Jury duty

July 12, 2013 4:35 PM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note] – I am writing this early as I won’t be near a laptop when I usually publish.

My friend, Leslie had jury duty today.  She probably handled the experience with more grace than I am apt to when I have to report next month.  Whether you look at it as a privilege or as a chore you probably have noticed that it’s not the most efficient system ever.  You could probably complain to a local law clerk but then they will give you an earful about how they’re doing the best they can.

No doubt that they are.  We have to remember that looking in that it all looks so disorganized and inefficient.  But we have to keep in mind that they have been adapting and modifying the system to work for the last 200 plus years.  The system works well enough for those that work there 5 days a week for the entire year.

On the other hand if you’re dragged away from your home, business, and friends then it’s a useless hassle.

The jury duty pay is a token amount and is a joke really.  I wonder what would happen if it was abolished.  Unless you’re unemployed it nowhere near makes up for the lost wages.  The parking system is antiquated, and the whole process puts jurors in a bad mood.  Is that really what a defense lawyer wants?  A jury in a bad mood?

I have taken five turns at bat doing jury duty.  The one time I served was for an assault case and it took 2 days.  All the other times I was dismissed after wasting an entire morning and part of an afternoon.  My experience has been relatively mild compared to some.

I will still moan and complain of course.  Tis our right after all.

But what other way can we do this?  Do you have any suggestions?

 

 

 

Posted in: current events, life in general

too much or too good

July 11, 2013 8:52 PM , 1 Comment ,

The classic conundrum of quantity vs quality.

Which is better or at least more preferable?  For most of my life it was quantity.  Particularly in food.  For example at the office, my reasoning was why go out of my way for quality food?  I mean it’s just another lunch right?  So Wendy’s, Quiznos, Mickey D’s, Taco Hell, and KFC and then rinse and repeat in a slightly different order the next week.  So I wouldn’t get sick of it.

But I was sick of it.  Thinking about it, I constantly complained about the food at work.  I told my boss, my co-workers, the girl at the fast food cash register.  But I never did anything about it.  Bring in my own?  HA!  That would make things worse.

The same thing happened in other aspects of my life that I didn’t deem all that important.  I would generally take the cheap mass quantity option rather than holding out or looking for something of better quality.

On the few occasions that things really did matter to me I would take the time and make the effort to find something of quality that would last a long time and serve me well.  Cars and computers being the prime example.

Generally it takes me around six months of researching and looking around until I settle on a new car and for the most part they have lasted for a long time and given me really good service.  Same deal with computers.  So why wasn’t I doing that for the rest of my life?

The little decisions like lunch, or clothes, or experiences, or friends.  They may seem common place but they actually have a great effect on how you live your life.  I mean I could waste my life going to bars and hang out with barfly buddies every Friday and Saturday night and have the same old stale conversations all the time or go to a museum, a play, a coffee-house, a festival somewhere outside of town.  Sure I don’t have a big group of people around me anymore but the few people I do, I really like.  They greatly enhance my life.

In the same way I have dropped the fast food habit and switched over to healthier meals.  I find that I pay slightly more for them than the junk food but the results are much better for me.  I don’t complain about the food anymore and I feel more energetic afterwards as well as getting this feeling that I’m doing something positive in my life every day.

My television lies idle more and more.  I no longer find it satisfactory to lie in front of it and let it hypnotize me to sleep each night.  More I think of it, the more I want to cancel my cable TV plan.  I try not to pick up just any book to read anymore but rather find things worth reading.

I find all these yearnings within me to make fundamental changes in my life to make that life better, not just to have more things in it.  It’s taking time but I find that if I slow down and make more careful choices that I can slowly begin to improve my lot in life one carefully chosen step at a time.

 

 

 

 

Posted in: food and drink, life in general

Persistent Bastards

July 9, 2013 6:48 PM , Leave a Comment ,

It was raining blood again.  Not uncommon on the plane of fear but it just made everyone’s mood gloomier.

