Short Post Today

My ENT wants me to go for an MRI tomorrow, although there's nothing obviously wrong. My hearing is fine according to the Audiologist. He's upping my prednisone which will increase my diziness, outrageous appetite and nausea. Yay! Oh it's supposed to reduce swelling in my nerve as well...

Listening to my old band, Larger Than Leon. We were really good... wish we had stuck it out and worked through our issues with each other. The band really was breaking down before I moved to Portland.... but if we had actually applied ourselved in the San Diego scene we might have been able to have a record you could've heard...

Oh well, such is life. We all make decisions we have to live with. Maybe I'll get into another band someday, or do my own solo thing. I do want to work on my own music more... just been so exhausted with this illness.

SOC Blog #11 - David part 2

continuation...

My cells lifted, lifted, lifted.... I could feel gravity lessening as the ground hurtled towards me like some sort of odd illusion.

This was it. My life flashed before my eyes in cold disjointed images. Father with his belt, Mother with her flashing smile. My daughter, my wife.... my brain released massive quantities of adrenaline with the ground less than 50 feet beneath me.

I had been flailing in mid air, and at the moment the adrenaline hit me I was facing away from the building, as if I were simply walking away from it. My cells lunched me backwards slamming me into the side of the building right above the front door. My breath knocked out of me and with people looking to see what was happening, I coughed and heaved. I was alive. It wasn't all over, in fact it seemed to be just the beginning.

Then I lost consciousness.

Hours seemed to pass in instants. I could see muted lights, and blue glows around me when I opened my eyes for seconds before passing back into what felt like a calm, drug induced sleep.

........

A dark figure glanced from my chart and back down to him.

"Let him sleep it off," he said in a deep voice. "We'll talk more wIn I wakes up."

To be continued

Sunday At The Mall

We are over here at washington square today watching ethan play in the play structure.

I feel particularly odd today. My temperature feels elevated even though its comfortable to everyone else. Could be my body is finally starting to turn the tide on the theoretical cause of the inflammation of my seventh cranial nerve.

I decided today that im officially over being ok with this conditio however since I can do nothing to change it I must accept it. In doing that it does not change the impact, but it does take some of the weight off of my shoulders.

I do not have to be a prisoner to this condition, just as one does not have to stay in a job they do not want. I must accept the conditions of my body and do what I can to help it. I am feeling some tingles in my cheeks and lips, although my eyes are not closing any further, nor am I able to actually move that which feels as though its moving.

I do, however, internally feel the muscle fibers tightening. When its been numb, any changes are noticable.

Have a good weekend!

Bells Palsy Video

Here's a video to show you all how it looks hangin' with the palsy.

SOC Blog #9 - Time and Space

As I've said before I've always had a fascination with time. At this very moment of our perception of reality I am typing these words out. All of you are doing something very specific right now. Some of you are sleeping, some are driving to work. Some are thinking about a random thought. But you're not doing the same thing as many others in the world.

Perhaps this is what causes the world to work, the uniqueness of our energy and intentions all coalesced into the reality we choose to agree upon. Good enough for government work reality is a term I find useful to describe it. Regardless of the atomic structure of my fingers, or the interpretation of my brain of the vibrations of music, we all can agree I am typing a blog and listening to Chris Isaak's Wicked Game. What's happening underneath the covers is a completely different experience.

I've come to decide that time is not actual as real as we perceive it to be. Time is something we've created as human beings to explain the passing of the days, to measure intervals... and in that way it's an incredibly useful abstraction of what is really going on.

Don't get wme wrong, I have no idea what the true nature of the universe is. If I did I would certainly share it with all of you. I just don't believe time is as simple as "I started work at 6:30 and will do this for 30 minutes, etc". There's always something beneath the simplest of our observations of the natural world.

Do a favor for me. Stop for a moment and look down at any random object on your desk. Chances are that it arrived there merely because you placed it at a moment when you weren't thinking. That object, no matter what it is, is comprised of a huge number of atoms, forming molecules which are held together by electrical bonds which prevent them from disintigrating into their component elements. After all, an element is simply an atomic structure comprised of a certain number of electrons and neutrons circling the nucleus of an atom. Much in the same way the moon circles the earth, or the earth circles the sun, or the solar system circles whatever it circles...

Or maybe I'm just a little crazy. ;-)

Peace.

