Story Shard – Aug 2013

August 25, 2013 11:21 AM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note.  Unfinished fiction piece from the 1990’s]

 

Vampires:

Main Entry: vam·pire

Pronunciation: ‘vam-“pIr Etymology: French, from German

Vampir, from Serbo-Croatian Wampir

Date: 1734

World Synonyms: Asanbosam (Africa), Civateteo (Aztec), Uttuku (Babylonian), Nosferatu (Central Europe), Ch’ing Shih (China), Vrykolakas (Greece), Estrie (Hebrew), Rakshasa (India), Baobhan Sith (Scottish)

1: the reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep

Type: necrobiological

Appearance: varied, see text below

Powers:  see below

Description:

Like all necrobiologicals, vampires are not truly dead nor are they truly alive.  In 1956 the Spitzzenbergen Institute in West Germany discovered what would be dubbed “the vampire virus”. More accurately described as virus GX-211 shortly after their breakthrough research on zombie proliferation in the Caribbean, and the discovery of GX-209, the zombie virus (Case file Ht-1952-004),

GX-211 is a liquid borne virus found in all bodily fluids of a vampiric revenant.  Transmission of the virus takes place after a bite.  The virus cannot sustain itself outside a protein liquid base and becomes inert in other liquids such as water, where the protein media is not in place, and is thus safe to handle.

The virus is quite large in size for a virus about 8 microns in size.  In shape the virus is a hexagonal base pod which houses the RNA sequence, a long cylindrical structure connects this to a flat pad with gripping footpads, which hold onto the cell wall.  The RNA injector at the end is designed to pierce cellular structures and inject the RNA strand (see Figure 1 in Appendix A).

GX-211 contains one molecule of linear positive-sense single stranded RNA with a hetero-adaptive protein “hook” on the end of the strand allowing it to adapt itself to various animal life forms.

Distribution of the virus is worldwide.  Transmission of the virus is by direct physical assault from an infected host.

Inception and metamorphosis:

Usually the revenant will kill the victim through shock brought about by blood loss or strangulation.  The virus upon injection will begin to process any remaining blood in the system to propagate itself in the host system.

Once a sufficient number of viruses have propagated, a Gestalt-like link is formed between the viruses, that is not fully understood, A secondary viral/ blood cell is created (GX-211a).

The viruses as a collective whole start acting as a semi-sentient being.  The first active target of this being seems to be the central nervous system, in particular the pathways to the brain stem to fully stop any lingering immune response and gain access to cell division processes and stop decomposition.

In laboratory analysis using human cadavers, the average rate of “resuscitation” took between 48 and 72 hours depending on the amount of damage the cadaver had sustained previously.  The most successful results of course from just dead subjects.  Tests on cadavers more than 36 hours but less than 192 hours yielded poor results. No resuscitation was found in cadavers older than 192 hours. (Deavers & Hopkins, 1983)  (See Figure 2).

Anatomical changes also occur at this time.  Vital organs, bone structure and biochemistries are altered to suit the needs of the new vampire. GX-211’s mutagenic properties allow it to manipulate the basic cell structure of the host to its needs.

The gestalt being will begin the transformation by burning fatty tissue and sugars in the body to provide energy to make changes and sustain it itself the first few hours until the first “meal” is ingested.  Thus another vampire is usually present to help obtain this meal.  This possibly explains the link between “master” vampires and their “children”.

Possibly the most important change is to the musculature of the vampire.  All fatty tissue is dissolved away and ingested.  Lean muscle is put in place, allowing the vampire to gain immense strength.

Unlike most creatures the vampire has full or nearly full control of its autonomic bodily functions, allowing it to perform feats such as quick healing of wounds, change its basic shape to a certain degree, and move very quickly.  Additionally this allows the vampire to “ignore” pain from wounds.

The digestive system is simplified and streamlined to accept a liquid only diet.  A description of the vampire’s digestive cycle is not included here, but can be found in other literature (Scoates, 1967)

Lungs are totally absorbed into the surrounding tissue, and the epidermal layer’s pores increase slightly in size to accept a wider gas exchange from the surrounding atmosphere.
Contrary to the notion that vampires do not breathe, they do rely upon an oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange to exist.  However the gas exchange is much reduced so that one Liter of air would suffice a vampire for a day.

Nasal and olfactory ducts increase in number in the nasal passages leading to a heightened sense of smell.  The number of rods and cones in the vampire’s eye increases twofold leading to heightened light perception at night.

