I don't write in this blog enough.  To tell you the truth, as amazing as it sounds, days when work gets done just aren't that exciting.  Work being a relative term, mind you.  Think of it less as work and more like a working Bucket List, I suppose.  I've always wanted to read, A Tale Of Two Cities, for example, so it goes on the list.  As the list lengthened beyond all hope of ever finishing, I've broken parts of it up, in order to keep things more manageable.  A Tale Of Two Cities is still on the list, but I probably won't read it for a year or more.

Anyway, I had the usual allergy episode, though it was lengthened.  It started earlier, and the sleepiness part of it came later, I think.  Seriously, for the last couple weeks, all I've done is sleep.  I'll be up for a couple hours, the headache (if not present already) comes a couple hours later, and I get sleepy from allergies or allergy meds or both.  It's a wonder I got anything done at all, and usually I didn't.

There were the usual family issues - injuries, illness, drama, etc.  It's not been boring around here. 

Anyway, among other ongoing projects, I've started reading, A Game Of Thrones.  If you remember, I got it around my birthday last year, which would make it sometime in August.  Yeah, I'm actually further behind than that with everything, but I figured that I needed to start it.  I'm in no rush though - I don't have the fifth book and the series isn't even all published (or written) yet.  I hate waiting.

Anyway, that's about it.  I'm outta here.

- Jim

Stalkers gotta stalk.

I used to think this guy might have had a reason for what he's doing.  Now I just think he does it for attention. 

- Jim

I have to brag for a minute.  The first million cobblestones for Seti@home took me a long time - more than five years, I think.  I now passed my third million mark.  WOOOO!

Heh.  Yeah, it's not a record for anyone but me, but I'm pretty happy about it.

- Jim

I know that statistically speaking, May is no worse than any other month for tragedies and sorrow.  I know that it is superstitious to think so.  And yet, May is not my friend.

My 4th grade Sunday School teacher died.  I know it sounds odd, but he was one of the two people that got me really into the whole church thing.  I'm sure he had his flaws, but if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be as religious as I am today.  Why he put up with helping me as much as he did speaks wonders for his patience and dedication.

I'm not saying I was a bad kid, but there is always room for improvement.  It's one thing to try and help your own kids, or the popular kids.  It's another thing to help the kids that most of the rest of the church look down upon. 

He's a good guy.  The world is poorer for his passing, but I'm sure Heaven is much richer for it.

- Jim

One look at my year-long to-do list would reveal a problem:  namely, that there isn't enough time in a year to get to everything on the list.  In addition, a year is a long time, and things invariably pop up that are unintended.  The recent book challenge was one of them.  Yeah, I had put writing on the list, but that kind of book was unanticipated. 

What I've done recently, is that I've cut the year up into segments of one to three months.  The deadlines are just as arbitrary as anything else I do, but it helps to show where I am, and makes the list look more manageable.  My success has been limited however, because well, there's still too much to do in such a short span of time.  Some of the issues have been overestimating what I could possibly do, personal drama, family drama, and outside events.  I'm not really going to go into details.  May, as one example, is a horribly bad month for me. 

Oh yeah, this is May.

That being said, it hasn't been just failure after failure.  I've gotten my reading and my DVR more under control.  While neither are perfectly managed, they are better so.  Life is about learning, and the simple fact is that I want to do too much all at once.  Sometimes it leads to overload. 

The thing is that I don't have many day to day tasks.  Reading the paper.  Hygiene.  Eating.  That's about it.  All of the other things I work on tend to be bigger, usually much bigger.  Laid out end to end, my DVR last week would have required more than seventy-four hours to get through all the stuff saved on it.  While some hours are worth more than others, I now have twenty percent free where I had three last week.

I will admit that watching television doesn't really pass as work, but it is often an effort that must be balanced against other demands of my time.  Writing is something that can go on forever - I know, I've seen it.  The task there is also to break it into more manageable segments without making it more work than it needs to be.  The simple truth is that I'm still learning how to write and learning how to make it all come together.  Being a dungeon master for an RPG game was good experience, but all the time in the world doesn't mean you get more done.  It means each story can be endlessly polished.  Forever.

