Who is that fat guy sitting with my family?

Years ago, I was in shape. I was pretty constantly active. I played basketball a lot and softball and when I had a chance, volleyball and football and anything team oriented with a ball. Oh and I ran a marathon once to see if I could. Go ahead and click on the photo (it gets much bigger) and figure out which one of these young men was healthy me.

Today I had pictures taken with my in-laws' extended family. In fact I took the pictures and used my killer Nikon D1H timer feature to get in some shots as well. It was a little stressful, a little fun and they turned out okay or maybe even better. There are a bunch of remarkably cute kids in the family.

Each smaller family unit also had pictures taken including mine and when I browsed the photos I was shocked to find a fat guy was sitting with my family where I thought I had been sitting!

See, in my mind's eye, I am not what I saw in the photos although I realize I am a little round. My face, that I used to worry was too long and narrow, looks like dough with holes punched in for some eyes. Excuse me while I wallow in vanity, but I looked (look) terrible!

Worse, I am modeling bad eating habits for my children and to top it all off, I am not healthy. So this will become one of the many things I will blog about in this topical buffet that I already call my blog. I need this space to be accountable to and I need reminders in my face often that remind me that I know full well that have a health problem and a discipline problem and really, an eating problem. Coca-Cola is my enemy. I should treat my own body with care, not with disdain and my mouth and taste buds should not be making decisions for my heart, lungs and other organs and muscles.

Incidentally, I know there are people bigger than I am and some might even take offense at my self evaluation but for the record, I don't think they look terrible and their weight doesn't bother me - mine does. Also, my wife has done a great job recently at being consistent with exercise and diet and has shed some pounds so I further need to support her efforts. My friend Jody has shed a lot of weight this year only to put some of it back on so somehow that matters to me and I want to be healthy and I want him to be more healthy and happy with himself.

Tomorrow is a great day to shoot some hoops, run some ladders in a gym and actually burn more calories than I eat. It has to start now.

Christmas Eve

Some Christmas Eve when I was in Middle School (Butler Middle School for some old classmates who might read here occasionally - GO BRUINS!) the holiday and Holy Day had a really interesting effect on me. It caused me to deeply contemplate life and myself and helped me appreciate quiet and stillness.

I realize that isn't a clear explanation, but it remains true. I find myself on most or maybe every Christmas Eve letting my mind settle and be silent. Perhaps part of this process is that all-night taco joints close, the behemoth Wal-Mart closes and nobody needs to wake up, rush around the house and go to work. Anyway, all this stillness is unique and carries its own feeling which leads me to contemplate.

Today was my father's 79th birthday and I am sorry to report he is losing most of his personal clarity. He still knew the 36 members of our family that gathered in the cultural hall (fancy name for the gymnasium that Mormons put in virtually every church) but he isn't at ease and he isn't always clear about what is happening.

To me he seems to be literally in a fog; shapes are indistinct and vague and he must concentrate hard to make sense of his environment. He is an old man and when I pat him on the shoulder and talk to him I can feel his bones protruding as his muscle and skin lose their vigor. This is sad of course but I don't write in hopes of sympathy, it just is the reality of medical science that keeps us alive for many years now but cannot preserve our youth. A retired co-worked Jill used to say, "Getting old isn't for wimps," and "It is hell getting old." Jill was being funny but she was also speaking truth.

I doubt that by DeVon's (my father) 80th birthday there will be much left of him mentally. I feel like his capacity for speech will be greatly diminished and his movement will be slowed. It is possible he will be completely stilled by then and while I would mourn his absence, I already mourn his loss.

What I meant to write about tonight is my families tradition of getting together on Christmas Eve and celebrating DeVon's Day by eating Mexican food (which I am sure a native Mexican wouldn't recognize at all). This year I convinced folks to meet at the above mentioned LDS chapel to make it easier for everybody. My oldest sister Kenda ended up taking on a crazy amount of work, driving (for example) for miles and hours to get "low carb" tortillas because I happened to mention my family likes them.

We ended up just about killing her with all the work she did and the unexpected and unfamiliar back agony she was in. She has an inability to do things the easy way because her standards are always excellent. I think I over-teased her about the amount of extra food we had, and I do deeply appreciate all her days of work, but I can't see that we can continue things like that. With a family as large as mine (four older sisters with grown children who have had babies many now) there is no great solution for how to continue this tradition. I wonder if the question of how to celebrate my father's birthday next year will become moot.

The other topic on my mind is that I believe in the literal reality of Christ as a savior. Intellectually I find my belief interesting or maybe even odd but it is as real as well. Sometimes its easy to accidentally give lip service, even in our own minds, to what that means but when I am still and contemplative, I remember that I genuinely believe it and all its powerful ramifications.

Ten other topics are swirling in my mind tonight. I wonder if I have found a better stride as a blogger.

3D vs 3D in Avatar

I have seen "Avatar" twice now. Once on Thursday at midnight with my pal Jody - who is a fine man, not a fine female.