SOC Blog #8 - Death And Will

I had a thought yesterday and it sprung forward this idea.

I was wondering how many people would do it if, upon my death, I had it in my will that I wanted the muscles from my body removed and cooked; and that each person who held an affection for me would eat a small piece of me.

Firstly of course I don't know the legalities of this, and of course there's the obvious comparisons to christ asking his disciples to eat of his body and drink of his blood. This would not be my intention at all. I just would rather that some small part of me nourish those stil living here. Of course, the fact that I would be exiting their bodies a few days later and into their systems is also an interesting idea.

Went to urgent care yesterday as the right side of my face, save a little bit of movement in my eye is completely paralysed. I'm planning on doing some sort of youtube video showing the fun sorts of things you can do with Bell's Palsy... You can look like an insane person, you can take a piece of paper and split yourself into the human half and the robot half, and you can speak as though you have a great deal of food in your mouth.

On the downside I need to put eyedrops in all the time. I'm on 3 different treatments now, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and a goo I get to put in my eye at night which is then covered with a gauze patch... Arrr me mateys..

Thank you to all of you who read this every day. As much as I want to act like I write this for myself, it's for the readers who glean some sort of enjoyment, or deeper understanding of who I am that it's all about.

Quick plug..

This is an article done on Eurogames in the Portland Tribune. I'm quoted at the beginning! :-)

SOC Blog #7 - Contemplation

David - Short Story fragment #1

Standing atop the building overlooking the city in midmorning always makes me feel better. Up here, high above the concrete jungle below, I feel free; almost as if I could fly. The way things have been going lately every day I feel like maybe it would be worth it to see if I could fly. I know it's a crazy thought and that even the scientists have told me the chances are slim.

You see, my power is only theorized to be brought on by massive adrenaline spikes. They can simulate this in the lab and see me levitate above the table, however every time they have tried having me fly with a net beneath I have failed. The theory is that it must be a true situation, such as standing on the edge of my building and looking down... feeling the fear.

I've contemplated this moment for so many weeks since the initial treatments. I step to the edge and look down. These same streets where Spider Man and Super Man have travelled in their own fictional adventures, they could be my redemption or I could be a victim of an apparent suicide.

I decide, this is the moment, if I am fated to fly then I will fly. If not then I will only know for a short period of time. I don't know how I'd express it to my wife. After everything I went through to be with her... all the pain of waiting and divorce. Is it worth it to possibly die to see if I can fly?

Somewhere nearby somewhere is playing the song "The world I know" by Collective Soul. I can't help but feel some irony as I act out the lyrics, stepping to the edge to see the world below... then stepping off the edge and watching the ground rush up to meet me.

I feel my cells struggling to lift. My fall begins to slow, but I don't know if it will be enough....

To be continued...

On my way home after...

On my way home after another day of work. I love this jott.com service, since I can call my phone, speak into it and have Jott transcribe my entry and post it directly to Blogger. It's really amazing and makes me feel like we've entered the 21st century with full force. Unfortunately the palsy(?) prevents jogger(?) from understanding many of the things I say because I can't properly form letters with the word Z or F at the moment. It makes me feel like some what of an invalid, but I guess that's what I'll have to deal with. I have another doctors appointment tomorrow at 11:00 am which I plan on waking in time. Hope you all are having a nice day. I am feeling better after getting some some work done this afternoon and looking forward to a relaxing evening. Till tomorrow, Jeff. listen

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A short rant about doctors

I'm generally a fairly understanding person. I ended up being 20 minutes late to my doctor's appointment and if you are more than 15 minutes late they have the opportunity to reschedule you.

The receptionist originally told me I could still be seen, but then the doctor said she wanted to reschedule me, even though the information I'd read said that if treatment didn't start within 2-3 days of onset (this is day 2) that it's less effective... and the palsy's gotten worse. I can't say "B" words properly now, and my eye is getting more difficult to close.

I informed her that I had waited a large number of times, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, when the doctor had an emergency appointment and had to push me out by an hour or so.... of course since I'm not the one in power I have no control over either situation.

The end case is that I am going again tomorrow at 11am. I am furious yet there is nothing I can do about it. Doctor, take a good look at your empty waiting room and heal thyself.

On my way to the doctors...

