The adventure continues

Went to the food court this afternoon. Talked about the dirklings the entire time.

I'm dying to see The Hithchiker's guide to the Galaxy. I heard it's not a completely faithful adaptation. The only movie that ever matched its source material faithfully was Sin City. Wow, incredible movie. I'd forgotten how hokey some comic book dialog is when someone real speaks it.

Next weekend, I'll be up in Seattle for the Girl Cub's birthday. It should be fun. The weekend after that is the premeire of the last Star Wars movie.

School is moving right along.

The adventure continues.

Our heritage

As Americans, our heritage is split among four general philosophies; you have the idealist, the religous nut, the adventurer, and the opportunist. Over time you see how each has influenced the society we have today, and they are still.

Thanks to our puritanical and religious fundamentalist roots, America equates sex with being "dirty", and as a corollary, "dirty" also equates to "fun".

While living in Europe I was in numerous situations of coed nudity. THis was neither uncommon nor even arousing. people were simply unclothed.

While a bartender in New Orleans*, I saw people of all sorts flash each other in a naughty version of peek-a-boo, with much rejoicing all around.

Same species, so there wasn't anything special in the parts being flashed, but it was the naughtiness of it all that made it fun. I witnessed many people doing many things they would never admit to even thinking about back home.


It all comes down to context.






* Great place to get over a broken heart

Some people are alive simply because it is illegal to kill them.

There is nothing wrong with the act of killing, per se. It's been done enough times for enough reasons that it is simply an act. Morality is not the issue, I won't pretend t try to enlighten you with my morals, don't be foolish enough to try to force yours upon me.

The administration of the act of taking another's life needs to be regulated, One of the primary reasons for customs is so that we don't have to worry about killing strangers we meet and hoping they don't try the same.

So. what criteria should we, as a society use for determinging whether one's death by another's hand is legal.

Should we use intent?

When I went to visit my father in the hospital last, he was filled with tubes and machines that regulated his life functions. He was disoriented by the pain of the pneumonia ravaging his weakened body.

If I had a dog in that state, no one would think twice if I put him out of his misery. As the current laws stand, I could only hold his hand, and say words of comfort.

When I was in the Air Force, my role involved planning bombing missions causing the deaths of those designated Enemies of the State. I did my job well. The better I did my job, the smaller the net loss in life and damage to property. I also planned nuclear missions. Missions that, had they come to pass, would have destroyed life as we know it. For my service, I was paid well, and to this day I have benenfits due to my veteran's status.

In June of 1990 my mother's life was taken from her. Suddenly and without warning, my mother was no more. She was coming home from work and getting ready for my sister's first baby shower. The Jeep that hit her car head-on ripped the top half of her honda off. She died instantly. She was not killed by an enemy, she was not in a war zone, nor was this politcally motivated. Her killer was just too drunk to safely drive home. She was over three times the legal limit of intoxication. She hadn't known she had a body count for two days afterward.

When I arrived in America to help handle these affairs, I swore an oath on my mother's grave. I would have this woman's life for her misdeed. Society's debt may be paid, but she spilled the blood of my kin, and that can't go unpunished. To this day, no one's told me anything identifying about this person. I only know that it's a woman.

As important as my mother's life was to me, I have other lives that need me more. My children and wife. Were I not needed by them, I would be free to have ended my father's suffering, and avenged my mother's death.

So, why is my mother's killer allowed to walk the streets of our society, protected by the laws she decided to ignore? I know, when she stepped into her jeep that night, she didn't intend to kill someone. It was her actions and lack of responsibility that did. This was murder, albeit unintentional murder.

Nothing will bring my mother back. My father is in no more pain. Yet, were I to act in either matter, I would face prosecution by the society that trained and paid me to do such things with impunity.

As precious as our society claims life to be, there are ways to still legally end it, and things like assisted suicide should be allowed because of one essential element, consent.

When assigning a death sentence on someone, usually that person has committed a crime against society that that person has forfeited their right to live in this society. I see no problem culling from our society those who prey upon it. The cruel and unusual element of modern executions is that it simply takes too long to go through all the bureaucracy to get to the actual execution.

Several generations ago, the Western world outlawed a time-honored practice of dueling, which was the authorized taking of another's life, granted that the person was also trying to end your life.

Personally, I would like to see the return of the old dueling laws, where one could redress cases against one's honor in the field. If one were to petition a court the same way one gets a restraining order for example, and wait a certain period of time, say 2 weeks to 30 days, then if both parties still wish to settle things on the field of honor, then so be it, and no further repercussions. The courts would of course collect some fees for the petition, etc. We could even generate revenue by selling broadcast rights of the event.

Fie!

It's the end of another day, and I have yet to write.

Dsicipline is what it's all about. I have had quite a day. Art Direction kicks my ass.

I know it's all about execution. But I excel at the concept and writing about it. I just get tired of doing iterations, ad infinitum.


I enjoy drawing my robots, and gadgets when the fancy takes me.

I like writing only slightly more.

Research is okay. I look at the world a little differently than most.

So, what's a gregarious mediavore to do?

I hate navel-gazing. and have little tolerance for writings that do. I had hoped most of my entries to be informative essays, not just rants about the moment in which I find myself.

I will do better.

Go and check out rotten.com It's well written and deals with good topics.

