My sincere apologies

I'm sorry. I'm bad at updating.

I was thinking about doing a post on 5Ks, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Or maybe my job where I actually do things.

But I'm not feeling particularly eloquent at this juncture, so I will make a brief comment on Star Wars.

On the new Star Wars movie coming out in December.

I purchased a Star Wars t-shirt for the occasion.

First off, I discovered the girl in the beige outfit that I thought was Jedi-like was not, in fact, a Jedi. Bummer. I was kind of hoping for a female Jedi lead. No, the Jedi-force-dude is actually the stormtrooper guy.

But fine, whatever.

BUT, I also saw that Leia's last name is billed as Leia Organa. And you know, Han Solo is still running around in the Millennium Falcon with his bro Chewbacca. Is he still living the bachelor life? Are they not married? ARE HIM AND LEIA NOT TOGETHER?

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on these movies, JJ Abrams, but so help me if you ruin the Han Solo + Princess Leia happily ever after.

When pigs fly

I have just had an epiphany.

I am looking forward to going to work tomorrow.

David: Ok...?

Clearly, this doesn't seem to be as big for other people as it is for me. Let me put it in context. I can't remember when I've ever looked forward to going to work.

1st job: Administrative assistants assistant. And I was a foolish young teenager in Turkey. I made a chain out of paperclips and cleaned the coffee machine. The building had air conditioning and people mistook me for a Turk. I had no idea what I was doing. It was... interesting. And, from what I recall, short lived.

2nd job: Stagehand, Iowa State Center. The hours were bad.

3rd job: Scheman Staff, Iowa State Center. The hours were better. All manual labor, but there was this boy I liked... (David. Ended up married. In case you didn't catch that.)

1st internship: Camera Monkey, Iowa Cubs. Pretty awesome, actually, for an internship. But long and hot. Good skills, though. And paid! And free stuff and baseball.

2nd internship: Reporter, with a person that shall not be named. Let's just say I survived. Possibly scarred.

4th job: Cashier, Panera Bread. Yeah, the food was good. The micromanaging was not.

5th job: Valvoline Instant Oil Change. Working on cars was fun. But let's just say I wouldn't take my car there...

6th job: Place that shall not be named. Took me a good 3-6 months to recover from being fired.

7th job: Stagehand, CY Stevens. Infrequent, but interesting. I enjoy being there, once I'm there.

8th job: My current job!

So, I don't remember if I mentioned this, but I run video camera at church. My uncle got me into it, saying, "it's really flexible." I like flexible and I had experience (see first internship), so I volunteered. (note: Uncle flaked out)

Sometime later, the director offered me a ppt summer job with Channel 12, the local station for the City of Ames. Also, flexible. I like flexible.

Basically, Derek has an intern or two lurking about at any given time, but sometimes he wants another camera monkey, and so I was that monkey. It netted me a few extra hours during the summer and some fun evenings at the Ames Municipal Band concert, as well as an education on all the other buttons on a camera that I never had to deal with in Cornerstone Church or at the I-Cubs (like ND filters and Gain and White Balance).

Derek's intern left back for college. Oddly enough, it took my mother saying, "Well, why don't you be his intern?" for me to even consider it.

He made me say nice things about my boss (him), but in the end offered me the job. Which includes using cameras, getting footage, attending meetings, going to shoots, editing video (new skill), and laughing at his jokes. Or him. Maybe I'm doing it wrong...

So this is the first week that I've really been scheduled for more hours and he's teaching me editing. And that's all very fascinating (although I still need to be led like a child through editing), and I am enjoying it.

And looking forward to work tomorrow. Which I didn't think possible.

So I guess the zombie apocalypse is next, or the sky falling, or Russia nuking us, or something.

Tragedy

I was biking home from the grocery store with a box of wine, a jar of raspberry preserves with seeds (because what is the point of raspberries without seeds?), and two Snickers bars in a bag hanging on my handlebars.

The end of my brake line was scoring the bag when it swung that way, but I wasn't planning on keeping the bag, so I didn't care. And then I went over the bump at the end of my driveway. The (rather heavy) jar of raspberry preserves jolted through the broken part of the bag and shattered on my driveway.

I scooped up the bulk of it in one hand and fumbled with the keys to the garage door with the other. I couldn't get in the door to the house; it had stuck, as it does occasionally. David was home, I knew, so I pounded on it. Nothing. I then went to the front door of the house and let myself in there (more key fumbling) and then splattered the kitchen floor with preserves as I pulled out a tupperware. I tried picking out the glass shards and then scraping off the whole front of the preserves still clutched in my hand.

On rather sound advice, I abandoned the preserves (after making one sandwich, which did not end up having glass in it).

So don't drink wine! It's bad for you! Or your preserves. Or don't bike? Or don't go to Fareway? I don't know what the moral is, but any story that ends with me losing my raspberry preserves has got to have a moral somewhere.

---

Derek: Oh, oh, I know the moral. Pick me!
Me: What is the moral?
Derek: Don't carry your preserves in a bag with your box wine while biking while your break line is scoring the bag.

Thanks, Derek. We'll all take that to heart.

Double Standards

A minor follow-up to last night. I was reading Facebook and there was a post about religious persecution from last night, featuring the people who have been hit with fines and lawsuits for not serving gay weddings or having and stating opinions against homosexuality and losing their jobs for the mere statement of opinion. These are the people who spoke last night, to give a face to the impacts of some of our legislation.

And they are often combating the idea that "religious persecution doesn't exist."

So for this Facebook post, one of the comments said, "Yes, yes... those poor poor Christian souls who have to hide their religion, worship underground, and are persecuted daily for their beliefs. If only there could be houses of worship on every corner. Brazenly display objects of worship, say a symbol around their necks, without having it ripped off and trampled in the gutter. Maybe... just maybe some day they can have their beliefs displayed in our national motto. Oh if only they weren't persecuted so..."

