10 Minute Rule

I think I’m at the point in my life where I finally understand that what I put into my body as fuel impacts the way I look and the production I get in all aspects of my life. I was Chad Ochocinco. Back in college I would order Cyclone Fries, which is basically one of those kids meal-sized bags that is filled with french fries. I could devour the entire thing and run a full court basketball game afterwards. These days I can’t think right after a Big Mac. I have to balance my massive desire for junk food with my massive desire to not die.

The other day I overheard one of the little girls I coach talking about how she hates McDonalds and it makes her stomach feel funny. I feel ya, girl. Certain foods do not appeal to me. The grease slides down my throat and speaks to me, saying, “I’m about to jack you up, fool.” It doesn’t feel nice.

Being out of shape also does not feel nice. Lets move past my own kids poking fun at my belly and towards the more meaningful issue of not being dead. I certainly cannot keep the engine running as it used to, which is a reflection of my quickly advancing age, but also points to the fact that I need to be out there working on my body and getting it where I want to be.

“I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions had an echo In so much space”

– Gnarls Barkley

I don’t think people really go crazy. I believe the seeds for detatchment are already there and circumstance can cause one to blossom into unacceptable behaviors. Even the term crazy is a misnomer. ‘Crazy’ suggests that you are behaving in a fashion that is deeply unnaceptable in relation to societal norms. Yet it doesnt neccesarily mean that you are behaving in a fashion that makes no sense to yourself. Even those who commit suicide do so because it makes sense to them at the time they do it. It isn’t crazy persay, it is a matter of self control, cost-benefit analysis, and value.

I’m crazy. I’d have to be to have 3 boys and to coach all three in all sports they play. I was considered crazy for commuting an hour and a half to and from work each day for over half a decade. Crazy, in this sense was committing acts that the majority of others found to be foolish, untenable, or unthinkable and to do so without any of the stress or disappointment that those calling me crazy would feel given the same circumstances. This is obviously a different level of crazy than is associated with a man like Dahmer who killed and ate people so they would never ever leave him. Even there I can see that there is a level of reasoning that exists. Dahmer, who grew up without hope of real emotional attachments, found a way to get the emotional attachments we all crave and devised a way to ensure he would never have to deal with those he loved abandoning him. It is crazy, but it is only crazy because a significant number of people in the world also believe it is crazy. The idea of being crazy is a sliding scale of relativity determined in whole by the socio-psychological climate of the world.

I’ve begun to look at ‘Crazy’ as a measure of your unwillingness to follow societal norms. Being crazy then is a form of freedom or rebellion against the code of man; a way to decide for yourself how to live and behave as a human being regardless of what society expects from you.

There is true ‘crazy’ in the world and it goes by a different name. My uncle returned from ‘Nam with mental disorders brought on by military experimentation with chemicals. He developed (or the gasses uncovered/awakened) mental disorders. These brain-related problems are evidence of true crazy and should forever be separated from the casual mention of the term. You can be crazy in the sense of doing what one should not do in accordance with societal norms and mores and you can be crazy in the sense of actual guano-level infection and mental derangement. One is about choice, the other is about health.

Recently a man was killed in a Chandler, AZ Walmart following a fist fight near a checkout line. The shooter claimed he felt his life was in danger and in order to save himself he pulled the trigger. I don’t believe it for one second. It is impossible to determine the specific state of mind of an individual, but the laws, especially those in wild-west psychological climes like AZ and FL, are geared to give the armed respondent every go ahead to end a person’s life at the moment they feel their own life is in jeopardy. In fact, given the unlikelihood of proving ones specific state of mind, it is equally likely that the moment a person gets scared they have the will and right to pull a weapon and end a life.

Here is what I know about the Chandler shooting: The two men got into a fight and when one felt he was not winning the fight he pulled a firearm and ended his opponent’s life. This presupposes that these two men were fighting to the death in the middle of a crowded Walmart store. I don’t believe that to be true–especially given that the only armed man in the fight was the shooter.

I go to Walmart too often. In fact, I’ve been to the Walmart in question. I always see men carrying weapons. I’ve blogged about it before and always tell people it is an unnatural and untenable situation. What happens if the armed man is the aggressor? We don’t know the intentions of any individual, but we do know that if someone defends themselves against an armed man, the armed man has a right to fear for his life. That other person can get the gun away from him, a defense we saw used expertly in the Zimmerman case. What this tells me is that people today have the same license to kill that they did in the wild west. This is only confirmed by the fact that the shooter in this particular case is not in custody as of this posting.

Suddenly Beirut doesn’t seem all that dangerous in comparison. At least Phoenix has better bowling.

