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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Free yourself

One of the blogs I follow is Zen Pencils, written and drawn by a man named Gavin Aung Than. Gav is a freelance cartoonist who lives in Melbourne, Australia. He takes quotes from famous people and sets them to inspirational cartoons. After looking at the first one, I was hooked. Fans suggest quotes from people and Gav turns them into works of art. He's put it all together in a book and there more than a few requests to have his work made into motivational posters. As always, he quotes sources and does a bit of research behind each work.
One of his latest works I could relate to.
I can't speak for everyone, but I can see myself in the slave/drone pictured in the illustration. In the past I've said that retail is where souls go to die. I would amend that to say all customer service jobs are where you will find the beaten, downtrodden folk who have all but given up hope for a better life. Simply put; it is the path of least resistance. A person can work their fingers to the bone and have very little to show for it.
Reading that last paragraph, one can think that I'm cynical and bitter. Perhaps I'm a little angry with myself because I took the path of least resistance (or the quickest paycheck), and it took me several years, decades even, to figure it out it may not have been the best way to go about life.
Many moons ago, right as I got out of high school, I heard through a friend of a friend that an advertising agency was looking for an intern. My friend suggested that with my collection of drawings I should put together a portfolio. The prospect sounded intriguing as well as frightening. Almost the same week I heard Pizza Hut was hiring. To my young mind the process of getting a steady paycheck and tips every week sounded better than maybe getting a job where I had to wear a tie, and it may lead to a paycheck. If I had an ounce of sense at that age, I would have put together a portfolio while working at Pizza Hut. Years went by. Employment changed, but not the job. Lying to myself became the order of the day. I was too tired. I'm too old/young/fat/insert excuse here. Before I knew it four or five years slipped away. Life reasserted itself. A wife and kids to feed, bills to pay. Twenty more years went by.
If anyone is to blame, put that square on me. Perhaps I made the choice to put my dreams on hold to keep a roof over our heads. At the time it felt like the only choice available, but I'm here to tell you it's not. It only took about ten years for me to figure out how to make my life better.
It started like this: I got up inside the dusty attic of my brain and started to throw switches and pull levers.
For the longest time I noticed the oldest worker on whatever crew I was in at the time, started to not look so old. I was closer in age to them than I was the young bucks just joining us for the summer season. Occasionally I would be referred to as a dinosaur and did I really know what 70's music sounded like? Running away from such a scenario may seem like a good idea, but it's the kind of situation that follows you where ever you go. The watershed moment was when the oldest guy at my work, who also flipped burgers down at the Whataburger, took a hammer to his wife's skull. Not pretty and definitely a waste of precious life. Not wanting to be in my sixties and holding down two minimum wage jobs was motivation enough. I felt the need to do what I should have done years ago. 
So even though I was tired, or the Spurs were playing in the finals, I would sit down in front of the keyboard and bang away. A blog entry or a short story at first. Then came my attempts to make something bigger. I built up my writing ability little by little, one sentence at a time. It didn't happen over night. Lightening did not strike. The money fairy skipped my house. What I did do was hone my skill until it was ready, then I sharpened it some more.
Today I got some good news. I told a few people and family, but I don't want to jinx it by announcing it to the world before it's official. One of those house of cards situations where I don't want to breathe to heavily and have the whole shebang collapse.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Autism Village

Just a quick post before I pop off to work. My friend Topher and his autism village kickstarter made their initial goal. As of this writing they are over 48,000 pledged to start an app for easily finding autism friendly businesses.
They are in the stretch goal phase trying to make the app friendly for Android and tablets.
Way to go guys! I want to see this happen. It should be great.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Too much time on my hands

