Tag Archives: chapter excerpt

Mr. Slim Weighs In

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Toward what or whom do you gravitate?

I, too, don’t want emotion to cloud my judgment but shouldn’t emotion be involved if I’m truly human?

How well do you cover your tracks?

Can you tell which secret projects the Rocket City Rednecks have worked on by watching their skill sets in action on an edited-for-TV show?

Do you have the sensitivity to hear the voices of others synchronised into the one talking in front of you?

Are you a true believer in the pebble-in-the-pond theory of reverse engineering current states of energy?

Do you understand how time travel really works?

Can you detach yourself from everything, including yourself, in order to hear the silent rhythms of the universe?

Is KISS your guiding principle?

It’s nice to keep the self feeling important just enough to know the self is truly unimportant but ego (i.e., the recognition of oneself in the social web) is a vital part of being human so you balance the best you can, tipping the scales in the wrong direction many a time, refining the finetuning of holding the balance as you go along.

Letting go, letting go, letting go – what am I missing this time?  What have I added?  The “I,” of course!

Every subculture deserves its positive, life-affirming attitude [“as long as it doesn’t interfere with mine,” right?] as long as or even if it doesn’t know it is part of a larger set of abutting and intersecting subsets/subcultures.

What happens if we directly bail out the consumer?  Other than the perception (certainly from my point) that the underwater/indebted/bankrupt consumer should not be freed from irresponsible personal financial management (and while we’re at this blame game, that person is just as likely to be an uninformed voter and maybe a bad parent), what is the reality?

If stockbrokers supposedly vetted by respectable financial companies’ HR departments are acting like psychopaths in their trading habits, some of them taking down whole companies or causing CEOs like the one at UBS to quit, meaning that internal company controls are no better there than internal thought patterns/controls of individual consumers, then why are we reluctant to forgive mortgages, credit card debt, etc., of individuals but readily willing to bail out badly managed financial institutes and political entities like Greece?

What is wrong with the balance of power?

The peasantry have little effect on overall purchasing power, that’s why.

This parroting parrot has squawked about the emperour’s new clothes until it’s hoarse but the observation is still true.

We, the people, no longer matter.

We’re back to the days when only the landed gentry had a say in the law of the land.

That’s why I’m thinking about not voting in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election for the first time in my life.

I just can’t see where any of what I say or do as a broke, out-of-work individual fits into a single vote, especially in a political entity (in this case, a state) that’ll most likely vote the way it has recently voted for U.S. Presidents, regardless of which way I’ll cast my vote.

Even in so-called swing states, if I lived there, my vote would still be just one vote, putting in office a person who is just as purple as Bush or Obama, a surfer riding the waves of aggressive military-industrial corporate policies.

Don’t get me wrong.  I personally benefit from aggressive military-industrial corporate policies.

In fact, I’m a strong proponent of the global corporatising that sits over the imaginary structures we call political entities/national governments.

Take this storyline that you can’t tell if it’s real or imaginary – me in charge of the Committee that runs the show.  It’s a lot easier to rule seven billion when they all are connected through the same macrocultural interests.

But there’s a difference between my being able to destroy people, businesses and rockets at the snap of my finger and my being an individual in plain sight, sitting here – or being served a chopped chicken stuffed baked potato by Mary at Gibson’s BBQ – who has to find a simple place in society despite severe social anxiety and situational depression.

And, then, erasing all thoughts of self to live invisibly as just another set of states of energy in this section of the universe that is shifting like a bubble within a bubble or a bouncy ball floating and banging around within a bigger bouncy ball at the five-and-dime store.  A fake snowflake shaken around in a souvenir snow globe by a bored tourist trapped in a gift shoppe after a speedy haute couture “adventure in an exotic foreign land.”

We forget what’s been said before so we can say it again as if we’re the first on the edge of terra incognito.

I do not exist.

And yet, I do.

The paradox is not supposed to resolve itself.

It is.

That’s all that matters.

I write this while sitting on my posteriour and wearing bedroom slippers.

I am.

And yet, I am not.

Imagine the possibilities of the Internet of things in just a few months, let alone years, if every kid on the block had easily-programmable Arduino-like devices to connect their imaginations to the Internet.  What if everyone’s heartbeat rate was available for view in realtime – what kind of rhythmic percussive symphony would it compose on the fly?

The average age of gamers is 37, I read.  There’s more than one mobile phone per person in some parts of the world.  What are you doing with your time?

Vanity – Not One of the Varieties of Life

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He sat and remembered her eyes again.

They met, or rather, their eyes met, as they scanned the dance hall looking for a partner.

The blind have a world of senses before them, enjoying life to the fullest despite the lack of eyesight.

