessarily to improve my distance pace (although I can't imagine it hurting), but to be able to run a sub 24 minute 5k. Right now on my average everyday runs, I run a 27, 28 minute 5k. But anyways, after the (fast) mile, I'll go in the back and work on some weights and exercises specifically aimed to supplement my Krav classes--I want to go into the 1st level test in december and rock the two-ish hour warm up routine. Last Thursday i did pullups (3 sets of 8), decline situps with a 25 pound weight (3x8), power cleans (3x5 but that will increase), and then more decline situps (3 times to failure) with jabs. I'll probably be adding or switching pushups & pushups with jabs, and maybe some planking. But after all that, i finished up with another mile on the treadmill to cool down. Slow this time. I say slow, but what i really mean is at my current average ideal distance pace (9-9:15 minute miles).

All that for thursdays? Depending on what's going on, I'll add workouts on one or both saturday & sunday. I'll do a distance run (6-8 miles) on one of the days, and if i decide to add the second workout i'll make my way back to the gym for a similar routine to thursday. I ran 6+ miles saturday. For reasons listed below, I didn't do anything sunday...

it's been a long time since I did any weights or such. I'm pretty sure i couldn't move my arms or lift them above my shoulders on friday. or saturday. sunday was better, and it took until today to be just fine. i'll be honest. it was on the intense side of sore; it hurt like ache ee double-hockey-stick.

I took saturday & sunday to relax, play some guitar, and cook some breakfasts. My two favorie things about saturdays: being able to put on a second pot of coffee if i feel like it, and taking the time to cook breakfast. i have this recipe (ok, it's a mix, in a box, that you add water to) I mix up (by adding some vanilla and peanut butter) for these cakes. These cakes are incredible. you wouldn't believe it...you can make them in a PAN. I call them pancakes. it's brilliant. it'll revolutionize breakfasts everywhere. And some days I make them with sausage, or bacon. let's be honest. I could be making paper mache and adding bacon would make it a wonderful breakfast.

I went to Krav today, made some soup (try #2 liz, I'll let you know how it comes out!), and worked on chapter 5. The detective's story is easy. I love it. I mean, it's probably my favorite and it's the core story that the other two were built around. well, that's sort of misleading; the two other stories are completely independent, but they were cooked up in my brain long after the detective's story. I've had that one percolating for on two years now.

But other things of importance: it has been brought to my attention that october may or may not be Velociraptor Attack Awareness Month. Which seems sort of surprising to me, on account of halloween (or more ominously, la Día de los Muertos). I'd figure we should be planning for a zombie apocalypse. Don't kid yourself--it could happen, but then again, maybe not. Maybe velociraptors are the viable threat. either way, you outta know your exits. It's just good sense.

This all from a man who keeps a wooden stake in his bedroom. Just in case. I'd rather have one and not need it then need one and not have it. I'm just sayin.

I saw eggnog at the grocery store the other day. Clearly some higher power is looking out for me. Apple cider season at the same time as egg nog season? This must be what heaven is like, beveragely. Or, it is yet another sign of the apocalypse.

Without further delay...

Soundtrack for Today:

Back to the Alley, the Best of the Stray Cats

Activities for the Day:

Avoid being choked from the side--extended arm and close range
Begin Chapter 5
Soupy experiments (details tomorrow, hopefully!)
Read some of Going to Kansas City
Read some of the Drowning Pool
Read the first chapter of Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister (as research/refresher for the Detective's Story)

Picture of the Day:

The Bryant Building in downtown Kansas City, where my detective has his office. Most all of the locations in my novel are historically accurate (except for the main night club, which is historically based but a few details have been changed to suit the story)

King Kong Lives!

2011-10-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

I think I finished chapter 4! 1000 words came out tonight. Where did that come from? I don't know, it just sort of worked it's way out. Finally found it's footing and settled into a nice little groove. I'm sure, someday many moons from now, I'll revise and expand it, but in the meantime I'll take it and run with it! The first full (real) chapter of the Detective's Story is next! It's the one i've been waiting for now.

I've made it sort of a habit to put a short excerpt from the chapter up upon completion...so here you go...

"Some days was harder than other days, 'specially after Meryl started singin with the boys too. When I was at the DeLuxe, I could just spend my days at the club. I wasn't much, and I wasn't expected much so it was easy enough to be around, be learnin, listenin, singin. But at the Study, it was more big time. These were the boys who would be playin' on the radio shows, drawin' crowds when they was sittin in somewhere else. Gal like me wasn't expected to be nobody, was supposed to be takin care of herself. Or at least have a sweetheart; I guess I was too young to know it wasn't enough of a life to just sit around and wait for the next gig. Wouldn't be till after I got out to New York, playin at Minton's I sort of figured that out. Sometimes you get all caught up in dreamin and tryin' to live in that dream that you sorta forget, kinda miss all what's goin on."

Self defense advise from Krav Maga today: "What's the best defense against a knife? A gun!"

So I kinda figured that today I'd step out and do something a little different. An artist is nothing more than the sum of their influences, and I figured I'd talk briefly about a number of movies that i love. But not just any movies, movies that are little-known (either due to lack of success or just being indie movies or whatnot) that I believe are excellent.

And so, without adieu...

Once (view the trailer here)

Mikey recently posted that he thinks this was the perfect movie. i have to agree. Seriously, there is not a single person out there that i think should skip this movie. All of you, go out and rent it, buy it, stream it, netflix it, carrier pigeon, whatever it takes. It's a quiet movie, a love-ish story about two relatively isolated people in Dublin who are estranged from their previous long-term relationships. He's a "hoover-sucker-fixer-guy" who works in a shop and lives with his dad, and she's a maid living with her mother and siblings. Their relationship grows around his music--they first meet when she sees him playing for tips on the street corner, and she begins to encourage him and his music, adding her own beautiful voice to it. Both are quirky, awkward people, and their relationship is anything but hollywood. The ending is beautiful, and not what you expect. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are perfect in the part--neither of them are actors by profession (musicians, instead). The directors use some wonderful techniques to turn their inexperience into strengths, and their tentative performances actually enhance the characters. Outside of the movie, Hansard and Irglova are both romanticly involved, and play in a band together, which only enhances their chemistry (on screen, and on the music). It's a musical, though not in the broadway sense. The songs are woven into the story flawlessly, and simultaneously drive the plot and the Oscar-nominated soundtrack. Seriously, you should all go see it. Random fun factoid: the two characters are never given names in the entire movie, and are listed in the credits as "Guy" and "Girl."

Stardust (view the trailer here)

This one's not quite as deep as Once, but lovely just the same. I saw this one in the movie theatres, and since I've got it on DVD i've grown to love it more and more. I'd even go out as far as to say it's the best fantasy/fairy tale movie made since The Princess Bride (my favorite movie of all time) (not counting the Lord of the Rings trilogy, of course. They're on pedestal all their own). it's a fairy tale (literally), pure and simple. There's noble heros, beautiful girls, wicked witches and evil kings, ghosts, fairies, unicorns, pirates, fallen stars, true love, and it's all woven together very simple, but very well. if you're looking for plot twists or variations on a formula, this is not your movie. But if you're looking for an excellently told story with characters you actually like. The cast is excellent: Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, Robert DeNiro, Sienna Miller, Henry Cavill. Also, in a very rare twist on things, this movie (based on the novel Stardust by Neil Gaiman) is one of the exceptions, a movie which is actually much much better than the book it was based upon. Also, on one of the many flights i've taken in the past year, one of the pilots introduced himself as Captain Shakespeare. I may have been the only person on the plane who understood, but he was my favorite captain ever.

The Big Hit (you guessed it, trailer here)

I love Mark Wahlberg. Don't hate: Markie Mark is actually an excellent actor with equally good talent at picking quality movies to be involved with. This is one of his early ones, an action comedy in the John Woo/asian kung-fu style (although the american influence is apparent: there are more guns than kung fu). Melvin Smiley is a successful hitman who can't stand the thought of anyone not liking him. His fiance, his girlfriend, and his fellow hitman friends are all well aware of this, and use it to manipulate him. And the video clerk at Big Top Video won't stop harrasing him about returning his overdue copy of King Kong Lives. And then he gets involved in a kidnapping gone wrong with pretty young China Chow who actually begins to understand him and treat him like with respect. Romance, hijinks, gunfights, explosions, and witty banter ensue as Melvin confronts his so-called friends and tries to escape from the hole dug for him. The action is great. The writing is excellent (although a little dated at times with jokes like, "Who are you guys? The Spice Boys?"). The jokes are excellent, and the humor is balanced perfectly with the action and pace, keeping it out of the realm of farce or ridiculousness. And Markie Mark plays Melvin Smiley spot-on, and you can't help but love him. Or, if you're me, completely relate to him.

There's a few for you, a couple for every tastes. I'm sure to revisit the topic later, there's plenty more where that came from.

I think that's enough stuff for today, don't you?

And Then There are Days you Open the Case, and Realise you Left your Guitar at Home

2011-10-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

True story.

My mother likes to send me packages. That's just the sort of mom she is. Let's not lie, I love it. It always makes my heart smile a little bit when I come home and there's an oversized bubble-wrap envelope stuffed into my little mailbox.

I work in the shipping industry, as many of you already know, shipping out FedEx boxes all day long. I work retail--I deal with a constant stream of new customers most of the day. Part of good customer service is engaging with the customers, so i've got a few talk tracks that I use. Since we've got new people coming through the door all the time, I can recycle them pretty much ad naseum. But i've got one for those moms who come in shipping off packages to their sons and daughters in college. we've had quite a few lately, as plenty of parents packed off their kids to school for the first time a month or two ago. But i always talk about how that's the best thing ever, when you're in school, to get those care packages. It's like Christmas; best. day. ever. I've even got one customer, a regular, who ships stuff off to her two granddaughters in Utah every couple of weeks. She send them cookies, candy, makeup, whatever. She's super friendly and we talk whenever she comes in. one of the things that she always sends to them: buffalo wing flavored pretzel bites. She bought a big ol' case of them, cause you can't get them in Utah apparently, and she ships a couple of bags out to them every time. And they really taste buffalo wing-y. Why do I know? Because i mentioned one day that they sounded really good. The next day, guess who shows up with a bag of buffalo wing pretzel bites for yours truely? If you guessed the tooth fairy, you would be wrong.

Anyways, I have a point to all of this. One day I get one of these care packages, and inside of it is a bag of licorice. I like licorice just fine, though I'd hardly say I'm a connoisseur. I had the unfortunate experience recently of a Jager Bomb recently, and that's sort of like drinking a high explosive glass of licorice. I may not mention that it was in a dive bar, nay, dive pool hall, in Dallas, TX. it is entirely possible that there is a ceiling tile with my name written on it in an undisclosed location in Dallas, Tey-has. Oh, nate.

See, look at that. I already got sidetracked again. Bag of licorice. Care package. Well, the story goes that I also received a phone call from my father. Kim Are is long known in our family to be a horder of candy items, and on the unfortunate time that he may pass from this world, i expect to find in the place of a will a treasure map with the location of his candy stash marked with a big ol' fat X. He tells me, on the phone that is, to beware! Be careful nate! I sent you a bag of licorice, he says, but you must tread with extreme caution! You may try the licorice, if you dare, but do so at your own risk! It is extremely habit forming! Addicting, I believe was the exact term he used.

Oh, I dared. I opened that bag, and I even tried the licorice. It was good, i will not lie, as far as licorice goes. But there is only room in my heart for one addiction, and that is caffeine.

I don't exactly remember that brand of licorice (though I'm sure my father does), but here's one that I got the other day i loved a little bit. In honor of that story, and of the good ol' father-figure-dude-man-sir, I present to you the:

Kim Are Award for Excellence In Licorice-Addicting Candies:

Trader Joe's Allsorts-a-Licorice

For Today, then:

Worked on the novel! Slow progress, but more progress than the last few times. Couple more nights like this and I'll be done with this infernal chapter! I take it back, the chapter before this was actually infernal, on account of introducing a character who is the devil. Literally.
State of the Business address with my manager at work. Our conclusion? My store needs to make more money. I'm trying to figure out what part of this revelation was...relevatory.
Dinner, involving a pork chop, vidalla onion, jalapeno pepper, cottage cheese, and mashed potatoes. Po-tay-toh.

Beer of the Dinner for the Day:

Two X Amber

Cerveza de la dia por la cena:

Dos Equis Amber

Music of the day:

Barton Hallow by the Civil Wars

Sad Moment for Today:

US Mens National Soccer team loses to Ecuador

Plans for Tomorrow:

Novel. Little more. Closer, closer, closer to finishing this difficult chapter
Krav Maga
Coffee<--I will definately enjoy this part of the day
Continue to catch up on Warehouse 13 & Eureka. i'm almost caught up!

Molasses

2011-10-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

Slowest. Chapter. E v e r .

I crawled through a couple of paragraphs tonight, at least. ugh. I feel like i've got to work out another page and a half or two before I can move on to the next part. This singer's tale is proving to be harder to detail out than I expected. I think i'm going to end up short arming a lot of it, and coming back later on the rewrite to expand and improve it. might take two or three.

I finally made it back to Krav Maga tonight. it's been near a month since I went to class, what with business trips, colds, and half marathons interrupting life. Felt good, worked up a good sweat, punched the heavy bag a lot (and got whacked in the nose by a pretty asian girl). We did choke from the front with push; i've done it several times before but my technique was way rusty. On the other hand, it has been established that I kick like a mule. That is to say, I kick hard. Mule hard.

I'm still trying to figure out what my new workout routines are going to look like. I'm thinking about making my way back to the gym to add weights into the mix again. Then again, I'm also thinking about taking a few months to concentrate on the 5-10k distance running. Work on getting my speed up for those shorter distances. i went out for my first post-race run last saturday (i ended up taking longer off than i expected. I felt like enjoying a long rest week, and I decided not to feel guilty about it), and I ran a fast 2 miles. Well, fast for me at 8 minute miles. I started off too fast, and burned out after the first mile. I soldiered on through the next mile, well at least until I enhaled a bug and the coughing and gagging commenced.

Of course, the Kaiser Half in San Francisco is in early February again, and the 3 month training cycle would start up again in November if I wanna do that again. Coming off of San jose, I could slide right back into the training cycle and really get a lot of miles in. whenever my next half is, I'm gonna have to knock 8 more minutes off of my time to reach my 2 hour goal. Part of me wants to take that post-race high (it's easy to enjoy a half marathon after all the hard work of running it is actually finished).

I don't understand why I enjoy running, have I mentioned that? Because I certainly don't feel like i actually enjoy it. mostly it's something I do and then feel good about finishing. Truth, crossing that finish line is one of the most satisfying and accomplishing things I've ever experienced in my life. But the race itself isn't an overly profound experience. I mean it has it's moments, but they don't feel like they'd be enough to carry the experience. I mean, apparently i'm wrong because Chris and I are already looking for the next race to run.

Maybe it's purely chemical. Some sort of adrenaline or endorphin addiction. I'm voting against the adrenaline theory, at least for me. I mean, i jumped out of an airplane once and that's a pretty intense adrenaline rush. I enjoyed it just fine, and I could probably be talked into doing it again, but I'd be just as happy in my life if I never did it again.

I guess if you pushed me, I'd say, for me, it's the thrill, accomplishment of actually finishing something. I've spent so much of my life starting things and wanting to start things and never following through; but this is something I've found that I can start and finish.

Anyways, on to other subjects. Liz, I took up your challenge for the quinoa & zucchini soup. I put together a recipe yesterday, but I'm not satisfied with the outcome. It wasn't bad--it was just pretty bland. So I'm going back to the drawing board for try number two. As soon as I've got something good, I'll be sure to post the recipe and results up here!

Also, I would love more challenges. Looking for 1-3 ingredients to use to fashion a soup recipe from scratch.

I started experimenting with the webcam on my laptop. it is entirely possible that I will put up a video post sometime soon.

Is it time for randomness today? Well, then, let's get to it!

Catching up on...

wrote in the novel. Only a little bit, but if I didn't have quantity, I feel like the quality was okay
back to ASD
other stuff, which probably wasn't interesting enough to list

Vintage Vixen Bombshell of the Day...

Jean Harlow

Album of the Day (aka Album I Listened to While Writing Tonight)

Swoon by the Silversun Pickups

The "Yup, He Just Did That" Catch of the Weekend (or your "I'm Happy the Chiefs Won Again" moment)

Dwayne Bowe is a beast!

Picture of the Day...

Jean Harlow

Hello Operator

2011-10-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

Desmond, the mouse declared my arch enemy for the week, did not make any appearances today. Perhaps he has scampered away at the thought of tilting against such a worthy adversary as myself, or perhaps he is simply in hiding, scheming, waiting to launch his wicked plans upon me.

Actually, what I'm most worried about is that he crawled deep under my cabinets--where he would be most difficult to retrieve--and passed away, and we won't discover him until the atmosphere becomes unpleasant. Foul, even.

It's been rainy and cool the past few days. i love it. I've been waiting, oh so unpatiently, for the evil hot summer to break and the wonderful fall weather to descend upon us. it has.

Things I love about fall:

Apple Cider (Louisburg Cider Mill is my favorite)
Sleeping with open windows
Hot Coffee on cool mornings
Soup weather
Football!
Bullet points

Soup. I love me some soup. And, on account of that, i bring you the first potentially annual Nate Are Fall Soup Challenge!

What is a Nate Are Fall Soup Challenge, you may ask? Well, I'm glad you did, because I would be delighted to explain it to you.

I challenge you, all of you, whomever you may be, to challenge me to make soup! You will assign me one or two ingredients (maybe three), and I will make a soup based on them (from scratch). Come now, let's be reasonable, though. I'm not going to make a soup out of bird's nest. Also, as I'm only making these soups so that I can eat them (and share any successful recipes here, on this wonderful insubstantial web log), the ingredients must be those I would endeavor to consume myself. That means no seafood, fellas and fellettes. Also, I may not be dirt poor, but truffles are right out of my price range; consider that my shopping is done nearly entirely at Safeway & Trader Joes.

The challenge is issued! Allez Cuisine!

I wrote a few words on my novel tonight. This chapter is slow. Must. Continue. Working. On. It.

Music of the Day:

DeStijl by the White Stripes

Vintage Movie of the Day:

Gypsy (complete with vintage beauty Natalie Wood)

Obscure Literary Term of the Day:

Consonance

Geeky Reference for the Day:

MST3K (or also known to people who like to say long phrases instead of short ones, Mystery Science Theatre 3000)

You may have noticed a change or two. It's been a long time coming, well, the aspect of change has, but the specifics were a bit more recently decided. As recent as earlier today. I hope you like it, because if you don't, chances are I'm not going to change just for you. Unless you're a very pretty single girl who's free Saturday night. Then we can talk about it over dinner. Hey, peanut gallery, shut yer hole. The one you put pie in.

This and That; Tit & Tat

2011-10-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

You may have heard about it; I ran a race yesterday. You might even say--though I wasn't the first to coin the phrase--that I rocked 13.1 miles yesterday. Ladies and Germs, that's a whole half. And it only took me two hours, eight minutes, and forty-four seconds to finish. I once told roommate Michael that the worst part about running your second half marathon was that you had to do better than the first one! Which, I guess means, that if you drop 13-ish minutes off your first time (that's one whole minute per mile) you've accomplished that goal. That's nearly a 10% increase in efficiency folks...I'll take that any day.