To sum up: They aren't persecuted because look at all the things they have that real persecuted Christians don't have. In a very sarcastic tone, so you could probably interpret a little bit of snark to it as well.

And... the Facebook commentator is right. Christians in America are definitely not persecuted like Christians in other parts of the world. They haven't been beaten, forced out of their homes, had to meet underground, etc.

But the idea has a few problems.

1) It applies a double standard. Someone was getting on the comment author's case in the comments to his comment (track with me here) and asked if he was bitter. "No, not bitter. I just find any idea of Christian persecution in the United States laughable. They are confusing not getting their way with persecution." And replying to that, another person said, "Funny how the LGBTQ advocates are confusing not getting their way with persecution, too." Insightful. The original poster is comparing Christian complaints of persecution to Christians in persecuted countries, but failing to see that the people who are coming after the Christians, the LGBT activists, are also far far less persecuted that LGBTs in other countries. Maybe that's laughable. Maybe they should shut up and just be grateful they have so many freedoms, like the freedom to get married, the freedom to live openly with their gay partner, get symbols tattooed on themselves... etc. Why is it only Christians who have to shut up and be content with the living standards?

Well, obviously, it goes back to viewpoint censoring. Christians can be fined and verbally attacked and blasted in the media and threatened and that's ok because their viewpoint is BAD and you know it's really not that hard for them and they should really just abandon their viewpoint anyway. LGBTs however deserve to have access to all the businesses everywhere regardless of the feelings of who owns it because freedom isn't enough for them, they need total acceptance and confirmation and will suffer psychological harm and pain and suffering if they imagine someone somewhere doesn't agree with them and doesn't want to be involved with them.

How is this fair? How does one side have to suck it up and forfeit and the other side get given everything? Why does one side have to lose their rights of association and have their viewpoint get called into question and the other side gain the aggressive privilege of forcing their patronage and viewpoint on the first side?

It's a double standard.

2) It's a cop-out. Because Christians have all these benefits, it somehow negates the harms suffered to some because of viewpoint discrimination and government infringement of their rights. But these things have happened. And last I checked, this was America, and at some point in our history, we were founded on the idea of freedom for everyone equally.

So why should we stand aside and be like, "Eh, they've got it good enough. What else happens to them doesn't matter."? Do we do this for anyone else's rights? How about women? Other races? They're better off here, so why bother? No, because that's un-American. We fight for freedom and equality. We fight for the freedom of the LGBTs, but it isn't a freedom to force your business on someone, that infringes their rights of association. I covered that my last post.

But anyway, my point is that in fighting for freedom and equality, why should we just tell one group to shut up and give up, they don't get the same freedom and equality as everyone else cause they've already gotten so much.

Again, it comes down to viewpoint discrimination. Gay "rights (i.e. privileges)" are GOOD and Christians not agreeing with them and holding disproving viewpoints is BAD, so it's ok to persecute the Christians because they don't subscribe to the sanctioned viewpoint.

Which is thoughtcrime. And Big Brother is watching.

Rally it up!

I am at the Ted Cruz religious freedom rally, and, as usual at a Republican event, I feel really out of place.

It started with the Von Trapp family, I mean, the Bontrager Family Singers (I counted 10 kids), singing, playing instruments, and endorsing Ted Cruz.

I mean, I like Ted Cruz. He seems genuine where a lot of other people seem like campaign conservatives.

But, I am not a Republican. I don't like having to defend freedom of association under the religious liberty umbrella. And I don't even know if I'd vote for Ted Cruz.

However, I like politics, I'm much closer to Republican than Democrat, religious liberty is important, and it was the right price (free. And Dad bought my dinner, so net gain I'd say).

Also, now I have a small copy of the Constitution with Ted Cruz's face on it and a cheap American flag (courageous conservatives for Cruz). I passed up the Cruz 2016 sticker.

So bring it on.

"Our rights come from God, not from the government." - England

My libertarian self can get on board with that.

Now they're going to show the people who have been hit recently with discrimination lawsuits and fines for refusing service to homosexuals in the context of marriage services.

First off, I think that any private business should be able to discriminate against anybody for any reason. And by "private" I mean not government owned. The Post Office can't discriminate because it's a government monopoly and we have no choice but to use it. I think that if someone started a business, even if it has expanded to the point of public trading, it is still a private business. It is owned by the shareholders, but it isn't (or shouldn't be) a government enforced monopoly. And people can go to another business if they don't like it.

But does that mean that businesses can discriminate against [insert favorite bleeding heart group]? Homosexuals, black people, white people, men, women, people with tattoos, people without blue hair, whoever? Yes. If you built the business, you should be able to choose who it serves. You should have the freedom of association, the freedom of discrimination.

But that's wrong! That's racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

Then don't go to the business. Write nasty Facebook reviews, convince other people not to go, try and drive them out of business. But don't aggress. Don't call the bully government to force your fight, don't threaten them, their families, whatever. This is a (supposedly) free country. They don't owe you the use of their business. Go somewhere else. Can we agree to disagree? But let the market decide. That's freedom.

Are some people awful and discriminatory? Yup. But not everybody is going to agree with me on a lot of things and I'm not going to go around trying to force right thinking on everyone. As long as they aren't aggressing on me, they can be ignorant. God knows we can't get rid of ignorance.

Just don't bring the bully government to ensure everyone does what you think is right by aggressing on the rights of people. Not "right to cake" and "right not to be discriminated against," but right to life, liberty, and property. Rights to discriminate are under property, if you were wondering. Freedom to use your personal property as you see fit.

That said, religious liberty is important. It's part of our right to liberty. As disturbing as it is that we have forgotten the right of association, what is also disturbing is that the "tolerance" camp is busy trying to enforce against thoughtcrime of what they consider the backwards bigots of Christians. Thoughtcrime isn't a real crime. And they have their crosshairs on Christians. They have decided our point of view is wrong.

