Category Archives: Personal Observation

Sharp Eyes and the End of the World

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One of the panels I was on at Philcon was titled “A Creative Apocalypse” and the description was, “What creative and original – but scientifically plausible – ways are left for storytellers to destroy the world?”

I kind of struggled with this question initially. Creative I can handle, it’s the scientifically plausible that I was worried about. Part of me really wanted to separate out destruction of all human life from actual destruction of the planet, but that line of discussion didn’t get far. Not much of a story without the people (still horribly narcissistic if you ask me).

Then I seemed to recall something about massive ant colonies that spanned across vast distances. I didn’t have a chance to do any research on it, but it was in the back of my mind that I had seen this so I presented it (when I could) at the panel. I find a plague of bugs to be a less than ideal concept for the end of the world (YUCK!).

I took a moment to see if I could find the information I remembered and found this fun little piece about floating colonies of fire ants in Texas.

Smacking into one of those would certainly ruin your day, but it wasn’t what I remembered. Hunting a little more brought me to the mega-colony. Yes, it was a huge colony and it actually reaches far further than I seemed to recall. Crossing continents. Almost all of them, and they don’t’ seem to fight each other. This could be very bad news for people should these bugs ever band together.

A sharp-eyed friend of mine then pointed me to a whole different point of view. What if all the bugs GO AWAY?

Turns out we need them. We need as many variations and weird combinations as we can keep. We need to learn as much as we can to preserve ourselves. The bug-pocalypse could just be that we don’t have any. A distressing thought indeed. Now to turn that into a world ending story…

The Solution?

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Maybe… just maybe a vacation was the answer.

It’s something that a lot of folks have said is a very American thing, feeling guilty for taking time off. I suspect they’re right.

I’ve been ‘on vacation’ now for a little over a week. Not a proper holiday – haven’t gone anyplace. Stayed at home. Got some things taken care of around the house. Had some time with friends with no schedule pressure. Went to a convention (there will be a report on that coming up too!) and generally enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Also in there I attended a book signing event. One of my stories is in the book Squeekie Celebrates 20 Years of the Cupboard Maker Books! I was very excited to hear that I made the cut and got my story in as a fan favorite. You should go and check out Squeekie’s page HERE. It was fun to sit with other authors and sign books for folks that were kind enough to buy them.

I sat back down here at the machine and started working again. I wrote, edited and fired off a story submission then went back and found an old story that I thought was really good. I took that story, edited it with a new eye, formatted it and fired that one off to another market.

I’ve picked up a book and plunged right through the first chapter.

I think I might just be back on track. We’ll see if this all survives heading back to work and diving into the holidays. Here’s hoping!

Slump

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I thought initially to title this “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Slump…” but I thought I might get into trouble with that one.

This year has been terrible for my creative process. I haven’t written, I haven’t read, I have barely pulled together any art.

I don’t know why. It’s frustrating.

I want to write. I want to create my art. I want to read awesome books. I just don’t seem to be able to pull together the motivation to actually DO any of it.

I look back at a quote from one of my favorite authors, “I don’t have a muse, I have a mortgage.”

I think a meeting with a muse could really help right about now.

Busy, busy, busy….

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The subject line of this post is actually one of my favorite lines from the Frosty the Snowman Christmas special. It’s after Prof. Hinkle is told by Santa what he needs to do in order to continue to get Christmas gifts. He says he hates to lose and run but that he’s got lots to do. Busy, busy, busy…

And I’ve been busy. Most of the time when blogs “fade away” and then come back the individual writing that blog gets all apologetic and claims to have plans for getting better at keeping up, and many other things. I’m not doing that.

I’ve helped run a convention, I’ve met a movie star I admire, taught classes, created art, met and talked to people from a half dozen countries and still had time to catch a movie in there. It’s been a whirlwind – and I have no intention of slowing down. The stuff I’ve been busy with are the sorts of things that you could put on a checklist of “Hey I did that!” or for some people the “bucket list”. I don’t like to think like that, I just like knowing that I have so much story material now because I’ve gone out and done some amazing stuff with some great people. Hopefully one day I’ll get a bunch of stories written and published ~ but if not, I’ll still have amazing stories to tell.

