A Dozen Random Thanksgiving Thoughts

A Baker's dozen... even more apropro since that is Sharon's maiden name!

1. As a kid, one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving was the artwork at school. Whether coloring Pilgrims and Indians, using construction paper to make giant turkeys and maize, or drawing cornucopia spilling out food (once including a cooked turkey and a pan of dressing), I loved it.
2. For years I thought dressing and stuffing were always one and the same.[1]
3. My first idea that they were different was that it was dressing until we ate too much, then it became stuffing.
4. Around age 5 or 6 I thought we should dress up as Pilgrims or Indians for Thanksgiving. We did have to dress up a bit for the meal, but only in a nicer than playing outside sort of way. Having to wear a starched button down to eat convinced me that if I had to dress up, it should be as an Indian, not a Pilgrim. Growing up out west, the Indians I was familiar with didn't wear as much as the those around Plymouth Rock likely did, especially late in the fall. Nowadays we tend to stay in jammies until we have company coming. I tend to stay in jammies even then unless it's not family or someone living here. I did change into jeans yesterday to play basketball with Tyler later in the afternoon, but reverted to jammies shorts as soon as we were back inside!
5. I always preferred white meat, although it was usually a little drier than I wanted (back then everyone baked the turkey). So I smothered the meat in gravy and/or cranberry sauce. I still do that today, no matter how moist the turkey is.
6. Since Mom made stuffing as well as gravy, our white meat was not nearly as dry as some people's.
7. Over the years I got pretty experimental with leftovers. Turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry, salsa, and pico soft tacos, anyone? With guac? Yum!
8. Pumpkin pie and/or pecan pie with eggs, sausage, or bacon... breakfast of champions!
9. As a kid, Thanksgiving never meant all that much to me. Then for a while it was one of my very favorite holidays. Having learned to live a thankful life, it's become less of a big deal for some reason. As it gets radically commercialized, it feels more and more like just another sad commentary on out of control USAculture.
10. I don't know if I have a favorite Thanksgiving, but contenders include:
    • The first Thanksgiving after my first[2] wedding. Sharon wanted to invite both families (17 people, and we may have had more; I don't recall) over. She cooked everything in a kitchen that with dining nook was maybe 12'x7' (barely room to open the fridge or over across from each other). The over was the smallest I have seen; think we had to take all the racks out and cut the turkey up a bit to make it fit). We had a couch and two bean bags and brought the four dining room chairs into the living room. Others sat on the floor. It was a great time.
    • My brother Bill got married Thanksgiving weekend fourteen years ago. We drove all day Thanksgiving from Austin, TX to Augusta, GA. We found a DQ open for lunch in east Texas. They had brought in everything to provide a full Thanksgiving meal, which we soooo wanted! But traveling, we weren't sure if it would make us need to stop more, so we regretfully stuck with standard DQ fare. Should have just chanced it. Drove back Sunday. Long trip, but worth it. Love you, Bill and Laura!
    • The Thanksgiving after Josiah got back from Iraq, and not just because we got to see him and his buddy Matt blowing Dr Pepper across a microfiber tablecloth.
    I think it's probably whichever one I'm living at the moment.
11. For years I thought maize had to me multi-colored, despite knowing that it's the Spanish word for the thing we call corn, just mispronounced. I still think of "mayze" as multi-colored corn and "ma-eese" as any corn. I have always loved the way "mayze" looks. The one time I tried some I was underwhelmed.
12. One year some of us dressed up to play cowboys and Indians. After we finished killing each other off (I'm pretty sure we all died many painful, often ignominious deaths) we sat down for a pretend Thanksgiving feast.
13. I always loved cranberry sauce, more appropriately known as cranberry jelly. As a kid, that was the only way I really liked it. The closer it was to having actual cranberries, the less I was interested. Now I like it all, but especially home-made cranberry sauces that are more about the berries. Sharon makes a seriously yummy blueberry cranberry sauce. In fact, as soon as I post this I am going to go eat some!

Special thanks to Kimmie Webster for making me think about the jammies with her new tradition of PJs only Thanksgivings!

Notes
[1] It's all dressing, but it's stuffing if you stuffed the turkey with it. You're welcome.
[2] First and only, and that's perfect! 8^)

Blowing up Syria... and the World. Why?

In May, a UN investigator stated that the rebels were at fault for the chemical weapons used in Syria. In July, Russia handed the UN a 100 page report backing this (no, I haven't seen it). Some source or sources apparently claimed it was not an attack, but a mishap while handling the weapons. I have heard interviews on NPR with rebels who claim that al-Quaeda related groups had them moving the weapons without telling them what they were transporting.

What is the truth here? I have no idea. (If you claim to, you better provide some rock solid evidence.)

The President claims he will explain to us Tuesday night why we need to attack the Syrian regime. He will "lay it all out".

Questions for the President... and you:

• Why couldn't he lay it out before? (Perhaps that will be answered. Given his track record, I sincerely doubt it.)
• Why has he not said ONE WORD about the evidence that it was the rebels? If only to dismiss it?
• Why has he steadfastly refused to answer the question, "If Congress does not approve the attack on Syria, do you intent to attack, anyway?" I heard one of his non-answers in entirety on NPR. They reported he did the same thing when asked in Russia. He "very frankly" talked about how he fully expected Congress to approve it. he did not even come close to answering the question.
• Why... WHY... does he think we can lob cruise missiles at Syria and not see retaliation? (Assuming we have incontrovertible truth it was the regime who used CWs.)
• It keeps coming back to the red line he drew in the sand, which he now refuses to admit he drew, but which he feels obligated to defend (although he now blames Congress and "the world" for that line). Do you really want a President to drag us into another mid-east (or any) war because of his own pride, insecurity, arrogance, cluelessness, or whatever combination of problems this is?

Let Congress know what you're thinking. let the President know. Those of you who believe in God, pray. Hard.

And love your neighbor, including the one who supports the President no matter what. We as a country have been divided and conquered from within far too long.

Avoiding War with Syria

It's clear to me that President Obama has boxed himself in. He doesn't really want to go to war with Syria so he's looking for a way out, or at least to get plenty of buy-in for the blame. If he can get Congress to agree then he will feel safe saying, "this is what the American people wanted and agreed on".