The epidermal layer is also important in an oft forgotten subject, waste disposal.  Without any lower GI tract the vampire must get rid of waste salts and materials through its outer epidermis.  The vampire’s epidermal layer sheds at a rate five times that of a human.  The resultant layer of waste product covers the skin.  This explains why some vampires have a “chalky” or pale appearance, and for the pungent rotting smell associated with vampires. (Scoates, 1971)

Disease is rarely a factor for vampires.  The vampire’s immune system is extremely aggressive.  The immune cells actively seek any foreign bacteria or viral bodies and incorporate them into the body by “eating” the intruders and depositing the remains in the digestive system by way of the arteries.

Lab experiments using several strains of bacterium and viruses have failed to produce and appreciable results.

Lastly, the vampire’s most recognizable feature also emerge.  The human canines are lengthened and narrowed to a sharp point, to allow them to bite into tissue and bone.

The brain changes very little through this process.  The only change is an additional structure found at the upper base of the spine  This structure is totally foreign to human cellular structure.  (See Figure 3).

The psychological make up of the vampire is little changed from the original human.  The brain structure is little changed very little and can in fact retain much of the previous owners memories and psychological makeup.

Vampires can and do suffer human related psychological and psychiatric problems.

The lack of available mental health professionals to aid them with these problems coupled with a vampire’s impressive physical prowess had led to some truly horrific results involving anti-social and psychopathic behavior (Case File JTR-054-1871 through1893 inclusive).

Cognitive skills are usually on par with the victims former skills, though some atrophy is usually experienced due to decomposition damage to the brain, however long term surveillance of some subjects has determined that vampires can and do learn (Case File Lst-083-1845 through1972 inclusive)

Life Cycle:

After a gestation period of no more than 72 hours the new vampire will seek to feed and start interaction with its environment.  A post gestation period ensues that can last anywhere from three days to two weeks, during which neural pathways are reformed and repaired and motor skills are refined in the new vampire.  Speech is usually the last skill re-acquired.  These “infant” vampires are usually referred to as neo-vampires in technical literature, or as “goons”, “stiffs”, or “dummies” by field operatives.

Following this period the vampire has full independence, and is in fact ready to restart the “reproductive” cycle.

Old age is rarely a factor in a vampire’s life; due to its ability to control autonomic processes to such a high degree and repair damage done over time.  Reliable documentation exists of subjects over seven thousand years in age existing as late as 1993 (Case File Lil-001-001)

The vampire is of course nocturnal (Bram Stoker only said that vampires could walk in the day as a literary device).   The deadly relationship between sunlight and GX-211 is not fully understood.

Current speculation suggests that the virus is Helio-sensitive to some part or some combination of the electro-magnetic spectrum.  Due to its ability to process and redirect energy so quickly it is suggested that the intensity of daytime radiation from the sun may actually “overload” this process with energy and cause a catastrophic energy cascade resulting in the vampire’s demise.
The individual cells will overload with energy and burst releasing energy as longwave radiation (heat) and burn up the vampire.

Regular electric lighting at night does not affect vampires.  Attempts to use floodlights or portable spotlights have met with nothing but failure.  Flashbulbs at close range however, will elicit a pain response.  Research is ongoing to determine what parts of the EM spectrum work best against vampires and into developing portable light sources that will affect them.

Fact and fiction:

Hypnotic powers – Myth.  Certain individual cases have exhibited powers of persuasion that are higher than the norm however statistical analysis of cases has shown that this figure corresponds to a statistical equivalent among attractive or personable humans (Wheatley 1986)

Religious Icons – Myth.  In laboratory conditions vampires have been exposed to a variety of religious paraphernalia from all the major religions and have not exhibited any measurable physical response.

However in some test subjects of Eastern and Central European extraction, Christian religious paraphernalia elicited heightened psychological responses ranging from cringing away from the object to a need to attack the object.

This may be do to the early church’s widespread persecution of revenants, and the Templar knight’s successful campaign against them in the 13th century Poland (Malenkov and Ito, 1972)

(Side note: Many recently “created” vampires have taken to wearing religious symbols as a form of rebellion against elder vampires)

Reflection – Myth.  Vampires like any other material object will absorb visible light and reflect light frequencies that their skin or clothes do not absorb.  They are perfectly visible in mirrors and in visual surveillance and recording devices like cameras.

The myth is prevalent enough for researchers to devote time to hypothesize however.  Some researchers feel that older vampires may be able to use some form of telekinesis and create a powerful magnetic field to bend light rays around their person and render them invisible.

Shape changing – Partial fact.  The ability to control their autonomic reflexes allows a vampire to change some aspects of its physical being, most particularly its internal organs.

The ability to change shape seems to be a ‘learned’ action.  Most vampires over 100 years can change facial bone structure, height, weight, and skin pigmentation.

Vampires over 500 years seem able to change their physical structure even more radically into animal shapes, and even plant shapes.