Today's Tarot.

I have noticed a regular ritual I'm starting to pick up again. I don't believe in magic or "magick", or any of that crap anymore than I believe in any sort of god. That goes for the Cthulu mythos as well as the more popular strains of delusion and mass hysteria that we hominids call religion.

I ascribe to the belief that we as a species are always looking for patterns, even when there are none, and that looking at a bunch of pretty cards will probably key into my subconscious and maybe provide me with some clues as to what I should be mindful of in my life.

I call them 'story cards' to the dirklings. We used to look at them together when I lived in Seattle. This last visit the Girl Cub found the box again in the new place, and I keep them in a place I can check them regularly.

I've noticed a few trends of late.

It used to be that when I was going through some kind of drama, I would always get certain cards in certain positions telling me certain doom. I know, go figure.

I love how rich the colors are and the level of detail. I use the Robin Wood Deck available here and I think I'll start posting them on a new blog just for that. We'll see how long that lasts.

These cards no more tell me the future than does the local paper's Horoscope, yet, there's a certain charm to looking at them, and telling today's tale in them.

I came across this site ages ago,facade.com, and they have all manner of divination tools, run by CGI scripts. Lots of fun. Just remember; all divination is intuition, nothing else. Make your own future.

Ess Oh ess

I have posted three pieces to my other blog because of my Art Direction class. This morning though, I watched the video "Godzilla, Tokyo S.O.S." Where Godzilla invades Japan (again) to reclaim the bones of the Original Godzilla that were used to make Kiryuu G, in English, Mecha Godzilla.

This one is like the third or fourth Mecha Godzilla that's been made. the first one I remember was in the early 70's late 60's and it was an alien construct that kicked serious ass. Anguiras ass, to be precise.

Anyway.

The spokestwins for Mothra showed up at an old guy's place, who had been to Infant Island a long time ago. They asked him to persuade the Government to return the bones to the sea and let the spirit of Godzilla rest.

Mosura, or Mothra as she's known in the West is my favorite raver Kaiju, One of her attacks is Glitter. How cool is that? She gets her thorax handed to her in a one on one against the Big G, but really, who can beat Godzilla? No one, that's who. Not any of the Ghidorah incarnations, not Destroya, nobody. Why? because who's name's on the title? Godzilla, bitch.

If you recognized any of the names in the preceding paragraphs, you're hopeless too.

Oddly enough, the theme in this one like most of the themes of these movies, is that Mankind needs to face the damage we've done to the earth.

Ironic, given the selective memory of the Japanese regarding a little territorial dispute called World War Two.

I have great respect for the culture and history of that Island Nation. I want to see the Snow Macaques wintering in the hot springs in Hokkaido. I love the traditional architecture. I drowned in Zen after I studied Jiu Jitsu, the first martial art I ever studied. I own several copies of Go Rin No Sho, so don't misunderstand.

Every culture has bloodied hands. Only by recognizing the horrors of our pasts can we prevent them from recurring.

Or, as the motto of the Simon Wiesenthal Center is, "Never Again."

Titles and Codes

Here it is, another Sunday night, and I've spent most of the day getting the ingredients I need to finish a school project.

I have one project, a campaign for a site, petfinder.com It's a cool project, and I have a good concept and all that. I've posted them on my other blog.

The problem I have lies with the fact that I've used some illustration art from an online source of an artist whose work I like quite a bit. I came across his work at Twisted Kaiju Theater's K-Girls section, and then followed a few links to where he keeps some of his other art. He goes by the handle Heckfire and his deviant art account is here. The image I used is here.

For the assignment, my teacher liked the execution of my concept so I've been inking in the artwork and tightening up the other two ads as well. I'll post them later when they're more complete.


So, I'm in a bit of a bind. I am giving credit to the illustrator, and I want his blessing. I also know, that as soon as I can afford to pay for his services, I will. But, as a humble student, I have access to stuff like this under Fair Use clause of Copyright Law.

Title 17 of the US Code covers Copyright law. Its purpose is to "Promote Science and the useful arts." It's here(http://www.copyright.gov/) to check out, and the forms for registering your stuff are downloadable.

When I was studying Multimedia, I had to take a class covering the topic, because, when using multiple sources, you have to know who gets credit and how to go about making sure everyone's rights are protected. My teacher was a Ms. Julia Harmatz, an Intellectual Property lawyer from Boston who studied at Loyola University in Louisiana. She was passionate about her craft, and was hard on her students because it was such an important thing to know.

Under Title 17, there are six rights the creator of a piece of art has governing her or his art. There are four cases, however, that falls under the "Fair Use" clause.

... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

So basically: Criticism, Editorial, News, and Scholarship.

Fair use was guaranteed from the outset, because it's part of our freedom of speech. Notice how Criticism was the first freedom listed. I think that's because it's our god-given right to mock whatever we see fit.

There's 4 criteria used to determine if something falls under Fair Use; Purpose, Nature of the work, Amount used, the Effect of the works' potential marketability.


So, with this project there's three people I can't let down, the Artist, my teacher, and my IP Law teacher.


I'm not sure if I ever thanked her for her class, so on the off chance she ever comes across this:

Thank you, Ms. Harmatz. Thank you very much.

Saturday Night

And we just got in from a football game. The Oakland Banshees, a woman's football team.