There were quite a few improvements, overall, in my performance. My feet still hurt a bit after mile 8, but road conditions by-and-large were vastly better than San Francisco so it didn't cripple me. Plus Injini socks and a different set of Five-Finger shoes with slightly thicker soles. I appreciate significantly less foot agony.

Absolutely zero hydration issues--I went into the event pretty well prepped and imbibed at each of the water stations (except for the first one). I did take the strategy of walking briefly while I got my water--have you ever tried to drink out of a paper cup while running? Difficult, unless you're the sort who likes spillage. I actually avoided sports drinks for the race (more or less). I sucked down a gatorade prime 15 minutes before the race, and drank down a Gatorade G2 an hour or so afterwards, but otherwise it was all water.

I used a Clif Energy Gel at mile 6, and I felt it kick in around mile 7.5-8. I had intended to use a second one around mile 9-10, but I was still riding the high, and skipped it. It was a decision I regretted--I could've used that kick at miles 11 & 12. I hit a wall about mile 10.5, but I soldiered through it.

Best part of all, perhaps? As I was on the home stretch after mile marker 12, I said to myself, "Self, I can't imagine running a whole marathon and this only being the halfway point, but self, I could see myself running another one of these things." In San Francisco, I felt like death over-easy on that last mile and could barely bring myself to cross the finish line. When I crossed the finish line this time, I wasn't totally spent. I certainly didn't feel like running another 13 miles, but I didn't feel like collapsing. You can see it in the pictures: in San Francisco my 12 mile picture is one evil grimace of determination. In San Jose, I'm actually smiling!

After that wonderful, wonderful finish line, we (being Chris Focht and I) wandered around a bit, listening to Big Head Todd & the Monsters and eating oranges (Chris may or may not have enjoyed the free beer offered to age eligible runners) before heading home. We may or may not have stopped off for a Starbucks coffee before leaving. The walk back to the car was less fun--my feet definitely were tender at that point (the adrenaline and pain-killing endorphins having worn off). I was a little stiff after the drive home, but otherwise I haven't really felt the muscle soreness. My left foot hurts a bit, but that's not uncommon for me after a long run. It goes away after a day or so.

I really enjoyed this race a lot more than the last one. I'm sure the second one is always easier than the first--you know what to expect. In addition, this was much better organized than the Kaiser run in SF. There were live bands about every mile, which was cool for the first half of the race before the novelty wore off. You were really only in earshot of each band for about one song-ish, so it wasn't really much to take in and enjoy. They also had cheerleading groups all along the course cheering everyone on. I have to say I found that really encouraging. I like giving high 5's as encouragement, sort of my thing. It was good to run down a line of high 5's. Silly, maybe. Like running 13 miles isn't.

Plus they gave us a medal at the end of this one. You best believe I wore that at work today.

I guess this means I'm going to have to do another race. I'll worry about that at a time that's not this week. Probably.

I haven't worked on my book for awhile. I'll start again tomorrow night. Without the pressing need to train for the half, the schedule should be a little bit easier to slide back into. Also, no more interruptions planned for awhile.

I decided to postpone finishing The Savage Detectives. It's well written, but it's an excruciatingly slow read for me and I need to be reading more, and faster pace. So I picked up The Drowning Pool by Ross MacDonald. More up my alley, anyways.

So, in an unusual turn of events, this blog post is a double-day coverage. We had a bit of Monday, a bit of Tuesday. I worked on the book a little tonight. A very little. But i'm starting somewhere. I'll be back.

Things I Did Today-ish:

Had a staring contest with a Praying Mantis
Declared war on Desmond, the mouse who has invaded my store
Framed my Completion Certificate & Medal of the Half (with my bib & timing chip)
Wrote a few small words on the novel
Happy Birthday Stephanie! I ate a piece of pie on your behalf today.

Music of the Day:

Count Basie (Exposure)

New Recreational Reading for the Time Being:

The Drowning Pool by Ross MacDonald

Weekend Haul from Half Price Books (the only bookstore in Fremont):

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler
Count Basie (Exposure)
Castle Season 3 (ok, that was actually from Target)

Real Life Everyday Quote from the Life of Nate Which May or May Not Prove He Lives in an Odd Fantasy World:

"His name is Desmond and he is our enemy. He will rue the day he invaded my store! RUE!"

One Leaky Steam Engine

2011-09-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

I'll admit, it's hard to sit down and write on this novel right now. I'm workin on the Singer's Tale, which is the hardest one for me to write. I have the general outline, what I need to accomplish with each chapter, but the fine details are still up for grabs. I just need to soldier through it until I can get back to the Detective's Story. That's the one I know the best, know right where to point and run. I've gotta finish this chapter first, and that's another 4 vague pages away.

My original goal was 5 days a week, 30-60 minutes a day. I'm going to amend that to 4 days; weekends just aren't going to happen. As an introvert, i need that time for myself, and I've just been so busy lately I haven't really been able to get enough.

There is much to catch up on then, since i haven't seen you since last thursday night. Since then I have...

ran a combined total of 16 miles
saw one of the rarest birds on the planet in the wild, a California condor
foiled the plot of an international spy ring bent on world domination
ran away to Vegas to marry Erica Cerra

Okay, I am willing to admit that I may or may not have fabricated one of those. If I say it with enough aplomb, maybe you'll believe me!

In preparation for my half marathon next week, I went out on a 10 mile run last saturday (which would make it the 2nd longest individual run I've ever done). I was a little bit worried about the race since I hadn't trained as much as i did last time (or as much as I wanted). I figured a 10 miler would be a good yardstick to measure with...close enough to the full 13 to get a good reading on what I could expect.

I rocked it. When I started training for this half, my goal was to run it in 2 hours, which would be more than a 20 minute improvement over my last one. Due to my reduced training, I was ready to reduce that expectation as well, move it to 2:10 or so...and then i ran the 10. Which I ran on pace to finish a full 13 right at 2 hours. And afterwards, I felt great. I still had gas left in the tank. I was definitely confident that I could've pulled out 3 more miles. My feet were a little sore afterwards, and my achilles were tight, but it was minor and not unusual occurrences after longer-than-normal runs for me. By this morning (Monday), they were completely fine.

I may have been training less, but I think I started this whole deal with a much higher fitness level. Also, I may have ran less, but I added Krav Maga to my workout routine, and I think that helped me more than i expected it would.

So, I am no longer in minor panic mode regarding the race next week. At 8am, PST, I will set off through the streets and sounds of San Jose. Soon after 10am, PST, I expect to update you all (via facebook), about my success. Look for it!

Ok. It's possible--possible--that I may or may not have made up two of those items. But let's not pick nits.

What I have done today, at least those parts I wish to share with you:

2 miles running. Less than a week 'till the race, we are in rest/recovery mode.
wrote on chapter 4, The Singer's Tale. only 329 Open Office words, but dont' expect much fast with this chapter. Tempered expectations. I'm not goign to beat myself up for slow pace writing (although slow pacing in the plot deserves a good ol' fashion beating)
drank 2 good mugs of coffee
played guitar
downloaded the final Fallout: New Vegas expansion, The Lonesome Road

The songs that were playing, either in my head or on my speakers, while some of these were completed:

Live, Volume 3 by the Avett Brothers

Things for the day which proceeds the day i am currently writing this:

Continue writing some, any, words for Chapter 4
Bible study! it's been 4 weeks since i've been at bible study!
Madden 12, Fallout: New Vegas, or some combination of events that allows for both of them

This Item Exists for the Sole Purpose of Justifying the Addition of a Picture of Pretty Girls

The one part of the Kansas City Chiefs season that's been worth watching so far

Attack of the Panic Moment

2011-09-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

So I decided to visit the website for the half marathon i'm running in October, and i noticed that it's scheduled for Oct. 2. Oh. the 2nd, you say? I thought it was the 9th. Oh dear, I've been planning for an extra week of training! Looks like the 2 1/2 weeks I thought i had are only 1 1/2. Oops. As Brad might say, it was a slap-forehead moment.

I'll be honest, i'm a little bit concerned that I haven't trained enough. I definitely haven't trained as diligently as I did last time. on the flip side, I started this out with a much higher fitness base than i did last time. I ran about 200 miles for my training last time, I'll probably be at about 130 or so for this one. Although, I'm running my average runs at about 30 seconds to a minute faster per mile now, too. More comfortably. I'm going to do a 10 mile run this weekend, that should be a good gauge of where i expect to be on Oct. 2.

The course is super-flat (the most elevation change is 10 feet per mile), and all of the (very little) climbing that you do is done by mile 7. The last bit is downhill(ish). Super bonus, there's going to be live music the whole time. you all know how much I love me some live music, especially some Big Head Tom.

i ran my last half at about 2 hours, just over 20 minutes. I'm anticipating shaving at least a minute per mile off of that time. I'm shooting for 2 hours. I believe a large part of the problem that slowed me down on the last 4-5 miles was the really rough terrain which caused a great deal of pain to my feet. I've taken steps to remedy this problem: I got a new pair of 5 Finger Shoes which have slightly thicker soles (you'd be surprised at the difference 1 mm makes), and I'm going to try the socks that go with them (i've heard great things about them). yeah, I'm that guy. I'm also expecting a cooler temperature (it was an unseasonably warm day last time), and I know a little bit more of what to expect! This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy.

Anyways, I have six more days of hard training, and then several rest days, and then we'll see how I do!

Activities for today:

Ambushed by an appointment for haircut, i couldn't run today. Will have to wake up early tomorrow to run before work (substituting my friday day off for thursday this week)
Wrote a few extra words on chapter 2, which i may or may not keep.
Wrote chapter 3. It's only one word. "Humpf!"
Wrote a very few words on chapter 4, and outlined the general events.
there may or may not have been moments of panic about the loss of 1 week for my training

Music for the Day:

Post by Bjork

Reason I'm cutting this all short:

So I can wake up tomorrow morning to get a 6 mile run in before work

Would you like some cheese?

2011-09-22T01:11:00.000-07:00

I got an email the other morning from Netflix, as I'm sure any of the rest of you who subscribe did as well. I'm a big fan of Netflix, and I use both their DVD by mail format, as well as streaming digitally through my xBox 360 (and in the case of the ultimate [useless] gadget, I can stream it to my alarm clock as well!). I enjoy the convenience of the digital streaming, but let's be honest, the selection isn't the best. They've got some good older stuff, and the crappy new stuff appears pretty quickly too.

Anyways, though, the long and short of it is that Netflix is splitting into two separate OpCo's to provide separate services for streaming and DVD by mail. They're renaming the DVD by mail service to Qwikster. Apparently, this has annoyed some subscribers.

In a different note, I logged onto facebook the other morning, and the whole layout and newsfeed and such had changed, and a veritable litany, a manifesto you could say, written by all the people clamoring for it to "go back to the way it used to be." How horrible these changes must be!

Quite frankly, I support both changes. I will continue to subscribe to Netflix, and now Qwikster as well. My facebook habits will not largely be effected.

In his email, the mastermind of Netflix referred to two defunct endeavors, both of which had been spectacularly successful at their time; he spoke of the downfalls of AOL Dialup internet service as well as Border's Bookstores. You will have difficulty finding either one (although I'm sure there's a huge landfill somewhere, perhaps an island that was built and now floats about on the pacific ocean, constructed entirely of the 3.5" AOL floppy discs). Since I added facebook to the conversation, i suppose we should bring up MySpace. Sure, it's still there. i mean, it takes up a space in the digital domain. But my MySpace page looks exactly the same as it did 7 or 8 years ago, and i doubt that anyone has looked at it in nearly that long.

While I was in leadership training a few weeks back, we watched a movie (based on the book) "Who Moved My Cheese?" (completely separate random side note...wanna know one reason why i refuse to support the Kindle? Which is more expensive, the digital version of the book, or the hardcopy? Happens all too often) which is, in it's entirety, about adapting to (and anticipating) changes in the business world. My company, FedEx (specifically our OpCo FedEx Services [aka FedEx Office]) has spent a lot of time on this lately. This is not the same company that I started working for 6 years ago (which is not the same company all those Kinkoids worked for 15 years ago). We've always had those Kink-hoes who pined for the good ol' fashion pre-FedEx days, but now we've got the new class of bitter veteran, dreaming of the the way it used to be, last year. There is more than one of my peers, respectable managers and leaders, who are right sure that our Glass Palace in Dallas has no idea what's the field is really like and all these changes are bunk.

Quite frankly, i think they're full of it. I'm down with change. What we used to do wasn't working (aka, we weren't profitable), and the definition of insanity is simply doing the same thing and expecting different results. Maybe everything they try won't work, won't stick around, but I'd much rather we try things until we find something that works rather than ending up just like Borders Bookstores.

I bring this up because i think it applies directly to entertainment media. TV, movies, music, books, comics, art. The borders (aka, the lines between the art forms, not the bookstores) are disappearing as marketing departments try to bombard us consumers with more and more ways to make them money. It is largely the marketing departments out there driving this, at the time.

I want to see the artists getting on board for the changes. The boundaries between genre's and art forms are vanishing, and we can use that, not to offer marketing departments more ways to generate advertising revenue, but to push the capacities of art and move it forward.

And such, I am trying to work on one small part of that with my novel. you've heard it mention that my novel involves three stories. That's only part of the, er, story. My novel is actually a case study on how three unique stories from three wildly different genres can overlap and enhance each other by using the same backdrop of local events, minor characters, and incorporating themes, ideas, and participation from musical as well as literature. There is even another story that happens simultaneously (and interweaves) with the 3 main arcs which will not be told in the novel. I might write it as a short story, or perhaps more ideally, presented as a graphic (comic book) novel.

We'll see if i can pull it off.

All that to say...

Activities for Today:

do not get hung up on skipping productive plans on Tuesday to play Madden 12
ran 5.3 miles (with my half rapidly approaching, i decided it was better to skip Krav today and go for a longer run)
blogged on a relevant topic
wrote 819 words (as transcribed by Open Office), possibly finishing Chapter 2
Read from The Savage Detectives (it's hard reading, well written, good book, but i'm having to force myself through it)

Music du jour:

Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple

I Covet this Hat:

Stetson Chatham

Goals for Tomorrow:

Run 5-ish miles. Maybe 6.
Verify the completion of Chapter 2
Write the entire 1 word of Chapter 3 in an Open Office file (The Detective's Story)
Begin writing Chapter 4, the return to the Singer's Tale.
play the guitar

8 Seconds

2011-09-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

So the last two weeks haven't gone by as planned. Last week especially. I mean, I guess you could give me a hall pass for spending the week in Dallas for work and succumbing to an annoying (but physically draining) head cold. Or you could not. that's really on you.

I was supposed to run a lot last week, and write a lot. I ran about 9 miles total on 2 days, before dehydration and the common cold had their way with me. I was supposed to write, at least semi-regularly, and i barely touched it. I was all out of sorts, all week.

I got back late friday night, and I spent saturday on the couch recovering my cold. Sunday I was feeling better (but still in recovery mode), so I watched a lot of football and held back most of the day. I was still suffering my out-of-town hangover. I decided to hold off on regular activities until today (Monday), on which I would resume my normal(-ish) schedule.

Which I mostly did. I went to Krav Maga, and jumped right in. At the end of our second (particularly uptempo) warm-up exercise, I got a little light-headed and I knew that I was not quite as over my cold as i expected I was. I sat out the next group to see if i could jump back in. I decided against it, and cut the workout short. I'd rather play caution today, and (since tuesdays are a normal rest day) pick back up at full strength on Wednesday.

I did sit myself down and force myself to write in the novel for a bit tonight. it was slow going, but I sat at it and put some words down. I'm going to go fix some dinner and play some video games next.

And can we please not mention the Chiefs? At least not for a little bit, until the stinging, horrible pain has subsided a little.

Daily (Resumed) Activities:

Research the location of the Crossroads in the story
Research Black Mask pulp magazine issues from 1933
Write 441 words on Chapter 2 (as counted by Open Office)

Music of the Day:

Freak*on*ica by GVSB (or for those not in the know, Girls Against Boys)

Pictures of the Day:

The "neon-lit sign of the Hotel Monroe" at 1908 Main Street in "Kaycee." A little bit of history there, if you wanna look it up. I was really excited, because several aspects of this hotel (including it's location, both in relation to historics and the needs of my story) were tailor-hemmed to fit my story. My "villain" (although that's sort of misleading, you'll understand when you get to read it) has his room up in this hotel.

One of the things I'm really working on in this story is tying it down right and well with the time period. I'm trying to be very accurate as far as most of the buildings, fashions, and pop culture of the time. Part of that (and also part homage to the foundations much of the story is built upon) is a reference I included to the Black Mask magazine (cover shone from April of 1933). It has no specific bearing to the plot, but it's sort of an Easter Egg for the readers. I guess you guys will all know about it already. I give you permission to point it out to people and brag about how you figured it out when my novel becomes a best-seller.

Goals for Tomorrow:

Become completely un-sick
Continue writing in Chapter 2, as possible. The goal of the week, writing-wise, finish chapter 2 by Friday (or thursday, since friday is usually an off-day)
Catch up on Warehouse 13 and Eureka (i'm goign to have to catch up on Castle & Big Bang Theory soon...i'm running out of TV time!)
Blog about Storytelling in the Medium of TV (postponement possible)

Day After Suckage

2011-09-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

So apparently my run yesterday was worse than i thought. I knew i was dehydrated, but it caught up with me, oh did it ever. I even knew it right after the run started, about a mile into it I said to myself, "I didn't drink enough water." I decided to soldier on through, figured i might be a little uncomfortable later.

so yeah. that little was a lot. a whole sucking lot. I started drinking water after i got back, and when I sat down to watch the Raiders on MNF, I could feel a little headache coming on. I didn't want to wait for it, so i poured another glass of water, and took some excedrin migraine medicine. usually works.

By the third quarter, the tv was the only light in the room and it's glare was the worst light ever. My head was stuck in a vice grip that kept getting tighter & tighter. My jaw hurt. My muscles ached. My stomach was queasy. I was flushed, hot. it was late, i had to get up early, i decided to pack it in and sleep it off.

I hurt so much I couldn't sleep. i thought i was going to throw up, and so I went to the bathroom. I didn't throw up, but I could feel the heat racing up and down my body. the only thing that was remotely comfortable was the cold bathroom tiles against my warm skin. I lay on the cold floor until i was sure i wasn't going to throw up, and exhaustion overpowered the dull, constant aching of my body.

I crawled into bed, and slept until morning. And then through my alarm. I overslept by an hour. I only barely made it up and out the door to get to class on time this morning. The migraine was gone, thankfully, but it left it's toll on me. Usually, I sleep off a migraine and I'm fine. Not today; i was groggy and light-headed for most of the day. Not serious, not enough to impair any functioning, but enough to be annoying. It finally subsided after dinner.

If you've had a migraine before, you know what i'm talking about.

But I'm sure you wanted to hear about THAT. I'm done, so you can keep reading.