But these future dance partners were not blind.

Their eyes met.

One set, dark brown, intricate patterns noticeable only at close range.

The other, golden rings encapsulating hazel, green and blue hues swirling toward the center of the orbs.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

“Do you know the Viennese waltz?”

“No, but I’m willing to try.”

They spun around the room like ice skaters, one-two-three, one-two-three, seconds turning into minutes, until they were out of breath.

At the end of the dance, they stopped and looked at each other.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

“Do you want to dance again?”

“Phew!  Give me a moment.”

The early autumn air, humid, full of the promise of winter but warm, produced a sheen on the dancers’ faces.

“It’s burning up in here.  Wanna take a walk?”

“Sure.  Let me grab my purse.”

At the door, their eyes met again.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

“Is there much to see in this part of town?”

“Not for a few blocks.”

“Then let’s go!”

Invigorated by the dancing, they raced each other from street corner to street corner, running past the warnings of “No Walking” signs, the roads nearly deserted.

They stopped in front of a convenience store.

“You know what?  I’m thirsty.”

“Me, too.”

At the door, their eyes met again.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

One purchased a bottle of water, the other a bottle of popular high-energy soda.

They walked a couple of blocks, not speaking, just looking at the sidewalk, then the building facades, then the occasional car passing by, then interesting items in trinket shops and finally, back to their eyes.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

They stopped in front of an apartment complex.

“I have a friend who lives here.  I wonder if she’s home.”

“Could be.  Why don’t you ring her?”

No answer.

At the door, their eyes met again.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

They leaned toward each other and kissed.

Their eyes met again.

The eyes were like magnets, opposite poles tugging the bodies along.

They kissed again.

“Should we go back and dance?”

“Sure.”

They took their time returning, memorising each other’s eye patterns because, in the moment, there is no tomorrow.

Run the numbers and…

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…for me, independence wins out.

I suppose I could create an infographic that shows how political systems connect to the average citizen – locally, regionally, nationally, globally – and, thus, why I should care who is or who isn’t in control of the flow of collected pools of citizens’ cash.

Or not.

But, bored with naysaying as a means of motivating the troops, I yawn.

I am just one body, after all, that’s going to live and die.

For that, I am truly happy, although momentary apathy varies the level of happiness.

I always knew this would happen – deciding to take on the whole planet as a simulation, a computer game, a what-if analysis – and then running out of new challenges to move me out of game-theory ennui.

I’m not the sort of person who has to compete against my fellow species’ members.  The system (the storyline) I created is so much greater than any of us that competition against one or many of us pales in comparison.

My imagination is free to roam wild, no matter where my body may actually be sitting – stuck in automobile/airplane traffic, slouched on the couch watching moving images on a shiny flat surface of living room furniture (i.e., the television), typing here, meditating during a walk in the woods.

While wealthy participants in the world economy game want to figure out how to motivate independent people to get back into the game of making the wealthy wealthier, I ask myself if full employment is a permanent illusion, a fantasy of previous times.

What if some of us are no longer interested in perpetuating old economic systems?  What if we no longer desire to prop up ravenous, greedy, gluttonous profiteers?  What if we’re willing to erase large sums of ill-gotten gains from the books of those trying to figure out how to “save” off-balance rigged accounting journals, no matter how much the journal keepers swear they followed GAAP rules?

I mean, as an average person on the street, does it matter if the rich (I’ll include myself here for the moment, to feel the pain) have 200x of their needs or 2x of their needs?

Does my independence depend on where these piles of imaginary cash reside and who’s protecting it?

Is my independence an illusion, too?  After all, somebody’s out there competing against Mother Nature to protect crops and livestock to sell against others in the marketplace for my convenient consumption to expand and expound, at my leisure, the marketplace of ideas.

After all is said and done, after complete knowledge of a macrosystem’s effect on microsystems, does my vote in upcoming elections count?

In other words, if economic power brokers are greater than individual (or the sum of all) political power brokers, what interest should I have in deciding the fate of those running for political office?

If we, the majority of the peasantry, don’t care what the feudal lords are doing, as long as we can get something to eat while tending our families, do we care what the lords are shouting at each other in pretending to care about us, knowing the system is greater than all of us?

At five, I realised the ideas in my head were greater than me.  Ever since then, I’ve played along with the adults in the room who pretended that they’re greater than the ideas in my head.

Forty-four years later, I still see the ideas are greater than any of us.

The greatest of these ideas: we advance life off this planet.

If we don’t, meaning everything else; that is, noise, interference, distraction – in other words, the rest of the system – won.

Which means we lost.

That’s why I don’t compete.