No reliable witnesses have been eyewitness of a vampire turning into a mist.  However vampires over one thousand years old may be able to accomplish this

Magic – Partial fact.  The manipulation of eldritch energy by human operators has been documented in laboratory-controlled environments. (Stills, 1959).

Approximately 1 in 500,000 humans have a genetic predisposition that allows their minds to manipulate eldritch energy to a small degree without any directed control.  About 1 in 10,000,000 can consciously concentrate this enough to a point where it can be considered under directed control.

It is not unreasonable to expect a similar percentage of vampires to have the ability to manipulate eldritch energies to the similar proficiencies as humans.

Flight – unknown –  As mentioned above older vampires may be able to manipulate energies to generate some flight characteristics.  No subject under surveillance or taken in custody has show this ability.

Damphyr – unknown – The Damphyr (alternate spellings Dampyr, dampire) is a half vampire half human hybrid sometimes called a “day walker”.  The damphyr is supposed to have the power of a vampire without the vulnerabilities.  No subject matching this description has ever been catalogued.  However researchers refuse to rule out this horrifying possibility.

Vampire History and Social Structures:

Vampires have traditionally been grouped into a basic unit called a “family”.  This unit usually numbers between 2 to 12 individual vampires, however larger families have been known to exist.  The leader vampire, known as a “master” vampire, will dictate policies for the family.  This vampire is usually a hundred years older than the other vampires, and has usually created or “sired” them.

He is responsible for finding a “haven”, a safe place for the family to reside, leading hunts, for travel arrangements, and for interacting with other “families”.

Larger associations do exist called “clans”.  These are discussed below.

The leader will have the privilege to feed first, to choose lieutenants, and will usually distribute out any monies from victims, or any other material goods.

Newer contemporary vampires prefer a looser social structure with the “master” vampire more analogous to a gang leader.  The leader is constantly under challenge and has to reassert himself over all others in the group constantly.

Myths exist concerning vampires as far back as 5,000B.C.  Further, revenant like creatures are mentioned in various stories as far back as 7,000 B.C.  However, very little is known concerning European vampire history as a whole until the 20th Century.  Histories from pre-Columbian America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Far East are rarer still.

In the middle ages, the Catholic Church issued general edicts against vampirism along with several other enemies of Christendom.  However only one direct action was ever sanctioned.  In the 1232 Pope Gregory IX directed the Knight’s Templar order to launch a campaign against several vampire clans overrunning southern and eastern Poland.

The Templars sent 300 knights along with 1,000 men at arms and squires to root out the vampire infestation.  By burning entire villages along with their inhabitants (humans included) and digging up several graveyards the Templars massacred entire clans and drove other clans to Russia and the Balkans.  Vampires would not be seen again in Poland for another 400 years

Several individual profiles have been compiled concerning lone individuals over several centuries.  However as a whole they are not well catalogued. The few history’s that have been gathered from manuscripts and interrogations are at best suspect.

European vampires arrived in the New world in the late 17th century mainly in French and Spanish colonies.

The founding of the city of New Orleans in the early 18th century would provide them with a base of operations in North America.

In Europe of the19th century vampires flourished.  With the catholic church being diminished in power many clans and families returned to areas they had previously shunned and set up operations.

Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Vienna provided particularly good hunting grounds.

Secondary infestation sites included Moscow, Prague, Bucharest, Stockholm, Bordeaux, and Berlin.

It is known that high ranking and powerful vampire clans did support the central powers in World War I and the Axis powers in World War II.

In both cases the vampire clans were offered uncontested dominion over large portions of Central and Eastern Europe should Germany emerge triumphant.  In exchange for this, the clans offered their services as assassins and spies.

During these wars the British and later on the American intelligence communities became aware of the vampire threat and formed countermeasures to deal with it.  Thankfully, Germany lost both conflicts and the vampires were forced to hide from the victors.

After the Second World War the massive oppression by the soviet NKVD (and later the KGB) and its Eastern European counterparts forced several clans to emigrate to the west.   Some clans were exposed by this and were wiped out in successful operations in the 1950s.  A couple forcibly splintered off into smaller clans, which fought amongst themselves for superiority.

Traditionally families were linked to one another in a loose confederacy of clans.  These clans usually had “blood ties” to one another.

Older more prestigious vampires had titles such as Count, Duke, Overlord and Emperor, all reminiscent of European noble houses.  These alliances however have been shaken by internal and external strife recently.  A bloody fratricidal war ensued between two of the largest clans in the early 1980s, drawing in several smaller clans.

A peace was brokered in 1988 and an electorate was set up to choose an uncontested Emperor.  The new Emperor’s reign was short however as one of our special operations teams infiltrated past their security and successfully assassinated him.  Ever since then, the clan structure has steadily deteriorated.