At first I tried to go to work today, but anything resembling an energy reserve dwindled by 9 AM. The manager took one look at me and said, 'go home', so here I am. Box of Kleenex and Ricola cough drops by my side. I'll take some Dayquil in a bit and try to rest.
The other day I noticed the parsley in the garden has come back with a vengeance. Grabbing a pair of scissors (hopefully not the ones my wife uses for her sewing.) I snipped a small bushel and quickly dried it out. That tuckered me out and I had to sit down a couple of times during the drying process. I swear I'm going to lie down, honest.
The grass is still wet from the weekend rain, but it needs a trim badly. I'm worried about the dog getting fleas. The ego wants to do it. My body says to delegate it to the kids. Body wins that one. The other good thing is if I drift off to sleep in my chair, no one is going to berate me for it. Perhaps the dog will hop up and lick my face, but that's not the same thing.
Okay, enough of the sick crap.
The Dawn spacecraft is making news that matters. It entered orbit around Ceres March 6th at an altitude of 13,500 km. Presently it is circling the proto-planet at roughly 4,400 km, and it's going to spiral closer. By the time November rolls around it will be 375 km above the surface. Dawn is already taking pictures and mapping Ceres. There is a neat animation gif on this blog, but there's more information and pictures over here.
Some of those pictures show two bright spots in a crater. What is that? Ice? I read an article last week that speculated Ceres might contain an underground ocean.
There is a possibility of life, even microbial life out there. Europa, Ganymede, and now we add Ceres to that list. We officially have a mission slated for Europa. That's great, fantastic even. Personally, I'm hoping when we drill through the ice and poke a camera into one of those icy moons, we stumble upon an underwater city inhabited by squid-like creatures. Actually, if a tiny shrimp or plankton crosses the lens, I'll be amazed.
I don't give a shit about the Duggars or the Kardashians. Taylor Swift can date whoever the hell she wants. I don't need to know about it. This quote sums it up quite nicely.
Thank you Dr. Asimov

The fact that in a few short months we will complete our solar system family portrait. It seems I'm the only one who gets excited about this stuff. Coworkers and people on the street, not so much.
There is a rule among the technically savvy known as Moore's law.
In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, noted the number of transistors per one square inch of integrated circuits doubled every year since the circuit was invented. He noted the trend would continue, and it has. The data density doubles every 18 months and this proves to be a useful guideline for technological development. It sounds neat to call it a law when it should be referred to as an observation or conjecture, nevertheless it's a very accurate one.
There is another term I first heard of ten years ago called technological convergence. Our televisions are becoming information centers. We watch programs on our laptops or our phones. Just recently Apple launched the Apple watch. From what I've seen, it looks like a smartphone you wear like a wrist watch.
It's all coming together folks.
Watching a show on my iPhone that I'd missed because my daughter wants to watch The Voice would have been inconceivable twenty years ago, hell... ten years ago. Netflix killed Blockbuster, plain and simple. Video streaming wasn't even a word not too long ago. AT&T is my internet provider and I didn't even bat an eye typing that. Go figure.
I'm going to make a prediction: as we step out into the solar system, our technology is going to increase geometrically much like Moore's law. There will always be the have's and the have not. We will always have the nerds and the jocks. There will come a time when a faction chooses to leave the planet. A group of scientists will set up a permanent orbital city. A corporation will mine an asteroid. Someone will set up a colony. Recently a report critical of Mars One popped up. I'm not 100 % surprised in this, but I don't believe it is a scam like critics say. There are easier ways to run a con. Insurance and real estate come to mind.
That's not to say I'm giving Bas Lansdorp, the CEO of Mars One the benefit of the doubt. There is a fair load of chutzpah involved, but not outright bullshit. Most of the technology is there.
A group of MIT scientists took a look at the Mars One mission profile. Here's the PDF. It's a 25 page report that states once they get there, how do they stay alive? Oxygen. Water. Spare parts, communications, and logistics were key points addressed. And they're right. Once those colonists leave Earth orbit, they are on their own. If something were to go wrong on the Martian surface and we decided to effect a rescue mission, they would only be dead for the 39 days it takes us to get there. That is assuming the closest approach between Mars and Earth. It could take longer depending on orbits. Any police officer will tell you, in a missing child case after 72 hours the chance of finding the child alive is slim to none.
Mr. Lansdorp is trying to carry a baton and lead people to a new era of exploration. He knows the tech isn't fully ready. Just because you try and rally people together doesn't mean it's going to happen on your time table.
Mars One will happen eventually. I'm thinking there will be a lunar base and a couple of orbital cities at liberation points before it does come about though.