On my way to the doctors now. Sorry for no stream of consciousness blog this morning. I just didn't get around to it because I had to come in at 6:30 AM in order to make up the time for the appointment. However, now I am on the freeway sitting in traffic. Apparently I forgot to leave in time. If I have time later, I will write something up. I will update the blog afterwards to let you know how the appointment went. Have a good day.
Jeff

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Bell's Palsy

Good morning everyone. Last night after I got home from an amazing weekend of gaming in Sun River I discovered that a condition which I had ages ago has reared it's ugly facially paralytic head again.... At the moment I appear to be suffering for the second time in my life from Bell's Palsy. This is a condition in which one of the nerves going to the face becomes pinched and causes one side of the face to either be completely paralyzed or, in my case, partially paralyzed.

The odd thing is that it's worse near the bottom, and less bad near the top. Aside from looking like a freak when I smile and being unable to spit my toothpaste out without feeling like an invalid, the worst part is that my right eye will not blink when I normally blink. I have to force it very consciously. This causes the eye to become irritated and, obviously, dry. Thankfully I have contacts and some eye drops to help combat that.

There is no known cause for the condition, which usually resolves itself within 2-3 weeks. It can be brought on by emotional stress... check... extreme changes in temperature... check.... physical stress... hmmm I was sitting around for almost 3 days... Last time this happened to me, in about 1992, it ended within 2 weeks. In the meantime if you see me trying to laugh and I appear to have just escaped from my padded cell after convalescing... hmmm... true or palsy?

:-, <-- bells palsy smiley (tm)

Since this IS a stream of consciousness blog, here's your stream for the day:

Crystal blue waters under a nearly darkened purple sky. A mountain in the distance the only shape, silhouetting a small empty rowboat. The sounds here are not of human origin, sounding more like music than animals. The boat lists aimlessly on the surface, listing this way and that as the tides pull and push it. Somewhere a child's dream has become a reality.

See you tomorrow.

Sun River

Good morning to all of you. I know I said I might not do a blog today, but I couldn't let you all down. I'm sitting here right now at a house in Sunriver, Oregon. It's about 20 miles outside of bend.

Last night my friend Matt and I drove down here at 9:30 and arrived at 1:30.... not bad time for a trip of the length. I'm currently sitting outside the house on the balcony. I can see mount bachelor and lots and lots of trees. There are a lot of other houses around too, but not the population density you see in the suburbs. This is on a golf course I guess, so all the streets are called "Dogleg" or "Winner's" circle....

I got to bed about 1:30, and woke up around 7 or so... took a shower and then here I am. I guess this isn't very stream of consciousness... but I'm in a different environment today. I can hear the birds singing, and I can see the huge blue sky. The trees are amazing. This is exactly what I envisioned when I though of Oregon originally. Nature, blue skies...well maybe not blue skies.... but lots of trees.... snow peaked mountains and chilly mornings.

There's no air conditioning here, so hopefully we won't all burn up! :-)

If you'd like to check in on what's happening here, live and in realtime check out http://live.yahoo.com/Websteria . I can't guarantee it'll be on all the time, but I'm going to make an effort to keep it up as much as possible so people can share in the joy that is men geeking out on board games. Perhaps it'll gain you a little insight into this other world.

With that I bit you adeiu for now. Tune in and say hi if you can.

Peace, and be mindful.

Time

This morning, as I was getting Ethan ready for school I explained to him that one day he'd be as old as I am. That time passes moment by moment and never stops. He looked at me, lifted a sock and said "Sock?"

Time has always fascinated me. The very notion of time "passing" us by. Generally if something passes you then you can go back and get it or, as in a passing car's sake, you can catch up to it. It's interested that time passes us, but we can't stop to allow it to catch up to us.

In fact it is only possible that we are passing through time, and time has no desire to catch up with us.

I had a realization last night. In order to create an extremely accurate simulation of our world in a computer it would require us to be able to calculate a huge number of things which nature is doing on it's own. For example, my distribution of weight on the ground affects the way my viewpoint changes. The vertebrae in my back, the muscles moving, the ground texture, etc.

I then realized that there is a gigantic number of calculations being done every minute. Even as my fingers type this. As my finger comes down to press the key the atomic structure of the plastic interacts with the atomic structure of my skin based on the force which is pressing down. This interaction could be calculated by us, but instead the laws of physics cause the appropriate actions to happen. We've already been down the road of what happens from there. :-)

So, is something actually calculating it, or have all the calculations been premade, and each atom knows how it should react and thus due to the laws of physics reacts the way it does? At this point I wondered if we had free will, because if the calculations have been predone then maybe our own thought processes have been premade, not in terms of a diety or god, but in terms of the universe.