I didn't go running today. I still don't think I drank enough water today, and after yesterday's debacle, I wasn't going to chance it. Also, right after class one of the instructors took us all out to dinner at BJ's. I wasn't going to turn that down. By the time we got back from that, a run wasn't really feasible.

I think BJ's may be my favorite "sit-down" restaurant these days. I love everything on the menu. I'm not an appetizer guy, but their avocado egg rolls are a must-have. The pizzas are excellent, some of the best pizza i've had. Bonus, they brew their own beer, root beer, cream soda, and black cherry soda. there is not one part of that i do not love.

I got back home from BJ's, and I worked on my novel. That's been my day, in it's entirety today. Wake up late, class, dinner at BJ's, time on the novel. I'm going to read a little bit in just a few minutes, then i'm going to sleep. let's be honest, i might turn on the tv for a little as well.

In accordance with tradition...

Novelty acts, done:

research heroin & heroin use in the 1930's (one of my characters is a heroin addict. Let's see...two of my important minor characters are strip-tease waitresses, my jazz singer's a heroin addict, that means my novel will be full of good ol' fashion sex, drugs, and jazz. No rolls, unless I mention dinner rolls.)
continued writing in Chapter 2. Not many words, but put down the first draft of the "the devil doesn't play guitar, he plays bass" speech.

Music of the Day:

Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens

Inside Joke of the Day:

"Ahhh.......pirate."

Goals for tomorrow:

Drink more water
5 Mile run
continue to work on chapter 2, as possible
don't oversleep and wake up early enough for a hot breakfast at the hotel

Red Hot

2011-09-12T18:34:00.000-07:00

So if it wasn't enough to spend the weekend in Kansas, now i get to spend the week in Dallas for work. I got into the hotel last night, and I was already tired of traveling. I'm glad that I really like a lot of the people in my training class this week--we'll have fun--but i'm way ready to spend more than one straight, normal week at home.

Apparently the airlines have an identity crisis. I had a ticket for United flight 4659. The flight was:

Operated by SkyWest Airlines
dba (doing business as) United Express
but I actually flew on Continental Airlines

Quite the confusing. Bonus: Continental Airlines apparently has the most beautiful flight attendants. Olympia was gorgeous, and had that asian fashionista look down...complete with the perpetual "i'm sooo bored" attitude. Kayleigh and Magdalena, also beautiful. Bonus, they knew how to smile.

I managed to turn on the computer for a few minutes during the flight to work on the novel. I broke one of my rules, and read back through what i'd written for chapter 2. I only changed one word and added one small preposition, so i can accept my lack of meddling. Truthfully? I was expecting it to be subpar; it exceeded expectations. I was impressed. I also added a few paragraphs before we dropped below 10,000 feet and they made me turn it off.

I did go out running today. It was 17 degrees cooler than the last time I was running in dallas. That means it was still 95 degrees out today. ugh. I ran about 5 miles, and I realized that I was not properly hydrated. It sucked. I thought i'd drank enough water today; i was wrong. Will have to drink more tomorrow.

i'm tired right now, so you'll have to excuse my lack of the normalties, because i'm gonna go watch some football. and by watch, i mean that i'll probably fall asleep to some football. class is early tomorrow.

On the Road Again

2011-09-09T22:23:00.001-07:00

So, for the first time, i'm posting this blog on my new computer. also, sitting in my parent's family room, which is still, as it has been for a great many years, in kansas city. I have parents upstairs, as well as the whole kit-and-caboodle of brother, sister, and in-lawed brother & sister. I just think of them as my brothers & sisters, the whole.

I spent several hours of my day today on airplanes, and not as much as I expected in airports. I arrived at San Francisco International Airport at such a perfect time to get my tickets, process through security, and get in line to board my plane. I proceeded to sleep that plane to the airport in Minneapolis (don't forget St. Paul!). I only say Minneapolis Airport because that's what they called it. i disagree, it appears to be significantly more like a mall that they park airplanes nearby. Although I'll give them credit for being a nice mall. I only had time to walk from one end of Minneapolis to the other, pick up a cheeseburger (double, thank you, bacon of course) and most importantly a cup of coffee from Caribou Coffee. In the Bay area, we have Starbucks aplenty and Peets a-not-enough-plenty, but we're missing out on two of the finer coffee-serving chains out there, the above mentioned Caribou Coffee (who's slogan is excellent..."Life is too short, stay awake longer") and the ever wonderful Dunkin' Donuts. I am pro-chain coffeeshops, because it is immensely comforting for me to know that anywhere I go in the US, I can always find a good cup of joe within striking distance. The Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks at the airport in Lima, Peru (which is not at all in the US!) were wonderfully comforting.

I think I digressed. I arrived at my gate in Minneapolis with just enough time to get in line to board there, too, and then I read my book The Savage Detectives throughout that flight. then i was home, and it was dinner, and then it was off to the Greek Food Festival, and then it was off to the Hoolihans with the Liz & the Brad for drinks with Sara & her beau Steven, and then it was home for a good ol' fashion sibling hangout.

There was no novel working to be seen. I'll get back into it. One of the reasons for the new laptop: I can work on the novel all week in Dallas (if we don't go out to dive bar/pool hall every night). Maybe not tomorrow though. we'll see. Busy day.

Looks like i missed the thunderstorms back home. Oh, wait. There was a thunderstorm here too. Nevermind.

So, then...

Running Accomplishments for Yesterday:

The half is closing. Gotta up my distances. Ran 5.25 miles at about race pace. Little bit slower. Felt really smooth actually. Started off slow, but got into a good groove later. Gonna have to test out my 5 Finger Socks soon.

Activities for Today:

vacation, as listed above. I'm not repeating myself.

Music of the Day

drop dead by the Violet Burning

Ethnic Dessert of the Day:

Baklava

Goals for Tomorrow:

on holiday (as the brits would say)
"...they got lotsa pretty women here and i'm gonna get me one..."

Epic Fail

2011-09-07T01:40:00.000-07:00

There are few things in life as wonderful as a three day weekend, but this three day weekend totally threw me for a loop, or maybe two or three. Heck, I could probably count 23 loops.

I expected to take Friday, and maybe Saturday off. I didn't expect to take Sunday and Monday off as well, but I did. I actually thought about sitting down and writing on Monday, but it didn't happen. Motivation wasn't there. I did read some pages in Goin to Kansas City, but that's no substitute.

What, then, did I do this weekend?

Laundry. Mostly completely caught up. w00t!
Feng Shui. I dont' actually believe in it, but there are very few things in my life that are more unstressful than a clean & organized room. I assure you, this is a rare item in my life. But I got it in my head, and cleaned up and moved all the furniture around in my room. Much improved! Also, now I have a couch in my room. Ideally, to sit and read on. realistically, to throw things on rather than the floor.
Surround Sound. In "where-the-heck-did-that-come-from" fashion, I got a Dolby surround sound "home theatre audio" system, and "installed" it in the living room. No longer am i running the TV through my 15 year old shelf stereo (which i fully intend to put into my room).
Wrote a song on my acoustic guitar.

Other items, not bullet-point indicated, include running, football, and one really cool couplet.

On Saturday morning, i did swallow my pride and went out to play flag football with the guys. It was a great game. 6-on-6, then 7-on-7 at the end. I had a monster first half, and a rough second half. The first half I had 3 catches, including a short gain, a long gain (that should have been a touchdown), and a short catch with a long run after catch that involved an excellent stiff arm, some tough running, and a touchdown. my dexterity limitations were revealed in the 2nd half on defense, and I got victimized more often that i would've liked for catches (and maybe a touchdown or two).

Mostly it felt great because I ran up and down the field and hardly felt winded. By the time we called it quits, most of the others were huffin' and puffin', and I was still primed to go. This is not the nate you used to know on the football field (although my reputation as Nasty Nate remains...and I don't discourage it).

I was sore saturday evening and sunday, so i got lazy and didn't go running. but i did go out for my 4 miler on Monday at least. I ran it at my race pace, and it felt natural and good (for the most part). I was not well hydrated though. Gotta work on that.

I wrote a song, and it's okay. I like the chorus a bit, but the verses don't really feel as complete. Nothing super fancy. on a positive note--I don't write many songs these days, so anytime i do I feel accomplished. Depending on how I feel about them later this week, I might copy the lyrics.

While looking through my song notebook for inspiration for lyrics on teh verse, I came across a couplet i wrote a long time ago. I don't think it would make good song lyrics, but I think it's an excellent poetic couplet. Every once in awhile i write an excellent line or two that seem pulled out of the ether from some masterwork. this couplet:

"Using streetlights for sunlight and tail lights to guide me
I'm running from something I won't let define me"

I like 'em.

I was supposed to receive my ordered laptop today, but UPS is a bunch of useless idiots. They didn't deliver it because they "invalid address" (aka the driver couldn't find it). I literally had to call up the world's largest delivery courier service and give them directions to my store so they could deliver it tomorrow. Seriously? And they treated me like it was my fault. I work for a shipping/delivery company. If someone had called me with that complaint, that would've been a pretty big deal and I would've moved heaven and earth to make sure they got taken care of. I had to talk to no less than 5 people at UPS over the course of an hour and a half, and none of them cared and it was only with a blunt force that i was able to make anything happen. This is not the first time this has happened with them. Or the second. or the third. i have never had a UPS package that was delivered without something or other causing me to fight through 4 or 5 customer service people before they would actually even deliver my package. I would much rather give a five dollar bill and my package to a raccoon and hope it got there eventually than use UPS ever again. Much more faith in the raccoon.

I did sort of get back on the horse tonight. I really wasn't motivated to write, but I had to force myself to sit down and work on the novel. I didn't add anything to the text, but i did transcribe the notes for the Musician's Tale and plan out the (very brief) chapter summaries. That means that I now have all of the major scenes/chapters for the entire novel identified with at the least a very brief summary/note about them. The details can come later, but i'm not shooting in the dark any more!

Well, then...

Activities for Today:

Hate UPS (check!)
Transcribe notes for the musician's tale & begin outlining process
Read some Goin' to Kansas City

Music of the Day:

This is War by Thirty Seconds to Mars

The Best Movie EVER

Machete. Seriously. It might even be better than Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (watch the trailer here...seriously, do it) or My Name is Bruce. I haven't had that much fun watching a movie in a long, long time

Actress that I always fall in love with when I see her, but forget about (and then regret forgetting):

Michelle Rodriguez

Goals for Tomorrow:

Do not go postal on UPS
Write, as possible, in Chapter 2, The Musician's Tale
Read!
Setup new laptop
Run 2 miles before Krav, and then Krav after running 2 miles.
Don't fall behind at work

Ants Marching

2011-09-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular belief, we will not be talking about Dave Matthews today. Let's get that out of the way right now. Nothing against him; just nothing for him today.

Thank goodness that wagons are not bucking broncos or raging bulls. You can tell me which one is easier to get back on. I have managed to find time today to:

finish my run
order a laptop
write in my novel
make attempts at being witty in my blog for you fellows

I have not read yet. There's still light left in the day. Mostly because i control the switch on the light which turns it on or off. gotta love power over power.

So I ordered a laptop! I had actually wanted to do it last weekend, but as I went to click on the "Check Out" icon at NewEgg.com, I was informed that my laptop was most recently declared "Out of Stock." that was a little frustrating.

i've actually been planning to buy a laptop for a little bit of time now. The one i'm currently using is about 4 1/2 years old, and on the verge of death. The battery is well and long gone, the wireless card is shot, i'm two Windows OS's out of date, and I'm pretty sure I saw a snail moving faster. Most impressively, if you knew me from way back, was the dedicated effort i took to not make an impulse buy. It took me 3 months to settle on a laptop. Now that i've decided on which one, I'm overcome with the crippling fear that i chose the wrong one. Too late!

Oh, yeah. I got an Acer Aspire AS5750-6690. And I most certainly did not pay the price Amazon wants to charge for it. Silly Amazon, kicks are for trids.

I will most definately tell you how it is after I get it, and then after I've had it for a year I'll tell you how it really is, rather than how it is compared to my 4 1/2 year old antique.

I went running too! Went out on my 4 miler course, as normal. It wasn't as smooth as most of my other runs have been recently. My calves got really tight about halfway through it, and made it quite uncomfortable. Had to even stop for a short bit to stretch them out more. I'm pretty sure I'll feel it in those same calves tomorrow morning when I wake up. I started out of the gate really fast, probably a little too fast. it caught up to me. Have to work on better pacing next time, and by next time, i mean tomorrow.

So, then, as it goes...

Activities on Yesterday's To-Do List that I Checked "Off" Today

Run 4 miles!
Write in Chapter 2, the Musicians Tale (I got to introduce/describe Louis, the "villain" of the story)
Read SOMETHING/ANYTHING. Ok, honestly, I haven't done this. Yet. but I will read some pages before bed. i promise. Pinky swear.

Picture of the Day

Dante's Inferno, one of the clubs in 1930's Kansas City. As you can see, the walls were made to look like cave walls (with "decorations"), and the waitresses were dressed in little devil uniforms. The story goes that the uniforms had little devil tales, which caused all sorts of trouble because they would smack into things, but more troublesome guys would grab on to them to pull the pretty girls over to them. Grab and yank on a waitress scurrying around with a tray full of drinks, what do you think will happen?

Music for the Day

Grace by Jeff Buckley

Goals for Tomorrow

Band practice! I miss playing with Esperanza Viva
Running, still.
May or may not continue to write, as possible, on Chapter 2.
Drink a toast to three day weekends
Most definately do not do a Friday dance

Trench work

2011-09-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was spent playing Madden 12. We knew that was coming. No surprises there.

Today was also spent playing Madden, but I had to make sure I did some writing. Skipping one extra day is okay--i think allowing yourself to indulge once in awhile helps you maintain the focus necessary to complete the long hall. But two days is slacking off, and you loose momentum. So I wrote today.

But I have to admit, i didn't run. I got off of work late, so no Krav, and was frustrated i couldn't find something on several trips to the store. I determined it would be best for me to reschedule my Wednesday workout for Friday since I'll have time this week between work and music practice (which I normally do not).

Anyways, honestly, today is not very inspiring. I started Chapter 2, but I only wrote because I knew i had to. Same thing here. not feeling it today. But you knwo what? I'm okay with that. As long as I'm still doing it. Every day's not going to be puppies and ice cream, and sometimes you've just gotta slog through it. maybe I didn't write as well as i feel i can in that section, no big deal. I'll be back rewriting later on, i can fix it then.

So then...

Activities for Today

begin writing Chapter 2, the Musician's Tale (chapter titled, tentatively, One Bad Night & One Bad Decision)--330 words, as indicated by Open Office
slog through the blog

Guilty Candy Pleasure for the Day

Junior Mints

Goals for Tomorrow

Run 4 miles.
continue writing in Chapter 2, as possible
and/or transcribe handwritten notes onto file
READ (something, anything)

You remind me of the babe...

2011-08-29T22:47:00.000-07:00

That Which I Did Not Do

So I slide a little bit on friday. That was okay, I've given myself 2 days a week break. Lets be honest, the chances that i'll be productive on a friday night are pretty slim anyways. let's presume, then, that Fridays will mostly be an off night. We'll get it out of the way now.

Saturday was going to be the make up for it day. And laundry day. but with music practice and such (more later), I allowed my second break day. I got a couple loads of laundry done.

Sunday was supposed to be my get back on the horse day. And DC al Coda for the laundry. yeah. Neither one of those happened. I missed that repeat bar. But i did manage to take an afternoon nap that felt like someone had knocked me out with a 2x4. or at least what i'd imagine being knocked out by a 2x4 feels like, since i've never actually done it. That is an item not on my to-do list.

but, lest we get preoccupied by the negative space...

Those Things Which I Did Do

Despite completely slacking on my writing, I did not slack in any sort of way with my running. As was mentioned, i chose to 86 Thursday's run, sub haircut by Cheryl. I rescheduled for Friday (which is usually my 2nd rest day for the week), and despite getting off of work late I still got out there! Both Friday and Saturday I got out there and ran my 4 mile course. Ran them both good. Friday was a little slower than the time before that (by about 20 seconds, give or take), but Saturday was, again, my new PB for my 4 mile course!

I don't know what it is about the midwest and my running, but every time I come back from a trip to the midwest, I improve my average mile time. It happened last december when i went back for Christmas. I came back, and my times immediately improved by 45 seconds/mile. And now, after spending a couple of weeks in Dallas, Kansas City, and Nebo, Illinois, I come home and my times are about 45 seconds/mile faster. I can't explain it--I mean, I continue to train when I'm back east but I usually take it pretty easy and mellow when I do. Hmmm. One of life's great mysteries. I'm going back for a week in early september...

Sunday I knew I had to get out and do a long run. I've been running my 4 mile course regular enough, but I've been way behind on my longer runs for training. So I went out for a 6 mile run. I took it easy, slower than I'm planning to run for my race. But it felt good. I was worried how 6 miles was going to be, since it's been 5 or so months since i've gone that far. No need.

Those Things, Being Done, Were Louder than Other Things (Done or Not)

I was asked to lead worship at Newark Pres last weekend. They've hired their new worship leader, but he doesn't start until next week. Well, Nick & Justin were playing, drums and bass, respectively, so there was no way i was going to pass up that opportunity. Alyssa also joined me on vocals which put it over the top.

I've lead worship a couple of times at Newark Pres, always from my acoustic guitar. Once or twice by myself, and once with the band. it's a pretty common worship leader setup. I decided I didn't want to do that this time. Never one to be content with the same ol', I decided to be loud. I decided to break out the electric guitar.

I chose a couple of old staples that most people know, but I pulled out a little known arrangement for one of them (Luna Halo's version of "Humble Thyself"). The other three were pretty straightforward. Humble Thyself wasn't :)

It's a very spacey, tripped out quiet song. And then, in the middle of the song, everything drops out for a second, and this monster, metal guitar riff kicks in out of nowhere (Justin called it the Judas Priest riff). It is the musical equivalent of being kicked in the face. And just when you've recovered, it drops back out and the song resumes it's quiet droning.

It had the desired effect! I'm pretty sure when we played it at practice, Alyssa actually fell over. When we played it at the service, she was ready for it, and she got the congregation (who wasn't expecting anything) into it.

I had a ridiculous amount of fun playing. Nick & Justin are incredible--it's always a pleasure to play with great musicians. It's been a long time since I lead worship with the benefit of another vocalist (and i've learned a lot since then). It was great to compliment each other, and to be able to let Alyssa take lead on a couple of the songs. Really took a lot of pressure off of me.

Those Things, Which Were Done Loudly, But May Not Mean Anything Unless You Play Electric Guitar

the other reason I had fun is because i was able to pull out my "A -game" guitar rig. When I play regularly at Esperanza Viva, I usually use my "B-game" rig, because it was specifically set up for that church. I usually use Alejandra, my Fender anniversary standard telecaster, on which I replaced the neck pickup with a DeMarzio Vintage PAF humbucker. Anyways, I run that through my pedal board (if you must ask, Ibanez Tube Screamer->Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi->Danelectro Daddy-O->Danelectro Cool Cat->Ibanez PhaseTone TS909->Fulltone Supa-Trem->Guyatone MD3->Tech21 SansAmp Blonde->ART TubeMP preamp) directly into the mixing board.

