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The difference between my generation and the one I teach is responsibility. As a student, I knew my responsibilities, and when I shirked my responsibilities I did so with the full awareness of what I was refusing to do. Nowadays the responsibility is no longer on the student–at least in their mind. Today’s student comes from a academic background of handholding and constant reward where students are rarely held responsible for behaviors and as a result, need to be provided very specific guidelines and can only operate in a razor thin window of independence.

My students often tell me they want broad, sweeping, engaging assignments that fire their creativity. Then when given that sense of creative freedom they ask for specific examples of what creativity looks like. In other words, when asking me not to constrain them, they look for constraints. I think this is a result of training. Watching my boys go through school it is clear that creativity is not a large part of the curriculum when it should be the core of the curriculum.

The way I teach is to provide the basic skills and create an opportunity for students to apply those skills to a specific (and sometimes general) context. For example, I will tell them to make an 11×17 poster advertising a website about Censorship. I’ll explain that this is about hooking the reader. I wont tell them what the poster should look like, and that is the problem they have. They want to know where everything should go and exactly what to say on the poster. If I say that, they’ll do exactly what I said, stripping away any sense of creativity. So, I include some basics, but that is never enough. They need hand holding.

I can’t do hand holding anymore. It does a disservice to the student and to the world, because I am then creating workerbees as opposed to powerful free thinkers. America used to be an industrial nation where everyone knew their role on the assembly line. That isn’t an option for our nation anymore. We need to create workers who can think and be creative.

Just finished watching a terribly officiated NFL game that may harken the end of the ref lockout. I feel good about that end. I feel good about the fact that my generation’s ‘Friends’ is starting up again. After 7 seasons of How I met Your MotherI am still intrigued to know how it all ends, while completely unwilling to reach the end of the story. That is good writing. They’ve introduced the mother character, but hid her face under an umbrella. I know she plays a guitar and isn’t the traditional super-skinny chick like Robyn–more of a sexy type like Victoria. Its a hint, a tease for the viewer to keep us going for another year at least. Like I said, good writing.

I am on my way to some good writing as even more good writing trickles out of my imagination. Fluff and Smoke is almost fully released, and that will be followed by an Anthology for the Shadowrun Returns video game (presumably). There are some other bits of writing in the work, so stay tuned.

Writing is once again taking the premiere role in my consciousness. I am also coming around to the fact that I might be a decent parent. It is a hard pill to swallow, because my memories of my step dad are unbelievable. My mom had a different approach. I am not modeling her or even him. I’m finding my own way based on a lot of what I’ve seen and read over the years and it might be working.

My mother-in-law told me my siblings were leaving AZ. I got the info second hand from my wife, so it was devoid of the tonal qualities that would tell me if the information was a taunt or a moment of sadness. For me it is a moment of sadness, but not just because family is leaving. For the first time I found myself defending AZ as a legitimate place to live.

I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first, AZ is a political cesspool. We are two governors removed from any major drama, though the current gov is doing her best to resemble Michelle Bachman. In truth, we are a state of very frightened Bachman Republicans who want to rid the country (and perhaps the world) of Mexicans (who many of us believe to be a race in of their own) and anything that resembles a union. This is odd, given that so many Arizonans hail from strong union states like Iowa and New York. Of course, they might have left because of the unions, or the weather, or the pace, or whatever.

As a result of the state exodus, AZ is a pace somewhere between NY and Iowa. We have unions, but they aren’t really appreciated. We have a class of people that feel deeply entitled and are, occasionally, jerks. However, when you ask them about entitlements, they’ll claim they are part of the 53% of the country that doesn’t get handouts. I guess they forgot about medicare.

So, that was the bad stuff. The good stuff is weather, weather, weather, opportunity. I feel like AZ is a place of growth where people are flocking to find new beginnings and bringing all of that energy with them. I feel Iowa is a place of death, where the population is constantly declining and people are not striving to be more, but instead are content with being. This is not who I am, so when I hear my family is going back, I get sad. I feel like it is an attack on AZ. I cannot accept that AZ is a place people want to leave. If I do, I have to accept that there may be somewhere else I should be.

 

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a chance to see film of Terell Suggs standing on the sideline. He’s hungry. This is a man that lives and breathes and believes football. The Ravens Defense is a calling for him; it is not a job. For him to be there patrolling the sidelines tells me he is anxious to be back at his calling alongside his preacher, Ray Lewis.

