Author: admin

I’m going to keep this to the smaller things today. That means it is all about…

Some Thoughts:

1. I lost a fantasy football game that I truly should not have. Skill issue? Perhaps slightly, but moreso a bad luck issue. I slide from a potential 4th place to a probably 9th in one 6 point loss. Tough year.
2. SNAP benefits are expected to expire on Halloween. Better hold on to that candy, poor kids, because it might be the only food you get for a while. Here’s what is most crushing about this–it is all politics. A billionaire can spend 130 million to help pay for troop salaries. The government can shift 8 billion in research dollars to cover the cost of salaries, but SNAP, which also has 5B, cannot or will not spend those funds to support the people it is meant to protect? That’s using politics to play with people’s lives.
3. No, I’m not here for the whataboutisms. I don’t care that Dems just won’t sign the bill. The reasons are entirely just. Dems have no power but this moment and they need to stick to it in order to make sure health care doesn’t skyrocket for the most vulnerable. The ‘other side’ doesn’t care about any of that nor is that side truly representative of the larger body of people whom they serve. It sucks that we’ve come to such a dark place. It is also no surprise that we have. “Our Brand is Crisis” said one Trump staffer, sadly invoking a Sandra Bullock film… because nothing they do is original. Even Make America Great Again is a recycled Reagan bit.
4. Speaking of recycled Reagan bits, kudos to Ontario for the sick burn commercial… Of course he raised tariffs as a result
5. Finally watching Mrs. Maisel after years of avoiding it. It got to the point where not watching a show we thought might be good but wasn’t really sure we wanted to commit to was call Mrs. Maiseling it. We’re going to keep that term forever. The show was worth the watch… through the first season. By the end of season two I’m wondering how they sustained it for 5. This isn’t Gilmore Girls good… not yet. The star herself is funny and fun to watch. The supporting cast is great in moments, but outside of Shaloub, nobody is stealing a scene.

expectations are a crazy thing. Take college football for example. If your team has a logo with a history of winning then the only successful outcome of a season is a natty. You can win 8 games and get fired. You have a losing record for a single year and you’re cooked. Went one will turn on you. That’s a function of expectations.

There are expectations in every aspect of life and they exist as a function of a perceptual relationship between two or more parties (I won’t dig into self expectations here). When those parties are not aligned in vision or harken any level of confusion in any aspect of the communication between the two, expectations develop and that word is always nasty.

I perceive symbiosis as a relations between two or more parties where mutual ism is at the core of it. When the goal is to create a result of equally supported needs and desires, you’re good. When it isn’t, expectations form and lead to imbalance.

we live in an era of expectation and imbalance which is not good for anyone. All we ever seem to want is a reassurance of our bubble—our feelings and worldview and if that doesn’t happen then someone needs to suffer and someone else needs to make sure that the bubble is secured. I’m struggling with living in a world like that.

unfortunately, it’s the only one I got.

It’s actually closer to noon than morning, but I wanted to get this in before the day fully turned into afternoon and I was turned towards the ideas of what I want to accomplish outside of the page–including watching the kid possibly play football today. He’s in a bind. He is so sick that he’s lost near twenty pounds. His body is sore and he’s taken zero time to recover. I don’t think he should play today, but if he does I want him to play like it’s his own Jordan Flu game. His team is facing a top-ranked squad at home, and they need a win pretty badly right now to stay in the playoff conversation.

Games. They have so much meaning in our lives. Most of my other kids are entirely consumed by games and the quick dopamine hit accompanying them. If you asked what the majority of my kids do with the majority of their lives it is playing games–if not as a career than as their consuming habit. More and more the games are getting shorter. There is a reduced willingness to dedicate the time and energy to longer endeavors. It is a form of neural bloating, which some scientists and researchers term as, “heightened sensitivity to the rewards and stimuli associated with short video content“. Games, while more active than passive, have a similar effect.

Distractions consume us all. The faster the distraction, the more we crave them it seems..

First day of solid writing progress since I put my butt in this chair two weeks ago and tried to scratch out a few solid hours of progress. It worked then and worked now. Only twice was ai interrupted by a senseless web search. I cannot say I got a lot of words in, but I got a lot of understanding in about the concepts involved in the story. I know and understand the backbone of not only this story, but another piece I am working on that is due in two months and reflects the fundamentals of what I am doing in the novel–but from a very different perspective.