I left work a tad early so I could make the show that night and I picked a theater near Jody's house and I was a couple of minutes late for the film. We rushed in a bit scattered, grabbed glasses and sat down to watch the three-hour epic unfold.

I had fun at the cinema. But I think my mind was too focused on the technical aspects of the film and I was watching it through critical lenses. (Not to be confused with me being critical of the lenses - that is coming up. I just mean my brain's own critical lenses.)

The second time I saw it at Jordan Commons, which had completely different 3D glasses, I was startled to discover the viewing experience was significantly better. The first pair of glasses wrapped around my head somewhat with curved lenses while the second pair had big flat lenses held out in front of my eyeballs.

The second viewing was vastly superior and I managed to turn off my critical mind more and enjoy the film. I already liked it and I already marveled at it but the second experience was greater!

I am tempted to write about some of the technical marvels in the film but there are others better qualified to do so ((here is one from last year)) and my blog is already topically scattered before I turn in a film special-effects commentary, but suffice it to say James Cameron and my friends at Weta Digital and ILM pushed the edges of what was possible and managed to be spectacular while they did it. Here is a "60 Minutes," segment about it, with some small factual errors from the narrator but is a great video for the average viewer to get what is going on.

Oh and the film is likely the first of a trilogy.

Sensitive viewers will want to know there is some language and a intimate scene between two 12-foot-tall blue people and it is violent but bloodless.

More seasonal laughs

I am not a giant fan of either of these fellows but I am a big fan of people making funny things on YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world.

I was going to post an "Avatar" review but I don't think I will find the time. I enjoyed the film though and those special effects Oscars are definitely spoken for.

A good seasonal laugh

For one the very few times in my whole life, I can't sleep. I blame tile, J.R.R. Tolkien, Guillermo del Toro and the Deseret News.

But, since I am awake, I have a little chuckle to share: A response from a Jewish drummer to Senator Orrin Hatch's song "8 Days Of Hanukkah". You are required to watch a lame commercial but temporarily turn the sound down and ride out the banality - it is worth it.

Enjoy! And read on for some good news.



I was delighted to find that "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Saphire," received two Golden Globe nominations. I called it a shoe-in and I was right (and I promise I didn't check the internet or ask anybody, it really was this obvious) and for Best Performance by and actress in a supporting role Mo'Nique was indeed nominated. Her Academy Award nomination should be in the bag at this point. But, the film was also nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Gabourey Sidibe was one of five getting the nod for best actress in a drama. Horray!

Director Lee Daniels is among those being mentioned as a snub for not getting a director nomination. All this raises the film's profile to Joe Public considerably. I don't feel bad pointing out that I knew something when I said "If some studio wants a "Best Picture" nomination for 2010's Academy Awards ceremony, they will buy it up and promote it," in this blog post back in January.

Anyway, it is great to see an independent film that is all but impossible to market in television commercials getting awards love.

Customer service

It is currently late at night and bitterly cold again in Salt Lake City. It is so late in fact that I am not going to head to the store and buy a Nestle Crunch Bar. I just don't feel like going out right now but tomorrow, when I get a minute, buying a Nestle Crunch Bar will be a top priority.

Why?

Because somebody in the company is smart and funny and unconventional. My friend Joseph (also known with affection as "Foe") suggested I call the Crunch Hotline at 1-800-295-0051 and simply wait after it gives me the option of listening to the menu in Spanish or English. I did and now I will be buying a bar.

I am reading the book "What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis and it too is smart and funny and one of the concepts it teaches is that having customers act as advertisers really works. Nestle could have spent money with an advertising firm to make a new slogan and bought time on television or space in newspapers but instead, they managed to get Joseph to spread the word for them and here I am doing the same thing.

Go ahead, I dare you to call 1-800-295-0051 and wait a few seconds after hearing the option for Spanish or English. You might be buying a Crunch bar yourself as a reward. I would love your comments here on the blog but don't spoil it for those who haven't called!

Precious indeed

About ten months ago I saw a film at the Sundance Film Festival that was, to me, powerful and amazing. I blogged about it on Jan. 29 of this year and on Monday night I saw the film again. It has now been titled, "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Saphire".

The first time I saw it with 1,200 people quite enthused to see the winner of the Audience Award at Sundance. The film received tremendous applause and even tears and cheers and some of those involved in making it talked to the audience after the screening and were moved to tears by the response a film about a black girl in Harlem received from mostly rich, mostly white people in Park City.

Monday I saw it with my wife and two dozen people (at most) in Salt Lake City in its last week of release. By Thursday it will leave the only theater in Utah that is showing it and probably be gone forever. It might make a return when it gets an Oscar nomination for "Best Supporting Actress" (absolute shoe in) and perhaps for "Best Picture". But reportedly it hasn't done well locally and I wonder if more people saw it in one night in Park City than have seen it in its entire run in SLC.