Some Thoughts:

1. Watch a few episodes of Castle and you’ll start to notice that the titular character has a penchant for flights of fantasy and conspiracy theories. His partner (in work and in bed), the hard-nosed investigator Kate Beckett has no time for fantasy or conspiracy. She seeks the logical answer in all things. Should you be as old or as versed in FOX TV as me, you may recall a similar pairing. In my time there was Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Watching the commercial for the 300 prequel got me thinking about the idea of war again. Our recovery from the great depression is tied to a world war. This newest depression is tied to a war on terror–one that can never be one or even end. It occurs to me that war seems to be a prerequisite of human civilization. I cannot name a significant part of the world that isn’t in some state of conflict. It seems that we are a people drawn from the divisions between us and try as we might we tend to line up in some form of an us vs. them dichotomy.

In terms of America, us vs. them is supposed to boil down to good vs. evil, with us always being the side of good. Within the nation there are those same lines, though good and bad line up as tradition vs. progress. We call it Republican vs. Democrat round these parts. Its anyone’s guess as to who is actually good. I like to think that the true good are the ones who don’t buy into the dichotomy and recognize the futility of war.

Some Thoughts:

1. Started watching Being Human again. Many say the Vampire/Werewolf thing is old hat, and they’d be right, but this show constantly finds ways to make the interactions between the characters incredibly compelling.
2. One thing I’m looking forward to more than the 2014-15 NFL season is the 2013 season (5) of the League coming to Netflix.

Call it a weekend defrag. Coherent thoughts are a rarity at this point. I seem to be at the precipice of a creative burst, but as always the edge of such things is a jagged line tied to a short fuse and limited ability to reason. Once I hit the zone I’m good, but the process of getting there is quite difficult for the people around me.

This thing that gets in me is contagious. My kids get really creative as I move closer to ‘the zone’ so much so that they often pick up the pen and do something fantastic. I’m reprinting the following text for the benefit of my 6 yr old. We watched Real Steel yesterday and then spent a few hours playing the Xbox game. He woke up inspired the next day and decided to write a Real Steel fanfic piece. Everyone deserves to be published, so here is his first web publication:

Ram Chip vs. Ida Ten

By (l’il ‘legger)

One day Atom beat so many people that Ida Ten wanted to vs. Ram Chip. So Ida Ten’s owner got so angry he wanted to vs. Ram Chip. So he got a fight. When Ida Ten and his owner got there he noticed all the robots were there except Atom and Zeus. Ida Ten’s owner thought they were fighting, but they had a day off and Ida Ten’s owner didn’t know it was robot day so he had to vs. 1,999 robots to get to Ram Chip.

Kick, Pow, bang, wham!

When he got to the underworld I he vs. Ambush, then Atom, then the Midas touch. Then when he went to Underworld 2 he vs. Six Shooter, Black Top, and the Mighty Metro. When he got the World Robot Boxing I he vs. Noisy Boy and Twin Cities. When he gone to the last stage he vs. Albino, and Zeus. Then he got to Ram Chip. Ida Ten shot a dart at Ram Chip’s head so the spike blew up then it spit oil at Ida Ten’s face. Then he shot him right in his gut. Then he flared. Then Ida Ten became the champion and he got the champion belt.

The End.

Its a first draft, but I’m proud of the kid.

Some Thoughts:

1. Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me recorded in Phoenix this week and I didn’t even know it. At points like this I feel like I’m trapped between the worlds of intellectuals, athletes, fools, and children without true knowledge of any.

Truth is I don’t have a whole lot to say right now. This was a pretty good rebound weekend for flag football. After a two game losing streak, my 6-7 team rebounded for a win. The 8-9 also rebounded from last week’s tough loss to earn a big defensive win. 4-5 continues to have fun, running and gunning to win #6. All was not perfect in the football world, however.  I learned that the 8-9 team is vulnerable on office. Some of that comes from not understanding the plays as they are called, and some of it is about not having the right people in the right positions. Two practices left, and we ought to focus one of them on the offensive execution.

I learned from this weekend where I need to improve as a coach and a play caller. This will benefit me in a number of ways and a number of sports. I am excited about the opportunity to coach 8-9 soccer and have two of my boys finally play together. They are both very high energy kids and though the younger one isn’t old enough for the 8-9 grouping, he is aggressive enough to hold his own with a number of the players, and his physical skills can only rise to the challenge.

Some Thoughts:

1. Sometimes you know when someone is doing the right thing. My wife is a nurse and this is the perfect job for her. She loves what she does, and that makes me happy to know she found her happy place.
2. A cop cut me off in the parking lot today. I was driving towards him and as he watched me get closer he decided he was done waiting. I slammed on the breaks and narrowly avoided hitting him.  Since when do cops run insurance hustles?

I’ve often wondered why America doesn’t just implode. Our political climate is so charged that people will openly disrespect the President during the State of the Union address and town hall meetings regularly devolve into shouting matches. We have so many distinct groups within our country each with divergent political ideas. Moving beyond politics, we have a huge tech responsibility as we try to keep these ancient power and water grids functional. The problems I’ve illustrated are different for other countries, and the reason, I think, is the number of Americans per square mile.

