Maybe I wasn't such a good coach...

In explaining why he had run in all the way from Right Field to tackle a Yankee's baserunner who had gone in spikes up into second base, local Northern California native Johnny Gomes said, "I was taught all the way back to T-Ball to have my teammates back."

You know, Andy from Mile at the Beach and I coached T-Ball for three seasons together, and he coached for four seasons and has now moved up to the next coaching level, and in that entire time I never remembered teaching the 5 and 6 year old players to start a bench clearing brawl in order to protect their fellow teammate from bodily harm. Of course, there was usually one week in there where I was off on vacation, so maybe that was the week Andy taught them that.

Ten other things I DID NOT teach my T-Ball players:

10. To grab their crotch at any time.
9. How to inject steroids into the butts of other players.
8. Why the DH loving American League is superior to the God fearing and all-natural National League
7. How to compute the slugging percentage of left handed hitters against Venezuelan pitchers who bat above the Mendoza line but do poorly in Winter Ball.
6. How to spit tobacco juice into pop cans.
5. What to say to your agent before an arbitration hearing.
4. How to take HGH and not get caught.
3. The LA Dodgers Fight Song.
2. How to make coach an excellent martini while cleaning his pool.
1. How to make the game so exciting that picking up dirt wasn't more interesting ;)

I take responsibility for one of those things. The rest, I had no intention of teaching them until they were much older. ;) But then again, maybe they teach things differently in the T-Ball league of Petaluma. I'll have to remember to keep my kids from playing those guys - just in case we accidentally start a bench clearing brawl by suggesting that the other team has cooties.

The Cat's Slowly Wriggling Free...

It's not quite out of the bag yet, but the cat has gotten a flap open and has poked its head out.

While it appears that I have been slumbering lately (and, in many ways I have) I haven't entirely been asleep. Though I've mentioned it before, I will state it a bit more clearly now. I have been working behind the scenes intensely on my website rebuild. Projects that have been long dormant are being reawakened and new projects are racing through the pre-visualization stages of development.

On April 1st (or thereabouts) I will come completely clean on what is brewing, but for now, I'm sure you'll here the occasional rumble around here. Some of you, or your kids, might even get cast for things without knowing why.

(Okay, one little tidbit, two days ago I completed a test for my new front page and it came off just as well as I imagined it - I'm talking Disney ThemePark-esque! I'm really excited about this new website, but almost as excited about not having to work on that stupid novel again!)

Anyway, if you want a long wait for a free preview (I'm still working out a few technological kinks) you can go to my website now by clicking on The Adventure Chronicles link in my link bar.

That's it. Suitably vague. But hopefully my enthusiastic drivel was contagious!

I Know You've Been Curious...

As I know that I've been curious, so last week when I read on a website that one of the best things you could buy at a fast food place was the Low Cal Six Dollar Burger at Carl's Jr (I believe its called Hardees on the East Coast) which comes in at only 400 calories, I decided that I just had to try it. So I planned for a day when I could work off the calories later and I drove out to Carl's Jr for lunch today.

So, what is a low cal six dollar burger? Let's start with the burger. It's a 8oz Angus Beef Burger cooked and seasoned and quite tasty. Its topped with a single slice of American Cheese, catsup and mayo. They use a real thick bread and butter pickle, fresh tomatoes, and red onion as well. Presumably, you could get the burger without one or more of these ingredients. So far, you're probably asking yourself what's the difference? Well, the difference is that instead of a big thick enriched flour bun, they wrap the burger in two giant lettuce leaves. That's right, Lettuce Leaf, Burger, Fixings, Lettuce Leaf.

Sounds kind of messy? Well, it can be. Fortunately, I have YEARS of experience in eating fast food and Carl's Jr particularly has a reputation for messy eating experiences. So I was well prepared.

My first thought upon opening the cardboard box was that this burger was heavy and it made me wonder how the lettuce could possibly hold up under the strain. It was wrapped in a white food paper that made it easier to hold, but the paper was so large that you could only nibble a bit off the top before you had to start shedding the paper. As I took a bite and realized that there was almost no support for the burger contents inside the lettuce, I knew that it was going to be a race against time as to whether I could finish the entire burger before its contents were shed all over the front of my shirt.

I raced through the eating and towards the end, I pulled the empty cardboard box underneath the burger. This turned out to be fortuitous because all the burgers juices, normally absorbed by the bun, started flowing out - but they poured into the box instead. The end result was that I finished the burger without a single drop spilled, but this is by no means a beginner's burger - expert eaters need only apply.

As for the burger itself, it was still kind of heavy. I'm not sure about that 400 calorie claim, but I was quite satisfied with the amount of food - and that's not necessarily a good thing. Afterwards, I went for a walk and I felt slightly sluggish from the digestion of the meal. Still, I enjoyed the burger. It was quite excellent and I really didn't miss the bun at all. In the future, I will probably order this burger again. But this is definitely not something I would include regularly in my diet. It was a nice distraction, but by no means was it a proper replacement for a good meal. However, considering the lack of options at fast food restaurants today, it was definitely a better choice than any chicken sandwich or salad with chicken or meat inside. So in that respect, it was a good fast food option.

All told it cost me about $6.50 for the burger and a bottled water. And I will give it 2 1/2 Wigs out of 5. (Though considerably less if I were an amateur fast foodie)

No Points, No Pre-Packaged Foods, Just Faith

I've been keeping a lid on this for a while, mostly because I didn't want to fail and bring discredit to God. But I've finally seen quantifiable results and I had to finally pass it on. The Lord has been good to me.

One of the things I knew I needed to do when I finished my novel was to take care of myself. Through long months of bashing my head against a wall, being up at all hours of the night writing, and generally spending weekends and all my free time stressing out over the mundane details of this particular scene or that particular character, I had become something of a shadow of my former self - a large 300 pound plus shadow. While I have never really cared one way or another for my physical condition, I wanted to get back into shape so that I could once again enjoy hiking and fishing and other outdoor pursuits.

The only problem with my plan was that I like food. A lot.

When you are an alcoholic, you need alcohol, but even you'd admit somewhere deep down that if you stopped drinking, it wouldn't kill you. Same thing with smoking. Really, deep down, you don't need alcohol or cigarettes or porn or any of the millions of myriad things we get addicted to. But food... that's another matter altogether. Everyone needs food. There is no way to get away from it. And so imagine telling an alcoholic that he doesn't need to stop drinking, he just needs to cut back to one small glass of beer a day. Yeah, right. Fat chance. Put any alcohol in front of the alcoholic and he'll just keep drinking.

So, how does one stop when one needs to keep eating, but manage it in a normal manner?

It occurred to me that in the past I had tried two methods. First, I had decided that I would only eat when I was hungry. That would help for a little while. Instead of eating whenever it was "time" I would only eat when I felt that first pang of hunger. But, of course, I didn't say what I would eat. And quite frankly, if you had to choose between a nice cheeseburger and a spinach salad, what would you choose? So, I realized that appealing to my body to stop myself from eating too much was a bad choice - akin to putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The second method I had tried was to intellectually decide not to eat. After all, I KNEW what I needed to do. I KNEW what was good to eat and I KNEW how much exercise to do. Logic and right thinking would take care of the rest. I just had to listen intellectually to what my brain had to say and I would be just fine. Until my brain said, "I'm tired. I've been very good this week. One cheeseburger won't kill me. I'll just walk faster tomorrow." And then the next day, "I've been under so much stress lately, perhaps this isn't a good week to be dieting. I'll stop now and start up again next week." And then... well, you get the point. Intellectually, I was a dieting idiot. If the body was the fox in the hen house, the brain was like a Republican in charge of the treasury. It wasn't that the rules weren't there, but that they could be gotten around through incorrect justification.

Um... No body, no brain... am I out of options?

To be honest, I was kind of pissed off at myself. How weak was I? My body couldn't be trusted and my intellect was as leaky as a sieve. What kind of man was I that I couldn't force myself to stop eating? After all, it was just a choice wasn't it? The simplest thing we do on a daily basis. We make a choice. The answer is yes or no, this or that. Two outcomes and we know which one is the right one and yet, somehow, we still pick the wrong one - every time. How can that be?

It reminded me of sin.

And that was when I realized that the reason that I always chose the wrong outcome was that I was putting the authority behind the decision making process in the wrong place. Make a choice, let the body decide. Make a choice, let the brain decide. Each of these entities chose on the basis of the way they were feeling at that moment based upon hunger or desire. What I needed was an authority that would not waver, that would not change, and that would not allow me to stumble or fall. And so, I asked God to be my decision maker. I asked God to remind me what was the right choice to make and then hold me accountable for making that decision.

Simple. Make a decision. Always make the right choice. And then never worry about making the wrong choice because God will forgive me for being human if I should ever stumble. It can't be that easy, can it?

I started my diet around the middle of January. Last night, looking in the mirror, I suddenly noticed a new svelteness that I had not seen in the previous weeks. Today, I weighed myself and discovered that I had lost 17 and a half pounds - but more importantly, I had crossed under the 300 pound barrier for the first time in a long time.

I don't say this as a chastisement of people with a little more weight than others. People's body shapes and sizes are their own choice. I certainly never felt bad because I was overweight (in fact, many times I felt good ;) I just missed some things that I could no longer do. I'm not now losing weight to curry any sort of popularity or love. The kind of people that would like me more because I'm 200 pounds vs. 300 pounds are not the kind of people I want to associate with anyway. I'm saying this because I think we all have choices that we make consistently and we always seem to make the wrong choice again and again. Next time you're going to make that choice, ask God to help you make the right choice.

Its that simple. Yes or no. Right or wrong. Left or right. Everything comes down to a choice and if God backs you, you'll always make the right decision. No diet plans, no points, no calorie counting, no expensive nutritionists or psychologists, no nothing - just God and a choice.

