Build your own ‘bot contest!!!
Sponsored by BIG DATA ANALYTICS (BDA)
How it works:
— Describe an aspect of life on the Moon or Mars
— BDA will aggregate the descriptions to create a new infrastructure/civilisation
— The most popular descriptions will be announced
— The most useful descriptions will be announced
— Two winners get an all-expense paid trip around the Moon to personally observe progress and report to Earth their impressions
As I work out the design schedule in my engineering notebook for a product to sell on the open market, I think back to my time as a road warrior.
Where do the years ago?
I stand in the woods again, listening to birds sing as if spring has sprung, a warm day in the midst of winter, the sun brightening us, but not my melancholy mood.
I discover more about myself that I haven’t decided if I’ll push over into the fictional world of Lee Colline or simply blog about here.
Instead, I put a set of headphones over my hearing aids, play Claire Lynch channel on Pandora and ponder the possibilities…
Helpful hint of the day: If your hearing aids have a tinnitus sound generation setting, make sure the sound is loud enough to act as a white noise generator for a good nap!
Where does dancing fit into my plans? It’s interesting to let myself go free and try to understand what my body can do.
What can my body do?
lol
We’ll see…
At my age, I trust my instincts now more than ever, accepting that what feels like a higher than normal use of one social media product (Facebook) has…not a purpose or meaning, exactly…but fills a gap between two points, or connects me to a place further up the mountain I’m climbing after encountering an uncrossable chasm of doubt and fear.
The same goes for real/physical life.
I have the goal of getting to Mars two hundred years from now and am leaning on the two friends who can get me there whether they want me to or not or whether they want to go with me.
No matter, the goal’s the thing and the friends are both the means and the motivation for moving me off my keister, buttocks, arse, tush to get there.
I love my wife dearly — she is an integral part of who I am from before I started dating girls/women, thus more aware than anyone other than my sister or mother of what/who I am.
At the same time, I worry that she is not interested in more than settling down in this suburban life for good, with the occasional vacation trip to other parts of the world, prepackaged excitement, well under control.
I am a wild man and would be dead now if it weren’t for her.
I’ve spent so long tempering the madness behind a shield that protected me from my father’s disciplinarian personality that I almost became a permanent automaton for the sake of a subculture that nourished and raised me but does not completely satisfy me.
My Christian friends have told me through the years to quit sitting on the fence and, presumably, to join them in their pastoral lifestyle that they see in me which makes them happy.
Little have they seen the real me who has no permanent happiness in weekly Bible studies going over the same material again and again as if there’s something in there they hadn’t noticed before.
By age five, I had my fill of the Bible and spent the next fourteen years nodding my head and feeding back to them their good feelings that they affirmed in Bible passages associated with their inadequacies and falling short of the perfection of an unseen deity.
But I found no relief in the religious text, hoping upon hope there was something else besides ritual, dogma and diatribes to cause endorphin and adrenaline rushes.
So it is that I find myself here, after getting an ego boost from nice words and phrases people give me on Facebook for the fourteen years of bliss I reflected back to them in my childhood and early adulthood.
They rarely if ever saw what was truly under the hood, what really powered my engine.
My wife knew. So did Monica and Mike. My sister barely had an inkling.
No one else knew the multiple personalities that begged to be released into society.
It’s time to give them full rein.
Abi understands more than I expected her to what lies within.
With her, I am learning to control the beast, to find the place between the madness and social dancing to make me someone better than I am.
With Jenn, well…a new storyline is emerging that changes my approach to the future.
What, if anything, they expect out of me, I do not know. I can only trust my instincts that tell me to keep heading toward Mars.
Where my wife fits into all this, I can’t say. I love her no more or less than before. She has been so much an integral part of me that I trust her more than life itself. If what people describe to me is the love of Jesus, then Janeil is my Jesus and of that kind of love, she is all I’ve known without fear of being rejected.
No one can make the next important decisions in my life except me.