But this weekend, I pulled out Isabelle, my turn-of-the-century Fender American Telecaster, my baby. And I fished out my real amp, my Fender Blues Jr. I used a delay pedal (because playing without delay may as well not be playing at all), but otherwise it was all amp and guitar (except for on Humble Thyself I used my Danelectro Daddy-O chorus and Danelectro Fab Tone for the Judas Priest riff). It sounded soooo good. The tone was beautiful, exactly like a telecaster was meant to sound.

Anyways, back to topics the rest of you might care about. Sorry about that. If you're not a guitar player, you don't understand. if you are, you're nodding along with me right now.

Those Things Which Were Meant to Be Done

Tonight though, i knew I had to get something done. I couldn't settle for less. I knew I had to finish Chapter 1. And so, tonight, I did. I put down 718 more words, for a total count to date of 2494 words. It's measuring in right at 3 pages on my word processor, kind of short. I'm pretty sure when I come back to rewrite, I'll lengthen it. But that's a long long ways away (I have to pretty much finish the whole thing!), and for now it will do! Chapter 1, v1 FINISHED.

Because you've been so good, for your reading pleasure, is a short paragraph from chapter 1...

"The blues is passionate music, and the lots of us out in Kaycee had been singin' the blues all of our lives. We were out there stewing in it, simmering all that jazz. Anyone who's spent much time at all about musicians knows that we're an emotional sort, carry it all out on our shirtsleeves. We've got to have it all there, ready to haul out every night and poured into all those notes. Whether she was aiming to start swinging at me, or she was just actin' like didn't matter all that much. I knew it was her or me, and she knew the same. One way or another, only one of us was going to be singing that night and the next. If we had to decide that ourselves, we sure would, but I didn't think it was comin to that..."

Those Things Which Appear Every Night (More or Less)

Activities for Today

Finish Chapter 1!
Blog about the weekend
Ruminate

Music of the Day

Songs of Faith and Devotion by Depeche Mode

Quotes of the Weekend

"You know, the Jesus juice thing. With the crackers..." from Nick
"That's what happens on Fridays. Superman starts to talk..." from Yours Truly

Goals for Tomorrow

Play Madden 12 football
Let's be honest. That's all I'm going to do while i'm awake at home tomorrow.
Start Chapter 2 (Musician's Tale) Wednesday

Be Kind, Rewind

2011-08-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

There will be no Jack Black in this post. Except in that sentence. No more Jack Black. At least after that sentence.

If you don't get that joke, then you're probably most people, and you're probably right that it isn't funny. And to that I say, neither is Jack Black (usually).

I didn't get out on my run tonight (boo), but it was because I got to hang out with Cheryl while she was cutting my hair. i love that gal. But i should be able to get a run in tomorrow, which I usually can't because of music practice. And could be a good thing, 'cuz my legs were really sore from Krav yesterday. Kicked my @$$.

Today I went back and rewound a little bit, inserting a section into the very beginning of chapter 1 that I had skimmed over way too quickly. It was way to important to the theme of the book. Good thing I caught it.

612 more words, and I'm now onto page 3. w00t! I still gather I have another page, page and a half for chapter 1. My soft goal was friday, i might bounce that to saturday. We'll see! I'm not worried.

I think i'll have to talk about something in my blog tomorrow, lets see, maybe I'll talk about TV and why i think it's one of the best and most under-used storytelling mediums? Maybe. maybe i'll save that for later.

As it is...

Activities for Today

612 words written in chapter 1 (as told by Open Office)
Read some more Goin to Kansas City
Maintain sanity until Friday

Paper Airplane Design of the Day

F117a Stealth Fighter

Music of the Day

Far, by Regina Spektor

Random Song Lyric of the Day, courtesy of Regina Spektor

"I've got a perfect body, because my eyelashes catch my sweat, yes they do!"

Friday-tastic Activity Goals

Finish Chapter 1 (we'll still be ambitious tonight)
Dance the Happy Friday Dance (who's idea was this? Not gonna happen!)
Invite Norah Jones out for coffee if she happens to drop by my store....

A Transfer of Momentum

2011-08-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

Once again, i shifted back to the detailing of notes. Didn't get any words written in the novel proper, but i was expecting Dusty to stop by at any time and i didn't want to be knee deep in writing and have to stop. Transcribing notes is something you can stop pretty easily.

I did work on the notes for the Singer's Tale, and I made some good progress. I identified all (or at least most) of the major characters who will appear. Most importantly, I put together all (or most all) of the chapter themes and topics for the Singer's Tale. I'll admit, in the past few days i was getting a little bit worried about the Singer's Tale, that I wouldn't know what all I should include for it. But it all came together really well, and as I continue to read Goin to Kansas City (which contains a great deal of eyewitness accounts from exactly then) I feel like I will be better equipped to expound on these topics.

I also realized that I had skipped a very important part I was planning to include in the beginning of chapter 1 with Sadie, our singer. I'm going to have to go back and put in some more text in the first few paragraphs. This is sort of breaking one of the rules I set for myself, but i feel it's important to do for this. the rule i'm talking about, by the way, is that i vowed not to go back and tinker and rewrite the text that I'd already put down. When i'm finished with everything, then I'll be able to go back and do my tinkering and rewrites, but if I start to do that now it'll become way too easy to get bogged down and not make any forward progress.

I didn't get my run in today, but Krav Maga kicked my butt anyways. This whole week, at least the classes I went to Monday and today had a lot more intense warm-ups than usual. I'm not complaining--I'm all for ratcheting it up a notch. I think they're getting people ready for the belt testing in September, which i will not be able to take part of (since I will be out of town until the weeee hours of the night before). I'll have to wait for december to test for level 1. I'm perfectly okay with that.

Sooooooooooooooo..........(a needle pulling thread)

Activites for the Day:

Transcribe notes for the Singer's Tale onto the computer
Organize the themes/subjects for each chapter of the Singer's Tale
Track down pictures of Fascination Street (or rather, the club of which I'm basing Fascination street)
Continue reading Goin' to Kansas City

Music for the Day

TV Shows I Plan to Watch Tonight Because They're Awesome

Warehouse 13 (Liz & Brad, I think you guys would love this one...)
Eureka (Jesse & Melissa, I think you guys would love this one...)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, Aug. 25, 2011

Whirligig: noun, 1: a child's toy having a whirling motion; 2a : one that continuously whirls or changes b : a whirling or circling course (as of events)

616 Word Count Avenue

2011-08-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

I know 616 words isn't much to be excited about for many writers, but that's what I put down tonight. I'm excited about it, because it's far and above my daily word counts so far. I'm okay with starting slow, working my way up. Not a sprint...

I'm having trouble writing this in my own voice, which is also pretty exciting. Chapter 1 is from the Singer's Tale, as I've mentioned many times, and the Singer's Tale is from the perspective of a much older singer (in modern times) looking back and writing her memoirs/autobiography. That means it's written in her voice. Why am I excited about having difficulty writing in my own voice? Well, that means i'm actually establishing her own voice, her cadence and vocabulary, and best of all! it's not my own default voicing! Sadie's character is starting to develop.

One of the difficulties I'm anticipating in this novel is that it will be written from three completely separate voices. In order to be successful in my vision, each story must have it's own unique style. It's part of the whole experiment, how three completely different stories and genre's and styles can weave together to compliment and build on each other.

So, yay.

So, then...

Activities for Today:

Wrote 616 words in Chapter 1 (as counted by Open Office)
Will read a few more pages of Goin' to Kansas City
Read the article Mikey G posted on my facebook about Robert Heinlein's 5 Rules of Writing

Picture of the Day:

The facade for the DeLuxe Nightclub, down at the 18th & Vine Historical District in KC. This building face was constructed for the movie Kansas City, and remains just down the street from the American Jazz Museum. Although I'm pretty sure (and i might be wrong) that it's the historical location for such a club. The DeLuxe is the night club that Sadie, our singer, got her first break. There is a night club that will feature prominently in the story, but it's a fictional club (although it's modeled after a club from Detroit). I haven't named that club yet. If I knew I would have no copyright issues, i would call it Fascination Street

Music of the Day

She & Him, Volume 2

Beverage of the Day

Grapefruit Juice (Grapefruit is the new Orange!)

Goals for Tomorrow

Write, as possible, in Chapter 1. The Plan is for Chapter 1 (before re-writes and add-writes) to come in about 3-5 pages, and I would like to be finished with that by Friday
Transcribe handwritten notes onto files (this has been a goal for a few days without success, but it's a goal that can be put off safely)
Read in Goin to Kansas City

Quick Like a Fox, or a very fast Turtle

2011-08-22T23:35:00.001-07:00

So I'll make it quick, 'cuz Mikey's waiting to watch an episode of Supernatural. Musn't keep him waiting.

I was excited today to receive not one, but both of the books I had ordered in the mail. Both earlier than expected. Sweet.

I got my run in today. Mondays & Wednesdays are shorter runs, because I have to squeeze them in between work and Krav Maga (which is a workout by itself). That's a 40 minute window to get home from work, get changed, get out on the run, and back to the car so I can make it to Krav. So I do a hard 2 miles...I ran the 2 today faster than my recent 4 mile runs, which is good, but not my fastest 2 times. I was in a hurry and didn't stretch well enough today, and I had a lot of trouble concentrating on my stride. I kept landing wrong. But i did okay.

Anywhoseewhatsit...

Activities for Today:

Wrote in Chapter 1 (188 words, by Open Office standards)
Will read some pages in Goin' to Kansas City

Music of the Day:

The XX, XX

Completely Unrelated Quote of the Day:

"I've got two words for you: dumb!"

Impulse Buy of the Day

Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey (it's freakin smooth like butter, er or at least honey...scary delicious)

Goals for Tomorrow:

Continue to write in Chapter 1, as possible
Read more Goin to Kansas City
Continue to transcribe handwritten notes

What if I stumble? Completely irrelephant.

2011-08-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

So i knew I was going to take a break on Friday, but I wasn't exactly expecting to take a break on Saturday. I made the decision late Saturday evening after spending most of the day at Jesse & Melissa's BBQ. I didn't get my run in either, and I'm allowing myself two days off each week. so long as I came back Sunday, today, which i did.

Tonight. Not glamorous. I didn't even get any writing done on the actual novel. BUT i did sit down at the computer and work on it for an hour-ish, little more (minus a few small interruptions). I decided to begin to transcribe my handwritten notes onto the computer, and begin detailing outlines and such. I had planned to try to write a few sentences in the novel itself, but I spent longer than expected putting down my notes for the Detective's Story. I'm actually really happy with what I got done--I put down some good quick bios for the important characters in the story, and wrote a plot synapses. I was even able to even out a few of the details I hadn't decided on yet. I have a very clear direction and ending to work towards with the Detective Story, and I think that will be the easiest of the three parts to write. I've still got a lot to write in the other two tales before I can even get into the Detective's Story though (The novel opens with chapter 1 in the Singer's Tale and Chapter 2 the Musician's Tale. Chapter three is the Detective's Story, but it's already written. Okay, that's because it's only one word. "Humphf!" then i've got anotehr chapter or two from the other two tales before I get into the real writing of the Detective).

The "What Does That Have to Do With Anything" Part that actually Has To Do with Novel Writing

I was going to talk about running and why running is important to this novel. I suppose I should add that last Thursday's run was a best for that route (although not my best 4 mile time). But I ran taht same route again tonight (it's my standard run, I usually get it in a few times a week), and I beat both my previous course and 4 mile personal best times. progress baby!

I have had plans to write novels and short stories for a long, long, long time. Since I was in gradeschool. i've even kind of started, once or twice. not really. I've gotten as far as one chapter before.

This is nothing new for me. I have a long history of starting projects and never finishing them. more often than not, i'll get a little bit into whatever, and then it'll fall by the wayside. usually it's because i jump in head first without being prepared, I'll reach a stumble point, and have no idea where to go from there. I'll get distracted, or move on to some other idea, and two years later I'll look back on it and say, "man, good ideas but bad follow-through." It's just the sort of person I am, having a lot to do with my ADD (less on that now, but maybe some other day I'll go into it in more detail).

Last summer, I got it in my head that I wanted to run a half marathon. i was inspired by my athletic family, and directly (running-wise) by my marathon-prolific brother-in-law, and my most excellent sister Elizabeth who had decided to run a half marathon of her own.

I downloaded a 3 month training program about 5 months before the race, and sort of half-hearted following it. After two months of half-assing the training, with just over 3 months until the race, I buckled down and began to follow it pretty religiously.

I knew that I had to hold myself accountable to the race, so i told everyone I knew that I was running it and training for it. When everyone knew I was going to do it, i couldn't very well back out. that's just my ego and stubbornness (which I intentionally used to my advantage and inspiration).

I did the training pretty well. I wasn't perfect, but I did enough that I was ready to run the race. And I did run the race, and while some of it was great, a lot of it sucked, but I finished it. I crossed that finish line after running 13.1 miles in just over 2 hours and twenty minutes. I didn't care how long it had taken me, though I am quite satisfied with the time. I cared that I finished it.

I had started something, something that required a lot of dedication and work, I saw it through to the end, and I finished it. I ran that race in large part because i needed to prove to myself that I could start something and finish it. I did.

Writing a novel is a daunting task, especially the first time. There's a lot of work, and it's going to take a long time. But I have a plan, and I know that I can finish. I haven't given myself a time-limit, but I have committed myself to a specific amount of weekly time until it's done.

And, coincidence? I'm also training for my second half marathon as I begin. What is the definition of insanity, you ask?

Activities for today:

Get in a 4 mile run for my half training
Transcribe my handwritten notes for the Detective's Story
Finish a plot synapses for the Detective's Story (although more details will be added later)

Music for the Day:

Quote/Thought for the Day:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And always remember, anything that doesn't have to do with elephants is irrelephant.

Goals for Tomorrow:

Write on chapter 1, as possible
continue to compile notes, finishing up with the Detective's Story and beginning on The Singer's Tale

Sucker Lunch

2011-08-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the title means nothing much at all. Sort of a play on words. But it's not completely irrelevant towards my novel. Maybe I'll talk more about why it's important later. And by later, i mean some other day that's not today.

First things first...i went running today. What does this have to do with all of what i'm talking about? Well, more on that tomorrow. I ran what I believe (i'd have to double-check) to be my best time on my normal 4-ish mile run (technically, it's a little short of 4). felt good. felt really good. It has been about a week since i went running, and I was itching to get out there. I lengthened my stride and it felt really smooth and natural. I've got a month to be ready for my next half, and tonight was a very encouraging run. More on why running is important tomorrow. i think i already said that.

But today is about why this blog is important.

I only wrote anothe 170-ish words (as recorded by Open Office) today, and that's not including this blog. it's a slow start; i haven't even written one full page of my novel yet. But for 2 days in a row i've added to it. you have to start somewhere, and this blog is practice.

I'm one of the best writers you know. believe it, and i'll go into more details about that someblog soon, but I'm out of practice. WAY out of practice. I don't write nearly as often. And this is where the blog comes into practice.

i'm training myself. I'm sitting in front of the keyboard and excersizing my brain. Writing, like anything else, is a learned skill. Certainly natural skill has it's advantages, but spending a little bit of time in the woodshed working on your chops is good for everyone. Why am I blogging this? Well, i'm training my brain to communicate it's thoughts clearly through my fingers. After i've been writing regularly for awhile, it could be that I don't blog much. I won't need it, then, because my brain will be in practice.

In the meantime, I'll sit here and ensure that I'm still working on it.

3 days down. I almost didn't do tonight. i'm glad I did. That's what it takes. I may not write tomorrow. Fridays will be a potential day off. My goal is 30-60 minutes a day, 5 days a week. At least to start. I've got a half marathon to train for on top of that (which will take another hour or so per day, 5 days a week) plus the rest of my life to live. Deal.

Anyways....activities for today...

Writing 170 words on my novel
Further on-line research about 1930's Kansas City, including bookmarking some good websites
Ordering Blue Monday, a historical novel by Harper Barnes concerning prominent Kaycee jazz musicians
Gather together the notes I've scribbled about the novel from my scrap notebooks
Investigate purchasing a saxophone

Music of the Day

Rockferry by Duffy

Picture of the Day

Goals for tomorrow (or Saturday, or when I return to working)

Transcribe my notes into Open Office
Detail and Outline the Singer's tale
Continue to write in Chapter 1, The Singer's Tale, as possible
Blog about why running is important to this novel

Building Up Steam

2011-08-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

Wednesday down, so far so good. Okay, so it was a slow start. But I put down 160 words, at least according to Open Office. I'm more or less satsified with it, but it's clear i will need to drill down a little bit more specifics when i'm working on the Singer's story. It has less action and more reflection, so I'll need to be better prepared as i write it.

It was like so, but it wasn't...

I've heard it asked, often, "Oh, where to start, where to begin..."
Surely you must realize that this quite the silly question. There really is only one place to start: the beginning. You think it's obvious, but if it was, then why does everyone always ask that question before they start telling a story. How many times have you read a Bathtub Story? You know the kind...

"Jasmine slipped into the water of the bath she had prepared, looking back on all that had happened. She knew that she would never be the same again. It happened like this..."

Seriously. What the hell is that? You don't know Jasmine. You've never met her until now. You don't give one flying hootenany about what happened to her. Never be the same? The same as WHAT? Why should I care what she was like if she's not going to be that way again. I didn't know her before. I have to care about who she was before I can care about who she is. So start at the beginning, and let me get to know Jasmine.

That's starting at the end. Why would you do that? If you're planning to write a bathtub story, stop. Rewrite it. Or I'll punch you. Really, that's my favorite part of the bathtub story. punching you.

But Jasmine you're not supposed to like Jasmine before all of this, you say! She was a little bit of a bitch, you know. Bullspit. If I can't sympathize with her, I'm not going to care about her changing.

Start at the beginning.

There was a boy called Eustice Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it

I'll admit, i'm a little bit obsessed with opening lines to novels. Think I'm kidding? See that line, right there to your left? it's the one that is, more or less, my bio for the blog. What do you think that is?

The opening line is, perhaps, the most important single sentence in an entire story. It sets the entire tone, grabs you, shakes you and demands that you pay attention. PAY ATTENTION! Here are some of my favorites...

"It was like so, but it wasn't..." from Galatea 2.2, Richard Powers
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel..." from Neuromancer by William Gibson
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice..." from 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new..." from Murphy by Samuel Beckett
"It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain, he fell madly in love with him..." from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
"In five years, the penis will be obsolete..." from Steel Beach by John Varley
"Marley was dead, to begin with..." from The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed..." from The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger by Stephen King
"As Gregor Samsa awoke from a night of uneasy dreaming, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect..." from Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
"The pebbled glass door panel is lettered in flaked black paint: 'Phillip Marlowe...Investigations.' It is a reasonably shabby door at the end of a reasonably shabby hallway in the sort of building that was new about the year the all-tile bathroom became the basis of civilization. The door is locked, but next to it with the same legend is another door which is not locked. Come on it--there's nobody here except for me and a big bluebottle fly. But not if you're from Manhattan, Kansas..." from The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler.
"I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better..." from Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett.
"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth..." from THE BIBLE!

There's plenty more, I'm sure. Anyways...

