Hold Your Fire

Child Prodigy Guitar Player

// March 10th, 2008 // No Comments » // Personal

Impossible

The REAL truth about goatees

// February 11th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

toothpastefordinner.com

Why We Stereotype

// January 8th, 2007 // No Comments » // Personal

was asked recently why people make generalizations about groups of people. This particular case was in regard to theists and atheists.

Here is my perspective: by nature, humans are good pattern matchers. We learn quickly to analyze people, ideas, things and situations in order to determine whether or not they are worth further consideration (safe/dangerous, for instance).

As a result, we have an internal sorting system that quickly places things into very general boxes (theist, atheist) with a very general, lowest-common denominator description that could basically describe all the contents in each box. This description will always list towards each individual’s own biases, observations and preconceptions.

If we CHOOSE TO, we can take a further deliberate look into a particular box and sort its contents further (extremist, centrist, etc).

At each successive step, we sort things into smaller and smaller boxes, using finer and finer filters to effect the sort. At some point we might reach a point where each person, idea or situation is in it’s own individual box. At that point, we’ve reached some semblance of understanding (at least in our own mind).

The problem with this is that it takes time and thought, and in our fast-paced world, neither of these commodities is in abundance. Or at least in enough abundance to sort every single generalization we face.

So I think that the less we care about a particular topic, the more we tend to generalize (obviously). The usefulness here comes in learning to recognize that when we or others generalize, it’s probably because we don’t understand the fullness of the topic at hand.

Unrelated note: In my last entry, I talked about daily blogging. What I meant was daily writing. For the most part, I’ve kept up with that promise, but much of it isn’t appropriate for the blog. Keep watching.

…Wherein the Blogger Blogs about His Blog

// November 3rd, 2006 // No Comments » // Personal

Thanks to the inspiration of a long-time and highly-productive friend, I’m returning to daily blogging. It’s really nothing more than a simple matter of priorities. In the past, it simply wasn’t worth investing the time to pump out random blatherings that no one would likely read except for me.

With a new mindset, I’m back for three useful reasons: 1) it will force me to fully flesh out new thoughts and ideas on a daily basis, 2) it will keep me writing, and 3) I welcome the inherent catharsis of putting pen to paper, fingers to keys, pixels to screen.

As I was driving to a client site today, I began to think about some of the practical realities of blogging. Do I use my public persona or go incognito? In some sense, I’m intrinsically a private person, so most of my online writings tend to have an anonymous quality to them. In many ways, I’ve compartmentalized public and private. In other ways, not so much.

I suppose a more salient question would be, “does it make a difference?” And I don’t mean that in an apathetic manner. I’m referring to this whole “web of connectedness.” Someday, Google HAL (still in beta) will know every single thing about everyone based on the ethereal connections between websites, like some massively global game of sudoku. Post a comment about the OSU Buckeyes on your stamp-collecting friend’s MySpace page and instantly it’s linked with that metal detector you bought on eBay last year. Now Google knows that you’re that guy who made the Usenet posting back in 1992 about an old pine-tree penny you found in the Maumee River, happily reporting your find to the State Archeology Bureau. Yes, yes, data mining is our friend. Now go back to sleep.

Joking aside, I really believe that one day, our net trails will be scattered all over places like Google’s cache, the Internet Wayback Machine, and the insidious Carnivore (your file soon available as a FOIA request!) for future historians and curious genealogically-oriented progeny to see what we did in our spare time. Now that should give you pause next time you visit YouTube to watch Weird Al videos (the latest of which hits a little too close to home).

But all of this raises interesting questions about the social implications of context.

• Am I going to say anything that I wouldn’t want traced back to me? Yep.
• My online friends almost certainly see me differently than the people I know offline. The context of our internet experience puts us in interesting social boxes in which others will recognize us instantly, but we may be only dimly aware of this ourselves. It makes for an interesting disconnect between two realities… like seeing your priest in a speedo at the YMCA. Some people know the swimmer, some people know the holy man. When the two collide, someone goes blind.
• Will my musings be fodder to exclude me from some important societal role in the future? Think jobs, public office, lovely young lassies, etc.
• Am I revealing myself to potential stalkers/crazy people? (And yes, I have experienced it before. Do you know what it’s like to have to leave your instant messenger in invisible mode for two years?)