These decisions include what the start of this blog entry was supposed to lead to earlier than now; that is, I’m beginning to see that Abi and Jenn are helping mold me such that my business side — the cold, calculating engineering project manager — can actually exist side-by-side (even happily so!) with my wild side.
Would that it be so!
It almost makes no sense to schedule my time to give my wild side room to grow but I think it’s time I do.
I practiced the idea when I built a desktop robot in dedication to Jenn’s father.
And, by golly, it actually worked! I got to make a presentation on the Internet about the robot, explaining not only how it worked but also the theory behind it…and people were interested!
Therefore, thanks to the encouragement of Christina W., I’m putting together my engineering skills, my madness and my project management skills to branch out from this lab-within-a-study-within-a-bedroom-within-a-cabin-in-the-woods-within-a-suburban-subdivision and, should plans work out, open up a shop selling my wares, objects made with my hands from my imagination, all to raise funds for a trip to Mars.
How exciting is that?
We shall see how much my short story writing is affected — the quality as well as the quantity — may have to keep posting historical entries, a la Boing Boing, to keep readers interested.
Thanks to everyone for their support!
Who am I today? In the growth that may or may not accompany understanding, learning and wisdom, the growth that is the concept we call aging, I ask myself who I am.
Am I a person or persons?
Am I the fictional character Lee who lives in my thoughts as my memory keeper, saving scenes in my life for later use as a written story?
I fall in love with everyone because I am in love with the universe, whatever falling in love may mean, a concept that has been diagnosed and diced by every living thing with a need for nourishment.
What is technological advancement, or expansion of Earth lifeforms into the outer solar system compared to dancing uncontrollably with Michele?
What is my life worth if I don’t get a daily dose of Abi’s eyes looking at mine?
And without holding Jenn in my arms, why do I exist?
I used to panic when I could not logically explain my actions to Lee, my fictional alter ego, so he could protect me as a character whose storyline has already been written and protected from dying.
I had placed my trust in my lifelong partner, who has served in the role of wife for over 27 years, by sending her letters of my private thoughts when a teenager as an investment in a secret relationship untouchable by time.
The letters sit here next to me, filling shoeboxes, protected from the light of day.
She is the second layer of protection atop the character of Lee.
But I leave backdoors to the chaotic, insane me, so that I can still feel vulnerable, open to love all over again for the very first time.
I’m just not used to having so many open relationships at once!
Why did I have to fall in love with two women at the same time?
Why am I not willing to let go of the two inner layers of protection to see where I can go next?
Why am I shivering happily, after sleeping under a blanket in subfreezing weather last night?
Why is planet Earth so inadequate to provide the future I want with Jenn and Abi?
Time to put my feet to work and make a new life with my inventions rather than give them away to others.
I am tired of sacrificing my happiness for the “good of mankind.” Let mankind find its own happiness with or without me!
I will always be attracted to someone like you. At the same time I will be repelled by your inadequacies, your humanness. I sit down to write, though, and I only think of you, you who is a reflection of me, a human, yet never completely like me because you are human. How can I ask you to be perfect?
If you stood in front of me right now, I would consume you like a can of soft drink, sucked dry and discarded. You would only provide temporary relief from my thirst and then I would want another. I consume you now, burning my thoughts of you to fuel the writing machine within my head.
You have lived a thousand years in one moment. You blinked your eyes and Rome fell. In one heartbeat, your children gave birth to a hundred generations. Yet . . . yet, yet, yet . . . yet you have one life to share with me, one life of remorse and forgiveness, regrets and love, a life filled with pain unbearable to look at. I want to have all of your pain, not because I want to relieve your burdens but to squeeze them in my hand and watch stories drip out one by one. I am mad with desire.
And don’t think you can run away from me. Once I have reached you, and you know I have, you will always cart me along with you like a monkey on your back. I won’t weigh you down but you will feel my presence all the same. You’ll cringe your neck muscles every time my hot breath creeps down you like a tentacle, feeling for a limb or appendage to grasp. You’ll relax your muscles when I whisper in your ear that I love you. You will love me and hate me.