Ideas are independent.  They live and they die.

Just like me.

What Can Your Network Do For You?

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The Committee…some days, those words send chills up my spine.  Or is it chinchillas?  I’m never sure.

Anyway, the Committee members are in the midst of a dispute.  Do they promote a person or idea to a large group of people (e.g., a particular candidate or party for U.S. President in 2012) or let the system fulfill its predetermined fuzzy math, neural network outcome, where the person with the biggest network of people with the best possible chance of improving overall conditions for our species within our solar system ecosystem wins?

PME magazine declares “Less Is More” on its cover, discussing single-pipe hydronic system that solves high-rise troubles.

Meanwhile, the 2010 “Gallery” at WSCC received a silver award for annual publications from Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists.

Wallace Turman offers a “Bible story told through the Scripture Emphasis on Psalms 40 and demonstrated through clay on how the Potter, clay and the wheel relate to us.  This is a Great Learning Experience for the Whole Family [and he] can come to your Church or Business.”  For booking call Wallace at (256) 859-6517, (256) 658-1233 or email blackk59 [at] yahoo.com.

Finally, American Currents magazine offers the following observations about the mating habits of Warmouth, Lepomis gulosus:

“Both sexes, when courting, would approach another adult.  Only males were observed defending a territory.  Larger males were most successful at defending territories.  Only courting males would approach another fish with gills flared and attempt to lead a female to the nest site.  Females approaching the nest of a courting male would blanch with darkened eyes and move directly into the nest to engage in rock biting.  Brood care was performed only by males.  The paternal males frequently chased other fish off or away from the nest site.  Paternal investment ended once the larvae left the nest.

“Males and nests were acclimated over a period of one to several days prior to addition of females into the system.  This allowed time for males to establish territories and define hierarchy.

“The single male system with one or more females used a 150-litre (4-gallon) glass aquarium.  The male and nest were placed to one side of the tank and the following day conditioned female(s) were introduced and confined to the other side using a partition.  By day three, females were attempting to go through the partition, so the partition was removed and immediately the male began to court the females.  The partition was removed allowed the sexes to interact only when fishes could be monitored.  To keep the male receptive to ripe females, we eliminated parental obligations by removing the nest once eggs were hatched.  On several occasions, multiple, apparently, ripe females entered the nest and the males would abruptly stop courting.  The females would attempt to vent-rub even though the male’s courting has ceased.  Courtship and spawning would only occur successfully with a single female on the nest.  Several males that failed to construct and defend a nest site were removed.  Males observed to be reluctant to display courtship and spawning behaviours were replaced.

“A problem noted with this setup is that once females were removed, the male would often neglect parental duties and brood survival was greatly reduced.  Successful incubation required either leaving at least one female in the tank or removal of the nest for incubation in another tank [with adequate, artificial ventilation].  Males were often observed to be reluctant to spawn when they were the only male in the system; adding another male often promoted more intense courting, possibly because of competition between the males.

“The two-male system used a 454-l (120-gal) fiberglass raceway.  Males quickly feuded over the single nest and within an hour one male had become dominant and claimed the nest.  Conditioned females (n=7) were confined as a group to the smaller volume in the [tank].  At the beginning of the work day the partition was removed allowing the females to interact with the males over nests.  When the females were released, only the dominant male could defend a nest and successfully court the females.  The second male would attempt to defend a territory but was unable to court the females.

“Conditioning of the females was minimal and only required the females to be fed good amounts of food a couple weeks prior to spawning.  Courting behaviour includes a male swimming toward the females swaying his body while flaring his operculum then returning to his designated nest; this is repeated several times before a female responds by returning to the nest with the male.  Often times more than one female would enter a nest site.  During trials, as many as five females were observed in a single nest.  Males would refuse to spawn when more than two females were in a nest at one time.  So in order to induce spawning, several females had to be removed.  Three females were left in the raceway and within minutes a female returned to the nest.”

Sounds oddly familiar, like some people I know…

My wife wants me to mention the everyday miracle of life that occurs around us all the time (i.e., another example of Presbyterian predestination, she says).

Today, while sorting out clothes for her mother at the assisted living apartment, she had a few leftover clothes hanger, including a broken one which I proceeded to bend and turn into a giant thin moustache I could maybe use as a costume prop next month.  We left the apartment and I threw the bent wire into the backseat.  After seeing the dramatised true-to-life movie-of-the-week called “Moneyball,” we stopped to fill our automobile tank with petrol.  At the gas station, our favourite attendant there, Theresa, mentioned a fellow needed a coat hanger to jimmy the lock on his truck in which he locked his keys.  I carry a coat hanger in my car like almost never —  when I do, BOOM! lightning strikes and someone needs it.