The remnant clans have retreated from public view and have become more insular since then.  New “recruits” to the clans are chosen more carefully and scrutinized for long periods of time before being approached.  Additionally some vampire groups are operating in a new hierarchy more reminiscent of terrorist cell groups than the old traditional family or clan.  These groups take direct action against humans without permission or even knowledge of the senior members of the clans.

It is unknown whether the vampire clans know of our organization or not.  The clans as of this date have undertaken no direct actions against our operatives or operations.

Vampire Diet and Habits:

Unlike popular myth vampires do not exclusively feed on human blood. Laboratory tests have shown that vampires may feed on many sorts of liquid proteins from many types of animals.  In tests vampires have ingested and processed blood from various types of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and even cephalopods (i.e. squids). To adequately derive nutrition however the vampire will seek similar life forms.

From surveys and random observation of subjects, it is estimated that up to 85% of a vampire’s diet is non-human in origin.  However all vampires hunt human prey.  Why they still hunt humans is unknown.  It is speculated that they derive some protein chain not found in other types of blood that they need to survive.

Subjects in long-term custody exhibited lethargy and weakness after being denied human blood for more than 2 months but still fed non-human blood.

Family groups will usually go out and hunt in small groups no larger than 5.  Vampires usually will stalk solitary victims in open areas such as alleyways and parks.  These areas will provide over 75% of a vampire’s successful hunts.

Most modern vampires will acquire the blood of cattle, swine, or poultry from markets or butcher shops along with meat and consume the blood discarding the meat.

There is no recorded instance of vampires engaging in ranching or keeping animal livestock.  Most likely due to the animals panicked and often violent reaction to vampires.

A small vampire clan in the southeastern US set up a blood processing plant in the late 1980s.  They processed 90% of the blood for local hospitals and kept the remaining 10% for themselves.  After several pints of blood turned out to be tainted with AIDS, it was realized they had not processed the blood at all and were shut down.

Alternately some vampires will resort to family pets such as cats and dogs for blood.  Some vampires will travel from pet shop to pet shop purchasing the animals to keep themselves supplied; if this is not feasible they may steal pets from suburban neighborhoods at night.

Rarely a desperate or battle weakened vampire may resort to feeding on rats.  The practice is culturally shunned however as it is seen as below them to feed on such animals Unfavorable comparisons to ghouls and other revenants are often made of those that feed on rats (Interrogation 295;101-108)

Although some vampire families have successfully taken over small remote villages and towns this is rare.  The ease of modern travel and communications makes it more likely that outsiders will venture into these towns and expose the vampire family.

Even rarer still are the few vampire families that have blended into human society posing as rich autocrats.  These lucky few vampires enjoy the privacy and security afforded them by wealth and the protection afforded to them by publicly posing as real human families.

Recently though the vampires have begun to target places where humans are intoxicated such as discothèques, bars, and gatherings known as raves using drugs to immobilize their victims.

Alcohol, narcotics, and sedatives are being used more and more to subdue victims. A human will usually be disabled and brought back to a haven to be fed upon by the group as a whole.  The bodies of those not being turned into vampires is usually buried in remote areas or disposed of in other ways.

By necessity vampires inhabit the poorer more crime-ridden parts of large cities.  Prostitutes are a ready source of food in the vampire diet.  Not only are they readily available in the areas that vampires inhabit, but also they are rarely missed if killed.  Even if a body is discovered most police departments will consider the death related to his or her line of work and not investigate further.

Alternative hunting methods include the establishment and maintenance of a bordello.  Several historical examples exist of this type of operation.  A bordello will be purchased or set up.  Most of the prostitutes at this establishment are human females.  Only the owner and a few of the “girls” are vampires.

The vampires will carefully screen patrons to the bordello to choose victims that will not be missed or that can be easily dismissed as never having any ties to the bordello.  The mason Diabolique in Paris is a good example.  The bordello operated from 1717 to 1793.  It is estimated that between 8,000 and 12,000 patrons to this establishment fell victim to the vampires in this time period.  Ultimately the bordello fell victim to the French revolution for suspected royalist ties.

A less preferred method of feeding are donors.  Certain humans with sexual fetishes for vampirism will readily provide some vampires with nourishment of their own free will.  This symbiotic relationship presupposes that the donor receives some form of sexual gratification and is not killed by the vampire outright, and that the vampire receives a sufficient source of nutrition from the donor.

Most vampires shun this method of feeding for two reasons.  Firstly is the proliferation of blood borne diseases in the late 1970s to the present.  Although venereal diseases will not infect vampires, the vampires can act as carriers and spread the infection to humans.  A sudden outbreak of venereal diseases in a small, concentrated population will serve as a marker for vampire hunters.