Thoughtcrime isn't a crime. Well. It was in 1984 by George Orwell. And Big Brother is watching.

I hate they way they come after Christians, trying to destroy our point of view because they disagree with it. Even if they are right and we are wrong (which I don't agree with), they should not be able to force their views on us.

The America I was raised to believe in doesn't look anything like the America I see now.

"Nothing says tolerance like death threats." - Steve Deace

And it's being enforced by the government. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." They no longer secure our rights. They violate them. Big Brother is watching.

But the rally is good. I'm enjoying it more than I thought. There is a lot of truth being spoken. People are very enthusiastic. I can't imagine being this enthusiastic for anyone short of Dr. Ron Paul.

Also some protesters outside. I'm not sure what their beef is. And then some protesters inside interrupting. "Citizenship Now!" They were shouted down by chants of "U S A!" as they were escorted out. Ted Cruz thanked them for their speech, but informed them this was not a Town Hall.

All in all, some political fun on a Friday night. Even got some up-and-down standing clapping reps. Newsboys are here. Free concert!

Add pizza and beer and it would have been a real party.

Shiner

Now that the swelling is down, the bruising is pretty much gone, and the black eye is fading, I'll tell you what happened.

It's kind of a funny story. Although we did try and come up with all sorts of easier, and funnier, alternatives.

Coworker 1: Tell them you were slacking off. And so I kicked you in the face.
Coworker 2: No, say that you were talking back!
Me: That does sound like me. And that you backhanded me!
Coworker 1: Say you fell on a doorknob.
Me: Or I'll say I fell down the stairs. And then look away.
Coworker 2: Say you got hit by a table. Or that you punched yourself while trying to move chairs.
Coworker 3: Man, that is swelling.
Me: He's getting me ice.
Coworker 3: I would say that he was being a gentleman, but...

So at Scheman, sometimes people want classroom sets (rows of tables with chairs) and sometimes they want power to those tables to run laptops or whatever. We pull out our huge collection of extension cables, quad boxes, and power strips, and tape them down under the tables, daisy chaining them from any available outlet. This building is from before personal computers. On this day, we had to strike a bunch of classrooms with power. One of my coworkers, Isaac, likes to make balls out of the duct tape, making it bigger and bigger as we pull up the cords. He prides himself on being able to make it very firm.

Three of us were waiting for another coworker to go and check exactly what we had to pull in a particular room and started playing hackysack with this duct tape ball. I suck at hackysack, but wasn't the only one. And then Isaac bounced it twice and then kicked it off his toe. It hit me in the face on my right cheekbone so hard it rebounded to the back of the room.

We all burst into laughter, even as I'm clutching my face and Isaac is leaning on the table. "Ow, my toe!" are the first words he managed.

"I can't say I feel very compassionate about your toe," I say between laughs.

"You okay?" he asks.

"I might cry. But just like I would if I got hit in the nose."

One coworker walks in, sees us, and walks right back out.

For the rest of the day, when Isaac says to do something, Dean is like, "I'll do it, I don't want you to hurt me!"

I didn't cry, I did get ice, and I got a bit of a shiner. And that's the actual story. I was attacked by a vicious duct tape ball. Later Bryan kicked it in the general direction of Isaac and nailed him in the knee.

Isaac: We need to make it bigger.
Me: Seriously?
Isaac: Yeah. So we won't be tempted to kick it.

I'm sure that will work brilliantly.

Smoooooth...

I would like to start this post with a confession. I have seen my muse. I have seen what I desire in a blog post, in a continuing blog, and I do not have the ability to produce it. I have seen the Crisler blog. I shall spend the rest of my life attempting to achieve that level of humor and balance. This is one of my favorite posts. Enjoy. I'll understand.

Still here? Well, practice does make perfect I suppose.

I shall now attempt to segue, meaning a smooth, uninterrupted transition from one thing to another. Pronounced seg-wey, for whatever reason. It's Latin, I guess, I don't know. And it really kind of amuses me that they named those two-wheel powered scooter things Segways, the actual pronunciation spelling. Like the scooter thing (which makes you look silly) is a real life smooth, uninterrupted transition from one place to another... a really clever name.

Yeah, I blew that segue.

Did you know that the Segways can keep pace with bikes, on like a biking tour or something? You could be the tour guide. It's like a rolling podium. They should give them to politicians or something. Or politicians can buy them, whatever. It'd at least give me a laugh.

I'm not transitioning anywhere, much less smoothly.

You know what? Nevermind. I'll post something else some other time.

Farewell Jawbone UP24

I purchased a fitness tracker by Jawbone called the UP24. It was like a chunky orange bracelet, but I don't like the watch ones, so I went with Jawbone. It just died it's third and final time in the last week and a half.

It was only fifty bucks, since I purchased it after it had been discontinued by the manufacturer. They came out with an equivalent but newer version for $100, and I just wanted to try out having a fitness tracker while waiting for Jawbone to get their head in the game and get active heart rate tracking like Fitbit has.

Honestly, if it were just a functionality thing, I would go Fitbit Charge HR, but I can't stand how Fitbits look. And their only colors are black and plum. And I've heard their step tracking can be way off.

Since the warranty for my product expired in March (before I purchased it), they won't replace it. The best they can offer is a 25% discount code for their website. The UP2, their current band, is $100. I would be paying $75 to replace my $50 band.

And I asked if I could use the code at Best Buy, but no, it's just for their website. And since my band freaked out after three months, I want Geek Squad protection. They'd replace it for the next two years.

Dang it. I'm more frustrated by this than I thought I would be. I've read bad reviews on the UP2. None of the other fitness trackers look good.

And apparently I've become addicted to having something track all my steps and workouts, like I'm working toward something, even just my 10,000 step daily goal.