Oddly, Utahns turn out for Sundance in great numbers but have given this Sundance film a pass in its regular run. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com it made $36 million and played in as many at 664 theaters, so those numbers are great. It turned a healthy profit.

This post isn't about the film's finances however but about the film's power.

It is terrible to watch because the protagonist, the titular Precious, has a horrible life. It deals with rape, incest, physical abuse, mental abuse and the difficulties that are living in the inner-city. It hurts to watch.

I know a lot of LDS people (Mormons) who will not view R-rated films. This film is definitely R-rated but it seems more wrong to me for my fellow man - including my fellow Mormons - not to see with powerful realism, the circumstances that some people live in. It seems wrong to remain blissfully ignorant of how hard life is for others.

This very day I received an e-mail telling the morality tale of the grasshopper and the ant and then bemoaning the fact that now the grasshopper is lazy and takes from the ant and those that work hard have every advantage taken away.

I challenge anybody who has that notion, to go see "Precious". One character in the film is exactly that grasshopper but others in the film grow up with disadvantages beyond any hope of control and with a ridiculously remote chance of overcoming obstacles. I know first hand, face-to-face, that this movie paints a realistic portrait not only of characters but of an overwhelmed support system.

I champion the cause of this film because as I said in January, it needs to be seen. It must be seen and not because it creates sentiment or sympathy but because it educates and informs. It pulls back the cover we, as a society, like to keep over our ugliest corners. The film will make viewers uncomfortable and it should. Nobody wants to go to the cinema and see this film because it is hard.


It is so much easier to go see "The Blind Side," and see the also-true story where one privileged family helps one big-hearted, unloved minority kid who "makes it". We all love to feel good and we love to feel good about "the haves" helping "the have nots". Good for Sandra Bullock and good for NFL players and good for feel-good stories. One cannot say enough good about the real people involved in that real story and I applaud the makers of that movie for telling an uplifting story. I am a big fan of all of those things but for the Precious Joneses of the world, there is no Sandra Bullock offering to adopt and nurture and help somebody who has it unimaginably hard.
"The Blind Side" has pulled in $130,309,730 and counting.

Precious Jones certainly fantasizes that there is somebody to save her but is told again and again by circumstances that there is not. Nobody helps her when she is being abused and raped in her own home and nobody is there to help her in math class where it is difficult to hear a word from the teacher when she genuinely wants to learn. If one watches the film carefully, there are a dozen characters in the film with really hard circumstances that we don't see with real depth while we experience everything through Precious' eyes. And there are heroes here too: nurses, teachers, social workers and those trying their hardest to make it day-to-day.

So Mormons and other sensitive souls will avoid the film because they think they are remaining more "pure" by not seeing the ugliness of the world. I think that is a great rule for life but an incorrect notion in this case. I think the film enlarges our love for our fellow-beings and increases our love for those who are different from us by circumstance and race and environment and education. I am convinced the greatest divide in society isn't by race but by financial standing and this is an unflinching look into the dank basement of society. I know it is real because I saw it myself. I knew a dozen Precious stories. It is easy to love the minority athlete who achieves excellence but it is difficult to love the obese 17-year-old girl who can barely read, was raised on welfare and who might triumph in her life by passing the GED.

I challenge readers to go to the cinema and be really uncomfortable for two hours and learn. You will hear vile language and see ugly souls and despicable actions and some of them will stick with you. They should, because those things are said and done to real people in real places and you can be sure they stick with them too. I challenge readers to ponder in this Christmas season who in society Christ would minister to and I challenge readers to watch "Precious" and not weep inside with love for those who suffer.

The perfect tree

I love the fall season. I enjoy the crisp-aired evenings, football, the colder nights, dusting off leather jackets and I especially love the wardrobe change that trees and other foliage puts on and then takes off for us.

Each weekday morning I drive my kids to school and after navigate the great loop that allows me to drop them off and then exit the school grounds to head home, I pass by the perfect tree. It is located on the corner spot of a corner house as I wind down neighborhood streets to get back home. It is only about six feet tall and slender, yet full. It had clearly been well watered all summer.

Each morning of October and part of November, after enjoying the idea of sending my kids off to learn and experience, I would marvel at this tree. Its leaves were of many colors, changing from week-to-week, including some deep purples edging to dark blue, bright racing-car reds, blazing oranges and sunny yellows. I enjoyed the tree in all its subtle shades every day for a month or longer. Most days I thought that on the following day I would bring my camera, stop the car and get out and wait for some perfect light for this perfect tree.

I never did, but now when I drive by it with its naked, frozen twigs and branches, I still can recall the brilliance of that little tree. (Next year, maybe even this spring, I will spend 30 minutes to get the right image.)

I genuinely believe in a loving God and also genuinely believe that he engineered creation as a teaching tool for his most beloved creation: his children. Fall is an obvious reminder of our own mortality. We watch our own cycle of life play out before us multiple times before our own leaves fall and before our own sap stops circulating.