I then realized that there could be, just as in a video game for example, calculations made to say what happens when you crash a car into a lightpole... but nothing's FORCING you to do that. So I came to the conclusion that I am in no way qualified to say how we got here, or what we're doing here. I am simply grateful we are here.

In that moment, as I mentioned in the mindfullness blog, I became aware that life was not always as I perceived it, and that I didn't have to be afraid of it anymore. That of course may not be permanent, since all things change... but it's hard not to feel good when work is good, your son can listen to you discussing the laws of time, and you are going on a 3 day gaming retreat. I may write something tomorrow but it might not be as long....

The Metamorphosis of the Wind

High above the ocean below, the gull floats watching the shoreline. He remembers when he used to be among them, one of them as they would say. He feels the wind underneath him lifting him higher and for a moment allows it to happen, then dives down towards the people below.

The sense of speed is a rush he never encountered in his life as one of the humans. He likes to think of them as seperate now since he'll never get back there. He flies gracefully along the beach, skimming the surface of the sand, watching the children building castles.

He lands on a rock and relaxes his wings. He remembers how it all happened, he thinks about it every day. The mysterious stranger, the paper, the signature... he didn't believe any of it... until the next morning when he woke up in a nest, snuggled up to another bird. He wonders if somewhere his former body is walking around out there somewhere. One of the disadvantages of being a bird is the lack of knowledge as to the level of geography he knew as a human.

He's tried to get back to Louisiana to see what has happened there, but he doesn't know the way. He's discovered in the 6 weeks of birddom several things: Flying is not overrated in the slightest. Female birds are even more difficult to date than human females. It's wonderful not having to go to work anymore... and somewhere along the lines of the transformation he lost the ability to read or understand human language. He figures that something had to give in order to fit any of his previous memories inside this tiny little head he's got now.

His senses are quickly drawn back to him by a small brown haired child running towards him yelling "Birdie!!!". He smiles to himself, flies off and drops something for the child to remember him by.

It's early...

Going in early today so that I can be at Ethan's parent teacher conference today, and to try to make up some of the time for the Sunriver retreat this weekend.

This will be my first time going somewhere away for 3 days and playing games pretty much nonstop. I'm looking forward to it, and wondering how my brain will do on a lack of sleep, lots of caffiene, sugar and alchohol all while trying to make rational decisions on if I want people in Southeast germany to vote for me playing Die Macher... if that reference doesn't make sense click on the link. It will pop open a new window..

Die Macher is infamous in gaming circles. It's widely considered to be the first "Euro" style game that was created in germany. These are the types of games I consider to be the most fun because, unlike most american games, they make you think and plan in a long term method. Don't get me wrong, I'm not great at them, but that hasn't stopped my enthusiasm. Much like chess, I feel that the more I play the more I learn. Unlike chess however I have over 170 of these (see the collection here). You can click on each one to see something about it.

Anyways, Die Macher simulates the German election system and takes 6 or so hours to play. Hey, you think that's long? There's a game where you backstab your best friends which takes 7 hours to play called "Diplomacy". I'm sure most of you who aren't even game players have heard of that one. Regardless I've wanted to play it for a while but you don't get that much time to play one game often... given 24 hours in a day and only about 6 of those needed for sleep and maybe 2-3 for eating and showering that gives us about 15-16 per day for gaming... x3 that's about 40 total... I'm going to get an entire work week's worth of gaming in.... :-) The interesting thing should be to see how many of my games get on the table.

People who are really into eurogames are an unusual breed of folks. If I had to profile them it would be as follows:

• Intelligent
• Like challenges and learning new things (you have to be given all the differen rules)
• Enjoys interactions with other people. This is the big difference between exclusive video gamers.
• Generally opinionated on wanting to play the games they brought (this varies from "would you guys like to play" to the people who will not play anything they brought).