But there's another exit strategy, and I keep waiting for it to re-appear. We can't just recycle the old excuse and blame the Syrian problem on a movie, but maybe a book would work. Maybe Salmon Rushdie's latest tome incited the violence; it made someone so mad they just couldn't think straight. But of course they calmed right down after seeing the carnage they caused with the chemical weapons, killing a whopping thousand or so compared to the mere one hundred thousand killed by projectiles, explosives, and edged weapons. (Those apparently don't really count.)

And they're really, really sorry, and they'd love to stop but the other side won't, so they have to keep fighting in order to survive.

It's not their fault.

It's Rushdie's. Or whomever's. Maybe mine. They could easily find all the proof they needed in the vast treasure trove of all the data the NSA (and DEA!) mined this year.

I could live with that. I'll just get a deal like Snowden and "flee the country" and "request asylum" and live happily ever after far, far away.

Do I really believe all this? Nah. But if they take the bait and I disappear to, say, Kosovo, I won't mind a bit. I'm pretty sure Kosovo is the code name for Honolulu.

Aloha!

Who Jumps Out of a Perfectly Good Plane?

Who jumps out of a perfectly good plane? Apparently we do.

Before we got married, Sharon made me promise that I would never do two things til (or perhaps lest) death do us part: race a motorcycle or skydive. At the time I wanted to do both, although I had not considered the implications of my horror of heights on the latter.

She was worth it. I told her so, agreed, and crossed them off the list of things I wanted to do. We got married; I read a lot about bike racing, rode two bikes to pieces, and didn't think much about skydiving.

A few years ago Sharon started hinting that she would like to go skydiving. Upon questioning, she was even fine with me racing motorcycles. Of course, I had neither the time nor the spare money, but I know she meant it, and that meant a lot.

But skydiving... my fear of heights had not aged gracefully. While I'm fine in an airplane at any height for some reason, standing at the edge of a 3 meter high dive terrified me far more at 50 than it had at 15 (and it wasn't very nice back then). It was clear Sharon would have to jump with someone else.

Then God, through a brief prayer by my wonderful sister, Pam Rose, healed me of my fear of heights. Suddenly it was not just a possibility. It was exciting. Enticing, even. Free fall: roaring through the air at 120MPH or so (I've gone faster on a bike but not by that much). The shock of a chute opening. Slowing suddenly, hanging beneath my personal, man-made, brightly hued cloud, drifting slowly, hanging quietly in the air like a bird of prey... WHACK onto the ground, stand up laughing and screaming deliriously.

Yeah, this needs to happen. Not Sharon and Someone Else (although Someone Else is welcome to join us), but Sharon and ME, diving into the great unknown a few seconds apart. We'll be tethered to a pro, which part of me finds mildly annoying, but that's how it works, so that's what we'll do.

The reservations are made. Deposits are deposited. It's on the calendar. Her birthday is Thursday but she works that evening so we're going Saturday, Sep 7, 2013 at 3PMCDT. Skydive San Marcos. Other jumpers welcome. Observers also welcome (they have a shaded, outdoor observation area).

Who jumps out of a perfectly good plane? Apparently we do. And we can hardly wait.

 

Copyright 2013 Miles O'Neal, Round Rock, TX. All rights reserved.

Fixing Gmail: One Inbox, Not Many

After sending google some extremely unhappy feedback and dinging them in their survey, I decided I would blog about my frustration with their idea of "giving you more control" by making decisions for you-- a very Facebook approach. But before doing so, I wandered through the settings to see if any improvements could be made.

Lo and behold, there is a simple way to return to a single, unified Inbox... they just didn't bother to tell us!

1. 
   Click on the Preferences gear on the upper right of your Gmail screen. Select the "Settings" item from the drop down menu.
2. 
   Click on the "Inbox" tab on the upper left of the new screen.
3. 
   Per the instructions there, deselect all categories to go back to your old Inbox. (You cannot deselect "Primary". That's OK.)
4. Scroll down and select [Save Changes]
5. Things are back to normal!

I would love to be able to claim that my feedback to Google prompted this, but I'm sure it was there all along. This moves them back well above Facebook in my opinion. Facebook almost never gives you a way out; they know best what you want, and are determined t give it to you whether you want it or not.

Race Relations: the Lesson We Keep Missing

(Not just about the Zimmerman - Martin tragedy.)

Most surveys today include selections for "race".

I always check "Other".

When there's a box to designate said otherness, I enter "human".

Twits? Tweets? Haircut.

"Nice haircut!" (laughs)

"I went for Indie. I got Irish." (shrug) "You can do a lot worse than Irish."

"Wait a minute."

"Keep laughing, Paddy."

This was a response to a statement about writing vs tweeting, which I took as a challenge. Just because I could. I don't twit. Tweet. Whatever. But 140 characters (I ignored newlines, which probably violates how Twitter does it) is a viable short story medium. I can do less (100, 50, 25), but 140 feels about right for my preferred shortest length.

Books! Books! And More Books!

I can't really remember a time without books.

My parents read to me. And they read for themselves. They read books-- fiction, history, biographies, all sorts of books. Magazines galore. Journals. Letters. Pretty much everything readable. I don't recall what they read to me early on, just them reading to me. And I recall reading, well before starting school.

I had my first public library card by age 5 (or maybe 4). The librarian wouldn't listen to me about what I wanted and insisted on taking me to the section with picture books and stone simple kid stuff. I got two giant, picture books. One was a book of dinosaurs with maybe one fact per page, and the other was a joke book, with a question on one side and an answer on the other. Example:

• What did the large firecracker say to the small firecracker?
• My pop's bigger than your pop!

While I loved the play on words, I read them both within five minutes-- including time to tell several of the jokes to my family. I reread them until I knew them by heart (fifteen minutes?) I went back the next day to get more books.

"Did you really read those?"

"Yes, ma'am. A lot of times."

She quizzed me, developing a funny look on her face. But she took me to the chapter book section and let me pick my own books. She'd always quiz me, but I figured out it was more fun for her than anything else.

Once school started, I got a school library card and a bookmobile card. I often had the max checked out on all three cards.