Here we were again on our third attempt at Cazic Thule, the lord of the plane of fear.  Our guild leaders had to practically get on their knees to beg the raiding council on our Everquest server for this opportunity.  The raid council was a group that controlled what guilds went where for special encounters like this.  They scheduled you and denied you as they saw fit.  In essence they ran the server.  Plane of fear was an older raid.  The top guilds had moved on to newer, bigger and better raids.  Yet they refused to relinquish any control.  They were adamant that any guild that failed a raid on three separate dates would be banned from raiding anymore.

Our little guild (only about 30 members) had attempted this raid twice before and had failed miserably both times and it looked like this was going no better.  We had already been wiped out twice tonight and everyone was getting tired.  The basic problem was that we were not causing sufficient damage.  None of our guildies were high level or had special equipment.  Whatever combination or tactic we tried just wasn’t working.

We had too many healers that night so I was running on a friend’s account and using her enchanter.  Our clerics and healers sounded out a warning.  They were running low on magic and could not keep up their healing and protection.  We had to prepare.  This meant that non essential guild mates would camp, or log out.  They would wait offline for five or so minutes and then collect the bodies of those that had stayed behind fighting.  The fighting would be over in less than a minute and everyone left behind would be massacred.  The five minute rule was just to make sure no monsters hung around waiting for people to come back in.  The survivors would then resurrect and try again.

Only in this case it didn’t look likely that there would be another attempt.  It was late, everyone was despondent, just a general feeling of futility all around.  We would fail our third attempt.  We would be banned from all the higher level content.  We would be a disgraced guild.  Might as well quit the game.

I logged out as ordered and waited watching the clock on the monitor.  1 minute, despodent, 2 minutes, angry, 3 minutes….  Hell with it, going back in and going to go out fighting.

The loading screen was exceptionally slow.  Explosions and noises all around me.  I walked into the middle of a battlefield.  They were still fighting!  Someone was particularly stubborn or angry or both but they had held on.  I threw myself into the fight.

Other guildies started logging back in.  Apparently I wasn’t the only one disgusted at the thought of quitting the fight.  If it was possible for a computer generated character to look nonplussed then that described Cazic Thule at that moment.  The 30 foot tall god of fear seemed immobile and didn’t know what to do.  This wasn’t going according to script.

Total confusion.  Healers and magicians, out of magic, going in and attacking with staves, daggers, or fists.  A tooth and nail fight.  No strategy, no tactics, just do more damage.  We counted off the percentages, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….A small earth shattering thud as Cazic finally fell.

After raid chores.  resting up the healers and resurrecting the dead, policing up loot and distribution of the same.  Taking pictures atop the giant god’s carcass.  Proof of our victory.

Not the biggest victory in the world, not even in the make believe world of Everquest, it hardly got a notice in the raid council.  But we had done it.  No one that had been in that raid that night had logged out without a feeling of achievement.

That was the turning point for our guild.  We then went through a year long tear through the higher level raids.  Ripping apart enemy after enemy with a furious energy born from that desperate night’s battle.  We became more professional, and if not revered well at least respected.  I would eventually become top healer in the guild and was ranked (for a short time) as one of the better healers on the server.

A small victory yes but something that I still remember fondly.  What do I take away from it to the real world picture?  Mainly that I keep trying.  No matter how hopeless, pointless, and futile the fight is.  I just don’t quit.  I’ve written before that I sometimes need to know when to quit but really, this is the only real strength I have.

Maybe I should embrace that.

Posted in: games, internet

Into the dark

July 7, 2013 7:02 PM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note]  This is from around March 2013.  I didn’t publish because to my mind it wasn’t ready but I’m having a lazy night ideas wise so here it is anyways.

 

 

March 9.

About 4 AM or so.  I always have a 6 mile route on Saturday mornings.  I should stretch but instead I start off with a fast walk.  Out of the neighborhood and onto Hayes road.  Opposite some low rent apartments I start running. Crossing Briar Forest, the last of the friday night partiers roaring past in a car headed for home.