It was great. That's saynig somehting because I hate football.

The Oakland Banshees played the Redding Rage, and beat them 32 to 7, I think. It might have been a shut out. It was football at it's core values, no overpriced beer, no overpriced food, played in a college lot, and there were about as many players as there were fans.

It was good fun.

Toady-licious

How can doing the right thing for the right reason still feel a bit wrong?

In my Account Planning class, we've had a guest speaker, and class was held in an agency. On both occasions, I sent a thank-you email to the parties involved. I feel a little like a suck-up for doing so, but I always was under the impression that one sent a thank you note after a meeting.

That's how I started courting my wife. We had known each other in Germany, and our mutual friend kept in touch with both of us throughout the intervening years. When he had bought a house in Oakland, I came down from Seattle to pay him a visit, and to eat at all my favorite restaurants. On the last night, she joined us in the Mission for some latino food. I think it was a Nicaraguan restaurant.

She had just gotten back from swim practice that she was doing to get ready for the Leukemia Society's triathlon. Her hair was wildly unkempt and she was just as untamed. Sparks flew over the dinner table, and when I got back to Seattle, all I could think about was, "Here we go again. "

So I sent here a thank you email. After a few weeks of emails and phone calls, she paid me a visit. a few more weeks, and I visited her. In November of '99, I moved down here to get involved with the latest Gold Rush. I hated moving away from my children, but there was no life for me there except them. I wasn't doing anybody any good, and aside from some freelance work, and a tech support gig for Adobe, I wasn't using my degree in multimedia.

We were wed in Shakespeare's Garden in October 2003. The dirklings were in attendance and gave their blessings at the ceremony.


Happily ever after, eh?

Welcome to the jungle

The Internet is the best time-waster. You can do any kind of research, or find most any forms of entertainment. A triple canopy rainforest; you find the strata you're most comfortable, and tend to stay. Like most large metropolitan areas, I rarely go to the Castro, except during Halloween, and I don't think I've ever been to Hunter's Point. I work and go to school in the Financial District, and I play in Golden Gate Park. I enjoy the Mission's food, and sometimes shop there.

I live in a neighborhood called Piedmont. I've heard that most people who live in Piedmont try to distance themselves from being considered Oaklanders. Something I don't quite understand; Oakland is the birthplace of the Black Panthers, Bruce Lee's first school in America was here. Oakland has a lot to offer, you just can't be afraid.

That's true with most places though.

Today's post is a bit rushed, and for that I apologize.


*******

I'm trying to keep my nest clean, and it's a constant struggle, because I have so many school-related things to distract me, not to mention that I have this wonderful new tool with which to do them.

The Devil's ...

It started out innocently enough. I was chatting with my friend via Yahoo instant message, and he referred me to an online web comic called Something Positive. It was biting, and relatively funny. I liked how the creator kept his ideas relatively fresh, and his characters evolved over time. Something sorely lacking in both comic strips and comic books.


Well, one thing led to another, and I'm catching myself reading several online comics now.

The Devil's Pantie's is one. The main page is here, but if you have the time, I recommend starting at the beginning hereso you can watch how things progress. One thing; the author can't spell worth beans, so if that's in your menagerie of pet peeves, don't go. I assume she has some form of dyslexia. Usually that drives me nuts, I can't stand l33t, nor do I tolerate all that crap about misspelling words on purpose that some people insist on doing, because they think they're being 'creative'. Here, it seems quaint, cute even.

It's not War and Peace, nor is it even Calvin and Hobbes. It's kind of like watching a garden, not much appears to change, and yet over time, you see the subtleties and feel like an idiot trying to explain it to others.

I think one of the reasons I like the strip is that she has an affection for all things Batman, chunky boots, and hand to hand weaponry. What's not to like?

Truly, Madly, Deeply

When my family spent a Christmas vacation in Southern California in 1977/78, we took a day trip to San Francisco. That was where I found my first True Love. We rode the newly opened BART, and went to the Exploratorium. I loved the feel of The City, and we'd barely covered any of it. I was hooked.

In 1986, I was set to graduate for my two high schools, Fort Hayes, a sort of vocational school where I studied fine art, and my regular school, Northland. During my Spring Break, as everyone went to FLorida, I took a bus to San Francisco to show my portfolio to a school there, in hopes of getting a scholarship. I had basically looked up san Francisco Art schools in a catalog at Ft. Hayes. Everyone else went to the Columbus College of Art & Design. I wanted out. I wanted to go to The City.

I never held too many illusions about my talent. I never thought I was any good, and my mother was fond of pointing that out on a regular basis. So, if I couldn't dazzle them with my skill, I'd blow them away with my productivity. The average student would make one big painting. I made ten. The average student in my class made one weaving, I made three, not matter what it was, I made several of them, because I knew they wouldn't be that good, so one of them would hit. I would work on at least three or four paintings at any one time, so that if I get stuck on a composition, I'd just change my focus to another one. As it stood, I had several paintings in the Governor's Art Show in the mid 80's. Don't ask me which, I kept no records when I left.

The school I went to show my portfolio to was impressed, and gave me a small scholarship. That was enough for me to go.

However, at the time, they had no student housing. I had never lived on my own. My family thought it was a bad idea to live so far away, and as a result I failed in my first attempt at living in San Francisco. I failed miserably.