(If you want to know more about my incredible diet method, please send me $19.95 plus shipping and handling and I'll send you a great book that will tell you all about how you too can make the right choices in life. Please specify whether 15th century English or modern English is your preference. ;)

Geek Wars UPSET Update

Over the weekend, there were two major upsets in the Geek Wars Film Tournament.

#9 Time Bandits scored a mild 4-2 upset over the #8 seeded Clash of the Titans. Apparently, fans were not that enamored with the special effects work of Ray Harryhausen in the last of his films. However, there was plenty of love for Ray and old school fantasy when #13 7th Voyage of Sinbad, considered by many to be Ray's best film, upset the recently dominant Best Picture nominee, Pan's Labyrinth by a final vote of 4-1. 7th Voyage is the lowest seed to advance so far this tournament.

In other tourney news, #5 Wizard of Oz easily destroyed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 6-0 to advance to a round two match up against #13 7th Voyage.

A new category begins this week - Current Sci Fi - which covers all sci-fi movies that have come out post Computer Graphics.

Good luck and good voting!

Geek Wars Weekly Wrap Up

This just in from:
Da da da... da da da...
GeekFilmCenter at ESPN (Early Science of Predicting Nerdliness)

Our weekly Geek Wars Film Wrap Up for the week that was...

The first four qualifiers for the Geek Film Wars were selected this week in the Old School Sci Fi Film category and quite frankly, Bob, there weren't any upsets.

None were really expected.

The top seeded Star Wars cruised to an easy victory as did the 4th Seeded E.T. and the 5th seeded Blade Runner. In fact, Blade Runner had the easiest time of it, crushing its opponent 5-0. The only tight contest in the entire early old sci-fi round was the #8-#9 match up between Close Encounters and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Apparently, Spielberg still has his touch, as Close Encounters came away with a close 2-1 victory.

Also in early action this week, the #1 seeded Return of the King knocked off the #16 seeded Neverending Story, but the contest was a far closer 2-1 final, that nobody really expected. What do you think happened Bob?

Well, too many people just love Neverending Story from their childhood, Tom. I think the story of Atreu and the giant rock dude and the snail that goes faster than a Ferarri plus all those 80's clothes and music - what's there not to love. But ultimately the first geek Best Film winner won out. But ROTK is in a tough bracket and will next have to contend with the likes of either Clash of the Titans or Time Bandits, and the likely winner of the Wizard of Oz/Pan's Labyrinth match up from the second round. This is no easy bracket with lots of potential bracket busters and the end of too many people's fantasy picks.

And on tap for this weekend, two picks for Friday (Friday and Saturday's), that should help round out the early Fantasy category by Monday. And then we move on next week to New School Sci-Fi (post CGI) and the finally, by Thursday of next week, the Action Film Category. And that bracket ought to be really explosive.

Sorry, Bob, I couldn't resist.

And that's it for us tonight. Stay tuned to ESPN for our continuing award winning coverage of the Stallone Report on Steroid Use in Hollywood Films...

Ashton Kutcher is a F***ing Genius!

I liked Kelso on That 70's Show. But most of the Ashton Kutcher stuff I could really do without. However, I heard people tell me about Punked and I thought it was a great premise for a show. Now, however, Kutcher has moved beyond Punked into brilliant satire territory.

For the past three months, he and his Hollywood pals have been faking incidents for the Paparazzi to report. They have been doing this for a new show that will air on E in a month or so. They haven't told anyone what they are doing and, in fact, they've done such a good job that they even faked out E's own news reporting group.

The idea of punking the paparazzi is such a good one that I'm surprised nobody else thought of it before. The fact that they've been able to get away with it for three months is absolutely genius. Once this show airs, people are finally going to be a)questioning all those tabloid reports they read (was the paparazzi punked?) and b) questioning the real value of all this celebrity gossip (ultimately, who cares?)

Anyway, I don't get cable, and I'm not sure I'd watch anyway. But just the thought that someone is going around hoodwinking these vultures of "culture" brings a smile to my heart.

I'm audi...

Kinda quiet around here...

For a change, I've been busy doing things I want to do.

After I finished the novel, I promised to myself to take some time off until March before deciding what I wanted to do next. Well, I almost made it to March before I decided, but I definitely made it to March before I started work.

I'm not going to give out all the details of what I've got cooking up in my mad scientist's lab but I will say that it has something to do with my long slumbering website (not upgraded since 2002 - Q'ELLE HORROR!) If you'd like to sit and wait a REALLY long time, I have a teaser up at the website now that you can view. Or if you want more specific details, you can wait until April 1st and visit the site then.

Either way, I'm going to be busy busy busy between now and October. But then again, I choose to be busy, so that's cool.

P.S. On the novel front, I'm waiting for a well-known and much respected literary critic to quit whining about his kitchen remodel and to get back to me about how incredibly awesome my novel is. After that, or 3/31/08 (whichever comes first) I will be seeking the much more professional advice of a real literary agent - one who intends to get me some dough.

In the meantime, keep voting. Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires and Pick The Geekiest Film Of All Time!

Geek Wars Episode 4 - A New Poll

Hello All;

Time for a little geek love for the greatest geek films of all time. I've basically come up with a March Madness style format for determining the greatest geek film of all time (at least until we redo the list next year ;) I've included four brackets of 16 films which I've garnered from a list of Top 100 films in each of the categories. So some of my favorites didn't make the list either, and some left me scratching my head. The four brackets for this year are Old School Sci Fi (basically up to the computer revolution), Current Sci Fi (from computer's on), Fantasy, and Geek Action films. The last category was actually the hardest to generate and I tried to create a list of action films that were more or less definitive and unique in their areas. I decided to leave off the Horror and Disaster Movie categories this year, but we'll have to revisit that next year.

For the next couple of months, I'm going to be updating the poll daily, so be sure to drop by and vote for your favorite films or, at least, vote out your least favorites and I'll be updating the bracket after every vote.

Today's vote pits #1 seeded Star Wars - Episode Four - A New Hope, or as I like to call it - Star Wars, against #16 seeded Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan. A tough choice right out of the gate.

Please vote... the fate of the geek film empire is in your hands!

An Intellectual Stimulation Package

I know Runner's Highs. Back in the 70's when it was Jim Fixx, Forest Gump, and I, there weren't a whole lot of runners pounding the pavement. I started off by walking home from school - about three miles - and then realized that I could probably bike the same route, and then realized that I could probably run the same route as well. So while my family would drive over to my Grandmother's house near my school, I'd run over. I ran my first race - 7 miles no less! - when I was 7 years old. And I pretty much ran every day from that point until the end of High School - ten years solid of running. I was a skinny, endorphin generating, freak.

At the same age, I also wrote my first story. It was Halloween and my class had to write a paragraph before we could go out to the yard and participate in the costume parade. I got started writing and before too long, I blew my class off so that I could continue writing. My story ended up being 7 pages long and it took me all of two days to write. Up until that point, I hadn't probably written 7 pages in my entire life. But, when I sat down with pencil and paper in my hand, this euphoric feeling came over me - I was in the story and writing it at the same time. It was like playing and recording at the same moment. I wasn't just writing about Charlie Brome fighting aliens, I WAS Charlie Brome fighting aliens, and writing about him at the same time. I couldn't possibly put down my pencil and return to the humdrum existence of some stupid costume parade. There was a whole world out there ready to be explored. I was experiencing my first Writer's High.

I've been thinking about this lately because I've always just sort of thought that I only really got this high AFTER a good session of writing. But I've realized now that its not the writing that produces the high, its the imagining of the story. And a good story, whether I'm writing it or not, comes upon me so clearly that it draws me back into that world and I can almost feel myself there, watching, participating, and writing the action at the same time - so that I start to get antsy and energized and can't wait to sit down at my computer and start writing. My synapses are firing faster than the finale of the Boston Pops Fireworks show. I'm getting High just thinking about getting High.

I've also noticed that a particularly good piece of writing that I read or watch can have a sort of contact High effect. Something I didn't write at all can still transport me to that world and make me feel like I'm fighting alongside Aragorn or battling my inner demons with Locke or riding around the pitch on my Nimbus 2000 with Harry.

I've always known that my mood fluctuated entirely on the basis of whether I was writing or not and now I'm starting to piece together the reason why.

I am a junkie for intellectual stimulation and for the most part I find real life starves me of my fix. There's just no denying that I can get more of an intellectual hit out of a bad episode of the Teletubbies than in the entire combined 7 years of speeches from "W". Real life just doesn't cut it.

Anyway, thank God for LOST. Right now, I'm not feeling a thing, brother... not feeling a thing at all... and its good.

Have a great weekend.

On Turning 40 - Part One

For the record, I'm 38 and I have just under 18 months to go until this nefarious deadline, but I wanted to start recording my thoughts on the milestone as they occurred, since there is obviously something very wonky that occurs to people (men, especially) when they turn 40. Let the cautionary tale begin.

This weekend, especially, I began to feel the future tug of this upcoming event. But I'll talk about that in a moment. After the events of this weekend, I remembered another tug that occurred late last year - sort of an opening salvo across the bow of impending forty-hood.

I was at the USF basketball game, just doing my normal thing, and I looked up at the cheerleaders. Now, I'm a normal guy, with normal guy preoccupations, and if you place young, nubile, scantily clad women in front of me, well, I may not turn into Mr. Hyde, but I'll certainly take notice in that way that is societally creepy in a person my age. I hide it well. But, on this particular occasion, as I was watching the young ladies shake their tail-feathers, I suddenly saw them very clearly as young ladies with very good dance moves. They reminded me of the girls in my youth group and the daughters of my friends and suddenly it was like someone turned on the lights in a dark room and that thing that looked like a monster in the dark was revealed to be a pile of clothes on a chair. Despite their best efforts, I could not see these cheerleaders as anything other than nice young women with incredible dexterity whose parents were probably incredibly proud of their extra-curricular activities and good grades. Score one for societal normalization, take one hit to my libido.