Past the west Houston tennis club, askew elementary and through an alley behind the dog kennel.  They start barking as they somehow sense me pass.  Out onto Wilcrest Drive.  I am now all warmed up and I take a short walking pause.

I walk along the fence line of the Lakeside Country club.  Maybe one day I will have the seventeen grand initiation fee to join up.  Yea right!  I will just peek through the fence for now.

Hershey park.  Pitch black but I know exactly where the trail leads.  I start my run and go into the dark.  A hooting owl.  Sounds as if it’s coming off a haunted house sound effects CD.  Perfect.  Buffalo Bayou gurgling gently to my left.

I enter the first of three big fields.  When I started walking this park in the Summer time I called these fields the three sisters.  Bertha, Gertrude, and Hilda.  In the middle of August in the mid afternoon these fields were death itself with the sun pounding on you. I was always so glad to get past these.  Now in the dark they are nothing.  Up and down hills.  That’s why I love this park.  Not just a plain old flat surface.

Past the three sisters and into the woods.  I encounter the ghost jogger.  An optical illusion.  A patch of light coming through the woods.  But it looks like a jogger just ahead of me.  Freaked me out the first couple of times.

The last hill.  Up and up I go and more and more till I’m finally on top.  A water treatment plant hidden in the park.  The terrible smell of chlorine in the air.  Past the last of the woods and I’m on Beltway 8.  Keep going under the beltway where I have driven past at 80 miles an hour so many times.

Keep jogging past an off ramp.  The tollway booth attendant sleeping in her booth.  Jog into a neighborhood.  Run past all the sleeping houses.  Night blooming jasmine in the air.  An occasional cat sitting primly and watching me pass.  An old man walking down the middle of the road with a cane.  The only other person fool enough to be out at this hour.

A taxi cab dropping off some drunk.  I guess I was wrong, this is the last of the Friday night partiers.

Onto Briar Forest again, past a Food town I turn south onto Wilcrest and run down to Westheimer.  The first bus load of Saturday morning people lining up to get on the bus to go to work.  My feet aching I slow to a walk and head West to Hayes street.

I re-enter my neighborhood and decide finish up running the last third of a mile home.  Stumble in the door and the clock on the DVR says 5:21.  Get out of my running shoes and try not to touch anything as I am sticky wet with sweat.  Time for a shower and a new day.

 

Posted in: running

Cross cultural inspiration

July 5, 2013 5:26 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Rolling Stones performing country music

A few weeks back I posted about cross pollination

People from different disciplines, walks of life, and viewpoints coming together and inspiring each other to come up with totally new ideas.

Slightly less important but more common is the practice of people from similar fields studying the work of others.  This is very common in music.  Much more common than fans or even the performers like to admit.  The Rolling Stones playing a Waylon Jennings tune is odd but I’ve heard similar stories out there.  Sean Combs “Puff Daddy” admitted that he sometimes listened to Johnny Cash.  In the Beatles songs “Eleanor Rigby” and “All you need is love” have classical music elements thrown in throughout the songs.

This is harder to find outside of music but there have been some cross genre writers and of course some painters and sculptors that have progressed from one school to another during their careers.  Something about those other schools of thought that inspired and made them want to try other things than what they had previously done.

I think that’s when you can tell that an artist or performer is really worth listening to or admiring.  When they take the time to study and appreciate not just their own genre but look further afield to other genres and either apply what they’ve learned to create something new or enter that genre themselves to compete outside their comfort zone.

Have you ever considered stepping out of the familiar and friendly into unknown territories?

 

Posted in: art, ideas

Nerves and fear

July 4, 2013 6:51 AM , 2 Comments ,

I always get the queasy stomach just before some important event.  If it’s something new that I’ve never done or whether it’s a stressful situation that I’ve been in before doesn’t seem to matter.  It gets specially bad when it’s something important to me personally.