The second and most important reason that vampires shun this method is the lack of hunting.  Hunting is almost as important for vampires as feeding is.  The appearance of a vampire getting a handout of blood is degrading to them.  Vampires that exclusively feed using donor blood are referred to as “toothless“ by other vampires. (Interrogation 313; 212-214)

The newest most disturbing method of hunting by vampires is called “ranching”.  Extremely wealthy vampire families have been able to use their wealth to set up small compounds in out of the way places run by human conspirators.  In these compounds homeless transients, runaway teenagers, and other unfortunates are brought by force to live out their days in captivity.  They are generally housed either in cages or closed warehouses, well fed and urged to breed.  The population is kept artificially low by culling the older humans and sending some out to the master’s table to be eaten.

This method of vampire feeding was only recently discovered in a remote part of Wyoming where a special operations team found and shut down one of these camps

Familiars and human interaction

Human accomplices and servants are known as familiars.  These humans are bound to the vampire family or to a Master vampire.  Folklore attributes this link as some sort of mystical or mesmeric link.  Research shows that this relationship is usually simply based either on greed, an emotional attachment, or fear.

The vampire will either promise great riches or threaten the human and force them to serve him.

In some cases the link is psycho sexual and the familiar will feel devotion to the vampire and will fanatically protect them from harm or discovery.

However the main cause for humans to serve vampires is greed.

Methods of Control

Posted in: Uncategorized

online and offline integration

August 22, 2013 8:32 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Recently I had to make some major upgrades technology wise.  Perhaps as a coincidence or perhaps by pattern in the last year I’ve gotten a tablet, a new phone, a new desktop, and a new laptop.  Things have either worn out or have become almost obsolescent.

Quite a bit of money involved.  But more than that the latest round of hardware and software improvements make me more aware of how integrated our online existence is becoming and how this is beginning to make our offline life also integrated and even dependent on who we are online.

Some examples?  As I run Android devices I am tied into the Google play website for an applications.  These depend on payments through Google through an account I have.  I can in turn buy or pay for anything online with this and have.  Any application I buy is immediately available to all the other Android devices.  I keep only a few hundred dollars in this account but that is quickly disappearing so I may have to add more or tie in my main account.

Google is also getting into televisions as well and soon if I choose I could buy movies off a Google device plugged to the side of the TV.  I may also soon be able to use my Google account offline for food or services.

Another good example is the Microsoft Office package.  Once I had to buy physical disks, now it is available by download and I have to pay for it online.

Of course all of these transactions leave a digital paper trail.  No matter how innocuous or innocent that trail is, it is still something that I don’t want being recorded.

It is so seductive to fall into that trap isn’t it?  You can argue that it will just make my life easier but I argue that it makes me artificially dependent on a service that could be pulled at any moment.

I am very aware of this and I use the service sparingly as possible.  It argues that it will make my life easier but really it may end up making my life more complicated.

 

Posted in: internet, technology

Acquired tastes

August 20, 2013 1:36 PM , Leave a Comment ,

In style I tends towards the simple nondescript clothing.  In foods, the spicier the better.  I don’t just love movies but I like to analyze movies as far as how they relate to the books they were based on or how they relate to the genre in general.  In reading I go more towards science fiction and alternate history type of stories and as far as music goes I’m an old fogey and like 70s progressive rock.

What I like is not mainstream.  I don’t think I even want the things that I like becoming mainstream.  I find that when ideas, concepts, and trends go mainstream that they start becoming derivative and stray off the path that they once traveled just to conform to the market forces and inevitably they lose their distinctiveness.

Thing is that most of my friends don’t like or appreciate what I like.  But you know, that’s okay.  They don’t have to.  Lord knows I don’t like all the things that they like or obsess over either.  Some folks get put off by that.  Why do we all have to like all the same things?

I have people in my life from all sorts of interests in my life.  Sometimes they enter my life through the slimmest of threads and only share one interest with me and we may be polar opposites on all other issues.  But I don’t care.  As long as we can share and discuss that one interest. that’s fine by me.

These acquired tastes make us who were are, they have guided and shaped our character and we shouldn’t be ashamed or hide them.  Rather celebrate them, share them.  But don’t get upset if not even one other person shares them.  They are after all your interests.

I have come to realize that if I ever get together with that one special person in my life that I can’t expect that person to appreciate everything that I like.  But I hope that she can appreciate that I do enjoy these things and that really that these are not big issues and that all that really matters is how we feel about each other.

 

Posted in: life in general, relationships

Days of futures lost

August 18, 2013 8:56 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Whatever happened to that George Jetson future we were all promised?

Where’s our jet car, pill food, 4 hour workday, and robot maid?

But it goes beyond that.  Nuclear war, remember back in the 80s we were promised the big final knock down drag out final conflict between east and west and that the few of us left would most probably end up in a desert like nuclear wasteland with giant ants chasing us and wearing all black leather clothes and fighting over the last can of Hormel beans?

