It was a quiet and unassuming evening

Why do mystery and horror stories so often begin "It was a dark and stormy night?" We've all experienced a dark, stormy night, what is so mysterious about it? I know I tend to be home during those nights, only going out of the house if I have to. I don't want to be out in the rain. I imagine the same is true for most people. So why is this when all of the villains are out doing their work? Aren't they people, too? Don't you think they'd want to stay in on those nights?

For a storybook villain crime is their job, much like your job is your job. They don't want to go in to work if it means getting drenched on the way to the car. If they are like me and it is that dark and stormy, enough to mention at the start of a book, then they especially don't want to drive, I don't seem to see as well at night when it is raining. I think the villains would want to stay in on the dark and stormy nights. Perhaps if the start of the story when that business is going on is when the villains are planning their heist, or their caper, then I'll go along with it. There wouldn't be a better time to plan than on a dark and stormy night.

Some of you might be thinking that the stories don't always involve rational villains, so maybe that's why they are out on the dark and stormy nights. I'll give you that. It is not beyond reality to believe that there are irrational villains, and that these would be the ones cavorting on the dark and stormy nights. That could be a very real possibility. Perhaps these are the ones the stories are often involving. I still think there is an over representation of dark and stormy nights in horror and mystery stories.

If I was telling the story, I'd have it be a calm and unassuming evening, or perhaps even an afternoon, when the villain strikes. Especially after all of the priming that the other stories have done on us so that we automatically expect the worst when it is dark and stormy. My villain would certainly strike in the open, using the fact that people are inattentive in regular situations to their advantage. That's all I have regarding this topic at the moment. I was just thinking about it recently, how the dark and stormy line is so cliche in mystery and horror stories. I suppose I am done thinking about it now.

Ajax can't get enough of road signs

More road signs? Yes. Yesterday while driving home from viewing apartments I noticed the “Icing May Occur” sign. I imagined a literal interpretation of the sign, primed by the recent cake decorating Taylor and I have been doing, and saw a big hand spreading cake icing across the road and surrounding trees. This made me remember the signs I would see out west driving to and from college, “Game Crossing.” Of course we all know they are referring to animals as game, but in my literal imaginative way I pictured board games bouncing across the street in a line. I always thought that would be a humorous cartoon, but never got around to creating it. For one, I didn’t know how many people would understand the game crossing sign as being a real sign, I never knew about it until I saw it myself, just a few years ago. Secondly, I don’t draw so well. Finally, if I had the idea, someone else probably did too.


Now, years later, I did the Google search and discovered three variations of the game crossing gag idea. One was of some sport equipment walking frenziedly across the road by the sign. Another was of cartoon chess pieces crossing. The third was a split photo, one half had an actual photograph of the road sign and the other half had a picture of a stack of board games. So the gag has been done, but not in the way I had imagined it. I guess I might as well add my idea to the table…the table of the Internet…as well illustrate the icing on the roads idea as well. Maybe now I will be finished with signs for a while, but I make no guarantees. (click on the images for the full view)

I thought about enhancing them with some color after I scanned them, but didn't get around to it...yet.

If it Ain't Broke, Enhance it

If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it…but that doesn’t mean you can’t enhance it. Where would we be in life if there weren’t any genius mad scientists trying to improve upon the machines and tools we use every day? Doc Brown’s DeLorean wasn’t broken, but he sure fixed it! Regular strength Tylenol wasn’t broken, but isn’t maximum strength a little more efficient? Do we want to be content with how things are, or do we want something better. The same rule that applies to stuff and things applies to life. My life isn’t broken, but can it be fixed (enhanced)? Of course it can. So can yours.


How do we define broken? Typically, something that is broken is unable to accomplish its purpose. A toaster that doesn’t toast is no toaster. Likewise, a car that doesn’t drive, a computer that doesn’t compute, an oven mitt that doesn’t protect a hand, these are all examples of broken things. An item created to perform a specific function which no longer performs that function is a broken item. Is that a satisfactory explanation? I say it is not. I’ve got something different.

A toaster that doesn’t toast is no toaster. A toaster that toasts is a toaster. There are a lot of different types of things you could toast; it isn’t a one size fits all realm. Bagels are different from bread and both are different from frozen waffles. Of course this is old news, and there are toasters with multiple settings for various types of toastable items. The point is that the toaster wasn’t broken, in that it was still able to complete its intended purpose, but it was broken in that it wasn’t able to toast the multitude of toastable objects with much efficiency. It wasn’t completely broken, but it wasn’t at maximum efficiency. This is where enhancements come in.