Activities for the Day

Begin writing chapter 1, from the Singer's story (160-ish words written)
Blog about beginnings and opening lines (less briefly than expected)

Music of the Day

The Best of Nina Simone by (you guessed it) Nina Simone

Current recreational reading

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

Goal(s) for tomorrow

Further outline & plan the Singer's Story
Continue writing as possible in chapter 1
Continue to blog (about why blogging is actually important to this novel-writing process)

A day 1, which may or may not be day 2

2011-08-16T23:52:00.000-07:00

First Things First

It shall be my best attempt to use this blog largely as a daily (or semi-daily) report on the progress of writing my novel, which at this time has no name (although i think of it as either "Three-in-One" or "Trinity," neither of which will be the name).

When I was in Kansas City last week, i did a research trip to downtown and the 18th & vine district, the heart of jazz music in Kaycee in the 30's. It was invaluable to get a feel about the area and learn some facts and walk the same streets my characters will walk.

So, for this inaugural issue, i shall list a few of my resources, as well as my progress for the day.

Activity(ies) for the day:

Blog day 1
Run the network cable to my room so my ancient, malfunctioning laptop can once again have internet
Order Goin' to Kansas City by Nathan Pearson
Read a little bit of Good Morning Blues, The Autobiography of Count Basie as told to Albert Murray

Resource Report
Today, some of the (fiction) books I've read that will serve as research, reference, or inspiration

This is by no means a definitive list. There will be more added later.

Picture for the day

This is a parking lot at 12th & Cherry in downtown Kansas City, currently used by the KCMO Police. We dont care about the parking lot, but this is the location where the Club Reno used to be, one of the most important of the dozens (over 50) nightclubs that defined Kansas City jazz in the 30's. The big draw of Club Reno? Count Basie & His Orchestra made their break here.

Music of the Day

Ximena Sariñana Mediocre

Goal(s) For Tomorrow

Begin writing chapter 1 (The Singer's Story)
Blog (briefly) about Beginnings and "Where to Start"

From "Zero" to "Hero," or at least "Weirdo"

2011-07-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

I’m not an athlete. I never was. I’m short and squat with limited agility or flexibility. I’m an average sprinter, but that’s only because I have some pretty powerful leg muscles. I can’t stop or turn quickly to save my life. I’ve always been a decently strong guy, and about the only athletic activity that I would’ve been suited for was weight-lifting (too bad I didn’t lift my first weight until i was well past 30 years old).

Ancient History

In my gradeschool years, I played little league soccer, outdoors and indoors. I was never very good. On the playground at recess, I was the kid that was always picked nearly last.

When I was in middle school, I played little league basketball. I was still not very good. We were a good team, though, and i had a good coach who still played me a reasonable amount of time. In two years of playing, I scored 9 points. Total. 4 baskets and 1 free throw--and 5 of those points came in one exhibition game. My only other memory of that basketball was fouling out of one game, with both my dad and my coach telling me that my 5th foul was “a good foul.” I had stopped a fast break.

I didn’t play sports in high school, and I certainly didn’t care for gym class. During my one year at K-State, the guys in the scholarship house where I lived (Smith House) would go play Ultimate (frisbee) all the time. I went once, and I was so out of shape that it was hell and made up excuses to never go and play with them again.

I hated running. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why anyone would want to do it. Sprinting I could sort of understand. Cross country, or any long distance, I would have rather poked out my own eyes.

California Dreaming

After I moved to California, I would play football with the guys when I could. I was a lineman, offense and defense. Didn’t have to do much but hit and be hit there. Even so, by halftime I was exhausted and by the end of the game I wanted to die.

Jesse encouraged me to learn tennis, so he started giving me lessons. After chasing a few balls, I was exhausted and couldn’t keep up. So he encouraged me to go running with him in the mornings. I tried about 3 times--we would go down the street and back, no more than a half mile. I would get back and I felt like I was about to die. Literally. I felt like my chest was collapsing and I couldn’t hardly breathe. Any time i’d try to take a deep breath, I’d break out coughing. I hated it.

I was a big guy, and I was ridiculously out of shape. I don’t know exactly, but by my guesses, I probably peaked at about 250 or 260 pounds. I turned 30, found out I had gout (a type of arthritis with very painful flare-ups). About the only real ways to control gout was diet and exercise.

Cold Turkey

I don’t know what triggered it, but one day I woke up and I decided to completely change my diet. I stopped drinking soda (I had been drinking 2-3 cans of mountain dew a day, easily--or more), I stopped eating fast food almost entirely and most other restaurant meals, and I cut back drasticly on pre-packaged and processed foods. That must’ve been about April or May of 2007, because I can remember Halloween later that year stopping by 7-11 to get my first soda in 6 months (and the only one I would have for about another 6 months). I couldn’t decided if I wanted root beer or mountain dew. I think I went with mountain dew, and had the buyer’s remorse.

Somewhere along that time, I lost my car and had to begin riding my bike to work (and anywhere else). Both Jesse and my girlfriend at the time started going to the gym, and so I went down to Fitness 19 (a couple of blocks away from home) and got a cheap gym membership and some personal trainer sessions (which were largely useless and I never even used all of them). I would go sporadically, oftentimes meet Jesse there and partner up with whatever routine he was doing that day. More or less. Him doing more, me doing less.

I hate snakes, Jock! I hate ‘em!

When I decided to hike through the mountains of Peru in 2008, I figured I outta get in a little bit better shape, so I started meeting my friends Adam and Mikey at the gym 3 days a week with a weightlifting program. We did a program including olympic lifts (cleans, jerks, etc), with weight increasing every 5 or so reps. It was the first time I went consistently. When I left for Peru, I was in the best shape of my life. Not necessarily great shape, but for me it was good. I survived the hike.

After I returned, I continued to go to the gym, but for a while it was more casual and occasional. And since I didn’t like to go in the mornings, and the gym closed before I got off work, my work schedule interfered and I rarely went. BUt I was living alone and I wanted to get back at the gym, so I decided to pony up and join 24 Hour Fitness so I could go to the gym after work. And since the only other thing I would do after work was play video games...well, I started going pretty regularly. Almost every night.

I think I smell a rat

It was during this 6 months that I started doing some serious weight-lifting. I would do squats, bench press, and one or two other lifts which I would vary daily. During that time, I was doing reps of squats and deadlifts at about 350 pounds, and benching 225. Before I would hit the weights, I would warm up with a 1-2 mile run, and then after I was done with the lifting, I would cool down with another 1 mile run.

It was also the first time I started regularly weighing myself to track my weight-loss progress. When I started that 6 month “program,” I walked into the gym at 220 pounds. After about 3 months, I’d dropped down to 200, and plateaued there at 200. It was the least I’d weighed since I walked into high school.

I went out to play flag football with the guys during this time, and I was astounded. I was faster, stronger, and didn’t wear out anywhere near as fast.

Then I changed jobs and no longer needed the late hours of 24 hour fitness, and so I slipped back into the much cheaper Fitness 19. But the heavy lifting had taken it’s toll on my body, and I was tired of heavy lifting. For the first time in years, I had evenings available and social obligations slowed the momentum I’d been using to convince myself to make it to the gym every day. It was easy to slack a little bit, and when I went I sent more time running on the treadmill and less time with the weights.

And I ran, I ran so far away, just to get away!

One day I found out my sister was training to run in a half-marathon. I downloaded her training program, and it didn’t seem nearly as bad as I’ expected. I began to strongly consider running a half of my own, and started running a little bit more on the treadmill at the gym. The treadmill is ridiculously boring to me, though, and I didn’t much care for it.

I played football one saturday morning, but as the afternoon itched along I felt like getting out there and running a little bit. So I went around the block rather than the treadmill at the gym.. Well, a 4 mile around the block.

I haven’t ran more than a mile on a treadmill since then.

One of the things that I miss about being so far away from my family is that they would often get together whenever my brother-in-law or sister or brother or whoever was participating in a race or climbing the stairs of the John Hancock or whatever, they would all get together to cheer them on. When Liz said they were coming out to California for Brad to run a half marathon in Disneyland, there was no way I was going to miss it.

I loved the weekend I spent with them and the opportunity to see what an actual race was like. I’d be thinking seriously about running my own half before that, but after that weekend I knew I was committed.

To keep myself accountable, I told everyone I knew that I was planning to run the race, and put my training program in place.

I followed the program pretty closely, and made sure to maintain a log of all my workouts (using MapMyRun.com and a home-made excel sheet). My training program (the same one Brad recomended and Liz used for her run) called for shorter runs during the week (starting at 2 miles and working up to about 6 miles) with one longer run on the weekend (4 up to 10) over a 12 week period. I stretched the program over 13 or 14 weeks, and I was very good about the daily runs during the week. I wasn’t quite as good about the longer ones, but I got them in when I could.

On February 6, 2011, after 3+ months of long training, my friend Chris and I rode out to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where Mikey G cheered us on as we ran the Kaiser Half Marathon.

The first mile sucked. I don’t know why. Chris sped off soon after the first mile-marker, but I was surprised he stuck with me that long. It was okay, i knew he was going to run faster than me. I was okay with that. After about mile 2, everything smoothed out, and I started getting into a groove. At about mile 6 1/2, running through mid-morning Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, I looked over to my right and saw a nice pond surrounded by greenery. It was gorgeous. I felt great. I hear about that “runner’s high,” and I suppose it hit me full stride about then.
Mile 8 was right after we turned out of the park and down the highway alongside the ocean. It was gorgeous running alongside the beach and the ocean, no doubt, but this is where the race started to suck. No longer under the canopy of shade from the park, the sun started beating down on us in an unseasonably warm 80+ degree san francisco day. That didn’t bother me too much, though, I was plenty hydrate and had trained in warmer temps. What bothered me was the road--it was very rough. I’m sure I was one of the very few runners who noticed--I was running in Vibram 5 Finger shoes with zero cushioning. Anyone with normal running shoes would have never noticed, but every step was agony for my feet.

The marker for mile 9 was put on the wrong side of the street, which made it appear 2 miles further away than it really was. My thighs started cramping up a little before mile 10, and that caused me to stop and stretch. A gorgeous girl in a bikini-devil outfit tried to tempt me with bacon, beer, and a mcdonald’s breakfast sandwich. I felt like that was cruel and unusual punishment, and said so to the girl running next to me at the moment. She was in the zone, and didn’t hear a word I said. I didn’t pursue the issue.

The last quarter mile was the steepest uphill grade on the entire course. I knew it was soon, but they’d put it just around a corner, so you couldn’t even see it until you were practically through it. That last half-mile was hell. My feet hurt. My legs hurt. I was tired. Putting left in front of right and repeating seemed more trouble than it was worth, but the end was so close that you couldn’t stop or slow down.

But I crossed the finish line. Just a little over 2 hours and 20 minutes. My stretch goal had been between 2:10 and 2:15, my realistic goal was under 2:30, and the most important goal was finishing, period. 2 out of 3 aint bad...and I feel like I could have hit that 2:15 with better road conditions. Any way around it, I was completely happy with those results. Ask me then, say “Nate when are you going to run your next one?” My answer then, said, “Hell no. Not gonna happen.”

Pow! Right in the kisser’!

I took a week completely off from running or working out after the race. I had exected to be sore the next few days. I felt fine. I felt no different than any other day i’d gone on a 4 mile run. I definitely expected something different. I took a week off anyway.

I started mixing in weight lifting with shorter runs (and by shorter, I mean 4 miles instead of the 6 i was doing most days before the race), but I really wasn’t that into it. I was definately looking for something new as far as my fitness routine.

Mike Spain had been looking for a martial arts program to join and we’d talked about it a little bit. I even joined him for Aikido once, but neither one of us took to it very well. I felt so unsatisfied after the Aikido class that I went up to the gym and did some power lifting. Then he calls me up one day and says, “Nate, I joined this gym in Santa Clara (The Academy of Self Defense) to study Krav Maga. I freakin love it. YOu have got to come by and try it, they offer 2 weeks of free trial classes.” I told him I would go the next monday.

I’ve gone to 2-3 classes each week since then. The other day I told Ev, the senior instructor at ASD, that before I started Krav, I would’ve said I could hold my own in any given fight. After a simple 4 months of training, I know I was wrong. Sure, against someone else who didn’t know anything it would’ve been a wash, but it would’ve sucked for both of us. Now, i am by no means an expert or anything, but I know what to do. Against the average guy on the street, i’m pretty sure i’d wreck somebody’s shop. I’d walk away in better condition than the other guy...not necessarily untouched, but I’d rather be me than them.

Classes usually start with about a half-hour of conditioning & warm up, which usually consists of “run around the room randomly and when I tell you, punch the bag until I tell you to stop.” They mix this in with a smattering of push ups, situps, burpees, planks, and whatever other no-fun ab/leg workout they can muster. Don’t forget to scan your surroundings (you never know when your opponent has friends nearby--or the instructor’s waiting to whack you on the back of the head), and keep your hands up...you like your face, don’t you, don’t want anyone to smack it! Oftentimes we’ll do resistance training, where a partner holds onto a belt around your waist, pulling you back while you try to run forward or punch or whatever.

After working up a good sweat for half an hour, we “cool down” with some technique work. At the introduction level, they show us how to deal with common situations you run into in a self-defense situation. We learn how to deal with chokes and punches, posturing and pushing, headlocks and other times where you’ve screwed up and found yourself entagled. We’ve even learned some techniques to deal with (and disarm) knives and guns. Of course, the standard punches, elbows, hammerfists, knees, that sort of thing.

It’s a lot of fun. On top of a good workout, you learn practical, useful ways to respond to some worst-case scenarios & situations. The instructors are all excellent. In addition to being friendly and fun, they’re going to push you and teach you. Plus, it’s a good workout to mix in alongside the training for running my second half marathon.

The definition of insanity

I’m pretty sure Chris & I vowed never to run another race again right after the Kaiser Half. I’m also pretty sure we both started our training for the next one in October (the San Jose Rock’n’Roll half marathon). As I told my roommate the other day...the worst part about running your second half marathon? You’ve got to do better than the first!

On the first one, my only goal was completion. During my training I wasn’t overly concerned with pace or times. No such luck this time. What does that mean? Spending some time on the tracks doing speed training. Pushing myself harder on my daily runs. Some mock runs at race-ish conditions during the last month. Or something like that. Looks like we’ll have to see how that goes!

Those Left Behind...

2011-06-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

And, because I have a few minutes to spare and I'm staring at my bookshelf, a few other books of note you may be interested in....maybe not on my all-time favs list, but worth the read:

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Steel Beach by John Varley
If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell
Millenium by John Varley
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabrielle Garcia-Marquez
Wicket by Gregory Maguire
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlen
Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller
This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
Walking on Water, Reflections on Faith & Art by Madelaine L'Engle
Church History In Plain Language by Bruce Shelly
Illium & Olympos by Dan Simmons
Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard
Battlefield: Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
Emerald Eyes, The Long Run, and The Last Dancer by Daniel Keys Moran
Lamb: The Gospel According to Christ's Childhood Pal, Biff by Christopher Moore
The Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Born to Run by Christopher McDougal
Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes

These are a Few of My Favorite Things...

2011-06-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

So I figured i'd run up a few of my favorite...books. Because books are cool, don't require electricity, and anyone who says otherwise is a silly...er, well, something that's silly. Silliness would ensue. I have to say i'm extremely lucky to have a family that loves reading...heck, we even had a family book club on our last vacation (we read Life of Pi, which was definitely a good read). I wonder what we'll read for the holidays.

Apparently, my first favorite book growing up was Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry. Although I was there--truth--I can honestly say my memory is still a little bit fuzzy from those toddler years. Probably one too many bumps to the head.

I graduate to the Choose Your Own Adventure series as I moved into the gradeschool era, but in the meantime I subsisted on a steady diet of Encyclopedia Brown and Hardy Boys stories. I can remember there was a period one summer that I was reading at least two Hardy Boys books a day. This was also the period I fell in love with the Chronicles of Narnia, which I read and re-read many times, as well as Madelaine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time (and sequels). But my favorite book of all gradeschool--The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I loved White Fang & The Sea Wolf as well, but not as much as the adventures of Buck. Man, I read so many great books those days, like The Fabulous Flight by Robert Lawson, The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell, My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, and Watership Down by Richard Adams. There were so many more.

When I was in 7th grade, my uncle David & aunt Roxanne gave me a couple of generic military sci-fi books by David Drake, and so kicked off my sci-fi phase. If I'm remembering correctly, they were The War Machine and Rolling Hot. I would read tons of trashy sci-fi books by authors like David Drake, William C Dietz, Daniel Keys Moran, and a whole lot of other crap. I was a teenage boy--my tastes were questionable. I still enjoy DKM, but the rest of those books were largely forgettable.

Until I was in 11th grade, when we had to do a report on a novel by a contemporary american author. On the list under sci-fi was this guy, Orson Scott Card, and his book Ender's Game. So I decided to read it for the report (as did several of my friends). I think I finished it in two days, walked back into Waldenbooks, and bought the sequel, Speaker for the Dead. It might have taken me three days to read that one--it was a little longer. I desperately loved both of them (and ended up doing the report on Speaker since all my friends were doing Ender's Game), and thus began my Orson Scott Card phase. I read everything I could get my hands on by him over the next few years, and (at the time) loved it. I was still a teenager, and I still had questionable discernment on my literary tastes. As someone who has read a vast majority of OSC's body of work, I can tell you that they are largely forgettable. Some are passable, but there is no doubt that Ender's Game & Speaker for the Dead are phenomenal novels! I think Chris Focht said it best when he explained, “If I ever met OSC, I’d have to thank him for Ender’s Game, and then punch him in the face.”

It was during my senior year in high school that I would read (most of) two of the novels that would later (after re-reading) become my favorites. More on that later.

A little bit later in my sci-fi phase, I would discover Hyperion (and it's sequels, Fall of Hyperion, Endemyion, and Rise of Endemyion), which I still consider to be one of my favorite books ever. I can remember sitting downstairs in my basement room at my parents house, reading The Priest’s Tale out of Hyperion and thinking how horrible it would be to go through, an how well it was written. Both the Priest’s Tale and the Scholar’s Tale completely wowed me. I still love Dan Simmons. Great author, and I especially (years later) loved The Terror.

I went through a cyberpunk phase (inside my sci-fi phase), which was kicked off by William Gibson's Neuromancer and Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash, which may be one of my all-time fav's too. As much as I loved it, I never could finish his next novel (The Diamond Age) and didn’t even try his later works. I tried to get into cyberpunk's other founding father, Bruce Sterling, but I never much liked his reads. Though one other cyberpunk novel of note--Virtual Girl by Amy Thompson. Atypical, but excellent. Also short.

It was during the sci-fi phase I discovere two of the greatest satire/comedy writers out there--Douglas Adams and his wonderful wonderful Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Terry Pratchett and his wonderful Discworld series. The deadpan style of satire and writing from both Pratchett & Adams would be a huge influence on me and my own style.

As my tastes matured with age, sci-fi started to grow stale. Let's be honest, most sci-fi isn't very good literature. Sometimes fun, often not-so-good. But as I grew restless in sci-fi, I ventured out and tried new things. In this phase of discovery, I fell in love with two fringe sci-fi writers who helped bridge the path away from sciffy.

