Consider these two scenarios:

RANDOM PERSON:  I think I'm going to lose weight and get in shape.

FRIEND #1:  That's a good idea!  We could totally go to the gym together sometime!

FRIEND #2:  Good luck, I hope you stick to it!

FRIEND #3:  I'd like to do that, I just wish I had the time!

FRIEND #4:  Are you on the Atkin's diet or the South Beach diet?

FRIEND #5:  You don't need to lose weight, you look fine the way you are!

Now, there's me:

ME:  I think I'm going to lose weight and get in shape.

FRIEND #1:  OH NO!  It's cancer isn't it?  I told your mom that she shouldn't drink all that turpentine when she was that pregnant, but she wouldn't listen to me.  OMG it's cancer!  I just knew it!

FRIEND #2:  You should love yourself man!  Don't listen to what society says you have to look like!

FRIEND #3:  Why would you want to get in shape?  Doesn't that mean you'd live longer?  What do you have to live for anyway?

FRIEND #4:  Of course you need to lose weight, but if I were you, I'd worry about those awful clothes you wear!

FRIEND #5:  We'll be right over!  You need help!  YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!

These scenarios are purely hypothetical.  You can tell because they have proper spelling and punctuation.  Real internet doesn't work like that.

Anyway, I apparently give the wrong impression to people on the internet.  I've said I was giving it up in the past, and I have limited myself quite a bit.  I think this just reinforces that idea.

Anyway, the point is that in addition to all the other things I'm trying to do with my time, I want to become more active.  This is a touchy thing.  Obviously, I'm not going out jogging.  I walked a half block last week and my knee is still killing me from that.  My knee is like that - it doesn't allow many traditional forms of exercise or work.  I have some hope that maybe losing some weight will help, but the process of getting there is the problem.

Similarly, it's amazing how many things you use your knees for when you're doing something.  Even simply sitting in an office-style chair can be a challenge after a while.  Well, sitting in any chair.  You're like, "Hey!  It's a knee injury!  You can sit all day!"  My advice would be to stop using exclamation points.  But still, your observation is an obvious one.  I thought that way too.  Maybe I don't know how to sit or something.  Shrug.  The knee hurts and it limits what I do and how I do it.  The plan, therefore, is to work around it as much as I can.  If I can walk three feet at a time, then I walk three feet at a time.  You can eventually walk a mile, it just takes longer.

That would be an exaggeration.  I can walk farther than three feet on most days.  Yeah, there've been a few days when that was a challenge, but those days were right after the surgery itself.

 Now hopefully, I don't injure the knee further.  It's a price I'm willing to pay if I have to, but it's not something that will help in the long run.  Still, I suppose it's better to die trying than live like this.  Sitting here only means that those few abilities I have left atrophy that much quicker.

- Jim

In what I hope won't be the start of a trend, my Niece went to the hospital last night. She'd lost consciousness for some unexplained reason, but now she's fine.  The first fear, obviously, was that she was having a seizure.  That's not because she has a history of them, but because it's the most prevalent condition around here, it seems.  The hospital isn't sure, but they don't think that's the case.  For now, it's "not sure".  She's resting comfortably.

I've been working on reading.  It's going slower than I like, but it is going.  I started a... two month goal list, sort of like a mini-yearly to-do list, like I usually put out.  I'm behind, of course, but it helps to keep things moving steadily.  A year is an awful long time.  Part of the reason I'm behind is because I spent nearly a whole week cleaning over here, and I mean deep cleaning.  As I said, I moved furniture, I cleaned behind things, I moved things.  Me being me, and mostly my knee being my knee, an hour-long job was turned into a day-long job and I had several of those things.  Ah well.  I think I'm doing better because of it, though my knee has not yet forgiven me.

So, that's what's been going on around here.  It doesn't seem like much, but it keeps me busy.

- Jim

In an insane twist for me, I've continued to focus on physical work.  I haven't read much or watched much on television in a week.  That will change today.  The body needs a break and the knees are done.  I think they're on strike.  So, I will take the day off and try and catch up on some of the media that's piled up around me.


For instance, I just watched the Presidential Primary Debate from January 26th.  Sigh.  I'm waaaay behind.

Anyway, more soon.

- Jim

I got a sweet volunteer job on Facebook, listening to the Fire/EMS scanner frequencies and posting stuff that happens.  Sweet for about a week.  Though the job would be something I'd love to do, I couldn't do it without feeling guilty about all the other things I'm not getting done - potentially worthwhile causes.    I saw the writing on the wall almost immediately after starting, but I stuck with it until my Sister had her second seizure. 

It's all about priorities.

No, I'm not blaming her for it.  Indeed, my contribution to any effort expended in her care that day was negligible.  She was in an entirely different city.  I just recieved and provided updates to anyone who needed them.  But it got me to thinking about other issues.

No, this isn't a new project.  This is a project I should have been working more on.  I will never be really mobile, or at least until they develop truly robotic knees.  In the meantime, I can improve what I can, and work on what I have.  It's hard work.  To be blunt, pain sucks, and I've avoided it when I can.  Still, I did my best.  I had a disastrous walk that I won't try again.  Short version, I walk uh... weird, because of my knee.  By the end of a very short walk, my back was hurting, my hip was hurting, my knee was hurting, and I was gasping because of the pain.  And, of course, I'm out of shape.  Pain first though. 

So, I've spent the past week on several in- or near-house cleaning projects.  I have to say I'm pretty proud of the effort, though it's pathetic compared to what I used to be able to do.  But, I've ignored those chores for too long as it is, so it was good to kill two birds with one stone.  The whole thing is nearly done though.  That's pretty cool.

Oh yeah, I even got my air conditioner in early.  75ºF in Wisconsin, in March!  That translates to about 90º in the computer room though.  Not good for me, but really not good for the computers. 

Anyway, that's about it for now.  Time to get back to work.

- Jim

My Sister was at college yesterday and had her second major, but this time public, seizure.  She's fine now, though she scared an entirely new group of people.  Although they took her to the ER in the ambulance, they also sent her home the same day.  She's tired though - these kinds of things tend to make a person extremely tired as the brain attempts to reconcile the inconstant data it recieved.

So, while the whole thing may be considered routine, it isn't.  And while it may be considered an emergency, it was, but less so than it seemed.  Luckily, my niece was there with her at the time and although she doesn't think so, she handled the situation very well.

- Jim

My Sister came to live here for about a week as her housing issues became more drama-filled.  The supplies, clothing, children, and everything else has been trickling in for a couple weeks.  After the usual drama associated with my family, she and her kids moved out last night.  It will make for less drama and distraction, but I do miss the kids.  Yeah, they're a handful at times, but they're still pretty cool.

She brought along her dogs as well and while I like them in general, they were usually more than a handful.  One of the week-old puppies died on Saturday morning.  It was likely that it was inevitable, but it was a sad process.  Truly, I'm not being heartless when I say that I'm glad it's over.  The poor puppy clearly suffered for too long.  Poor girl.

I'm not missing the dogs so much now.  My allergies are going haywire, I think.  I wake up with a headache, sleep with a headache, and generally pop allergy pills on a regular basis.  I wouldn't mind them if they worked, but about the only thing they seem to help with is making me too tired to do much and too sleepless to fix the tired problem.  I'm thinking about trying the allergy shots, but I don't know enough about them to make a judgement.  It's something new and I tend to believe in the devil I know rather than the possibilities I don't.

I've been up nights lately, getting what I can done.  It's quiet now and the distractions are less numerous.  It limits what I can do to some extent, but since most of what I do is pretty quiet anyway, I find I can keep busy.

Anyway, until the next post,

- Jim

This probably isn't public blog-material, but this is just special enough that I had to share.  My Sister is staying with us for a while with her children.  Those children hung out with me in my computer room/office thing while I worked and read and drew pictures.  Seriously - no television, no movies, a little music, and a couple YouTube videos.  I'm especially proud of the reading. 

Children today, well, people today - including these people, don't read enough, in my opinion.  Heck, I don't read enough, in my opinion.  Sounds mean to say, but that's just the way it is.  I got told today that someone should only read things he or she knows about already.   That means no astronomy if you don't know astronomy, no history if you don't know history, etc.  Sure, it was a kid saying it, but it was still said.  Sigh...