An enhancement makes something more capable of accomplishing its intended purpose. Toast settings on a toaster are an example of an enhancement. You have a selector switch to determine if you want more toast or less toast. Is a toaster without a selector switch broken? No. Does it accomplish its purpose? Yes. Does a selector switch make a toaster more capable at doing its job? Yes. Does a non-selector switch toaster hold its own against a selector switch toaster? No. Is the non-selector switch toaster broken now?

No, it really isn’t broken. The point isn’t to change the definition of broken, or haven’t I made that clear yet? No. The point is that something doesn’t have to be broken before we address how to make it more efficient. We can’t wait around until the toaster breaks and then while rebuilding it we decide to enhance it. Well, we could, but why wait? That’s the point. Why wait? There are many systems (such as government and formal education) which are limping along, not completely broken, but heavily damaged, and yet they still accomplish a portion of their purposes, so they are left alone. If we wait until they are completely broken we might not be in a state where we are capable of fixing them.

So maybe we do want to change the definition of broken, or maybe just use a different word. Nothing is perfect, and if it ain’t perfect, then enhance it. That can be the phrase. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” as a phrase is broken, so we’ll fix it with an enhancement: “if it ain’t perfect, enhance it!” Now those are some words we could all live by. We’ll enhance our toasters, our DeLorean sports cars, our government, and our lives. None of these things are perfect, nor are they all necessarily broken, but they all can use enhancements.

I don’t know how to enhance everything, if I did, I’d probably do it and I wouldn’t be worrying about having a job and earning a Master’s degree. I’d be making decorative cakes with my wife, just for fun, and all of the children we knew would have cool cakes and lots of cavities. Dentists would be our friends…parents not so much. Perhaps it is better that I don’t have the answers and the money fortune that seems to follow the best ideas in this country. If we even function as a meritocracy any more, I don’t know if we even function as a republic democracy, fully. Back to the point, I don’t know how to enhance everything, but I think if you want to enhance anything you need to get a full scope perspective of the thing. Sit it down, figuratively or literally depending on what it is, and then walk around it. See it from every angle. Get opposing perspectives. Learn all you can about its reason for being created, its capabilities, and its imagined accomplishments. When the right person gets the right item at the right time, enhancements will come.

Ajax Throws a Baseball

Here it is! My first attempt at animation from a few years ago. Rather than focus on school work during college, I wanted to see if I could make a cartoon. Having years of experience making stickman flip book cartoons on the edge of the pages of every book I read in middle school and high school, I understand the principles of animation (okay, not "every book," but several of them, and probably not "years of experience," but minutes, perhaps cumulative hours). I know that cartoon animation includes still images show in quick succession to provide the sensation of apparent motion.

With that knowledge I created the following cartoon by drawing images in Microsoft Paint, and then using Windows Movie Maker to make a slide show with very short durations of slides being displayed. When put together the slide show looks like a moving picture show. I tacked on a short guitar riff I once recorded to fill the void of not having other sound. With the success of this cartoon, I have plans to make further cartoons (I have made one already, and posted it on this blog. Here is a link: Fun With Microsoft Paint) with dialogue. These things take some time though, so don't expect it soon, but expect it eventually. That's all the words, enjoy the show!

"Tue"(Job Interview)s(in one)day

Yesterday


I got up early yesterday, a little too early. But that’s the way most days feel when I don’t have any place to be. Taylor gets up for work and I just want to sleep, but I don’t really want to just sleep because I don’t want to be lazy. So I usually get up, eventually, and make breakfast before she leaves for work. After she left yesterday morning I returned to the bedroom, looked at the bed, and in my best Liz Lemon said “I want to go to there.” I didn’t go to there, however, because I needed to leave in an hour to get to a job interview.

Interview #1

I arrived scandalously early and sat in my truck for a few minutes. I had a 30+ mile drive to get there, and I hate to be late, so providing enough time for any possible issue on the road, I left early. There weren’t any problems and I had plenty of time to plug the next address into the GPS and get an idea of how long it would take to get there. Did I mention the next address? It was for another job interview. I have been applying for jobs almost continuously since I finished school a year ago. I have had a total of 5 invitations for interviews out of the dozens of jobs I have applied for. Three of those happened to be in the last 3 business days.

Interesting side note, the first interview yesterday was the same group as one of those previous interview invitations. Last May when I was finally hired by the last place I worked (the one with the overnight schedule), I had been called back by this other company. As it had been weeks since I heard from the place I did end up working for, I scheduled an interview. The next day I was offered the first job so I cancelled the new interview. This is tough to explain when I don’t use company names, oh well. I took the one job and cancelled the interview for the other. Time passed and as I quit the job I had taken, I of necessity applied everywhere again, and that other company from back in May called again. He said, “I feel like I should know you, have we spoken before about a job?” I told him the story and he invited me to come in for an interview. This completes the interesting side note. Then again, perhaps it only completes the back story of the interesting side note. I think the punch line comes later.