Showing Up

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Showing up. This is a topic that I’ve wanted to take on for quite a while now. I went to a meeting that wasn’t a couple of weeks back. I was more than a little put out at the idea that a meeting (associated with a professional trade organization) would be advertised and then nobody would show up. It reminded me of a news article I saw back during the winter Olympics. The article (here) was about an Olympic skier who apparently is not very good. She is world ranked simply because she keeps showing up – particularly when others can’t. The question in my mind becomes, is showing up enough? I’ve been rolling this around in my head for a while now and I’m still not sure I have a good answer.

To some degree showing up is the only thing that matters.

Showing up, and showing up consistently is the one thing that I’m actually quite good at. It’s something that I think is a virtue or a value and it was clearly and stated or installed I’m not sure exactly how you phrase that, by my parents. It has been a really long time since I was in high school but even then showing up, and showing up on time, was a thing that I was very good at. I actually had perfect attendance all four years in high school. Perfect attendance meant never missed a day (unscheduled – I wasn’t in class one time while I was off looking at a college) and never late. I don’t remember how many people did that in my class, but I don’t think it was many. I don’t know if I got anything from that perfect attendance. I don’t know if that’s exactly the right way to phrase that, because I did get something, I got a pin (I actually I think I also got a piece of paper or some kind of award too) but beyond that I don’t think I got anything. The part I question about this now becomes, is there something to regret? I know other people who took days and very specifically did not show up. Some of those days were apparently the Grand Adventure or the wild story that formed a significant part of their youth. I’m not sure, and never will be, that I didn’t miss something that I could have been out doing.

Grade school is a different topic. There clearly is value to showing up, if not every single day, at least consistently. Not being there will actually cause you to miss out on things you’re supposed to learn. Beyond the simple fact that you would miss things, there are actual legal requirements for kids to attend. I don’t know what the exact requirements are, but I believe there is a limit of either 4 or 6 days that kids are allowed to miss during the school year before there becomes an issue. Clear value and legal requirement.

Moving forward. College does not have the attendance requirement that public school has. I have always understood that showing up for class in college was meant to be an exercise and self-discipline as much as it was for learning whatever the topic was you were supposed to be studying. No college that I had heard of before had placed specific attendance requirements on their classes. This might be something that’s changing. I have recently heard of specific classes instituting attendance requirements in order to receive passing grades. A portion of this stems from the fact that an online presence and virtual classes now allow students who are ambitious enough to cover the topics that would normally be talked about in class on the internet without any interaction with other people. In the past as long as you turned in your homework assignments and sat for your exams those were the pieces that made up your grade. There were certainly classes when I was in college that attendance wasn’t mandatory but made a significant difference in my understanding of what the concept was we were supposed to be covering or learning about. I think that attendance or showing up certainly has value in being able to discuss ideas with others around you and garner some extra level of understanding about topics while giving you viewpoints that may differ significantly from your own.

College, showing up may not be mandatory but clearly is advantageous.

As an adult showing up is something that becomes more difficult to quantify. Any number of day to day, normal 9 to 5 jobs have very specific requirements about showing up. You must be there, you must be there on time, you cannot leave early, and there are a very limited number of days when you are allowed to not be there and even then must have an excuse. That is not to say that there are aren’t jobs available that allow you to set your own schedule. I think schedule is a completely separate question from attendance. There’s a subtle difference attendance and showing up. There are a lot of jobs out there that allow you to work on something other than a normal 9 to 5 schedule. Those jobs while not requiring specific attendance certainly require dedication and work. Essentially you have to ‘show up’ at some point and apply yourself to whatever work it is that you’re doing. The more you do that with a non-traditional job the higher the likelihood that you will be successful. Clearly attendance and the intent behind my phrase ‘showing up’ are two separate issues. Perhaps I need to define what I mean by ‘showing up’. Narrowing that down will help me understand better.

