Month: April 2020

Back to writing this blog super late at night. This is not a healthy choice. In fact I am full of non-healthy choices lately, and all I can think about is trying to find way to live live healthy and well. I feel as though I am beginning to have complications from my hypertension and I am looking around for solutions. The latest ‘try’ is L-Arganine. I took it once before and it made me a bit crazy. I think that was the placebo effect, but my partner says otherwise. It could’ve just been a latent energy boost or an odd chemical interaction. Regardless, I’ve sworn off the stuff because I am not going to be taking things that are not cool relationship wise.

I am still looking for a nitric-oxide provider, since all of the medical reports and studies I’ve scanned from the NIH and elsewhere tout the power of NO for lowering blood pressure. I want to feel good. I need to. I don’t presently. I miss the long gone days of feeling vigorous.

Some Thoughts:

1. I acknowledge that yesterday’s blog was extremely sub par.
2. I have not read a story in over two weeks.
3. I’ve listened to two novels in that time.
4. Randomness: My son’s cat is stalking me. More specifically, she’s staking me out like an 80’s cop show.
5. Randomness 2: I’m cycling back into my Minecraft obsession. Crazy times, y’all.
6. Fatherhood: I am really good to my kids. Perhaps too good?

I am not a horror writer.

I suppose I am an occasionally comedic science fiction author with a penchant for writing young protagonists thrust into leadership. Something about that represents my one true story that I will eventually tell, but there is another truism here: I cannot write horror.

Think about it. There is the real possibility that writers are in fact built for some things and not others. I can’t do horror, but I can do a little comedy, a lot of action, and a pleasant dappling of Cli-fi.

That is all.

Some Thoughts:

1. Blogs are not to be written so close to midnight that you pass out writing them.

Twenty minutes out from yet another online meeting I find myself entirely disinterested in working from the office ever again. I don’t see the point. There are certainly times we should be in the office together and having meetups and face to face conversations, but to be there every single day feels like it lacks any value whatsoever. Most of what we do is planning and programming. We are outreach and event based, so what is the value of spending 40 hrs a week in an office? If and when things get back to normal I argue there ought to be a new normal that is not couched in this archaic need to have people in an office watching them to make sure work is getting done. I want the freedom to work remotely and to live an ideal life. After all, I only get this one life and I want it to be healthy and happy for me.

Some Thoughts:

1. As I am thinking about being healthy I am recognizing that I am not. I have good eating habits half the week. I am inconsistent with exercise. I lack the willpower to really go full bore on the working out for health. I need that. I need to be pushing myself and shedding these 20 or so excess pounds in order to live longer. I want to live as long as possible and live well and live in love.
2. I am writing again and trying to hit deadlines. Failing, but feeling motivated by the failure to get better and faster. My editor deserves better. My handful of fans deserve better. I deserve better for myself.
3. Lazy, therefore, is the way of the darkside.

Kyle Larson just lost his job for saying the N-word on a NASCAR livestream. There is a ton of stuff to be said about this entire situation. The media angle has largely been to focus on the fact that he is half Japanese and a graduate of NASCAR’s diversity program. So, yeah. Yikes. Turns out that sports create societies that are quite insular in their expectations of their players. Larson is clearly a product of his environment, and it sucks for him. Now a bored MLB pitcher wants to beat his ass in an MMA fight. That’s the media world we live in folks. Down to the small and uglies. So my question becomes, what happens when one of the largest sporting drafts becomes virtual and we are exposed to the inner-workings the same way we were exposed to Kyle Larson being Kyle Larson? I’m not sure anyone knows, but everyone is terrified about how it is going to go.

The NFL draft is a multi-day event that starts Thursday, April 23rd. Yes, my next waiver is my final mock. Thanks for waiting! The event is set to incorporate live feeds from draft HQs of all 32 teams and a feed from wherever the official thing is being held. I’m betting on Goddell’s basement. I want to see that man’s bunker up close.

Though most of the buzz on the web centers around who will go #1 and who will trade up, I find far more interesting the conversation about the medium. How will we see this thing unfold? We know the draft will be broadcast on multiple channels. We know Goddell will be home (Basement, please!!!). We know all the draft HQ’s will feature wired networks powered by Microsoft teams. We know one GM spent 10k upgrading his local wireless to ensure security and access throughout, so he wouldn’t screw this up. That is sheer… coolness. I want a 10k wifi network, but all I have is a centurylink modem and some duct tape.