I waited for fifteen minutes or so in my truck, and then went inside to wait for another ten minutes before my interview time; little did I know it would be another ten minutes before I met with anyone, that’s professional. The story gets interesting at the point of me letting the receptionist know I was there, or it would seem to get interesting, but I suppose it is kind of anticlimactic (you’ll see). As I went to sit down in the waiting room my pants pocket caught on the arm of the chair and I heard a distinct tearing sound. It was the seam of my pants above and below the pocket. Luckily the pocket held intact, somehow, otherwise it would have been a good 12 inch opening in the seam.

With a tear in my pants, waiting for a job interview, I sat laughing. I texted Taylor so we could share in the experience. I thought it was altogether humorous and I quickly fashioned a plan to conceal the catastrophe. I had a rain jacket with me, first I thought it would be fun to tie it around my waist just like we did back in 6th grade on the playground when we wore our coats out for recess and then started playing football and got too hot, we’d use the coats to mark end zones or something and then tie them around our waists when going back inside. It was fashionably acceptable to wear a coat tied ‘round your waist. I don’t know if that was just because of the era, or because of the age. I don’t see many adults (especially not men) sporting the fashion, maybe kids still do. I don’t know. At any rate, it was amusing to me to be inside wearing my rain jacket around my waist while wearing slacks and a shirt and tie. It might have been just the accessory to take the formal-edge out of my appearance. Who am I kidding? My disarming smile does that on its own!

Like I said, I waited well beyond the appointment time to actually meet with the interview crew. Perhaps that is just my perception, since I’m always at least 10 minutes early I consider waiting 10 minutes past an agreed upon time “well beyond.” In this time I moved away from my “waist coat” concealment plan. Instead I decided that I could just carry my jacket scrunched up in my right hand, which would efficiently cover the portion of my leg where the rip in the pants resided. The only flaw in this plan was shaking hands. Being a job interview, there wasn’t much chance that there wouldn’t be any hand shaking. To my surprise, there were three men conducting the interview, which meant 300% more hand shaking than I had expected. I had to make the switch of the coat from right to left hand and then do the shaking. It worked out well.

We had the interview, all went well, and then it was time to stand up and shake hands again. This is where I resumed concern over the ripped pants. I stood up and angled myself away from the interviewers. With coat in hand I was once again successful in hiding the open seam. (I am typing this in Microsoft Word and were I wrote “open seam” Word has underlined seam in blue, which means it wants to suggest a different word, I clicked to see what it wants me to have typed, “sea.” No, Word, that doesn’t make sense in this context, not even remotely. Thanks though!)

As the lead interviewer walked me out of the building, I thought it funny how concerned I was that they would notice the ripped seam in my pants, who looks at pants pockets when they meet someone? I probably could have spent the day around those guys and they wouldn’t have noticed. It also crossed my mind that I should have mentioned it to them when they asked me if there was anything else I wanted them to know about me that they hadn’t asked. I should have said “I ripped my pants when I sat down in the waiting room when I got here.” And then just left it at that and waited for them to say something. Could have been pretty funny, but as it was it was a top secret adventure, and I think I was successful.

It is a possibility that they had a laugh about my pants being ripped after I left. Once I was out of the room the other two guys might have looked at each other and said “did you see that guy’s pants!” It doesn’t really matter though, because an hour or so later they called to offer me the job. That was nice, but at just over $10 an hour, I wasn’t overly excited. It was a job, but not on the top of the list for me. Besides I had ripped pants to take care of, but to be accurately on the timeline, they called after I had fixed my pants.

And that leads into the fixing of the pants portion of this story! I had an enormous chunk of time before my second interview, although that did include another hour and a half of driving. Thanks to the recent flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene, the more direct route to the second interview location is closed. So I had to drive way out of the way to get there, but that’s what you have to do, so I did it. In the intervening time I decided to go to my parents’ house to find a needle and thread. No one was home so I had to call my mom at work to find out where I could get a needle. In short time I was standing, pants in hand, sewing the seam back together. I can hold my own with a needle and thread, but I’m more of a decorational sewer than a functional sewer. Decorational isn’t a word, apparently, but that’s how I sew. With the pants leg inside out, I thought I was doing a fine job, but once I finished and flipped the leg back out, it was obvious I hadn’t done such a find job. No matter, the seam was restored, or reformed at least, and I was ready to go on my way.

It was some time after that when the first interview people called to tell me I had a job if I wanted it. I told them I’d call tomorrow, which is now today, and I need to call them soon, in order to let them know my decision. What decision? Keep reading.