The trouble with imagining the future is that you can get so easily lost on one measly detail that you really miss the big picture.  Verne and Wells understood this back at the beginning of the last century and took short hops into the future rather than huge leaps.  They prognosticated using the technology of the day and teased that out slightly into the future to see what they could develop and for the most part they did rather well.

The tank, the submarine, the moon shot; pretty spot on.  But when they tried to delve into the social sciences they kind of fell flat.  If you go to any book store and look up these authors you will find all the familiar titles (20000 leagues under the sea, war of the worlds, from the earth to the moon, etc) but some of their more controversial works are pretty much unavailable.

Verne wrote “Paris in the 20th century” in 1863 but never published it as he found it too ridiculous.  It basically is a dystopian view of modern society and may have been a precursor to 1984 if Orwell would have seen it.

Wells delved even deeper into this type of futuristic prognostication.  He wrote “the world set free”, “the sleeper awakens” and of course “the time machine”.  All commentaries on contemporary society and what he foresaw might happen if we continued on the current course and what he thought the correct course would be.

By themselves these are flops.  But if we step back and look at the trends that they anticipate then maybe there is value in them.  Trends such as a move to transnational government entities, increased regulation of the individual, and globalization.  These are things that are actually happening.  Maybe not as they foresaw and definitely not the ends that they hoped or feared would occur.

We have to be careful when we write the future that we are not allowing our inner fears and hopes to taint the work.  Of course express your views in your work but always step back and look at critically and say is this what the future will really look like?

Posted in: pop culture, writing

taking a stand or moving out of the way

August 16, 2013 9:41 PM , Leave a Comment ,

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;” – If by Rudyard Kipling

“If” is one of my favorite poems.  Just as Star Wars fans memorize, scrutinize and find inspiration in every piece of the movie franchise, I find inspiration for a variety of things in my life in these lines.  In particular for this topic I refer to the above line.

I’ve been reading over some of my work correspondence and have been detecting a disappointing pattern in my emails and proposals.  For the last few years I have been somewhat tentative and unsure in my quotations and proposals.  I will use phrases like “one of the better” or “almost without equal” when describing our company products and services.  Not the most reassuring words to describe our products and services.

Part of the reason is that I despise over promising and over selling things. Another part of the reason is that I am naturally modest and do not like bragging.  Whatever the cause I have to look at what type of impression it leaves on potential clients.  People that want quality and the best that they can get when spending their money.

I have to be more assertive in my statements.  Not just in sales but in my life in general.  I am not a teenager or even a rookie technician just out of college.  I need to step up more and give a better account of myself and put more confidence in my voice.  Whether that voice is on a written page or in person.

For far too long I’ve allowed things to develop at their own pace and let them affect me as they will.  Time to make things develop at my pace and affect me as I want them to.

 

 

Posted in: ideas, life in general

Writer’s block

August 15, 2013 6:44 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It’s been a crazy summer with so many things going on that I just haven’t had time to think about writing.  My mind has been constantly chewing over one thing or another and I haven’t been able to focus on anything.

Now that things are settling down I find that I lack any inspiration at all to write.  Maybe it’s like a muscle that you need to exercise all the time otherwise it gets weak and lazy.  That’s what my mind feels like right now.  Apathetic and uninspired.

This is part of my self prescribed therapy to get back on top.  Writing about my non-writing.  I hope that just getting something down on the page will help me snap out of it.

It’s amazing to me that once you get an illness or an injury how long rehabilitation takes.  I mean you might be walking down the street one moment and the next you can’t walk, or can’t speak, or in this case can’t write and it all takes a long rehab process to get you going again.  Less than a month ago I was doing this freely and now my mind is an empty closet.

I might as well start watching reality shows and sitcoms.  But that’s a short and pointless path that leads nowhere.  I will get out of this but it’s going to take time.

 

Posted in: writing

helping and responsibilities

August 6, 2013 9:03 PM , Leave a Comment ,

“It never hurts to help” – Eek the cat.

Of course whenever he uttered that catchphrase he would inevitably get clobbered.  Recently I have been asked to help various people in my life with some problems that they themselves can’t solve.  Doing so will cause some changes in my lifestyle that are not really all that positive for me.  I don’t want to get into particulars but these changes are going to be harmful to me from a personal and financial standpoint.  I have been thinking about them for the last week and frankly I have not been the best of company.  These are changes that I do not want in my life.

But I am going ahead with them anyways.

I always preach about taking personal responsibility and helping those in need and here I have a chance to put those words in action.  I am not overstating the fact that these changes are not what I wanted in my life.  I feel that in the past year I have made some personal progress in several aspects of my life.  I could really see myself enjoying life and making my life situation that much better and now these changes are coming in and acting like an anchor on my life.