Now, after that, nothing happened and I went back to not being preoccupied with my age until this last week. Three things happened this week that started to make me ponder my place in the universe. But really, all three stemmed from the first incident.

I was in class on Wednesday night. I'd spent the previous weekend working with a small group of four students making films in San Francisco. We'd bonded. And I'd come to bond with almost everyone else in the class. I was feeling, well, particularly like I was one of the members of this class - not apart from it, not from the outside looking in. And the fact that the class was mostly filled with younger 20 somethings, I guess I was feeling part of that group as well - not actively embracing this youth movement, but not feeling any sort of gap there as well. And then, one of my classmates asked me if I was married in such a way that I knew they were seeing me not as a classmate, but as the old guy who was back in college taking classes. I mumbled some sort of response as the weight of his words sank in and I suddenly felt this huge distance grow between me and my fellow classmates.

I was the old man.

I didn't feel old. In fact, if I had to say in a sort of intellectual way of feeling anything about age, I haven't "aged" a day in probably 20 years. I still think like a 20 year old. I still respond like a 20 year old. I have more wisdom, but I don't feel any older.

I started wondering if I had grown stale or if I had been trying to relive some sort of adolescent phase - stillborn in the early stages of adulthood. In the back of my mind, I began to realize that certain things in my life were very constant and since they provided a continuous backdrop to my existence, they tended to keep me grounded in earlier periods of my life. Mostly in the case of writing, since I've been a writer for more than 30 of my 38 years, I haven't changed much in my attitudes towards the world since I was a kid. I still embrace fantasy, still have the same sense of humor, still feel the tug of adventure and the love of action. In those terms, I feel like a kid constantly, and since that forms such a huge part of my mental focus on a daily basis, I can easily be talking about world politics one moment with all the seriousness of a college professor, and then switch to a discussion about whether the Millennium Falcon is faster than the Jupiter Two with equal passion.

For the first time, I started wondering how other people see me and whether they don't take me seriously because I'm "too old" for the kind of lifestyle I lead - like an adult who refuses to grow up. Peter Pan Syndrome is what I believe they call it.

This lead to a very interesting dream/waking experience last night. I can't remember the dream, but the end result was that when I woke up in the middle of the night, I suddenly thought of my teddy bear for the very first time in years. This was my favorite stuffed animal and so much a part of me that I had carried it everywhere. But it had also been a sort of extension of my youthful belief in myself - an idea that somehow my teddy bear would come to epitomize me in the way that Kermit the Frog epitomized Jim Henson. Except that one year, in a fit of madness, I had given the teddy bear to my girlfriend as a show of how much I loved her and with the thought that someday we could give it to our children. Like I said, madness.

During our very cordial break-up, the only thing I asked from her was that she give me back my teddy bear. She told me that her mother had thrown it out. I accepted that at the time.

When I woke up last night, I suddenly felt incredibly, intensely, pissed off about this. And for the first time ever in the 15 years since I broke up with my ex-girlfriend, I was truly heartbroken and angry at her. I suddenly felt the intense loss of something that had been a symbol of my childhood that I had foolishly given away.

This morning it occurred to me that these are the first of many such things I might start feeling as I approach the big four oh! And if these are the first feelings, I can't imagine how they might escalate as I get closer to the deadline. Either way, as a public service and a warning to all those who will be approaching this milestone in the future, I thought I'd chronicle my journey for you as I react to new events from time to time.

Until next time...

The New Revised H333 Heavenly Form For Indulgent Behavior

I just finished filling out my H333 Form for Indulgences and I had a few questions for any religious accountants out there - especially as there have been some much talked about revisions since last year's code.

1) When filling out the section on worship time, do I include the commute time it takes for me to get to church on Sunday, or does it only include the actual time I'm in the Sanctuary worshipping God. I mean, if you add commute time, that puts me into a whole other Indulgence bracket and I may qualify for a minor miracle or two, but at the very least I should be able to release a few more souls from Purgatory and I'm hoping to earn enough this year to spring the entire 1919 Black Sox team.

2) Do we have to declare our 401K earnings as part of our income not given to help the Church? Or is that considered responsibility free until retirement?

3) Does tacit support of war count as something that might need to be declared as a sin under the category of large sins of omission?

4) Is there a standard amount to declare when adding up billing hours for volunteer work? I mean can I declare $50 an hour for Youth Group work and $100 an hour for Choir work, or should it all be a standard amount.

5) Just to clarify, since my computer is down and I can't use my TurboIndulgence software this year, after I determine the amount of Christian work I've done for God, and subtract my blessings and sin deductions, what I'm left with is the amount of Indulgences I've earned for the year, right? Or is the Indulgent Index on Line 33 checked off against the Tables of Indulgence in Appendix T and cross-indexed by weight, height, and the number of hairs on our head, to determine our Indulgent Quotient and from there our actual Indulgence Rebate or Debt?

6) Can I take the unusual pain and suffering deduction for a real bad sermon? ;)

Okay, I'm just kidding about the last one.

You know, my accountant from last year said that it's okay to cheat a little when filling out this form - everybody claims some things that they never actually do and tends to leave off a few sins and forget a few blessings when filling out the form. But I don't know. It seems like sooner or later, you'd be found out. And I hear the audit can be brutal and the judgment is absolutely final.

In Communion With The Spaghetti Monster

Some of you may be aware of the Spaghetti Monster - a humorous "fictional" diety created by atheists to point out the absurdity of all religion. I actually happen to be a fan of the Spaghetti Monster, whether he be an atheistic attempt at deicide or not, because I think it does a great job of not only pointing out religious pretentions, but also points out the sillyness of atheists. Regardless of the inherent risk of blasphemy this weekend, I partook in communion with the Spaghetti Monster, consuming its body (noodles) and drinking its blood (sauce) with great gusto. Its my grandmother's recipe for spaghetti and its almost a religion in itself.

Of course, that's part of the problem.

In Galatians, Paul talks about the body and the spirit being at war with each other. He suggests that when we live in the spirit, we will seek to abandon those things which make our body greatly rejoice. I'm assuming this includes spaghetti, particularly that which was created by my grandmother.

As a foodie, I find it particularly difficult to sacrifice things that taste good - seeking instead to satisfy my earthly desires, rather than my heavenly ones. I have progressed enough on the road to spiritual enlightenment however to recognize that I am in need of a diet. Not one that is diagnosed in all the health and beauty magazines - I will never look like Mr. Olympus - but a diet of the body in favor of the soul. In short, I need to subvert my desire for food and replace it with my desire for God.

When I have achieved a healthy relationship with food, only then will I be able to have a healthy relationship with God. This is not a disparaging remark for people, like me, with a few extra pounds on their frames, but simply a realization that a person can not have two masters. I cannot be a follower of Christ and Ronald McDonald at the same time. If I can't control my urges towards food, how can I fully embrace the divine?

C.S. Lewis understood this part of human nature. We are all tripped up by the smallest, meanest of things - the basest of desires. For Edmund in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe it was a piece of candy - a Turkish Delight - that caused him to sell out his brothers, sisters, and Aslan. When he realizes what he has done, even the White Witch mocks him with his incredible foolishness - "You betrayed them all for a piece of candy!" We can expect that after the events of this book, Edmund probably never touched a piece of Turkish Delight again.

I am not trying to root out all the Turkish Delights in my life and get rid of them. The problem with over-enjoying food is that you still need to eat it, whether your tendency is to over-indulge or not. Its kind of like being addicted to air - its a hard habit to break. I am instead concentrating on the good foods that I can eat and replacing the spaghetti's of this world with the more truly divine foods that will help me come to a right relationship with food and with God. I am not giving up food to become thin. I am giving up food to become something even greater than I am now.

And that's something that no spaghetti monster could ever help with, no matter how fictional its supposed to be. The only one with that kind of power is the one who created us all, and on Him, shall I depend.

Bizarre Accident in Scottish School

Pupils treated in hospital as 25 are crushed in freak accident at school

By FIONA MACLEOD EDUCATION CORRESPONDENT

TWENTY-FIVE children were injured in a pile-up in a school corridor triggered when a first-year pupil stopped to pick up her shoe.

Paramedics were called to the school to treat pupils for crush injuries, including ankle sprains, bruising and sore heads.

All the children were sent home following the incident, several were taken to hospital and five were kept off school the following day.

Stephen Miller, headteacher at Denny High School in Falkirk, said that investigations were ongoing into the incident, which happened outside the school library after morning break on Tuesday.

He insisted the corridors were supervised by both staff and senior pupils who had rushed to give immediate assistance.

He said: "It would appear that the cause of the crush was an innocent and accidental trip by a pupil, who paused to retrieve a shoe but was overtaken by the mass of following pupils unaware that there was a problem ahead.

"In the main, the injuries were soft-tissue damage, ankle sprains, dizziness and sore heads," said Mr Miller.

He added that all the injured were assessed by either a paramedic or a doctor who attended the incident.

"Parents and carers were then immediately notified and the majority of pupils were taken home as a result," the headteacher said. "A few were advised to attend hospital to check the extent of bruises and sprains."

A spokeswoman for Falkirk District council confirmed that the corridor had been supervised at the time and the crush was a freak accident.

A senior pupil at the school, which has 1,250 students, said: "The corridor was really busy, and people just kept walking, and they started to pile up.

"It was just a horrible accident, but I think the worst thing was the shock.

"We were helping the people who had been injured, and at one point it was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the witch is trapped underneath the house."

Denny High School is housed in a 1960s building, but staff and pupils are expected to relocate next year to a new building, which is currently under construction.