It may not be fair to label Connie Willis as a fringe sci-fi author. I would consider her an excellent writer & story teller who happens to use the sci-fi medium most of the time. That being said, she does have the dubious distinction of being the most award winning writer in science fiction! (at least as far as the Hugo & Nebula awards goes). When I read her novel To Say Nothing of the Dog, it was completely unlike anything I'd ever read before. One part sci-fi timetravel adventure, one part romantic comedy, one part Victorian mystery, and all parts rip-roaringly witty and funny. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves reading. It definitely finds a place on my all-time fav list. I went on to read several of her novellas, including Uncharted Territories, Remake (and the delightful and lovely character Alis), and her volume of Christmas short stories. I haven’t made it to most of her other novels, but I did read through what was (at the time) her latest--Passage. I think the best description of this novel is that it was about a person--the main character really felt real. The other plotlines--which had to do with near-death experiences and the Titanic (it works, don’t worry)--were interesting and supported the main character, which clearly drove the story. I especially loved the fact that Connie Willis is proud to be a christian.

My other fringe sci-fi writer was Jonathan Lethem. I read every book of his I could get my hands on, starting with Gun, With Occassional Music and moving on to others like Girl In Landscape and Amnesia Moon. All were very quirky, surreal, short novels that were almost more magical realism than sci-fi. I’d never read anything like it before. However, it was Lethem’s two more normal novels--As She Climbed Across the Table and Motherless Brooklyn--that really caught my attention. Motherless Brooklyn was actually a mystery novel from the point-of-view of a small-time criminal with Tourette’s Syndrome. I’d never read a story with the same sort of voice and flow, and you really felt as if the character was real. It was As She Climbed Across the Table that really caught me--of all the books I’d ever read, this was the one that I felt like it could have been written by me. The combination of reality with a little bit of theoretical science, humor, and a main character that could have been me...I loved it.

The biggest influence of Passage, As She Climbed Across the Table, and Motherless Brooklyn was to break me out of my sci-fi zone and into a more traditional fiction zone. The author that most characterize this next phase was Nick Hornby, perhaps most famous for his novel (and subsequent film) High Fidelity. Considering I may as well have been the main character Rob, I completely related to the novel. I read How to Be Good next, and I may not have enjoyed that novel as much (although I loved it dearly), I felt it was the better novel. I felt completely sympathetic towards the main character--the problem is the main character is wrong and you know it while you’re reading it! But you can’t help but side with them, even though you know you shoudln’t. About A Boy (which I wouldn’t read ‘till much later--i had to get over Hugh Grant staring in the movie) was quality, but the rest of Hornby’s stuff was largely forgettable.

Somewhere around there, I asked a friend of mine with highly respectable literature tastes for some recommendations, and they pointed me in the direction of David Eggers and his wonderful novel You Shall Know Our Velocity. I devoured that, and promptly read his other book (his own memoirs) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Both were brilliant, but AHWOSG especially turned my understanding of writing and enjoying non-fiction upside down. I puttered around in this new hip genre of creative non-fiction for a little while, but Eggers proved to be the top of the class. The only other title of note was Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers, which blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction like no other (and contains one of the greatest opening lines ever: “It was like so, but it wasn’t.”)

During this same time, I re-read several books I had partially read during high school senior english, specifically Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. I’m only going to say that these two novels may be my favorite of all time. Both are brilliantly realised, composed, executed, and works of genius that will be remembered for a long time to come. You will see these at the top of my top 10 list.

One day, while browsing at Borders, I discovered a book on the shelf titled The Road by Cormac McCarthy. THe subject matter (post-apocalypse) and the reviews (all stunning) allowed me to overlook the Oprah's Book Club selection. That novel was stunningly beautiful and haunting and poetic and dark and brilliant. In my curiosity, I discovered that Cormac McCarthy had written one of the most acclaimed english language novels of the past 100 years, Blood Meridian. Of course you can see where this is going...I went on to read Blood Meridian. Stunningly violent, beautifully written, and with one of the most iconic villains of all time in the Judge. Also worth reading by McCarthy, No Country for Old Men, which was excellently rendered by the Cohen Bros into a movie that does justice to it’s source literature.

After reading Blood Meridian, I became a little obsessed with many of these so-dubbed modern classics, books which appeared on such critical lists as Time Life’s Top English language novels since 1923 and others. I kept seeing one pop up on multiple lists that peaked my attention: Red Harvest by Dasheill Hammett. When I discovered, after a little bit of research, that Red Harvest had been the inspiration for many films, including spaghetti westerns and classic japanese samurai movies, I knew I had to read it. I picked up a collection of all 5 novels by Hammett (including Red Harvest) at Half Price Books, and fell in love. Having wet my appetite for detective noir fiction from the 30’s & 40’s, I moved on to the next grandmaster with Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. Although flawed at times, The Big Sleep was more than enough to move me onto The Long Goodbye (so simple of a title, but one of my all time favs) and Chandler’s other stories featuring Phillip Marlowe. I think my favorite of his books may have been The Little Sister, though. The opening paragraph alone is brilliant. And I’ve been on a pulp noir fix pretty much since then (detailed further in other blogs), featuring other writers like Gypsy Rose Lee, James M Cain, and Ross Macdonald. There was a short detour for spy thrillers with Ian Flemming and Robert Ludlum, which were okay, but not spectacular.

Anyways, that brings me, more or less, up to date. Wonder what’s going to be next!

So, after that long diatribe (hope you read all the way), it boils down to this...my (more or less) top 10 favorite novels (or series) (in no particular order) (the Bible, which stands on a class all of it’s own, is not included because it really has no comparisons):

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabrielle Garcia-Marquez
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
A Wrinkle in Time by Madelaine L’Engle
Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Falling Down, or How to Get Customer Service Before Customer Service Gets You

2011-06-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

There was a movie came out back inh the stone ages when I was in high school called "Falling Down." It stared Michael Douglas as a recently laid-off defense contractor who falls off the deep end and cuts a violent vigilante rampage across the city battling gang-bangers, neo-nazis, indifferent shopkeepers, and consumeristic America.

And apparently some minimum-wagers. During his breakdown, he decides to stop by the Whammy Burger for some breakfast, and encounters a slight setback.

You can see the clip below

Anyways, Michael Douglas' character plays off the oft-heard idea that "The Customer is Always Right."

But this brings me to the crux of my post, which is really just a question.

Is good customer service providing the customer what they want, or what is actually best for them?

Take, for example, a situation which happens quite frequently in FedEx Office's across the country.

A customer comes in to the center with a laptop computer, and put it into one of our courtesy boxes to ship FedEx. The box is fairy generic, does not fit the laptop, and there is no additional packaging so the laptop rattles around in the box--but it's free. The customer then wants to ship this package.

This laptop stands a very good chance of being damaged in transit as is, and so I explain to the customer, "I do not recommend shipping this package in this box. I can't guarantee it's integrity through the shipping process. We have a box that's specifically designed for laptop computers. Would you like me to pack it up for you in that box?"

They always ask, "Well, how much is that?"

"$19.99."

They usually say, "Oh, no, that's too much! I'll just ship it like this."

So at this point, I have a couple of options:

I can refuse to accept the package unless the customer repackages it. They'll probably take it to another FedEx center and someone else will probably take it (or they'll take it to UPS or USPS). This does not a happy customer make.

I can accept the package, and add a comment to the computer which indicates that the customer refused to repackage the parcel after being advised of the risk. If (when!) the package is damaged, the customer would not receive any compensation from FedEx if they file a claim. The customer is likely to be pretty pissed-off.

I can turn a blind eye and accept the package as-is (no comments added). The customer is happy walking out of the door. If (when!) the package is damaged, the customer will be compensated for the damaged item if they file a claim with FedEx. They may be a little miffed, but they have been fairly compensated.

So, which of these is good customer service, if any?

Is good customer service providing the customer what they want (the customer is always right!) or providing them what is actually best for them?

Talk amongst yourselves...

Novelty Items

2011-06-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've been writing a novel. Okay, that's sort of a lie. I say sort of a lie because I'm not actually at the writing stage. I'm still in the research/plotting phase. I've spent a lot of my life planning to write a novel, and even starting more than once, but I'm never organized enough or really get very far. In general, i'm not a very organized person and I never quite get past A to B and C.

The story(ies) will take place in downtown Kansas City in 1933, so one of the last phases of research/plotting will involve spending a day or two down in the heart of KC, walking the routes that my characters would walk and such.

After that, I'm going to have to sit down and actually do a pretty detailed outline. One, for my own benefit (I often get discouraged and stop writing when I come to a point where i'm not sure where to go next), and two because the style will require planning in order to pull off correctly.

Well, I say a novel, but that's sort of lying, too. Because i'm actually writing three overlapping novellas, each a unique plot and genre. Each of the 3 stories will overlap in characters, settings, and events. Theoretically, each story could stand on it's own, but when read together, they will provide depth to the overall experience. For example, one of the stories will be told from the 1st person persective of the character and in his story, his name will not be revealed (a la Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op). However, when he appears (as a secondary character) in the other two stories, he will be referred to by name. Also, the third story will be told in the form of a memoir and will present one scene in a much different (more favorable, less acurate) manner than the same scene told in one of the other two (impartial) stories.

Anyways, i'm just rambling. We'll see how it goes. Maybe more later. I"m almost done with work and I've gotta log off!

Will an eBook Bleed if Pricked?

2011-04-16T03:24:00.001-07:00

This was my bounty from Half-Price Books today. The last ones in my Chandler & Hammett collections. I don't count their collections of short stories...by and large I'm a novel and novella sort of guy. Very rarely do I get into short stories.

I'm glad I didn't order the Lawrence Block book on amazon the other day. I'm not a fan of amazon. Too convenient. No mystery or suprise when you finally find that book you've scoured bookstores for a year to find. Nothing you can feel. I feel the same about eBooks. Not a fan. I'm very worried they're going to completely dilute the pool of available literature. Half the stuff they publish is already crap...if every joe blow without an editor can e-publish...We might as well be reading fan fic. That's the quality standard to which we'll hold ourselves.

I do fear it will be difficult to track down some Carroll John Daly novels. They're pretty rare. But it'll be a happy day when I find some...

PS if you can't (or are too lazy) to read the book titles' it's: The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett; Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler; and The Girl with the Long Green Heart by Lawrence Block. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Phone blogging!

2011-04-12T19:55:00.001-07:00

Well, since I'm apart of the google army, I might as well be able to update from my phone. So, in theory, you should see more phone posts.

Man, wouldn't it be nice if someone developped mini-blogs with a 1-2 sentence maximum size you could update at any time? That would be spiffy.

And now, for no reason at all, a picture of beer from the Caymen Islands...

Do You Have to Let it Linger?

2011-04-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've been staring at this blog for a week or so now since I re-re-discovered it on my facebook profile page. I say re-re-discovered it because i once rediscovered it, then promptly forgot about it again. Kind of a story of my life.

The Cranberries first album was "Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can't We?" And apparently everybody else is doing this again, and since coincidence reconnected me here independently about the same time, I figure, why can't i? Let's be honest here, the most likely event is that I'll put up a few posts before I forget about it, from which I will be able to pull out of one or two sentences that I'm satisfied and proud. The rest of them I'll look back and say (when I re-re-re-discover it), "You were really trying way too hard to be clever. It didn't work."

I've been reading a lot of detective pulp fiction from the 30's, 40's, and 50's, and I freakin love it. I love the setting, the time period, but especially the characters. Mostly the heroes, the Sam Spade private dicks. I would say "cliche," but the authors I've read most (Dasheill Hammett and Raymond Chandler) defined the stereotype. We might label them as such now, after dozens, hundreds have imitated them cardboard cutouts, but truthfully they were groundbreaking in their day and stand head & shoulders above their predecessors. In fact, I recently read a recent "hard boiled" novel by an author I respect tremendously for his supernatural and science fiction novels, and it was plainly clear that his PI hero was no more than a poorly-cast shadow of those he was meant to flatter through imitation. He had all the broad strokes down, the ideas that everybody knows by rote of the stereotype, but he completely lacked the nuances that made Phillip Marlowe and Lew Archer such striking characters. They're not nearly so tough as the stereotype has made them out to be (both Marlowe and Archer are more likely to be the one getting beat up), but they're much more introspective, smart, and wise than they're often made out to be. And perhaps most surprisingly, they have really big hearts. they really care for people, in general, even though they understand that people by-and-large are pretty f'ed up. it gives them a very heavy and sad heart, especially evident in Chandler's The Long Goodbye.

Good stuff. My recommendation for a crash course on the classics...

The Maltese Falcon by Dasheill Hammett (the defining classic of the genre)
Red Harvest by Dasheill Hammett
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (the introduction of Phillip Marlowe)
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (the last Marlowe novel)
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
The Moving Target by Ross MacDonald (introduction to Lew Archer)

I'm also having a great deal of fun reading The G-String Murders, a detective/murder mystery by Gypsy Rose Lee, a popular burlesque dancer (and later Hollywood actress) from the 30's and 40's famous for her witty and intelligent banter onstage. I'm sure it didn't hurt her case that she wasn't wearing very much clothing. The dialog in the novel is excellently written, capturing the personality of the characters and infusing them with a great deal of depth and life. The main character (Gypsy Rose Lee, often called 'Gypers,' herself) is quite charismatic and a lot of fun. Most refreshing? Despite being about burlesque strippers being strangled by their g-strings, it has remained completely tasteful and easily PG13 at the worst.

In addition to falling in love with the genre, i'm using all of this reading as research towards a novel i'm outlining and preparing to write which takes place in 1930's Kansas City. Part of it involves a hard-boiled private dick, part of it a singer/dancer for a nightclub, and part of it an aspiring jazz musician. And no--the entire premise is not a hard-boiled detective noir novel. it will definately be something(s) more.

Forget-Me-Knots

2009-08-05T02:12:00.001-07:00

I have not forgotten about this blog. I do intend to continue to update it, as I can. Everything just gets tied up and complicated and forgotten sometimes.

I'm going back to school next semester. I'm not committing to going back to getting a degree--right now i'm just taking classes out of boredom and a desire to study these subjects--I'm taking a Spanish class and a Literature class. My long-term aspiration--I want to read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in spanish.

We'll see how it turns out. I'm not very good at going to school. It's a skill I never really perfected.

I watched the movie Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter the other night. I'm not going to say that it's a good movie, because then i would be lying. But I will say that I enjoyed it. That's sort of fair.

I also went out to catch indie buzz movie "(500) Days of Summer." The soundtrack is all the rage in the indie scene and Zooey Deschenal and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are two of my favorite actors. I thought it was mostly an average sort of movie. Had some good moments--I appreciate the resolution of the main storyline between Summer & Tom. The soundtrack was cliched indie-folk music, and had two songs by the Smiths on it. And featured Regina Spektor prominately. That part I liked. The little sister character was fun. I liked her. the best part, though, was over within seconds of the movie starting, a caption that reads..."Author's Note: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you Jenny Beckman. Bitch."

I also started watching "True Blood" from HBO. So far, good enough, though i'm certianly not willing to be a bandwagon-ite.

I am now going to watch a movie with Bruce Campbell in it, appropriately titled "My Name is Bruce." apparently, some town involved with an alien invastion mistakes Bruce for his most famous character, Ash. Good. bad. he's the guy with the gun. and the chin.

Speaking of killing (well, we are now), i've decided that I like my orange juice with enough pulp to obstruct the breathing of small children.

And so with that note, i'm going to pour some OJ, and then watch Bruce Campbell.

Start Travelling There

2009-07-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

I can't get the blogging-novel idea out of my head, but I did quickly abandon the down/out poker player character. He wasn't working, never really did, and I certainly don't want to start walking down that path with a forced, unemployed character.

Another old character, storyline, that i've been toying with for awhile popped into mind and would probably work pretty well. the concept is titled "Reflections" (though that probably wouldn't be the final title), and is subtitled "A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups." Mostly it centers around the concept of a character who's mirror (and any other reflective surface nearby) doesn't reflect his own view--rather it reflects the view from someone else on the other side of the country. I think it could make for a fascinating movie--if i were doing it, i would actually film two movies, blue-out all the mirrors, glass, and reflective surfaces, and superimpose the second movie over the bluescreened reflective surfaces. Subtley, not so in-your-face like. Then, later, you could release the second movie (either to DVD or if you're lucky back in the theatres) with the first movie in the reflections. the trick would be to somehow make the two movies cross over in subtle ways that they would enhance each other in small bits and pieces but enough that it's worth doing.

Somehow the movie would be a lot more complex than the book.

I think that there's a lot of storytelling techniques out there still to be explored and discovered for television and movies. Some of them are simple, and some are a little bit crazy. I have one idea in my head (that i'm not ready to share yet) for two movies that I think would be completely unhearlded. Unfortunately, I lack the skill set capacity to accomplish the task at this time. If i get off my @$$, maybe i'll be able to change that but it'll be very difficult.

I think people look at movies (or tv) and books as two seperate venues that can't coexist. You either write a book, and someone adapts it into a (half-empty) movie, or someone takes a movie and turns it into a (usually) boring version of the movie. We need writers to start looking at both, together. Why not write them simultaneously? Use them to complement each other, to support each other. Add extra scenes to the novel that will add depth to the movie, and vice versa! Or make the novel from one character's point of view, and the movie from someone elses. There's so much unexplored territory out there! We should start travelling there.

my pair of Ace's lose, on the river, to Q9 when he trips his Q

2009-07-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

Momentum is important. Miss a couple of days of the blogging thing, and it's hard to get back on the horse. But alas, here I am, trying to get something down on paper tonight. It's tricksy, because i'm not sure what to write about.

I played a bit of poker today, online. I play occasionally through PokerStars.net, though not for real money. Well, not for real money i paid for. The sight gave me 2 free dollars, and i've been nickle & diming with those. I was up to about 4$ earlier, but I had a string of bad calls and now i'm only down to 3$. That's after about 3 total sessions playing, though. So far, long-term, i'm winning. Slowly. Once I get a little bit more cushion, i'll play bigger games. I don't expect to make anything real out of it.

I also play with fake money on the sight, and from the $2000 I started with, I'm at over $25,000 now. That doesn't mean nearly as much, because a lot of the people playing with fake money are horrible and it's really easy to take the money from them. Mostly because they don't care and it doesn't cost them anything. That's why playing with fake money is only partial practice, because people don't very often play smart poker.

I played in a few tournaments. the first one, I made some bad calls and got knocked out quick-like (placed 6500-ish out of 9000). The second one, I did better, lasted a bit over an hour, but I made a call I knew I shouldn't, and it cost me (4100-ish out of 9000). the third one, I played good poker, and got crap luck (4900-ish out of 9000). It sucks when you make a solid call, statisticly you're going to win most every time, and then the other guy beats the odds and gets lucky on the river. Happened to me twice. Learned a lot, though, going forward. In theory.

I think i'm a pretty good poker player. not like, phenominal or professional level necissarily, but i'm defiantely better than your average bear. It makes sense to me, enough.

I'm still toying with the idea of my blogging novel. I have a character idea, a 40-somethign down-and-out poker player. Each "chapter" (blog entry) could be subtitled with a poker hand. He's got a lot more work to do before I'm ready to use him, but you gotta start with ideas. I could resurrect a few of my old characters (the American and the twins, Mono & Stereo) that could fit with him. *shrug* just sort of rambling.