I had always gotten The Blues from time to time, but after this failure, I was a wreck. I moved back home, and less than a year later, I followed my parents wishes and joined the Air Force. I did this after a week long bender at the processing place in Columbus, but that's another story for another time.

Almost six years later, I got out. My first wife picked me up at the air port and asked for a divorce on the ride to her place. A few months later, I moved to New Orleans*. I was still struggling with culture shock in Nebraska after living in Germany for so long.

After living there for six months, a few friends were going to go to Berkeley to college, and needed a ride out. So, of course I gave gave them a ride.

I was back with my first True Love. It was wonderful, walking the streets of the different neighborhoods. The City in 1993 was only slightly different than it is now. More artists, more LSD, slightly cheaper rent. I lived in The City, and developed a bit of agoraphobia whenever I went to the East Bay, or beyond. I saw no reason to leave.

Then I met my future second ex-wife. Long story. We moved to Seattle. Had a couple kids. I went back to school. got an associates degree in multimedia, found out I'm haywired, got a divorce, etc. The usual.

So, now I'm back. Been here since 1999. Survived the Dot-Com Bust, mostly ok. I live in the East Bay, where I can look at my True Love at sunset, and remember why I'm here. Met a woman I knew in Germany, found out she's The One. Didn't believe that existed 'til recently.

Now, I'm back in school. This time, for advertising. If I play my cards right, I'll graduate almost twenty years after first showing my portfolio to them.

Note* if you EVER go through a divorce, move to New orleans for awhile, I highly recommend it.

For Algernon and Charlie

I hate deadlines.

Perhaps hate is too strong a word. I know having a deadline makes me enforce a discipline I might not otherwise have. For example, I should have gone to bed a couple hours ago, but I decided to check one list I haven't read in awhile.

Big mistake.

Twisted Kaiju Theater is a lot of harmless fun in bad taste. Like their motto used to be, "Come for the poop jokes, stay for the K girls." K-girls being Kaiju Girls, or pin ups of interpretations of Daikaiju, or giant monsters. They’re quite lovely in a quirky sort of way. Some can be offensive, but that's part of its charm. The strip is a series of photos of plastic kaiju, like one of the many incarnations of Godzilla, or one of his enemies or allies in the movies, and word balloons are photoshopped in. Funny stuff. On one of their forums, one of the members posted a simple question: what kind of video game would we make based off the kaiju girls?

I should have just hit the back button.

I read a couple of the replies, and not knowing what they were talking about, I researched the genre of games that were mentioned. Big mistake. I've spent the past couple hours copying pictures, and making notes on these types of games.

I have a multimedia degree, and once upon a time I was pretty good with Macromedia's Director, and passable in using Flash. I forgot all my Lingo scripting, and I used the older versions of Flash, the ones that came out before there was ActionScript. When I was in school I focused on the Producer's track, the generalist in a generalist's field. I even made a few games back in The Day. The one I remeber was a version of Bomberman, using Dilbert characters. and instead of dropping bombs, Dilbert had to drop memos to get a certain number of characters to go to his meeting. Simple but fun.

A year or two ago, I met with someone who was looking for an aspiring game designer. I've always jotted down ideas since going to AIS, and so I answered the email. This was during the bottom of the dot-com bust and things fell through. I would have liked to seen the project completed, but to no avail. Perhaps someday, but not anytime soon.

So this evening was mostly an exercise in futility. I used to know how to make these things, I know how to set up the design documents, and could reasonably get things started, if I had a crew, some time, and maybe a budget to work with.

Story of my life.

There’s a book, “Flowers for Algernon,” that was also made into a movie. It was written as a journal, and the character, Charlie Gordon was not too bright. Algernon was the mouse that the experimental procedure was done on before it was tried on him. This procedure made both Charlie and Algernon smart, but it was only temporary. A similar theme was done on Nickelodeon’s show “Rugrats” where Chucky, who suffers form sinus problems, goes through a similar ordeal as Charlie, and the effects were also temporary.

I cried when I saw it, mostly because up until that time, I had forgotten the original.

A few of my favorite things.

I've had my Mac 48 hours now, and I am still reveling in its delights.
Please forgive me if go on too much. I love it's tactile feedback, the keys are light and responsive. The brushed metal feels cool, and not just in temperature.

I had a dream once that featured cool aluminum accouterments, but I'll talk more about that some other time.

No, right now, I am composing on my mac whilst sitting on the loo, looking at the Kraus collection of Sir Francis Drake. Available here. I'm wondering why I've never looked up the Library of Congress before. I live for finding these kinds of things. I feel like such an otaku looking up antique maps, and historical or geographical minutiae. But I must defend myself, at least my useless information might become useful some day, and as far as entertainment goes, well, there are worse ways to waste time.

I used to blame my vocation in the Air Force for this predilection; I was a Target Intelligence Specialist. My job was to make the plans to get the Right bomb on the right target at the right time. So I was trained in ordnance, maps and charts, aerial navigation techniques, a little trigonometry to figure out where a bomb should theoretically land, and of course the library sciences, so that I could Get Smart Fast on anything that was needed. I was enlisted; so I had to have the answers.

But that's not really where I picked it up.

I am from Columbus, Ohio.