I have a lightweight app on my phone called Google Fit, and it can track steps and actually is smart enough to tell when I'm biking. But I don't want to have to carry my phone everywhere, or if I want credit for that dance exercise I did in my basement, have to have it on me.

Really, the takeaway from all this is 1) I love fitness trackers, and 2) get them from Best Buy and get Geek Squad protection.

Oooooh, I've wasted my life.

Props to anyone who can tell me where the quote in my title came from. Largely because I can't remember it. Someone says it right before being squashed in an amusing way, so I'm guessing cartoon. Simpsons maybe?

Anyway, I was quoting it because I am feeling the guilt of having too many interests and then squandering my time on computer games.

Time Sink #1: Computer games. And when I get bored of computer games... different computer games.

Time Sink #2: Work. I'm listing this as a time sink because, while productive, I don't generally like it. Or more specifically, I like about two of my potential five jobs.

Interest #1: Working out. This is number #1 because I actually do it. Usually. I have a certain level of self-motivating guilt going on. I blame My Fitness Pal app. Which I highly recommend for the same reason. Nothing is as effective as noticing you are spending 700+ calories on that pizza tonight, so you should probably go run today. It's also what encouraged me to give up soda for the second time, largely by me realizing that it's 150 calories and like half my sugar allowance for the day. Did you know a tiny bag of Cheetos was 310 calories? And if that doesn't sound like a lot to you, try keeping track of calories with the goal of staying under 1200. Which meal are you giving up for those Cheetos?

Interest #2: Reading. I had a goal of 100 books this year. That's two a week. I've been playing computer games. I am 13 books behind schedule. Time to go read children's books...

Interest #3: Writing. I've been playing with a story in my head labeled "epic space odyssey," joining the collection of "chanters' fantasy," "steampunk gang," and "angsty-music-stagehand" and half a dozen other half-baked ideas. That don't get written. And I need to actually write things because if I leave them alone too long, I forget them, or at least major plot points.

Interest #4: Steampunk. I have a costume. There are tons of DIY ideas out there and I know people and I want to go to events. And I don't. Steampunk's problem is that even DIY stuff tends to cost money. Maybe I should get a sixth job just for Steampunk.

Interest #5: Playing a musical instrument. I have a recorder, penny whistle, guitar, and piano. I want to play fiddle. I don't play any. Usually I hit a wall pretty early in where it doesn't seem like I get any better and that demotivates me.

Interest #6: Learning another language. I have an app called Duolingo, set for Turkish. It's free. My goal was 20 minutes a day. Hah.

Interest #7: Misc self-improvement. Basically there are a lot of little things I want to learn, like bike maintenance, ham radio operation, Krav Maga, homebrewing, etc. And I don't.

And I should.

But I liiiiiiiike computer games.

This post is about earrings

Back about maybe ten years ago, I decided to fulfill my dream of getting a cartilage piercing. I'd used those little slid-on cuffs for a while and pestered every piercing person I found with the question, "If my lobes got infected, will my cartilage as well?" Since my lobes had managed to get infected and remain that way for four years, while still being pierced. And then I put sensitive solution earrings in them and they cleared up and everyone was happy. But apparently a cartilage infection can result in surgery and probably losing chunks of your ear.

I like my ears.

But when I was nineteen, I finally just went and got it done at Claire's and got a cutesy pink bottle of stuff to rub on it and so on. It was also several months before I could sleep on that side of my head. And a bump of displaced cartilage formed on the back of my ear for a year or two before disappearing again. Claire's has since ceased doing those, which is probably good because I think they use the regular earring puncher for it and an actual piercing place uses something like a mini hole puncher, I think. Instead of displacing cartilage, it just takes it out. But my cartilage didn't get infected, although it did get jarred during roughhousing a few times and bled and was painful.

I tried with various earrings, but some were too thick and a ring pressed into the ear when I slept, making it sore. So for the past couple years, I've just been rocking the ball-post-back combo, which is basically a normal ball earring. Which I take out at night because it presses into the side of my head.

All this to give some background for when I saw a cartilage earring on another girl on vacation with a flat back, like a tiny coin.

Ok, so stuff like that exists at every piercing place ever. How was I supposed to know?

"Where did you get that?" I asked. "Cause I wouldn't take mine out ever if it didn't dig into the side of my head."

She told me about sketchy-sounding Chinese-run jewelry stores that apparently sold everything and could fix anything. And apparently I had just missed one that day in a shopping center we were at. I had, understandably, spent the entire time in Barnes and Noble.

And so began a quest!

Objective: Obtain a flat-backed cartilage piercing.

"Wayne, can we stop back by Zona Rosa? There's a jewelry place I want to hit up."

"We'll see," Wayne replies. Then later I get told it probably won't be open when we leave the next morning.

"I've lived with this for five years, I suppose I can wait a week," I say.

So at the end of the week, I try again.

"Those are sold at all the piercing places," I get told.

"Does that mean we can't go?" I'm stubborn about getting an actual answer.

We'll see.

On the drive back, they call John from their truck to tell him that we're not able to stop there cause we're going a different way.

Bah.

Back at home, I Google piercing places, but end up going to the mall cause I had a return. In the mall, I stop by "Shag," one of those hippie places that sells incense, baja hoodies, and boxers with weed leaves on them. Shag replaced another hippie place that replaced a Hot Topic. Anyway, they pull out a bunch of flat-backed studs for ears, but there is a problem.

"Those are really thick," I say. They're labeled 16G. "Is that the standard size?"

"Yeah, I think so," replies the guy.

I explain my situation. He tells me that standard size is 22G (which is somehow smaller than a 16G) and how some people up their size by some weird process involving rubbing, lotion, irritation, ibuprofen, and ramming. "What' does Claire's use?" he asks.

"I don't know. I guess I'll go look."