The bigger your network, the better the chance of you experiencing and/or believing in everyday miracles, serendipitous or some such.  Perhaps, like Gandhi, your friends are setting up the infrastructure to make your life look more miraculous.  Same thing.

If=since, says Dr. Tom Lovell, referring to Philippians 2:1 (although 2:14 is much more poignant to me; accentuate the positive, no henpecking and no kicking or drawing lines in the sand), after preaching about 1:27.

Makes sense to me.

Is the universe for you or against you.  I choose to believe/accept it’s for me, even when the local environment feels/seems/looks hostile.  Why else am I here?

Thanks to the seaters and Sarah at Outback; William and Sabrina at Cheeburger, Cheeburger; Alyssa and Olivia at Rave; the many, many smiling faces at HarborChase; the bridge players and support staff at Brookdale Place; Elsie, William Hovik and others at Faith; Mel Strain of Mel’s Workshop; the soap maker who’s a friend of Tina Williams; the creators of the ext4 journaling file system.

Book Writing Begins

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As I divide my personality into dozens in order to build scenes, to give depth and conflict and time for characters to grow, to learn about themselves while interacting socially, gracefully, awkwardly, the self walks Earth in limbo.

A woman brings her beautiful young child to an adult event and we are all transported back to moments in our early years, where every new sight and sound was a joy to behold, an uninhibited laugh to share with the whole universe.

One weekend, city streets are deserted for Oktoberfest.

The next weekend, Big Spring Jam attracts the crowd on autumnal equinox.

Couples sway in time with the music.  Or not in time, enjoying the simple moment together in imperfect dissyncopation.

Helicopters hang in the air and practice firing maneuvers in the dark.

Missile batteries are charged and employed.

The value of life, the definition of culture, of maturity, of health – relativity is general, if not subject to objects faster than the speed of light dancing Viennese waltzes.

Kelly with the curly red hair.

Dan bagging groceries in the checkout line.

We…there’s that word, defining “us,” not them, together, teaching, learning…we work and play as one.

One people, loving, fighting, birthing, killing.

A part of our planet and our solar system, trillions of states of energy within trillions and trillions more, spinning, bouncing, colliding, combining.

Ageless.

We are the listeners, musical instruments and conductors of the narrated soundtrack of our living screenplay, written and played back in realtime, of now.

No rehearsal, no editing.

Watching musical acts, computer games and physical theories come and go like tides.

In the postdisclosure world, we tell you lies and then explain later how we lied to you, all of us just happy to understand we share this narrative while playacting, some “winning,” some “losing,” all of us living and dying, regardless of a sense of fair play.

Being cruel and kind to each other at the right time.

At the wrong time, too.

Like lovers who don’t know how to dance but are willing to try, rhythm not the issue, togetherness is.

A do-bee looks at OOBE

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Which of the following provides the better OOBE installation?:

  • Ubuntu Linux 11.10 Beta1, or…
  • Microsoft Windows [8] Developer Preview evaluation copy, build 8102

Good question.

NOTE: I write this blog entry under Internet Explorer v. 10.0.8102.0, pre-release.

Ubuntu Linux 11.10 provided a simplified desktop at startup, a la Apple OS X.

Microsoft Windows 8 provided a smartphone app look at startup (a/k/a Metro), a la Apple iPad/iPod.

Now, I’m not biased toward Ubuntu, Microsoft or Apple nor am I prejudiced against them.  All I want is a set of tools to get my job done, which is using technology to improve my quality of life.

The least obtrusive, the better.

The more intuitive, the better.

The lowest TCO (total cost of ownership), the best.

So far, there is no winner.

For simple text blogging, the Amazon Kindle 2 serves me well, allowing me to read books and blog with no monthly data plan costs.

The Windows 8 preview copy found my WiFi hardware and installed the appropriate driver, without my having to search the driver database (a knock against Ubuntu Linux 11.10, in this case).  Then again, this laptop was already preconfigured/approved fur Windows Vista (TM) Basic.

We’ll see how it goes.

I have Ubuntu Linux 11.10 on an 8GB external flash drive or SSD (solid state drive) (actually, two of them, an 8GB PNY and an 8GB SanDisk, to eliminate potential hardware incompatibility problems).

I have Microsoft Windows 8 on a blank 250GB internal hard drive I installed this morning in the laptop (a Compaq Presario C501NR notebook PC).

The Apple iPad and iPod touch, as well as the Amazon Kindle 2, have internal flash drives in their fixed hardware sets.

The Linux build had a few crashes.

The Windows build has displayed no crashes (so far), only security warnings about installing Java.