My mother has cancer that will eventually, hopefully after many cherished years, take her life. She has taken the news in stride and my poor, dear father has diminished mental capacity and cannot support her as one would hope. He lives in a fog and is scared and even angry a lot of the time.

I know my parents well enough to be well aware of their flaws. Like most people, they are complex and secretly vulnerable but when looking on their lives they too have showcased some spectacular leaves of various shades and colors. My dear mother currently is beautifully noble as she copes with fear and loneliness and mortality. She knows, though it may be yet distant, that winter is coming. Her foliage brought on by adversity, less sun and some deep cold snaps, is brilliant.

Holidays are interesting to me because of how people perceive them and how they connect us to the past, even when we aren’t aware of it. We celebrate in ways that are similar to how people hundreds or thousands of years ago celebrated or acted on similar days.


I am deeply touched by the Christian celebration of Christmas and seemingly it actually changes how people behave and interact. For me it is celebrated quietly and it is privately deeply religious and it is also the single most special time for my family. Having said that, I am not a big fan of Santa Claus, earning me criticism from anybody that has this fact brought to his or her attention (almost never by me).

But, outside of that holy time, I enjoy Halloween more than any other named and celebrated day. It is a holy day for pagans and an excuse to gather kit-kats for children and some Christian groups label it evil while in some cities it is called “The Devil’s Day.”

I pretty much ignore all of that and just call it fun and give it my own meaning, which if I am forced to define it, has something to do with being able to play with monsters – which I loved dearly as a kid (and still do).



I try to make Halloween creative and fun for my offspring and they may grow up to claim great memories of it or they may grow up and curse me for it. I thought it appropriate to share it.

The creation of the Glen Canyon Dam eight miles south of the Utah / Arizona boarder, backed up the waters of the Colorado and San Juan rivers and created Lake Powell. It is a spectacular lake with 1,960 miles of shoreline. It put some historic and religious sites under hundreds of feet of water and changed wildlife in the area permanently.

I went recently with friends to this spectacular place on a house boat and took a few pictures. These are the images of the trip that I liked best. I hope somebody enjoys them. I included some Google Earth geography lessons to help give the early October photos a place.

Rocktober

I am feeling "older" for the first time ever and I am badly out of shape. This is the craps. I am vacationing at Lake Powell (borrowed photo below) where I will find some think time. I want to use my time better every day for a month and see what I can accomplish.



Plus, my house has a leak in the roof. This sucks.

We are heading to Rocktober! On the plus side, DeseretNews.com, including me helping sports, had over 20 million page views in September. That is a big number. Horray!

I think we are dead

I am an irresponsible blogger but this is worth sharing:

Music - A top 10 of sorts

There is one and only one forum I view regularly on the internet. Music has been a topic lately and a poster requested that we name 10 songs that meant a lot to us. Once I worked on it a bit, I knew it was worth a blog post. This is what I wrote:

It was a matter of time here on Off Topic before this came up and I admit to finding it much more helpful personally than the "getting to know you" threads. That isn't a criticism of those threads but I feel like this is more a window into a soul for me. That may not be true but it feels true. I have been to Bucharest, Wellington and Mykonos, but does that tell you as much as my passionate connection with lyrics and arrangements and the skills of Rush or Dream Theater?

The connection people make with music is largely emotional and that makes it intensely personal as others have noted. While there is an element of appreciation where you find it remarkable or impressive that a bit of music switches time signatures or uses an innovative approach to incorporating the percussion into the texture of the melody, it seems more common that people like what or how music makes them feel.

As horrifying as it is to me, there will come a day when those teens and pre-teens who fell hard for B. Spears will grow up and love her and her music for reasons of nostalgia. That adults will react emotionally to such a vapid and talentless collection of music (sorry fans) is yucky to me. But, I am not much different. Often what we connect to first stays with us, as if we are imprinted.

For example in my list, should you read it, you will find a couple of tunes by Scorpions. They will be taken seriously by few or none, but I recall clearly when I was 14 and the emotional connection they made with me. I love them still, recorded or live or otherwise. I feel like the universe and all of humanity just fails to "get them" while I do.

No order here, but 10 important songs to me, and I will write a lot about how they feel:

Rush - La Villa Strangiato This is an instrumental by a band that I continue to marvel at. I tend to "rediscover" songs or albums by them from time to time but this song never leaves me. It is technically excellent on guitar, bass and drum (a 3-man band for those who don't know) to the point that you can pick one of the three and follow only it and love what is done. Better by far, to me, is that its an instrumental with mood changes and a feeling that just gets me, even if that comes from me more than from Rush. I don't listen to it casually. It Alex Liefson's best (not most difficult) solo work anywhere.



Tool - 10,000 Days (Wings Part 2) - Another long epic here at 11 minutes. I often like a band's early work but this is Tool's latest album and IMHO, its best. This song carries a feeling unlike any other song I listen to. I carefully make sure NOT to decipher the lyrics' meaning because I don't quite want to know what its about. I like individual lyrical phrases and the overall tone. Pretty palatable for first time listeners.