At Claire's, they do actual have varying sizes of cartilage piercings. "Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to do mine, too," the girl says. Apparently, she got hers done at Claire's as well. I pick out a 20G, that looks more blingly that I like, and an 18G, since buy one, get one for $5. I'll start a process of gradually expanding the hole, like I did with my lobes, although there is no cartilage in lobes.

At home, the 20G goes in easily and moves easily and without pain. Too easily. Also, the ring is so small I can't close it around the side of my ear. Too bad I can't return earrings.

No pain, no gain. So I go for the 18G. First problem is that apparently, it is a wire pressed into indents on either side of a ball. So as I pull it out, the ball pops out. So I'd need to realign the ends of the wire and push them in on either side of the ball. Also, since it's an 18G, the wire is fairly hard to bend. Even harder when it has been shoved in a hole too small for it in my ear.

"David? I need your help!"

David's help comes in the form of large pinchy tools that I don't know the names for. If this doesn't prove that I trust him, I don't know what will.

Somewhat needless to say, my ear was NOT HAPPY with me. It's still sore. Guess I'll be sleeping on the right side of my head for a while.

So, Quest Incomplete, for now. Until the hole gets a little happier.

Anyone want a tiny 20G cartilage earring? I know we aren't supposed to share them, but I could probably boil it or something...

Sunday's Dose of Guilt Doesn't Involve a Sermon

Unless your portable snacks to Prairie Moon Winery are carrot and celery sticks, sans ranch dressing, I would not recommend bringing the Fitness magazine.

Now I feel guilty.

Those cheese curds and sea-salt&vinegar chips still tasted good, though.

Curse my lack of self-control.

May the Fourth be with you

I tried finding a calender in Google Calender's list of available ones to add for "Nerd Holidays." Unfortunately, they don't have an official nerd holiday calender. How am I going to know what day to go out for pie? (Pi Day, 3.14) Or talk like a pirate? (Talk Like A Pirate Day, 9.19) Or the best day to host a Star Wars Marathon?

That would be today, by the way. May 4th, or as it is known on the Internet, "May the Fourth be with you."

So now I have to go and add those dates to my calender manually. Truly, a first world problem. Although nothing trumps first world problems like what I consider the ultimate first world problem, that is, Firefly being cancelled. That one still keeps me up at night.

It's a shame that I'm not hosting a Star Wars Marathon, but I'm not really feeling all that great, so I may curl up with my Star Wars Omnibus comic book on Quinlan Vos. You know, the Jedi with dreadlocks.

I'm still waiting for the day when someone gets my subtle tribute to Quinlan Vos, but they'd have to be a pretty big nerd and observant to boot.

Why am I talking about Star Wars? This must be your first time to my blog. Welcome.

Star Wars is my childhood. More than knights and castles and Power Rangers or whatever else they had at that point, I fought my way to adulthood with a lightsaber and the power of the Force. It shaped my views on sci fi (which could be a negative thing) and I am super excited about the next movie coming out this December. Looks like we get a girl Jedi for a main character!

No, don't look at me like that. I'm not about to go crazy and change Thor to a woman or vote for Hillary Clinton or anything like that. But I am a girl and I do like things being equal when they can be (love being able to vote and hold jobs, yah know?) and there was a serious lack of girl Jedi in the original Trilogy (although there was a serious lack of Jedi, period) and while there were girl Jedi in Episodes 1-3, they were mostly cameo roles. And I'd like to forget that trilogy exists.

So there were guy Jedi, and now we get to see a girl Jedi in action. And since I would obviously be Force sensitive (in the same way I would have gotten my invitation from Hogwarts), I would like to know what it is like to be a girl Jedi.

I guess I could be wrong and those are just Tatooine clothes or something.

May the Fourth be with you! Here's some fun videos to get in the mood.

I guess I never knew what it meant to "blink myopically"

I have recently discovered I am quite probably short sighted. To be fair, I knew my eyes weren't perfect starting last year sometime, where the driver of whatever car I was in would ask, "What does that sign say?" and then be able to read it before I was.

At church, I realized it was hard to read the lyrics from some of the songs while in the back, but blamed it on being far away and whatever funky visualizations they had going on. Then one Sunday, a pastor put up a passage from the Bible to demonstrate formatting. And I couldn't read it. I could have written that off too, saying I could still see the formatting idea and had the text in my own Bible and so didn't really need to read it and maybe that wasn't what he was going for, but David was sitting right next to me and he could read it.

The tragic truth. I was nearsighted.

As the weeks went on after that, I became a bit of a hypochondriac by looking at everything and then freaking out. As it stands right now, letters start to get blurry on signs five feet away. I don't notice it in sunny conditions, but much more in lower lighting. And I notice that I sit someone nearer to the computer than I'd really prefer with this chair and I get a little nearer to stuff in the grocery store to read it than I'd prefer.

It's way more noticeable with letters and signs, largely because of the sharp edges and the fact you have to see all the edges to be able to identify the meaning. Like that park bench could be blurry, but I can still tell it's a park bench. I see it, identify it, and then dismiss it. Which is why I didn't notice for so long. I couldn't tell things were blurry because I only looked to identify, I didn't look to see. But letters... you have to be able to see them.

If I scrunch up my nose and squint, I can make things swim into focus. And I look stupid.

It's not a big deal, yet. I can still see cars and people and everything and even if I can't precisely read the license plate until close, I can still see there is a car, which direction it's going, how fast, and color and type, from the same distance as everyone else.

It's a good thing this didn't happen when I was a kid. I would have been devastated. And glasses would have been the Worst Thing Ever. Because you need them to see, but you have to take them off at night. And they can't fall off or break. And you can't really swim with them on. Now it's like, how was that a big deal? And glasses can be chic.

Even so, I'm mildly annoyed. Is it reversible? Eye exercises, maybe?

Or maybe we can blame the increase in nearsightedness on computers.

*narrows eyes at the computer screen* *not myopically, just glaring*

Analyze This

I found another repressed fear of my dreams!

