50 Years of Easter Egg Hunt Trauma
3 weeks ago
Monday, January 26, 2009
Barack Hussein Obama
I'm a little embarrased to admit that I didn't understand that President Obama's middle name really was 'Hussein' until last week. I thought it was a ploy by some right wing nutjobs to try and discredit him, similar to the "Obama is a Muslim Extremist" rumors.
Harmony
Again the topic of harmony is on my mind. I’m re-reading Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and one of the differences between Martians and Humans is the Martian inability to endure disharmony. They ‘discorporate’ at the sort of argument some of us have daily. That started my mind down the path.
The harmony I seek, both professionally and personally, is very much like a dance. Dance partners become good and great dance partners through the practice and education. Both know the moves, they learn each other, and they gain an ability to adjust to the real world challenges of the dance floor. The lead has the advantage of knowing what’s coming and the added responsibility of deciding what’s next while executing the current steps. The follow is allowed to focus on the now, but often doesn’t know what’s next. In the case of dancing, the follow must also dance backwards, often in heels.
In my work I often focus on root causes. There’s no point in mopping the wet floor if the leaky pipe isn’t fixed. It occurred to me that most of my own emotional disruptions and are symptoms of disharmony. Often the disharmony is a gap between the world I desire and the world as it is. For example, before I shifted jobs, I was often frustrated by how long it took and by what I perceived as a lack of progress. Another example that no doubt is common in the human experience is the desire to spend more focused time with people I care about. One great advantage of being happily married and living with one’s spouse is this disharmony is relatively easy to fix or avoid with at least one valued relationship. – as an aside, I imagine for many couples, that is enough. We’ve all seen the pairings who drop out of social circles after they’ve found one another.
It’s also frequent that the disharmony is a concern for losing something in my current life that I’m attached to.
I had a lot more to say about this, but I’ve lost the mental thread for now...
The harmony I seek, both professionally and personally, is very much like a dance. Dance partners become good and great dance partners through the practice and education. Both know the moves, they learn each other, and they gain an ability to adjust to the real world challenges of the dance floor. The lead has the advantage of knowing what’s coming and the added responsibility of deciding what’s next while executing the current steps. The follow is allowed to focus on the now, but often doesn’t know what’s next. In the case of dancing, the follow must also dance backwards, often in heels.
In my work I often focus on root causes. There’s no point in mopping the wet floor if the leaky pipe isn’t fixed. It occurred to me that most of my own emotional disruptions and are symptoms of disharmony. Often the disharmony is a gap between the world I desire and the world as it is. For example, before I shifted jobs, I was often frustrated by how long it took and by what I perceived as a lack of progress. Another example that no doubt is common in the human experience is the desire to spend more focused time with people I care about. One great advantage of being happily married and living with one’s spouse is this disharmony is relatively easy to fix or avoid with at least one valued relationship. – as an aside, I imagine for many couples, that is enough. We’ve all seen the pairings who drop out of social circles after they’ve found one another.
It’s also frequent that the disharmony is a concern for losing something in my current life that I’m attached to.
I had a lot more to say about this, but I’ve lost the mental thread for now...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Personality Test - INTJ
I just took an internet version of the Meyers Briggs. It says I'm an INTJ: Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging
From what I've read, it seems to fit pretty well. Yep, I'm a systems thinker, have had to learn to express my vulnerabilities, and I'm not great at that even now.
I'm better at small social niceities than most INTJ's; I scored somewhat balanced on the Introvert / Extrovert scale, and especially balanced on the Thinking / Feeling scale.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Volunteerism
Our new president has me thinking about volunteering.
I know I'll have to be kinda picky or else I won't have fun and I won't stick with it. What follows is just the beginning of my considerations:
What I don’t want to do:
Volunteer for my employer
Sort (or do anything with) children’s clothes
Dispense juice and cookies to blood donors
Cold call anyone
Go door to door
What I want
I want to do something fun, or something mundane with fun people
I want it to feel meaningful
I don’t want to get stressed out in that ‘bad stress’ way
Bonus:
I can use and improve my professional skills along the way
Charities or Non-profits I’m Interested In
Northwest Harvest
ACLU
Democratic Party
Planned Parenthood
I know I'll have to be kinda picky or else I won't have fun and I won't stick with it. What follows is just the beginning of my considerations:
What I don’t want to do:
Volunteer for my employer
Sort (or do anything with) children’s clothes
Dispense juice and cookies to blood donors
Cold call anyone
Go door to door
What I want
I want to do something fun, or something mundane with fun people
I want it to feel meaningful
I don’t want to get stressed out in that ‘bad stress’ way
Bonus:
I can use and improve my professional skills along the way
Charities or Non-profits I’m Interested In
Northwest Harvest
ACLU
Democratic Party
Planned Parenthood
Friday, January 16, 2009
University Honda/Yamaha Closes?!