I tend to babble.  Anyway, things seem to be happening more, even with the whole May thing going on.  Most of that stuff is over now, I hope.  The rest is just life.

- Jim

I didn't finish the story by my self-imposed deadline.  Part of that is simply the nature of the month of May.  This is the where the whole "Month From Hell" came from and there are a lot of periods where I go to darker places.  When I don't go there, I still remember them and mark the occasions.  Part of it is simply the nature of the beast.  It was an imperfect rushed job when I wrote it sixteen years ago, and rushing now isn't going to finish it.  I refuse to spend forever on this project, but I want to make sure I do it right.

Oh yeah.  May 16th.  I used to mark that day too.  I suppose I still do, in my own way, but with more bitterness and regret.  No, I don't regret the things I had to do, but I do regret that they had to happen.  I'm sure that won't matter to some, but I'm not living for the approval of others any more either.

- Jim

@FoxBroadcasting - HEY HEY!  There There!  Put Breaking In back on the air!  HEY HEY!  There There!  Put Breaking In back on the air!

- Jim

It's been three years today since my Uncle John died.  The date itself seems less important than the others because I was so sick at the time.  I grieved, but wasn't able to see him or even attend the funeral.

I think I may have mentioned before how much I dislike the month of May.

- Jim

May is never a good month.

Yesterday morning (Thursday), my Niece came home from work to find her dog being attacked by the pit bull from next door.  My Niece's dog was chained with a heavy logging chain while the other dog had the advantage.  Details are a bit sketchy, but the police weren't called until my Niece got there.

Her dog lived through the initial attack, though severely injured.  Despite heroic efforts by the vet, the dog passed away this morning.  The neighbor blames the chained up dog for being "aggressive".  Seriously.

On tomorrow (Saturday), it will mark six years since my Brother passed away at the age of 40.  I plan to mark the occasion as I usually do.

On the fifteenth, it will mark five years since my Mother passed away.

Yeah, this month sucks.

- Jim

The first rewrite is complete.  Yeah, that's not as big a thing as it could have been.  It was transferring a paper copy back to my computer.  Yeah, I could have saved time and cut and pasted the digital file I recovered and then fixed the formatting, but retyping it forced me to reacquaint myself with all of the material.  Not that it was entirely a good thing though. 

I hate it.

No.  I don't really.  I'm just sick of it at the moment.  Spend enough time on something and you get tired of it real fast, especially when it seems you're not making much headway.  I'm sure I was making progress, but there are further changes and fixes that need to be made. 

But, the first rewrite is complete. 

I'm taking the night off and then I'll start back to work on it tomorrow.

- Jim

Nearly sixteen years ago, I finished a short story for an online thing that I was into.  It was entirely my own creation and it was one of the many steps I took in deciding I wanted to write one day.  It was a um... unique story, and a genre that I thought dead.  Silly me.

I found a publishing company (the original one, mind you) that takes submissions for these things.  Though I finished the original story in just three days, I'm taking my time this time to get it done right.  I've already completed several steps in order to do it.  The originals were locked away on a 3.5" disk and I had to build a computer just to read it and copy it, for example.

Anyway, the writing was done sixteen years ago and I'm in the middle of the first major rewrite since then.  Then I'll rewrite it again.  And again probably. 

Trouble is, I'm broke.  I'll have money again in a couple weeks, so I figure that's as good a deadline as any.  I want the book done by then, and I want it mailed a couple days after that.  I'll allow that much time for the vagaries of time and space and the post office.  Unfortunately, I'm not in control of such things.  It doesn't mean that it'll get published, but I'm hoping so. 

That process will take much longer, I'm afraid.