I was born in Akron, but moved from there at an early age, and spent most of my formative years in Columbus. So I claim that as my home. If you're really interested, here's a satellite image of my old house, courtesy of Google's latest acquisition. If you zoom all the way in, it's the second house west on the southern side of the street from where the tag marks the spot. A bit has changed since I moved away in 1987, but most hasn't. I needed to get away. I just knew I had to with that passion That only an eighteen year old has. I had some good times, but I had to hit the road.

So, until I could escape, I immersed myself in National Geographic, PBS nature shows, anything and everything that would show me a glimpse of the wide world out there. This was in the early days of cable, so the Discovery Channel was on the horizon, but not readily available just yet. The library was also a haven. I vaguely remember a poem we had to memorize in the third grade about maps commenting on the "armchair vagabond" and it struck me then as it does now that there is always an escape route.

Even if it is only in the mind.

Hello

I am writing this post from my brand new Powerbook G4 laptop. When I say laptop, I mean laptop. The 12" screen gives this baby a small footprint.

I have homework to do and I'll post more later, I swear. I just want my first piece of writing on this machine to be a post to my 'blog.

I know, I'm a dork, but whatta ya gonna do? I like it.

I Lost It

I shouldn’t have. But I did, and I hate myself for it. Only one week, and I couldn’t keep myself in check. His chemical choke-chain has been all out of whack this week. Also, thanks to his meds, he’s sensitive to bright sunlight, and with no shades or hats in sight haven’t helped matters.

He’s floppy. It drives me nuts. Where has the graceful pup I had in Seattle gone? He whines, and does these passive-aggressive grunts. His nasally, gritted-teeth mumbling drives me right over the edge.

I have shown him a better way to shield his eyes from the sun, instead he wraps his wrist around his brow, palm turned upward.

I’ve made him eat this afternoon, cheese nachos. Real challenge.

I picked him up and barked in my old Sergeant Williams Voice- the one that makes pitbulls piss themselves and most grown men submit. It’s come in handy to have, but those are other tales for other times.

I placed him back on the ground and sent him crying to bed.

His Sister Daughter of Hippolyta, bore witness, and is not approving. Reasoning with a Taurus Queen Bee is never easy, even harder, when you know your wrong.

I have to apologize, and we must move on. This is not how men should act. The hard part is knowing the experience is more potent than the words. I have much to do and no time to do it in.

We should have left an hour ago. Now it’s going to be rough.

Damascus

Folded and Flattened. Heated multiple times, and hammered repeatedly. The traditional way was labor intensive, and somewhat of a mystery. Today, with modern methods and tools, good Damascus steel is only slightly less intensive. There are no real shortcuts, only technological enhancements to the process.

So it goes also with my children. They leave Friday, and with them another piece seems missing. And yet another pounding blow from which to recover. They too have gone through the heat of living under a different house with different rules and totally different lives. And they fold over again to the other, to be reshaped yet again. And in a few months, they come down for summer, and the process completes another cycle.

Sharp, heterogeneous, durable. Beautiful and useful.

Taking Time

In the time it takes to boil water for tea, breakfast is done. In the time it takes to brush your teeth, I am dressed. In the time it takes to say an offhanded remark, a sentence is made. In the span of 30 seconds, a commercial is over on television. Incidentally, also the same time the average knife fight lasts. Checking the email only takes a few minutes, enough to ruin a moment.
In the time it takes to post to a 'blog, a new day starts.

In the time it takes to finish a Guinness, an evening ends. A class is only three hours, yet in that span, countless lives have ended and begun.

In the space of a week, a man can remember why he hates to say goodbye. A boy can re-learn to climb trees, and a girl-cub can be taught the meaning of jealousy.

During a two-hour movie, popcorn is made, the alchemy of milkshakes is shared and a family is re-forged.

Time is always being spent, lost, taken, and wasted. We use it as a commodity since Henry Ford and mass production brought us the Industrial Age. Before then, you were paid by the job, on a salary, a retainer. The time clock, the wage slaves.

Time is always running out.


They leave Friday.

The end of the day.

The end of the day.

It has been quite a day, especially for a Tuesday. My son the picky eater and my daughter, the voracious one, and I went for a walk to return some videos. The three of us settled on a Japanese restaurant that specialized in Sushi. My son love calamari, and had some of the fried variety yesterday. Today he expressed interest in sushi that had a slice of octopus tentacle. Also, for some reason, he wanted the one of salmon roe. I guess he liked the idea of fish eggs. He ate them. And he ate, and ate some more.

Allow me to clarify. His mother sends down explicit feeding instructions with the lad. He’s ten and weighs between 47 and 52 pounds. When he left me last summer, he weighed 57 pounds, and started the summer at about 50. When I say picky, I’m not kidding. He got off the plane a couple days ago looking near panicked that I might not have his favorite du jour, coconut shrimp. I told him the same rules apply that always does. He eats what I make; I’ll make anything, but I narrow the choices down to a few options to make and of those options he’s got to eat what he's picked.

He’s his father’s son. Haywired. He takes the same drugs I do, Wellbutrin, and Depakote. He’s taking twice my dosage, and he’s literally a third of my body mass. His mother decides to choose her battles differently than I. I want him to run, to play to be angry when he feels it, actually I want him to feel whatever he feels, to not be afraid of them, but to be in control of his moods, and not the other way around. Most importantly, there are times when you only have a few choices, and the most important ones are how you react to what’s going on.