A council spokeswoman said that there was no design fault with the existing building and that the corridors are not particularly narrow.

Judith Gillespie, development manager of the Scottish Parent Teacher, said: "You don't expect it. Parents would be amazed, but these freak accidents do happen.

"And I would imagine there was some jostling at the back.

"It is very bizarre, and you can't ever legislate for the bizarre."

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said: "This was a significant incident in which children were injured.

"It is a timely reminder that a culture of safe thinking and safe behaviour in schools should be encouraged and subject to regular reminders.

"Young people in particular can be overcome with the excitement of the moment, and the consequences of such an event as this arising can be disproportionate to what started it."

A building project which is costing £115 million will replace the existing St Mungo's, Grangemouth, Denny and Falkirk High schools.

Denny High's new building is expected to be completed by February 2009.

The People's Republic of Bezerkely

Sometimes the people in Berkeley, CA can go a little overboard. They mean well. But they consider themselves the cradle of the free speech movement and sometimes don't stop to think that everything they say doesn't need to be said. If people are constantly talking, free speech or paid, they are not thinking about what they are saying.

Well, last week they really stepped into it. It wasn't enough for the local City Council to vote to ask the USMC to remove its recruiting offices from the city, but they also sent along a rather impolite letter to the USMC with it basically reinforcing the decision with unflattering prose. Needless to say, this set off a controversy at the state and federal levels of government calling Berkeley traitors, unpatriotic, and much worse. To give them credit, unlike some political leaders, the Berkeley City Council did not make a bad decision worse by insisting that they were right and refusing to reconsider. They immediately called for the item to appear on their next meetings agenda.

That meeting was last night. Besided the City Council, two armies of concerned citizens descended on Berkeley City Hall (pro and con) and camped out front, shouting slogans, chanting, singing, and generally mocking the other side. Riot Police separated the two groups, but other than four arrests, chaos didn't rule the evening. Instead, one by one, for one minute each, hundreds and hundreds of citizens got up and spoke to the City Council, pro and con, about their feelings on the matter. The City Council stayed late into the early morning to hear everyone's concerns.

Its almost not about the outcome. The way the decision was made was a quintessential example of free speech and democracy. People of different sides came forward and peacefully expressed their opinions in a passionate and poignant way. They were allowed to speak, and they were heard. And in the end, when everyone had had their say, a vote was made. The City Council, in this case, came to realize that their freedom of speech was guaranteed and protected by those same Marines they were trying to kick out. They decided to rescind the letter.

I point this out because its a good example of the way free speech is supposed to work in this country. We are all going to have ideas and some people are going to love our ideas and some people are going to hate them. But we've got to have the freedom to express the ideas we have, even the bad ones. And we've got to be given the leeway to change our opinions and to withdrawl bad ideas and move on with new ones.

On the other hand, certain lawmakers still want to punish Berkeley for the original letter. They are talking about withholding Federal and State dollars from Berkeley because of the letter that they rescinded. This would undermine the entire process of democracy that was so perfectly played out last night. We've got to get to the point where we can stop punishing people for having different opinions than our own. Either that, or this great nation, this great experiment of freedom, will perish from this earth.

Jesus Endorses Obama; Four Horsemen Opt for McCain

Jesus Endorses Obama; Four Horsemen Opt for McCain

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor
New York, February 16, 2008

Jesus of Nazareth, popularly perceived as the Son of God, announced his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama yesterday during a rare guest appearance on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman. The appearance was the first time Jesus has returned to earth with the specific goal of endorsing a political candidate, several pundits and religious scholars agreed, and may in fact be the first recorded reappearance ever of the widely admired supernatural entity.

“It's extremely unusual for a celestial being to physically manifest him, her, or itself in corporal form to back a presidential candidate, particularly during the primary season,” Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate magazine, said. “It's quite possible that what we're witnessing is a historical event that may provide just the momentum Obama needs to top that final hurdle. Jesus, like Obama, has a rare, iconic popularity that extends well beyond his base.”

Jesus, who was unshaven, long-haired and shabbily attired but appeared otherwise healthy and well-rested during the Letterman appearance, said his motives for endorsing Barack Obama were complex.

“I don't know that I can distill what I think of as the Barack effect into a few simple words,” Jesus said. “I rarely get involved in politics since my own quite painful brush with that sphere of human endeavor. But Obama does something to me. It's more like a feeling, a sensation of hope and optimism that I haven't felt, looking down on Earth, for many decades. It made me want to do whatever I could to help out. ”

Jesus said he was inspired by Barack Obama's legendary oratory skill and charm, but even moreso by the fact that many of Obama's political stances echo his own.

“When I hear him speaking, it brings me right back to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think was one of my greatest hits,” Jesus said. “All the things I talked about so long ago. Imagine how I felt watching those, if you don't mind me saying so, really groundbreaking ideas concerning how human beings should treat each other get co-opted, subverted, parasitized or ignored by generations of cynical scoundrels and hypocrites--until Barack Obama came along.”

“It's like I'm looking in a mirror, only, I have to hand it to him, I never really had the kind of massive crowd appeal Obama does,” Jesus said. “I was more of a stealth movement. If Barack had been alive two millenia ago, I'd probably have found myself playing second fiddle as a disciple.”

In related news, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse announced their collective endorsement of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. The Four Horsemen--Conquest, War, Pestilence and Death--made the announcement during their regular weekly guest appearance on Fox News together with conservative commentator William Kristol. The horsemen's horses--White, Red, Black and Pale--were also in attendance.

“We can't say John McCain's the absolutely ideal apocalyptic candidate for all of us,” Conquest said, “but between the Democrats and the Republicans, the choice is a no-brainer. War and I like him, but Pestilence would have preferred Romney due to the almost guaranteed corruption and economic breakdown another term or two of Bush-style economics would lead to, and Death wanted to hold out for Huckabee."

"In the end we decided to present a united front behind McCain," Conquest said. "He's our best hope under the circumstances for the total destruction of all living beings, man or beast.”

William Kristol was unfortunately unable to present his views on what may be a pivotal boost for the McCain campaign, up against significant odds against the wildly popular and Jesus-backed Obama movement, as he was eaten mid-interview by Death's horse, Pale.

“I'm sorry about that,” Death said. “Pale gets a little peckish during these manifestations, and Fox forgot to stock the green room again.”

(I like good satire!)

Spring Vanquishes Negative Nellies

(That actually sounds like a headline from the old Sims Times in Sim City ;)

Well, I can't stay down for long and the image that's keeping me from succumbing fully to the blues is the thought of my niece wandering around everywhere with a cute little pink backpack that has butterfly wings on the back - a gift from her Uncle Will. Apparently, she doesn't want to be parted from it and so my sense of timing is vindicated, as it was a Christmas present that I just now gave to her (the kids had just returned from a Disneyland Christmas and were a little overwhelmed with all of their gifts and new things - I decided to "save" my gifts for a little later so that they could more properly enjoy them.)

But there are other wonderful thoughts to embrace. Andy, over at The Beach, is about to tackle the next higher level of organized baseball as he leaves T-Ball behind and begins coaching PitchingMachine-Ball (whatever its called). Andy has been a truly wonderful servant of God and the kids love the game so much when he's around to show them how to run, catch, throw, bat. It reminds me that Baseball is life and God is love and God loves Baseball life!

Ariel, over at Bittersweet, aside from tackling the wonderful challenge of Tot #2, is beside himself as Kansas continues to be the BMOC of Big 12 Basketball (not counting last night's game, of course). Despite the occassional fun I like to poke at Kansas basketball, I do hope that this year they finally win the big enchillada so that I don't have to read more CoffeeNTears posts as I'm trying to enjoy the Final Four. So let's all root for Kansas this year.

Randall's O.D., over at Hinterland, was paid a great compliment by her fellow male students who voluntarily suggested that she was a much better student than they and refused to go along with a patriarchal photo that suggested otherwise (even though it might have helped them score with some "less smart" young ladies ;) And the thought of that almost Hallmark Card moment makes me smile as well. The Hermione's of this world ROCK!

You know, if we ignore the news going on around us and the horrible bits of everyday life that seem to always be crying out for our attention, its easy to picture that bright green far off land that is our true resting place, our portion of peace. I want to go there and fling off my shoes and feel the grass between my toes. I want to run there and fly a kite there and play hidengoseek there. I want you there with me - no adults, no rules, no hurt feelings or anger - just smiles and laughter and pure joy.

Those are the feelings of Spring. Those are the things to be mindful of.

I've got rainclouds on a sunny day...

...when its warm outside, I've got the month of januaray... I guess you can say, what can make me feel this way... da blues, da blues, da blues, talkin 'bout DA BLUES!

As a foodie, I'd say that lack of caloric intake can give one the blues, but I know its more than that. There are times when I feel trapped, pulled into a corner not of my own making, and having no way to react other than to kick the walls and grow angry. This lack of ability to do anything while being mocked by the fates of this world gives me feelings of frustration and despair. And the feelings of frustration and despair make me even more frustrated and despairing because I don't want to be frustrated or despairing at all.

I want to dance.

I want to sing.

I want to gambol through fields of wild flowers with a pan flute and a picnic basket and feel the warm light on my face.

In the end, its not even important what is causing my frustration or my anger or my feelings of despair. It seems pretty clear that God wants us to forgive those whom cause these feelings in us. And if we are truly victims of injustice, God doesn't want us to seek revenge or retribution. He wants us to reach out in love and help those less fortunate than ourselves. And so, I become frustrateder and despairinger because I know that in these terrible feelings I have towards my fellow humans, I am also failing in my Christianity. I want to lash out and think bad things about people and do bad things to them instead of trying to resolve differences peacefully and amicably. So, I try to bury these feelings like a burp at a church recital - letting a little out at a time when nobody else is around and when I can't hurt anyone but myself.