- Jim

I've been sick for a couple days.  Nothing serious, just a cold, but I was achy, which was annoying.  Anyway, here's a link.  As usual, this article was stolen from The Beloit Daily News without permission or goodwill.  Attribution was left in, but that's more of a personal preference than necessary this time. 

Demand More of Legislators

Posted: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 4:00 pm

‘On Easter morning, 2011, the day began just like any other. I read the news and called my Dad to tell him about an accident I’d read about. I’m sorry to say that I’m horrible with names or I would have known, as I was telling him, that I was reading about the death of my cousin and her nineteen year old grandson.

While both were out delivering newspapers in Janesville, another driver was legally intoxicated by both alcohol and marijuana. He blew through a controlled intersection and into the van carrying my relatives. The grandson died nearly instantly and my cousin lived for several days, critically injured, in the hospital. In addition to the two, their dog had perished as well.

 

Severely injured, the driver at fault was taken to a hospital, from where he escaped. It was obvious he didn’t want to take responsibility for what he had done. He was caught and returned to the hospital and then sent to jail, awaiting trial. We’d lost family, but finally we thought that we would see justice.

Of the eleven counts the driver was charged with, nine were dropped in a plea agreement. The prosecutor is recommending no more than seven years incarceration for his taking of both lives. Seven years. There are people in prison for far less who will serve more time than him.

Look, I know the DUI laws in Wisconsin are a joke. This morning another man was arrested in Janesville for his fifth DUI. Fifth. How many lives were put at risk during the first four I wonder? It’s time we demand more from our legislators, prosecutors, and judicial system. Maybe we can’t bring back those we’ve lost, but perhaps we can prevent any further loss of life.

James A. Long

Beloit

 

- Jim

This story was stolen from the Janesville Gazette without permission.  Attribution has been left in place.  First, here's the link to the original:

http://gazettextra.com/news/2012/apr/19/janesville-man-pleads-guilty-homicide-charges/

Janesville man pleads guilty to homicide charges

By ANN MARIE AMES ( Contact )   Thursday, April 19, 2012

Photo by Bill Olmsted

Omar Tavizon Ramos, right, listens to his defense attorney Michael Murphy during Ramos' preliminary hearing. Tavizon Ramos is accused of killing Margaret Worden and her grandson Jeffery Bauer by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle.

JANESVILLE — A Janesville man accused of killing two people while driving drunk in 2011 has changed his plea to guilty as part of an agreement with the Rock County District Attorney’s Office.

In exchange, nine related counts will be dismissed but considered at sentencing.

Omar Tavizon Ramos, 22, of 2147 Mt. Zion Ave., Janesville, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Rock County Court to two counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. He is charged in the deaths of Jeffery S. Bauer, 19, and Bauer’s grandmother, Margaret Worden, 61. Both lived in Janesville.

His sentencing is scheduled for July 11.

As part of the plea agreement, the prosecution will argue for no more than seven years in prison, said Tavizon’s attorney, Michael Shannon Murphy.

Judge James Daley does not have to follow the recommended sentences, he reminded Tavizon in court Wednesday.

Tavizon on Wednesday carried a paperback novel and wore a silver chain with a silver crucifix over his orange jail jumpsuit.

Bauer died at 2:49 a.m. April 24, 2011, at the intersection of Center Avenue and Racine Street in Janesville. Worden died a few days later at Mercy Hospital and Trauma Center, Janesville.

The two had been delivering newspapers.

Tavizon and a passenger were injured in the crash. Tavizon told a nurse he had been drinking tequila in a bar, according to court documents.

He tested positive for consumption of alcohol and marijuana, according to court documents.

Tavizon was hospitalized after the crash but in early May walked away from University Hospital in Madison. He was captured two days later in Janesville.

Dismissed charges include two counts of homicide while driving with a blood-alcohol concentration higher than the legal limit, two counts of homicide by use of a vehicle while using a controlled substance, three counts of causing injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle and two counts of first-degree reckless injury.