There are also various archetypes in the gaming world:

• Hardcore gamers: These are the people who only like to play games which are extremely cerebral most of the time. There are some of these in my weekend group, and while I enjoy playing these games too I have to have some lighter fare too. I'll give an example of a heavy game:
• Imagine you have to power an entire country, but you have limited resources, you're competing with people on auctions for power plants. These plants require various amounts of resources to power a number of cities. You have to go through an auction for the plants. You must then buy, on a limited market, the resources to power these plants. With any remaining money you have to put "houses" in cities which represent that you can power the city. However, other people can block your routes, and each route from city to city has a price that goes with it too. Simple right? :-) This game is called "Power Grid". This game is currently the second highest rated board game on Board Game Geek even though I've only gotten my copy out 1 time I'm really happy to have it.
  


• People who get VERY upset if you honestly forget a rule that affects them when you're playing a "learning" first game with them. Sometimes these people will never play that game with you again because they feel that you were trying to cheat them when maybe you didn't completely

At any rate. If you're interested in taking a look at how one of these eurogames work I'd suggest you check out www.boardgameswithscott.com. Here are two links of some of my favorites, one of which is a "gateway game" (one to bring new gamers into the fold.... There are a few of you reading this in that position) ... and one of which is a heavy game... These are videos so click the link and enjoy. Scott's a great presenter and even though his style is a little unusual it's one of the things I love about his video blogs.


Gateway Game: - (Game Info) (Video Review) (Another video review here) from the company who makes the game.
Middle Of The Road: Yspahan- (Game Info) (Video Review)
Brain Burner: Reef Encounter - (Game Info) (Video Review) (this is such an awesome game if you can find people who like it)

Farewell for today. Hopefully this explains why my collection is so big. :-)

SOC Blog #7 - Vision Quest

The shaman danced in the moonlight. He looked at the moon, his source of inspiration for so many years. He had to keep his people safe in this time of desperation. The opposing tribe was strong, and forthright, but he knew that if he traveled to his sacred place he would see the answer. The effects should have happened by now. He asked the moon god if perhaps the plant was faulty, then...

He heard music surrounding him. The voices of his ancestors sang strongly, leading his eyes to the opposing camp. He could hear them planning the attack, hear them sharpening their spears in the dark savannah night. He could feel the heat from the fire, and hear the crackling noises.

Although they spoke a different dialect he could understand them perfectly clearly. His spirit floated over the camp and for a moment he forgot that he was there to gather information. He saw the sacred mountains off in the distance, beckoning the way they always had to him. During his first vision quest as a child he had spent many hours sitting on the peak of one of those mountains marvelling at the way nature worked. Watching the lions work to take down the gazelles. Observing herds of Giraffe and Rhinoceroses.

His attention was drawn back by the sight of the chief of the camp gathering all around. His plan was simple, to sneak in during the dead of night during the next full moon and steal all the grain. Then he heard something which chilled him from to the bone.....

to be continued...

Delayed or no post today

Too busy here... I apologize to those of you who have come to expect this from me. I will do my best to make up for it if I have any free time time today. :-(

SOC Blog #6 - Mindfulness

About 17 years ago a friend of mine introduced me to a radio personality named Joe Frank. Joe used to do a show on KCRW in santa monica and it was rebroadcast on a public radio station in San Diego where I lived at the time.

I don't know quite how to explain the shows in detail. They ranged from monologues where Joe would tell stories over loops of music to actual radio dramas where actors would play out the most odd scenes. I consider him somewhat to be one of my spiritual guides through this world because I can credit him with opening my mind to things I might never have thought possible. At one point I cursed him because his stories of possible alternatives to reality, or the nature of reality made it very difficult for me to accept my version of reality anymore... I had to change in order to realize that I knew nothing about the true nature of the universe.

Anyways, I recorded each show on tape and a number of years ago I put them on CDs for archival purposes. I was listening to one of them on the way home last night and on the way in this morning.

This was one of his later shows, and he would simply have conversations with people on the phone about situations in their lives and then put music behind it. It made you feel like a voyeur in some ways, but it also made you feel like maybe you weren't (and are not) the only one struggling in your life.

Anyways, he also would include clips from a buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield (info here) (Audio Teachings here) . I find this man's voice to be very kind of hippielike.... which puts me off a little bit, but when you listen to his words you feel that he's right. He said that mindfulness is accepting the moment for what it is. So, today I am completely slammed with interviews, code reviews, meetings, etc. I would rather be doing my coding work... but in the moment that I accept those things as my day it all becomes ok. During each one if I feel discomfort or a desire to be elsewhere I will simply realize that this is where I am right now and that this is what I must do right now.