With the online/blogging format (and a little planning ahead), you could even add a soundtrack to the blog (original, even!). Hmmm.

A Weakness for Unknown Melon Fruit

2009-07-10T02:14:00.000-07:00

It's day 3 of my blogging scheme, and I still haven't decided exactly what to write about yet. Should decide quickly, 'cuz I've already started the entry.

If you wanna know the truth, I'm largely writing because my xBox is out of service. It died the other day, sunday night. Overheated and crashed the cpu. So I put in a word order for warranty repair, and that was easy enough. Of course, in order to get the prepaid shipping label that was promised with it took no less than an hour and a half on the phone with customer service, and five different customer service agents. Seriously. At one point, their solution was "why don't you just wait a few hours and try it again. if it doesn't work then just call back tomorrow."

On top of that, it's beign shipped via UPS. Not a big fan of UPS, and not just because I work for the competition. the last 3 times i've dealt with UPS, it's been customer service disasters. Nightmares. I would never use them voluntarily after those fiascos. But Microsoft was paying for the shipping and all, so I didn't have much of a choice.

Since I work for FedEx, i know a little bit about packing and such, so I packed up my xBox all pretty and perfectly, and then dropped it off at the UPS store down the street from my house. I was in a rush, so I gave it to the girl quick-like. She says to me, "wait, I need to give you your receipt." I don't need the receipt, she's got someone in line, i'm in a rush, and i've already got the tracking number, so I tells her, "I'm in a rush, I don't need it," and turn to leave.

She gives me this glare like I'm satan, lifts my box off of the weighing scale, and drops it on the floor. Bam! Good thing I'm a professional packer and the xBox was already broken. Ridiculous.

I can tell that this whole warranty shindig is going well. The last time I went through something like this (my HP laptop), i already had it there, fixed, and back in my hands by now. HP was a pleasure to work with about the whole thing. Too bad everyone else can't be the same...

I ate a Canary Mellon the othe day. Yeah. For sure. What the hell is that? I don't know. i saw it at Safeway and apparently I have a weakness for unknown melon fruit. This happened to me once before, with Starfruit. Odd fruits are pretty mild, I mean, at least after you've drank water out of a tree. and I do mean from the tree...machette to branch, water drips right out into your mouth. In the amazon jungle. Surrounded by an armada of mosquitos. That's just how we roll.

I've actually thought about writing a novel in blog format. You know, every day or every other day or somethign, update a few pages or whatever from the main character(s) pov. I'm not going to committ to doing that. Mostly because I don't think I'd finish it. Or even get very far. I have a bit of difficulty following through on projects. But it could be pretty cool, especially if you got a good viewership. you leave the ending pretty open when you start, so you can read all the comments your viewers have and steal all the good ideas from them.

Did you know you can put advertisements on yoru blog through Google, and they'll pay you for it!?! I don't knwo what to think about this, or hwo much they'll actually pay. Not betting on much. You might see from my lack of advertisement that i haven't bought in yet. Mostly i don't know much of it at all except that i have a tab on my blog that says "Monetize." How very verby.

that's all I got tonight. Not much, I know, but it's PRACTICE. to stop sucking. wit hthe writing. suffer with me.

It was a dark and stormy night, except that it wasn't.

2009-07-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

It sucks. I have to teach myself to write again. It sucks not being able to write well, especially when you're a good writer! I mean, that's what i'm good at! I understand words! I dont' always get them right the first time, and they don't always pass from my brain through my fingers quite like I'd want them to, but I can write!

Well, not right now 'cuz I pretty much suck at it. Of course that just means I have to write a little bit more often.

I blame Facebook, you know. at least when Livejournal was my social networking sight, I had to write something more dense than a single sentence status.

You commented the other day, Melissa, that I don't update my sight any more, and I don't update facebook that much. Well, relatively. I update facebook a couple times a day, but compared to many--not enough. i can't even keep up with facebook. I'm not going to glue myself to my phone to verify that i've caught all 80 or so updates that happen while i'm at work. Come on now, really? seriously?

I'm not a very clever blog writer. Mostly. occassionally, i hit something decent back in the LJ days, but most of the time I fall flat. It's an input/output imbalance in my brain. Man, i wish you could hear these entries as they get planned out in my head while i'm wasting time at work or riding my bike or shopping for jalapeno peppers. The themes are much more, and more developed on top of that.

I can tell you very specifically the books and authors that have had a vast influence on my writing. The short list would read:

Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
You Shall Know Our Velocity & A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
As She Climbed Across the Table, Gun with Occassional Music, & Girl in Landscape by Jonathon Lethem
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Of course, not a diffinitive list.

I have recognized several "trademarks" of my fictional writing. Most of you haven't read much of my fiction, so you probably don't know what i'm talking about. Some of it appears in my blogging and other randomness, but these are the things that appear frequently in my writing.

I tend to be very repetiative of a word or phrase. I will very often repeat the same idea twice, sometimes word-for-word with slightly different transition words. yes, I know I just did that, and no, believe it or not, i did not do it purposely. I use bad sentence structure (fragments and run-ons), and tend to change the subject quite often. Sometimes in the middle of paragraphs, and occassionally in the middle of sentences. I use double-negatives and will oftentimes describe something by what it's not rather than what it is. I contradict myself (this is one of my favorites, for example the opening line to a fairy tale i'm sort of writing:

"It was a dark and stormy night, except that it wasn't. In fact, it was not stormy and hardly dark at all, a fact which made it exceptionally difficult to be night, unless the place of our story were nearest the north pole during summerstime. It's not.")

Also, I use lots of unnecissary and repetitious transition words. But it's only because that's sort of the way i think. And I think it gives my work sort of a signature. And yes, this time, i did it on purpose.

Hmmm. There are a few adverbs there. Never noticed that before. Stephen King would be very angry. he dislikes adverbs. he's racist towards adverbs.

Maybe i'll get back in the verb of it. Much as I do in real life, though in real life it's certianly not intentional, I'll invent new uses for words. there's a propensity of good ideas here.

I hate not being good at writing. Dislike it, even. You could say we dont get along. it's hard to not be good at something you do quite well, usually because it drives you crazy yourself.

I can write dialog really well, at least when i'm writing well again. It's somethign i've always been good at, as far back as grade school. At least, that is, according to other people. I dunno, i have a pretty natural feel for writing the rhythm and flow of speech. It sticks out like a sore thumb to me when writers don't get it right, especially on TV & movies. because of this, i went through a phase where I wanted to become a scriptwriter. I could be really good at it. You don't write the same volume of words, you concentrate heavily on dialog, and then someone else makes your vague action look really cool without you even having to describe it all. i read books about it by screenwriters I admire. I got books of scripts by people I admire and people i dont' care about but other people admire. Scripts are rather dull to read by themselves. Hard to admire. maybe i should write plays. I don't know enough about play production, but you can play fun Gilmore Girls games with dialogs.

Anyways, i'm going to try to practice a little more, because maybe i'll get back to where i can write as good as i can write. i certianly think that i would love more than anythign else in this world to write a novel someday. i'm pretty sure it could be good.

A True Story as Told by a Liar

2009-07-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

Someone recently asked me why I believed in God. It's a good question. Seems pretty important. Except, of course, that I couldn't really answer it. I mean, I had my stock answer ("Because it's true") but that bait ain't gonna catch much fish.

this is not a doubting post. This is also a post that may not be able to answer that question.

I have never doubted the existence of God (specifically, the Christian god) and His son Jesus and that other guy, the Holy Spirit. Sure, i've had lots of questions for them, disagreements, arguements, and doubts about what they've said, but never doubts about His existence. Not once. Since as long as I can remember. But why? I mean, really?

I don't ahve a classy conversion story. I never had a moment where God spoke to me. No flashes of light. Heck, I can't even remember a specific time where I did the cliche christianese "asked Jesus into my heart." I don't even know if I could tell you what that means.

I was asked recently to give my testimony. It was a small group excersize, and it was only sharing with another christian friend. I wasn't prepared. I don't know if I even understand my story, how am I supposed to tell it to someone in a way that shows the Gospel in my life.

And so I sort of made it up as I went. A true story as told by a liar. I mean, I didn't invent any of it, I didn't lie, but I'm glad it was in front of another Christian, 'cuz I don't think it would have done much to present the Gospel. I talked about my life while workign with teh bands before, and my life after I moved to california. I didn't really connect it to the Gospel. Practices are good, i suppose, because I'm pretty durn sure I could tell it a lot better next time.

But that's just a story. We use it to show a point. It's not a very good one, because it hardly contains all the elements: setting, conflict, climax, and resolution. How do we get there? What's the prequel?

My friend Jesse has a good converstion story. He's a very smart guy - he's got a very good grasp of how he came to where he is. He can tell you where he was (metaphoricly), what he thought about, and how he decided to come to where he is. Very intellectual, in the good sort of way. Add a couple of right angles and you've got a 180 degree turn. Jesse's story makes a lot of sense. it's very simple, well rather more straightforward rather than un-complicated.

Mikey G's story is simultaneously exactly the same and completely different. there's less facts and more philosophy in his story. He was one way, and then his life got very existential, and then somewhere on the other side he came out and decided to become a christian and then sort of did it. I don't understand Mikey's story, but not in a bad way. I imagine the truth is easier, but Mikey has read a lot of books by people who died a long time ago and had a lot of time to write down hot air. I say this not to critisize, but because I don't really understand those people, and so I don't understand Mikey's story as well as maybe I could. Mikey is one of my dearest friends in the world, and the way he lives his life tells me more about the Gospel than his story, so i guess that's ok.

I don't know most of my friend Harold the Gopher Boy's story, but it made the most sense to me. There was a lot of brokenness and pain and confusion but there was a burning passion and a love and a deep devotion that he shared a lot. Harold can't tell his story any more, he left the rest of us to do it on our own behalf.

But I don't have a story like any of that. But i think that in order for me to understand my own reasons why, I need these stories. Well, not these specific ones because my foundation had already been built before I met any of these people. they have strengthened my beliefs, and have provided a great deal of wisdom to learn and continue to grow from.

I think i believe in God because of my parents. and my grandparents. they believed, and not just on the surface. I was raised surrounded by deep conviction in the truth of God, and it couldn't help but rub off. John Gray believed and he pourded that belief into me even when i didn't understand. Larry believed, and he poured that into me, even when i didn't cooperate very well, or even act like I was buying it.

I guess I gained the intellectual side of belief there. the fact or fiction. But i'm not sure that I've learned the emotional side. Fully, at least. I think that might be my own stubornness. Or at least my lack of confidence. But at least I know it. Everyone's gotta start somewhere.

it's that time again...

2008-12-20T16:53:00.000-08:00

Football stats:

defensive: 4 tackles, including 2 sacks. one forced fumble. 2 passes deflected. good defense

offensive: 2 of 10 passing for about 15 yards and 2 interceptions. maybe only 1, i don't remember. 4 runs for about 20 yards. 1 catch for about 40 yards with a touchdown. mediocre offense. played line a lot tho. i don't like to play QB when i can't run at-will.

On the general practices of well-being amongst personified literary characters serving as an allegory to real life

2008-12-09T18:14:00.000-08:00

I recently read about a man named Clive Wearing, a respected pianist and musicologist who contracted a vicious virus which struck him with retrograde and anterograde amnesia. bet you didn't know there was more than one type of amnesia.

Well, retrograde is your soap-opera amnesia, you know, wake up and can't remember any past memories. Anterograde is sort of the opposite, you lose the ability to form new (long term) memories.

Clive Wearing lost his memory and the ability form new memories. Boy does that suck. How much does it suck? The mere act of opening his eyes after blinking seemed to him waking up, coming into existense, for the first time ever. this happens nearly every time he blinks. From his wife Deborah's book...

"It was as if every waking moment was the first waking moment. Clive was under the constant impression that he had just emerged from unconsciousness because he had no evidence in his own mind of ever being awake before. . . . “I haven’t heard anything, seen anything, touched anything, smelled anything,” he would say. “It’s like being dead.”"

He keeps a diary. Here are some entries...

"2:10pm This time properly awake
2:14pm This time finally awake
2:35pm This time completely awake"

He can recognize his own handwriting in these journal entries, but he can't--in any stretch of his mind--understand how he could have written them because as completely as he knows, he has just come into consciousness for the first time ever. More entries...

"At 9:40pm I awoke for the first time, despite my previous claims."
This is then crossed out and followed by...
"I was fully conscious at 10:35 P.M., and awake for the first time in many, many weeks.”
which is in turn crossed out and followed by similar statements.

He has kept this journal for years, and it consists of hundreds of pages of these nearly identical statements.

This astoundingly horrible, terrible story has led me to think a little bit about my own brain. I know that my brain doesn't process information in the same way that the majority of people do because i have ADD (which i'm sure you all know means Attention Deficit Disorder). Our culture has a completely wrong and flippant understanding of this "disorder." You do not have ADD moments, you most likely do not have ADD, and contrary to popular belief it is not something that everyone has a little bit of. I don't even like the name, because so-called ADD is not actually "not being able to pay attention." I prefer to call it "Attention Imbalance Syndrome."

I don't think most people understand all of the processes of paying attention. You can break them down into a couple of parts...

choosing the right stimulus to focus on,
sustaining the focus over time,
dividing the focus between relevant stimuli, and
shifting the focus to another stimulus

Most people simply consider #2 up there, but people with ADD break down at all four stages of this "paying attention process."

procrastination can simply be laziness, but for an ADD person it can be (not always is, but can be) the difficulty choosing the right stimulus to focus on. One common occurance among ADD'ers is what's called hyperfocus, which is a breakdown in shifting the focus to anotehr stimulus. Etc., etc.

If this were all the differences, it might be one thing, but there's a whole slew of other differences in the way the ADD brain works than the way the majority of people's brains work. There's a lot of things, and I certianly won't go into many of them, or in much detail.

ADD brains file incoming information differently than other brains. The simple way of saying things? Our brains are disorganized. Well, by normal standards. Practical (regular) example--that phone bill that comes in should be filed under "Financial, pay by tuesday." The ADD brain files it with "need to go get a Christmas tree." You may think that sounds dumb and illogical--it certianly doesn't make sense to most people because your brains naturally organize these things. ADD brains don't do this naturally, and that's why on Wednesday when i'm at the store (even though i meant to do it on Monday) to get a christmas tree, I remember the phone bill. Fat good it does me on wednesday at Target to remember to pay the phone bill, so the information gets re-filed, probably next to "Natalie Portman is heck of hot" or somethign like that.

there's a ridiculous amount of other things, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting all the ideas out of my brain down onto the computer (also ADD--an input/output inbalance). If you're interested, talk to me or pick up "You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?" by Kate Kelly & Peggy Ramundo. It's pretty fascinating, actually.

I learned a lot about myself when I started learning about the way an ADD brain works compared to most people's brains. What shocked me the most was figuring out that all this stuff that my brain does, the way that it works and doesn't work--that isn't the way most people are! All this stuff that I assumed was normal, this stuff that I just figured was normal, wasn't!

it's hard to go through life working as hard as you understand you are able to do things that other people can do without batting an eye. it's really frustrating and debilitating to live a life of "if you would just work a little harder, you'd be able to do this" when you ARE working really hard and still failing. You pretty much start to think that's all you are--a failure.

The trick, of course, is not working HARDER. It's to work smarter. Learning the strengths and weaknesses of your brain, leveraging your strengths and finding the right tools to overcome the weaknesses.

Because what it boils down to is that we can't use this difference in our brain activity as an excuse. I cannot and should not be expected to be held to a different standard than anyone else. I am not inferior, I am not less able, I simply work in a different way.

And that different way has it's own benefits, definately. That willy-nilly organizational system inside my brain can lead to brilliant insights and creativity when two seemingly unrelated thigns get filed together (grilled cheese & ice cream). The too-fast working brain bypassing it's normal filters speeds ahead to a conclusion before everyone else gets there. A case of hyperfocus blocks out distractions to get the rush project done on time. All sorts of stuff like that.

I don't really know what the conclusion I was working towards was when I started this whole post. I know that the brain is beyond fascinating, and cases like Clive Wearer are astounding, tragic, and remind us about how little we actually know about what makes us tick.

Did you know famous anterograde amnesia patient HM could learn new procedural memory (muscle memory) but he couldn't remember how he learned them?

I don't care what you think about hwo far we've come with science or technology or computers or anything, we haven't even come close to creating anything so nearly complex and flexible and capable as the brain.

But mostly, i think that the sad and strange case of Clive Wearing is the sort of thing that needs to inspire a song. Hopefully I'll be able to write one.

of course...

2008-12-06T15:04:00.000-08:00

I know i haven't been on much. i'll see about puttingsomething else up soon, but in the meantime...

my football stats for the day:
First half:
I played QB almost exclusively on offense, throwing 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. Probably 10 of 25 total for about 150 yards. I also ran 3 or 4 times for about 80-90 yards...including one big one (a QB draw...it was beautiful) that scored a touchdown. That run, though, pretty much ended me for the game, as I strained some muscle in my groin and was severely hobbled after that. On the plus side, though, I did outrun Ben (although he was slowed down by blockers, so outrun isn't accurate--more likely I got past Ben). When I get the ball in my hands and someone chasing me, i'm a pretty fast fella. i've got a little afterburner.

On defense, I made probably 2 or 3 tackles, one pass defensed (and--my bad--one flagrant pass interference on Ben Vose), and 1 forced fumble.

The second half, because i'd been hobbled, i played all-time QB (both teams) in a pass-only air-it-out style game, so I don't think the stats necissarily count. but i was probably about 30 out of 50 for probably 500 yards. I threw 7 touchdowns and only 1 interception. but i also had no rush coming at me and a wide open field. a lot of the touchdowns were short passes with good runs (high yards-after-catch).

Before I forget them...

2008-11-15T12:36:00.001-08:00

Football stats...

We only did 5 on 5, so it was all wide receiver and cornerback. So glad i'm in shape now, 'cuz all that runnin' up and down the field would have killed me 6 months ago. Wouldn't have lasted 1/4 of the game.

anyways...
I caught 8 catches for about 180-200 yards and 1 touchdown. one dropped pass. One more I probably could have caught, but jackson did get his hands on it.
I had 7 tackles and 2 passes deflected, one of them almost an interception. I also spent the second half covering one of the best receivers, so i got burned a few times. my pass coverage is getting better.

truth...

2008-11-12T22:22:00.000-08:00

running

2008-11-10T20:41:00.001-08:00

Today, i broke my distance running record...twice.

My normal workout these days consists of running, followed by a couple of different weight lifting, followed by a shorter run. Well, as of last week I was running for 10 minutes the first time, and 5 minutes the second time, increasing the speed every few days.

Well, this week i decided to knock the speed back down and up the times to 15 minutes and then 7 1/2 minutes, respectively. So today I went out there and ran for 15 minutes, 1 1/2 miles, the first time. This was my first distance record...my previous best had been a meager 1.3 miles. I've never (ever) in my life been interested in long distance running. Then went back and did a couple of different weights...decline sit-ups with weight, bench, and squat (PS jesse that new technique you told me about works perfectly), and then i went back for my cool-down run of 7 1/2 minutes.