Today, I cut out his daily dose of Depakote. This entire trip, he’s had tremors in his hands. This is one dexterous kid, a Legomaniac. Asking him how long it’s gone on, he claims ignorance. His mother never noticed. My current wife alleges that as long as he’s quiet, his household doesn’t notice details like that. I’m not sure. Today we went to the park after picking up my wife, and he chased Wild Geese.

He climbed trees.

Sunday, he had a meltdown trying to climb a tree. he stumbled through Golden Gate park. He also was forced to eat a slice of cheese pizza. I don't remember him hating pizza. I know he prefers pesto over marinara.

After watching the spectacle for an hour or so in the fading light of a spring day, I made a diagnosis. I think I know what the boy needs: sunshine, a place to run and maybe a dog to play with and take care of.

There’s a saying

When I was in the military, I used to hear the oft-quoted phrase “Knowledge is Power.” Well, I disagree, in part. I believe “The timely application of knowledge is power.” If you know something, and unable or unwilling to act upon it, what power do you really possess?

This similar to the Second Rule: Never make a promise or a threat you are unable or unwilling to carry out. The First Rule is, of course: No Witnesses. Similar but not quite in the same league, as the Rule of Thirds, or Threes, depending on whom you talk to.



These are different from the three laws of Magick, which are; Identity, Analogy, and Reciprocity. Which is altogether different from Newton’s Laws of Physics.

I like the inspiration poster you always see about persistence, where it exhorts that trait above talent, and skill and all other traits, because that is truly at the heart of any achievement. Or there is an equation that Success is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

And for those of you who don’t know, Love isn’t the most powerful force in the Universe, it’s inertia.

Or so I’ve heard(read).

Oh dear, not again.

3 minutes to midnight and not a post yet.

oy.

My dirklings are here. They flew in yesterday, and this was their first full day in daddy's world. I have my concerns, as always about them. They always gp through a kind of culture shock when they come here. I have expectatios that are different form their mother's.

I expect them to succeed at things, not to quit, and to try new things. I also expect them to burp loudly, eat heartily, and run quickly. They are children and their primary peurpose in life is to explore.

After all; life is an adventure.

Something I'm passionate about.

I'm not sure why this issue gets me worked up.

My literary hero, Stephen Jay Gould, wrote so lucidly on evolution monthly for Scientific American(I think) for over 20 years. I mourned his passing as I mourned Hunter S. Thompson, and to a lesser extant, almost as much as I mourned my father's passing.

I have read it argued from so many angles, and proven so many times in so many ways that it's difficult for to imagine why anyone would think otherwise.

But it still is being debated.

Creationism has been proven false more times than any other crackpot idea that's festered in the collective consciousness of this great country.

We are the only country that even remotely considers creationism. No less than two Popes on two separate occasions posited that evolution was the purview of science, and that the mysteries of the soul were the realm of religion.

Evolution and its mechanism, Natural Selection, is called a Theory, because by definition in scientific terms a theory is:

“A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.” *

Like racism, sexism, and other forms of ignorance in America; creationism must be confronted and rooted out like the bitter weed it is. One wonders what other agenda is being furthered, what power base is being established when reason is being turned on its head.

Orwell said it best in 1984 “Ignorance is Strength”, but strength for whom?

*The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth EditionCopyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Freitag

I’ve taken the day off to get my house in order for the dirklings’ visit. I always get antsy when they’re about to arrive. They live with their mother for most of the time, spending summers and the occasional break with me. Christmas is different, my ex and I agreed that we should all have Christmas together. I’ve seen enough of that drama played out in airports, McDonald’s and Zoos. Weekend parents, usually fathers. They look guilty, or sad maybe is a better way to describe it. It’s a look of pain, and regret and trying not to let on too much. It stains the time they do have together. The kids are hip to it, and they’re trying to keep an even keel, because they have to juggle their parents, looking forward to seeing one, while having to leave the other. This is, for the most part, the only life they’ve known.

People regret things they haven’t done more that the things they have. These weekenders try, and that’s the important part.

I’m noticing more and more parents have that look and they’re still married. Their kids are so active, and both parents work, so there’s simply no time.

Mine is the generation that had to deal with the fallout of the Divorce Boom of the sixties and seventies. People had to me; whoever that was, and didn’t stay together. My parents only divorced after the kids were out of school. I was the only one among my friends who had the original set of parents. That might explain a lot of the resurgence in concepts like polyamory, and having a tight circle of friends, and loose affiliations with one’s birth family.

I personally feel that I’ve failed my children because I couldn’t keep things together. My daughter wasn’t old enough to remember me living with her, due to work and school schedules. My son, however, is another story. He’s dealt with things quite well, but I’ll never forget him tapping my ex-wife’s leg and speaking on my behalf in the language of a two year old “Daddy not bad, not bad.” It makes me wonder if the other Weekenders relive those moments as often as I seem to?

He was also sound asleep when we’d argue; fortunately they never saw any of that. I was going crazy at the time, with all the stress of family and school. Literally crazy. There’s no other way to describe it.

I don’t blame anyone, save myself sometimes, and things have worked out fine.