- Jim

Wait, they're remaking Total Recall?  Dammit!  I liked that movie!

- Jim

Do you want to know how to triple the amount of visits to your Blog?  Just title a post "Facebook".  Yeah, I don't understand it either.

I'm not going to dwell on it too much longer, but I just wanted to point out that I'm not giving up Facebook, I'm just redesignating what I use it for.  Facebook will simply be less, period.  Less about me, less about my interests, less about my time.  In some ways it's like the street vendor scenario I described earlier, and in others it's like a library where the librarian develops new experiments in book sorting.  Sure, there are gems there, but they are so hard to find that more work is needed to gain smaller and smaller returns.

And yes, I already block all messages about games and applications.  Otherwise the mess would be far worse.

I do have a Google+ account, but I really don't see that going anywhere at the moment.  There is just so little activity and so few people combined with so little to do that it just isn't worth my time.  I check it once a week to make sure nothing has changed, but since everyone in my circles is already on Facebook, there just isn't any new material.  Or any material at all for that matter. 


I'm not interested in internet fighting anymore, but I dislike the fact that people interpret my silence as a point for their argument.  To be honest, I just don't care.  The old saying about an internet argument holds true - even if you somehow "win", you lose, and winning is impossible.

Nah, I'm currently content with this flow of events. 

- Jim

Facebook

I have essentially completed my disengagement from Facebook.  It's not through any drama, though there was some, that I made this decision, it is merely an extension of how uncomfortable I am with the way Facebook presents it's data.

Imagine a party where people rarely talk to each other, but nearly everyone screams as loud as they can in order to get people to listen to them.  I dislike the street hawking, if that can even be considered an applicable reference.  I prefer the old Myspace page where you had to go to a friend's (or someone else's) page in order to find out something they may have shared.  There were things you could keep private, there were things you could show everyone, and life was generally... quieter.

The problem with MySpace was that people could modify how their pages look.  It sounds like a good idea until you realize that everyone had an annoying song, everyone had cheap flashy graphics, half the pages were impossible to read, half took too long to load. 

Now, in their defense, Facebook has taken steps to try to reduce the noise level on the streets.  The problem is that blocking voices yourself is too absolute and the algorithms that Facebook uses to sort what it thinks you want to see and block what it thinks you don't are too... well, they don't work.  They're not me.  I'm not sure if it's just not random for as wrong as it gets.

Then there's the whole part about screaming on the street corner.  Eventually you get to a point where you want to keep score.  More friends, more connections, more responses, more interaction.  Deep down, I don't really care, and yet, it's a thrill to find someone liked something I wrote or responded in a positive way to a thought I shared.  I'm not immune to the screaming for attention, I just feel bad about it afterwards.

Anyway, Facebook is a good way to keep up with the people who I want to keep up with.  It's opened my eyes about friends who apparently have no desire to associate with me in public, even a digital public.  It has its uses, so I won't entirely give it up, but I will concentrate more on the blog - where people can go to read what I share at their leisure.  Or not.  Readers can share their thoughts on a topic with me, but the process doesn't cater to people who just want to pick fights online.  Yeah, I can respond if I wish, but they don't score points with anyone else.

There will possibly be some shorter posts where I share things that interest me throughout the day, but they will be less prevalent than they were on Facebook.  It's more work, which means less inane posts and more posts about things that matter more, to me, of course.

- Jim

Ah, I got the last book I ordered in the mail today - Tolkien and the Great War:  The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth.  Note:  I'm not recommending these books I list here - aside from The Sign of the Beaver, I haven't read these books yet.  The subject matter interests me, but I've heard praise and criticism on all of them.  Until I read them, I reserve judgement.

That reading list is quite long, so don't expect these finished soon.  But, I figure if I can find these books at a decent price, I might as well buy them. 

- Jim

Another short post, many of the nephews and nieces are over, and the things I do are pretty limited.  Well, that's not quite accurate, but they're not the things I'd originally planned to do.  We got to watch Band of Brothers on Thursday, so I can't really complain.

Anyway, I ordered a couple books and a cheap set of computer speakers.  The computer speakers were REALLY cheap and I ended up having to order the books so that I could get free shipping.  I've mentioned before that free shipping is probably a scam to get me to order more, but it's like a prize, and I must win it.

Heh.

Anyway, I got Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, which was a favorite book of mine back in elementary school.  I have this vague notion that someday, with the right combination of books in my personal library, I can turn these kids into readers.  When I fail that, I will at least have some books that are pretty easy to read in a couple hours or so.  I also got The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.  Despite the fact that I read all the time, it bothers me that I've read so little of anything remotely considered classic.  I didn't realize it was so short though.  Wow.

Anyway, that's about it.  Unless you wanted to hear about my knee.  Hello?  Hello?  I thought so.

- Jim

You know that deep down I love my family... right?  Well, uh... we're going to have some company over here for a while.  Blah blah blah story blah blah blah excuses blah blah blah kids over here.  I don't mind too much, I really do love them.  But, there will be less work getting done.  There will be less time for deadlines and things like that.  I imagine that the drama I try not to write about will be increased.

Supposedly it'll be short term.  I'm not disagreeing with that in theory, but reality doesn't often work the way we plan it.

Just a heads up.

- Jim

One of my guilty pleasures is watching Ancient Aliens on the History (now H2) channel.  While I accept some small details in the premise of the show, I consider it to be mostly trash and regularly shout at the television while it's on.  Still, they focus a lot of Egyptian and Mayan culture and monuments.  So much of the current shows on television focus on the Mayan Doomsday Prophesies, and this show is no exception.  That's unfortunate, because while I think that premise is hogwash as well, I like the focus on the Mayans period.

I don't know if that made sense.  It's late at night and I'm dying from allergies and loopy from allergy pills.  They don't seem to be helping though.

Despite a large (too large, I say) focus on the Mayan Doomsday crap, I like the tidbits you actually see on the history channel that have real historical relevance and accuracy.  What can I say?  I'm easily amused.

On a sadder note, today would have been my Mother's sixty-ninth birthday.  Though recent events have pushed that somewhat to the background, her loss is still felt every single day.  We cope.  We live on.  But we do so with heavier hearts and into a world that seems more dark. 

- Jim

I'm in the process of reducing my social media exposure, not because I fear big brother or anything like that, but because I spend so much time on it.  Is the time wasted?  That's hard to say.  You could spend an evening at a friend's house talking and not doing anything more than watching a movie or playing cards, but the time wouldn't necessarily count as wasted.  In that sense, no, my time isn't really wasted online, but at the same time, my hands twitch because there's so much waiting to be done.

The process is imperfect and won't really affect this blog, but it does exist.  I'll probably spend more time using Twitter, since those feeds go here and to my Facebook page. 

It was always inevitable, I suppose, that I'm going to be unable to finish everything I wanted by the end of the arbitrary February deadline.  Health issues, social issues, family issues, as well as my own procrastination played a part.  In the end however, I was probably just too optimistic about what I could achieve.  Aside from a few days when I couldn't, I've worked a lot more than I did in the previous months at the end of last year.  But, it wasn't enough to make a difference.  Staying up late to try and keep up is catching up to me more than is allowing me to catch up.  I can stay awake for a long time, but there is a definite period when I lose the ability to do anything constructive. 

Oh yeah, I did want to mention that I finally entered the 20th century and bought a water filter for the kitchen sink.  I can now drink filtered water!  The real reason, of course, is that we have very hard water in this region and because I use a humidifier constantly, the house is covered in a fine film of lime dust that I am apparently powerless to keep ahead of.  Unfortunately, the dust is permeating even closed areas like CD and DVD cases as well as books.  I did it as much to protect media as I did to protect my health.

So, that's life around here.  G'luck, I'm off to finish another magazine.  Just uh... 31 to go after this!

- Jim

So, I posted a few pictures of me with my church group.  It's funny, because I usually had a good time there.  It took a long time for me to realize that I never belonged there, I never fit in there, and was never accepted there. 

No, I will still look at those times as good and important.  But I'm no longer going to look at them as things they weren't.  Better I accept the truth than delude myself about them.

Ah well, I chalk it up as another learning experience.

- Jim

Well, the news isn't as bad as it could be, but it's well... no news.  There are some troubling signs, there are some odd discrepancies, but in the end the only thing that can be said is that the results of the tests for my Sister were inconclusive.  Mostly.