I don't recall too many Dr Seuss books, though I recall Yertle the Turtle and Horton Hears a Who. I discovered Tom Swift, Jr and then Tom Swift, Sr by third or fourth grade, and the Hardy Boys sometime around then. I read all the science fiction, mystery, adventure, and scary books (Hitchcock, Poe, and Lovecraft, especially) I could find. I liked history and biographies. I read the Bible. I would look up a word in the dictionary and end up reading for several pages. The same thing happened with encyclopedias. I'd get an atlas to find where something was, and end up devouring cities, states, countries, or continents.

Mom introduced me to science fiction and fantasy. Dad introduced me to history and biographies. My sisters got me hooked on Nancy Drew and the Bobsey twins. My friends, a babysitter, and the doctor's office got me into a serious comic book addiction. I'd read my parents' magazines-- I especially liked Readers Digest. I found a MAD Magazine in ninth grade and kept reading them until a few years ago.

I also liked coloring books and painting books. With these, I could tell the story as much as read a story. I think this actually prepared me as a writer since graphical art was never a real strength. But I loved story and coloring or painting-- especially a story line (or several, especially intertwined)-- was just another vehicle for that.

In fifth grade, a couple of popular books were always checked out in the school library. Mrs. Clark, God bless her, ended up reading them to us. We could have read them ourselves, but the library only had one copy and we didn't all want to buy them. One of these books as Louise Fitzugh's Harriet the Spy. Another was L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Both of these books spoke to everyone in the class, from the geeks to the cheerleaders, from the jocks to the Beatles wannabes. They are still near the top of my list, many years later.

About the same time, Mom got me more hooked on science fiction with the golden and silver age pulps-- Amazing Stories, Astounding, Galaxy, SF&F, Asimov's SF, and more. That was also about the time we got into UFOs; I devoured those magazines as well. I started watching every science fiction, adventure, horror movie or show I could, and story became even more a part of my life. I would spin tales weaving elements of all these together. The Hardy Boys and Tom Swift vs Godzilla and the Giant Robots of Death vs the Radioactive Mutant Ants and the Roller Derby Queens. (I found the latter both awesome and scary.)

Meanwhile I was also reading Dad's chemistry journals. Or trying to. I was determined. His dozens of histories and historical novels also took root in my psyche. I read up on all my heroes (from the Lone Ranger and Tonto to Edison and Einstein to Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy).

At twelve, Mom handed me Schmitz's The Witches of Karres. I was already reading Andre Norton, so strong women protagonists were fine with me. But the story here! This is still one of my all time favorites, by which all others are judged. Claude Thompson drug me into the Mushroom Planet books and the world of Freddy the Pig.

The next milestone, a major turning point, was at fourteen, when I followed Mom into Middle Earth. Tolkein tore almost everything I knew apart, carried me off on an adventure, and left me in a brave, new world. I reread these over and over. I have read Lord of the Rings at least once a year since, The Hobbit nearly as much.

I'd already found a law book or two from Mom's and Dad's college days, and pored through those. Dan Croft and I started reading every legal document we could find. We decided we were lawyers and wrote ever longer documents full of all the flowery legalese we could come up with, going back and forth with our complaints against one another. If we could use several sentences instead of a phrase, we were delirious. I'm pretty certain I once got a whole page out of a basic salutation. But we could only do it because of what we were reading.

This actually helped me later when I had to decipher government technical requirements for traffic control systems and write proposals, RFPs, and other documents to win or fulfill government contracts. I can still crank up the fluff-o-meter when I need to.

I got into electronics. I read dozens of books on theory and practice, learning both vacuum tubes and solid state. I practically memorized the 1970 ARRL Handbook. My current electronics favorite is the Radiotron Designer's Handbook, Fourth Edition, a masterpiece of technical brilliance.

I am leaving out any number of subjects-- books and magazines on guitars, guitar playing, guitar players, amplifiers, guitar repair, just to cover one set of interests.

I read less than I used to, but only because I now write more. I still reread favorites. I usually have several books in progress scattered around the house.

I like eBooks OK, and there's nothing handier for a trip. But I still love "real" books, paper books. The smell. The feel. The fact that if I drop one in the bathtub, I have only lost one book, as opposed to far more money in electronics.

We have a well worn (we inherited it with a house we rented) Webster's Third International Dictionary (Unabridged)-- that huge, beige tome you would find on a hefty stand at your old school library. It weighs thirteen pounds. We love it. It still gets used... and read.

I really need to go through and get rid of books that are not very good, or which I just don't care about. It's tough, though, because they're... books. But we only have so much shelf space, and just as people sometimes wonder out of our lives, so have some of these books. But letting them go means room for new ones. And that's always a Good Thing.

Top Ten? Hah! My Top 25 will vary over time, but some would always be in it. Here are the books I consider my Top 25 at the moment (not necessarily in order):

1. Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkein)
2. Perelandra (C. S. Lewis)
3. A Wrinkle in Time (Madelaine L'Engle)
4. Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzugh)
5. The Witches of Karres (Joseph Schmitz)
6. The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle)
7. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series (Douglas Adams)
8. To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth (Jeff Cooper)
9. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert Heinlein)
10. The Two Faces of Tomorrow (James Hogan)
11. Perilous Dreams (Andre Norton)
12. The Valley of Fear (A. Conan Doyle)
13. Retief's War (Keith Laumer)
14. Radiotron Designers Handbook 4E
15. The Firebrand (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
16. The Message Bible
17. Murder Must Advertise (Dorothy Sayers)
18. Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie)
19. Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
20. Code of the West series (Stephen Bly)
21. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone (J. K. Rowling)
22. Madman in Waco (Blair / Darden)
23. The Earthsea trilogy (Ursula Leguin)
24. Classics in Software Engineering (Edward Nash Yourdon)
25. The Krytos Trap (Michael Stackpole)

For many of authors, it was hard to pick one book, and the book would vary from day to day. In the case of The Krytos Trap, I could have picked any novel from the Star Wars X-Wing series. I picked the Christie and Sayers books almost at random; they wrote so many excellent stories. It pained me to leave off Chesterton and others. Another day, they would have made the cut and someone else would have missed it, but the authors/series above are always on my reread list.

Who are your favorite authors? What are your go to books?