I think it’s relevant to look back at the skier example at this point. She has a world ranking. It’s her job, but also her passion (I suspect). Many people don’t think she’s a good skier at all, let alone world ranked. How can you be bad at your job but still ranked as one of the best in the world? The shortest answer here is there aren’t enough people doing what it is that you do. In this girl’s case I think it’s more subtle than that, and also more important to the chosen field of endeavor than that. No, she might not be great at what she does, but she is consistently there and consistently promoting something that she wants to see succeed. I think that’s the heart of what I mean by showing up. If you want something to succeed, you have to keep showing up. Having the idea, having a desire for something to succeed is not enough. At some point somebody has to keep showing up and doing the work. I suspect that this sport will benefit in the long run from this person continuing to show up. I know in certain professional organizations that I am part of showing up is something that has mattered a great deal and continues to matter a great deal. Membership in our professional group is declining at a significant rate. Good, bad, indifferent, doesn’t really matter if nobody’s there to see what you’re doing. What you do or promote doesn’t matter if you don’t have enough people to have a meeting. All of the benefits that go along with this group simply go away if not enough people keep showing up.

I think I’ve talked myself into the understanding that I’m trying to achieve. Attendance is different than showing up. Showing up and doing the work matters. It will continue to matter because in order for there to be greatness there has to be something available to be great at. Whether or not I will actually be great at anything can be less relevant then continuing to show up so that there is something for others to be great at.

Consistency matters. now that I’ve talked about it I recall that I have written about consistency before. I’ll need to go and dig out this old article that I had written and post it again.

Will the name of this skier be remembered in history? Maybe not. Will that matter to people in the future? It will only matter if the thing that she is promoting continues on and become something greater than what she’s a part of now. Will being remembered to history matter to her? I can’t really say as I’m not in her head. Something I can say with certainty is that consistently showing up and getting out the door and doing things absolutely matters. Showing up makes all the difference in the story of what it is that you do. In the end it will make a difference that you have a collection of fantastic stories that accumulate to make your life. Make your story a great one. Get out there and show up to something.

YouTube and Silo Entertainment

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Voice typing is something that requires more setup then I think works well with actually getting started on my treadmill. With time I think this will become something better than what it is right now but I need to have a lot more things preset before I start. There’s also a lot more editing to be done after the fact. My typing is slow, but the edits are a whole lot faster. More set up, more follow up.

I think that goes with the theme of what I want to talk about.

There are a lot of things that the computer does really really well. There is an amazing amount of information and entertainment that is at my fingertips all day, every day. I have discovered that there are certain things that I enjoy watching on YouTube. Problem is, I also like to use YouTube to find new things that I’m interested in watching or listening to. I say this is a problem not because there isn’t an infinite variety of things on YouTube, but because YouTube makes an effort to specifically cater to the other things that you have already watched. There are two particular, I’ll call them chat show hosts, that have very interesting guests and interviews.

I’m not quite sure how to express what it is that YouTube does. I have watched an interview with a particular host, therefore YouTube me a huge list of other things that this particular host has done. The two chat show hosts that I found interesting have hundreds of videos available. Now my “suggestions” page is nothing but videos from these particular chat show hosts or music from the one or two artists that I have listened to. Literally nothing else.

This list of suggestions is fantastic when that’s what I want to listen to. If I don’t want to listen to one of them or I’ve gone through all of the interviews or items that I found interesting from these particular interviewers and want to find something different, I now have two type in specific search words in order to find anything. Then even if I have searched for something different, still about half of my list are items related to the videos I’ve already seen. Not only does that make it very difficult to find other things that are new and interesting, but it narrows my selections to things that this computer program believes are my taste. This doesn’t give me an opportunity to find things that might not necessarily match exactly what I have watched before. It becomes a silo. It’s almost as if there is nothing else in the world except what I have seen already or the people that I have already indicated that I enjoy listening to.