They have mostly confirmed that she's had plenty of lesser seizures over the past days and months.  That's not good.  They also deem it likely that stress increases these events.  It's not something readily controlled and she's not so good at controlling her reactions either.

Anyway, the good news is that there's no news.  The bad news is that there's no news.

- Jim

May 1990 - With the Church Youth Group.

- Jim

I'm not writing in this blog as much lately.  It's not that I'm not doing anything, it's that compared to the previous stuff posted here, the stuff I do just isn't as important.  I write, a little.  I read, quite a lot.  I watch, here and there.  But, I'll be honest, these are small things.  My interests are big to me, but they pale compared to questions about life and death, about the health of family and friends, and about the possibility of... well, things I am frightened to put into words.  Words are powerful to me, and there is a feeling that to put these thoughts into printed word - even so ephemeral as the printed word of cyberspace, might be to give them more potency.

It's silly I know.  I'm silly sometimes.

My Sister finally had more tests done after they rescheduled.  She is supposed to find out about them tomorrow (Wednesday in the world).  She is handling it far better than I would, I think, but it is still quite stressful to her.  Compared to that, really none of the inane subjects I could write about really measure up.  She is more important than a news magazine I read or a show I watched. 

That being said, I did want to mention I watched part of the first episode of Comic Book Men, which details life in the comic shop of Kevin Smith, the director and actor.  I was pretty excited, since I like many of his movies, though I've not seen any outside of his View Askewnverse.  Too bad it was a reality show.  Sorry, I'm just not into Pawn Stars or any of its descendants.  I have recorded a couple episodes of Doomsday Preppers, but I'm not hopeful.

Anyway, I hope to be able to post more information about my Sister soon, but so far there isn't anything to write about there.

- Jim

This isn't much of an update, I've been spending most of my time reading, with a few movies and shows thrown in to keep the DVR from exploding.  However, that's not why I'm posting.

Since the episode with my Sister, there have been no further episodes like it.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that there have been several episodes where she's gotten dizzy spells, including a couple where she experienced odd smells and feelings.  She is probably being too dramatic, but under the circumstances, it's hard to see how she might avoid that.  She's probably not handling it too well, but I'm sure I would handle it much worse.

They cancelled her EEG because of an illness at the lab where it was supposed to take place.  She'll have another one in a week or so where she may find out more about what's going on.

Anyway, as I said, it's not much of an update, but I didn't want an absence of information to be construed as something more than it is.  Or isn't.

- Jim

I usually don't post things like this.  However, it concerns me that they seem to squelch any type of negative press about themselves.  I don't like that.  I'm not anti-business, heck I even vote Republican most of the time.  Still, it's places like these that give capitalism a bad name.

First, the news:

I found this on the web and I figured it'd be good press:

 
Now for the next article:

(Stolen from The Janesville Gazette without permission or their knowledge.  If pressed, I will quote fair-use on the whole thing)

http://gazettextra.com/news/2012/jan/28/stoughton-trailers-planning-hire-125-workers/

Stoughton Trailers planning to hire 125 workers

By FRANK SCHULTZ ( Contact ) Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012 

 

JANESVILLE — Stoughton Trailers says it plans to hire about 125 production workers in coming months. The hires will be spread among the company’s three plants in Brodhead, Evansville and Stoughton, a spokesman said.

The company is looking mostly for assembly workers but it also needs welders and industrial painters, said company spokesman Keith Wise.

Workers from the Evansville plant who had been working in Brodhead and Stoughton are expected to return to Evansville in about three weeks, said company President Bob Wahlin.

The increase would bring the company’s total employment to about 925 by June, officials said. That’s after adding about 300 workers in 2011.

Stoughton Trailers employment peaked at around 1,600 six years ago but dropped to 250 in 2009.

Stoughton’s main product is the dry van, which is the box-and-chassis combination that makes up those box-shaped semitrailers commonly seen on the highway, Wise said.

Wahlin was quoted as saying shipping has increased, “and a lot of trucking companies are preparing for better economic times.”

Wise said it’s impossible to tell whether the increase in orders might also be due to the fact that shippers who have been keeping their old trailers longer are now being forced to replace them.

Wise said Stoughton Trailers has been responding to more requests for prices recently.

“Historically, what this tells us, when people are buying, is that their freight is increasing,” he said, but more recently, that has not always been the case.

“It’s kind of a crazy industry—a lot of ups and downs,” Wise said.

Stoughton Trailers is generally classified as the fifth-largest producer in the country, Wise said.

Okay, here's my experience with the company.  I know people who have had better experiences, and I also know that I haven't had the worst experience.  

 

I started working with the company in 2000.  I actually liked it.  I worked second shift and though it was often a lot of overtime, it was pretty good.  I got transferred around as work needed.  When the company needed it, I cancelled planned time off and worked.  I was still learning, so I probably wasn't the best worker there, but I probably was one of the more enthusiastic.  Eventually, the market went south, the industry as a whole tanked, and I lost my job. 

I came back three years later.  Things didn't work out for the other plans I'd made in the meantime and I still had all those good memories from before.  I worked in different areas than I did before and the job took a darker turn.  During the next three years, I suffered broken bones, contusions, cuts requiring real medical attention, and finally a knee injury.  It was the first injury that put me on their shit list - they gave me all the worst jobs they could give in order to get me to leave.  It was the knee injury where they decided they would work to get rid of me. 

Long story short, in order to increase production, they cut safety.  I did what I was told and as a result of those production quotas, they moved the line before I got out of the way.  Blah blah blah.  First, they punished me for staying home when my knee swelled up double its usual size.  I eventually had surgery, which caused me to miss work.  I discovered that they pressured the doctor to return me to work since they would give me light duty.  That duty lasted less than four hours before they decided to put me back on the line.  When I protested, both the safety officer and the company nurse "cleared" me to work. 

Because of the limited recovery time and the nature of the injury itself, I was declared permanently partially disabled.  They kept me working because they had to, though they were annoyed they had to pay for the injury.  Then my Mom died, and despite having a bereavement policy, I was punished and ultimately fired for staying home on the day my Mom died.  Yup.  I don't regret being there for her and would do it again if I had to, but it's pretty pathetic they had to resort to that.

So, my advice to you, if you're going to work at Stoughton Trailers, do it for the least amount of time possible.  The job is hard, and their policies make it harder on the bodies of their workers.  They will work insane hours with forced overtime and then a week later, they will lay everyone off because they couldn't schedule work properly.  If by some chance, your body gives out, they will drop you, regardless of the sacrifices you made for the company.

Now, I want to be honest, I'm not on a crusade against this company.  I don't care about them one way or the other, not anymore.  However, when they use the news media to broadcast their hiring and then use the same media resources to squelch legitimate discussion about their work practices, I tend to get concerned.  The economy is bad, and many people who work there will go there because they've had little choice.  My advice then is to not trust them.  No matter what.  You will be a tool, to be discarded as a tool when necessary.

- Jim 

I have become buried in projects.  It happens from time to time and it stems from the logical argument that since I don't really have many demands of my time, I can afford to spend that spare time to do something meaningful in some way, shape, or form.  "Meaning" is variable here.  Even video games have meaning because they're defined in some way as being different than just wasting time.  Finishing the StarCraft missions has a defined end-goal as opposed to say, playing a few games of Galaga, which doesn't have a set end at all.  That's not to say that Galaga is wrong in some way, but that it holds less meaning. 

That's not how all of my justifications work, but it's a guide to some of them.  Some of my present projects are quite open ended, but their value lies in the nature of the intended result.  For example, I've been a news hound for many years, but reading everything in the whole world today would still mean that I'd have to read the news tomorrow because there's something new happening all the time.  Of course, there's no way to read everything - but I try to be balanced and knowledgeable.  Hence, the pile of unread magazines as a project.

On a similar vein, elections are coming up.  I have the time to be an informed voter, so I need to make sure my vote isn't wasted on the best sounding name.  That's a project right there.  I've been watching the Republican presidential primary debates, I've been reading online materials, and I've been watching local city council meetings and I've recorded a school board meeting.  It's a lot of work to stay informed.

I'm trying to learn to program - really program, though the idea hasn't gotten much past the hopeful stages.  I've gotten some books and other materials and am slowly slogging my way through them.