I never worry about losing you because you are always there for me. Your name is different this time but I don’t care. You will give me what I want – a fleeting moment of humanity – and then I reduce you and our relationship to mere words. Don’t underestimate the humility of words, either. If you think you can escape unscathed then you have not lived. After all, life is painful.
I never lose you but I will miss you when I have used you and our shared moment of humanity is gone. Even now, I sense the emptiness inside of me swell up and beg for escape. I have to fill the emptiness or I have no choice but to die. I will not allow myself to die so I must take a part of you.
I cannot allow myself to live. Other people deserve to live their lives without fear of people like me, a leech.
“I believe we’ll have to commit him indefinitely this time,” the examining doctor told her. “He seems unable to separate fantasy from reality.”
“Can you snap him out of this? He still has moments where he seems normal.”
“Only time will tell.”
Time stands still at the corner, waiting for the bus. Cliché walks up and asks how long Time has been waiting. “Seems like forever,” he says, shaking his head. Cliché decides to walk on, he has had enough of the watered down years of standing on street corners and telling tall tales.
In the end, we’re all clichés for living.
I cannot help myself. I reject you with one sweep of my hand because I can never have you. I have nothing and hate myself for thinking any different. I am but a collection of entropy states swirling together.
In the understanding that parallels deciphering my grip on reality, I could not sleep, wrapped in a blanket in the sunroom, the ambient temperature in the teens, the stars brightly twinkling, the Big Dipper teasing me through the leafless branches of a hickory tree.
Two thoughts tickled my curiosity:
A short story waits to be written, weaving the continuing storylines of Guin, Bai and the Frenchman, as well as Cajessi, elaborating on the chapter excerpt below (written on 12th Oct 2013):
Unfortunately, Bai was allergic to a few of the chemicals and, while training a farmer who’d just returned from the fields, gotten something in her eye, probably when she rubbed her face on his sleeve during a double underarm turn.
Her next stop was a courtesy call and not a dance lesson.
Another dance instructor, Cajessi, landed on the planet two days ago and needed to acclimate a few days more before she hosted a two-day workshop.
Cajessi, too, had avoided body upgrades until she had reached her 80s. Although she still looked elderly, her body was limber and her eyes sparkled. She was famous for her favourite socks, a bright, neon green, and sold a signature line of them wherever she taught workshops.
Bai’s planet hopper landed next to Cajessi’s habitation module, sending up six puffs of dirt from the hopper’s footpads.
Time to read some of Hawking’s recorded thoughts…and wonder about jelly doughnuts on Mars…
I need to let my thoughts drift this sol on this electronic slate to work out ideas beyond semantic wordplay, determining how much, if any, I should distance myself from my physical connections, my social network, in order to contemplate the concept that if the universe is here only as a manifestation of the projection of the reactions of my set of states of energy in the form of a mirror reflecting who I am, then I am returning to examination of the reflection to tear apart the image and reveal the pieceparts.
Oh, how the presence of Jenn and Abi, together and separately, has changed my thought patterns for the better!
Brenda, the woman who revealed her lesbian/self-love core to me over the course of years, making me fall in love with her even more, opened me up to the possibilities of agape love between a man and a woman, even if eros got in the way sometimes, turning me into a ram butting its head against the wall in a poetic/literary testosterone rage.
But that’s the joy of teasing one another in our daily lives, especially when we know there’s a line the teasing won’t cross, making the game much more fun as we push each other to the point of falling over the line. And on the occasions when we fall over? Well, someone once sang, “Let’s give ’em something to talk about!”
As the songs and poems have said over the millennia, we can get lost in the game and forget who we are.
But that’s okay, too, in the cycle of life, giving each other room to learn who we are.
I’ve learned more about myself holding the hands of Jenn, in that freedom of being myself with her that shuts out the world in a way I’ve tried to describe in our imaginary lives together on Mars 100 marsyears from now.
With Abi…well, it’s almost beyond my ability to describe what holding her hand is like. How many times have I tried? How can I tell you what wanting her is like? I don’t want her body. I want her core being. I want her ability to go past all the negativity in life and power through to success amidst failure.