Butt in Chair works. That’s my bottom line. When I have the time and focus required to get stuff done, I do. Unfortunately, I have yet to structure a lifestyle around that simple concept. Here it is nearly noon on a Friday and I’ve done more in this time and space than I have all of last week. Imagine my productivity if I made this kind of time daily? I’m not calling myself Stephen King yet, but I can do at least 1 page a day like this… maybe two. That’s two novels a year, folks. That is not only a lifestyle but a legitimate career.

Some Thoughts:

1. It is worth considering the factors holding me back: Kids, laziness, environment, work. How to mitigate those factors. In fact, I will try to follow through on understanding how to do that and then, one day, publish the book (the 3 day writer) gives me the money and momentum to get my situation in gear (perhaps even a different book for each amount of time (the one day writer and so on).

The toughest thing about writing to me is writing. The butt in chair aspect of the whole endeavor is fine if you’re on a beach or out in the woods or on the porch of the farm or in the libarary and so on. However, sitting at home when there are a thousand distractions clouding your mind is not the ideal opportunity to get that engine going. I’m quite trash at it, actually. Trash at the getting going and trash at the organization of when and how to consistently sit down at put out the words.

Over the summer I spent time in Spain and Canada. In Spain the reward for words was going to the beach. In Canada the beach was where I did the words. In both occasions I had a system in place where when I was writing, I was doing so with ‘just enough’ positive distraction that I could stay on task until my mind needed a blip. Spain was a one room pool house where I had internet service but only one screen, so I’d have to forcefully click off my full screen writing experience to distract myself. The area was teeming with passing cars and barking dogs and the occasional party a block away, but it still felt suburban–even remote. I wasn’t in a major city where there were distractions everywhere, and even those local sounds became background noise after a few days.

Canada was magic. There is no internet on the beach. There is only me and the words. Sometimes an Eagle flew by and once even landed in front of me, and that is all the distraction I need. The serenity and the regularity of the experience taught me that I want to write in isolation. I want to be disconnected when I spin the words, because then it is coming from me undistracted and unfiltered. It feels liek being jacked in separates me from the core of where my stories come from.

Home is different. Harder. There a lot of people in this house all playing games, shouting, and what not. I rarely am even in the office alone as I am now. I am peppered with distractions. I have three screens, which is probably two too many. These are the distractions I face. I have to find a better way and perhaps a better place. After all, I’m not so strong that I can overcome all of this on my own. I’ve proven that at least.

You ever notice how language tends to shape our perceptions. The things that are codified by our understanding of language and the underlying symbolism that language promotes are vast. I want to take this ten to focus on the dialectic of left and right, black and white. Now I know I cannot get through all of it in ten so I will try to be fast as possible on this. Free flowing thought commences now…

Why is left always associated with evil and wrongness? We cannot escape the linguistic bias inherent in the term. Left-handed people are lesser or more infrequent or just plain different from the masses. In a faux-populist civilization that means that left is inherently wrong. The wicked are placed on Gods left hand. The word ‘sinister’ is in fact a latin word that means left. In contrast, the word ‘dexter’ means right which means dexterity, commonly associated with grace and agility, is aligned with the right. Heck, the word ‘right’ is a stand in for correctness. So, when we speak to left and right in the political sphere, there is already a poisoning of that well, a genetic flaw in the base argument of whatever comes from the left as opposed to the right. Modern pundits only exacerbate that difference, especially when we tend to see the so-called right as a fundamentally religious (Christian?) base. So right is right and left is…. wrong? Well, fascism is a far-right political ideology that emphasizes authoritarian, dictatorial power. Yet it’s connection to the ‘right’ way of thinking has always lent it both credence as an ideology and some fair bit of freedom of operation as it can be connected to Kings and the ever present love of royalty we cannot seem to escape.

In short, we are being snookered by our own language and linguistic bias into looking at anything associated with the left as less than or perhaps bad. This is only getting worse as our media reach expands. Left = bad. Bernie Sanders (the most gentle man on the planet) is evil. White is right. Black is… Well, I guess I don’t have time to get into that one just yet, but let’s say the left and black are synonymous in the way that white and right are. Unfortunately, we as a people don’t want to think. We lean into cognitive ease and just let the talking heads think for us. That is why this is going to continue and continue to get worse.