I Want to Hug the Westboro Baptist Church

I hope Westboro Baptist Church pickets my funeral.

No, really, I do.

I hope Jesus lets someone call me back, like Lazarus. I'd run over to hug the Westboro people first. They'd either get saved or run away and never picket another funeral.

But if not, I'm sure the revivalists, the community of people around me who are madly in love with the God of Love (and I don't mean Cupid), will show so much love that the Westboro folk will either get saved or flee in panic and confusion. I can hear the cops talking to them now. "No, sir, they were trying to hug you, not assault you. I know, because they hugged us all when we showed up."

Not long before going to the cross Jesus said, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples-when they see the love you have for each other." (Jn 13/33-35, The Message)

Or how about this? When asked earlier on which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, Jesus said, "`Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: `Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (Mt 22/37-40, The Message) Many versions say "your neighbor" instead of "others". Jesus made it clear in his parable of the good Samaritan that everyone is our neighbor, including those we might tend to look down on, left to ourselves.

I'm sure that twisted logic would tell the WBCites that they are acting in love, but it's pretty obvious to the rest of the world that they aren't. I hope and pray that the people at Westboro Baptist Church come to know real Love, and are set free from their fears and hatred, as I pray that for all-- from world leaders to terrorists to people in third world hell hole slums to those caught up in sex trafficking. I want to hug you all. because God does.

There's an excellent booklet I recommend on the base topic here, The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaefer. It's a quick read, less than 10,000 words. I wish every Christian would read this. It's available online (with permission from the publisher!) at http://www.ccel.us/schaeffer.html .

 

Passages from The Message copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.

The Tsarnaev Ripple Effect

One of the nastier things that surfaces around any heinous crime is a putrid fascination with sordid details of anything and everyone around those involved-- especially the perpetrators.

In the case of the Tsarnaev brothers, I'm appalled at how their family problems were drug through the mud. It's one thing to note, as we grapple to understand the suspects, that one was arrested for violence against his girlfriend. It's another thing altogether (and a nasty one) to find headlines like, "The Mother Of The Boston Bombing Suspects Was Arrested For Shoplifting Last Year".

As long as they could get away with it Big Media danced around the fact the brothers were Muslim. I saw blog and Facebook posts suggesting that since the suspects were Muslims that explained everything. Both attitudes are wrong. We are perfectly capable of assimilating facts without making judgments. Why do so many refuse to do so?

In both Big Media and on blogs, some were quick to assume it was the work of "right wing extremists", "the Tea Party". and so forth-- while decrying any who would assume it was Muslims or foreign terrorists. Guess what? Any of those is just as wrong as another.

Today (and every day) you have a choice. You can wait for the facts or jump to unwarranted conclusions based on prejudices or feelings at the moment. You can stir up trouble for people or you can show grace and love and try to help heal people and situations.

Any time you throw a rock into water, you get ripples. But if you put up barriers, you can keep the ripples from spreading. If you leave the water alone, the ripples will dissipate. If you throw more rocks in, it just makes more ripples... and squashes life under the surface.

Don't encourage the mess. Don't dig up dirt on people, or listen to it, much less rejoice in it.

Choose life. Choose love.

Real Poo and Green Hair

It's Tax Day, so "poo" seems like an appropriate subject.

A while back I blogged about not putting poo in your hair. There I covered shampoo and no poo, but not real poo. Today I want to talk about all three, with some experience under my bandana on two out of three.

But first, a note about "real poo". I figure if the totally synthesized stuff made from all sorts of scary chemical names is shampoo, then there ought to be real poo, made from natural, scalp friendly ingredients. I wondered why nobody was marketing real poo. Then I thought about the name. I'm a little slow at times.

We'll come back to this and green hair later.

The Experiment

I've stuck as much as possible to the No Poo treatment for almost a year. I cut waaaay back on shampoo, but I work in IT. I can't run around with greasy hair, and left to its own devices, my hair definitely heads that way. Most days I use the baking soda solution on my scalp, as little shampoo as I can get away with on most of the hair, and vinegar solution on the ends. For a while I was pushing my luck, trying to skip shampoo every other day. That seemed to be iffy, but was all over when we went on vacation.

I didn't think ahead of time to plan for hair cleaning while traveling. I make up large containers (old shampoo & conditioner bottles) of the two solutions. These would not travel well without leaking (or bursting open and emptying). So I punted and used shampoo and conditioner for 10 days, losing serious ground.

Results and Thoughts on No Poo

• My scalp doesn't itch! Most shampoos make my scalp itch to some extent. The baking soda doesn't. Even two days of full bore shampoo usage irritates my scalp.
• I can get by with very little shampoo. A normal bottle will last at least a year now. (My wife uses it as her main hair product, so I have no idea how long the bottle would last if only I used it, but certainly over a year.)
• When I don't underdo the shampoo, my hair looks great, and is very controllable. It's super fine and most conditioners leave it either waving in the breeze, or looking plastered down. Vinegar is Da Bomb.
• I still haven't figured out why my hair gets greasy. I am guessing it rubs the scalp, and if the scalp thinks it's too dry, it cranks up the pump on the oil pipeline. Any hair scientists out there?
• The three stage process, and being careful where each part goes, takes a little longer, but not much.
• Keeping the baking soda only on and near the scalp, and vinegar only at the hair ends, is a lot easier if you have very long hair that's pretty much the same length. It's almost impossible with medium length or short hair, especially if the hairs aren't all similar in length.
• My hair dries much faster with vinegar than with conditioner.

Real Poo, Marketing Poop

I tried one brand of shampoo and conditioner a friend recommended. It was supposed to be "organic". And a couple of ingredients were. But others came from the same list of chemicals I find on most hair product labels. Ultimately the one I tried didn't work; it made my hair sticky and clumpy. Not quite oily, more like I had been in a food fight,. And it smelled weird-- "pork chops cooked in industrial chemicals" or something like that.

I may have tried the wrong flavor. There were several types, each for a different type of hair. Unfortunately, none of them were aimed at guys, much less geeks. I wanted one for "oily hair". Apparently I wanted a "full bodied" effect, but that sounded like Farrah Fawcett, so I got the only one that didn't sound like that. I tried it twice and gave up. IT guys are not supposed to come to work straight from a food fight. Especially when they work for the VP of Finance.