In the last few months of sudden beyblade overload I have learned a few things:

1. Beyblades are crazy popular. While not possessing the manic following of Pokemon, Beyblade exists below the surface as the Firefly of the anime gaming world. I searched the web only to uncover thousands of videos about customizations and battles. That brings me to my next point.
2. Beyblading is a weird form of Physics. I find myself wanting to sit down and do the math on how these silly metal tops work so dang well. Clearly the weight plays a role in the blading, because the heavier beys seem to do better than the 12 or so lightweight beys in our tremendously large stable. Why are those 12 so light?
3. Chinese Beyblades are crappy knockoffs. I bought some on a lark. I wanted to have that Beyblade party and give away beys and trophies. The chinese ones I bought are literally 5 grams lighter than their counterparts. That makes a huge difference in how they fight. The lighter beys get knocked around so much that they wind up losing energy a lot faster than their counterparts. Of course, weight isn’t everything.
4. There are an incredible number of customizations. This is just the recorded stuff. I’ve gone through a dozen websites and watched my boys pick through videos in order to find the best customizations. It all comes down to understanding how you rip and what sort of battle you intend to have, sorta like pokemon. Do you have an Attack type? Defense? Balance? Do you rip left or right? All of this stuff matters to a seasoned blader–which we are not. Were are enthusiasts and budding players who enjoy a good rip, even if we don’t know how to play with the big boys, which brings me to my final point.
5. Beyblade is fun for all ages. My brother in law wants to rip. My wife has ripped. I rip with the kids everyday. Even the 3 yr old is a ripping machine. We like the competition and the customization. It is a smart product that I never thought I’d get into. Yet, here we are.

I’ve been thinking about what to post. I want to make up for the debacle that was yesterday by posting something long and interesting today. The fact is, I am so drained by the events of the last month that there is little to publish at all. Still, the events of the past month have reminded me of my mortality. I know I cannot merely wait to tomorrow, because there are not an infinite number of tomorrows left.

Today I had 2 hrs to myself for the first time since mid july. You’d think I’d cash the time in on writing and video games. Instead I channel surfed, walked around the house, played with the dog, all the things I don’t ever get to do. I did all the things that didn’t take a lot of brain juice to accomplish. If there is a lesson here it is that the body needs time to recharge. I mean my goal this semester was to be whelmed. I’m overwhelmed–largely due to pushing one thing to the backburner to focus on the next, etc.

So, short of making a resolution I will make an observation. People are more effective when they recognize priorities.

One priority has been dreaming up new story ideas. I have a few stored up and I am close to putting up a wall board where I can show each chapter plotted out and ready to be written. That means I can begin principle writing by mid october. Very nice. Once the other projects are drafted, it is on to the novel work.

Some Thoughts:

1. A predominate number of the designers on HGTV fit the gay stereotype. I am not sure why that is. Perhaps being gay, at least in the TV sense means you are fashionable and can put a room together. I guess I am not TV gay.
2. Living with an ADHD kid is manageable, so long as you manage their moods and your moods effectively. Easier said than done.

I skipped my evening coffee. Staying up till two in the morning and freebasing caffeine all day will deter you from evening rituals. So here I am, tired and happy from watching the G-Men trounce the Panthers. What little fuzz is left in my mind is telling me to go to sleep and think about the problems of the world tomorrow. For the record, my present set of problems are all about school.

Bad week for me picking games. My football IQ took a serious hit as a blew some calls I should have made and lost for the second straight week of Fantasy Football. Is this what it feels like to be a New Orleans Saint? Check out the record for week two: 8-8. I broke even. Here’s the breakdown:

• OAK over MIA
• CHI over GB (Turns out the game actually was at Lambeau. Oops.)
• HOU over JAC
• BUF over KC
• CIN over CLE
• IND over MIN
• BAL over PHI
• NO over Carolina
• NE over ARI
• NYG over TB
• STL over WAS
• SEA over DAL
• TEN over SD
• NYJ over PIT
• SF over DET
• DEN over ATL

The games in red indicate a catastrophic failure of reason on my part, and in one case it represents a lack of understanding of how good the Cardinals D is. I won’t make that mistake again. I was 10 and 6 in week 1. I was 8-8 this week, bringing the record to 18-14. That ties me with Pigskin Pick’em and ties or puts me ahead of most of the ESPN guys. Here we go for week 3:

NYG over CAR
Even without Nicks and Bradshaw this team can pull off big wins. I can just hear Randle growling, ‘wait till they get a load of me’

CHI over STL
Blew the CHI pick last time, but these guys are at home and hungry.

BUF over CLE
This is a trap game. CLE has a solid secondary and responds well to the Wildcat. Still, CJ Spiller is playing like a man.

TB over DAL
Dallas is not real. They trained all summer for that NY win, and now they gotta deal with a dangerous and physical team that has nothing to lose.