Seven years.  Sure, the judge is talking tough and says he doesn't have to follow those guidelines, but really, how much is he gonna get?  How much will get shaved off for time served and good behavior?  If he does five, I'll be surprised.  Look at the smirk on the guy's face in the picture.  Carried a paperback novel into the courtroom.  He's not sorry, he's preoccupied. 

He won.

Oh sure, he's got to be locked away for a couple more years.  If he wants, he can get an education.  He'll have free medical care. 

I'm at a loss for words here, but I won't be for long.

- Jim

Life throws curveballs every now and then.  They're not easy, they're not fun, and they're usually not pleasant, but they must be dealt with in some shape or fashion.  I'm using more of my time and patience dealing with this set of curveballs than I'm used to though, so I've limited my online social interaction even more.  I nearly quit for a while there, but I'm sure it's unhealthy in its own way.

Still, since I don't want to bring all my troubles online, I will be limiting myself online even further.  Just some fan-based activities, and that will be about it.

I've gotten back into writing though, and I've managed to clear off a decent space with which to work.  It's a work in progress, but it's far better than what I had before.  I just need to keep it up.

- Jim

Save Breaking In:

- Jim

The basis for the things I do online is evolving.  There are a lot of times I seek to shout out to the internet something inane and meaningless, or even not so meaningless, and then I reconsider.  This blog is on the periphery of those recent changes, but it's not been immune.  I'm not immune to the changes either.  Some of what I might have previously posted on Facebook for example gets posted to my Twitter account, shown down on the lower right, simply because I sometimes still need to reach out.

It's silly, I know. 

I have always been into what I've been into, liked what I liked, and sometimes wanted other people to like what I liked as well.  I've always known that most people didn't share my interests, but it never really dawned on  me how inconsequential my updates were compared to the cacaphony found in social media today.  Too often we fail to listen because we are all shouting, trying to grab ever smaller shares of attention for ourselves.  I used to wonder why that "one guy" would always resort to pratfalls to get attention but failed to realize that the rest of us do the same things, just in different ways.

Maybe I'm just becoming more antisocial.

I'm not judging others, for the most part.  Some people have need of attention, but since I don't, or don't much, I'll leave those actions to them.  I can live without it for the most part.

I'll still be here, in this little space of the internet that I've marked off for myself.  I just won't be elsewhere as much.  I'm not giving up on those areas either, but it's time to limit them to what I've done here. 

- Jim

As most of you have heard, my show, Breaking In has been cancelled - again.  Supposedly Fox will show the unaired episodes eventually, but I'll believe it when I see it.  I'd nearly quit watching it after the second season began, so I suppose I helped contribute to its decline.  Still, I watched the shows, but only after I saved them on my DVR.  It was kinda like going to the dentist.  Ultimately, it was for the greater good, but I was pretty reluctant to experience it.

Sigh.

The last couple episodes of the second season made it all come back.  I'm sorry to see it go.

- Jim

I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Easter!  I hope you all have a great day.

- Jim

I think I had an advantage when I first watched Game of Thrones.  I hadn't read the books, so I wasn't as excited about it as I could have been.  I didn't watch the first season until it was over and about to be taken off OnDemand.  After watching the first episode of Season 2, I find I don't like to wait between episodes.  I may decide to skip watching the rest of Season 2 until it's all over.

Aside from that, there seems to be a lot of potential in Season 2, but the episode felt like the first episode of a series - tentative.  Ah well.

- Jim

My Niece was doing pretty well on her medicine and they seemed to control the seizures.  Unfortunately, because of the side effects, she had to change medicines and the seizures started up again.  In an effort to understand what's happening better, the doctors fitted her with a mobile EEG device.  In a medical setting, these things are useful to understand what happens after a seizure, unless you're lucky (or unlucky) enough to one right there.  The information gathered then, is indirectly useful.  They're looking for more useful information now.

Aside, from that, I've been doing what I've been doing.  Mostly reading, but I managed to get some writing in there, almost by accident.