Am I really all that anonymous on the internet? Not really. Google will point to my many photography books, small-scale railroading books, my recent work as a grad student at the University of Arizona, and my past work as a pastor of a church. Oh wait. Those are my nom de doppelgangers. (And with just that bit of information, Google HAL will one day be able to spit out my real name.)

I’m evaluating two different builds of WordPress (standard and MU). Once I’ve settled on one, here’s what you should expect in the next few weeks: A new design for my blog (actually, I should say, a design for my blog). RSS. Tags. Photos. Cool stuff.

What you won’t see: my very most favoritest song playing all midi-style, volume 10 the moment you arrive here. Pictures of Pomeranians. Animated images.

The real challenge? Keeping it interesting. But more importantly, if I write, will they come? I don’t really think so, but that’s not the point. It’s a private journal, left daily on a bus stop bench for passers-by to peruse if they care to.

The Be Good Tanyas

// November 20th, 2005 // No Comments » // Personal

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From: Peter Barney (pbarney@norden1.com)
To: The Be Good Tanyas
Subject: BGT’s newest fan
Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 03:27:01 -0400

To the Be Good Tanyas,

You must hear this a thousand times a day, but *I* need to say it: wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

I discovered your music maybe 14 hours ago, and it has enchanted me completely. Somewhere deep in the wells of my thought, yours is the music that I had hoped for for most of my life, but didn’t quite realize that I did so. And now, when I listen, it feels that I’m visiting some distant familiar dream where music flows like rivers, and the jarring world slips away into a forgotten fog. I’m bathing in music that takes me to a place where I’ve never been, but feels so familiar that it seems I’ve been here forever, lying on a hammock under a blue sky amid knee-high golden grass.

And before I go, I must tell you this… any band that you admire and reckon to be greater than you, I’ve probably heard. But no other band that you might adore has done to me what you have done, and I thank you for it. If I should ever have children, you can be sure that their children will know your music. Thank you, and please keep it coming!

Peter
in Columbus, Ohio

From: The Be Good Tanyas
To: Peter
Subject: Re: BGT’s newest fan
Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 03:27:01 -0400

peter,
that is hands down the nicest letter we have ever received. thank you for your words and the love you send. it makes everything worthwhile to hear these things. you keep dreaming and loving. hopefully we’ll get to columbus one day.
xo
the bgts

My Journey Home

// May 17th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

Wandering upon the far paths
and drifting by night,
down the great celestial trails,
seeking your skies

And then comes the raising of a new sun,
casting rays of light upon your fair skin;
casting shadow into all that was;
marking my passage upon your unexplored boundaries

Finding a new home upon a distant shore,
I had never known that it was you; it was you
that I’ve been seeking.

The new starlit sky shines down
and home calls
to you my sweet,
to your new shores
and my pilgrimage complete

A Sergeant’s Plea

// April 17th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

Second entry to 100 Words:

A Sergeant’s Plea

“Even now, he waits for us!” His rage flew toward his lieutenant’s face. “We alone can stay his misery, and yet you would have us stand idle! He is naked and alone before the host of our enemies, and he believes that we will come for him. Can you not imagine such hope and horror?” His breath was short and violent.

The sergeant stepped back, surveying the faces in the room. “I ask you sirs, will we abandon him to this misery?”

The lieutenant looked to the floor. “We will do nothing. We will wait.”

Dedicated to Pfc. Keith Maupin

End of the week

// April 17th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

Music: Øystein Sevåg – White Wings
Mood: calm

For now, I’m sequestered, enjoying some red wine and a dark room, filled only with subdued candlelight and the tranquil refrains of a perfect piano. A stormless and essential ending to a hard-won week.

The evils scatter and I’m left with only the thoughts of promising days ahead.

The one salient lesson of this night is that ages-old maxim that I would have appreciated earlier in the week: “this too shall pass.”