YouTube is not the only entertainment provider that does this. Netflix is actually another provider that does something very similar. The list of videos that are recommended to me from Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, or any other place where I actually watch videos has become an extremely narrow selection. I only see things similar to what I’ve seen.

I think one of the things we need is an ability to have what I would call an anti-logarithm. The computer has the search pattern that it thinks it gives me all the things I want to see, but I want an alternate search pattern that gives me a list of other things with an opportunity to find something I didn’t know I was interested in. It is a struggle to find something new and interesting when my entire recommendation list is a bunch of things that match or closely match what I have already seen. It’s insular and boring.

Entertainment videos are not the only place where this becomes a problem. Facebook is another example of only showing you the things you want to see. It becomes very easy, very quickly to only ever see opinions that match your own. While I understand that there are number of times one doesn’t want to see inflammatory opinions or the ideas and concepts that make you angry, there is still a need for the availability of those things. It becomes self-fulfilling prophecy? You put an opinion out and the only people who see it are those who already agree with you. You gain a warped View of exactly how popular something really is. There is no reality check.

I wish I was better at math and/or computer programming. I think it would be a best selling app or program, that would be the “find me something new” button. I don’t know if simply applying and negative prefix to any of the programming language would provide the alternates that I’m thinking, but I’m sure there has to be a way to develop a search engine that picks out either popular or specifically different trends that might not necessarily match the things you’ve already seen. I think more people need this in greater quantity than ever before. Not just from an entertainment point of view, but also from an information standpoint. Most people these days receive and process more information than ever before. It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of filtering all the information to become just the things you want to hear it gives a warped perspective and it’s terrible for actual entertainment value.

Perhaps what I need to do is float this idea out there for free. Somebody needs to make that app or program that is called “change my mind”. Even that is actually a meme that I’ve already seen before. I don’t know its origin, I just know that it’s really popular. A guy sitting behind a card table in a park with a cardboard sign hanging in front of it. Written on the cardboard is an inflammatory or challenging question, ending with “change my mind”. I don’t think asking the people who like the same things you like to change your mind is necessarily an effective tool. I think if there were a statistical or mathematical based program it would work in a much healthier manner.

I may regret this part, but they’re only about a half a dozen people that read this. Give me a comment that is something I should search for on YouTube or Netflix that will change the search patterns that has narrowed my entertainment. I both look forward to, and cringe at the thought, of what you all have to say.

Audio Learning Curve

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I’m sure that I’ve mentioned this before in my writing. I don’t remember where, but I’m certain that I have because I was incensed. I once read an article in a newspaper that was by one of the staff reporters. This staff reporter had, and I believe still has, regular space that presumably she’s paid well for. This article that she spent considerable space and time on said, in a nutshell, I have nothing to say but there was a deadline so I typed out all these words and turned it in. I couldn’t believe that a professional would simply put something like that out. If it were a column by a satirist like Dave Barry, then I could much more easily understand why something like that would be “newsworthy” for lack of better term. Notably satirists tend not to waste their column space. This person is nowhere near that sort of level nor is she a satirist. This is also something that always bothered about people who on their blogs or their Vlogs or their audio podcasts do essentially the same thing – putting out a big fat pile of “I have nothing to say”.

I haven’t been on the computer much at all when I’ve been at home lately. I have been on the computer for extended amounts of time at my day job. Between that and other life circumstances it has been very difficult to have something to say that is is worthy of posting, let alone finding the time to actually sit down and be willing to get in front of a screen again. I don’t want to be one of those people that simply puts nothing out there for the sake of putting something on a screen. I hope that I can put something out there that is in some small way either useful to myself or useful to others. Perhaps I’ve been unfair now that I think about it to this other person, if she put forth the article in some form or fashion saying nothing but that was useful to her. Something I hadn’t thought of before but it still makes me angry that she got paid for a number of words that essentially said “I have nothing to say”.

Today I am continuing my experiment in audio. I have set up a way to connect my technology with my technology.