Toward Greener Hair

Green isn't really my color. If I dye my hair, purple is far more likely. But I try to be reasonably green ecologically. To this end I prefer not to use a hair dryer unless I have to (very cold weather, have to go straight to somewhere I need to have dry hair, etc.) With medium length hair (about collar length) my hair dries in a half hour most days (just right for my drive to work). With conditioner it used to take twice that. Also, with most conditioners, I had to blow dry my hair or it did Very Strange Things.

Between the chemical changes and the hair dryer, I'm not saving the planet, but it's a part of my part in hurting it less. And it's less expensive. That's the best of both worlds.

A Final Note-- It's Alive! (Not.)

Hair is dead protein. You aren't actually damaging a part of you if you lighten, dye, straighten, or perm it. Unless you do something to destroy the follicles, you'll grow more, and you can cut the old off. In fact, I bet you do already.

It does no good to put nutrients and vitamins on your hair. It's dead stuff, remember? And vitamins don't absorb through the scalp; you have to ingest them. So don't obsess over "hurting your hair" or "keeping it healthy". If it looks good and does what you want (or as close as it ever does) you're golden.

 

So... Can anyone recommend a good, natural shampoo?

Writing 101 - What's a Writer?

So you think you want to be a writer. Or maybe you think you are a writer. Maybe you think you are not a writer.

How do you know? What's a writer?

Let's come at this obliquely.

What is a musician? A person who performs music.

What is a plumber? A person who plumbs.

What is a cook? A person who cooks.

What is a programmer? A person who writes programs.

By ostension a writer is one who... writes.

Some writers hit the big time right away; the first thing they write, or close to it, nets them big bucks and big attention.. Precious few, but some. Most of us start by writing. And writing. And writing.

What both groups have in common is that they write.

We all want to write brilliantly, to craft words in such a way that people are immediately moved, whether to tears, laughter, awe, inspiration, action, or simply to give us money. But for most of us, this means a lot of writing that doesn't do that. It means writing a lot of crap and mediocre stuff. It means practicing, just as a musician practices. It means reading and studying. It means taking risks and letting people read things you aren't sure about. But without writing, none of that happens.

You need to know the basics:

• sentence structure;
• grammar;
• spelling;
• punctuation.

All these are learned. It's easier for some of us than others, but nobody comes out of the womb knowing these things.

But what about compositional skills? What about this, that and the other? What else you need to know will depend on what you are writing. It really helps to know how to tell a story... if you are telling a story. Not everyone tells stories. Poets, especially, may simply describe scenes or objects, or relate feelings, or turn abstract thoughts into concrete (or liquid gold) words. It's good to learn all you can, but if you are writing love poems, or greeting cards, or haiku, you don't need world class compositional skills.

One thing you do need is a mastery of the language[s] you will write in. It may be a formal language, a street language, church speak, technobabble, or marketing buzz, but you need to be fluent. To this end, read, listen, and study. And write.

You can pick a time or grab time. But find or make time to write.If it's ten minutes a day to start, go with that, but find or make more as you move forward. A writer writes. Writing takes time.

Composing things in your head is not writing. Do that if you like, but write it down.

If you don't know what to write about, write anyway. Describe a nearby object. Write down what you are feeling. Capture a moment, whether present or past, or even a possible future. I once started describing a coffee cup, and three pages later realized I had written about feelings I hadn't known I had. Another time I stared with "I don't know what to write, so I am writing about not knowing what to write about, This feels stupid. It's gray out. I feel gray. I remember a song I liked, called 'Grey Day'..." It turned into a story from my hippie days. Just write.

Save everything you write. All of it has value. Fragments may inspire you later. If nothing else, you can look back at it and laugh and realize you have improved. Assuming you have, but if you write you almost certainly will. So write.

If you are still reading, I hope you are inspired to write. But perhaps you think this is too simplistic. If that's the case, I can offer one other piece of advice.

Capture your thoughts via physically transcribed language in the forms of symbols conveying meaning to the eyes in your language of choice. I believe the technical translation of this is, "write".

So go write!

I Am So Over the Whole UFO Thing

The other day someone posted a link to a UFO sighting in east Texas. He was a little excited. I understand; there was a time I would have been, too. After all, I saw a real UFO. I mentioned this briefly in Growing Up Miles, Part 2 on another blog:

"One night mom and I were watching a late night sci fi movie (giant, three legged robots stomping around the desert with death rays, IIRC). There was a commercial break, and we got up to stretch. We wandered to the front door to look out. There was a giant fireball sort thing slowly descending out of the sky behind the Franklin Mountains. This was between midnight and 1AM. Much too big to be the sun or moon, and too slow to be anything falling. Mom and I just stood there until after it was gone. Then we stared at each other, both hoping the other would say something first. When we did talk, we realized we'd each seen the same thing. We could never find anyone else who admitted seeing it. When she called the AFB and army bases, they refused to say anything, just wanted a full report on what we'd seen. So I have seen a UFO. What was it? What does it mean? No idea, the U was very much "Unidentified"! I spent the next couple of years reading everything I could on UFOs and desperately wanting to see more. Finally gave up, never saw anything again."

This obviously glosses over the couple of years I spent researching this. It ignores the fact that every so often throughout the rest of my life, I read about a UFO and dig again, and once more come up unsatisfied.

I grew up with a brilliant scientist and professor of a Father. I also grew up reading both science and science fiction. I got my first chemistry set on my 6th birthday; experimentation, investigation and engineering have been some of my BFFs ever since. I always wanted to KNOW things. What things? Everything. All you scientists and engineers out there (latent or otherwise) get this.

But there was precious little to know about UFOs. There were reported sightings, lots and lots of reported sightings. There were allegedly officially documented sightings by test pilots, interceptor pilots, SAC bomber pilots, commercial passenger pilots, ground RADAR operators, NORAD, and probably bald eagles and seagulls. But almost none of it showed up in major media or anything official an unclassified civilian would ever see. Even the rumors of rumors of official sightings of rumored documents of official sightings were classified. If they even existed. They might be rumors, too.