It is odd to say, but the Big Sky Rankings look identical to my fantasy leagues. Lots of teams at 3-4 and outside of the top two, the separation from the top to bottom is a single game. It is a tight league. I don’t know who is going to win in fantasy or in real life. I wish the FCS had conference championships games. I’m not aware of any conferences that do. They just let the records talk. Those records are what is in question now that the Bears dropped yet another heartbreaker this week. They fell to Sacramento State, a team they are clearly better than. However, it is tough to overcome four interceptions. The defense erased two of those, but one resulted in a field goal and the other was a pick 6. That’s 9 points off turnovers in a game they lost by 5 on the goal line. You cannot ask for more from the defense.

Except you have to ask for more from the defense this week. UC Davis QB Cade Pinnick has thrown for 1400 yards this season on 150 attempts. 104 of those were completions. two were interceptions. He is accurate and smart with the ball while also serving as their 3rd leading rusher to the tune of 127 yards across 55 carries. That’s more than RB Cade Vargas who has 312 on 43 carries, but less than leading rusher Jordan Fisher’s 489 on 69 carries. He’s rumored to be the best back in the conference and the Bears run defense is porous.

So, what is going to happen? I think my kid finally gets some serious action in the pass game. He needs a game like this in order to firm up his tape. I think he is the best cover corner in the league, but I am supposed to think that. Let’s see what the tape shows. Last week it showed coverage sacks. This week it needs to show more PBUs and hopefully a pick or two. If that happens, the Bears win.

AWS is down, throwing the majority of the academic super structure that is Canvas into chaos. That means students cannot access their work. That isn’t the end of the chaos. A large chunk of the internet is down. That means a large chunk of the internet–at least the part used in this country is being channeled to us through a single provider. That is great for corporations and crap for society and societal freedom. At any rate it got me down a rabbit hole and into this interesting and quite enlightening podcast called Surrounded. The idea behind this is that 20 or so people from one side of an issue or ideology debate one person on the other side. It is wild and barely contained, but it shows how people think. I am wondering how many people feel this way on these issues or if this sample size is not indicative of a larger population. If it is, I’m a lot worried about what we are thinking as USA residents and where that thinking is coming from. I love and believe in free speech. It allows people to understand where each other are at. The problem is where we are at and that level of polarization and bias is only heightened and we are only getting more and more insular. That is the result of media expansion. It worries me because not only are we becoming more insular but but we are finding these divisive spaces and expanding them to physical spaces.

I’m feeling pretty good today. Assembled and mounted a fan and assembled a weed whacker and tested that sucker. I’m going on two days of putting things together and it feels totally solid. I’m not writing as much as I am building, but this is a step forward in terms of feeling like I am getting things done. I’m happy and back on the grind. It has taken me a really long time to get started, but I feel myself moving in the right direction.

Some Thoughts:

1. UNC Bears sold another late game. That’s 3, though one was actively stolen from them. They should be a six win team right now, but they’ve failed to convert at the goal line, and that has cost them. This last one hurt me, because it was a big game and the loss was self-inflicted. I’m not talking about the 4 interceptions (two of which were pick of the six variety, meaning this QB has thrown 4 pick sixes this season through 7 games). I’m talking about the choice to throw a slant on 4th and 1 from the 3. Marshawn Lynch knows what I mean…
2. It is hard for me to watch my kids lose. It is happening all the time now…

I gotta say, getting stuff done feels really good. I changed the kitchen sink faucet today. Tomorrow I’m building and mounting a fan. I do these things without the aid of videos or AI, which is a reminder that I am actually fairly intelligent. It doesn’t come up much these days. There isn’t much of a premium on actually being smart. the preference leans towards being able to do stuff cleverly or, more to the point, being seen as popular and doing things in general. We’re sliding away from caring if anyone actually has brains and falling into this sense of its okay so long as they are popular and or has charisma.

I blame Obama. Not because the dude isn’t smart–he’s a damn intelligent man. It is because he is a black man who also had the charisma and the moment to be seen as the future of America. That pissed off a lot of people who saw that as a sign that the future of America didn’t look like them or speak like them. So, we slid backwards. We’re still sliding.

So, now we have the Orange one in the office as a holdover from a past where his slimyness was representative of American Idealism. Trump is the late 80’s early 90’s of a particular class of people. Unfortunately, we’re very far past that. We need to remind ourselves that being intelligent and actually getting our hands dirty by learning how to do things matter.