Metallica - Master of Puppets This is a band that I was determined not to like. Then I listened carefully. To me, this is their best angry song clocking in at 13 minutes with appropriate outrage and venom but also intelligence. Add in some fast, technical and powerful instrumentation and its the band's all-time masterpiece. Some here might call it noise but do so at your own peril of missing something raw and emotional. (I posted the link with some warm fuzzies. Here is one without. It is live including a few mistakes but I liked the crowd but beware band language, and if you click feel obligated to make it until the slower spots at least if its your first time hearing it.)





Coheed & Cambria - Always & Never A band I appreciate more than I love, but this two minute 12-string arrangement is delicate and achingly beautiful. It ends on a sinister note but it captures the feelings of the love for a child. Part of a big giant (convoluted) story, but take this bit isolated and love it.



Scorpions - Coast To Coast Another instrumental and really, I just love it and don't expect anybody else to really get it. All the YouTube recordings I could find sound horrible. Its old German guys being rock stars!

Can't embed this one . . .

Led Zepplin - Babe I am Gonna Leave You - I suspect everybody knows this tune and forgets how beautiful it is and how it captures the sadness and regret of love lost.



Dream Theater - Voices / Silent Man - These two different songs blend together on one album and I can't help but think of them as a package. Beautiful, skillful, emotional, all over the place both musically and in tone, its dear to my heart. Better vocal performance on the album, but he sings his guts out here. Incidentally, I photographed them live in 2008, linked here in case anybody wants to see the album. Some suck, some do not, but photographers only have 3 songs, so its shoot fast.



William Clayton - Come Come Ye Saints - A hymn that is part of my family heritage but also a part of my own life experience. Below is the expected version and another version. Written in 1846 by Mormon poet William Clayton when, while away from his family, he received word that his wife had given birth to a son and wrote "All Is Well."





Scorpions - Eye II Eye The Scorpions song you never heard. Written about losing a father, I find it incredibly applicable to missing people I love, dead and alive. I also think Klaus Meine has a unique and incredibly appealing voice. This is a mostly great album that was almost completely ignored.



Extreme - Midnight Express The most talented people are not always the most famous. Holy cow. This guy plays like a monster/god and remains unknown. Masterpiece. Here is a case where just being technically brilliant is enough for me to deeply love the tune. He not only plays it, he composed it. Known mostly for one ballad this band was so much more and one of the best live shows I have ever seen, twice. What the heck, watch him play below as well.





I am surprised to find only one Dream Theater song and one Rush song on this list. Interesting.

'Distric 9' is a remarkable film

The title of the blog has nothing at all to do with a review of the film 'District 9'. There are a lot of reviews, including my own but the film has been out nearly a week and you likely already know if you will see the film or not.

What is much more remarkable, and if you like the medium of film even a little bit this should make you happy, is that this low budget, almost independent film made a lot of money.

Why do you care? The Hollywood system, especially summer blockbuster season, is built around stars and known properties. A quick list of this summer's films will demonstrate that all the movies studios spent big money on were what they judged to be the safest bets possible. They hope to have movies with built in audiences and the same famous faces, both if possible. For example most of the summer list are sequels, based on something already popular and have famous people in them.

Studio safe summer movie choices:
Fast And Furious
The Hannah Montana Movie
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Star Trek
Angels And Demons
Terminator 4
Night At The Museum 2
Up (a creative film, known brand in Pixar)
Land Of The Lost
Transformers 2
Ice Age 3
Harry Potter 6
G.I. Joe

That isn't to say these are bad movies, just movies without an original concept, premise or execution (except Up). Some of them are terrible and although folks are content to show up for explosions and spectacle, if we refused to go to dumb movies the studios would make smarter ones.

By contrast, "District 9" comes along with a first-time director and a budget much smaller than all of those films except Hannah Montana and not a single actor you or I would know. The star is South African native Sharlto Copley. This story isn't based on a toy, a comic book, previous movies, children's books, television series or a hit novel. Its actually original and new and innovative and daring and all that cost $30 million and it looks "more real" that the Transformers or G.I. Joe flicks that cost six times as much to make.


It was first believed that "District 9" might make as much as $27 million when it opened. Then, some dared say it might make back its budget and climb over $30. After it earned $14.2 million on Friday that number nudged up to $35 million. When all was said and done, it had earned $37 million by Monday.

Twitter.com lists its "trending topics" which tell the world what people are talking about. Even if you hate Twitter or the idea of it, the trending topic tells you what is hot among the 3 million people who use it. (I am MrLDC if you ever care to follow me!) "District 9," the little film financed independently outside of the studio system, has been a hot topic all weekend. In my observation positive comments beat negative ones by about a 15-1 margin, we will call it 9-1 to be safe.