I've always been interested in History and Science, and those have clogged up my DVR for some time.  I also try to stay current on movies, so those also fill my DVR.  There's no way to watch them all, but I certainly try.  I mean, I have all this time, right?  There are shows I want to watch or catch up on, series I want to get into, and books I want to read as well.  In short, in trying to bring meaning to a life that is really meaningless, I've filled all the nooks and crannies and spare spaces.  It keeps me busy, but I'm not sure I'm accomplishing what I really set out to do.

Finally, last but not least in mind, I want to write.  I've written enough random pages, I want to tell stories.  Even if no one else reads them, and I'm realistic about my chances of that, I need to write these stories - for myself if no one else.  Still, writing a book is more complicated than I've ever considered.  I've fallen into the classic trap of wanting the books to be perfect.  It annoys me to no end to read science fiction that is dated, or read fantasy novels that aren't historically accurate, even if set in other times and worlds.  And yet, here I am.  I won't say that all the research I do is pointless, because I think it adds realism and depth to the stories I tell, but such research is never-ending.  Theoretically, I could live the rest of my life learning and never write anything, all in the name of being a perfectionist or completist.

I'm not complaining... well, not really anyway.  But I have concluded that I need to at least spend some time catching up.  I have a list of goals for this year and I need to work on those as best I can.  To that end, I've designated my time until the end of February to get certain things done or caught up.  It's not inclusive of everything I work on and it certainly isn't more than a fraction of the things I want to accomplish all year, but I think it will make the other things easier. 

I don't think I'll change any of the countdown clocks on the side of the blog.  I still need to update them for the new year.  But, I figured I'd post and tell everyone I'm up to.  At the moment, it's trying to clear my DVR and trying to catch up on all the magazines that I'm behind on.  That's not the entire list, but it's the biggest chunk, I think.

- Jim

This will be a short post, sorry.  There have been no further major events with my Sister and things seem to be heading back to a degree of normality.  Less obviously, there is some reason for concern, but there are no concrete diagnoses.  So, the good news is that nothing further has happened, but the bad news is that we don't really understand why it happened in the first place.  It may be a blessing however, if whatever they found turns out to be unconnected yet a concern nonetheless.  However, it is too early to say one way or another.

Life for the rest of us is also going back to normal as well - somewhat.  Again, we are watchful, and she doesn't spend much time alone.  She can't drive, which means we have to adjust there as well.  Apparently there is a law that once you have a seizure like this, you have to go 90 days without another one before they will let you drive again.  Ouch.

Anyway, here's hoping it's all over,

- Jim

I haven't written in a few days, mostly because there is nearly nothing to write.  Honestly, I haven't done anything for the last several days.  It's not that things don't need doing, it's that things just don't seem as important compared to recent events.  There's been no progress there either - while it's good there have been no further events, there also has been no progress in determining causes or effects.  Things are what they are, and we walk on eggshells waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I try, really I do.  I've watched a couple shows, I've read a few pages, I've written a couple notes.  My concentration is shattered by any noise, phone call, door slam, or random thought.  There's not much that can make someone forget that, I suppose.

Yeah, I'm obsessing.  Well, the wait may be over though - the doctor appointment is today.  Hopefully they've discovered something that can be fixed - Not that medicine has ever fixed anything ever, of course. 

- Jim

I don't even know where to start.  Though I've had time to consider events, my thoughts haven't exactly been productive on the matter.  Too many what-ifs remain and too many worst-case scenarios may have only been narrowly averted.  I suppose one always tends to look at the possible worst in these situations.  I can't imagine the thought.

It should come as no surprise that I have had trouble sleeping lately.  Between my knee, this weird reaction that never goes away, and the inevitable conflict between my night-owl ways and my desire to stay in contact with the regular daylight-shift world, my sleep patterns are irregular to say the least.  Compounding this issue is the fact that I really don't need a schedule.  I can come and go (or not) as I please.  I've no where to be and no when to be there by.

So, I laid down to try and sleep a bit on Saturday afternoon.  I had a headache, possibly from the changing weather, although I can get headaches from lack of sleep as well.  I couldn't sleep so I just lay in bed trying to pretend to when my older Sister screamed.  She screamed again, "Call 9-1-1!"  My Dad yelled back that the phone downstairs wasn't working.  I think in his panic, he didn't press some buttons or something.  It didn't matter.  I was out of bed and running downstairs with my phone.  My youngest Sister was slumped in her chair, head back and gurgling.

I did not acquit myself well here.  I was tired, not really coherent, panicking, under the influence of Tylenol PM, and shaky as all hell.  "Weneedanambulancetocometomyhouse.MySisterishavingsomesortofseizureorsomething!"  Those poor 9-1-1 operators.

It took a while to get my Sister out.  She came to in a few minutes, but she wasn't herself.  It was like she was a six-year old girl again.  She wanted people to leave her alone.  She fought.  She screamed.  The paramedics thought she was on drugs.

They screamed to the hospital as my Sister really started to come back, though the process would take several hours.  Once there, they did tests as my Dad and older Sister waited by her side while I informed family members and shared what little information we had.  She was the one in trouble, but I've never felt so helpless.

Now the waiting begins.  When they sent her home from the hospital that night, they didn't know what was wrong.  They gave her no medicine.  She had no prescriptions.  The scans were inconclusive, but they found a spot during an MRI on her brain.  They had no neurologist on hand to analyze it.  What does the spot mean?  Well, it could mean anything - or nothing.  It might cause a stroke, it might have been caused by a small one.  It could be cancer or worse.  Yeah, worse.  Or not.

When she was little, she used to be scared of the dark.  She'd always want to sleep in my bed, but being a brother, that was just too weird for me.  So, she'd wait until I was asleep and then sleep at the foot of my bed where I often, mostly accidentally, kicked her.  She figured it was still safer than being in her bed alone.  Yeah, she was an annoying little Sister, but it did kinda feel good that she looked up to me like that.  And now, there's nothing I can do to help.

So, that's what happened.  I haven't done much in the last two days except relive that.  I'm sure she has too.

- Jim

My youngest Sister was taken to the ER on Saturday by ambulance.  Though she was allowed to go home that night, they may have found something serious.  She has to go see a specialist in a few days.  Things got very weird for a while there.

But, for the moment she is fine and is resting relatively comfortably. 

- Jim

- Jim

Amazon.com shipping delays

When I was growing up, I had a group of friends.  (Amazing, isn't it?)  Anyway, being high school students and college students, we usually didn't have a lot of money.  During the holidays, we would make promises to each other not to buy each other gifts, or some years when we were feeling particularly saucy, would put spending limits on such gifts - $10.00 or so.

There was always one person that made the promise and bought everyone presents.  We would get mad, they would protest that we didn't have to buy THEM presents, but there was an obligation.  We would have to spend the money.

Well, I'm not friends with any of those people anymore.  Time and lives have diverged and blah blah blah.  I figured I was over that nonsense.  Though I have a little more money now, I pay bills and help out among family.  So, we make the same deal with family members.  And again, despite all the promises, there is one person that goes out and buys gifts anyway.  "You don't have to buy ME anything!"  Yeah right. 

So there I am, on December 23rd or whatever, shopping on Amazon.com for a present that I know will not get here in time.  I feel somewhat guilty about it, but if they'd followed the rules, it wouldn't have happened.  But, being Amazon.com, I figured they'd ship it sooner or later, even if I was cheap and chose the Super-Saver shipping.  Ah me and my silly beliefs!

It got here yesterday.  But that's not all. Yup, two weeks before they even shipped it out, much less delivery time.  I figured what the heck, it's the holidays, they're busy and swamped. But... I made another order on January 8th, because I needed some computer supplies.  Again, I chose Super-Saver shipping, and again... they just send me a note today saying they were shipping it.  Note - it hasn't left their warehouse, they just arranged for it to be shipped.  Add another day or so for the post office to pick it up.  That's 5 days before it left their warehouse. 

So the question is, are they slowing down because they're that much busier now, or are they slowing down because they want me to convert to their secret tax in the program Amazon Prime for $79 a year?  I've checked the news and can't find anything about it, but it does seem somewhat suspicious. Oh yeah, and that's not the complete order - they're still waiting for part of it.

I dunno.