The quote from the teaching that got to me was something to the effect of "When you feel that you're really lost and your mind kind of says 'we're lost aren't we? this is what lost feels like' suddenly you realize that it's ok to be lost. It's not a situation that you can't recover from. We are never lost, we are merely not where we want to be, and given the situation of the world it's not surprising.

We are all under incredible pressures it the world and yet we find ways to cope. Some of them good, some of them bad, but we all find ways to cope. It's one of the things we are built to do as human beings.

We all put on so many masks to become the people we feel we're supposed to be. Friend, Employee, Husband, Wife, Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, Confidant. Wouldn't it be great if we all had someone who we could trust completely and tell the entire truth to without fear of retribution or hurting their feelings? Some people use religion for this, praying to God and telling Him everything. I choose to communicate through this blog, although being truly honest is not something I can do because everything's publicly accessible, and what if someone reads something that offends them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as honest as I can be within the limits of this forum, but there are things I can never say here. Just as most of you have things that you could never or would never tell me for fear that I would look at you differently.

These masks both protect and enslave us. We must use them as tools in order to survive, but we must also lose them in order to become that which we are meant to become. This blog is my way of removing my mask in a certain sense.... my lip syncing is a way for me to express myself. And as time permits I'll record some new songs and put them up here.

I won't lie to you, I want an audience. I crave the attention that readers give me. I want my thoughts to be heard, but I believe that they can help people, and offer sometimes insight, sometimes a diversion but always something interesting to look forward to in the morning.

Remember, even the zen masters say life is making one mistake after another. They simply look at the mistakes as opportunities for learning. We will never stop learning, nor should we want to.

Have a mindful day. I'm still doing my best to have one, and to keep learning.

Something's Missing

Here's me being wacky in the afternoon. More of these to come maybe..

SOC Blog #5 - Float

Close your eyes, if you can. See the power in your hands.
Somewhere past the bright blue starts, lies Ventura boulevard.

So it is Wednesday. Hump day. Half way through... no one ever considers saturday night the "halfway point" of the weekend in a good way. We all long for our freedom from work, or responsibility, but we never seem to get it for very long. It is a fleeting moment of escape and then back to the realities of the world. None of us are immune to this, and you may not have thought about it, but the majority of things you do outside of your method of earning a living is escaping from your own life.

I've often tried to consider why it is I don't like to meditate and relax, and let my mind run free. I am the type of person who needs to be constantly stimulated one way or another. I even program during the day with my headphones on so that the right brain is stimulated with music while the left brain codes. I've developed this to the point that I can listen to speaking and program as well.

I guess I've been "practicing" this skill ever since I started working 17 years ago.. I always liked listening to music, and always liked to have it on, but it was only when I began working that I found it to be necessary. It's not an escape from work, but it amplifies the focus on work for me.
If I work on a piece of code over several days I can remember the songs which were on during different sections of it. Kind of an odd fact.

Here's something else you may not know about me. I aspire to eat very odd foods. I love the show on the travel channel where the host goes to exotic locales and eats strange things. When we were at petsmart one weekend I told the staff if they gave me a live cricked that I would eat it. A girl fetched one and put it in my mouth.

As I crunched down I felt a burst of liquid in my mouth. The odd part was that it did not taste bad at all. In fact, given the proper spices and seasonings I could see myself enjoying a dish made with crickets.

My favorite type of Sushi is Uni, which are the roe of Sea Urchins. It's an odd acquired taste and I'm not quite sure how I acquired it, but I think it has something to do with finding the weirdest thing on the menu and eating it. I also have eaten a whole deep fried fish, head, bones and all. It was absolutely delicious.

Now that I've made you all hungry it's time for me to start the day.

Peace.

SOC Blog #4 - Someday

In a darkened room he sits, meditating over a glowing candle. His vision remains constant, his resolve unbroken. His muscular body awaits only the moment to strike, but not without provocation. His expression is one of calm and peace. Control of his own throughs and of his own destiny.

Suddenly in the midst of his meditation it happens again. His vision is taken to a park somewhere in eastern europe.

He sees the sky is grey and cloudy, a woman in a babushka is feeding pigeons from a bag of breadcrumbs. Around him buildings crumbling, the ghosts of years past and regimes long gone still represented. A flash and the woman is gone. The park is now overgrown with foliage, the buildings beginning to fall under the weight of their own unrepaired mass.