Monday, March 23, 2015

Creep

Yesterday my post nasal drip went into high gear. Creaky joints, sore throat, low grade fever, and hocking up a lot crap. Think it's time to call in. Now I know what a soccer ball in the World Cup feels like: kicked around and stepped on. Slept on the couch to avoid contaminating the wife any further than she's already been.
I've only slept in one hour spurts, so yeah, a nap is in my future after I take some medicine for this crap.
Forgot to mention it on Friday, but I distinctly saw a smudge of blue on the side of the road. It's been raining all weekend, but I want to check for bluebonnets.
Yesterday I sent the first three chapters off TR to White Bird Publications. Their submission guidelines are tucked away under a tab, but fear not, I followed them to the letter. Of course that involved taking the page numbers and footer at the bottom of the page and putting it on the top. They simply want to see if I can follow directions, so we'll play that tune. After all the editing, I keep telling myself it's not a sure thing. We'll see in a month. In the meantime, I should get to work on the New Orleans adventure that I cut out of the first book. That means I'm going to have to come up with a name for it. There's a saying in the music industry that goes something like this: You have nine years to make your first record and nine weeks to make your second. 
So I guess it's a good thing the ground work for the rest of the two books has been laid out.
In the time it took to read that last sentence, I called in sick to work. My wife and I have a system for calling my Clark Kent job involving the speaker phone and her signing to me one handed. It actually works out well. I anticipate the questions and know what the procedure is for navigating the answering service. With that out of the way I can now die in peace. When I'm sick like this, my  body shuts down. I tend to go into hibernation mode. Back when I had the chicken pox and German measles as a teen, I recall falling asleep on Sunday and not waking up until Wednesday. There were half lucid moments when I stumbled to the bathroom to relieve myself, but those memories are foggy at best. I have to say I wasn't fully cognizant or aware of my surroundings.
Which brings me to another point. I distinctly recall getting my childhood inoculations and yet I also came down with the mumps when I was a child, German measles during high school, and contracted chicken pox from one of my students in the late eighties.
I'm given to understand there are two varieties of chicken pox strain, but that doesn't explain what happened with the other childhood diseases. Now that it's my turn in the parent seat, and all my girls vaccinations are up to date. That's not to say that my parents didn't keep me up to date on vaccinations, they most certainly did. In fact it was a prerequisite before registering for school.
One can only hope that things are better this time around. 

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Busy

My girls are in the kitchen baking bread. Mom and daughter standing practically back to back. Pouring, measuring, mixing, and cleaning. Good thing they work well together. Moving like choreographed dancers, except with blenders.
The Oreo truffles are done. They'll pour the chocolate on them last. Six loaves are on the table next to three bowls of rising dough. A few minutes ago I washed and dried the dishes in order to give them more room. 
Note to me: My dream kitchen will be bigger and include a butcher block food prep station.
Today's racking went well. The elderberry mead is sitting next to my desk.
A very deep purple
 Back in the fall, a good friend dared me to make elderberry mead. My first attempt at the prickly pear had been a resounding success. Yea, for following directions!
Looking back, I think my buddy was trying to put a Monty Python spin on things. Perhaps this means I should refer to this batch as 'your mother was a hamster.' I'll think of a better name later on.
The rest of Lady Jane's Time Out I'm saving. This week saw me taking three and four bottles at a time to voluntary taste testers. With their input I can make the next batch better.
Today I cleared off a few shelves in the garage to make room for the bottles I'm collecting. There's over 30 of them now, so I can afford to be picky about what I'm using. At first I thought the screw tops were responsible for the breakages and popped corks. Looking over in the corner, I can see that's not the case. Clear bottles show off the mead's color better, so I'll be using them whenever I can. this morning I finished scrubbing the labels off except for two. What makes these bottles noteworthy to me is for one, they're clear and have a distinctive top to them.
Go home bottle, you're drunk
They also have a silk screened label I can't scrape off. Acetone and paint remover have no effect. A razor blade and steel wool were slightly more effective. I considered getting Mueratic acid, the stuff they use to etch concrete with, but I'm holding off until a better solution is suggested. (hint, hint)