But who am I kidding? I am human. I have feelings. I try to maintain a cool veneer. I try to establish an even restraint. But I'm a writer. My passion is there under intense pressure waiting to boil over in words and thoughts. In the back of my mind is that wonderful line of dialogue from A Knight's Tale where Chaucer says, "I shall eviscerate them with prose!"

I have been bloodied, beaten, badgered, bullied, and brushed off by others and I sometimes wonder if I am a little too meek for my own good. But I know what a terrible short fuse I have and what happens when it is lit. My own explosions scare me so much, my own fits of anger are terrifying to me, that I think the best course of action is unilateral detterence. God willing, I shall keep my most frustratedest and desparingest feelings safe and undercover. Otherwise, look out!

I shall endeavor to continue life in Christ, hoping to discover the way to love all, but until I learn the trick, I will try to keep my most vile humanity locked away from prying eyes.

Taking matters into my own hands...

I know, I know, I know... people are busy, blah blah blah! But you can't start a post by mentioning the Case of the Overamorous Angus Bull or the fact that you are visiting 1850's California and then leave me hanging! I've got issues!

So, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and write the posts that should have been written - sort of as a ghost writer, except without any real knowledge of the events I'll be writing about. What's new?

From Andy's Blog - A Mile From The Beach:

Last week, my daughter and I attended an overnight field trip at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento where we dressed up in costume and pretended we were from an 1850's wagon train. Margaret looked cute in her gingham get up. And I looked quite manly in my Yul Brenner inspired outfit complete with Steve McQueen blue jeans. I looked like I'd just stepped out of the cast of Cool Hand Luke. Though there were many references to Kung Fu during the time, I kept my cool. The best part was when we recreated the laying of track for the railroad. They divided all the adults and kids into groups and had them either carrying the rails or the ties and hammering the ties into place with sledgehammers, while I got to set the dynamite by being lowered over a cliff in a basket. Okay, that last part was made up.

From Randall's Blog - Musings From The Hinterland:

It was a dark and stormy night when suddenly an overamorous Angus bull appeared on the edge of a green dystopian field that reminded me of something C.S. Lewis might have nightmares about while watching Mizzou upset KU in the Final Four for a chance at basketball glory, especially after having tried the German inspired nachos with the kraut, pickled herrings, and limburger cheese that the EMBLOS likes to make.

Now before you get upset, I'd just like to say on my behalf that your lack of blogging forces my hand. So get back to work on things that REALLY matter, you lazy bums, and don't leave me hanging next time.

P.S. No need to be embarassed, nobody reads this blog anyway! ;)

The Irony and The Idiocy

It just occurred to me how incredibly humorous the Bible can be. I mean, think about it, every single group of combatants in the history of mankind since Og the Caveman to McCain the Republican have exclaimed in Righteous Assurance, "WE CANNOT LOSE because God is on our side!" Its one of those sure thing cliches. I'm sure Napolean thought it. I'm sure Rommel thought it. I'm sure Lee thought it. I'm sure the Patriots thought it. And yet... here's the entire country of Israel sitting in the Desert of Paran because God has delivered them from the mightiest empire in the world, fed them and guided them across the Sinai penninsula, brought fire down on their camp, killed priests in an instant, and inscribed His covenant on stone tablets, and the second they get a report from their scouts that the promised land is waiting for them and that, according to Caleb and Joshua, THEY CANNOT LOSE because God is on their side, and HE REALLY IS, they decide to forget the whole thing and give up before they even start.

Ya know... I'm not sure 40 years in the Desert was long enough for what has to be the greatest boneheaded decision in all of human history.

Now I don't feel quite so bad about some of my own stupid choices.

Closet Skeletons Revealed!

In light of the fact that my entry into the Presidential Race is getting closer everyday, I thought I'd shed light on one of the most embarassing skeletons in my closet in the interest of Full Disclosure, so that when the Republican Dirty Tricks campaign begins against me in earnest, this will be old news to my supporters.

At one time, I considered myself something of a rock star.

No, its true.

As a writer, I sometimes call upon myself heretofore hidden talents that I've suddenly discovered I had and wish to share with the world. For instance, while writing my book, I discovered my heretofore hidden talent of Genetic Research Genius! Though, I admit, this talent was distracting to my ultimate goal of Entertainment Mogul and so I did not inform the CDC of my latent ability. In the case of the aforementioned skeleton, however, I discovered my hidden talent as a rock star/lyrical genius.

I have these characters, see, called Marvin and Ze Pink Paper Kups. They are the ultimate quintessential rock group with a silly name - masters of the rock universe. However, for the benefit of the imaginationless, I had to provide further evidence of their awesomeness for my readers, so I wrote a few of their songs... an entire album worth's actually. But as anyone knows whose ever written a song, you can't just write the incredibly awesome lyrics - a tune is also required. And so, I created an entire album's worth of awesome music for my characters who were masters of the rock universe. And, on occassion, I actually found myself humming along to these wonderful creations of mine.

Which brings me to the skeleton.

At one point, til too young to be able to blame alcohol for my temporary flight of fancy, I decided to actually create this album - physically - on a blank audio tape. I sat down in my basement with the microphone, the lyrics, and my incredible rock star voice, and I sang every single song on the album. In my head, I heard the screaming crowds and the swooning women and saw the Hell's Angels bodyguards throwing stage divers off the stage as fireworks exploded all around me and electric guitars blared. On the tape, however, is a low quality audio recording of me singing really bad lyrics with no backing music whatsoever.

And so, I decided to give the tape to a friend of mine to tell me what he thought. This guy was the nirvana of cool who actually had his own musical band at the time and would eventually go on to work on several Oscar nominated films, though not in the music field. I can't say whether my tape "cured" him of his rock star dreams, but they probably showed him the possibilities. Anyway, when I handed the tape to him and explained what it was, I remember the pitiful gaze he gave me - picture Simon about to lecture William Hung before his "Comeback" tour and you've got the approximate idea.

That look burst my bubble better than any actual comment could ever do. With one look, not having heard a single note of my rock star delusion, I knew what the world was going to think of my album. It suddenly became clear to me how insane my idea had been and how delusional I had been.

Um... unfortunately... I cannot confirm destruction of this tape, and thus its possible that somewhere out there this particular skeleton might exist. Let us hope for all of our sakes that my friend climbed to the top of Mt. Doom and chucked this evil tape into the fiery magma inside. Otherwise, hearing this audio deconstruction might just convince the world that it is one of the signs of the apocalypse to come.

Now, I am fully disclosed.

P.S. I still hum the tunes from time to time, however. I still think some of them are pretty catchy. ;)

My Unofficial Girl Scout Cookie Badge

I was never a scout... at least, not officially. As a dutiful older brother, I helped my sister sell girl scout cookies (and eat them) when she was younger. As a dutiful older "Uncle", I help certain denizens of The Beach sell girl scout cookies (and eat them) here at work and elsewhere. All told, without any actual figures in front of me (like the U.S. Intelligence Community), I calculate that I've probably sold close to 20,000,000 boxes of girl scout cookies in my life time. And I've never once earned a Girl Scout Cookie Badge. I'm not lobbying for this honor... I'm just saying... I'm not sure what the cutoff is for earning your badge, but I think I've probably earned my badge by now.

I was watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which, quite frankly, needs a title change since most people don't even remember the rather creepy Extreme Makeover upon which the title is based. Anyway, there was a scene in this week's episode where one of the designers turned up at a local school to help out a bunch of kids who were volunteering to clean up the school. My initial thought was, "What a bunch of nerds and extra-credit seekers! In the old days, the trouble-makers would have been forced to come in on their weekend and clean up the yard and the grafitti and their parents would have gladly seen that their youngsters complied with the "forced" labor because a) it would have gotten the trouble makers out of the house for a Saturday morning and afternoon, and b) a little hard work gives character. But now..."

I'm not quite sure when volunteerism was needed to get things like this done. I don't ever remember "volunteering" for anything when I was in grade school or Jr. High. I remember a vice-principal getting a bunch of us sixth graders to clean up the yard one class period in exchange for those "good citizenship" awards that usually came with free Giants Tickets, but we did that for obvious reasons (and we also got out of class for an hour ;) Then again, as bad as people complained back then about school budgets, there was usually money around to keep schools clean.

Nowadays, volunteerism is a requirement - which is a way, I think, to teach children the concept of an oxymoron. Most high school students must do a certain number of volunteer hours before they can graduate. I'm not sure if this is a teaching thing or simply a means to instill morality in our youth. The fact of the matter is that most kids end up doing the volunteer thing on their own - and I would venture to say that most youths are better at volunteering their time than most adults. This can only be good for our world, either way, but I find it oddly unpleasant to suggest that people MUST volunteer to help others less fortunate than themselves.

As adults we should set clear examples for our children that volunteerism isn't anything showy or flashy or something to be praised, but that it should be like cleaning your room, or washing the dishes, or doing our homework - something that needs to be done, no questions asked, and no rewards given.

Okay, maybe one award... something small, almost insignificant... a token really, a reminder of a job well done for, oh, say, twenty years of service and 2,000,000 boxes of cookies sold... something like a badge! ;)

Average Day

I realize in some of the blogs I write that I might create some sense of who I am in the subjects that I choose to write about. But I don't really blog about myself all that much. I tend to blog about things I've done or things I'm thinking or experiencing, but not really about me. So, it occurred to me that it might help people understand my blog if they understood a little bit more about me.

What follows, then, is a description of the average day in the life of me - in so much as any day can be average. What I will describe will be a typical work day, since I almost never blog on weekends.