To date:

-Fear of not flying after jumping off of something and instead hitting the ground. We'll just translate this one as fear of heights.

-Fear of doing something fun when math homework is waiting at home to claim me (from high school)

-Fear of signing up for a class or having an essay and completely forgetting until it's too late to do anything about it except try to right the whole dang research paper in an hour. (from college) Oddly enough, this haunts me more in my dreams than it did in real life. I totally did a research paper in one day once. And got like an A-.

-Fear of making a breakfast sandwich and it taking forever, only to drop it on the floor and have to start over again (from Panera)

-Fear of having camera duties and jiggling the camera when we were recording. Actually, this one is new too.

-Fear of sleeping through my alarm or having to make it to an interview and it taking forever to walk there.

-Fear of trying to run and not being able to run, or like run in jelly, or not run fast enough

-Fear of trying to drive and not being able to drive well, or crashing into things

-Fear of zombies (don't ask)

-Fear of being unable to see

And now, for the one I just discovered, the fear of being lost in a cave! With bonus fear of being unable to breathe!

Actually, this is another reoccurring one, I just finally translated it. Following another cave dream. Maybe I got this one from a movie of Tom Sawyer. I'm not afraid of caves. I went spelunking once and had great fun. I'm not claustrophobic. I actually like small spaces and will be the first one to leap under a stage we set up to do something. But I am afraid of going into a tunnel, like of snow, and having it narrow to a point and being unable to move, to get my arms from my sides, or to try and wiggle back out backwards while hoping the whole thing doesn't collapse and trap you. And, apparently, I'm afraid of following a tunnel in a cave to have it dead end as your candle is going out. And the bonus points, I'm afraid of diving into a tunnel of water only to have it never resurface and your air run out. I know I had a few dreams about that.

How do I get these fears? I blame movies. Dang zombies.

Defining My Role

David came up with an idea for a quick-play role-playing game. Think Dungeons and Dragons, but without the three hours of trying to choose if I want to be a race that is good for a shaman or a race that is cool. I have an odd tendency toward half-and-half races, like half-elf or half-orc. I presume this is because I'm a third culture kid and have never really felt that I belonged anywhere. Or really felt the need to.

Anyway. A version of role playing without memorizing the character sheets, looking up things in handbooks, agonizing over race and class, trying to organize a party that has all essential character, and rolling lots of dice to tell us, in a numerical value, exactly what we are good at.

David's idea was something like this:
Story: A group of people go to a coffee shop or some other gathering place. We were heading to Smokey Row the night we thought this up to meet with some friends to play games. (I thought a night of playing games would be wasted on Phase 10 and wanted to role-play, which is rather how this got started.) This group of people gets sucked into an alternate world which they then have to work their way through and cope with. David was thinking fantasy, so it'd probably be due to a portal or magic or something. I was thinking sci-fi, so alien abduction.

Mechanics: The Dungeon Master, that being David, would be a benevolent (or at least neutral) deity who controls the whole thing and tells the story. Our characters would gain skills as they interacted with the world and role-played (like if Shane kept sneaking behind trees, he might get better at it. If I kept throwing rocks at chickens, maybe I'll get better at that).

And... that's it. I wasn't really for this idea, largely because it seemed very susceptible to what I termed "brain vomit" where David could make up anything and in a pinch might put out idiotic things, like talking hats or chickens that could throw rocks back. Maybe it seems I don't have a lot of faith in David's storytelling abilities, but 1) I've never read much that he's written, and 2) he's as stubborn and contrary as the old guy in Up and might do those things just to spite me.

I'm fine with a quick-play role-playing idea, but I rather like the idea that even though a lot of elements are invisible, they still exist. Maybe you don't start with a character sheet, but something defining all learned abilities and your level in them still lurks in the background, at least until later levels. The players might not know anything about the world, but it has rules and scope and isn't just a barren wasteland that gets filled in with said scary chickens in talking hats as we run into them. Best example I can come up with was the Wheel of Time world. It was complete. Things in the first books were referenced that we didn't come into contact with much later books, but when we did, we knew about them and knew they were there. They had existed from the beginning.

Obviously that takes more prep work and David just wanted to get going.

We played Phase 10.

I'd like to point out that to start our bumbling 21st century selves into his new world, we'd get a little bit of a starter. David asked for a short list of strengths, weaknesses, and then maybe our goal in life.

I started my list, even though we didn't play it looked like this:

Strengths
1.
2.
3.

Weaknesses
1. Acrophobia
2.
3.

Goal in life:

Yeah, that's all I could come up with. Oh sure, I could probably brainstorm a LOT more weaknesses. Lack of tact? Inability to read social situations? Stubborn? Myopic? Toxiphobic? Mistrust of all authority figures? Check, check, check, check, check, check. Or is that last one a strength? But I don't know if those are the types of things that would transfer to a role-playing game well. I'll obviously role-play as stubborn and lacking tact. Because, honestly, my roles never differ much from myself. I'm a bad actress. But like myopia? At least I know I have an almost overwhelming fear of heights.

Strengths is kind of similar. I have a mild ability to understand computers, which might help me in my sci-fi world, but won't in David's fantasy. Anyway, most of my generation has that ability and Shane is actually in IT. I've had grand ideas about learning disaster preparedness, Krav Maga, ham radio, gardening, and so on, but I haven't actually done a lot of these things. Ability to run for an hour or so? That could be helpful, I guess, but I can't run fast, which seems the important part. I have no self-defense. I couldn't define what plants are edible. I probably don't have enough mechanical understanding to decipher a wildmill, much less the Six-Fingered-Man's life sucking devices. Even if we switched to sci-fi, I don't know how to pilot an aircraft (another of my dreams) or speak another language or first aid or a lot of things. I probably couldn't get my phone out of Chinese.

And if you find my life goal, could you let me know? I'll come and collect it.

Desperate Times call for Biking

"That's the worst part about this," David said. "I don't want to leave you without the car."