- Jim

So what did the last post mean?  Well, over the past couple months, I've turned down more than one opportunity in more than one area.  On the surface, these opportunities might have been pretty good deals.  Unfortunately, the reality is that I would not have been able to make the best of any of them and worst is something that I can all too easily contemplate.  The problem is that in each of these opportunities, there would be a cost to failure and those costs would not have been borne entirely by me.

So, it seems clear that I need to move on.  Well, yeah.  And insane people need to be normal and homeless people need to get homes.  It's easier said than done.  I've noticed that people with the simplest solutions for other people's problems are often the ones with the most messed up lives themselves.  "Well, it's different for me, Jim.", is something I've heard far too many times.  If your advice is so easy for me to follow, then perhaps you should prove it by following it yourself.

But this isn't an attack on others either.  In my own glacially slow way, I am moving through these issues.  It's just a more complicated and painful process than I could have ever imagined.   I admit that I try to ignore it from time to time, but it's always there, below the surface, always bubbling up. 

- Jim

How do I end up making personal posts like this in public?  I don't know.  I would guess it stems from a desire to explain myself and the reasons for my actions.  I am aware of many of my faults.  Some, I have taken steps to alleviate or fix entirely.  Some are second nature to me and any attempt to ameliorate their effects would accomplish no more than to fool myself and others for a short while.

The truth of the matter is that my life did change in 2006.  More than I realized, more than I know now.  Those changes were sudden, profound, and sometimes mysterious - especially to me.  Not all of their effects manifested themselves at once, and not all of the beliefs that I could rise above these matters have proved realistic or even possible.  As I wrote to someone a couple days ago, I am a broken person. 

That sounds more dramatic than the reality is, but the effect is still the same.  2006, followed by 2007, was a tremendous year.  In 2005, I was baptized Lutheran in preparation for getting married to someone I loved.  By 2006, that dream was over and I was betrayed.  Blah blah blah.  My Brother died.  I injured my knee - permanently.  I lost my best friend.  I wandered and muddled through the year in such a haze that the full effects of the events that happened were lost to me. 

2007 was hardly better.  I continued to recover from my knee injury and the resulting surgery which may have been even worse for it.  My Mom died.  I lost my job.  My family fell apart and I went with it.  2007 was a dark time indeed and we're still paying the price for those days.  Again, I muddled through much of it, this time with pain medicine.  No, the need was real, but the effect was more far-reaching than just my knee.  In addition to the normal guilt I feel about things, I also regret that I didn't feel more than I did.  I did feel more than I knew, clouded by that medicine, but I lacked the ability to analyze and eventually deal with it.

Since then, I've wandered in my thoughts.  I am unable to move on.  I am unable to continue.  I am unable to go back and fix what I've done or didn't do.  Indeed, if somehow the impossible happened and I could go back in time and change those events, I'm not even sure many of the things I did were wrong.  They're just hard to live with.

This isn't really news.  To the long-time readers of this blog, all of this information was readily available until I took it down.  However dimly it may be though, I am aware of how who I've become affects some others and how it would affect even more still if circumstances were different.   As I said, I may not be able to rise above my faults, I am aware that I have them.  To impose them on others, however well-intentioned, would be to commit an even more grievous sin.

To some extent, I recognize that this post will fail.  A rejection, however it may be worded and however well it may be intended, is still a rejection.  Rejections hurt.  I wish I could avoid that, but I must merely choose the lesser of two evils.  I've tried to avoid reality at other times in my past, and the blow up that inevitably follows is even worse.

I'm sorry,

- Jim

The picture above doesn't do them justice, but I finally replaced the ten-sided tens GEM die that got stolen from me some ten years ago.  Ten seems to be a theme here.  Anyway, I got two clear ones and a red one, all ten-sided, tens dice.  Ahhh... I am such a nerd.

Anyway, if you're interested, that is the number to the place that fulfilled the order - Gamescience. 

- Jim

I'd like to bring your attention to a reference that may have been missed in the past.  This is an image from the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual of the skeletal structure of a runabout - a workhorse vehicle designed to use modules:

This, is the picture of the starship from Star Control II, a video game from back in the day.  It is described as a workhorse vehicle which is customizable by adding and rearranging... modules.  Interesting.

I figured you'd like that.  In my fantasy world, everyone is interested in the same things as I am.

- Jim

I hope this isn't the start of a trend, but another Aunt died on December 27th.  I would have posted sooner, but I had a pretty bad cold and wasn't on my computer enough.  I'm sorry about that.

For the record, I'm feeling better, though I'm still not over it.  It'll just take a couple days to get it all out of my system, I think.

New Year's Eve is coming up.  Everyone stay safe.

- Jim

I have to be honest, I haven't been the hard worker I'd like to be lately.  To tell you the truth, I'm still suffering from that reaction I had a while ago.  How long ago?  Some indications are that this thing started far earlier than I realized, making a real diagnosis difficult.  The trouble is that my body is largely taken for granted until it stops working or starts hurting.  I'm working on tracking the source of this, but I'm afraid I may be no closer to determining the cause or finding a cure than I was a few days ago.  I tried a treatment then, it's still being evaluated.  We'll see.


The end of the year is approaching and I have to say that though I wasted more time than I would have liked, and spent less time on the things I had planned, this year may have been my most productive yet.  Again, the outside world is often ignored by me.  Things outside my immediate interest remain outside my interests.  I acknowledge the loss; it's one of the reasons I spend the time to read my news magazines cover to cover.  I have no interest in the art world, for example, but it helps to broaden my perspective a bit.  I am imperfect, but I do my best to improve what I can.

Anyway, reality sets in every now and then and it's clear that I'm not going to finish everything or anything I wanted to by the end of the year.  That's normal.  There aren't any small projects for me.  I also can make any project much bigger than it needs to be by my very nature of being picky, though others call it OCD.  Maybe it is.  I like what I like.  The computer has to be just so, my work area needs to be just so, drawing area needs to be just so, reading area needs to be just so, blah blah blah ad nauseum.

The rest of the year will be spent on _sundry_.  All the little odds and ends of this or that project are the focus.  Too many piddly things are put on the back burner because they're waiting for this or that bit of attention.  I also plan on watching DVDs, movies, television series, magazines, and other things.  There will be a daily list, I'm sure, but I'm not working on anything larger than day to day stuff.

Next year's resolutions have been pared down.  Oh, they're still probably unattainable - I am who I am, but I will try harder to do my best all the time.  I'm still working on that list, but it will involve unread books, periodicals, movies, as well as branching into other areas of fitness and financial responsibility.  I have not been completely remiss, but I have been too remiss nonetheless in these areas.  Despite my best efforts, it appears that I may live for a while yet, and I need to prepare for that eventuality.  While nothing I do is really inherently dangerous, I suppose there's always that chance that one or more items on the list might kill me.  If it must be so, then it will be so.  I don't think I'd make a very good old man anyway.

No.  That's not anything more than it says right there.  I'm not secretly trying to kill myself.  I'm not publicly trying to kill myself.  The person who thinks they're solving a problem by getting me help is wasting their time.  They will be wasting my time and whatever professional's time that happens to be spent as well.  Having said that, there are many ways of killing yourself I suppose, and apathy is my means.  Or isn't.  I'm not done mourning, I'm not unbroken, but I need to finish living this life before this life is finished living.  I'm not a fan of wasting time and this has been a big waste of time in that area.

So, that's some of what I've been working on and what I plan to be working on in the near future.  Yes, I'm still working on writing.  Yes, I hope to have a book(s) done soon.  Done, of course, is a relative term - I will definitely need to spend some time rewriting.  Still, the story is closer than it's ever been before, and I'm happy about that.  I just need to finish it.

I may post before then, but if not, I wish everyone a Happy New Year.  Best of luck in 2012.

- Jim

Merry Christmas Eve!  I don't think I will be online tomorrow, so I just wanted to shout out to everyone that I hope they have a wonderful Christmas.  Be safe, drive careful, don't drink and drive. 

Take care!

- Jim

My Niece, Stephanie got married on Monday.  I feel quite old.  Haha.  Seriously, I'm happy for them.  I hope they have many wonderful years together.

I'd have posted sooner, but this allergic reaction is killing me.  I would rather have the old reaction of being sick than this.  Ah well.  I think I'm getting it cured, it will just take two weeks for it to take full effect.  Until then, I'm stuck with being insane.