I believe this film is going to stay very popular. It has grabbed attention for being unique and smart and original which leaves it alone in this summer's fare. Ironically, there will surely be a sequel!

So yea, it's violent and bloody and gooey and the people in it are under extremely high stress and they say bad words. So, don't go to it and offend yourself and blame me, but I am more offended by mindless, cartoon violence without real consequences and retread movies that insult my intelligence and provide recycled action, characters and plots.

See, "District 9," actually has something to say and allows the viewer to think about his place in society and how humans treat each other and how we discriminate and justify and get corrupted by money and how we like people like us more than people different from us.

It isn't brilliant social commentary with deep messages, but its fun, smart summer fare that does present the viewer with some questions that he can think about or forget about.

The good news here is that Hollywood's greatest skill is following trends. Perhaps "District 9" will set a trend of low-budget-but-polished films that allows creative writing, direction, design and talent over fame. Perhaps the studios will discover that what people want is great storytelling, not great recycling.

In other news, my wife is one great little homemaker and we almost have a finished kitchen.

A song about an author not being your female dog

My favorite currently writing author is George R.R. Martin. I love his books and preach them a little too fervently sometimes, but I believe in them. Classified as "fantasy" (a term that annoys me because of the baggage it carries) it reads like historical fiction meets the Sopranos.

I admire his writing skills and word smithing as much as anything I read.

He is four books into a seven book series and the last book and the one that is currently overdue is causing quite a stir among the readership. I can't imagine telling an author or a artist that they must produce great stuff on a schedule. (Journalists are different animals.)

Neil Gaiman came to his defense in his now famous blog defense and he told readers that authors are not their "female dogs". (That was for my over-sensitive Mormon audience).

Now a songwriter has put the sentiment to music. It is beautiful.

Hair still on fire

Yea, so, I am a lame blogger. I even have exceptional things to blog about, but I have so much other writing stuff going on that I just can't manage. When my kitchen is finished, I will be back with a goal of blogging every other day.

I sincerely apologize to those who took the brave step of "following" me. It is actually an honor to have each one of you aboard.

My hair is on fire! My hair is on fire! My hair is on fire!

I recently posted that I would need to either blog regularly or quit having a blog. Here I am at work at 2 a.m. and my content manager (the way I make the DeseretNews website compelling) has stopped working. I am counting on this being a temporary server issue since it needs to reset sometimes. The point is, it gives me time to blog so here is a whole lot of little tidbits of what is going on.



I am going to Comic-Con next Wednesday, as I have for years now. I have worked for SideshowCollectibles there and helped them in various ways, including interviewing Stan Lee and Elvira. This year they faced a hotel room shortage and decided to do it without me so I am a free agent. I will be laboring intently by updating TheOneRing.net, by co-presenting a panel (scroll down to the 10:30 a.m. programming) and conducting a couple of fan-participation events in conjunction with Weta.

Blah, blah, blah - no wonder I can't blog. Everything I type is a link and I work slow!

Anyway, I will also be writing for my own co-owned Website called *drum roll* www.GeekFreePress.com. You should bookmark that site and check it often, its not full of content at the moment but, we hope to make it great and I have good people helping me along the way. I have about every possible moment of my five days in San Diego scheduled already with video games, television, movies, books, Web casts and comics. I should be talking to Felicia Day, all the voices behind SpongeBob, see Gwar in concert (ha!), attend some screenings and so forth. Preparation for the event is maddening. I am also writing for the Deseret News and gathering a boat-load of future video games stories and writing a Weekend cover for the film "District 9" which has an entertaining trailer. See below.



The point is, my hair is on fire because, that is only one of my time sinks.

We are also, still, remodeling our kitchen. I would really like to write about it, but there is no time. Short version: We haven't had a functioning kitchen for six weeks. Its uh, inconvenient. Shannon wrote about it a bit.

And, at work I am working all nights this week, which is fine, but its hard to get things done and sleep at home. A big change is coming up soon at work, really as soon as I am back from Comic-Con, so again, my hair is on fire.

My good friend Scott Iwasaki, Dnews music critic, has asked me to review the Tool concert. This came up suddenly but I am excited! Anyway, sleep is a burden and my hair is on fire. None of this is a complaint though, all of these things will eventually be for my good and are the stuff life is made of.

The wonder of sports

I love sports and mostly have always. I enjoy watching, I enjoy fantasy sports and I enjoy playing them despite lugging around about 40 extra pounds of man.

Shannon and I play co-ed slow pitch softball and have off-and-on for years, mostly with the Deseret News team. This year the games were on Monday nights but the company is too poor to pay so individual players coughed up the cash.

As (bad) luck would have it, I missed many games and then showed up to two games that were rained out. For me it was a short season but I was able to be present for most of the playoff run.

The final day of the season the two best teams in the league were paired in one semifinal while we played a far inferior team in the other game. We played badly and squeezed out a win leaving us to face a very good team in the final.