For the last few weeks I've been seeing a chiropractor to help fix my nerve pinched arms. If I hold them in one place for too long, they fall asleep. The fact that I've been typing for about 20 minutes and I can still feel all my fingers tells me something is working. I'm also going to have to stop the visitations for a bit. We took a pay cut with my wife's job change and that threw the budget into the toilet. Admittedly I was angry and depressed about it for a few days, but this means I've got to double down and try harder to get things done. It also means cutting back on some things.
In eight weeks time the wife and I will be driving to Colorado to pick up my oldest. I don't want to say events went bad for her first flight out of the nest. In fact, I think they went rather well. She wanted an adventure and judging by the conversations we've had, she got one. Be careful what you wish for...
Thirteen weeks until our vacation getaway. I suppose I should book that time off. Driving to get the kid in May. Vacation in June. Yeah, I saw that one as well. In all honesty I didn't think I was going to be working at Lowe's by the time summer rolled around. There's a bunch of other stuff happening in between all that. My youngest's passport needs to be renewed, we should get on that right now. That bread being made? It's for a fundraiser. Middle child is trying to raise money for a church mission trip to Haiti. So far I believe she is halfway to her goal. It might be more, but I'm not sure.

Using Open Office to finish up my book has been a sort of blessing/ pain in the ass.
There's a neat feature that allows you to save it under a .doc format which is highly accepted among publishers. It also has a tendency to put spaces and gobblygook where you least expect them to. So that means I'm going through things double and triple checking them. Also keep in mind I'm doing this on my lunch hour. I'm also doing it in the late hours of the evening, which is partially why I haven't updated. I'm not at my sharpest late at night. This isn't something you can multitask. That's why I go ecstatic over getting six hours together. One has to enjoy the little things in life.




Sunday, March 15, 2015

learning

When we venture in to new territory, a person is bound to learn things they never knew before. The trick is to keep an open mind, even if it goes against what you learned before. Words will sound strange. New sights to challenge our perception or the way things are. Things will certainly taste different. Considering new possibilities is more important than ever.
A smart man can read a thousand books and think he still has much to learn. Others read one book and believe they know it all. It's hard for a person to allow their core beliefs to be challenged, but in order to grow as a person I believe it must be done.
Pluto started off as a planet. To be considered a planet you had to meet three criteria: You must orbit a sun. Check. You must be spherical, or nearly round. Check. You have to be the biggest thing in your neighborhood or clear out whatever is in your path. That last one is a sticking point.
But wait... Charon, Pluto's moon, was discovered in 1978. More satellites were discovered a few years later. Okay, rewrite those books about the planets. Now hold on... Charon and Pluto sort of orbit each other. Scribble, scribble, scribble. Erase, erase, erase... 
Now there is an argument that Pluto may be regaining the planet status.
This goes to show that nothing is set in stone. Nothing. 
When I took up home brewing as a hobby, I learned to make stuff I thought would taste good. The name of what I was making wasn't that important. Today I learned the mead I bottled yesterday is called Melomel. Mead made with herbs and spices are called Metheglin. Tough to pronounce, I know.
So for the record I have dry mead and Melomel in my overstuffed wine rack. Yeah, I promised a few bottles to friends. I wrote that list down somewhere...
The orange mead and elderberry mead are also considered Melomels. When they're ready some time in the next month or two, I learned a simple trick to keep them from becoming bottle bombs. $1.98 simple. That was what I sometimes refer to as a Homer Simpson moment. (Doh!) This was closer to; 'Oh hey, cool.'
It's how we learn.
There's a contest coming up in June. Right now the only thing ready to go is the prickly pear. The word is still out on the elderberry. I don't think it will have aged enough by the time the contest rolls around. When Mr. Impatient doesn't think there's enough time, then we need to reconsider our options. Yesterday I considered my skill at mead making had progressed to the point where I think I can try something new. I'm pretty sure it has been done before because I read about a recipe a long time ago. There will be some modifications, of course. I've already thought about my next three batches of mead. That doesn't mean they need to be done right away. It means that I'm thinking ahead. This hobby is teaching me to be patient.
And because a picture is worth a thousand words, here is my latest batch entitled; Lady Jane's Time Out.
Not as red as I thought it would be