Because I spend so much time at the screen already, one of the things that I attempt to do is keep myself physically healthy. Being healthy really matters for all people, but specifically for people who spend a lot of time in a sedentary position working at a screen. I don’t know that this this post necessarily counts as “something to say”, but I’m putting it out there so that if there are any other authors who feel the time crunch that I do combining family and work and other things with their craft. I have a treadmill in the same room with the computer. It took me awhile to come around to the solution, and once I mentioned it to a friend found out that it is not new or even necessarily uncommon. I have added a shelf over the front end of the treadmill and I have set up my laptop on that shelf. I then hooked my microphone in to my laptop and connected myself to the computer while walking on the treadmill. This gives me the opportunity to simply speak all of the things that I wanted to type well actually being able to walk on the treadmill and try to stay healthy at the same time.

Something else I’ve done while walking on the treadmill actually hook myself into the safety equipment. There’s an emergency stop connected to a string that you can clip to whatever you’re wearing. Normally I bypass that right away and simply use the treadmill. It’s something that I haven’t ever had problems with in the past. Now I’m clipped into the safety piece and because I don’t have a wireless microphone I’m also clipped in to the headset attached to my laptop. I think all I need now is some sort of breathing apparatus like one of those things you always see in science fiction films and I’ll look pretty out there. I went with the safety thing because I could clearly imagine the first time I tried to do this something would go horribly wrong I would fall, then the laptop would drop on my head and the tread portion of this machine would simply continue to run either or both pushing me off to the end and creating some unnecessarily painful friction.

I think I have learned a couple of lessons already this morning. First, it’s hard to type while walking so put your password before starting the walk. Next, I don’t know if there’s a way to move the cursor backwards. If there’s any kind of mistake and what it is that you said, you need to go back and edit it later. Lastly, this does make this post (and anything I’m writing) essentially a pure stream-of-consciousness writing style. I have yet to discover whether or not this will in fact make my writing any easier to read in terms of flow and understandability.

I also find it amusing, but I believe there’s the very real chance that I’ll be speaking to somebody and actually use my punctuation when I’m speaking out loud to them now. I definitely think that would be an entertaining story the first time that happens. “Oops. Sorry, I’m used to speaking this narrative into my computer and I just forgot that I was actually speaking to a person. Good news, you’re in the story now”.

Interestingly enough I’ve actually gone past my normal daily amount of walking on the treadmill while doing the speaking and still been able to knock out all these words. I think this experiment’s going to continue into the future. Hopefully that means that I’ll have more things that I will be able to say in a timely manner and get them out to my blog on a regular basis.

Now I just have to make sure that I always have something to say.

My Birthday

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I’ve made another full spin around the sun. It was my birthday yesterday. I am now shockingly close to being 50 years old. I’m not there yet, but that thought has started creeping around in my head. Does it have some kind of deeper meaning? I suspect that if it does, I’m missing it. It has been pointed out to me lately that I am likely missing quite a few things and that I am notably unobservant about certain things.

In an attempt to take a closer look and attempt not to ‘miss’ anything I’ve been giving the birthday and age thing a few thoughts.

I’ve reached that nebulous age that you can never picture when you’re a kid.

I went through the stage where I claimed I didn’t like girls. I claimed I would never date and certainly never get married (deep shudder). Then I started to figure out that dating was OK and maybe – just maybe girls were acceptable to speak to.

Then there was dating and all the early kinds of things people go through. Do I go and talk to that person? What if they reject me? What if it’s totally publicly humiliating like last time? Is anyone actually interested? What if I never find anyone?

I started trying to picture the future – and it never looked like it does now. It involved the job I have now but the work was the only clear part. I didn’t have anything else particularly nailed down. I thought I did, but looking back on it I realized I had no actual plan. Then I found someone. Well, I thought I’d found “the one”. She didn’t agree, and that hurt quite a lot.

Something I’ve learned over time is that generally speaking I will wind up where I am supposed to be. All of the circumstances surrounding that particular relationship and the subsequent messes following that brought me to the point where I DID meet the one. It has been a crazy journey since then – but NOTHING that you dream about as a kid. It’s not any single thing, but so many little things that the journey brings along with it.