Nearly the worst thing was that almost everyone who claimed to have encountered aliens seemed to have either gotten an anal probe or been sexually investigated. If there were aliens out there they were at worst perverted, and at best incapable of comprehending human anatomy. While I can understand some mild confusion and possibly disbelief (let's face it, we're laid out pretty uniquely), one would think that a people capable of crossing distances at speed the Enterprise crew only dreamed of could fathom human anatomy fairly quickly. Some of the most damning evidence against UFOs being spaceships was that the alleged travelers weren't curing our diseases, much less giving details on 100MPG carburetors.

But even worse than this was the shoddy reporting, the shoddy evidence (when there was any), and the lack of anything remotely scientific or intellectually useful surrounding any of the phenomena.

So I quit worrying about it. As a Christian, there are really only a few possible answers:

1. There are no such aliens.
2. There are such aliens, and they never fell, so we are probably off limits (C. S. Lewis covers this well in his space trilogy).
3. There are such aliens. They fell, and Jesus died for them or God otherwise provided for them. In that case why are they playing hide and seek?
4. These are demonic manifestations.

I know people who subscribe to each of these theories. But personally, I no longer much care. It's fun to speculate, and UFOs and/or space aliens will likely appear in some of my stories now and then, but... who cares? Either they don't exist, or they are pretty much avoiding us. Unless and until we have verifiable contact of some sort (whether that's an alien making rude gestures at the Hubble, Gort's arrival, or Loki shows up with the Chitauri) there are far more interesting and far better uses of my time.

Maybe some day I'll meet a space alien. If and when that happens, I'll offer a hug. Until then, I'm still offering hugs to any humans who need or want one. You're awesome and loved, and so are the space aliens-- real or imagined. Unless they're demons. No hugs for demons.

If you're into UFOs, that's great. Have fun. If they are real, I hope you are the one who can wave solid evidence in my face and laugh. I'll happily buy you dinner. And you get an extra hug/

Unless you're a demon. No hugs for demons.

You'll be Warm in the Arms of a Mystery Bass Beat

For a couple of years I've been tortured by a song. It's played dozens of times at restaurants; nobody could name tune or band, and the times I tried to use a phone app (Sound Hound) to identify it there was too much background noise. My favorite restaurants are inevitably full of happy people, and get a bit loud.

I love nearly everything about this song, from the apparently simple, driving bass beat to the breathless, non-stop vocal melody. Sometimes I couldn't hear anything but the bass yet I instantly knew the tune and could play all the parts in my head.

With unintelligible lyrics (thanks to ambient noise levels).

Tonight, with my phone about three feet from a speaker, I finally ID'd the song: "The Mayor of Simpleton" by XTC. As soon as I knew the song, lyrics began to resolve in my head. A quick youtube play and they were all back. How weird, to forget an entire song's worth of lyrics.

And I may be the mayor of simpleton
But I know one thing
And that's, "I love you".

Victory is mine. Yes, it's a rather trivial victory, made even more so by needing a smart phone to Name That Song. But I love music, and this song has intruded on well over half our date night meals and meals out with friends the past couple of years. A victory is a victory. I'll take the small ones along with the big ones.

If depth of feeling is a currency,
(please be upstanding for the mayor of simpleton),
Then I'm the man who grew the money tree,
(no chain of office and no hope of getting one).
Some of your friends are too brainy to see,
That they're paupers and that's how they'll stay.

THE MAYOR OF SIMPLETON (intro/verses) by Andy Partridge
Copyright 1989 Virgin Music Ltd.
Bass line as arranged and recorded by Colin Moulding
As reported by Jeff Truzi on http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/s_TheMayorOfSimpleton.html

Late night return trip musings

I just dropped Kayla and Lauren off after a late dinner and coffee shop road trip. It's 1:30AM, 70 degrees Fahrenheit, with lots of "Watch for ice on bridge" signs. At this end of Ronald Reagan Parkway there is no light pollution at all. On a long series of gradual hills, my headlights probe the darkness, finding nothing where the road seems to fall off into space. There is nothing obviously to either side, either, only darkness. Black Sabbath's "Into the Void" would be the perfect soundtrack.

I'm hyper-caffeinated and tired, so every second of nothing stretches out into forever. The road goes ever on. I may be home in twenty minutes; I may be tumbling through the void. In the latter case, I'll enjoy it til the caffeine wears off or the air runs out. All of these lead to sleep, which is all I want right this minute.

"Watch for ice on bridge". Maybe the signs have had too much caffeine; they're clearly hallucinating.

Writing 101 - Tools of the Trade

When I started writing, I tended to write. You know, literally. The old-fashioned way, on paper with a pen or pencil. Occasionally with a crayon.

Eventually I transitioned much of that to computers, either locally or on the net as it became available. When I got serious about writing I started carrying a journal or notebook everywhere. Pen and paper again ruled. As I started transcribing some of these stories onto my home desktop computer, I found myself writing there again as well.

I began to notice I tended to write differently based on the tool I was using. This hit me like a newly hatched face hugger from the Alien movies when I wanted to write my novel. The ideas were flowing like a dam had busted, but I couldn't write them down-- not on paper, not on the desktop.

On a whim I decided to try writing on the new Apple Macbook Air they had given me at work (personal use is Allowed). Almost 2,000 words flowed out in a couple of hours. That's a chapter. This happened again the next night. And the next. I wrote over 75,000 words in a month-- all in my spare time amidst a very busy schedule. Nearly all of it was on the laptop. I'd never been able to do that before!

The style was different. Not horribly, but subtly. I think it was perfect for the book. But it wasn't like anything I had written before. Why?

Why, why, why?

A few days after I started pondering this, I was rummaging through art supplies-- crayons, pens, pencils, markers, and brushes. And it hit me. Visual artists use different media for different things. It might vary by mood, or subject, or style, or anything else, but some artists find they can only do certain work, or perhaps their best work, with certain media.

It's true with music, as well. I can pick up my acoustic, my G&L Tribute, my ancient Hagstrom 1, or my Flying V, and likely as not start playing certain styles based on the guitar. Sometimes I even pick the guitar based on what I want to play.

Why should writing be any different? Or any other artistic endeavor?