Well, 5 minutes into my run I was feeling good, i musta hit my stride or something, so i says to myself, let's go for 10 minutes. 9 minutes rolls around and I'm still stridin', and so I say 15...and then 20, and then 25, and then 30...and I decided to call it quits at 30...but I still felt ready to go another couple miles. Still feel like I could.

I'm ready. w00t.

A more practical, it seems, detailing of my life

2008-10-31T00:27:00.000-07:00

So what's up in my life? It's been awhile since i've gone back through it...

well, 'bout two months ago I decided to step away from working with the youth and playing in the band at church. I'd been working in both for a long, long time, and it had pretty much gotten to the point where I would go to the ministries with a big sigh of reluctance and it quite frankly stopped being anything close to fun or anything. It had gotten to the point, musically, that I had stopped playing my guitar for fun or on my own, and I was not cool with that. So i'm taking a break for awhile, and i'm loving the time off. and i'm enjoying simply enjoying my guitar.

Last week I applied for a center manager position in Berkeley, and I interviewed for it earlier this week. As i'd suspected after the interview and talking with the recruiter, they already had a candidate they'd pretty much decided on before the position was officially posted. It's a pretty common practice in our company, so i completely understand. So I didn't get it, but I had an excellent opportunity to practice my interviews, plus I put my name out officially and i'm known. Apparently, I did a pretty good interview, got some good feedback though so next time I'll be even better.

I've been going to the gym pretty regularly, between 3-6 times each depending on my schedule. It's crazy, i'm definately enjoying it. Well, i figure i must be because I don't have any trouble motivating myself to go do it (most days). I start each workout by running for 10 minutes (increasing the speed every few days), then I do a couple of sets of two different weights/exercises (i've got a semi-regular routine of a couple different ones i rotate through), and then I finish everything off by running for another 5 minutes. I'm probably going to change up, down the speed and up the time on my runs, working my speed back up again.

I was pretty excited. I set a goal for myself to do sets of 250 pounds for deadlifts by the end of October. Last monday (monday's my deadlift day) I was doing my sets at 255 pounds. Well, i'm on my final set when the song "Waitin' for Superman" by the Flaming Lips comes on my .mp3 player. Why is that amusing? Well, the chorus to that song simply goes..."Is it getting heavy? I thought it was already as heavy as can be."

Still reading a lot, but you can read about that in other posts.

There's, of course, somethign else going on in my life this month, but it's not really fully developed so I'm keeping the DL on it right now.

I am way excited to be going home to Kansas for thanksgiving. for more than one reason.

I got an xBox 360. Madden 09 is mjuch better than 08, but the real news is that i got Fallout 3. that game is pretty darn incredible so far. Tomb Raider comes out next month, and a bunch of other quality games.

And also in exciting news....75 days left 'till Peru! w00t!

It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.

2008-10-30T02:17:00.000-07:00

funny to think when you realize that you might be the bad guy, when you consider that you might be apart of the sort of thing you always swore you'd never do. funny how life works out that way.

NaNoWriMo

2008-10-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

If i do, in fact, participate in National Novel Writing Month, it will be in large part inspired by the following quote from their website...

"Art for art's sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and "must-dos" of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives."

I have in mind the novel I would try to write, well, at least I know where it starts and I know where it ends. The details in between are still a little fuzzy. I guess that'st he fun part, eh?

*shrug* we'll see. i'm pretty known for having big ideas and plans and generally not doing much of anything about it.

a little bit of patience...

2008-10-25T02:39:00.000-07:00

that definately does not suck

Cholera

2008-10-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

I just finished Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and for the second time in as many books, he waited until the very final page to reveal the exact meaning of his title. Sure, cholera makes a few appearances elsewhere in the book, but it hardly at all makes sense until the final pages. very nice tho. That man is an impressive writer, I can definately see why he won the Nobel Prize, and I definately agree that he's qualified. I don't know if I can quite explain it, though, how to describe why he's so great. he's just a phenomenal storyteller, puts together such vibrant characters--even when they're sort of cliche--with such simple and accurate and beautiful writing that just sort of pulls you through the story. He writes very much in the style of Steven King (or vice versa, if you will) where the characters drive the story, with plot and events being driven by them rather than forcing a character into a specific set of events.

Suffice to say, impressive author. read Love in the Time of Cholera, of if you're in the mood for something a little more fantastic and less romantic, read 100 Years of Solitude, labeled as the first book since Genesis that should be required reading of the entire human race. not sure i disagree.

Here it is again...football stats...

2008-10-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

We had a huge turnout yesterday for football, probably better than 30 people at the peak. Lots of new people, lots of fun. I had a pretty good game.

On offense, I played exclusively QB and offensive line, and had:
probably 5 of 12 passing for probably 85 yards with a touchdown. I had probably 3 rushes for about 15 yards. Unfortunately, I was sacked twice.

Defense, I played around. Little bit of linebacker, little bit of nickleback, and a fair spot of d-line. I had probably 6 tackles, including 1 for a big loss. I also had 2 sacks and probably 6-8 QB hurries.

Good times.

A lack of unsense here...hopefully...

2008-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

I've been blessed with several good albums recently. It's sort of an issue...how do you choose which one to listen to?

the new Anberlin album is very spiffy. It's not quite as grandeur in it's last moments as Cities, but it's definately epic enough for me. It's a bit more poppy, en general, than Cities, sort of like it mixes the epic soaring emo anthems of Cities with the solid pop grooves of Blueprints for a Black Market. Definitely got some great christian undertones to it.

I picked up the Jason Mraz album, mostly to impress girls, if you must be honest, but also because "I'm Yours" is a phenomenal song and worth buying the whole album for by itself. Haven't gotten into the rest of it yet, but it might come. Do love the artwork.

I randomly ran across the Fratellis on "Live at Abbey Road" and thought they were good fun, so I'd picked up "Costello Music" (because of the pinup girls on the cover, maybe?) and absolutely enjoyed the hell out of that album (especially "Whistling for the Choir"). Just a good ol' fashion, run British rock'n'roll band. don't have enough of them. So i picked up their latest, "Here We Stand," and so far it's pretty spiffy. They lost a little bit of the Brit Bar Band feel, and moved over towards a bit more of the classic British Invasion pop rock album, but they do it well. They are fun, and would be a great show to see in a pub somewhere. do we even have pubs out here?

My most exciting pickup so far is the Subways "All or Nothing." Another band I discovered on Live at Abbey Road, I knew I had to have their disc when I heard that Butch Vig produced it. they are the most in-tune 3-piece band i've come across for awhile--they're so comfortable playing with each other that they are completely free to explore their instruments and have a lot of fun doing it. Good ol' punk album, not in the Green Day or anything like that, but more like the Donnas or the Ramones. For some reason, they remind me a lot of Abandoned Pools, but i think they're a little bit more grounded. And let me say...chic bass players like Charlotte Cooper...good golly that girl is hot.

Anyways, i've finally started to play the guitar again. It's been too long. I knew something was off when I just looked at my guitar and would have been just as happy with it in the case in the closet as playing it. It's nice to be annoyed when I have to leave for work 'cuz I'm still itching to finger some chords and play some tunes. Now if i can just get this "I haven't written a song in way too long" monkey off of my back, i'll be happy. I have some ideas. i hope they come together. that's the tricky part.

Just 'cuz I feel like it...
Nate's Top Ten Albums of All Time (in no particular order)(where everything could change tomorrow)
Garbage "Version 2.0"
Starflyer 59 "Everyone Makes Mistakes"
Damien Rice "O"
Jars of Clay "Jars of Clay"
Bright Eyes "I'm Wide Awake it's Morning"
Depeche Mode "Songs of Faith and Devotion"
Deftones "White Pony"
Moby "Play"
Erasure "Erasure"
Poe "Haunted"

I think listening to those albums would tell you a lot about me. but what do i know?

Funny how several of my all-time fav bands (The White Stripes, The Violet Burning) don't make that list.

Oh well.

2008-10-10T17:50:00.001-07:00

That sucks.

We sing, we dance, we steal things

2008-10-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

Well, now i'm done. I've done it and you know I felt it. Subtlety, eh? Tried to be chill, but I'm heavy-handed, too hot and I melted. Walked a delicate balance, but I fell right through the cracks...now I've got to try to get back. But while I try to be cool, it will take nothing short of God, divine intervention, to stop me from giving my best. I'll either pull it off and win some or learn some.

So hard to wait, sometimes you can't, and if you hesitate? No more, I'm...

You'll have to step back and think like me, open up your plans and damn you're free. You've just got to keep looking down, down into your heart. What will you find? Love listening to the music when people dance and sing, just like family, one big family that sometimes forget's it's God-given rights to be loved.

So i'm tired of waiting. No more. It doesn't have to be complicated, we don't really have time for that anyways. Is it fate? Who am I to say? I've spent way too much time checkin my reflection in the mirror, watching the words roll off of my tongue, bending over backwards to get a better look. If your breath is fogging up the glass, just draw another face and laugh.

I guess what i'm trying to say is there's just no better rhyme or reason to give up and go with the season--thats what I aim to do. Who we are, our name, is our only virtue.

Hesitate? No more. It can't wait any longer. Me? Your's is the choice to see like me, free plans and find the sky is your own, the only limit. It's not as complicated as we think, which is good because we never have enough time. That's destiny. I & mine. Yours.

Could've been a night like any other...

2008-10-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

It could've been a scene straight out of a movie. Chances are you've seen it, probably more than once. They say that there are only three stories, told and retold with little variations. I'm not sure who they are or when or why they said such a thing, and that's sort of the problem with undefined pronouns. It's the way english is these days, though, undefined and vague. it's all a matter of context--if you know the details, the stories will fill themselves in. Without context I might as well just be another random blogger rambling through the wastes of the internet.

if it is, in fact, one of the three dominant stories, then we can begin to understand that it is told and retold because it is a true story, one that resonates with all of us on some level. Maybe it's a story we've all lived or seen someone else live, but we know that it is as it is because it is, somewhere, somehow it is telling out in the lives we witness firsthand.

It could be showing on a movie screen right now, but it certainly hasn't played itself out yet. Intermission? Is it just the subplot from a much bigger picture (maybe one who's finale has just passed and now winds down to conclusion), or is it the exposition building to something of it's own climax.

I always said it was the sort of thing i'd not be involved with. I've said such things in the past, never's and no's and not me's, and turned around to watch myself exactly where I thought not to be. Maybe I ought not draw lines, less I find myself pulled across by gravity, one who's laws you cannot contradict short of softening the inevitable blow.

I know this: this week, words flow through my fingers. My guitar sings each day now. Last week these did not happen, nor the week before and even the week before. Things now are different, late things, as if they now realize how they always should have been. I dont know if it is, in fact, how they will be, and I can begin to imagine a million could be's. Happy endings aren't always as they seem, because they very nature of overcoming conflict leaves one part overcome. the question at the heart of it all, the very question which every story sets out to tell, is which part will overcome and which will be overcome.

Close, tactile. Closer, each time. you know, I know. Which part is the make believe? Will it sieve through my hands? Spin one way first, the other way next, come back. Closest, or is it just closer still?

I can see what it could be's. Is simplicity best, or simply the easiest?

2008-10-06T22:21:00.001-07:00

FYI already finished with my pulp fantasy. took me less than a week. I did enjoy it, no doubt. There was the added advantage of a four hours of flying time i spent reading on my trip, but i still spun it off in well better than half the time of the previous--probably closer to a quarter the time. 'Course, now I ramp up into another heavy one..."Love in the Time of Cholera" by Garcia-Marquez. oi. wish me luck.

thinking of trying to do that National Novel Writing month thing in november. we'll see. Not sure i have the fortitude for it.

2008-10-05T23:41:00.001-07:00

I don't even know where to start re: my weekend.

boy.

Recently finished

2008-09-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers. I'm not sure what I think of the book, it was definately different. Good writer, odd premise. Half biographical memoir, half fictional story, it placed the author in a fictional story through which during the course of events he was able to reflect on the previous 15 years of his life. It all pulls together, sort of, in the end, that is if you're like me and you like to pull all sorts of crazy meanings out of books that the authors may or may not have intended (although I'm inclined to believe writers hide far more of that stuff in their intentionally than we might think).

It's not the sort of book i'd recommend to everyone, or in fact manyones. You'd have to be the sort of person who likes the sort of novels you'd read in a literary course for english majors in some pretentious private college. If you like those, or you like the sort of novels that you can write papers about, you might like this one.

It was way heavy. Not weight-wise, but it took me quite awhile to trudge through the 326 pages. I'd suspect that it will take me half that time to read the 400+ pages of my next book, Sons of the Oak, a pulp fantasy sequel to a series i've liked on-and-off for the past couple years. After that, I either go to the short story book by Susanna Clarke (who wrote the best fantasy novel of the past many years in Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell) or back to the heaviness with more Garcia-Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera). we'll see. maybe something else will catch my eyes between now and then.

Warning--insert football post here

2008-09-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

Both my boys won today. Can you believe the Chiefs pulled that one out? Me either. and the Bears? good boys. Reminds me of a joke. Chris, you've heard this one before...

Where do you let a bear dance?

Anywhere it wants to. True that.

I'm not in the panther cage, you're in the panther cage.

2008-09-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

So I've been reading a lot lately, and by lately i mean this year. I've always loved reading, from before i could read even (my parents say that from a very young age, i loved paging through books in my crib & such). I go through phases in my life where i'll read a lot for awhile, then i won't read barely anything for a long time. Well, i've been on public transportation most of this year (which i don't mind much of the time), which allots me a good hour plus of read time every day.

In the past, one of my stumbling blocks was finding somethign I wanted to read. I have a short attention span, so if I don't find something I love fast, i lose interest and then it just sort of gets put on the side. Well, for whatever reason, I've become motivated to read--in general--and this has helped me trudge through some stuff I might not have in the past. Kinda nifty, 'cuz I've found a lot of quality reads.

I've been reading mostly pretentious literature--nobel prize winners (100 Years of Solitude by Gabrielle Garcia-Marquez), foreign authors (The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy), modern american classics ("No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy), and my current book was picked because I was reading a list of the Top 100 First Lines from novels in the past 100 years (Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers). It's really interesting to me, because I have definately noticed why these books are considered "good literature." There's just something about their writing styles--not necissarily their plots or characters or anything, but they just write better. I'm not sure I can describe exactly why yet--i'm working on it--but it's pretty clear.

I've also read my share of pop culture literature, and even a little bit of pulp(I Love You Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle, etc.), and while they certianly don't share the intellectual satisfaction, they've been a whole lot of fun to read. I think I like them just as much. They're a lot faster reads, that's for sure.

Anyways, you can take a look on my page and see all the books i've read this year. i'm pretty excited. I've still got a few more months left to rack up my year-long list. Suggestions, always welcome. Won't promise i'll read it, but i'll listen.

Did you see Heroes?

2008-09-24T00:14:00.001-07:00

can I just say, "holy crap!?!?!"

Frankie, this is for you (no football, I promise)

2008-09-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

True: conformable to an essential reality, fully realized or fulfilled; being that which is the case rather than what is manifest or assumed

Fact: something that has actual existence; an actual occurrence

So i've been thinking a lot about the disparency between something being true and something being factual. Mostly, i blame Madelaine L'Engle for the line of thought, but the more i think about it the more I've come to the conclusion that something can be true without being factual. In fact as an artist, I think it's not only possible, but it's necessary. How else can fiction be relevant to us as a society beyond anything more than passing amusement if it doesn't contain truth. I find it hard to believe that we would even find fiction amusing if it didn't contain some bit of truth to which we could relate somehow.

Jesus himself was pretty familiar with this idea, consciously or not. One of his primary methods of teaching was through parables and stories, little imaginary vignette's of life he used to illustrate important lessons and truths of God, life, and following Him. In this vein, I find it more and more likely that much of the stories from the Bible aren't literal, factual events, but rather stories and "based on a true story" chosen by God and used to illustrate and important truth about Him.

Take, for example, the book of Job. Science considers that it is probably the first book of the bible that was written. Some theories ascribe it's authorship to Moses (just like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, & Deuteronomy), but nobody's really sure. It's a difficult story to place chronologically in the Old Testament, and it's even placed in the category of "poetry" books. Not that I disagree...

But my point is that I personally find it highly unlikely that this story actually happened. This was a story, a philosophical exposition, a poem that some inspired and dedicated follower of God used to address some pretty big questions of life in general as well as reveal some characteristics of God (among many other things). Could it have happened? certianly, it could have, but does the fact of it's happening or not happening change at all the truths that are contained within?

As an artist--a songwriter and writer of other things in theory--this becomes quite important to us, this ability to be true without being factual. I once heard a sermon about art & christianity, and the speaker explained that the responsibilities of christian artists (and if you're Madelaine L'Engle, you believe that all art--all true art--is christian regardless of the beliefs of the artist) are two-fold: to tell the people stories (or truths) about God, and to tell God stories (or truths) about the people. now, getting into the details of THAT is a whole nother blog or book or pages upon pages, but the important thought is that if fiction can contain truth, then we must let go of our preconceptions that something must be factual to be true.

We have to embrace that learning and knowledge isn't just memorization and facts. Songs and stories and movies and comic books can all be viable and powerful methods of communicating truth (remember, you always communicate with, never communicate to). Fiction can be as valuable in education as multiplication tables. We are losing the traditions of storytelling and folklore and fables in our culture, and with this loss comes the loss of the truths conveyed there-in.

Or something.

And just to make it one of Frankie's favorite posts...
I like a girl. and her name begins with....a letter....of the alphabet....

On the Playlist for this Post...
The Fratellis Costello Music

Ricky, this is for you

2008-09-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

So Ricky Borba shows up for our flag football game this weekend, and for the second time in the last two times he's talked to me, he says to me, "nate i really wish you'd start blogging again." so, ricky, this is for you. I'll come back with a little bit more important stuff to talk about later (or never), but I gotta start with this:

Flag football stats so far!
Today I:
caught 3 passes for estimated 30 yards (including one that was tipped by another player before i snagged it out of the air). i also dropped one other pass that went right through my hands
i threw 3 touchdown passes, 1 interception, and got sacked once. I don't know the exact stats, but I would guess my passing was probably about 12-14 of 26-30 for 130 yards-ish.
had 3-4 "tackles," one pass defensed, and probably about a few blow assignments.

Last week, if I remember...
I threw 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions. I dont' remember getting sacked at all, but i might have had one. The touchdown was probably the best pass i've thrown in my life to Chris F who could be a dangerous target for me this year.
I rushed probably about 6-7 times for probably 40-50 yards.
Defensively, i didn't do much stat-wise (though I directed the defense from the middle linebacker spot). i probably got 3-4 "tackles" and i deflected one pass i should have intercepted.

with 8 more games to go, I should set a goal or something. I'd like to throw a total of 15 touchdowns with 14 or less interceptions. I'd like to run (in games were rushing is allowed) an average of about 25-30 yards per game. I'd like 4-5 interceptions, 3-4 sacks, and an average of 3-4 "tackles" per game.

I should also put together a simple short rule book for our house rules. You know, "if we have 7 on 7, we play like this. if we have 8-on-8, etc."

anyways, that's all for now