If we played the team we met in the championship 10 times we might win two or three games but the final game was one of those, leaving us as the league champions with a solid 16-8 win. Our first basewoman is well into her 60s is literally unable to run. I credit our infield defense for more than solid play and we were both lucky and skilled with our bats, scoring enough runs to keep the pressure on the other team.

The wonder of sports is that the best team doesn't always win. It doesn't matter in championships or even just games which team is better, it matters who performs better right then. Utah beats Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, the Yankees don't win every World Series and Austin Peay beats Illinois in the NCAA basketball tournament. If you don't recall that win, it was in 1987 and outspoken announcer Dick Vitale famously said the best 64 teams should be in the tournament and that some great teams were left out and the Governors had no business being there and had no chance to beat Illinois. Vitale even said he would stand on his head if they won. He kept his promise. He has also changed his tune over the years, speaking in favor of teams that aren't in the biggest conferences but have great seasons having a chance to dance.

Locally, Weber State beat North Carolina in 1999 behind Harold Arceneaux and beat Michigan State in 1995.

Once upon a time a former D-league quarterback named Kurt Warner, after all the other guys got hurt, led the St. Louis Rams to the Superbowl. The best teams don't always win and that is what makes sports so fun.

How to make a bad blog

First, a fun photo from an oceanic blow hole on the pacific coast of Mexico with my kids and some cousins just about to get soaked:


Now then, I believe completely in the premise that bloggers want to be read. Even those who write journals are writing for the future audience of themselves and, I think, the idea of others reading is present then as well.

Some may disagree, but I think anybody who takes the time to write and then publish to the interwebs hopes for readers, even if they don't want to admit it massages their egos.

So, with that in mind, there is one really easy way to make sure nobody reads your blog: don't write. Simply avoid updating your blog on a daily or almost daily basis and all the momentum you built up with previous bits of humor, insight or personality will evaporate.

The best bloggers, the ones who achieve a following of readers who care enough to check back, almost certainly update almost daily. I believe there is an unwritten but real contract between a blogger and a reader. The blogger throws his stuff out there for others to partake of and readers participate by giving it attention and perhaps even commenting back. If a writer generates enough words and enough images that are of interest, they might get regular readers. The reader has invested time and brain power and in most cases, expects to read more.

Writers who don't update, break the contract and lose readers.

Going to Mexico this month and being off the grid completely ruined my habitual thought process of thinking about and posting here at the shower-thoughts blog. So, I decided that isn't acceptable and I am either going to maintain good posting habits or I am going to not blog any longer. It is either worth my time and energy or it isn't. I hope to find out from myself that it is.

Like any writer (even if they don't admit it) I produce content for a perceived audience made up of friends and perhaps even a stranger or two. If nobody read or nobody cared there wouldn't be a reason to write. There is some evidence that people care but if I can't maintain a steady posting schedule, if I can't demonstrate to myself that I care, the blog must die.

Off the grid

I haven't touched the internet for days and days, which is odd and I have felt very disconnected from friends and news and the world. I was in Mexico on a family vacation and we enjoyed the beach and I was completely off the grid.

During vacations and preparation for vacation, things like blogs get ignored, which is sad because there was much to write about. Turns out everybody is scared to vacation in Mexico and we had the place (or at least part of the place) to ourselves. Great time. I will blog more at length but here is some photographic evidence.

Fun with my son

Today I went with an elementary school class to a fire station on a walking field trip.

The first thing I discovered is that I am still socially awkward. One of the other parents talked to me and I found suddenly that I had no idea what to say and the two of us stood there in the hall outside the classroom waiting for about two minutes with nothing but uncomfortable silence. Grrrrrrrr.

This was all okay when the students showed up and we walked, I am guessing, about half of a mile to the closest fire station. The students were taken into a room and the nice firefighter went over some safety tips and demonstrated that he really doesn't know how to talk to kids in first grade.

Next he took us all outside next to the big red truck and did a much better job entertaining us all which is what we hope for in a field trip. We could have stayed in school to be bored after all. We didn't have enough time to ask any questions because suddenly his crew was invited out on a call which gave us all a chance to hear the sirens which was cool. But, the questions I wanted to ask:

* Why do all firemen have moustaches?

* Where are the poles and can I try one?

* Where is the dalmatian and does he bite?

* Are the girl firemen called firewomen or firepeople?

* Do the firewomen also have moustaches?

But really, the great part came next. I was quite surprised how much Dresden wanted me to come along on the trip. I mostly assumed he would be embarrassed by me but he was really glad to have me there. On the way home (hang on to your hats) he held my hand the whole way back to school. The - whole - way. Occasionally the grip was broken by circumstances or his friend Collin, and every time he would take my hand again.

I already loved my son completely but I loved so much that he wanted that kind of contact from me and wasn't ashamed. I got a little misty typing that sentence.

Then at his baseball game, he hit the holy crap out of the ball at least once, almost clocking the coach. Cool!