Flash.

Back in his apartment. Brought back by the sound of an ambulance passing outside on the dimly lit New York street. He rises from his lotus position and turns the lights on. He has long since forgotten what his name is. He has no idea who pays the rent, or where the money which is slipped under his door every day comes from. He's stayed up all night watching the mail slot, but it never comes then. Once during one of these watches he fell asleep for what seemed like only a moment, and then found the money lying there under the slot.

Each day the envelope has the same inscription.. "foFFoFbr". He's tried decoding it every way he can, but it never becomes clearer. Too much confusion, even his dreams are only thinly disconnected from the reality he lives in. He wonders if he is merely a character in someone's writings... he feels that way sometimes. His decisions not his own, the mysterious money, the visions... it's almost as if someone is causing this to happen to him. He looks to the sky but merely sees the snow beginning to fall.

SOC Blog #3 - Pages of time and Fish.

Fish hooks grab thoughts from my tired mind. Monday morning again, another week ahead, another week gone.

The ephemeral nature of what we've termed "Time" always has fascinated me. As a kid I saw Back To The Future 7 times in the theater.... I used to have dreams about stealing the DeLorean and traveling back in time to various periods....

This morning on my way to work I listened to a performance by my old old band "Three's a Crowd". There was two songs I had completely forgotten that I had written. One was called "Pages Of Time" which still rings true with me. In fact, I'm amazed that at that age I could write something that has grown to ring more and more true with me.

The premise of the song is that we see people every day writing their histories, but the people who care about them often don't see those. Life is the things we forget to say. In listening to this I realized that I had captured this particular Page of time and had a choice now. I could leave it as it was, or I could try to decipher the chords, take it into my studio and re-record it. I'm toying with this idea as the song is particularly poingent to me, however I know it will also take a lot of care and feeding to make it into something I can be proud of.

When I think about this blog, I know that in 20 or 30 years it will also have fallen to newer technologies, lack of interest, lack of desire to keep writing it. Hell, I'll be 55 or 65 by then. Text entry will probably seem like a distant memory compared to the holographic video entries people will do.

I'm also toying with the idea of doing a daily video blog entry, but I don't know if it would be as interesting. I have the chance to edit anything here, whereas I wouldn't there. Of course this is supposed to be stream of consciousness, so I guess that would be more true to the form. I'll think about it and if you see a link to a youtube video in here one morning then you'll know I at least tried it.

I'd also encourage you to post your thoughts in the comments section. For one thing it would let me know people actually read this, and two it would help me to find future subjects to write about. Generally all it takes is one thing to get me going and then I go from Time Machines to video blogs.

The blogs will of course range from the very technical (as I am a very scientifically minded person) to the fantastically wacky. Let me attempt some fantastical wackiness now... for some reason fish seem to be on my mind this morning... most likely because I saw a show on Tuna fishing over the weekend.

Oceans gleaming surface shows blue skies reflecting. Beneath the surface lurk wonders and dangers. Lost treasures which only fill the sights of fish who have no context to their meanings. Species yet to be discovered. Somewhere right now there is a volcano forming a new island which a human being will name... somewhere there is a shark catching it's prey, cold eyes unblinking as it feeds. Dolphins frolick in the frothy waves. Surfers catching a ride before getting into their work clothes and heading off to work.

Somewhere there is a ship cruising with happy passengers and sad passengers. One of the passengers has had an unpleasant experience and is laying in their bunk while her friends go off. She found her boyfriend got drunk and decided to gamble away a substantial amount of their money. She doesn't know what this means for them, but they're half a world away on a floating island, and so she can't really do anything until they get back... and so it goes.

Stream Of Consciousness Blog #2

Thoughts flow from my mind to my fingers where they are translated into keypresses . These keypresses are then translated into electronic signals where they are sent wirelessly to a receiver which is connected to the computer.

The computer reads these signals and at the hardware level generates a keypress for the operating system. The operating system then tells the current application that a keypress has occurred and causes the behavior of typing out the words you're reading. Of course there's more beyond that. There's a graphical interface which has to take the concept of each letter and display it properly. The data is stored on a memory chip in the machine as binary information, on or off. The processor divides it's time between what I am doing and what the rest of the computer is doing. This happens so quickly I don't even percieve that I'm not the only important thing on the computer. When I publish this post out to the internet it will go through an unknown number of cables, routers and servers.. it will be translated from electricity to information encoded on light pulses, back into electricity and then stores on a hard disk somewhere as minute fluctuations in the magnetic field.