 

Japan is a tech giant. They are so far ahead of us in terms of cellular and wireless tech that we sometimes view their everyday tech as science fiction. They can do so much because they are so small. The rollout of new tech is so localized that it can be accomplished so much faster than in a huge nation like the USA.

That space is a double-edged sword. While it makes it difficult to upgrade technology, it makes it easy to maintain social order. Because we are a large country with relatively few people, we have the space to distance ourselves from those who think differently than us. For the now it is a functional situation. I suppose there could come a time when the various sides take up arms and wage war for control of resources, but it seems far-fetched. Our idealist battles are fought on CNN and Fox News.

 

I spent the past hour pouring through Poster Presentation rubrics, looking to create a research/social sciences rubric that is based more around research than experimentation and process/based scientific methodology. The majority of poster presentations I’ve uncovered are rooted in the sciences and are very prescriptive devices that walk the student through precisely what to do. This creates no room, and as importantly, offers no value for creativity. My research led me to the question: What effect do rubrics have on student growth?

As a general rule I find rubrics constricting. On the one hand students are being given clear expectations and understanding as to what a specific type of assignment would generally look like. On the other hand, students spend k-12 being ‘taught to the test’ and are given precious little space to develop and explore creativity. Because they’ve been trained in this fashion, they are likely to do exactly what the rubric says, which puts creative (and affective) control in the hands of the rubric creator.

There needs to be a balance, or at least some categories that reflect the role of creativity. Even so, the idea of a creativity rubric smacks of irony. I know what rubrics are for: they help students understand what you are looking for in terms of grading, but they can stifle the most important part of the process–learning to be an individual.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Walmart’s new commercial claims to celebrate the heritage of black women, but focuses on black women’s weaves and relaxed hair and the hair product used to maintain a look that is in fact forced upon them. A bit ironic in my book.

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend about the lulls. She suggested that periods of downtime, or lulls, might be exactly what a writer needs to cultivate those ideas that brighten the page. It is nice to hear a contrasting voice to my initial opinions. That helps me refine my thoughts and reflect on what I truly want to believe moving forward. In this case, I’m refining my initial suggestion that the lulls are a bad thing. I still hold dear the idea of writing every day even if what comes out is pure nonsense. Now I don’t think that achieving your writing potential is as simple as I initially implied. There are a few factors to consider for reaching your potential. I’ll start with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal development as a baseline for how you must write. The when and the how often of writing are equally important as is developing a reward system that reinforces your appreciation of the finished product.

If I just wrote the same stuff over and again I’d get stagnant and lazy. I watched this happen a few years ago as a Shadowrun writer. A friend and editor called me on it, questioning my style and even content as being ‘ordinary’. A writer can never be ordinary. The ZPD here is that idea that I have to continue finding the writing challenges that live on the bleeding edge of what I think I can do. A writer challenged is a writer engaged. On the other hand, a writer overburdened is a writer burnt out.

This is a philosophy that can be applied to most situations in regards to activating potential. Down the road I’ll talk about the time to write and consistency in general as well as reward systems. It is a lot to say. Too much for 10 minutes.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The Olympic athletes represent the best in the world at a given event. Consider that for a moment: Best in the world. The implications there are mindboggling.
2. Work politics are very stupid and tend to boil down to the emotional fulfillment of individuals being hindered or advanced by the particular position they are in at the time. In other words, it is not about the work it is about how the people feel about themselves and each other. I suspect all politics boil down to the same thing.
3. States that do not have pro teams tend to breed a sense of collegiate pride to the point where they will swear that college sports be the pros. Yeah, that’s not how things are in the real world. New Yorker’s don’t talk about how Syracuse football is better than Giants football. Nobody talks about watching Seton Hall instead of the Nets.

The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation signed into law by Abraham Lincoln served as the legal terminus point for the human slave trade. However, slavery is no game that ends when the buzzer screams. The alienation and dehumanization that it caused lasts to this day. I’m going to use an example that might serve to be an exaggeration. At the very least people will call it that, but I don’t think it is. KTLA anchor Sam Rubin recently interviewed Samuel L. Jackson and quite obviously mistook him for Lawrence Fishburne. Fishburne/Jackson went all BMF on him, calling him out for the mistake and making it clear   he wasn’t about to let it slide.

If you watch the video to the end you’ll see the rest of the news crew having a good laugh about the situation–both in a way that chided their coworker but excused his mistake. The laughter is telling of the situation. This is about them seeing Jackson as a thing vs. an individual deserving of respect. Rubin even tried to backtrack later and claim he never confused Jackson. Clearly that is a lie.

When you create a situation that dehumanizes people, it takes an extremely long time to humanize them again and even longer to treat them like they are the same as you.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I keep thinking my cat is going to stroll in through the doggie door. She isn’t.