"Cause I'd use it if you did," I reply sarcastically.

I don't like to drive. It's not the mechanical act that bugs me, because on an empty highway with the tunes cranked it's pretty good, and I like driving go-carts and things like that. I hate driving around other people, all of us wielding massive metal machines with just our hands, I hate driving around traffic laws, because they seem super easy to break, and I hate using a several ton polluting machine to haul my 135 pound butt a mile to pick up something from the grocery store. Seems overkill to drive in town. I'm not anti-car, they are very useful for when it's very cold, or you need to go a couple hundred miles (preferably not taking all weekend to do so), or for picking up milk, box-wine, and pizza. I just personally don't like driving and it seems the lazy option, the easy way out.

So, David is leaving for the weekend and taking the car, largely because he needs to go a hundred miles or so. Very practical. And I have some stuff I need to do this weekend and some stuff I want to do this weekend, with no car.

Challenge accepted. With my bike.

So tonight, I want to get pizza. I have, actually, gotten pizza on my bike before. So I'll be hunting down a sweatshirt I can use to tie it to my handlebars again.

Tomorrow I need to go take pictures of one of Dad's houses, but that barely counts because I could walk to that house. And then I have a work shift at like 9:30. PM. Maybe I'll stop by Bike World and get my headlamp battery replaced.

Sunday. I might be lazy and listen to the message from the Internet. Shame shame, I know. Then maybe go on a bike ride with Mom because it's actually supposed to be nice that day, and all next week (did I mention it's not going to get above 40 degrees until then?).

Also, I have a coupon for a free movie rental from Family Video, over in West Ames. They're advertising Into the Woods, which I want to see, but I don't think David would appreciate. So maybe I'll do that tomorrow too. We'll see if I get to all/some/any of this stuff. Well, I have to get to the pizza. Already ordered.

I'll be posting this after David gets back. Don't particularly like advertising I'm home alone without a car.

Update 1: I made with the pizza just fine, although some of the people waiting at Pizza Hut were rubbernecking to see what I was doing. Stripping off my sweatshirt and using it to lash my pizza to my bike that I had with me in the lobby. Yum, pizza.

Update 2: Saturday was as-planned. Light obtained. Work... worked. Ride home uneventful.

Update 3: Sunday I was lazy and listened to the sermon on the Internet as soon as they uploaded it. I did not go on a bike ride with Mom because the wind was like 30 miles per hour from the West. We went on a walk and almost became kites. For the same reason, I did not bike to Family Video. It's west.

So did I meet the challenge? Eh. I did everything I needed to do (work and picture taking). I didn't do everything I wanted to do. I guess I'll take it. It's so great to be able to bike again and transport myself again. I love Spring.

I so loved the Internet

The absolute worst part about the whole net neutrality thing is that all the people who fought for it thought they were fighting for freedom.

I seldom see a debate so skewed rhetorically and factually.

I'm a wuss

I'm staying home from work today. Well, more specifically I called in sick to my 10am shift that would have probably lasted three to four hours. And I feel like a wuss.

I remember one class in college. It was one of those dumb required one credit classes that lasted only six weeks, made you fill out a graduation plan, and you couldn't skip a single one for any reason at all. I failed it the first time because I procrastinated making the graduation plan. Which is stupid. So the second time I took it, I resolved to do everything possible and that I wouldn't miss a single class. If I got the flu and was throwing up, I figured I'd take a bucket with me and wait until they threw me out.

I didn't get the flu, or get sick at all. I usually don't, only one cold a year unless David brings back some particularly nasty cocktail of germs from a job site. He did that once and I got my second cold for that year and was sick for like a month.

And so, I'm guessing that's what I have today. My cold of the year. Which makes me feel stupid for staying home from work. Oh, I don't feel good. I don't have a fever at this point and my body feels ok overall, but my chest feels heavy, my nose large, and I have fluids sloshing around. By Linsey standards, low sickness. If I couldn't call in sick or had a limited number of sick days, I'd go to work. If I was still at McFarland, I'd go, although that tends to be sitting around behind a desk and not a highly active job like Scheman. Actually, during that month-long cold that David gave me, I wouldn't feel as bad in the mornings, so I'd go work at McFarland, and feel like crap in the evenings. I also disinfected my phone and keyboard for the next person.

But yeah, Scheman is more flexible, I say, "Hey, I don't feel good," and they're like, "Ok." And Scheman is more physical labor and I don't really want to throw around tables and chairs while I'm glued to this tissue box and keep having to tilt my head and swallow to clear my airways. Blah.

Home remedies! David got sick this weekend and his sister offered him Dayquil, Nyquil, ibuprofen, Tylenol, or aspirin. He declined. I tend to have similar propensities. I was raised with no using medicine, unless you were REALLY sick. Otherwise, you'll get over it. Go lie down. Clearly, it worked, as I am not dead.

But I do like finding things that will make you better, ease symptoms, and not have any adverse effects. For colds, I started with orange juice. Feel a cold coming on? Go buy some orange juice, drink until better. But orange juice has a lot of sugar in it, so I canned that eventually and switched to vitamin C drops, which are dangerously close to not being a home remedy, although it still isn't medicine. To be honest, if I get a cough, I get cough drops. I hate going to bed and coughing out a lung every two minutes.

In other things, which are quite possibly just placebo effects, I like Traditional Medicinals' Echinacea Plus Elderberry tea that supposedly supports the immune system. If it does, it helps, if it doesn't, it doesn't hurt.

My mom swears by Scope with hydrogen peroxide. Gargle for sore throats. I haven't tried that, partially because my throat isn't really bothering me that much and partially because I'm pretty sure my hydrogen peroxide is now largely water.