Interview #2

After driving another hour and a half, I arrived at the second interview of the day, again 30 minutes early. I waited until 10 minutes before the interview and then walked in. I was met coming through the front door by a friend of mine who works there. So as not to make it appear that the company only interviews and hires friends of employees, I acted professionally. “Hello, my name is [Ajax the whimsical revolutionary] and I am here for a 1pm appointment with [Marzipan Phillips].” Names changed. She had me sign in and then took me back to the offices. There wasn’t anyone in the waiting area, so my efforts at keeping it professional were really just for my own amusement.

My friend had me wait in the area near her desk while she went to check if Marzipan was ready for me. She came back quickly and got me, so I went to be interviewed. It was a quick and to the point interview, we had already spoken on the phone a few times and I think he just wanted to meet me in person to get an idea of who I was more clearly. We talked for a while and then he had me sign a background check release. I left with the understanding that I have the job and I’m just waiting for the official offer. Two job interviews and two job offers in one day. Let the deliberation begin!

Here is where the back story about that one company comes into focus. I set an interview with them back in May, but then had a job offer the next day from a company willing to pay more. I had to cancel that interview because I had a better offer. Now, I am about to call them back again, to decline their job offer because I have had a better offer, again. I’m going to tell them to just ignore my application if it ever comes across their desks again. Block my e-mail and phone number and ignore me. It is clear that I will never work for them at their $10 an hour compensatory wage rate. I don’t even know if it is a nice consolation to think that I could have a job with them whenever I want it. I’m sure I could earn at least that much if I went back to working at Subway, and there I might even get free sandwiches or cookies. How can you beat that? Oh right, livable salary and medical insurance benefits.

That was my day yesterday, at least the first part of it. The rest was good too, but not blog topical. Taylor and I have discussed the opportunities and weighed the consequences and we are going to accept the second job offer. This means a rush to find a place to live closer to the office because I am not going to do a 2 hour commute for very long, if I have to do it at all. This job pays more, but not enough to drive my 17mpg pickup truck 4 hours a day. It’ll be a unique experience for me, unique in comparison to my history of experiences. I don’t think there is much that we can do that is completely unique to human existence, but almost everything is unique to our personal experience. It is the uniqueness that is write-worthy. If I could do anything I wanted for a sustainable income, this would probably be it. Just write. But that doesn’t seem feasible, so this remains a hobby, but having unique experiences makes it an easier hobby. Just like Brian Regan says, “Comedy usually requires a surprise, but you people don’t seem to care about that.” This was in regards to people requesting he do old jokes during the encore portion of a set. Comedy does require a surprise, or something that is different, most entertaining stories do as well. But then again, familiarity is nice as well. How many times have you watched your favorite movie or listened to your favorite song and you still enjoy it? Maybe what makes a good story is a familiar surprise. Yes, I think that is rather accurate. I look forward to writing about many more familiar surprises.

Ajax Prints a Photograph

(it is more legible if you watch it on YouTube and go to full screen: http://youtu.be/qJRJYdflKdU)

As promised last Friday, here is something better than my pointless rambling and trying to force writing about something. Originally I created this as a photo storybook kind of thing and posted it as an album on Facebook. But it was a lot of pictures, so if I did the same thing here it would take a lot of space, the best route is to slap it together in a "video" slide show and upload it in one shot. There isn't any sound, maybe someday I'll orchestrate a soundtrack. Probably not, lets be real, but maybe (not).

In other news, my wife and I started a blog to show off the cakes we decorate all fancy like. It is at ajaxcakes.blogspot.com. We are still figuring this cake business out on our own. We need to figure out a better way to photograph the cakes. For now it is working well though.

I hope you enjoy this story about me printing a photograph.

P.S. I just viewed the page and watched the video and it turns out that the size of the text on the individual slides is too small to read in some cases. I put the video on full screen, but that makes it blurry. I zoomed in with the browser, also blurry. I don't think the few slides that will be impossible to read will destroy the magic of the story, but if it does, comment below and I will put the effort into fixing it. Sorry!

Phraseology: Out of Whack

Have you ever said something was out of whack? More importantly, have you ever said something was in whack? Yes to the first, probably, and no to the second. Not me, I’ve said it both ways, but always without knowing where the phrase came from. What is its origin? I’ve always assumed that in order for something to be out of whack it must have been in whack at some time prior to whatever it was that took it out of whack. That brings up another good question, how do things get in or out of whack? There isn’t time to delve into that one, not right now.


No, right now we want to focus on what it means to be in or out of whack. We all know how the phrase is used. Something that isn’t right is out of whack. Whether it is confused, jumbled, broken, on fire when it isn’t flammable, exploding when it isn’t explosive, or just your computer processing slowly, it can be out of whack. But with such a wide application of being out of whack, how do we narrow it down and determine what it means to be in whack? Or do all of these things have to apply? In which case you would have to be clear, concise, in working order, not on fire, not exploding, and your computer is processing at an acceptable pace, in order to be in whack. I guess that isn’t fair to claim, being in or out of whack is a situation by situation determination.