I am going to have to take time and reassess my life path but that’s not something new.  I have altered my trajectory before and probably will again.  It’s just that as you get older that it’s not as easy to bounce from one track to another and not feel the ill effects.  Generally a person wants to sit and coast more these days, not face challenges over and over again.  Specially when I am not the one that cause the problems in the first place.

About helping I have no doubts.  Looking over the situation from one aspect to another, I realize that I am not only the perfect person to help out but that in some ways I am the only one that can.

But why now?

Posted in: life in general

editing

August 4, 2013 8:31 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Some hints and ideas I picked up at the convention this weekend from some writing workshops.

First and foremost, know how to write.

The first cursory editing pass will focus on spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  Sure you won’t pick up everything but it’s a courtesy to your editor that they will appreciate,

Next will be the active vs the passive voice.  Technically this is part of the grammar check but it is often trickier to spot and I am frequently guilty of this sin.  Most editors and writers discourage the use of the passive voice so it is vital to minimize the use of it as much as possible.

Next, try reading your work out loud.  Most of the writers agreed that if you are unsure of a sentence or paragraph that reading that section out loud will often help a lot.  You can apparently tell if a phrase or sentence is awkward sounding or not just by hearing it.  They also advocated the use of text to speech programs for this as well.

Now your work is ready for another living soul to go over.  The editor or beta reader.  Who should be your guinea pig?  Keep it away from family and friends.  These folks love you and think the world of you and for the most part will never give you the honest criticism that you need.  Who else need not apply?  Anyone that doesn’t like the type of story you wrote.  Those that don’t like horror will be somewhat hesitant to read horror and really won’t appreciate the nuances in your story.  Same with other genres.

What criticisms are and are not valid?  If someone tells you “I really don’t like the way you’re writing your story” then that is clearly the wrong person to edit your story.  You must love what you write.  After all you wrote it.  I mean don’t go and refuse any changes at all.  Be flexible but recognize that what’s on the page is a part of you.  Anyone that doesn’t like what you are writing is not a person you want editing your story.

What should they say?  “I see what you are trying to do here but I don’t think this is the right way to do it”  That is a professional trying to help you.

In many ways the editing process is harder than the writing process.  You put yourself down on paper and someone comes and leaves bright red gashes on your body of work.  Each scratch out and note is like a new scratch on your own body.  But remember, at the end of the process you will probably come out with a much better story and it will tell the tale you want told in a much clearer and smoother manner than you could have possibly done on your own.  That’s the power of a good editing process.

Posted in: writing

Spacecitycon 2013

August 3, 2013 10:18 PM , Leave a Comment ,

I have looked forward to this for the last couple of months.  I had four major events this planned for this Summer.  Since the trip to the San Diego Comicon fell through this became the highlight of the season.

By far not the biggest convention out there.  Even our own local Comicpalooza convention in March is bigger but I was shocked by the growth this year.  They hired out the Westchade Marriott hotel in west Houston as the venue and already it is overflowing.

I arrived at 2 P.M. just after work and thought parking would be a breeze since most folk would be at work.  Ha!  I spent forty minutes driving round and round looking for parking till I finally had to park far out in the street.  Inside it was worse.  A long circuitous line wrapped round the lobby to get tickets.  Took me another forty-five minutes for a simple 3 day pass.  Walking was almost impossible and this was only day one.  Who knows how it will be during the main day!

Once past these onerous tasks I settled into my convention tasks.  I took a couple of loops round the artist alley and the dealer’s room.  Saw some old friends and acquaintances that I see all the time at these events.  They mostly travel the local convention circuit but some go around the nation doing these things.

I skimmed all the dealer booths to see what would be worth a return visit or three.  I never buy the first day of the convention.  Hate carrying stuff around and you never know what you might see that you like later.

I had some time to kill and took in the autograph booths.  Mostly minor celebrities.  Some recent and some from my childhood.  They had varying expressions on their faces ranging from being bored at sitting around for the locals to gawk at, to nervous excitement at meeting people.  Some chatted amicably with their fans for a good long time, others just scrawled a name on a picture or memento and sent the fan on after receiving the money.

I took in a sing along performance at the end of the first day.  You truly get a sense of camaraderie when you sit in a room packed with strangers and do silly things and sing silly songs.

I spent most of the second day at the convention.  Began with Tracy and Laura Hickman’s killer breakfast.  Essentially an en masse Dungeons and dragons game where the Hickmans invent the most amusing way to kill you and humiliate you in front of everyone assembled.

After that something a bit more serious.  Some writer’s workshops reflecting on building the backdrop to stories and how to edit and proofread your works.  Some really good ideas there.  More importantly for me some things to reflect on as I go through my pieces.