- Jim

My Great Aunt died last Saturday.  Though other members of the family have seen her more recently, I haven't seen her in a couple years.  She was 97 years old.  She was possibly one of the nicest people you could have known and was a good friend to my Mom when both were alive. 

I suppose it was probably for the best since the years had increasingly gotten harder for her.  I just dislike the thought that it was for the best.  The world is a little darker because of the loss.

- Jim

There are a couple types of books you read in your life.  The books you read because you want to, and the books you read because you have to, or think you have to.  I put that last bit into the latter group because there's more pressure on you to read them than desire.  It's not that they're not good books - some of the best books I've read were because I had to.  It's just that one type of reading is for fun and the other type of reading is more work.

Case in point - the first time I read The Fellowship of the Ring, was because my best friend at the time was reading it.  I stopped reading during the Council of Elrond for an entire month because it seemed a lot like work.  After I got through the series though, and coincidentally started playing a role-playing game more or less based on the books, I not only liked the book, but I counted that chapter as among the best.

So it is with movies.  I watch movies on my own that I like or that interest me.  I watch many more because I think I should, either to catch references or because others have talked about them.  Even though they are hardly building trailers or even working at a pizza place, I consider these movies work, because I have to watch them.  Can you become OCD about media?  I don't know.  These things certainly become somewhat destructive at times.

Anyway, I had an unfortunate accident where my DVR deleted a Republican presidential primary debate because it was too full, so I have been attacking that DVR with a vengeance for the last several days.  Of course, as space becomes available, I've been recording more things.  If this was a show on A&E, I'd be some kind of digital hoarder, possibly tying into my theory of OCD.  Ah well, it's a theory I can't prove or test and such speculation is pointless.  I'll do it anyway because I'm like that though.

In any case, I also got my Blu-ray player.  I have some research things to spend time on as well as all of the movies that have piled up in the past years.  Oh yeah, the other part about calling it work - I normally don't sit and watch television for very long.  Unless there is some kind of constraint, either time or other people sitting there threatening me, I will take four or more hours to watch a two hour movie.  As a matter of fact, I've paused Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows right now.  Although, I think I had a pretty good reason.

So, anyway, for a while now, the plan has been to work as hard as I can until the end of the year trying to get done what I can get done and push the rest back another year.  Things I cannot possibly finish before then have taken a backseat to things I might finish.  For me anyway, measurable progress is more motivating than long hours.  Writing is being worked on, but at a far lesser pace than might otherwise be.

- Jim

I think I've said this a thousand times, but with all the time in the world, you'd think I'd find the time to post here more often.  You would, of course, be wrong.  Silly rabbit.

I have all sorts of projects going around.  Some are important, some are much less so.  If one could be a hoarder of such things, then I could possibly have my own television show.  I'd have to find someone to cry though.  Reality shows have lots of crying.  Anyway, one of the things I'm working on is putting all the stuff I had to remove from my last computer because of space issues, back on to my computer.  No, I don't have a space issue yet, but it is inevitable.  If you thought my regular to-do list was long, the stuff banging around inside my computer is far worse.  There's games, books, documents, movies, television shows, documentaries, writing, and so on.  Even without an internet connect, with no way to leave, and no contact with the outside world, I estimate it would take me ten years at least to get through it all.  So... yeah, not going to happen.

But I try.  So here I am.  I've already transferred almost a hundred DVDs and a few CDs worth of stuff.  Some of this stuff is pretty old.  I figure I probably have a hundred more or so, but taking the time to count would just be more time.  I try not to sit here while the stuff is transferring and do nothing, but it means that I don't get much done in whatever else I'm working on either.  A DVD is five minutes at best of transfer time, which means I get just a couple minutes of work done before I have to take a break.  "Work" being a very loose term indeed.

The end of the year is coming up.  It's an arbitrary deadline, but it's a deadline nonetheless.  Reality is setting in about what I can and cannot accomplish.  It's not pretty.  Still, I hope that what I do before the end of the year helps to avoid the several months that typically happens at the beginning of new years where I catch up with all the stuff I was working on before I can work on this year's stuff.  In a way, that's a lost cause.  Everything I've failed to finish goes onto the next year - I rarely really give up on something entirely. 

The writing is progressing.  I'm not going to publish word counts any more because they're just not a metric worth measuring.  I can scam the system and just write crap if I really want to, and to be honest, even stuff that seems worthwhile today, typically isn't tomorrow.  I've thrown out a lot of ideas over the years.  The books are moving forward, but slowly.  Even when I work hard, the work is hardly moving.  Or that's the way it sometimes seems.

Anyway, the disc is done, so I've got to get going for the next one.  G'luck,

- Jim

When things are going well, I have remarkably little to talk about.  When things are going badly, I'm afraid to post the excuses.

Generally speaking, things are going well.  My wrist has not resolved itself.  It'll get better and then I will hyperextend it doing something while not thinking and then it will be hurt again for a few days.  I'm left-handed, it's my left wrist.  It cuts down on a lot of the things that I normally do when I have to wear the brace.  Can't write, can barely type, can't play most video games, it's annoying to have to try and read, can't clean, can't sort, can't do much of anything.  Even watching movies is annoying because with the left-handed thing, I can't hold a glass in my hand to drink from.  Normally, not a problem, but it can be when I'm into a movie and while not thinking, reach over to get a glass.  My fingers are about a half-inch too short to stop myself from knocking over a glass before I can feel it.  Sigh.

On the other days, things are getting done.  Sure, it's never as much as I'd like and never as much as is needed, but things get done.  The new computer is nearly as useful as the old one while being much, much faster.  I've moved most of the files I have saved on various drives, CDs, and DVDs.  That's not particularly hard, but it is time consuming.  Oh yeah, and impossible when I'm wearing the brace.  My computer naturally, is on my left side. 

Writing is going well, when I can do it.  Some days are better than others with the wrist.  You can plan for years and years, but when pen meets the proverbial paper, a million things pop up that must be reconsidered.  I've resolved to deal with these things later, but it's hard.  I don't want to make mistakes, but my inexperience virtually guarantees it.  Could I work around these mistakes later?  Yeah, probably, but I'd rather not.  The whole experience of being a GM for MERP works against me here and it's probably more relevant than I care to admit.  Playing with a bunch of fanboys is the same as writing for a bunch of fanboys and we fanboys know when there are mistakes.  Most are even worse than me with stuff like this, but I hate to retcon or to change what has already happened.

The other thing that hurts/helps is that I'm working on so many projects at once.  True, it keeps me busy when I can't work on one or foresight fails me, but it also means that every pound of effort is divided by ten or twenty different projects.  The numbers always look smaller that way.

But, as I said, I'm getting there.  It's been a longer road than I care to admit, and I probably won't reach my goal of finishing by the end of the year, but high hopes for next year.

- Jim

Okay, this post will fill you in on some of the crazy things I've been working on and why I'm too stuck up to post often.  First and foremost, I'm still having trouble with my wrist.  I don't think I give it enough time to heal.  It starts to feel better, so I take off the brace.  Lately, I've been moving things - not big things, not far distances, but it's enough.  I'll get to that more later, but suffice to say that my wrist now hurts more than my knee from doing these things.  I've been taking it easy for the last couple days and trying to wear the brace more.  Unfortunately, this new keyboard is even worse than the old one when I have the brace on.  So, that means less typing period.

The main thing I've been working on is setting up this new computer and getting the old one working.  The equipment was set up and working in a day, but it took two days to figure out the best way to fit them all in the cramped space I have available.  Even so, it's not an optimal solution, but it's probably the best I'm going to get for a while.  Meanwhile, there's the printer to worry about, cables to worry about, peripherals to worry about.  Getting them working is easy.  Fishing the cables through is the difficult part.

I've also been sorting papers, cleaning around, and organizing.  I spent three hours the other night shredding old receipts and paperwork that I let build up.  I'm a pack-rat, so that three hours was probably far less than needed.  I also organized magazines, books, and DVDs as well.  I even pulled MERP stuff out and made some attempt at organizing it before I packed it away.  It was necessary and no, I didn't do any work on the game itself, but there you go.  It brought back memories though and I wish I had time and means to play.  Sigh.