I can’t even stand to think of food let alone eat, my stomach gets tied in knots and I start to think of every bad thing that could possibly go wrong.

But when the event starts then I smooth out.  I can think again, I can act.  I have too many things to do to get nervous.

And that is all that it is after all.  Nerves.

I notice that whatever it is, isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  Even if it is as bad as I think it’s going to be the anticipation is gone, the unknown factor vanishes and I am suddenly free again to act and react rather than wait.

I keep telling myself that but it doesn’t matter I still get the nerves.  So I plan ahead, I make preparations way ahead of time so that I won’t miss any important detail before the fear gets me.  I can then “enjoy” the nervousness without adding the fear that I have missed something due to this.

What a way to live.

 

Posted in: life in general

Writing

July 2, 2013 6:24 AM , 2 Comments ,

I have always been a short story guy.  I suppose I always want to get to the point and not waste time.  I have written short stories, chapters, bits and pieces, and even a novella but have never been able to put together something really large and meaningful.

I never put too much detail or get too wordy in any of my scene or character descriptions because I can see them so clearly in my mind.  Another consideration is that I want my readers to populate some of the story themselves.  I hate it when writers insist on explaining and detailing every little grain of sand in the story.

Last November I did a writing challenge called NaNoWriMo and had to come up with a 50,000 word story.  I typed and typed and typed and as I neared the end of the month with 35,000 or so words I realized that I was not going to make it.  The story was nearing its conclusion and I had nowhere else to take it to.  I went back and added minor characters.  Gave them some scenes and some dialogue and ended the novel at around 42,000 words.

I then had to start at the beginning and as I read through it I began realizing that I was leaving readers flat.  I had tons to write!  Character descriptions, location descriptions.  internal monologues.  The story was half written!

So with hours to go I crossed the 50,000 mark and had my novel.  The story sits on my hard drive untouched for now but I may soon go back and edit it.  The real success of course was improving my writing skills.  I no longer look at descriptions as mindless space filling fluff.  I’ve a long way to go to be sure but with time and friends support I think I will be ready for this years NaNoWriMo challenge.

 

 

Posted in: writing

ITL

June 30, 2013 8:11 AM , 2 Comments ,

I miss many things by not living inside the city.  Let’s face it, it’s an exciting time in the city’s history.  Who could have predicted the rise of Houston’s urban landscape back in the 90s?  I certainly didn’t.

It’s not just the paid venues like restaurants and clubs that are making the inner loop better, though they are getting more numerous and more impressive.  What is really making the difference is the rise of Houston’s artistic community.  We have more and more art galleries opening up, art festivals, and more artists coming over and saying “you know, it’s not so bad here after all”

So why don’t I take the plunge and make the move into the city?  Complicated.  Part of the answer is that not too long ago I did not expect to be here that long.  About five years ago my mid range plans were to leave Houston.  Living out in the ‘burbs I did not see anything that would cause me to stay here.  I mean there is nothing special about strip malls, freeways, and cookie cutter houses for miles and miles.  I wanted something special, mountains, oceans, interesting things to look at or see.  I was already making lists of possible places to move to like the Pacific Northwest or one of the cities of the Northeast or possibly even out of the country altogether.

Another part of the answer is family.  I have two elderly parents that need care.  They have to be part of any decision that I make for the moment.  I began to make this realization about eight years ago and began to plan for this.

My parents may think that they can be as independent as they used to be but based on recent history I don’t think that’s possible.  I need to be nearby.  They would be happy to live out in some small town in the middle of nowhere or even living back in Chile over 4000 miles away.  They see the city as noisy, congested, and crime ridden.  No amount of persuasion, or brochures, or websites will change their minds  The suburbs where they used to live was the best compromise I could come up with.  They know the area and are comfortable with it and I am close enough to the city that it’s not an hour long drive just to get into the loop.