Regardless of who gets picked when, the technological change for this draft will certainly cement it as one to be remembered for a long time to come. I am looking forward to being a part of it as I watch alongside with so many of you all.

A short easter conversation with my brother (from another mother) is resonating with me. He said that Republicans, in general, do not feel democratic party rule is valid. Unless a Republican is in charge they don’t feel they need to respect or obey what is going on. I thought on that for days before coming to the difficult realization that the man was right. In my lifetime Clinton was considered invalid. They tried to impeach him over some fabricated criminal action and finally settled on impeaching him for what he did with his intern (which had nothing to do with the initial investigation, by the way). They treated Obama like he wasn’t even a citizen. I have no recollection of other Dems who ran the show, but I can say that the problem is not only presidential. The republicans will find any excuse to invalidate a democrat and then, when a republican does the same stuff, they will act like it is totally fine… Which leads me to my point: The National debt.

We are slipping into a deeper and deeper deficit which is only going to get worse due to the money we are handing out over Covid. Still few if any republicans are talking about our debt. It is far larger than it was in the Clinton or Obama years when every republican was screaming at the top of their lungs about handouts and national debt. Now there is none of that. Silence. Why? Because when one of them do it then it is for good reason. When one of the democrats do it, it is a problem.

So, I think democrats need to accept the fact that they are not going to be treated as equals or even respected by republicans, but they will be respected and treated well by the majority of this nation. It is not a country split down the middle, in spite of what the media wants you to think. It is a country that elected Trump based largely on the clear media invalidation of Clinton.

In spite of the social distance, we’ve been good. I honestly feel like the time together and light on sports and activities has brought us closer together. As a family we’ve been having fun and playing games and doing a bunch of random stuff together. Tonight we have half the kids with us and we are having a fire and playing Goldeneye outside on an outdoor screen setup I put together. Should be a really good time.

The news out of several outlets suggests that not all couples have been this fortunate. Divorce rates are on the rise. There have been multiple murders. Meanwhile we’ve been pretty cool. No more disagreements than usual and the one on one time is extremely healthy for us.

It has been a different way of living, and one I am pretty happy to continue. Just as I am fully in the groove of this thing I hear that several states are designing plans to come out of it. Yes, I knew we needed to get back to normal eventually. In truth, I miss the football, but nothing else.

Not even the NFL–that youth stuff where you get to cheer on your kids.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve avoided paying too much attention to the internet challenges, which were clearly spawned from game challenges. At this point the two work together to create scenarios where people watch others try to complete game challenges on their net feeds. They also make up a bunch of challenges.
2. Turns out one of my kids might be a big deal discord social influencer. Dope. Way to go, boyo.
3. Meanwhile in Minecraft I’ve been working with the Beta and leaving behind the wonderful world I created on the realms servers (doesn’t work for beta). I like this new world project, because it is just one epic house. That’s all I’m trying to do here. One house with a few villages nearby to trade. I’ll likely build out above and below ground options for travel.
4. This is what happens when I have time on my hands. This… not writing… this.

I had a grim thought this morning. What if we never go back to how things were? What if, in this hyper sensitive age of media scrutiny, fake news, and fear, we are pushed to a place where physical contact is a secondary aspect of human interaction and physical distance becomes more and more the norm? My head hung heavy at the thought. As the people of Hong Kong have suggested, we are social creatures and unwilling to be separated by the fear of contagion. Meanwhile others are celebrating and gathering on social platforms. Animal Crossing has quickly become a social media platform and a place to share political ideas–so much so that it was banned in China. This argues that people may be interested in moving thought to the virtual realm. It means we are still being social online.

But, I’m not ready for Ready, Player One.

I want to touch and feel and smell. I want an Easter where my kids and run through the park and hunt eggs. I want to run with them. I want to play outdoors and see other people and shake hands and give hugs. None of that is my present reality and that is just strange–almost unbelievable. I’ve lived over forty years and through some incredible times, but nothing so insidious and distancing as watching a holiday vanish in smoke.

We are going to celebrate in our home. We are fortunate enough to have the space to have the freedom to do so. Others will forego safety, I’m sure. Our yard backs up to a park where very recently there were multiple teams of adults playing in a pick up soccer tourney. Covid did not slow them and I suspect it will hardly slow them today.