According to ask.yahoo.com the term has a few options for origin. You can click that link and see what it says. One of the suggestions is that whack refers to the sound of the auctioneer’s hammer. The whack comes along when you get the lot you are bidding on, hopefully for a decent price. This means that out of whack means you either didn’t get the lot, or didn’t get a good price on it. I think this is a pretty good explanation. Of course, it isn’t as entertaining as I might have hoped. Now either I embellish the story to make it worth your while, or I find another phrase to define (maybe define on my own this time so it is more entertaining).

Well, I can’t think of any phrases right now that could have a strange origin. I can’t think of a more entertaining story for “out of whack” either. Maybe we’ll just have to settle with me repeating what I found with a 3 second Google search. Something you could have done on your own. Usually I would hope that these blog posts would do more for you than save you 3 seconds on a Google search, but sometimes I guess that’s just all I can do for you. Unfortunately I have now wasted those 3 seconds, plus many more, by not giving you anything more worth your while to read. And this on a Friday, too, criminal! Come back to read the next post, I’ll do something better, I promise.

Caution, Children at Play

I hope that when you read the title of this post you hear a thunder crash and a sinister laugh at the end of it, perhaps some minor chords played on a pipe-organ as well. Just a few days ago, maybe a week now, although the timing isn’t relevant, I was driving through a residential area and noticed one of those yellow diamond signs that says “Caution Children at Play” and has a crude depiction of your great-uncle Jasper pushing a hoop with a stick. I saw the sign like I’ve never seen it before, or rather, I should say I read the sign like I never read it before. Instead of “Caution: Children at play” I read it “Caution, Children at play.” It wasn’t a warning for me to be careful so as not to endanger any children; it was a warning for me to be on my guard because of the children.


I heeded the sign’s warning and kept an eye out for an over-all’s wearing, cowlick kid with a sling-shot. I was also on my guard for a spikey haired boy in his trademarked red t-shirt and blue shorts sporting a spray can and skateboard. Being an unconventional thinker as I am, I also made myself aware that if I ran into a large, bulbous, bald-headed kid in a yellow shirt I ought to be careful not to let him drag me down into some sort of shared depression. The point is that children are dangerous, or so the sign would have us believe.

Meet Your Caker

I’m trying to keep up with a schedule of posting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It makes me feel slightly forced to come up with something at times, but mostly I just have to make sure I take the time on those days to post something. I didn’t post anything yesterday, so here is yesterday’s post, and yes, it is kind of thrown together. I was intending to do a post like this, but with more planning, not that that ever makes much of a difference to me. I always start typing and then go off on tangents and stuff doesn’t usually write out the same way I had originally planned it. That’s the way it goes though, I’m cool with it.


This post is mainly about pictures. My wife Taylor and I enjoy decorating cakes. She is a fan of the Cake Boss TV program, which I have never seen a complete episode of, and she has taken decorating classes. She introduced me to cake decorating. I enjoy creativity so I got on board with the cake decorating pretty easily, plus I enjoy doing things with her.

First is a cake she was making for the kids she works with at school. This was last May, or thereabouts. The kids requested a school playground theme for the cake.
 

The cake was made out of regular cake, then frosted with homemade butter cream frosting, and topped with homemade fondant (fancy name for rolled icing made from marshmallow and powdered sugar, lots of it). The "skate park," "sand under the swings," and "school bus" are made from crisped rice cereal treats. I don't remember if it was the brand name or not. The swing and soccer net posts are those round cookies from Pepperidge Farm.  The tire swing is a Hostess chocolate donut. The other swing was crafted from fondant. The swing chains and the soccer net are Twizzlers. The soccer ball is a carved marshmallow painted with melted chocolate, the same melted chocolate used to paint the "asphalt" and the markings on the bus. The children are toys and not edible, not for humans. This was a large cake.

We were going to do our own wedding cake, but it was a busy time and we settled on making cupcakes. Over this last weekend we decided to make a cake just for fun. Taylor had a cake in mind from one of her cake books. Here is our rendition of it:

These island pictures were taken with my cell phone camera, so the image quality isn't quite as good. I need a new camera. Taylor used a real camera to get some pictures, but she is at work right now and I don't know where that camera is. For now, these pictures will suffice. We used regular cake from store bought mixes again, but this time used a different frosting recipe. I liked this frosting better since it didn't have whole sticks of butter in it. Crisco was used instead, so not much better, health-wise, but it tasted cleaner.