High hopes,

- Jim

So, I posted that article last week.  One of the reasons I did was because it dovetailed with some things I've noticed over the past... month or so. 

A bit of background first, I suppose.  Blah blah life story blah blah, I don't notice things around me very often, and when I do, I tend to notice things rather than people.  Call me weird or whatever, but it's the way I am.  Even I am subject to that restriction - I don't notice me very often either.  Despite what others may sometimes believe, it's not because I hate myself or despise myself, it's just that unless there's something specifically wrong, I just don't care.  It took me years to figure out what my symptoms of allergies were because I just never questioned it, or that I assumed it was something else.  I never asked, no one bothered telling me, and that was that.

It's that way with other people as well.  When I played Magic: The Gathering back in the day, or even when I was playing poker, I was far more interested in my own cards than I was about other people playing.  While other people were reading me, I was eagerly awaiting my next card.  I had fun playing my own game even if other people often got in the way by taking all my money.  Dang people.

So, it probably comes as no surprise that the assumption that I have all the time in the world, combined with the fact that I'm curious about almost everything, meant that sooner or later, I would be inundated with projects that I often call work.  There was no reason to control the intake because, as I said, I have all the time in the world.  I would make deadlines to try and clear stuff out and I would fail miserably.  I'd respond by saying that I needed to work harder.  It was probably true, but it was also unrealistic.

So, recently, I've taken to cutting things out.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), I'm still interested in everything, but I've taken to prioritizing my projects in order to finish some and leave others for later... or never.  Internet debates have been cut, because they're nothing more than a waste of time.  As someone once said, even if you win a debate on the internet, you still lose.  I've cut the political stuff I've been watching, the shows I'm into, the movies I watch, and so on.  It's not perfect, because I won't give up on every political event since I do still want to be an informed voter.  I won't give up on movies entirely either, if nothing else, than to give me something to do during those times when the knee forces me to retreat to my recliner. 

Even posting on here has declined, as you probably have noticed.

It's not perfect - the piles of unread books here bother me more than things that are probably more important elsewhere, so they will still be attended to.  The interests that I have in the news and the research stuff I do for writing is still there.  There's years of things to keep me occupied here, but the piles are shorter.  I've even done some real writing in the past week.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to.  I'll try and post more often here, when I am able.

Good luck,

- Jim

Uh, first of all... there was another incident with my Niece.  She's fine now, but well... let me start over.  There were LOTS of incidents.  There is an entire spectrum of things that can happen in a seizure and while hers were less uh... intense than my Sister's, they were far more numerous.  I suppose the best that can be said is that she had one while she was operating in an official capacity and those in charge of such medical support there finally decided to take the matter more seriously. 

I'm being diplomatic and somewhat mysterious on purpose.  I don't know the whole story and while what I know had made me a bit angry, I don't know how upset I really should be or even who exactly I should be upset at.  The ways of neurology and neuroscience are strange and mysterious and it's often hard to get a complete handle on things, especially from a thousand miles away...  Or however far away it is.  It's a lot.

Still, she's getting more attention.  She seems to be in good hands now, and she's got family and friends to support her.  This is about the best possible scenario at the moment.  As far as a solution goes, they still don't know much.  High hopes.  High hopes.

For that reason, I have been spending more time online than usual.  It's the easiest way to get information on such things.  I've been spending the downtime debating various things in various venues with variable success.  I'm not made for such things.  Maybe I am, but after a while they just annoy me.  It's time to step back, take a break, and give up such nonsense.  I will still check for updates, of course, but I will be spending the downtime between updates doing more productive things.