But when it’s just me?  What will I want for myself?  I haven’t had much time to ponder that lately.  But certainly life inside the loop will come back into my considerations.  I don’t need to go to far off exotic places to find a happy life.  Maybe it’s just half an hour away

Posted in: Houston, life in general

expanding my reading habits

June 27, 2013 8:53 PM , 2 Comments ,

I was reading a paperback book from a popular sci-fi series of books once.  I was about 3 pages into the book when I not only knew who the main villain was, how long till the big showdown in the book would occur, and what quirky little detail that the main villain had overlooked that the main protagonist would use to beat him.

Pretty much killed that series of books for me.  So I started another series by another author and 2 books in I had the same problem.  Not their fault really.  Authors tend to stick to what works and most fans love it because they are in tune with that formula.

Maybe it’s a function of time or maybe it’s that I have expanded my tastes but it no longer works for me like it used to.

So I have been taking up different types of books, mystery, horror, literary fiction, inspirationals to try to get a broader perspective.  So far it is working wonderfully.  I am enjoying these different genres and the stories can be quite captivating.  I thought I would be bored but really it makes me want to read more.

If you want to ease your way out of sci-fi and fantasy I would recommend Michael Chabon.  He has done some wonderful steampunk style short stories that I am sure you would like and will give you a taste of his writing style.

Posted in: books

Spectator sports or why I love college football

June 25, 2013 9:12 PM , Leave a Comment ,

I find it to be a toss-up as to which is more boring to watch.  Golf or Soccer.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am sure it takes skill to play golf and it must be quite enjoyable to spend a morning with friends out on the links.  I am positive that Soccer is fun to play and makes for good exercise, but why would you want to spend an afternoon watching either one on TV or in person?

The few times I have made an effort I have found myself falling asleep in the case of golf or suffering an acute attack of attention deficit disorder while watching soccer.  To each his own I suppose.

Similarly I can’t get engaged into other sports like baseball or basketball or hockey.  I find these to be either to slow (in the case of baseball) or tedious (in the case of basketball or hockey).  Football (american rules that is) was what I found interesting to watch.

Progress made by each team is easy to gauge thanks to the handy lines on the field and the scoreboard.  Strategies, sometimes quite elaborate, are implemented, refined, and redefined as the game progresses.  You can feel tension in the air as the clock begins to wind down to the last minutes.

Now these other sports do have strategies.  Or at least they claim to.  Baseball has hitting line ups and changes in pitchers.  Soccer has a less well-defined long term tactic of trying to find weaknesses in the other teams defenses.  A very long term process considering the inaccuracy of passing a ball by kicking.

I also don’t like all football.  I tuned out professional football a long time ago.  The focus of the professional games has become much too mercenary for my taste.  Money has ruined it for me.

I much prefer the college version.  I find a real passion for the sport there.  The student customs, the team colors, the mascots.  Just to think that all these people are bound together by these things on a saturday afternoon.

In particular of course I prefer Texas Aggie football.  Not just for simple school pride but it’s more than that and difficult to put into words.  The old saying is true “looking out it’s difficult to explain, looking in its difficult to understand”.  More so than many schools, A&M feels like an extended family.  Hard to imagine for such a large state school but it does.  The camaraderie that exists between alumni is genuine.

I remember as a freshman coming home on winter break.  I was at a supermarket wearing a sweater with the school logo.  An elderly gentleman (90 years old at least) hobbled up and extended his hand to me.  He excitedly pointed to my sweater and then to the Aggie ring on his knuckle.  He could not speak as he most likely had a stroke some time in the past but he mumbled something that sounded like “Howdy” the traditional Aggie greeting.

Two complete strangers bound together by one common experience.  40,000 Aggies bound together on a Saturday afternoon.

Does it matter in the big scheme of things if my school beats your school in some athletic event?  Of course not, it’s a game after all.  What matters is that feeling of unity that we have, even if it’s just for an afternoon.  “Knowing” that we belong to something greater.  Our collective will focused on that field.  Something I just don’t feel in the professional version of the sport.

 

Posted in: sports