The bottom layer of cake was a 12" flat square, then we used a round cake and carved it into the island. We colored the frosting for water and grass. The boulders along the coast are some kind of coconut candies, they worked perfectly for boulders. The water was topped off with some white frosting to highlight the crashing waves. The hut is made from fondant and painted with melted chocolate. The thatched roof was also fondant, these pictures don't show the detail well, but it looked good. The palm tree is made from stacked Rolos and fondant leaves. There is a treasure map, hand painted with a tooth pick out back of the hut. The dirt strewn about is cocoa mix. There is a little waterfall that starts at a spring with some fondant flowers next to it.

This cake was a lot of fun to make, and very sugary to eat. Luckily we shared it for a potluck lunch at church. We did eat the remaining materials that I crafted into a frog looking cake, which sadly was not photographed. It was very sugary. If you have any fancy cake needs, let me know, maybe we can make a cake for you.

Inspired by Ishmael...the Gorilla

The following are my thoughts and opinions. Some of them are based on things I’ve heard from reputable academic sources, others are just synthesized from my own thoughts. I started typing after reading the novel Ishmael (1992), by Daniel Quinn. In the book a man talks with a gorilla about what’s wrong with the world. The gorilla is named Ishmael. He can’t speak, but he is able to “talk” to the man’s mind. It is an interesting book to read, and while I don’t agree with the premise – what’s wrong with the world is that humans exist – I do appreciate the different perspective and I do agree with some of the ideas that are brought up along the way.


There are many different philosophies and theories about life and why the world is what it is, perhaps as many different views as there are different people. I believe that no two people can be exactly alike. Fingerprints are never two of a kind, and I don’t think perspectives can be either. They can be similar, perhaps fraternal, but never identical. I shouldn’t say never, I don’t like to deal in absolutes, they are beyond what I can safely defend or persuade in behalf of. I do think that individual circumstances (environment and experience, nature and nurture) make each person unique and individual when compared to every other person, or any other person. Taking it one step further, each person is uniquely individual when compared to their own self from any given moment to any other moment. There are many different perspectives, and I find many of them to be fascinating; I also find many to be frustrating. Most intriguing of all is that the most frustrating are often times the most fascinating.

I enjoy learning. New ideas, even the scary ones, are great. Challenge is the catalyst for progression, and I like to progress, or, to see progress in my life. Different ideas from those I hold to be the truth from my perspective challenge me. I have to look at what I believe from another angle, to weigh a new perspective against my own in the scales of conviction. There have been many times when I have weighed my perspective against the perspective of another and found mine to be wanting. This is how I have learned. Interestingly, I first had to have this type of experience to learn how to learn. When after discussing differing opinions with me, a friend suggested that my tone in discussion, my choice of words, and my presentation of my perspective were of such finality that I did not present myself as open and willing to listen to anything else. I struggled for a while with this critique, but I was able to appreciate the criticism and affect a change in my delivery. As my delivery changed, so too did my perspective. I learned to learn, which is to say, I learned that in order to learn I must accept that there is something I can learn, and that I can learn those things from anyone, at anytime, and from any experience. I probably never would have thought of myself as un-teachable prior to that path of enlightenment, but in many ways I was.

In addition to learning that I could find education from diverse and sometimes unexpected sources, I learned that realization of personal convictions and perspective is of primary importance. I may have an affinity for a particular activity, but if I never realize it then it doesn’t do me any good. I am a Christian. I accept the teachings of Jesus Christ and follow his admonition to try his words, to test and to prove his doctrine to verify its validity. I have learned as much about my beliefs from people with different views of faith and religion as I have from those of the same faith and religion as me. I have learned to be a Christian equally from Christians and non-Christians alike. This comes from being able to recognize that learning comes from everywhere, and from being humble and teachable. Though I thought I was open in discussions with my friend, she felt that I wouldn’t allow for any possible explanation or philosophy outside of my own tightly held beliefs. Because of how I presented myself, I was not teachable. When I was able to overcome that wall I was holding up, I was able to be taught by her. She provided another perspective from which to view my own perspective, thereby allowing me an outside-in view of what I believed, or professed to believe in. This different perspective has helped me in cases since (and probably cases prior without me realizing it in this context) to study and reaffirm or dismiss personal philosophies, explanations, and beliefs.

One prime example of this pattern is simple, yet has had a long lasting and rather profound effect on me. I was once discussing snakes with one of my friends, one that I consider an informal mentor. I am not fond of snakes, never have been. I told him how I would kill snakes in my yard just at the sight of them. There seemed to be an instinctive aversion to the creatures. Though I knew the snakes were completely harmless to me, I killed them because they made me anxious. My friend thought this was deplorable and asked me how I, a self-proclaimed follower of Christ, could be a distributor of such wanton destruction of life. In that moment something clicked and I realized he was right. And in that moment I changed a little. I have never killed a snake since. This is a situation specific to me, it may or may not have any bearing on you, but for me it was a lasting lesson.