Divorce means making the compromises you couldn’t or wouldn’t do while you were married. Time and distance seems to have evened things out, and aside from a few lifestyle differences, we agree on the fundamentals of rearing the kids. I see that as having them multicultural. Now, instead of two parents, they have three.

It could always be worse, and everyone involved knows it.

My wife;

I love her.

First and foremost, that much is true. I never believed the theory that there is one person for everyone, or even the outdated notion of True Love.

She’s proven me wrong.

I believe that relationships are like alcoholism; you can only take it one day at a time, and disaster is always one mistake away.

Not to say we live in a perfect world or that we don’t have ups and downs. Far from it. Our life, our love is an adventure, and I could see no other to share it with than her.

One of the reasons we have life on this earth, is because we have chaos, and change. There is variety and dynamic forces always at work, on both the macro and micro levels.

So it is, with my Love and I. Hour of tedium punctuated with moment of sheer bliss. Or chaos, or hatred, or terror. Take your pick.

Aside from the dirklings, she is my reason for being.

The Cocktail Napkin Theory.

‘Sketchbook’ is a bit of a misnomer for what I carry around with me. I took a binder clip, and a bunch of paper that had been printed on and cut it in half. It’s not only free, but it’s a lot easier to draw on than most sketchbooks. I call this the ‘cocktail napkin effect’ because it is free; I am free to put any idea down without consequence, thereby freeing me from having to come up with the “right” idea. No pressure! I can doodle all day, and when I'm ready to refine, I break out my real sketchbook, or marker paper or what have you.



‘Keep a small book of papers with you everywhere you go so that you can write down or draw an idea when it comes to mind’

I think that was either Michelangelo or Da Vinci. Could have been both. Edison kept a notebook, as did most thinkers and tinkerers throughout time.



Ideas are as cheap as the paper you write them on. Execution is what’s important. You can crank out ideas all day, and if you don’t execute them the right way in the right instance, you’re pretty screwed.



I love my little ‘sketchbook.’ I really do. I’ve even given a few out. It’s amazing how touched people are by such a minor gesture. Maybe it really is the small kindnesses in life.


Who knew?

Curious

Someone I don’t know has read boht this and my other ‘blog. I don’t know what to think. My first reaction is wonder; how these people come across me? I know I’m listed, but there’s zillions of things on the Web, and most are more interesting than me.

Then I get curious about my newfound audience. What can I say, I’m human; it’s my nature.

Speaking of Hominids, National Geographic, as usual, has a great spread on another discovery of some earlier hominids in the April issue (here). I always like seeing that. The reconstruction is always so fascinating; it shows not only what they find, but also the unconscious assumptions we make about such unanswerables like skin color and hair pattern. We can always guess, but it will always be a guess.

Useless fact: Chimps also can have male pattern baldness. Don’t ask me how I know that, but it’s true.

The dig of the Homo Erectus group in Tblisi, Georgia (here) shows several skulls, one is missing teeth. The real remarkable thing is, there is bone growth over the sockets where the the teeth were, indicating he lived quite awhile after losing his teeth.

From the article:

Not only are there no teeth, but nearly all the sockets are smooth, filled in by bone that grew over the spaces. The jaws look like two crescent moons. Although it's hard to be sure of his age, "it looks like he was maybe about 40, and the bone regrowth shows he lived for a couple of years after his teeth fell out," says the anthropologist. "This is really incredible." How did the toothless old man survive, unable to chew his food? Maybe his companions helped him, says (David) Lordkipanidze. If so, those toothless jaws might testify to something like compassion, stunningly early in human evolution. You have to flash forward more than one and a half million years, to the Neanderthals of Ice Age Europe, to see anything comparable.

The other article (here) is about a group of small, approximately a meter tall, human-like skeletons. They estimate the age to approximately 18,000 years old, well within the time our ancestors were wandering around the globe. They nicknamed the skeleton ‘hobbit’, because of his diminutive size. To me they don’t look like Hobbits.


They look more like Brownies, or Pixies.


In Europe, there are several myths of small human like characters. Maybe the only traces left by those were in the stories we’ve re-told?

Remembering Memphis

On this day, Martin Luther King was shot to death just outside his hotel in Memphis Tennessee. The more things change, the more they stay the same. There is still rampant racism; most is just underground or institutionalized in far more insidious ways. By some accounts, the ‘whites’ will be in the minority by 2025. Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of the American population.

‘Whites’ is quite a bit of a misnomer. I’m not sure where the pink-skinned variety of the species got that name.

I had a lot of fun when I entered school. They asked me my race, and I answered, “Usually the mile.”

“No, we mean you’re ancestry.”

I replied, “Well, I, since as a species, we originated somewhere in Africa. I suppose you could call me African American.”

“No, a little more recent than that.” She replied.

“Well, both parents were born in Ohio. So, I’d be a Native American.”

“Mr. Williams, please.”

“What can I say?”

Smiling she said, “We’re going to go with ‘Caucasian’ okay?”

I pretended to get a little upset, “No. I’m one-quarter Welsh, and the rest is a German-Irish mix, I have no Russian blood in me.”

She erased the spot slowly; “Welsh, now you’re just making these things up." looking up, with no trace of humor, she then said, "Where is this ‘Welshland?’ supposed to be?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I knew college had been easing up on it’s standards, but there’s a lot of foreign students that go here. “Wales is a little country west of England, and south of Ireland”

She was a bit put out by that time, so she relented, “Well then what should we put down?”