So here I am in that grey area – more than just the hair – where kids tend to not dream about being. That area has brought with it a lot more introspection (or what some folks have deemed ‘naval gazing’) and thoughtfulness about birthdays and their deeper meaning.

In short, I’m doing great. Right on target. I expect to have a fancy new mid-life crisis sports car very soon now – I’ll let you know what color!

Happy New Year!

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It’s actually a little difficult to believe that 2018 is upon us. The past year has certainly gone faster than I would have imagined – and not nearly as cleanly. There are lots of reasons that 2017 wasn’t fantastic – but there were certainly a lot of good things for me personally and that’s the level I really have to work at here.

For anyone keeping track I haven’t changed my personal view on resolutions. Many years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to NEVER make a New Year’s resolution again. Guess what? Totally nailed it. Still going strong on that one. IF you want or need change in your life, the calendar is convenient, but not required. Make the change to grow or get better when you make that choice. You can do it!

That being said I do intend to keep forging ahead with my personal projects this year. I’ve still got about 9 things going at any one time. I’m still being a fan, an author and an artist. I game, I work at the day job and I spend time with my awesome family.

I genuinely hope that you and yours have an excellent year – positive feelings and good things should come your way!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Goodreads Technology

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I shouldn’t be grumpy about the wonderful technological thing I’ve been able to do… but I am.

I have been posting personal reviews of books I’ve read to Goodreads since 2009. I’ve got hundreds of books up on there. I like being able to share my thoughts with friends both local and distant. I like being able to go back and look at the list of things I’ve read and be able to sort them into various categories or descriptions. Others have tried to tell me there are better systems out there, but I haven’t really felt the need to move.

Much like any other business that wants to remain relevant, Goodreads has an app. I can access my account from my phone to look things up while I am out and about. Excellent. I love having access to the data. They also have a little part of that app that allows users to scan books by the ISBN code on the cover of the book. I can basically let my phone look at a picture of a code and the book in question will come up on my phone. IF the code doesn’t work, I can just let the phone look at the cover of the book and it will likely find the book that way. Amazing.

I needed to clear up some space in the back room. I moved a recently acquired book shelf (thanks mom!) in there and needed to put a stack of books on it so that I could reclaim the various flat surfaces where they’d been living. It was a random collection of stuff. I went into Goodreads, made up new “shelves” so that when I scanned the books I could put them together as actual, physical copies that reside in the house rather than the Kindle variety.

Here’s where I get picky about this little app. Of the 40(ish) books I scanned, 5 of them didn’t work. Some were old and didn’t have the right code but a couple just failed. Not a big deal – I’ve got weird stuff in the collection (I think you’re only allowed to use eccentric if you’re rich…). The problem was the process. First, there are 3 base categories that ALL your collection falls into – want it or not – “want to read”, “currently reading” and “read”. That’s it. No matter what other virtual shelves you create your book automatically falls into one of those, you can’t change it or avoid it. I hear somebody out there saying, “well, yeah – why would you have a book if you don’t actually want to read it or have read it?”. What if it’s an additional version that’s part of a collection? Yes, it’s likely that it falls into the “read” category or why would you have it, but I found the lack of an option there to be really annoying.

I also didn’t really want those books to qualify under the “read” category for other reasons. I have specifically resisted putting all the books I read before I was a Goodreads member up on the site. It seemed disingenuous to post something without a review while claiming to have read it. As I re-read titles I go back and add them. If I’m not re-reading them, I’d like the option to qualify my listing in another way. I don’t want the 40 books I scanned today to be added to my “read” count for the year. That’s bad data. I want it to sort better than that.

Yes, in the end it’s great technology to be able to do what I have done. No, it is not perfect. Hopefully there will continue to be improvements as the site keeps moving forward. I also hope they make it possible to cross post to Amazon reviews – but that’s another post.