Education can come to us at any time, from anyone, and in any place. If we want to learn and gain wisdom it is for us to make ourselves teachable. Part of being teachable is preparing the mind for new information. Everyone has had the experience of not being able to recall some vital information at one time or another. Recall is the ability to retrieve information from memory. Remembering is something that I think we all do very well and without much conscious effort. Exceptions would be in cases of brain damage or in association with certain behaviors that might cause brain damage. But for most of us, the brain functions quite well and creates neural networks to encode information we obtain through our senses. Where we fail is in our ability to recall that information. This is why we need to prepare our minds. The neural pathways that store memories are like paths through the woods. The more you walk along a specific route, the more the way gets trampled down and becomes clear. The first few times you try to walk a path you might have a difficult time finding the exact same way. As you repeat the trip, and perhaps draw a map, it becomes more familiar to you and you can follow it with greater ease. If you then branch other trails off of it, or join existing trails to the new one, you find your ability to navigate the woods ever increasing. It takes repetition and familiarity.

Repetition and familiarity can prepare a mind or boost recall. In order to retrieve information you must do just that, retrieve information. Constant studying of topics you want to know well can serve as recall practice, as well as prepare the mind for new information. In the case of formal education it is easy to prepare, or prime, yourself to learn a topic. Read a book about cognitive psychology before taking the class. Outside of formal education it isn’t any more difficult to do, just to know when to do it. We don’t always know when specific educational experiences will present themselves, so it is hard to prime for them, but we can prime ourselves by constantly reading and learning about various things. I think that learning about anything will improve our ability to learn about something. But when you know a specific opportunity is on the way, start to research it. Here is where all of this gets tied together; more than one source of information helps you remember something so you can recall it with less effort at a later time. Just like having two perspectives in a conversation, looking at things from more than one source will aid in digestion of information.

Behind the Scenes

It has almost been a year since I started playing with a website called Helium.com. It is an article database compiled by user submitted content. I have written a few articles for it. I enjoy writing, I'll just say that now in case you didn't know. Recently I started writing an article to submit to Helium, but didn't seem to grasp the title I was writing to before I started writing. After I was finished, or thereabouts, I realized that I was kind of off the mark. You see, Helium suggests titles and then you choose one you know something about and write the article to suit the title. Since I felt like I missed the point I decided not to post it, instead I will post it here.

I give you my unfinished essay, of sorts:

The air around us is constantly full of waves. It is a constant barrage of energy. Cell phones, radios, and other communication devices emit various frequencies from point A which are then received by like devices at point B. Some receiving devices look for all signals of their own language, or, frequency, while other receivers look for signals sent distinctly to them. Signals are sometimes lost or disrupted or blocked entirely by environmental hazards or defects in transmitter or receiver. It is an invisible chaos of communication that abounds every day.
Thoughts in the mind are similar to the various types of waves zipping around us in the air. Some thoughts have higher priority than others and command more attention. Other thoughts are attached to physical sensations and may have the ability to disrupt even the highest of priority thoughts. With constant stimuli competing for the attention of our five senses, it can be a very challenging thing to maintain control of our many thoughts.

For some people, distracting thoughts can be quite a nuisance. Invasive and unpleasant thoughts, or irrational fears and worrying, plague many people. For others, the types of thoughts that distract their attention might not be troubling per se, but they do interrupt the focus of attention and can become frustrating. Depending on the frequency, severity, and type of distracting thoughts, a person may want to find ways to deal with them. In the case of frequent, distressing thoughts, perhaps the assistance of a trained therapeutic professional, or religious leader, would be appropriate.

Distracting thoughts for most people can be dealt with using simple techniques of redirection and processing. Imagine a waterway in your mind, there are many branches from the main body of water, with varying currents throughout. All along the banks of this waterway are thought topics. You are the pilot of a boat and you choose which areas of the bank to dock your boat and attend to the topic at hand. In dealing with errant thoughts, or distractions, you must remember that you are the pilot of the waterway in your mind. You have control over your thoughts.

One process of controlling your thoughts is to use redirection. Redirection is a good tool for when a thought comes to mind that you don’t want to deal with at the moment. For example, if you were thinking about the financial report you need to complete for work, and then thoughts of the movie you saw last night distract you, try to redirect yourself by thinking of your financial report from a different angle. You redirect your focus. Remember, you are in control of what you focus on. If you need to focus on your work, but random other thoughts interfere, perhaps it is because you are bored and thinking about the focus topic from another angle might provide refreshment for your mind.

You can also redirect your thoughts by changing the distracting thought into a thought about your focus topic. Make destructive thoughts become constructive. When you are the pilot of the boat, you are at the helm, you control the direction. Sometimes a current will pull you in a direction you don’t want to go, but with the right ability you can use that divergent current to your advantage.