Love/Hate

// March 16th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

Okay, here’s something different for today. My list of pet peeves. Now this is highly unusual for me because I usually avoid thinking about or being near things that bother me, if it can be helped. But sometimes, they’re just in my face, and for whatever reason, at times like those, I never seem to have my handy rocket-powered backpack-mounted battle midget at the ready. So here goes.

Top things that I hate:

1. Thieves.
2. Damn thieves.
3. Vandals. There is a special ring of hell reserved for people that destroy “for fun.”
4. People that don’t use their indicator signals (“blinkers”). They honestly don’t realize what mayhem they create for people that know how to drive and anticipate traffic flow. I’m a considerate driver. I will let other drivers go first it the situation calls for it. But if their intentions are not communicated (for example, they’re actually turning when I think they’re going straight), it just creates traffic jams. I’m convinced that these people suffer from synaptic damage.
5. Websites that have a “remember me” checkbox, but always fail to remember me, even if I’m not blocking cookies from the site. It’s like those buttons at crosswalks — “push here to cross” — that aren’t, in fact, hooked up to anything.
6. People that have a passionate opinion about something that they obviously haven’t taken the time to reason out. Now don’t get me wrong here… you know me; I love passion. But having passion for a fallacy is just irritating and makes people look incredibly stupid.
7. People that have a problem with other people whistling. How anti-social can a person be? Take joy in your fellow citizen’s jubliation! At least it’s one less person that’s staring at the sidewalk as the hordes shuffle past.

I could keep going, but I don’t want to go all neg here. So let’s reverse the switch and see what comes up:

Best things that I see other people do that makes me happy:

1. When people smile at people they don’t know. (Share the love, you know?)
2. People that know how to carry on a conversation with a total stranger they happen to meet in the course of their day
3. When people enjoy atypical hobbies, like astronomy (and I don’t mean actual astronomers), spelunking, martial arts, smelting ore for their own die-case miniatures, or ancient history (for example).
4. When people do the right thing even though no one else will likely notice.
5. When people give me back massages (duh).

I can’t believe what an utterly boring entry this turned out to be. Welcome to Mr. Roger’s neighborhood children, and don’t forget to floss!

It’s got to be the music I’m listening to. No, I won’t tell you what it is.

Tomorrow: how my merit badge in covert subterfuge techniques paid off in spades at the flea market.

The weckage of urbanism

// February 27th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

Should I be concerned that the shelf at Barnes and Noble is labeled Grammer? And standing like a sentinel of reason in the very center of the shelf is a book entitled, Proper Grammer with an X through the “E” and a red-ink “A” just above it, seemingly screaming out at this malefaction. Aren’t bookstores supposed to be bastions of literary purity? I know, I know… I live in a fantasy world. But I’m strangely okay with that.

This morning I woke up to one of the most horrible sounds available to us city-folk. The sound of the city workers cutting down yet another neighborhood tree. I rage at this, I really do. Might I not understand their full purposes in doing so? Quite possibly. But when I drive down a tree-lined street that should be beautiful, I see the row of disfigured trees, each with a portion cut from it so that the electric and telephone wires might have a free path.

The point of trees is completely lost on these people. Are they not there to beautify, to provide some alleviation to our imprisonment within these concrete streets? The wires are a necessary evil, but the workers see the trees only as a barrier to their work. So aesthetics are excised for functionality’s sake.

So when it comes time to bulldoze a perfectly beautiful, perfectly healthy tree for the sake of progress (defined as any goal the city sees fit to carry out), a tree becomes nothing more than a waste of space that could be used for another parking meter.

I am not a city person. I don’t despise urban life as much as I seem to profess — I really like the community aspect — but I feel so much more complete when I’m communing with nature. There are parks within the boundaries, to be sure, but there needs to be a better solution. When our cities were planned, traffic, communication and power weren’t the considerations that they are today, so now we’re left trying to fit the square peg into the round hole. We need a New Urbanism. A different way of integrating people into nature.

I think Ogden Nash got it right:

I think I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Perhaps unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.