Finally, I've been reading.  By my count, I have just over 46 days and 3 hours before the end of the year.  That deadline is never a hard one - it's as random and meaningless as the daily deadlines I keep for things.  Still, there were things I wanted to accomplish that aren't going to happen.  So I've been trying extra hard to get reading done and some of these shows watched that I wanted to see.  I will never be truly caught up in this regard.  Just yesterday, I think I added two books to my "Someday" list.  I have about forty index cards with books on them, just waiting for me to run out of other things to do.  Amazon.com must love me.

During the computer outage, there was a plan to get much of this work done.  After the initial shock and depression, I think I made a pretty good start on it.  Since I got the new computer, I've slowed these things way down.  Some of what I did was necessary, and some was just simply playing Heroes of Might and Magic II on a brand new computer.  I probably overdo that game stuff, but it helps me handle stress.

So that's that.  I'm currently reading November's Discover magazine that I got about a week ago.  I'm also reading David Eddings, The Rivan Codex.  I'm in the midst of watching several movies, a bunch of Republican primary presidential debates, and a biography of J.K. Rowling.  I'm working on watching old Beavis and Butthead episodes as well, since I've missed so many when they were on during the 90's.  I'll try and keep everyone updated as things get accomplished.

- Jim

I've been busy, sorta.  The computers are pretty much set up the way I want them, though there are dozens of cords of every type crisscrossing my computer room.  I have yet to dig the power cord out for my printer though, but though it isn't really hard work, all this hard work is killing my knee.  And my wrist.  I probably should have gone to see a doctor about the wrist, but given my recent history, I can't really justify going to see a doctor that can't do anything about anything.  I realize that doctors can't fix everything, but my personal doctor seems more useless than most.

My Aunt went into the hospital early this week for a "heart event".  It's essentially a heart attack, but it's not as bad as it could be.  I don't know if they're trying to make her feel better about it or if there really are different flavors of heart attacks.  Anyway, she's back home resting now and my Dad is going up to see her tomorrow. 

Writing is continuing, but slowly.  I'm pretty used to the keyboard now, but the whole wrist thing is annoying.  The good news is that this keyboard seems even lower impact than the other one.  I'm trying to take it easy and hopefully when I get back to typing, it will really be over.

And that's about it in my life.  Will post more soon,

- Jim

I'm not really stuck on the show, but I notice that a lot of people reach this blog looking for information about Game of Thrones being back on HBO OnDemand.  Well, if you have HBO OnDemand, you probably have access to HBOGO.com.  Go there and you can watch all the episodes of all the seasons of all the shows from HBO.  I dunno how much time I'll have to check it out, but it seems pretty cool.

- Jim

This will sound like I'm complaining, but it's just an observation - now that I have both computers running, I find that they are not equal and that one is not necessarily better than the other.  The new one is faster, but the old one runs more programs that I've come to depend on. 

Anyway, both systems are running, though there are some things I have to do yet for both computers.  I'm not sure how they will both run or the setup I will use, but I think I may go back to using the older one full time and the newer one for certain applications.  Again, I'm not sure yet, but that's where I'm leaning.  I fear change, but there are also practical reasons.                                               

The good news is that with four cores, the new computer is kicking some serious scientific posteriors in Seti@home. Wooo!  I'll fix the counter on this page shortly.

- Jim

Just a quick note for everyone - My return to regular online activities is imminent.  I hope.  New technology, repaired technology, and backups to hopefully ensure this won't ever happen again.

If you've found this blog because you're trying to figure out when Game of Thrones is back on OnDemand, then this is your lucky post.  It should be on OnDemand starting November 8th.  Apparently a lot of people are searching for this stuff, so this should help you out.

Kinda convenient it comes back online AFTER I get my new computer, but ah well.  I've kept myself busy most of the time.

 - Jim

I blew the power supply on my computer, so I will be without a reliable computer for some time.  Not sure exactly, but I have ordered an entire new computer to be delivered in less than a month.  There is a possibility that I can get parts for my current one before then.  We'll have to see.

The wrist is doing better, but writing is really slow by hand.  I haven't given up, but I haven't made much progress.  Luckily, I printed all of my notes and sundry before the computer crash.  Any work lost should be temporary, but I don't have any way to test the hard drives yet.

- Jim

The wrist is finally getting better.  I'm not going to push it too hard yet, but it has been out of the brace most of the day.  I haven't really quit, but I haven't really been writing for the past week because of it.  Hopefully soon I can get back on it.

- Jim

My wrist is still injured.  I don't think it's broken, but I suppose that it's a possibility.  Either way, I'm not writing much or posting much.  More updates when I can spend the time typing.

- Jim

So, I've been doing some thinking about things.  On one level, I'm trying to justify my time on this planet.  On another, I'm trying to spur myself into working harder.  More.  Same thing, either way.  For all my talk, I lost my job in 2007.  This will sound like a post I've made many times in the past.  Indeed, there are many ways in which this post is alike to those, but I'll continue.  I lost my job in 2007.  It was probably my fault, but I was dealing with a lot at the time.  I challenge other people to go through the same events and not suffer upheaval as a result.  Would everyone have lost their jobs?  Probably not, but given the economy, and the nature of my relationship with the job, it was inevitable.

It is what it is.

I spend a lot of time, "finding myself".  Some things come to me easily, and others take a lot of thought and contemplation.  They're not the same things for every person, and I find that I have to contemplate things that most other people take for granted.  There might be a reason for it, it might just be me, but either way, that's the way things are.  I spent a lot of time figuring that I had a plan and needed only to work toward that.  I even had backup plans that I regret I didn't take more seriously at the time.  Dream Job™ was... well, a dream.  It might have even been a good one, but it just wasn't meant to be.  One time, I might write off to bad luck or coincidence.  When it became obvious that I was going to stick with it regardless, they closed down, moved away, and changed their name.  Go figure.

But I still waited.  I had nothing better to do, or so I thought, and I didn't want to start something that I knew I couldn't/wouldn't finish because I was going to find a similar Dream Job™ any day.  Indeed, it wasn't until December 2009 that it became clear that other people thought the way I did - not entirely, but I wonder if that wasn't to light a fire under me.

I have no real deadlines at the moment.  Every deadline I work for is either self-imposed or amorphous.  I'm sure I am running against a clock or perhaps several of them, but they're none that I can see.  So, while that clock is running, it doesn't hold as much meaning to me.  There is another clock, less amorphous, that I know of, that could end all of my current status.  I think I have three more years though.  There's not a rush yet.

But, I've been down on myself for the time I've wasted and indeed, I have wasted time.  There is no doubt of that.  Sorta.  Learning to tie a shoe can be a waste of time to an outside observer, but it's pretty important to the person wearing the shoe.  Similarly, I had a lot of mental crap to deal with during those early years - life, death, love, injury, etc.  It was easier/harder when I was working because I could (mostly) suppress those thoughts.  It was also easier/harder when I was taking the pain medicine, for the same reasons.  It wasn't that I didn't have the thoughts, it was that I was able to digest the first pieces in much smaller bite-sized portions.  That bite-sizing was unsustainable, but I would argue that it was necessary.  Do I still deal with those thoughts?  Of course, but I think I'm done working through what I have to - the rest is just obsessing over failures.

The present situation didn't become clear for me until December 2009.  Up to that point, I didn't believe what others knew.  I didn't want to believe that I had fallen so far in ability.  Maybe it's permanent, it certainly seems like part of it is.  I have not accepted that it is all permanent, but I currently lack a true ability to change my status.  It's at the far end of inconvenient at the very least.

I won't say that I continued doing the same things I did before, because I didn't.  But there was still a lot of waiting, thinking, figuring, planning.  This whole writing thing was never much more than a dream if you will.  It was a pretty dream to be sure, but it was still just a dream.  Like the other stuff though, that time was probably just as necessary.  I could consider the reality of writing, without the pressure of doing so.  Or without as much pressure as possible, I still provided plenty of my own.

The reality is that as much as I've complained, less than two years have passed that I have seriously been able to contemplate writing full time.  The thought or dream was always there, but I never seriously considered all the ramifications of it - much like being an astronaut or a firefighter to a child.  Since that time, I've become much more aware of the efforts of others who have blazed the trail before me.  Things I had not considered before seem much less like magic and much more the product of the individual working to make it appear so.  I doubt that I will become completely satisfied with what I've accomplished in the time that I have had to accomplish it, but I'm certainly more understanding of the journey that took me to this point and the journey I still have yet to take.