Monday, March 9, 2015

Wanting to understand

A portion of last weekend was spent in my chair, a blank screen staring back at me. Long story short, I was searching for an angle. Knowing what to write about and how to go about it are two distinctly different things, as any writer will tell you.
In the past I've railed about anti-vaccination groups and their blatant stupidity for clinging to an already debunked myth. They insist they are trying to protect their children. Noble, but a bit too ridiculous. Parents with autistic children are looking for a scapegoat to explain their child's behavior.
Unfortunately these are two uncorrelated events.
Vaccines are not to blame for the rise of autism, but what is autism exactly? Between 1980 and 1994 the American Psychology association defined three new forms of autism. You read that right: we're getting better at recognizing what autism is, and understanding is the key.
Scientists have a number of working theories. Exposure to industrial chemicals while the child is in utero is one and the age of the parents is another. My youngest child has been diagnosed as having Aspergers, a form of autism. At the time this was post-head injury for me when we brought our little girl into the world. I can't help but wonder if somehow my damaged genetic code altered how my baby girl would live her life.
I'm not looking for a scapegoat, unless that person to blame is me. My dearest child is sweet and kind. I don't think there is a cruel bone in her being. She has difficulty reading and articulating, but she is extremely empathetic to others. Often times it takes a bit to get her words out, but wow, what words. She's simple and wise all at once.
There are other forms of autism, in fact, it is a broad spectrum of social interaction. If my child is on one end, then Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie, Rain man, is the opposite.
If I had to put a name on all this, I would call it the human condition. These people, children... don't process thoughts and emotions like we do. That doesn't make them better or worse than the run of the mill person on the street. In fact, it makes them gifted in my humble opinion. She sees the world in a different color than the rest of us. I won't be surprised if she grows up to be an artist or something.
A mutual friend has started a Kickstarter. They are trying to raise money for an app that helps rate Autism friendly businesses and places. The goal is 38,000 and they are well on their way. Finding a safe playground or a restaurant that has the specific type of food an autistic child likes to eat can be a challenge for many. This app would give families living with autism one less thing to worry about.
Next paycheck that comes around I plan on donating to this project. I feel it's a worthy effort and will make a lot of lives better.
This will make a difference to many people living with autism. Things like this inspire my faith in humanity. 

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Passages

The other day I got one of those quizzes on Facebook. 'Are you different than you were twenty years ago?'
This from an old high school friend. Knowing the answer to that doesn't excuse you from at least acknowledging the question. After I came home from work, I went online to look for that stupid quiz but couldn't find it. Okay, I didn't look all that hard. I wasn't going to take the quiz. The only type of person who needs to know is me. Everybody else who wishes to take a stroll down memory lane is more than welcome to it... on their own time and their private life. That's what photo albums are for.
My daughter turned 15 today. My mother turned... ahem. My lawyer advises me not to answer that. Despite the legal advice I'm going to say, 29! Good answer!
My wife is also in the middle of a job crises. Not a career crises, but a change of jobs. Despite the anxiety attacks, I think she's got a handle on this. It sounds cliche, but she was let go for a reason, and she walked out of the job with more than she came in with. I can't quite wrap my head around why they throw people away after investing a lot of time and money in training.
People can ask me why I'm still at my job. That's a fair question. The jobs I've interviewed for have been for less pay. I am not taking a pay cut. My current job is a steady 7 to 4 and weekends off. I can not place an importance on what a set schedule allows. Weekends with my family. Planning my life more than two weeks in advance. Let me tell you what my job allows me to do.
I can concentrate on things outside work. I'm wrapping up my book. Not as quickly as I'd like, but progress is being made.
My Clark Kent job is back breaking, not mind breaking. It's easy to ponder a solution for the hero in the story while stocking shelves. Rest easy, I've no plans to stay at this job longer than necessary. Think of it this way; I'm building an offramp. When I get my book published, (not 'if') then I will leave Clark Kent behind and not look back. I remember being unemployed for several years and no thank you. I won't go back to that.
That's what that stupid quiz was really asking. Looking back at my life while friends and acquaintances look on.
No thank you.
To answer the unasked question, of course my I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago. I'm older, heavier (a case can be made for fatter.) and balder.
I still comfortably fit into size 32 jeans. My wife says my butt has sagged and I'd have to agree with her. Occasionally I get compliments from co-workers and friends. The current rumor going around is I'm ten years younger than my actual age. Ran into a friend at the grocery store who remarked, 'Where'd you get them guns?' Yeah, my arms are a bit bigger. Who needs a gym?
Hopefully I've learned something in the last 20 years. My life isn't on hold. I'm advancing and on the constant lookout for a trade up.
I don't need a quiz to tell me that.