- Jim

Two posts in one day!  First of all, I cut and paste these things in their entirety because while the internet may be eternal, the stuff in it certainly isn't.  Anyway, this article has been stolen from CNN and copied and pasted.  I've left attribution to both CNN and the author in place.  Aside from some minor formatting, this article has been unchanged.

 http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/opinion/fear-failure-kelsey/index.html

Is fear of failure holding you back? - CNN.com
By Robert Kelsey , Special to CNN

2012-03-23T10:50:22Z CNN.com
Is fear of failure holding you back?
Fear of failure can stop you reaching your potential, says Robert Kelsey. Editor's note: Robert Kelsey is the bestselling author of "What's Stopping You? Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can."

(CNN) -- Why was it that, while others in your class were happy to study law or go into finance, you wanted to be a popstar? Or maybe you were the rebel: an unruly and disruptive influence the teachers disliked. That said, you could have been the procrastinator -- somehow never getting started -- or the dreamy idler living in an invented parallel universe.


Their commonality? All are signs you are a High-FF: someone with a high fear of failure as I call them in "What's Stopping You?" my book on understanding, accepting and navigating the insecurities that drive career failure.
Fear of failure was first uncovered in the 1960s by psychologists such as John Atkinson. Working at Stanford University, Atkinson conducted a series of experiments on children -- setting them reward-based tasks in order to test their motivation.

He noticed they divided into two camps: those focused on winning the reward, who approached the task with what he called a "need for achievement," and those focused on their seemingly inevitable failure, who had what Atkinson termed a "fear of failure" based on their desire to avoid the public humiliation of failure. 

In one experiment the children played a game of hoop-the-peg, with greater rewards offered for greater distances.  The "need for achievement" kids stood a challenging but realistic distance from the peg -- adding concentration if they failed. Those with fear of failure, meanwhile, stood either right on top of the peg or so far back that failure was almost certain.

Of course, those choosing the impossible distance effectively disguised their fear of failure, not least because everyone failed at such a distance. Yet that was the better response. Many of the fear of failure kids became disruptive -- intonating that they didn't care for the game with some even trying to halt the entire process.
Norman Feather (an Australian psychologist) undertook similar experiments and came to similar conclusions,
although also found he could manipulate the response by telling the children the task was "very difficult." This encouraged the High-FF kids to continue -- the humiliation of failure having been lowered. And 1970s experiments by Carol Dweck and Ellen Leggett concluded that children were either "mastery oriented," meaning they were focused on acquiring new skills (and were unconcerned by temporary setbacks), or "ego oriented," which meant their main concern was to not lose face.

The impact of fear of failure 
From here, it's easy to see how such a divide can impact our career progression: indeed, our entire lives. High-FFs keep their ambitions either low or -- as a mask for their insecurities -- extraordinarily high (knowing that failing to become a TV star will be kindly judged). It's the challenging but achievable career choices (such as joining the professions) that are avoided by High-FFs.

So is there a way out? Not from our fears. Mainstream psychologists deride those -- such as hypnotists and acupuncturists -- that claim they can instantly cure our fears and phobias, stating they simply inject alien personality traits into us. These will eventually be revealed as such, producing an inevitable reckoning. Yet we can learn to accept our fears as part of us, and then navigate their destructive consequences.