IND over JAC
MJD goes buckets for 200, but it isn’t enough to counter a 4TD (one rushing) day from Luck.

NYJ over MIA
Rex unleashes Tebow in Tebow town. Miami realizes how thin they are.

SF over MIN
Defensive game for the most part, but Moss puts on a show.

NO over KC
I don’t think NO is first to 3 losses. I can’t believe that.

CIN over WASH
Torn on this one. I see the potential of RGIII and I know he will do his part. The big question is Orakpo. How will the D respond without him there?

AZ over PHI
After that win in New England, I have newfound respect. Good Luck pulling this one out, Vick.

ATL over SD
It is really a question of pass protection and secondary. Whoever has the best combination of the two in this game wins.

HOU over DEN
Tough call again, given the Denver D. I still have a lot of faith in that Houston O and their (now occasional) zone running scheme.

PIT over OAK
Not enough firepower from OAK on either side of the rock.

BAL over NE
Both teams got suckered looking ahead to this week. Well, this week is finally here and BaL comes into the game with some new information on how to contain Brady.

SEA over GB
I’m telling you, there is something about playing in that stadium that turns seasoned NFL guys into nincompoops.

This is one of those nights where the brain is fuzzed over and coated in a thin non-cunductive slime. I spent forty minutes staring at the ruins of a short story and slipping in and out of consciousness. All of this after my evening cup of Starbucks Verona. A good friend mentioned that she and her husband went all in for an espresso machine. I ought to follow that path and totally eliminate the need for coffee shops. Of course, then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy that atmosphere.

I am watching a garbled version of NBC’s Revolution and wishing I was watching the Avengers. Sci-fi superfolk beats a weakly strained apocalypse any day. As I watch I am wishing that the fog would lift and I would be able to think long enough to make this post worthwhile.

Today I found myself scouring the internet to figure out who this Murphy guy was. I mean to have your human legacy be to be synonymous with stuff going horribly wrong? What do you have to do to be that guy? Apparently you have to see a lot of stuff end up as a catastrophe. It turns out Murphy may be Edward A. Murphy, Jr. an engineer who said, “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.”

So if there are two ways to enter a garage and one way will result in hitting something in the garage or even the garage itself… you get the idea. This non-scientific approach to pessimism is true more than you might imagine. In fact, the garage example is something I did, hitting the garage, stuff in the garage, narrowly avoiding pets and children. I went in backwards and continue to do so to this day. I think I have the hang of it now.

Outside of slamming into things with a motor vehicle, life has been an interesting collection of events. It has been terribly good. I say terribly, because Dr. Murphy is leaning over my shoulder reminding me that the only good day was today. It was good though. I feel like the writing is coming along nicely. The kids are doing well. The wife has hit her groove in learning. All good things.

Lets hope Murphy was wrong.

The thing I’ve always loved about Shadowrun is not the the dystopian grit. I am all about the team dynamic and the grift. In short, I liked the Leverage (TNT show) aspect of Shadowrun. Apparently I wasn’t alone. Margaret Weis studios stripped away the heavy cyberware and magic to create an elegant criminals and masterminds experience in a tidy tabletop setting. The thing is, she didn’t need to do that. Leverage is Shadowrun. It just needs the right massaging.

Leverage brings together a team of highly skilled specialists to work on the vigilante side of the law. There is the mastermind, the grifter, the cat burglar, the soldier, and the hacker. In shadowrun parlance this would be the mastermind, the face, the physical adept, the samurai, and the hacker. By adding magic and cyberpunk to the mix you create an opportunity to deepen the story. Given the longstanding roots of magic in our culture, the physical arrival of magic in that culture creates for some very interesting storylines–especially when tied to the Physical Adept (widely considered a hybrid bastardization of mage and fighter).

Magic giveth and magic taketh away. Shadowrun reintroduces orks, trolls, dwarves, and even elves to the world. This worldview is antithetical to a magical world. Cyberpunk is all about an oppressive dystopia under the control of sometimes malicious technology. Magic-based stories are generally about an oppressive world under the control of a power hungry magic user.

Wait… There’s a connection. So where does leverage fit in? You have this world where magic and technology are battling for supremacy and a select fe control both from the comfort of the corporate high rise. Down in the shadows of iron spires these Leverage style crews work to carve out a life for themselves and take a little slice of the pie from the corporators.

Leverage is Shadowrun. The difference is the level of the villain. The Leverage crew deals with top level baddies. A shadowrun crew might get there on occassion but they’re usually dealing with middle-men who never smell the 70th floor. Either way, the team dynamic still exists. The roles still exist. The desire to do something that matters in a world that means to convince you that you don’t matter still exists.