According to the Seattle PI and to the company's own website, University Honda on Capital Hill, has gone out of business.
Not only did I purchase all of my gear (helmet, jacket, pants, two pairs of gloves and some miscellaneous other stuff) there, they did the maintenance on my bike last year. I fully planned to go back when my mileage hits 4,000. I was always treated well there.
It's also going to be damned inconvenient to go anywhere else. Hopefully this will open the way for some new motorcycle business to move to the Hill; really though, I don't want a new one. I want my old motorcycle shop back.
Not only did I purchase all of my gear (helmet, jacket, pants, two pairs of gloves and some miscellaneous other stuff) there, they did the maintenance on my bike last year. I fully planned to go back when my mileage hits 4,000. I was always treated well there.
It's also going to be damned inconvenient to go anywhere else. Hopefully this will open the way for some new motorcycle business to move to the Hill; really though, I don't want a new one. I want my old motorcycle shop back.
Fiscal Conservatism?
Does anyone else get the sense that the fiscal conservatives have all retreated into hiding? I don’t understand the nuances of all these bailouts, but I do know that the federal government is borrowing a lot of money and giving it to companies in crisis. So far, I have little faith that an injection of cash is all these folks need to right their ships, and the distribution of cash has, as yet, included little in the way of governmental oversight.
How are we going to pay for this? Is throwing money at our problems going to pull us out of this recession?
The other problem I have is that I don’t really understand what we’re getting for our money. I understand President-elect Obama has public works projects planned, and that’s grand. What are we getting for the $350 billion already distributed? I understand that it’s supposed to strengthen our banking system, blah blah; that’s not much to hold onto though. It’s a little abstract for me, and it feels like we’re throwing that money into a pit. And in that pit is an ancient cash eating dragon.
Some Libertarian voices have questioned the constitutionality of November’s bailout, and I guess that’s something. Normally the only thing the Republican Party is good for is keeping the recurrent liberal impulse to throw money at problems in check. I don’t see that tension right now, and I’m concerned.
How are we going to pay for this? Is throwing money at our problems going to pull us out of this recession?
The other problem I have is that I don’t really understand what we’re getting for our money. I understand President-elect Obama has public works projects planned, and that’s grand. What are we getting for the $350 billion already distributed? I understand that it’s supposed to strengthen our banking system, blah blah; that’s not much to hold onto though. It’s a little abstract for me, and it feels like we’re throwing that money into a pit. And in that pit is an ancient cash eating dragon.
Some Libertarian voices have questioned the constitutionality of November’s bailout, and I guess that’s something. Normally the only thing the Republican Party is good for is keeping the recurrent liberal impulse to throw money at problems in check. I don’t see that tension right now, and I’m concerned.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
BSG, the Obsession
I’ve slipped into a Battlestar Galactica related frenzy. Part of me regrets ordering season 4.0 from Amazon; they weren’t delivered until Monday. That left me five precious evenings to rewatch those episodes before the second half of the final season kicks off Friday night at 10 p.m.. Unfortunately, Monday is also my D&D night: no watching that night. I also have plans Friday evening right up to premiere, and we have a friend coming to dinner tonight. These are all good things mind you; the unfortunate part is the synchronicity of it all. The reality is, I won’t make it through them all in time, and that’s okay. I feel worse for the first time viewers I know who are trying to make it through ten episodes in order to synch up with the rest of us for the series’s final push.
I also picked up the BSG soundtracks that were missing from my collection; they all now live happily in my iPod. We also have a some folks coming over to play the board game (of which I’ve written previously) on Saturday – let me tell you, trying to fill up all six slots for that game is trickier than it sounds. I have a long list of folks who have expressed clear interest, but I can’t invite them all. I only have the one board. Naturally, I’ve received a handful of varying degrees of ‘tenatively yes’ responses as well. Juggling all this reminds me of trying to staff a restaurant or something. It’s all very complicated.
As I re-watch the first half of season four over a short amount of time, I’m reminded of Return of the King. Both have a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short amount of time. Neither is prepared to hold anything back when it’s all said and done. This leads to fluid storytelling that drifts from the kind of focused narrative we’ve come to expect. While each episode does have a beginning middle and end, one leads directly into the next. None are truly self contained.
This all works better when you watch them consecutively, with little break in between.
I also realize now that I may have been a little drunk during my first viewing: the accompanying whiskey is part of the experience for me. Trying to keep up with Tigh or Adama has gotten me into trouble before... (well, the red wine I had with dinner earlier that evening also had something to do with it).
It also occurred to me that I’m every bit as obsessed with BSG now as I was with Star Wars from 1979 to 1995, or Twin Peaks from ’95ish – ’97ish (that was an all video experience). It’s fun!