I wake up at 7:00am. My radio alarm clock is set to KNBR68 - the local sports station. I'm not actually a big fan of the KNBR morning show, but I'm certain that they'll always wake me up. I usually lie in bed long enough to get the sports scores from the night before at the top of the hour sports update, then I sit up in bed and turn on my TV (a habit I formed in the days following 9-11) and watch about ten minutes of news. I use this time to focus my brain on the crawling news stories across the bottom of the screen. Since I have to focus my eyes as well as my attention, I find this a good excercise for the first thing in the morning.

After that I shower, shave, and get dressed, then stop and read the comics on my way out to the Ford Explorer. My commute into work is about 15 to 30 minutes depending on the traffic, but more typically on the 15 to 20 minute scale. My work is out by the airport and the hardest part is crossing the freeway to get to it. Once I'm across the freeway, it goes quickly.

I arrive at work and head up to my big spacious office where I turn on my computer and then go check the fax machine for overseas faxes. I grab a cuppa and then check e-mails, blogs, and other assorted news updates (Aintitcoolnews and a few Disney news feeds). By that point, I'm firmly ready to get to work.

I work in the morning until 10:30am and then I head out for a quick 15 minute break. If the sun is out, I take a 15 minute walk. If its raining or cold, I go out to my car, turn on the stereo, and read or write for 15 minutes. I like to read all sorts of books (also a good time to do homework) but I also write notes for my book, or whatever project happens to be in my mind at the time.

After my break, I come back and check my e-mails again and then work until lunch time. At lunch, I'm actually pretty flexible. It depends on the day. Sometimes I eat fast food, sometimes I walk, sometimes I write or read, or some combination of everything. During school, I often find my lunch hour devoted to running into school to pick up film equipment.

After lunch, I again check my e-mails before getting back to work. My work is mostly feast or famine. There are times, like the last couple of weeks, where I barely have a second to come up for air. I generate a lot of reports while I check stock levels, help the birthing process of new products, or oversee the testing of all our products for safety issues. I'm always at the beck and call of my two bosses (the President and Vice President) who drop new projects in my lap every single day. I work diligently on every project until they are done. But, honestly, after staring at spreadsheets for most of a day, I need a mental break every once in a while and I'll go walk around the building and catch up with my co-workers about once a day.

I take a second break around 3:30pm, and, again, walk or read depending on the weather. And then I work until closing at 5:00pm (or later, depending on the amount of work I'm doing).

Now, my real day begins. For the most part, what I consider a normal evening probably doesn't sound much different than what you consider a normal evening. I go home, change clothes, have dinner, and then watch TV or work on my various projects (write, website, film, etc...). The fact that I rarely ever get to do a "normal" evening should have no bearing on what I consider normal.

Lately, I've been filling my evenings with activities just about every night. In addition to class once a week, I also have the occasional basketball game, Church Choir rehearsal, and Youth Group to take up my time. And believe it or not, this is better than it was in the past. During the final stretch of my novel, I was writing about three to four hours a night. I'd get up from my computer screen stiff from the lack of movement.

In general, that's what I do most of the day. One creative idea chases another and often interupts more productive "work related" thoughts. If I'm not contemplating my novel or working on a new game for Youth Group or envisioning the next great filmic masterpiece, then I'm probably sussing out the problem in an incredibly complex spreadsheet formula. Indeed, I think one of the reasons I enjoy my job as much as I do is that in turning my hands and body over to the mindless drudgery of spreadsheets, I can leave my brain free to contemplate more important matters - like the dangers of immigration or how one might go about shutting down the internet. Some of these thoughts get hunted down and form the basis of many of my blog posts, so, in a sense, my blog posts are a snapshot of my brain at any given moment of the day. And as such, you can see that my concerns and thoughts are all over the board and invariably have nothing to do with spreadsheets.

My ego is hurt by the lack of star acclaim here at ICON. Its like a bad cliche of a Hollywood Agent whispering in my ear, "Will, you are the greatest writer of a generation. People should be adoring you. Why the heck are you stuck writing for this podunk little blog?" But the real me wants none of that. Fame is elusive mostly because I don't crave it. I'd much rather craft a great story and get little attention than craft a small story and get great attention. But when it comes to blogging, I use this blog to merely clear out the cockles of my brain, to empty it of passing thoughts and fleeting fancies and righteous indignation - all the useless things that come to my head during the day.

So that's my average day. And these are my average thoughts. I hope you have an above average weekend.

Back in the saddle again...

Its been quiet here at ICON for the past couple of days because I've been engaged in Annual Sales Meetings and a new class and a Youth Group realignment and all sorts of other things. Despite my best efforts, I seem to be getting drawn right back into the sordid and busy world I just left. I was actually enjoying my semi-retirement. I was reading books, watching movies, catching up with people. But that's all fading back into obscurity again and I'm being drawn back into the rat race.

Every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in.

*sigh*

Oh well, I'll try to get back here with insightful commentary of the sort found regularly at The Beach, Hinterland, and Bittersweet. But first, I have to have some insights.

Back to the slog I go...

Clarity of Coincidences

As a prologue to this topic, here is what I think on issues of immigration - nothing. Honestly, the issue has never been very interesting to me. I am, like most Americans, completely unaffected by the issues. I don't see my tax dollars disappearing except once on April 15th, and if I ever had any control over those tax dollars, I would certainly stop funding wars that we have no business being involved in. I know my lettuce arrives. I know buildings get built. I know my theaters continued to be cleaned when I was the manager and I tried to talk to the janitors in English and Spanish but they seemed very insular (as well they might be if they were afraid of being deported every second). I once taught immigrant children to read as part of a mission trip and found the children to be... well, children. Children are children. Adults are adults. And we're all on this crazy merry go round called life. If I have any opinion on immigration, I think it would be that its terrible that people feel they have to come all this way just to provide food and clothes for their families, cause I know damn well I wouldn't want to do the kinds of jobs they're doing in order to get that food and those clothes.

So, to summarize, I have no opinion and I really don't think about immigration at all.

On Friday, then, I plopped in a DVD of Children of Men - a dystopian Sci-Fi thriller about a man who has to smuggle a pregnant woman out of England. In this dystopian future, however, aside from the lack of children, the biggest issue of the day seems to be immigration, or more pointedly, immigrants. As in, England doesn't want any. They round up any immigrants and ship them out of England (or force them into refugee camps). Suddenly, immigration appears on my radar. But in a mass entertainment format, I generally ignore it.

Still...

On Saturday, I am reading Leviticus and I come across a biblical passage, Leviticus 19:34... "34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Now, at this point, I'm not making any connections. I'm just thinking to myself, yet another thing the Republicans seem to be forgetting. Here it is in black and white. Treat the aliens as native borns. I wonder how come I don't remember this passage.

On Sunday, my pastor is delivering his sermon on MLK and on the struggles of our denomination vis a vis Gay Rights. Last week, the San Francisco Presbytery narrowly agreed to move forward with the process of ordaining an openly lesbian pastor. This does not guarantee ordination, it simply guarantees that the process will continue (ultimately the decision will be reviewed by the national church). Within hours of the decision, however, our former pastor called to let us know that two churches in his presbytery were already resigning from the national church. All this is preamble to say that, suddenly, the sermon turned away from the issue of civil rights and church politics.

It seems that the Presbyterian Church's highest elected leader didn't seem phazed at all about the issue of lesbian pastors in her church. What she shared with our presbytery was a concern that in 40 years, the one issue people will look back on to see where we stood in our leadership was on the issue of immigration. She pointed out the irony that this nation fought a bloody civil war to keep a foreign population as a permanent work force, and now, more than a 100 years later, we're equally adamnant that we keep a foreign population from ever becoming a permanent work force. The sermon went on to remind us of what Leviticus says about the aliens living with you.

Okay, admittedly, I sat up and took notice. I'm kind of dense from time to time, but as a writer, I'm paid to take notice of things that continually get repeated - seemingly out of context of the rest of the story. Immigration means little or nothing to me, yet here, out of the clear blue, its mentioned to me three different times in one weekend. Clearly God has something He'd like for me to notice or think or feel, or something. The problem is, I'm just not getting it. I'm just too dense to figure it out. As Albert Brooks might say, "I'm just a little brain."

So, I'm not writing this to elicit responses on either side of the immigration issue, though I know some of you have strong opinions which you are free to repeat here, but merely because God has this tendency to tell us things that we aren't always ready to hear. I just wanted to say that I heard them, but I have no idea what they mean. I'm hoping that some sort of clarity of coincidences becomese evident in the near future.

A Not So Ringing Endorsement

This morning I informed my Dad that I was planning to change one scene at the end of my book. I was about to explain why I was changing the scene and that the main reason had something to do with some changes I was making in the second book, when my Dad gave me that look of confusion and said, "Are we talking about the same book?"

"What?"

"I don't remember that scene."

"It was at the end of the book. You know... the climax?"

"Are you sure it was in there?"

I went and looked at my copy of the book, and it was there. Then I went and looked at his copy of the book, and it was there as well.

He looked at the pages and said, "Oh yes, now I remember. I thought the ending was appropriate."

Okay, on one hand I'm inclined to write off the entire review of my ending as something pre-Alzheimeresque. On the other hand, perhaps my ending is so bad that its quickly forgotten. Can you see what being a writer does to you? Its not that I've become paranoid, its that I've become prone to paranoia. I can't simply take the approach that one person didn't remember the ending, but that it's probably the person's fault. I have to take the approach that someone didn't remember the ending, therefore my book is a complete and utter failure and I have to rethink this entire writing thing (or fix the book, yet again).

Is it any wonder that so many writers end up in mental institutions? I swear I'm going to quote Billy Joel on the inside cover of my book whenever its published.