So, are you an an artist? Try another medium! Swap a paintbrush for a sprayer, a Strat for a Tele, a guitar for a bass, a clarinet for a drum, pencils for markers.

It can help with writer's block (or other artistic equivalents). In fact, that's what happened with the book.

All that said, I'm glad this flowed onto my desktop keyboard. I guess I could have scanned a bunch of PostIt[tm] notes and used the image as the blog, just this once.

Wait. Now I have to try that! Stay tuned.

Lessons from a Life on the Run

This was originally written for the May 2012 issue of The Town Messenger, a monthly paper for Hutto, TX. The paper shut down around this time; I don't recall whether it was published or not.

Sometimes a finishing pace is a punishing pace.

(A finishing pace is any pace that allows you to finish. A punishing pace is any pace that leaves you hurting-- regardless of whether you finish.)

When we are new at something we don't know what a finishing pace is. Most of us tend to go at new things one of two ways; hesitantly or full bore. Neither is necessarily wrong or bad, but you have to understand the ramifications, and look at who you are and how you're likely to react. I'm going to use running as an example, but the principles apply to most anything, from running to stamp collecting to pursuing a life of faith to relationships to parenting to your job to [whatever you are dealing with].

If you run too slow, you may simply run out of time. Because you aren't pushing yourself, you may get distracted. Such things keep you from finishing... this time.

If you run too fast, you may run out of energy. You may hurt yourself. Such things keep you from finishing... this time.

But neither these mean that you can't run. Neither them means you aren't a runner. They just mean you don't know what you're doing yet, or you aren't fully prepared. If we focus on the effects, we think we can't run, and we give up. If we focus on the causes (running too fast or slow), we can fix things!

I've just started running and working out after a few months of not being able to between my schedule, allergies, colds, sprains, etc. My times this week have been way off what they were a few months ago. I know what happens if I push too hard-- I hurt myself and then I can't run for a while. But rather than get discouraged, I just push harder until I know from experience I'm doing all I can do right now and still finish my distance for the day. So in this case, my finishing pace (a pace that allows me to finish) is also a punishing pace.

There was a time I would have looked at that and gotten discouraged. "I guess I just can't run. This time is terrible. I'm exhausted. I'm already sore, and I'll feel worse later. I give up."

But now I know better. Instead I say, "Hey! I know I can do better than this, but it's OK for now. I need to keep pushing myself, and that time *will* come back down. I'll eat Ibuprofen, maybe soak in a hot tub, use a muscle relaxer, and keep at it!"

Because I'll keep at it, I'll be sore for a while. But I'll also be in shape soon to finish a 5K. The extra weight I gained back will disappear again, and muscles will redevelop. Simply because I don't give up.

If I focus on being out of shape it can become part of my identity. "I'm Miles. I'm out of shape. I can't run." I come to believe I can't run, that there's no point in trying. And so I collapse into the black hole called Out of Shape. Some people never return.

But if I focus on getting in shape I have the option of saying, "Running is slow and painful, but it will get me back into shape; I'll be faster and feel great again!"

 

My best approach to running may not be yours, or even mine from yesterday.

When I first started trying to get in shape, I would jog 50 steps, then walk 50. By the end of the mile I was jogging 25 and walking 100. But I didn't give up. After 2-3 weeks I got to where I could jog the whole mile. My time wasn't much better than if I'd walked... but I'd jogged!

The first day that I tried to actually run rather than jog, I pushed too hard and had to walk twice for 15-20 seconds. I was really discouraged until I looked at my time. It was still better than my times when I jogged the whole way!

But as I ran more and got faster, I found that those breaks cost me more time than I gained by my incremental speed up in running. I was better at a consistent, finishing pace. Find what works for you right now, and do that for a while. Re-evaluate every so often, and change things up if you need to.

 

I learned the next one from riding bicycles and motorcycles, but it applies to running and life in general.

You tend to go where you look.

If you keep your eyes on the trail, you're likely to stay on the trail. It's a good idea to switch back and forth between right in front of you (to avoid obstacles, holes, etc.), your interim or ultimate goal (to keep you focused on the long haul), and side to side (to watch for vehicles, people, animals, or chainsaw wielding maniacs).

If you stare at something off to one side, there's a good chance you'll veer to that side. If you only stare right in front of you, you might miss something important such as an upcoming intersection. Some of your attention needs to be on the goal or you can get discouraged or pick the wrong pace.

You may need to pick interim goals. If you can't see the finish line, or if it seems a long way off, pick a closer goal. When I first started running after years of too much inactivity, I'd inevitably think I was too exhausted to continue well before getting to that day's finish line. So I'd pick a tree or mailbox along the route to run to. As I neared that goal, I'd pick my next goal. If I was doing OK the goals would be a ways off but if I was really tired and winded they might only be 5 to 10 seconds away. Regardless of the distance they kept me going until I ran across the finish line. Ran! I didn't walk or stagger across; I ran across. Sometimes I wanted to fall down and pass out, but I'd made it. And the next time it was a little easier.

 

Is there something you've wanted to do, but become convinced you can't? Think about it in terms of cause and effect. "I can't ___" isn't the cause, it's the effect. What is the cause? What can you do to change that? Do you really understand the cause? Most of the time we don't; we have believed something that wasn't true.

Until less than two years ago, I was convinced I couldn't play drums or percussion. I saw that as an effect. The cause? Un-coordination. But it turned out the real causes (at least for percussion; I haven't tried a drum set) were several: lack of courage to try, letting others discourage me, and lack of practice. When someone heard me tapping out rhythms on a steamer trunk during a worship party they handed me a drum. I had a blast and everyone there loved the result. I kept at it, and now have played in a variety of settings and groups, and am part of the worship team at my church.

For years I thought I couldn't write fiction longer than short stories. A couple of weeks ago I finished the first draft of a novel. I had confused cause and effect. I didn't think I was capable of writing a novel. The reality was simply that because I never had, I didn't think I could. (This is a really silly reason not to do something, but it's very common.)

What is it you want to do? Quit making excuses; quit confusing cause and effect. Just try it. What have you got to lose? More importantly, what have you got to gain? Go for it.