And then the other cure I've heard about on Facebook. Really, the idea of getting a cure on Facebook is disconcerting. I also got a recipe for protein balls on Facebook. But anyway, someone said raw honey and cinnamon would knock a cold right out. So that's what I'm trying right now. I Googled that looking for the graphic I saw on Facebook that claimed that and discovered that some people think raw honey and cinnamon is like a magic thing for weight loss and like 17 other things, including cancer.

Wow. Downright magic.

New Years Resolutions

I, like most Americans, I believe, made some New Years Resolutions. Mine don't tend to be anything earth-shattering and are usually a cross between goals and a to-do list.

Also, I don't usually have them figured out by New Years. I keep adding as I wish. So, my list to date:

-Floss
-Beef up
-Find my fulfillment in God
-Become a stagehand
-Get curtains for my bedroom
-Learn Krav Maga
-Read 100 books

Now that I type them out, they look weird. I put down floss because my dentist (I just started going back last year, after eight years of not) keeps making my gums bleed and says flossing would make them better. I hate flossing. It makes my gums bleed. And swell a little bit. And I have a fixed retainer, which is basically a metal wire glued to the back of my front bottom teeth. To floss behind that, I have to loop the floss around a tooth and then pull it through until it comes out of one side of the tooth, leaving it sticking out in the back, somehow grab that tiny bit of floss and pull it back until I can thread it behind the retainer. Way more work that I usually want to commit, and it takes me several tries. My compromise tends to be doing it while watching something.

Beef up is my summary of my fitness goals for this year: not gain weight (except muscle weight, as applicable) and gain muscle and toning.

Find my fulfillment in God. Uh, this isn't something I generally want to discuss on a blog. Suffice to say that in considering my plans for the future, I realize I am still not placing desire for fulfillment on the proper source, and recognize that all other efforts toward fulfillment will come to disappointment. Also recognizing that my disappointment can range from mild to explosive.

Becoming a stagehand is a rather silly goal, as all that supposedly takes is being at CY Stephens for six months and still be taking calls. So if the management actually pays attention, I should be a stagehand around March I think. I might even have another part time job in the works... how do I tell Facebook that my work includes three part time jobs and two volunteer ventures? Facebook likes to guilt me sometimes with stuff like, "Where'd you go to high school? Where's your hometown?" I didn't and I don't know. Lemme alone!

Get curtains for my bedroom. That is obviously to-do list with a loose time component. I usually balk at price tags, though.

Krav Maga is one of the best martial arts for self-defense. It can be fairly well grasped within a fairly short time period. My Marine brother said that the Marines don't use it because they wanted escalation of force, something like a three step process: Threaten, Beat Up, if necessary, Kill. Krav Maga goes straight from Step 1 to Step 3. It was designed by an Israeli boxer for use by the Israeli military. And they teach it in town. I want to know enough self-defense that I can keep myself safe. And, preferably, make the attacker regret it.

Read 100 books... Goodreads has something on their page that lets you enter in a goal number and then adds everything you add with a date finished within the year to that count. Honestly, I'm already regretting this one. Part of my problem tends to be I love rereading books. Books only count once on Goodreads, so I have to read new books. One year my goal was to read 52 books, one a week, and I got that pretty easily. So I'm like, "I can read two books a week!" Today Goodreads told me that at 12/100, I am now one book behind. And when you start looking at books just to get finished, it will push you towards short books that are easy reading, and away from difficult or longer books. I picked up a book on Queen Elizabeth (who was nicknamed the Pirate Queen) because I was interested in her rule of loose capitalism and privateering against Spain. Except I haven't been reading it since it's a long book and if I'm going to read, I've got a deadline to make. I've been judging books by their thickness, Kindle books by how many dots they have, and Audible books by time length. The Snow Queen on Audible is under two hours? Sign me up! My largest motivation for reading "God's Chisel" from the in-laws is that it is slim and with big print. "The Landmark History of the American People" will probably continue to sit on my desk. So I don't like the pressure, albeit subtle and self-applied, to edge away from big books and toward stuff like YA fluff, that I also like, but isn't terribly edifying. I said I wanted to focus on historical books and sci-fi. Which was also poor planning, as those both tend to be heavier genres as well. A better system (or one that would work for me better, anyway) is counting pages instead of books.

Maybe I'll take a quick overview of children's books. Little Golden Books are educational, right?

Prepped for something

I was watching a TV show where the characters woke up one day in their role-playing computer game. They struggled to do things like they were supposed to be done in the game, using the game system to make food, that turned out completely flavorless. The one of them had a discovery: If you use the ingredients (which tasted normal) and cooked them in the same way you would cook in the real world, had a chef subclass, and had a high enough "cooking level," you could make actual food. The people in the game adapted, and then discovered that they could go further than the game systems allowed, and using their knowledge of the outside real life, they could create things like steam engines in game.

Which makes me think to some extent about prepping. If we were stripped of all modern conveniences, like in a apocalypse, or say you were sent back to the past, how would you fair? You'd be explaining electricity and Internet to the Knights of the Round Table and they'd be like, "Sounds interesting. How do you do that?" And I, personally, would have no idea.

I've mentioned before how we're so separated from the heights of our technology and technical knowledge is very specialized.

Completely off track, but I have a quote I wanted to share:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert Heinlein

Anyway, I was wondering what I would want to bring to the brave new world as far as skills. At one point I was thinking gardening. Or ham radio. I was browsing through the wiki for the TV show I mentioned (Log Horizon - anime) to see what their "subclasses" included, things like Chef, Scribe, Apprentice.

Then I saw the one I would choose and hit on the thing I would want to contribute to my post-apocalyptic zombie fort: Brewer.

So if I want to keep working on my skills, maybe home brewing is next on the list. Although the kits look kind of expensive. I'll have to do some cost-benefit analysis and shop around.

Although I was reading this book on The History of the World in Six Glasses and according to them, people discovered beer by letting their grain gruel ferment in their caves. So I rather doubt I'd have anything to offer King Arthur if I ended up back in time.