Still, I am slowed. I am awed. I am cowed by the power of this thing. I, sadly, have a heart condition and I am vulnerable. Therefore I am cowed and will remain so until my mind surpasses the cloud of media fear that threatens to rain upon me.

Only, it isn’t just the media. It is real. As hard as that is to stomach, this is the new reality… This is our 100 year virus.

My boys are ragers.

Its a youtube thing. They learned from watching these youtube gamers that screaming at the top of your lungs is okay when you game and the anger that it releases is expected. It isn’t expected by me or acceptable in any way. I’ve declared war on rage. When they rage the game goes off. If that doesn’t work the device goes away for a considerable cool down period. This is discipline more relevant in the Covid world. For them the game is all there is for an acceptable outlet. TV is filled with outdated media. Games and youtube is all they find fresh and interesting in a size they are wiling to consume.

I am having to adjust quickly to this changing world and I am learning about the changes every day from my kids. What I find the most interesting is that there is still a market for stories, but what kind and how to get them to their minds is the part to figure out.

Maybe that is less interesting than obvious.

Some Thoughts:

1. I thought I was going to go through iteration four over the course of a year and I am learning that 365 is a construct that doesn’t fit. I’ll move to 5 when it happens naturally.
2. Oddly, organic has become a staple of corpspeak. I dislike the word entirely.
3. My son stayed up all night for his birthday. His goal is midnight to midnight and with just under 6 hours to go the young man is quite grouchy.
4. Eye feels swollen and puffy to the touch. Screen strain?

I grew up thinking I was a pretty smart guy. I was not always the smartest person in the room. In fact, I went to a high school where the smartest people in the state were basically trying just to be the smartest person in the room at that time. I held my own for the most part. I relied heavily on critical thinking as well as a great deal of reading in order to have a substantive base of knowledge, which allowed me the range I needed to have these conversations and work on the difficult problems we approached.

Uncoded: I knew a little bit about a lot, because I busted my butt to make sure I did.

As I look back on those years I feel like I went to school at the very end of ‘old school understanding’. I navigated the commercial birth of the internet in a time before google. I went to college when Inter-library loan was still extremely relevant, because there were books out there that people needed to physically hold in order to absorb knowledge). This is where my kids would chime in with, “Okay boomer.” And justifiably so. It is such that I was born into a world that is terribly different from the one I live in–so much so that knowledge, as it were, is less recognizable.

Google did not so much kill knowledge as make it bourgeoisie. See, anyone can google and presume they know a little bit about a lot. In truth people assume they know everything about a lot and that I believe is the real difference and dissasocciation when it comes to knowledge. I say this because modern ‘knowledge’ exists both out of context and disconnected from any real understanding. People look up facts, follow the steps of videos, and presume that being able to follow orders means you understand what it is you are following. In fact they don’t. It is the fundamental difference between reading the instructions to put together Ikea furniture, and knowing why the lock points are exactly where they are.

The problem is that nobody actually cares anymore. Knowledge has been changed into the ability to pass a state test and successfully locate the answers for stuff on google. I do not feel this bodes well for our society. It births fewer and fewer readers and thinkers. As a result we are a nation in the situation that we are in right now.

And it is only going to get worse.

After a long day of work and training with the kids I find myself sore, tired, and still remarkably bored. Not bored in the sense of having nothing to occupy my mind or time, but bored in the sense of everything I can do feeling less than worthwhile or too great of an undertaking to attempt. This is the very opposite of the ‘sweet spot’. This is closer aligned with the rough place we all eventually get to when our world narrows and we haven’t found the proper outlet for our energies.

No, Minecraft is not cutting it. Video Games in general have not done the job for me lately. I continue to play and to briefly enjoy the distraction, but it is indeed brief. I can no longer fathom 4-12 hour gaming marathons. After 2 at most I get beat down and want to wander off to find sunlight at the very least.

What I ought to be doing is writing a novel. Once I finish this NDA project (yeah, not done) I will likely fall back into a novel… slowly.

I’m not getting a ton of inspiration from what I am reading or what I am doing on a daily work basis. That part of my life feels mundane and draining. I’m clearly dissatisfied with that much of it. Perhaps the deeper answer lies not in satisfaction or routine, but in exploration. I need to explore in some new way. I need to find the wonder.