Buzzard, Moon, and Miles

A lone buzzard, charcoal and black with a variegated white stripe, soars majestically in lazy circles, quartering the azure sky. At one point he hangs between the budding Party Tree and a the half moon-- the only other object in a cloudless sky-- in perfect balance between the heavens and Earth.

It's a beautiful day. My heart overflows with wonder and joy. I am content, in a most intense way.

Weather or Not to Live in Texas

Wednesday by lunch it was still around 55F. So how do people dress around Austin?

• Transplanted northerners were running around in short sleeves (some in shorts), sweating and muttering about heat waves in winter.
• Transplanted Californians and Floridians were in coats and hats, shivering and attempting to talk through chattering teeth.
• The real Texans dressed exactly how they felt like dressing regardless of the weather (from shorts and halter ops to furry boots and parkas) and just went about their business, enjoying life.

I was in shorts, but I'm usually in shorts. I've given up trying to explain to people from elsewhere. I have a couple of pat answers that don't make their heads explode. Kinda sad I have to do that.

Texas is best suited to the strong, and those willing to become strong. Everyone else is going to be unhappy... or worse.

From my Point of View

This was actually written nearly a year ago, but fell through the cracks.)

Writing the first draft of my first novel has been a piece of cake so far. We'll see about the rest of the process. But... writing short stories came easy. Once I had the tools, polishing them came easy, too.

But in the process of writing a novel it has dawned on me how relentlessly singular the POV is in some of my favorite novels (and series). It's a bit easier with a first person story such as The Hunger Games (although that has its own set of challenges).

In a story told in the third person-- primarily from the POV of one person-- it's not uncommon to play narrator. That's fair game. But jumping to other peoples' POVs is less common... and trickier.

Lewis did this somewhat in the Narnia books, but as they were childrens' stories this is perfectly acceptable. In fact it's sometimes necessary. Tolkein did it, but he generally stayed within the POVs of his team, whether that was thirteen dwarves, a hobbit and a wizard, or the Nine Walkers in the LOTR. Rowling had it a bit easier; the magical world in which Harry found himself had various ways to vicariously see what others saw-- through Harry's eyes.

Fortunately I spent a lot of time working on playing within the rules years ago, then a lot of time experimenting, intentionally breaking each one to see what it was like (for instance, writing a story in the second person-- nobody does that).

The timing in which this struck me was odd. I hadn't read anything by anoyone else since I started the novel, but as I was editing (for typos and grammar only at this stage) it leapt off the page at me. For a day or so I was nervous, but then I recalled the time mentioned earlier, playing by the rules, then experimenting. I remembered how happy I was with some of the results.

And I remembered that there is no box.

Britain Ensconced

(This was actually written in October 2011 but somehow never published.)

A friend of ours, Traci Vanderbush, commented today about watching her son drive off to work and how weird it felt. Suddenly it seemed they'd gotten there all too quickly. Britain (her son) seems to be moving toward a career as a stage magician. Here's my attempt to ensconce the moment in haiku.

    The car disappears
Like a teenage magic trick
   Speeding at my heart

(I really like this definition of ensconce from dictionary.com: "to settle securely or snugly". It's how I think of myself settling down to read, and fits beautifully with what I was trying to do here. I love our language!)

My Errors & Briggs: IIST

Several times a year, someone brings up what always sounds to me like The Mystery Particle that could pull together all the missing links in physics, but instead is more akin (as far as I can tell) to voodoo: Myers-Briggs.

If you are one of the twenty one [1] people on the planet who has not been subjected to this test, it purports to divine all the details of your personality, so that:

1. You understand yourself;
2. Others understand you;
3. You understand how to interact with others subjected to MB;
4. Your boss can better manage you.

Hang on to that last one; we'll come back to it.

The test consists of a series of questions designed to test your sanity. They range from false dichotomies

7. Which is more important? [ ] Justice [ ] Grace

to the incomprehensible:

31. Which of these does not belong? [ ] a rainbow  [ ] a Big Mac

The results are four letters, such as INTF, ESFJ, or SQZX. When asked, I explain I'm an IIST[3]. The MB types look at me oddly and ask, "A what?"

"An IIST. I Ignore Stupid Tests."

At this point, they usually change the subject.

I'm OK with that. Thankfully, the only time I was forced to take the official MB[2] test, I never heard the results/ I say "thankfully" because when you get the results, you apparently get brainwashed. Every person I have met who has taken one of these tests is obsessed with knowing the "Myers-Briggs" type of everyone around them. Frankly, I'm surprised the MB people don't just run a massive online site and feed the results into e-Harmony. Within a very few weeks, the world (apart from twenty two of us) would all be so busy dating and getting married there would be no time for terrorism, taxes, trauma, and other terrible "T" words.

Only one other time did I made it all the way through any test like this. The result was a graph in four boxes of color (red, yellow, green, blue. My employer at the time mandated all employees take this test. Everyone else got a clear cut classification. Jezebel (Not Her Real Name) called me into her office where she sat staring at my results and making strange noises for a couple of minutes. Finally she said it was an impossible result; one box should have a dominant peak but all the boxes showed a dominant peak. The experts agreed it was impossible, and were sequestered with their software team double checking their algorithms and code. She sent me away with no new insight into how to deal with me.

I was OK with that.

[1] Which happens to be the number of followers this blog currently has. [ ] Coincidence or [ ] Conspiracy?
[2] I tend to get the order of these letters confused in my mind, at least when thinking about this test.
[3] Sometimes I'm nicer and use "IITT"; "I Ignore These tests".

Persevering under the crushing yoke of Mileshood

To all concerned:

Yes, I am still persevering under the crushing yoke of Mileshood.[1] Each day I have to hang out with people I love, eat at all sorts of incredible non-chain restaurants, revel in creativity, hang out with people who love me, hug and be hugged, make music, think weird thoughts, write, laugh & cry with people, look at beauty all around me, and so on.

Despite all of this, I love my life.

Denise Canny asks, "Man... what have you done to deserve such a woeful existence?"

Over the last few years I decided to:

• love unreservedly;
• live unoffended;
• be me and enjoy it;
• do things i like and am good at;
• hug a lot.

Y'all beware, if you do these things, you could end up like me.

[1] Thanks, Randy Kirchhof, for that delicious expression.