Back to my social network and the ongoing narrative the characters in my life have presented me to write about [you] here.

Thanks to Barbara and Amanda at Dreamland BBQ; Austin at PetSmart; people who find ways to employ autistic workers; the 5-year old who created a stop-action animated movie.

Is Lagarde your unofficial figurehead world leader?  In other words, how do representative, dictatorial and single-party governments select one person to rule them/us all?  It’s not a question, anymore.  It’s a done deal.  All hail your new overlord, the IMF.

The Committee will keep tabs on how this new one-world governorship is going and directly/overtly manage any extreme problems.  Otherwise, our invisible hands will be herding you on an everyday basis, as usual.

The Districts of the UN-IMF Club

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“Ladies and gentlemen, and those of you who prefer no labels at all, welcome to the Nouveau Historic District of the UN-IMF Club.

“As you can see, this is the area of the world we used to call Italy.  We will visit here for a few days and then continue on to the Nouveau Original District of the UN-IMF Club, what we used to call Greece.

“Those of you who paid for the extra excursions will get free train passes to visit possible candidates for a district of the UN-IMF Club, including Portugal, Spain and Ireland.  After your visit, don’t forget to place your vote for which country you next want to join the Club.

“As Club members, you have equal access to government buildings, secret hideaways of the formerly rich-and-powerful, casinos, limousines, yachts and other playtoys that the UN-IMF Club acquired during the bankruptcy sales of those who ruled and/or bankrupted Italy and Greece.

“For souvenirs, take anything you like…furs, diamonds, rare paintings, sculptures or rugs…we will tell you the value of the goods before you leave and collect a reasonable export tax.

“Some of you have inquired about the main Ferrari factory.  We are sorry to announce that previous guests stripped the factory clean.  However, we can proudly say we made several hundred million pseudoEuros in export taxes.  Don’t forget, there are plenty of Fiats and a few Lamborghinis left!

“Is everyone ready?  Good!  Let us skip around the large refugee camp that surrounds the Vatican.  The beggars will only slow us down and prevent us from seeing many good souvenir-picking sites today.”

Detail in the Detailed Tent, Sans Decals

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She listened to the radio.

Actually, she drove mindlessly, returning from another visit to another store, another merger causing another reorganisation.

In the merchandising business, change is good – new clothes lines every season, new displays, new employees – a merry-go-round of ups and downs.

This visit felt different.

It felt the same.

She saw herself sitting on the back of a camel crossing an endless desert of mergers and acquisitions, the policies and procedures rewordsmithedonceagain to reflect both previous and current owners.

And there were always the concerns from upper management – “Are we going to hit our numbers this day/week/month/quarter?” – like woodpeckers ramming against her skull, digging, digging, digging, building a headache that drove her to unfamiliar hotel rooms night after night on the road to yet another store whose facades must change the next day.

When would it end?

An urgent voice came on the radio.

“It appears a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.  More details as it develops.”

She shook her head to wake herself up, driving so early from Detroit to get back home at a decent hour that she hadn’t taken the time for a good breakfast.

The announcer described the momentary confusion – “We interrupt your smooth music morning commute to give you the following information.  First reports from New York indicate a small plane, possibly in the fog, has exploded into the side of the World Trade Center.  One moment…no, now they’re saying that the size of the explosion indicates it had to be a larger plane.  Video footage shows that the skies were clear at the time of the crash.  We’re being told that smoke is billowing out of one of the towers.  Wait a minute…let’s go live to our correspondent on the ground in Manhattan.  Jeneva Jones, what do you see?”

She looked out the window.

How many pilots in the sky at this moment were possibly having a heart attack or lost control and were potential crash victims in the making?

Is that why she decided to drive from store to store instead of fly?

As she drove further south, the radio stations changed but the news did not.  Plane after plane seemed to be in attack mode along the East Coast.

When she stopped for gas, panic had infected everyone.  Rumours of invasions and security checkpoints spread from traveler to traveler, no one exactly sure what was going on.

She called her husband.  They assured each other that her plans to drive straight home were the best in the current situation.

The closer she got home, the more she knew what she was going to do.

She was going to quit her job.

It might be days or months before her next (dream) job became available, but she knew she had to change.

This day – the 11th of September, 2001 – had answered the question she was afraid to ask, “Is what I’m doing right now the most important thing I could be doing for myself and others if we knew we were going to die today?”

In that next job, she was going to dedicate herself to the people who mattered – the workers, the volunteers, the customers – and avoid a job that forced her to pay attention to those who don’t matter – the worrisome managers and owners who only know how to cover their trails and cater to fickle stockholders and market analysts.