- Jim

(note to self:  this message was cross-posted)

I haven't written in a while.  Shortly after my last post, I decided I would start keeping track of how much I was writing each day - actual writing, not including notes.  Of course, this number would have included things that were later cut or changed, but it would be a way to keep track of actual progress.

I made one tweet about a six hundred word day, pretty paltry I admit, and then I hurt my wrist.  I'm not sure how I did it, but it is bruised and sore.  It finally got bad enough after a couple days that I resorted to using a brace to keep it immobile.  Because of the injury and then later because of the brace, I didn't write much at all.  I got a couple pages of notes done, but I can't type with the brace on and one-handed typing is just too slow and frustrating for me.  I've come a long way from my early days of computing, I guess.

Anyway, I've been keeping up with reading instead.  Hopefully my time is still being used as usefully as possible.

- Jim

I got some minor (and major) supplies today.  In addition, I also picked up a book, Star Wars RPG from West End Games, Galaxy Guide 9:  Fragments From the Rim.  I don't have the camera any more, so you'll have to be content with this picture.  Still, very cool indeed!

- Jim

Well, I got the last two Zits treasuries yesterday.  I'd show pictures, but I'm having camera issues.  Sorry.  Anyway, that's the whole set.  And, I stayed up and finished reading the last one this morning.  Yeah, I really am that dedicated. 

I am still in the process of backing up files before moving them to the new external hard drive.  It's hard to believe how many DVD-Rs you need to back up 130 Gigs of stuff.  It'll be done soon.  Then it'll be back to working on REAL things.

Take care,
- Jim

So, I got my new external hard drive.  I plugged it in, powered it on... and windows popped up about how there were errors on the drive and that I needed to scan it to make sure it was still in one piece.  I did, and everything seemed to be okay, but now I find that I'm running another diagnostic just to make sure.  Too many hard drive failures over the years makes me nervous.

- Jim

I watched Game of Thrones again since it was OnDemand.  Actually, I watched it during the last week it was on OnDemand, finally ending in watching them all again on the last day it was on OnDemand.  What can I say?  I like my marathons.  I also like waiting to do these things at the last minute.  It's weird that I've now seen the series twice (and parts of it many more times) and still haven't read any of the books, but it's coming.

I'm still working on the prep for the books.  Because of the way that I write and the limitations I had on space and materials, notes and writing is scattered all over the place.  I don't mean all over a room or a house, but some are in digital form, some are in hard copy, some are written before others, and all have to be reconciled.  Whether I've gotten a lot done or not, I've been working on some of these ideas for close to two decades now.  It's a bigger task than I appreciated, but I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

There are a couple related projects I'm working on as well.  I won't go into too many details on the projects themselves, but one of them involved using a huge database that I would download onto my computer.  Blah blah blah secret stuff, it was large enough that I didn't have enough hard drive space.  Hopefully, that will be resolved shortly - I'm getting a new hard drive.  Should be here in a week or so.  I'll spend a couple days backing files up and moving things around and then I'll be able to use the database at will.

So, things are moving along, and they seem to be moving a lot quicker, though never quickly enough.  Speaking of which, I also ordered more Zits comic books as well, so I'll need to take some time out to finish those too.  Fun is work too, sometimes.

- Jim

This won't be much of an update.  I finished those comic books a long time ago, actually within a few hours of me posting those pictures, as I recall.  The printer works wonderfully and I'm acquainting myself with all the notes I've collected over the years for all of the books.  Writing hasn't yet begun in earnest, but it is picking up.  In the meantime, I'm also trying to catch up on all the reading I want to do. 

Actually, that wasn't my plan.  My knee is bothering me more than usual and I'm unable to work the hours I used to at my computer.  Ah well, I do the best I can.  Hopefully, I'll have something real to brag about by the end of the year.

- Jim

A Few Recent Projects

- Jim

Wow.  Look at all these posts I'm making now! 

I got a new printer!  This one is better than the other one, costing perhaps a fourth of the cost of the other one to print a page.  I'm not sure about the exact economics, so I was conservative there.  My actual estimate is actually about half of that, so it's a significant savings.  Since I write all the time - even when I'm not writing, this means I'll be able to manage those things I write better.

Mainly, that means I'll be able to sort through all my book notes.  I suspect, and hope, that it will make writing easier and quicker.  It also means that I expect to be a lot busier soon.

- Jim

This isn't the post that I intended to write.  Longtime readers may remember that about a year ago, October 2011, my Dad was mugged by a group of teens less than a block from our house.  Tonight, a group of teens mugged another person less than a block from our house again.  Same M.O., same place.

Of course people here are freaking out.  My Dad went to the casino tonight, most of the people who are here regularly are gone.  My Sister just made a tearful call to my other Sister, telling her to find my Dad and rush home.  The attack was an hour and a half ago. 

Everyone is fine, the police are randomly driving around since it took them forty minutes to get here in the first place.  Never a better time than after the fact to run around like chickens without heads.

- Jim

So I haven't posted here in a while.  I'm sorry for the people that regularly check the site.  I've noticed that a lot of such blogs aren't for relaying information or even for informational retrieval but merely a digital cry for attention.  I am not immune to this.  I tend to post more when people visit more.  I tend to write things in a way that require or incite a response instead of being merely one-way.

Yes, I know the site doesn't allow comments.  I made it that way.  Still, some have overcome the hurdles in order to send me messages and while often well meaning, they attempt to solve issues that have no resolution.  Sure, I might tell such a commenter, I can lose more weight if I run five miles a day, but the reality is that my knee would never take the strain and I would likely die in the attempt.  I would then lose lots of weight as decomposition kicked in. 

Yes.  I have a morbid quality about me.  No, that's not a cry for help either. 

Though there are days when activity slackens for whatever reason, the truth of the matter is that I'm busy.  The journal part of the blog has been taken private, and that is where I spend most of my bloggish time.  No, you cannot find that, it's as safely locked away as I can make anything that is digital. 

The rest of my time is spent reading, researching, and writing, though never as much as I'd like.  Life often gets in the way and when it does, sacrifices have to be made.  It's happened before and it will happen again, in big and small ways.  I think it's an OCD thing, but I'm not sure.  I've read a lot on the subject, but have never been diagnosed.  Regardless of my suspicions, I dislike self-diagnosis.  If I were me, confronting me, I would attack my lack of psychological diagnostic qualifications first.  Then I'd probably attack the last sentence right there.  Forgive me, I'm tired.

Anyway, I finished the Bathroom Reader from the last post a couple days ago.  I looked at the Moria book, but there's no rush for that and I want to try and catch up on other things first.  I promise that I will try to post more in the future.

- Jim

Well, I got my birthday present finally! I ordered it for myself a week ago, but had to wait until today to get it. I'll be busy(-er) for a while now.

- Jim

I know it doesn't seem like it now. I know it seems like the sun will never shine as bright, the sky will never look so blue, and 3-D movies will always look cheesy, but the world will get over Steve Jobs resigning. I'm saddened by it too. Before, there was a chance of non-Apple related news, now it wouldn't matter if China and North Korea nuked each other into the sea, there'd be nothing but Jobs-related stories as far as the eye can see.

Trust me. It will get better. Or worse. Or might stay the same.

- Jim

I come up with the weirdest ideas at night. This exercise should work no matter who you are or where you came from or what your interests were. Take a character from your childhood - by this I mean, someone that you pretended to be. If you're like me, it can be an RPG character, a video game character, a character in a story you wrote or told, a toy you played with, or a character you pretended to be when you played make believe, "Fairy Princess", or "He-Man", or the world famous wrestler "Slappy McWhines-Alot". If that last one was your name and you chose it yourself, I pity your childhood.

Talk to them. Yes, I said it. Pretend you're having a conversation with them. What would they say? What would you say? Would you regret knowing them or would you regret not hanging out in such a long time?

An interesting conversation, I think. I cut mine off before it went too far, but I think I'd like to try it again.

- Jim

I went crazy and ordered a MERP book online! Moria, from their Citadel series. Not a bad price either, though probably a bit more than I would have paid if Iron Crown Enterprises was still a viable company and still had the MERP license. Ah well.

I've been busy, though it often seems like I've not been accomplishing much. The more I do, the more I want to do. The reading list has grown exponentially and with that book order will grow even more. Ah well again.

- Jim