I also picked up the BSG soundtracks that were missing from my collection; they all now live happily in my iPod. We also have a some folks coming over to play the board game (of which I’ve written previously) on Saturday – let me tell you, trying to fill up all six slots for that game is trickier than it sounds. I have a long list of folks who have expressed clear interest, but I can’t invite them all. I only have the one board. Naturally, I’ve received a handful of varying degrees of ‘tenatively yes’ responses as well. Juggling all this reminds me of trying to staff a restaurant or something. It’s all very complicated.
As I re-watch the first half of season four over a short amount of time, I’m reminded of Return of the King. Both have a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short amount of time. Neither is prepared to hold anything back when it’s all said and done. This leads to fluid storytelling that drifts from the kind of focused narrative we’ve come to expect. While each episode does have a beginning middle and end, one leads directly into the next. None are truly self contained.
This all works better when you watch them consecutively, with little break in between.
I also realize now that I may have been a little drunk during my first viewing: the accompanying whiskey is part of the experience for me. Trying to keep up with Tigh or Adama has gotten me into trouble before... (well, the red wine I had with dinner earlier that evening also had something to do with it).
It also occurred to me that I’m every bit as obsessed with BSG now as I was with Star Wars from 1979 to 1995, or Twin Peaks from ’95ish – ’97ish (that was an all video experience). It’s fun!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Hawk on Fence, adendum
The hawk I saw on my fence is a Cooper's Hawk, my father informed me. He knows a lot about wildlife.
Ideas Buzzing
It’s been a weird time in Seattle. Building in the background is the ongoing financial crisis (when can we declare a moratorium on the phrase, “in this financial climate”?), and an ongoing gang war between some South Seattle and Central Seattle gangs. Shootings have become frequent, some within blocks of our home. Then came two full weeks of snowy, city paralyzing weather, followed by flooding. This flooding was serious enough to close off all major land routes into the region and disrupted supply chains.
Piercing
Pain was comparable to the novocain injection during wisdom teeth removal (by the way, if the injections to prevent the ‘actual’ pain hurt that much, how painful must the tooth removal be?)
The piercer had a very professional and mellow affect. He was exactly the sort of person I hoped for.
The bleeding seems to have stopped; I don’t see any other oozing; so far, so good! It’s still tender, though.
My perspective on bacteria has changed; I’m very aware of cleanliness when it comes to the area near my piercing now. I don’t want an infection!
D&D 4th Edition Character Concept – built around chain weapon (flail) which has ‘reach’ property. I’m thinking warlord, to focus on keeping control of adversaries, preferably staying out of melee range, and adding entanglement, if possible. There must be entanglement rules in there somewhere.
The idea is inspired by the Uncanny X-Men comic from 20 yearsish ago when the Reavers ambushed Wolverine in Australia. They defeated him by staying at range with bolos and chain weapons. This concept may work better with a fighter. I plan to get the Martial Powers book soon to help sort it out and to give me new, fun ideas. I see that Clerics also have the ability to push baddies around, and have some advantages with flails. It occurs to me that there are probably several workable characters behind this concept.
Jazz Singer – the old version – shot when blackface was normal! Interesting how the version from the 80’s with Neil Diamond had its own, very different blackface scene.
Piercing
Pain was comparable to the novocain injection during wisdom teeth removal (by the way, if the injections to prevent the ‘actual’ pain hurt that much, how painful must the tooth removal be?)
The piercer had a very professional and mellow affect. He was exactly the sort of person I hoped for.
The bleeding seems to have stopped; I don’t see any other oozing; so far, so good! It’s still tender, though.
My perspective on bacteria has changed; I’m very aware of cleanliness when it comes to the area near my piercing now. I don’t want an infection!
D&D 4th Edition Character Concept – built around chain weapon (flail) which has ‘reach’ property. I’m thinking warlord, to focus on keeping control of adversaries, preferably staying out of melee range, and adding entanglement, if possible. There must be entanglement rules in there somewhere.
The idea is inspired by the Uncanny X-Men comic from 20 yearsish ago when the Reavers ambushed Wolverine in Australia. They defeated him by staying at range with bolos and chain weapons. This concept may work better with a fighter. I plan to get the Martial Powers book soon to help sort it out and to give me new, fun ideas. I see that Clerics also have the ability to push baddies around, and have some advantages with flails. It occurs to me that there are probably several workable characters behind this concept.
Jazz Singer – the old version – shot when blackface was normal! Interesting how the version from the 80’s with Neil Diamond had its own, very different blackface scene.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Major Goal Achieved
As of January 2nd, 2009, I became officially and completely 'bad debt' free. We still have a mortgage (well, technically two mortgages)... I've carried a balance of some kind for... well, my student loans started racking up in the fall of '94.
It looks like I made a math error and I have a $50 credit on my personal line of credit.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
First Activity of 2009
For my first notable activity of 2009 (aside from feeding the cat, making coffee, surfing the internet and tidying up from last night's party), I arranged appropriate transfers to pay off the last of my credit card debt.
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