Distracting thoughts can also be dealt with by processing them. Some thoughts aren’t as easily pushed aside, especially ones tied to physiology. These thoughts might include cravings for addictive substances or behaviors. In these cases, sometimes it is best to recognize how you are feeling and process the thought. It is distracting to you because you do not want it, but by focusing on just not thinking about it, you are thinking about it more. You have to attend to the thought, recognize it, control your reaction to it, accept that it is there, and put it aside. In the waterway analogy, sometimes the current might be too strong to steer out of, in which case you are going where the water is taking you, but once you get there you don’t need to attend to the topic available. At the shore the current subsides and it is then that you can resume your previously intended course of travel.

Distracting thoughts range from mild to severe, from inane to distressing, and can happen at any time. Learning to control your thoughts and not let yourself become distracted will help increase your productivity and perhaps your peace of mind. Remember that every thought we attend to takes place because we generate it. If you have created the thought, you can erase it.

The Sleep Bone Connected to the...?

As of last Friday I no longer work the overnight job that was causing my sleep schedule such trouble. I have immediately tried to get back to a normal-person sleep schedule of being awake when the sun is out and being asleep when the sun is out. See that? We say the sun is out when it is "up" and shining it's light on us during the day, but wouldn't it make more sense to say it is out when we don't see it's light? That's what we do with light bulbs. If a light bulb is out then it isn't giving light, maybe, in the interest of congruence, we ought to say a light bulb is out if it is giving light. If we don't make this change then I will continue to say the sun is out when it is "up" and also when it is "down." It will lead to mass confusion! Regardless of how we call it, day is day and night is night; people sleep during the night and are awake during the day. I want to be people again.

It isn't as easy as that. I tried sleeping during the night, but I couldn't. I determined that my sleeping bone is broken. I figure I need to treat the situation like any broken bone, set it and forget it. But don't actually forget it, I only typed that because it rhymed. In order to set my broken sleep bone I think I need to determine what hours of the day I want to sleep and then put myself in a position to sleep during those hours. This means that even if I lie awake through most of the night I still need to be in bed. Setting a bone isn't exactly comfortable, nor does it automatically fix the break. It takes time.

The next step is to immobilize the break as best as possible. In terms of the sleep bone, I think this means that I don't change the hours I set for sleeping, which includes not taking naps. Just as a broken bone needs to relearn how to be a not-broken bone (I know, my wording is very technical, do your best to keep up) and how to handle the daily stress that would be put on it, whether that is walking or doing push-ups. Immobilizing the healing sleep bone will require a standard sleep schedule and no naps because naps will interfere with sleeping at night. Again, the healing process isn't instantaneous, and it isn't always comfortable.

I think a broken bone is a good analogy for an out of whack sleep schedule. I can't wait until I once again have my sleep schedule in whack. And now I must close this blog post and search Wikipedia to find out what it means to be in or out of whack. Good day to you.

Ajax the Supertaster

I believe I am a supertaster. This does not mean that if one were to eat me, I would taste better than anyone else, although personally I think I would taste as good as anyone, perhaps better. I am in relatively good health, and I do like to eat sugary foods. But I am not a supertasty-er, just a supertaster, and that’s not even a confirmed claim. I might be a regular taster. In the end it doesn’t really matter.


A supertaster is someone who has a wider range of tasting ability, or specifically heightened ability to taste certain flavors. The tongue is covered with papillae, which are the bumps housing that which we commonly refer to as “taste buds.” These “taste buds” allow us to differentiate between the various flavors. There are five main flavors: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (savory, e.g. MSG). Different concentrations of specific papillae or other biological specifics might correlate to someone being a supertaster.

I found a home test for determining supertaster ability utilizing the Google search engine. That is, I utilized the Google search engine to find a home test for determining your supertaster status. I got lost quickly with the many steps to preparing such a test. Instead of “science” I will rely solely on personal opinion. I think that I am a supertaster because I can’t stand drinking anything with fake sugar in it. Any of the light foods out there with zero calorie sugar replacements taste like death to me. I would rather lick the bottom of my shoe (not really) than to drink a zero calorie beverage. It doesn’t matter if it is juice or soda or whatever. People tell me they can’t taste a difference, I can taste a difference, and I don’t like it.

I really don’t have any other support for my supertaster claim. Sometimes I think I can smell better than other people, and since the sense of smell has a lot to do with the sense of taste, I think this plays into my supertaster status, but I can’t be sure. I guess I could be sure because all I’m going on is personal opinion, so I choose not to be sure. Gus, from the TV show Psych!, refers to his nose as the super sniffer. He has the uncanny ability to break down a smell into components. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I can do that, but I can definitely taste sugar replacements out of a whole product. Just like Spiderman, perhaps this blessing of supertasting is also my curse. Also, just like Spiderman, maybe I am delusional. I think most super heroes are.