"Son, I believe this is killing me."
Piano Man
Billy Joel

1983 - The Last Part

I was reminiscing the last couple of days about the Youth Work Camp to Alamosa in 1983 because I've known for a few months now that God was leading me into new pastures (so to speak). I decided at the start of this Youth year that it was going to be my last as a Youth Leader. I think there is an inherent risk of burnout in this type of work and I wanted to go out on my own terms before I resented the kids and the church and while I could still look everyone in the eye as a friend and fellow Christian. But over the last couple of weeks, one thing has been nagging me - one last bit of unfinished business. I realized that there was one thing that could make me stay on as a youth leader for one more year - a youth work camp. And as I realized that, I also realized that this was something God wanted me to do. So, when I see the youth next (they're on a ski trip this weekend), I am going to propose the project to them with a time frame at least a year out (Next spring or summer) so that they have time to raise the necessary funds for such a trip. One way or the other, I'm still going to find new pastures, but I might be leaving on God's time and not my own.

The reason I'm thinking I need this much time is that I want to raise the funds the same way we did back in 1983 when, ironically, we had a much richer church. There are plenty of individuals who could donate the money for us to make the trip (and indeed we already have quite a coffer of funds for a mission trip dating back since before I arrived) but part of the experience of 1983 that sticks out in my mind was the fact that we earned the trip and that in the earning of the trip, we bonded as a group.

There were many fund raisers over the year from September until July when we left. Out biggest fund raisers were the Ice Cream Social (the first time we'd had one - it is still going strong) and the sale of Trip Stock. These stock certificates were the equivalent of one mile of the journey, and we sold hundreds and hundreds of shares to our congregation. But ice cream and stock aside, for the most part, we raised the funds with the sweat of our brow and the muscles in our backs.

We did lawn maintenance (mowing lawns, watering gardens, and weeding). We built a new retaining wall in a backyard (digging a ditch first and then hammering in a frame and pouring cement). We completely leveled an overgrown jungle (yard) and hauled tons of trees, plants, weeds, and other assorted garden garbage out to a giant dumpster. We tore down a garden shed/garage (now, that was FUN!) and hauled the remains to the trash. We did so many different fund raisers that by the time we arrived in Alamosa, we were an experienced work crew. If anything, the work we did in Alamosa was almost anti-climactic (though we did get to do roofing, which was cool when you're a teen).

To be honest, we never worked that hard again on any of the subsequent fund-raising efforts for any of the work camps. But that one year had a great impact on us, on our youth group, and on our church. To this day, I still hear from adults at the church asking me if we're going to be doing any "fund-raising" anytime soon because they have a yard that needs cleaning. They remember it as a good investment, but also as a community event that brought the whole church a little bit closer.

And that's what I want to bring to Lakeside once again before I "retire" and move on to whatever God has in store for me next. Of course, ultimately, its up to the youth. I'm not about to clear a yard myself. But I have a sneaky suspicion that He will have some input into their decision. We shall soon know.

1983 - Part One

It was actually the fall of 1982. We'd succesfully held a fund raiser for an African missionary by renting out a roller skating rink and collecting normal admission funds (selling hot dogs and drinks, etc...). As a youth group, we were excited by the prospect of the roller skating. The fund raising part of it was of some mild interest. We weren't very politically active at the time.

As I recall, the first I heard of the idea, was the following week. School had just started back into session and we were just getting our first youth group meetings underway. The money from the fund raiser was being counted and tallied in the upstairs kitchen of our church. Pastor Dave and Mark were there and Pastor Dave mentioned that he was thinking of taking us all on a work camp the following summer. At the time, I think the term work camp was in vogue as opposed to the term Mission Trip which I hear today. Mark looked up at Pastor Dave and said, "What's a work camp?" and Pastor Dave described it in very general terms. Mark was transfixed. "And we could go anywhere?" "Well, we'd have to raise the money." "But we could go anywhere?" "Well, they only have work camps in certain places. Did you want to see the catalog?"

Pastor Dave brought out the catalog. A flimsy paper thing that looked kind of like one of those local Used Car Trader things, only with pictures of local communities nationwide that needed God sent cheap labor. We thumbed through the catalog and immediately started naming off exotic sounding locations, Leadville, Indian Springs, Alamosa... and like that, we were hooked.

For the short term, after that, it was all we could talk about. The teens were just hooked on the idea of raising all this money and going some place, and working, and coming back. We didn't really care what we did when we got there, we just wanted to go. The romantic notion of the work camp was just too much for our imagination.

After about a month, we had narrowed the list to three locations - one about three hours from San Francisco, one in Nevada, and one all the way out in Colorado - Alamosa. From the moment the list was set, the youth decided to go to Colorado. Cost projections were steep. The amount of time it would take to get there and back was huge. But the glory of the adventure was what spurred us onward.

We had a big meeting with our parents and other concerned church members. During the meeting, the idea was presented. The locations were each explained. The costs involved were noted. And the concerns were each addressed. As I recall, everytime some adult tried to suggest something like, "Well, if they went to the one in California, what would be the time to travel?" Mark would sort of politely bat them down by reminding everyone that we were going to Alamosa. When finally the adults became exasperated and pointed out how much money it would cost and how many fund raisers the kids were going to have to do in order to achieve such a lofty goal, Mark said, "Don't worry. We're going to raise the money, no matter what it takes."

Though the other two possibilities remained on the board for another couple of months, from the moment the list was set, there was no doubt in our mind that this was the Alamosa Work Camp.

To be continued...

And now a few potshots at (or additions to) my faulty memory...

Optimistically Half Empty!

I can't remember how to spell optimistic (or is it optomistic, or optamistic?) Spelling rules, like grammar, might be some of the first things to be jettisoned somehow I feel this sentence needs to end with a run-on.

It occurred, which is another word I can never remember, to me to the other day that the first thing God seems to be doing to me in preparation for whatever might be next in my journies fantasticue is to empty me of all the accumulated stuff that I've built up inside me like barnacles on the bottom of an ocean going tug. Stupid things like spelling and worrying about other drivers and politics and tons and tons of things that weigh down on my face and drag my smile upside down are clogging my channels of well-being like that 200lb per square inch butter filled pastry that the french pastry chefs tried to use to kill Homer Simpson when he was a food critic. When I listen to my C.S. Lewis CD's and the professor talks about finding joy, I wonder what this joy thing might be, and whether I might have once glimpsed it at the end of a long dark tunnel.

So, I've been fighting the temptation to fill myself up on things that do not nourish. I've been looking for a water so pure that it doesn't just quench my thirst, but keeps me from ever being thirsty again. In the meantime, I have been emptying myself. Thus far, God has made it pretty easy.

First, He threw a nasty cold at me. Colds always have the same effect on me - they take away my appetite. I've actually come to find them as blessings in disguise in the last couple of years. So, I've been scraping by with next to nothing for the first week of 2008 so far.

Then, He took away all of my money. Well, more accurately, the Christmas chickens came home to roost in my pocketbook. My budget for January shrank to a decidedly scary $5.08. With no relief in sight, I've decided to stop spending money on frivilous things like food. Ironically, the last money I spent was on Atonement. Hmmm... After Atonement, I'm ready to begin sacrificing.

Okay, I've been too long in Leviticus.

Anyway, so far in 2008 I've been very good at emptying myself. Next, I think I'll empty my closets of useless clothes. The mothballs are overworked and there are actual people out there that might find my used clothing more useful than my hangers find them.

So, food, money, clothes, spelling... I'm pretty sure that's it for now. But then, I am only half empty. I plan to be 100% empty before too long and then look out!

P.S. One of the strange things about emptying oneself is that there is a constant pity party going on in my head (its one of the first things I've been trying to extract, but this party has claws!) It is utterly ridiculous considering the accomplishments I've just finished in the last month or so, but the party is blaring in the background nonetheless. I'm trying to ignore it, but at times, the disco ball spinning and the beat of the techno music is tempting and I find myself on the edge of the pity party, looking in, and wondering what it might be like to join. Its been a long time since I let out a good rousing, Woe is me! Either that, or I'm going to call the cops and tell them that this party has been going on too long and they need to come break it up. But I hate to be a party pooper.

ATONEMENT - Movie Review

If you get everything else right, but the story, does it make a good movie? That's the question I was left with after watching sure to be nominated Oscar contender Atonement last night.

The film's plot is basically a British melodrama, most of which you can easily gather from the film's movie trailer. Young Robbie, the gardener, is in love with Cecelia, the lovely young daughter of an aristocratic British family. Cecelia's sister, Briony, is a precocious wanna be writer, who also has a crush on Robbie. One day Briony sees something in the garden between Robbie and her sister that she misinterprets. A series of further misinterpretations follows leading to Briony accusing Robbie of a heinous crime. Robbie is sent to prison, but given an opportunity to clear his name by joining the Army and fighting in France (prior to Dunkirk). He and Cecelia spend the rest of the movie pining for one another while Briony grows up and comes to understand the mistake that she's made. I imagine the book is quite good and I wouldn't mind reading it someday, even knowing what happens.

The film is beautifully made which is both its blessing and its curse. There is some of the most exquisite cinematography in this film that I've seen in a long time, almost David Leanesque (Laurence of Arabia, Bridge on The River Kwai). One shot in particular should earn the film a Best Picture nomination - a nearly fourteen minute long single shot showing three soldiers walking along the beachfront in Dunkirk, filmed with a steadicam. Its a marvel of artistry and direction. Of course, this incredible scene left me thinking one deadly thing about the film, "That was nice, but it really didn't need to be there." The movie is a beautiful thing, but it is also incredibly narcissistic. It knows its beautiful and it can't help admiring itself whenever it gets a chance. Still, for pure artistry, I have not seen a better movie this year.