A book reading by a few authors there.  Very compelling writing,

The final event was a fan made star wars movie.  Stood in line for 45 minutes but it was so worth it.

Took my final turn round the dealer’s room and bought a couple minor items and took a last look round.  All the people in costumes, the kids running round, the adults acting like kids, people really get into these things.  And then there’s me.  As always I feel slightly apart from it all.  I still do yet here I feel more comfortable, I enjoy all the silly events, the costumes, the throngs of people, all the confusion.

I know that it’s all just pop culture nonsense and it’s not educational or improving me in any way but there’s more to life than those things.  Stop some time, look around and you may notice that life is happening and passing you by.

 

 

 

Posted in: conventions, Houston, life in general, pop culture

My online presence

July 31, 2013 6:20 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Have you ever Googled your name?  Or used Bing or Yahoo! to search for them?  (Note I refuse to use Bing and Yahoo! as verbs.)

I have been going over my online presence and it has blossomed in the last few years.  From about 36 unique results back in 2010 to over 800 results in 2013. The results are pretty similar in all the search engines.  Mainly it brings up my Facebook account, this blog, my Twitter handle, my Google+ account (which I pretty much abandoned on the first day of use) and some other random pages where my name pops up on the first few pages.

But a little digging brings up stuff that is more intrusive.  My address, various emails I have had in the past and present, my phone numbers through the years, the value of my house.  Things I don’t necessarily want random strangers to know.  Services do exist to purge some of these records but some things simply will not erase.

No doubt I have to exercise more care online with regards to what I release to the general public.  I already take some steps in this regard.  For instance I heavily restrict my Facebook account (my primary social network) to friends only.  On secondary service accounts such as Photobucket I use pseudonyms as much as I can and again I use the privacy controls as best as possible.

So why police your online presence?  Several types of people benefit from what you put out there.  Let’s go from least to most dangerous and just for argument’s sake let’s say I was a neophyte user that loves to fill out online forms, never uses privacy options, and “likes” or “favorites” everything he sees.  Let’s call this user neo-bill

Marketers

The internet is such a blessing to people in advertising and marketing.  So much chewy and yummy data out there.  What can we learn about neo-bill?

Running some cursory checks we can learn his age range, we can learn his height and weight, his ethnicity, his food and drink preferences, what he thinks is a good song, his income bracket, and education level.  We can entice him with 10% coupons to fill out forms, free demo songs to try out products.  We can draw him in to fill out credit applications for “free items” and learn his phone number, address, his social security number and then learn about his credit score.  In short we can build up a complete preferences library of this individual.  You can then catalog and tag this specimen and follow him through his life and see how his preferences change.

Human Resource managers

it’s a picnic for these folks too.  Everything that is readily available is out there for them to see.  In some cases even stuff not readily available.  Some HR people are demanding access to your online accounts to see what you like or post.  If you want that job, you have to give up your privacy.

Criminals

Well I mentioned credit applications above.  Criminals don’t even need to use trickery.  Over the last few years there have been major data breaches at well-respected credit card and store card companies that store private information.  Thefts have included not only account numbers but personal information of users that would allow thieves to set up secondary accounts.  The only real defense against this is the anonymity of the herd.  You’re only safe because there are so many of you out there to choose from that the wolves haven’t gotten to you yet.

Aide from this you get the older style con jobs like infecting your computer and then extorting a small amount of money to release your computer.  You have the ancient but puzzlingly still effective “Nigerian prince” scams that target older computer users.

Lastly you have worm programs that turn your computer into a zombie being directed by someone else to do their bidding and commit crimes.

The government

When I started out on the net nearly 25 years ago it was an empty an open void.  The presence of the government was almost unknown at the time and pretty much everyone had an “anything goes” attitude.

Slowly over time we have sanitized and cleaned up the net and those of us that complained about privacy issues or overregulation were shouted down or ridiculed as paranoids.  Then 9/11 hit and all the arguments were shelved in favor of security concerns.

Monitoring of everything you say or post on the net is here to stay.  Massive facilities around the world (including the US) now record for all time everything you put in the net.  Including those private emails. texts. etc, etc.

For most folks it doesn’t mean much.  They see it as the price to pay for fighting terrorists.  From my perspective I find it incredible that a few thousand terrorists can force the major governments of the world to hold their own populations hostage just to keep them safe.  What is more incredible is that almost nobody cares about the potential abuse of power.

So what can we do?  Live off the net?  Hardly possible for those of us in the information and service industry.  All I can do for now is limit what I release into the public sphere, watch and edit what I do release, make myself as small a target as possible, and hope for the day I can retire and get myself off the digital world.  I have to remind myself that I once lived off the net for a good long time.  It’s still possible my friends, it’s still possible.

Posted in: internet