By reading this you've already done some other amazing things. You've sent requests through the same infrastructure, electricity to light waves etc... the remote machine has run code telling it to read this post from the hard disk translating those magnetic fluctuations back into words, and then presenting them to you.

Here's where the real fun begins. During your reading of this post your brain has been taking information from your past on language and physics and your knowledge of me, and putting it all together in an experience which you now realize you are having. A self awareness of self awareness. That's the difference between the computer and us. We sometimes realize what we do. The machine, through human programming, can abstract away layers.

As a developer I don't deal with all the items I've told you. Programmers deal with information in a different way than the normal human brain does. If you saw the code for this page it would appear to have nothing to do with your experience of it... I believe our existance is similar. If we knew the true nature of it then it would appear alien and unrelated to our actual experience.

In fact our own brains operate on a level which is abstract compared to our experience. Electrical fluctuations tell our muscles to move. Our eyes are sensors for light which our brain then uses to create the illusion of sight. Our ears sense vibrations which our brain then turns into sound. Your entire body is simply a vessel for this type of sensory illusion which we've all come to accept as reality. If we knew the true underlying reality it might be a wee bit overwhelming for us.

When I look at the world, and the universe I can't help but be amazed that all the items we look at are created from the basic building blocks of atoms and molecules. Even the letters you're looking at on your LCD or CRT are molecules or atoms which are being manipulated by electricity, which itself is merely the movement of electrons through a string of atoms which have available places for them.

Well, that's all I've got time for today. See you all on Monday.

Stream Of Consciousness Blog #1

I've decided to do a 5-10 minute timeboxed blog of stream of consciousness every weekday at 7:45. I find most of my crazy or insightful thoughts come around this time.

At this moment I am listening to "mad world", the version from Donnie Darko. If you havn't heard it, find it. The artist is Gary Jules.

I'm constantly amazed at although we all have so much pain and anguish in our lives that we are able to hide it in our interactions with other people. No matter what's happened to you last night, or that girl who rejected you, or that person who made a comment which didn't seem hurtful to them but did.

We all are burdened by these things, but we have the choice to let them go. Of course choice is a dangerous thing, and knowing you have the choice doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to make it. Not having the choice, or percieving you don't, is sometimes easier because you're not pressured into making it. The hard choices, the things you don't want to do but do anyways...

Reminds me of that line from History Of The World Part 1 in which the Mel Brooks as Talkamata during the spanish inquisition says "You know you oughtent to do but you do anyway"

I have so many movie lines or lyrics fly through my head at various times throughout the day. I could be in a meeting and someone could say something, a word or phrase that I associate with a particular film line or lyric... and I have to bite my tongue not to say it. Many lines from Pulp Fiction, Three Amigos, Star Wars... etc... I wonder if this is something that will become more prevelant as our children grow up on a steady diet of multimedia.

If we relate mostly to fantasy as opposed to other people than what does that say about us, or does it say anything? To paraphrase one of my favorite writer/performers and someone I consider my early mind expanding people, Joe Frank (http://www.joefrank.com), We don't deal in answers here, the questions are often much more interesting.

Answers complete something, but the questions often lead to more questions. I think my favorite kinds of questions are those which can never be answered, but which can lead to incredible debate and which reveal much about those who debate them:

• Is there a heaven and hell, or is there simply a light which switches off when we die?
• Are we living in a true reality, or based on quantum physics are we living in a number of different potential realities which collapse into the reality we all percieve every second? Or maybe we're living in a computer simulation which took 2 minutes of real time to run, but we're percieving it in our own time because that's how it was programmed.
• Do you ever pick your nose while driving? Why should we be ashamed of this? If there is something in your nose and you're on the road, pick it and wipe it on something appropriate.
• The concept of scale: Are we the macro beings whose cells contain countless other universes, or are we living in the cells of some other beings? Or is it an infinite loop and we are both inside and containers.

Thus ends the first of our daily stream of consciousness blogs. This is just a taste of what my head does all day long. It's a blessing and curse.

See you tomorrow.