“You could cross out the ‘Pacific’ and call me European Islander.”

“We can’t do that” she frowned, the machine reader would pick it up as an error.”

“Oh,” I said, there were only a few other options on the form, and I was getting tired of annoying the pretty lady in the smartly dressed suit.

“How about we just put down ‘Other’” she said, exhausted.

Years later, I worked a temporary assignment for an educational institution and realized that the only people who pick “Other” are ‘whites’, people of mixed-heritage simply select all that apply.

Funny thing is, I had a few teachers from places like Cape Town, and Johannesburg; and they give me this funny look whenever I point out that they are the only real African Americans in school

7 minutes, well, more like 6.

I said I would post daily, and only missed one so far.

I refuse to go a day without writing.

I just read the entire archive of a webcomic called "Devils Panties" (here). I found it as a link from a regular webcomic I read called Something Postive (here).

These have become a new trend for me. The nice thing is, you can go back and read the history, and get to know the characters and how they've developed over time.

Mainstream print comics have just the opposite problem. Their characters can't age, and must stay in a relative limbo. Like characters in a sitcom on TV, major events don't have lasting consequences. Things stay pretty much the same all the time, and things are solved in relatively short order.

Unlike real life, where everything you do affects you for the rest of your life.

I know ther is a good example of Stephen Jay Gould's theory of Punctuated Equilibrium, but I'm not sure how. His theory is that for most of the time, things stay pretty much the same, with minor adjustments over long periods of time. Then, to shake things up something major happens, and there is chaos in a relatively short time, geologically speaking, and then thing achieve some sort of system based on the new order of things.


I know, I'm so deep.

A stray among lapdogs.

I am an old dog who's new tricks are familiar enough, but I am surrounded by the vacuous herd of drones.

A corgi among chihuahuas, with a few beagles and other good breeds in the mix. I currently have the onerous task of herding these yapping pests in a recent project.

The lights are on in a few, and dawning on others, but I fear for the herd.

Mostly, I fear for me. I have pups that need me to succeed, else I don't know what I'd do sometimes.

"Don't frighten the humans." It was good advice when I was given it, and it still is true now. The mediocre, in large enough numbers, will always win.

Stay agile.

Like bringing a knife to a

I belong to Yahoo! Group called western-arts that people gather for “Western Martial Arts Discussion.” Which covers Classical Pugilism (bare knuckle boxing), French Kickboxing (Savate), Russian wrestling (Sambo) and the revival of Renaissance and Medieval fighting styles

I have seen some of the most civilized discussions and have yet to see a single flame war in the years I’ve been reading it. I only get the digest, because, like veryone else, I get plenty of emails already.

In today’s digest there was this message:

“Now, my freind(sic) who is heavily into the japanese arts is always going on about throwing spikes and stars from that culture. I'm trying to counter him.

What do we know about olde time throwing knives? Most daggers have large blades and do not seem weighted for throwing.”

I replied with this:

Europeans had some very effective hand-held projectile weapons.They were called guns. Pistols, come to mind.

Other hand held projectile European weapons were things like hurlbats, which there are examples on some illustrations of Emporer Maximillian all over the Web, I know they have the artwork at the ARMA site.

I then went on a historical tirade about the evolution of weapons due to their local environments. I decided not to post this, but after ranting, I had to post it somehere, so it might as well be here.

A matter of cultural context

The Japanese had access to such technology as firearms and other fighting styles in the early renaissance when I believe it was the Portuguese. A short time later, Dutch explorers also visited.

The Japanese largely rejected the foreign influence, and closed the island to further contact with the West until the Americans in the 19th century.

With competition spurring technology, Europeans adopted a more pragmatic approach to killing each other. The Japanese did adopt the matchlock as both pistol and larger versions, but the technology didn't advance much from the time of their early adoption, and if I remember correctly, primarily used in large-scale conflicts, i.e. army vs. army.

You might also mention to your friend that Go Rin No Sho or "A Book of Five Rings", authored by Miyamoto Musashi in the 1560's during the time of European influence.

I have a deep respect for Japanese history and it's cultivation of Art and philosophy, but historically, their culture, looking inward became stagnant. Whereas in Europe and later, it’s influenced cultures like Filipino and Brazilian, evolved over time, because of conflict, competition, and to a lesser extent, collaboration.

That’s why In Europe, you see the descent with modifications of personal weapons over time to adapt to the new environments their use was placed. It’s a classic example of natural selection. Every time the cultural context changed, so did the personal weapons, and their uses, change. And at the beginning of each of these cultural shifts, you would have competition of a great diversity of methods (schools), eventually narrowing down to several primary methods.

That’s why we have the different swords throughout history, with similar uses, because the cultural environment had different influences but the underlying need was still there. While not direct lineage between them you could chart on a timeline a relationship between coustilles and later cinquedea, and you could even include large knives like the dirk, Bowie and Arkansas Toothpick.
Though unrelated to each other, they filled the same niche in their historical and cultural context. That niche being the need for a personal chunk of metal to kill others before the do the same to you.

I’m not going to even touch the Martial Arts of the different cultures, and how their change, or lack thereof is due to its cultural context.


I could be wrong.