The biggest problem with the film, however, is probably its script adaption. There are scenes in this film and characters that seem to come out of nowhere, that make no sense whatsoever, and that are not well executed as a result. I'm certain that these scenes are probably in the book and were deemed necessary to the movie without also deeming the material that explained them necessary. For instance, there is a French character that appears about 2/3rds of the way into the film that seems to know Briony and her family, but then gets confused - leaving us wondering who this character is and what the heck he has to do with anything. He is never explained. He serves his "purpose" admirably, but he would have done that just as well had he been a complete stranger. And so we are left with nothing but confusion after this scene. This is simply a case where the script adaption of the book could have been much tighter.

So, the artistry could have been tighter and the narrative could have been tighter and that leaves one person to blame - the Director. I'm sorry. I don't normally heap abuse on Directors (and this is mild abuse at worst) but both of these are areas under the Director's control and responsibility.

Which brings me back to my initial question, can you make a good movie with story problems? I think in this case, yes. Despite its flaws, I found so much to marvel at during the watching that I found myself liking it. The sound design was incredible. The costumes were outstanding. The movie was beautiful to watch. And I did not see the ending coming, which to me is like the cherry on top of a sundae. But I will say that it was close... another half hour and the movie could have been a sequel to The English Patient, or, as I call it, Endless Patience. Overall, I definitely say, check this movie out.

A Leap Too Far

I'm expecting a response from Ariel, but the rest of you please chime in as well (especially Randal with his lawyer's logic). The reason, of course, that I want responses is that I want you all to point out the error in my thinking. Since the subject is C.S. Lewis - a man I admire and a Christian I trust - I am thinking that I must be wrong somewhere, but I'm not finding it.

To be fair to Lewis, I'm basing my blog post on a 12 part CD course on C.S. Lewis and his writings. To say that this course just scratches the surface is to say that someone telling you that 1 + 1 = 2 just scratches the surface of mathematics. So far, at least, the course has been mostly a review of his books and his apologetics.

That being said, here is my problem...

1) Lewis believes that our pursuit of joy and our knowledge of good presuppose that there is something more joyful that we can't grasp and more Good that we can't see (i.e. God) but that we still somehow know. I have no problem with this and the logic he uses to prove this seems compelling.

2) He then explains that Jesus must be who He says He is because otherwise He would be a liar or a lunatic. Again, I followed all of that, and I can't argue this point.

But here is where I find the problem - the leap from the first statement to the second.

Let me put it this way, the first statement relies on our own internal logic. We can grasp the fact that joy is something that we can never hold on to. We can understand the idea that our knowledge of Good must come from some place outside of the world because we know what right and wrong are and many of us have never ever read the Bible. Etc... So our own knowledge informs us about the idea of God. The second statement, however, relies on the words of Jesus Christ as written in the Bible. Without getting into the whole idea of the Bible and how it was written, we are still being asked to accept that the Bible is a definitive truth and that Jesus Christ is a definitive truth. If there was no Bible, wouldn't that negate Jesus Christ? You see, the first statement is something I can feel. The second statement relies on me knowing something of Jesus Christ. I can see mathematics at work because if you give me one apple and then hand me another one, I have two apples. Its something I intuitively grasp even if I don't know what it means (like the language we speak). Jesus isn't necessarily intuitive.

So, did Lewis make a Leap in Logic? Or did I miss something in his writings that points to the intuitiveness of Jesus Christ?

Now, that having been said and asked, and posited for ridicule, I am, of course, concerned with the whole reason my brain refuses to simply accept Lewis's argument. I know, intuitively, that I will never find "proof" of God, and yet I also know intuitively that God exists. Therefore, I sometimes wonder if logic and intelligence are the logs in my eye preventing me from seeing that which is clearly obvious if I were to just remove these darn things from my iris (which itches, by the way). Is intelligence a curse or a boon to human beings? I wonder what Lewis would say?

Shoeless, Lewis, and Moses, Oh My!

Three gifts from three different people with three different tastes and all bring me closer to God. Now how's that for a Christmas season?

Having finished the book and school and all my other responsibilities, I have suddenly found time to focus again on myself and my own spiritual journey. But when you've been off the path for a while, you can find yourself Frodo-like in the midst of a landscape that offers you no clear direction to your ultimate objective. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of the past couple of months, or perhaps the sheer weight of all that had transpired - I wasn't feeling particularly close to God. I found church to be boring. I found Youth Group, uninspiring. And I found my prayers lacking a certain conviction. I was looking around the landscape trying to figure out where the hell I was and I wasn't seeing any particular path out of those spiritual doldrums.

And then, on Tuesday, I opened up one of the DVD's my brother had gotten for me - Field of Dreams. We've all seen it. We all have it imprinted on our Man DNA. But, I admit, I hadn't seen it in a few years and while I hadn't forgotten the story or the characters or any of the lines of dialogue, I also hadn't felt its impact in a long time. I found myself weeping again at scenes like Costner and Moonlight Graham, and the kid stepping across the line to become a doctor. I found myself wondering along with Shoeless Joe whether this cornfield in Iowa wasn't some sort of Heaven. Baseball is God's sport, no doubt about it, and this movie always makes me long for a true Field of Dreams where we can all belong in a brotherhood and talk about things that truly matter (like OBP and RBI's ;) After watching this movie, I still didn't have any idea where I was, but I knew where I wanted to be. I had at least rediscovered my longing for God.

Then, on Wednesday, I opened up a set of 6 CD's my Dad had gotten for me - one of the World's Greatest Courses selections on The Life and Work of C.S. Lewis (Did you know he liked to be called Jack?) I listened intently to the first of 12 lectures, and then plunged right on in to the second lecture on his earliest works (Pilgrim's Regress, etc...) As the instructor explained the early life of C.S. Lewis and his understanding of Joy and how that lead to his becoming a Christian, I couldn't help but remember the Field of Dreams from the night before. Here was a longing so real that it could only point to something even more beautiful. I found myself wondering why I couldn't feel real joy over things in my own life.

And finally, last night, I opened up a book that Andy had given me - Walking The Bible - a story of one man's real life quest to walk in the footsteps of Moses and the early patriarchs of the Bible. I found the book fascinating and I couldn't put it down until I literally couldn't physically keep my eyes open any longer.

In the book, the author describes his approach to this quest - starting from a completely scientific and research oriented point of view. He admits that as he begins to do more and more research, he finds himself asking more and more questions of his own expectations and beliefs.

God doesn't give people quests to serve their own selfish needs. Ultimately, every personal quest becomes something more that we can all benefit from.

I don't know where I am, still, but I've got a feeling that the next few steps are going to take me in a direction I hadn't anticipated, and that somehow, it will all be for the benefit of God.

A sports blog about writing?

Every October, my cross country coach would load up his camper shell backed truck with us gangly cross country runners and drive the short distance downhill from our campus to Golden Gate Park. Though it was good to spend time with other friendly runners, we also knew that this trip would be spent in serious discussion. Because after arriving at the Polo Grounds, we would begin to go over the San Francisco high school cross country course, step by step, transition by transition, pace by pace.

It would begin in the actual Polo Grounds - a half mile circle that we would traverse while our coach explained to us about how he wanted us to begin the race (Go out at your own pace. Do not try to be first, but try to be near first by the time you exit the Polo Grounds, etc...) Then we would pass under the outside horsetrack and into the park proper where we would start running the first outside stretch, tracing the curve of the polo grounds as we headed towards the first meadow. This stretch was always a little more difficult because Golden Gate Park is at a definite tilt, and so far we've been running flat. And when it got wet, especially, this was usually our first taste of a weathered course (i.e. Mud). As we ran along, our coach started to point out benchmarks, passing points, etc... And then down the short hill into the first meadow and across it (be sure to bypass any mud holes, he would say - a suggestion I would happily ignore for four years). Up the other side to the opposite side of the Polo Grounds, then a left turn to take us up the Park and east. This was the long uphill climb of the race.

We would run up the 3/4ths of a mile uphill spine of the course and then drop down another narrow hill to the backstop of a baseball diamond, around the baseball diamond, and up the second meadow to the big tree. Once around the big tree, we knew it was basically all down hill from there, and about 1.25 miles to go. Our coach would tell us that we had to start picking up the pace here. Down the other side of the meadow (some took the bike path, others the grass - either way was acceptable) and then back up a steep hill and then around a serious switchback and down another steephill right back on to the meadow. There was one last short hill after that, and then down through the first meadow again and back up and across the entrance to the Polo Grounds - opposite where we'd left it. After that, it was about 400 yards to the finish line. As we came off the steep hill, our coach would say that we really had to be going our fastest at that point, and that we should then save our final burst of speed until the finish line was less than 100 yards away and then sprint to the finish line.

Every year we went over this course and we knew it like the back of our hands. Then we would run the course about eight times a season, as well as practice on it another dozen or so times. By the time I was a senior, I had run the course close to 100 times and knew every intricate detail and nuance of its undulating path. I knew where to get an extra burst of speed. I knew how to run through the mud puddles without losing my shoes (thus bypassing all those slower runners who went around it). I knew where I could pass other runners and thoroughly demoralize them in the process. I knew all that, tucked away in my brain.

And yet, every single time out, I'd reach a point where I forgot all the strategy, all the plans, every skill I had, and every single bit of running I had ever known. I would toss it all to the wind and just run - feel the wind across my face, hear the pounding of my heart, feel the sting of sweat in my eyes, and push my legs forward like the drive wheels of a steam locomotive. At that moment, I stopped running and became a runner. I stopped thinking about running and just ran.

I reached that point with the novel. After four years and countless months of writing, notes, journals, plans, discussions, dialog, research, plotting, editing - I just reached down deep inside myself and stopped writing, and became a writer. It was pure guts, pure instinct, pure stamina that carried me to the end, and I crossed the finish line with nothing left inside me, having left it all behind somewhere in one of the endless meadows.

I have a tendency to plan things to death. At some point, I need to learn to let go and just be. All the strategy in the world won't help, if you don't go out there and run the race.