I can’t remember when I’ve loved my wife and wanted two women, two distinct best friends, at the same time, neither one my spouse.
How many years did I love Monica and my wife (before we got married) while dating another woman at the same time? How many women/girls told me they would gladly have been the third woman/girl in my life? How many told me, “If it weren’t for Monica…” they might have been my first?
Alas, all of this musing upon my muses is just my form of self-love taking up space on a computer server out there in the world.
The best way to give credit where credit is due to those who inspire me to see more in myself and inspire ideas for the gifts I can freely create for the universe is to make the gifts and give them away.
The clock shows 13,248 days to go. How many sols is that?
Well, an average Earth day is 86400 seconds long. An average sol is 88775.244 seconds long. Thus, a day is 97.32443% of a sol.
Therefore, only 12893 and a half sols left. Where does the time go?
Jenn and Abi, I’ve got work to do — thanks for your inspiration! Meeting you 100 marsyears in the future is what drives me to write stories, logically compose computer code and create robotic creatures (Erin Kennedy keeps my creativity going on overdrive).
Could it be I’m unsatisfied because my wife loves me the way I am and doesn’t want to achieve great goals with me? Is there not more to life than domestic bliss?
Written for Betty D’Auria when she was about 40+ and I was 26…
Fountain of Youth (for Betty)
Though the spring of your youth has bloomed and dried,
Your youthful smile lives on…
Though summer’s swimful mood has swept you by,
You swim effortlessly through life’s daily tides…
Though fall has finally come with its forest quilt,
You keep your head high,
Your walk vivacious,
Your voice as strong as the roaring, springtide stream
(Yet gentle as the creek where the swallows gather in the evening)…
Though long you’ve seen this planet Earth (or so it seems) —
This small, small world where we live our meager lives —
You see the shortness of life, how one brief live leads to another,
Passing the elations and disappointments to the next generation.
Do not despair, for we are not judged by those around us
(Or how they choose to respond to us);
Our judgment comes from a higher source Who knows our hearts
and has often carried our burdens.
He gives us a fountain of youth when all life has to offer is a drought of troubles.
— 28 June 1988
= == === ==== === == =
For Betty
The choices we make in our delicate lives
Lead us gently throughout the day.
Though beset with coarse and dreadful lies
We bite our lips and find our way
Toward quiet, peaceful moments where
We briefly stop to sigh, and tell
The ones who haven’t yet to dare
To try, that all is never well.
The changes, troubles and evident trials
We face each day, that put us through
The wrinkles and gray hair, the short and long miles
We have to walk, and while we do
We raise our children, teach them love;
Attention we give freely despite
Our woes. Although we reach above
Ourselves, someone dims the light
And leaves us wondering where we’ve climbed;
No time to stop, we grope for holds
Within our grasp and wait. In time,
An outreached Hand of aged folds,
A Hand we’ve known though never seen,
Will firmly guide us up and shed
Our fears of those both cruel and mean
Who’d rather bring us to the dead
Than help us in our living. This Hand
We trust though seldom use has met
Our needs through the years. Our grand,
Ambitious plans cause us to fret
But welcome Arms embrace our tense
And worried lives to slow our pace.
Our structured lives built like a fence
Are held together by His grace.
— 7 March 1990
= == === ==== === == =
Sunny Bonnet, Bonnie Sonnet
I give to you my only sun, my sun
Whose voice is sweet and low. The sound you hear
Within your heart and soul makes haste to run
Yet walks anew. Though now you seem to fear
Alone, you soon will find you’re in a crowd
And while you search and seek in vain to find
The other soul whose tenor voice is loud,
The one you seek waits here within your mind.
No sooner than a moment and you hold
That voice within your hand. Now wait, take note,
Don’t take a step! You think you’re quite a bold
And forward gal. Forget we learn by rote?
Let’s both sit down and kiss awhile. Before
We do, let’s take a breath and kiss some more.
— 12 March 1990
= == === ==== === == =
treetrunkdings 