Tag Archives: Throwback

Re-reads

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I’ve been meaning to track down the relatively recent Shannara television program. I struggled when I realized I don’t have MTV as a channel in my television line up and had totally failed to notice that. Then it came to me… I can always catch up with that later but right now I still have the book. The real, actual paperback novel.

I picked this book up when I was a kid and devoured it. I think I was 10 at the time and I recall doing a diorama of one of the scenes for a book report at school using Star Wars action figures and a shoe box. As an adult I seem to recall that it was very much like the Lord of the Rings series I was so enamored with, but all the details were fuzzy. I decided I’d go and pull it from the depths of the library and read it again.

I tried that with the very first Dragonlance book a while ago and met with… minimal success. As it turns out my ten year old self and my self now have spectacularly different taste in writing styles. I’m wondering what I’ll see and how I’ll react to reading this book again after more than 30 years have gone by since I first read it.

What’s your experience been like with re-reading your favorite works?

Sword and Stones

Longer than I thought

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I’ve seen a of folks out there posting about the new year. A number of them spent time talking about how much 2015 wasn’t great (some I know personally and they’ve got reasons I agree with). A lot of folks were all about goal setting and calendar year based stuff (that I’ve posted about before). Some folks looked back and discussed anniversaries of things.

It struck me that I didn’t know how long I’ve been writing The Pretend Blog. It’s not something I ever expected to go anywhere or mean anything to folks other than me (and maybe my wife) so I never tracked it.

As it turns out I started right about this time of year (my first two posts being December 28 and January 7) back in 2008. That means I’ve been at it for 8 years. That’s actually a shocking number to me. I didn’t realize I’d been at it that long. The funniest part? I may have grown and changed in some ways, but a number of things really haven’t changed at all. Blimps are still pretty pimp, and the ultimate showdown still amuses me to no end.

Here’s what I posted 8 years ago:

The Pretend Blog. Being the anal-retentive (with a hyphen, not a colon – thank you John) type that I am, I naturally didn’t want to jump into this until I had a better handle on what I would be doing and where it would all be going and what the potential legal ramifications would be etc., etc.. In November of 2006 I started a Word document and called it The Pretend Blog. It was my way of actually writing stuff down and ‘getting started’ rather than just jumping in cold and trying stuff out.

More than a year later – here it is. I kept the name and put it out there. There are maybe three people that actually care about this other than me. It seems a little pretentious to think that there will ever be a day when a whole crowd of people will be interested in what I might have to say here.

I went back and looked at the rambling stuff I wrote over the past year (about a page worth or more per month). Most of it is annoying and angst ridden – so I chucked it. This journal is my stream of consciousness stuff that’s for me. I’ll probably post a bunch of stuff I like and not worry about all the other pretentious, whiny stuff that worried me before. Besides, how else would I get these things stuck in other peoples’ heads?

Blimps are pretty pimp

Ultimate Showdown Good guys, bad guys and explosions. Thank you Lemon Demon.

Good guys, bad guys and explosions!

Good guys, bad guys and explosions!

Old Timey

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Do you like old time radio shows? If you do, there’s a podcast out there you should dig up and listen to. Hidden Harbor Mysteries. I’m going to cheat and let them do the description part:

Hidden Harbor, a small city with big problems. The criminal element strikes by night and blends into the population by day. One woman has the guts and the power to stand up to the enemies of Hidden Harbor, both foreign and domestic.

Hiidden Harbor Mysteries is a full-cast audio drama serial that uses modern technology to re-create a sound and feel from the golden age of radio.

The vocal talent here is great. I love listening to the voices. The story is neat and different from things I’ve heard before. It’s fun – and most importantly, it’s in bite size chunks. The episodes run in the area of about 20 minutes – so you can always squeeze one into your day someplace.

They’ve even got sponsors:

EagleBrand_VintageAd

Jack of all trades…

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Master of Architecture?

Thursday was an odd mix of the “throwback” and the forward thinking. I went to a college campus for a tour – as a perspective student. It was a long drive (and would be a rotten commute at 90 minutes) with lots of time to think. The more I think of it, the more it becomes a trippy mix of memory and future plans. I have a college degree, but not the right one to break past a certain ceiling in the architecture industry. I started in design school, but finished in a different program. I spent years in studio and drawing classes, but what got me into the field was my ability to be a CAD monkey – or take all that data and put it “in the box”. I’ve got years of experience and I’m working on the requirements to get my registration stamp here in Pennsylvania, but that’s not easy when you’re not actually working. School might actually help with that – if only I could afford to do that right now. Thursday really tossed my emotions around.

I’m considering trying to go to Morgan State University for the Graduate program in Architecture and get my masters degree. I dropped a line to the program and ended up getting a tour with the head of the program himself. That was both excellent and disconcerting. Excellent in that, how many folks get the personal tour with the director of the program? Disconcerting in that we’re about the same age and were within a just few years of each other when graduating from school last time I did this. The throwback went into overdrive when he said that the first semester of studio all students were required to be on the boards – no computer work for drawings or presentations. It’s been more than 20 years since I was on the drafting board. I’ve got the trace paper, the pencils, the triangles – I’ve even got a drafting board in the attic still. My skills would be rusty to say the least, but I think I would struggle for a while until I got back into the swing of things. The trippy part? I’ve spent the past year and a half as a trainer for the computer programs that architects and engineers use – so there’s actually some small potential that I could get an adjunct professor kind of position there teaching Revit. I could be the teacher and the student… at the same time? It was a confusing and unsettling day, but the trip is one I’m ultimately glad I made.

Now is more of the wait and see part. This is all conjecture. None of it is relevant until I’m once again gainfully employed – money does seem to make the world go around.