To do this, however, we need a plan. So here are my seven steps to overcoming (but not curing) fear of failure.
1. Discover your true values. If those popstar goals are a mask you'll need to go back to square one and calculate what really motivates you. This requires you to establish the values and principles that underline your existence. It's these that should drive your goal setting, not your insecurities.
2. Establish your goals. With your values written down, visualise yourself 10-years' hence. Every detail should be imagined: house, car, partner, office, dog (or cat). Importantly, also focus on the details of your career. What will you do day-to-day, where and with whom? Then ensure it dovetails with your values -- otherwise it will almost certainly fail.
3. Work out the milestones. The 10-year horizon is long-enough to make anything possible: including professional exams. Yet you have to ensure the path you take is the right one. So visualize yourself in five years' time. What has to be in place to ensure the 10-year goals are achievable? Then do the same for two years -- thinking about the needs for the five-year horizon. Then one year. Then six months. Then three months, one month and one week. And what can you do tomorrow to make sure the one-week goal is conquered?
4. Develop a strategy and tactics. Of course, goals fail without strong execution, while "busyness" can lead us in the wrong direction. We need a strategy -- a plan that ensures our actions lead us towards our objectives. So undertake a SWOT analysis: looking at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. This should help a strategy emerge because we can execute tactics on our strengths while developing skills to overcome our weaknesses. Meanwhile, we can pursue the opportunities (if goal-focused) and plan to navigate the threats.
5. Execute efficiently. According to Stephen Covey, all activities fall into four boxes: urgent and important, urgent and unimportant, not urgent and important, and not urgent and unimportant. We spend our time on urgent-box activities neglecting the not-urgent-and-important box that is vital for achieving our long-term goals. Yet if we start here, our activities become driven by our goals allowing us to control urgent-and-unimportant activities (otherwise called interruptions) and potentially reframing our not-urgent-and-unimportant activities as refreshing moments where we can enjoy our progress.
6. Deal with people. For High-FFs, other people are a problem. Too often, we become reactive and defensive, or potentially manipulated by people leveraging off our insecurities. Yet dealing with difficult people is possible once we have "developed our compassion" -- i.e. we've stopped seeing the world from our own perspective and, instead, seen it from theirs. If done genuinely, we can then forge win-win strategies that turn potential enemies and barriers to our progress into allies that can help us achieve our goals.
7. Find your unique gift. Still struggling? Just maybe you haven't found your unique gift. Everyone has a specialtalent or insight that they should first discover and then offer to others. Mine was a curiosity regarding my condition(as a High-FF) and a background in writing. I combined the two to write "What's Stopping You?" What's yours?

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Robert Kelsey.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I don't know that I agree with all that's written, but it certainly is something that I should be thinking about.  I know that there are consequences for my plans for partial success that are worse than complete failure.  To date, rather conveniently, I've done nothing.  Well, not nothing, but close to it.  I've accomplished nothing.  It's not quite the same thing, I suppose, but it's functionally the same thing.  Worse, I've concentrated on things that ultimately have no value to the larger goals at hand. 

I'm not saying all that reading and research aren't noble goals.  Some of it was not only necessary, but has made me a better writer.  It's also made me a better typist.  It's been a while, but I can't count the number of times that I've been in a good writing mode and given up because I was frustrated that the ideas would come faster than I could record them.  It's one of the reasons I don't write in longhand as often as I used to.  Yeah, paper is still more convenient sometimes, and I do still take some notes in that fashion, but typing is faster for me.

Finally, I believe that everything happens for a reason.  I was going through similar thoughts for the past several days and I don't know that it's a complete coincidence that I find this article now. 

- Jim

There isn't really any new information.  I hesitate to post for that reason, but silence, unfortunately, often carries its own meanings. 

The situation with my Niece is probably more serious than we thought.  On the one hand, they haven't found anything wrong.  On the other, she keeps having seizures.  Many of them are smaller seizures, but the fact that she keeps having them probably carries some meaning.  Given that she is related to my Sister and both have experienced these seizures only after reaching adulthood is probably more than coincidence.  If the causes are related, it probably rules some things out, or at least, makes them more unlikely.

However, "weird" is the very definition of "weird". 

So, what we have is some small bits of evidence that produce a partial picture that leads to lots of speculation.  I'm not a doctor and I use the web, which leads to dangerous theories that are usually wrong.

I don't know how much this speculation gets shared.  I don't, because aside from calling it weird, I don't really have any theories.  I know others do.  The lack of knowledge period is causing stress among the patients, and I would be willing to believe that the speculation isn't helping matters.  I'm not necessarily finding fault here - unfortunately, it's the nature of something so serious with so much time passed and so little information to have some of the blanks filled in by whatever means necessary.  It's just frustrating to deal with the fallout.

In the end, this is just a long way of saying that not knowing anything really sucks.  Such is the nature of medicine in the field of neurology.  It still sucks.

- Jim

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