Mexico: I fear you not (but I will be careful)

In the not too distant future, I will be at the boarder of Mexico with my passport and will get another stamp in my little blue book. I haven't been there since July of 2000 when I was in Cancun on a shared Honeymoon with Shannon.

I recommend Cancun as a divine vacation spot. My time there was one of the most relaxing weeks of my life and was also a lot of fun. I wish I could afford to load up my parents, family and friends and throw a week-long relaxation party in one of the all-inclusive hotels there. Ha! Anyway, soon I shall return to the U.S.'s neighbor to the south but on the other side of the country and I will be at a beach house with several other couples and I am really looking forward to it.

This has been planned for perhaps as long as a year.

In that year, Mexico has scared the world.

Mexico to world: "BOO!"

World to Mexico: "AGGGGGGGG!"

There are scares on two fronts at least. The first is that people think Americans are being killed left and right in Mexico when they hear about the hundreds that are dying in a drug war. The truth is, there have been only a few Americans killed but recently four San Diego residents. There are signs that link these four to drugs and they apparently frequented Tijuana to party, as they did the night they were found dead, but nothing has been settled. The State Department issued a warning around spring break to college students because they tend to drink, use drugs and hang out in dangerous places and the warning wasn't to avoid Mexico but to avoid sketchy situations. I can say for sure that my kids wouldn't have been going.

Headlines look really scary but the truth is if you aren't in Mexico looking for or using drugs and you aren't visiting prostitutes, your danger is relatively tiny, comparable say . . . to visiting Detroit!

Still when you read a story like this it certainly is a little chilling. I am not worried about drug lords attacking tourists because if they do kill and scare American's they are literally, killing their cash cow.

I wouldn't wander around Tijuana after dark to be sure, but I will cross the boarder from San Diego and head down the coast for vacation and I feel very secure doing it. I confess that having a gun along wouldn't be the worst thing I can think of but hey, crossing the boarder with a weapon and then heading to a Mexican jailhouse would increase the real danger exponentially. I also wouldn't take a job as a reporter or editor in Mexico as the drug lords or other criminals seem happy to kill journalists and the authorities don't seem to care much. But again, they aren't killing for the sake of killing, they are getting and scaring those who work for Mexican newspapers. In fact, Mexicans working as reporters are heroic to be sure.

The second scare is the dreaded swine flu that grabbed world headlines and sent thousands or millions heading for their bunkers to hole up while the world ended. As I don't plan to stop in any hospitals and lick people, I am feeling okay about this one as well.

My biggest fear is returning to the U.S. and getting grief from police who stop vehicles with the expectation of getting a bribe. This is troubling to me on so many levels, but I will deal with that when and if it happens.

Anyway, imaginary readers, would you travel to Mexico? Am I ignoring obvious signs of real danger? Is my life balanced on the edge of a knife because I am heading south?

Incidentally, here are the countries the U.S. State Department does have warnings about traveling to:

Nepal 05/22/2009
Lebanon 05/13/2009
Yemen 04/24/2009
Georgia 04/09/2009
Sudan 04/08/2009
Central African Republic 04/01/2009
Colombia 03/25/2009
Madagascar 03/17/2009
Saudi Arabia 03/04/2009
Algeria 03/04/2009
Pakistan 02/25/2009
Eritrea 02/18/2009
Syria 02/12/2009
Congo, Democratic Republic of the 02/05/2009
Haiti 01/28/2009
Philippines 01/27/2009
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza 01/15/2009
Burundi 01/08/2009
Sri Lanka 12/22/2008
Cote d'Ivoire 12/15/2008
Nigeria 12/02/2008
Somalia 11/15/2008
Chad 11/14/2008
Kenya 11/14/2008
Iran 09/15/2008
Afghanistan 09/10/2008
Uzbekistan 07/03/2008
Iraq 06/13/2008

Those places are a whole different level of dangerous.

A true story of devotion

Coming home from work Friday in rather busy traffic, I was stopped at a light, barely missing the left-hand-turn signal at a busy intersection. Sitting there slightly annoyed, I noticed a bird descend directly in front of a stopped car and hopped in front of a tire.

I apologize for not being able to identify the bird's species, but you can picture whatever kind you are familiar with. Imagine a little gray songbird that you might see prospering in the urban sprawl mostly anywhere. It took a hop around what to it was a massive, foreboding truck tire. I noticed that there was another bird there, in way-to-close proximity to the truck that was waiting for the light.

Despite birds getting quite used to traffic, I couldn't believe these were so reckless as to sit immediately in front of this truck. The first bird took a few more hops and then flew up to rest on the horizontal pole holding the traffic signal. After a moment he flew half-way back down the turned and flew back up to a power line.

I realized then that the bird on the ground was completely stationary. It was standing almost immediately in the tire's path and it wasn't eating or hoping or walking or anything. It was hurt, having probably been hit by a car and broken a wing at least.

A few moments later, the truck, oblivious to the little bird, got its green light and drove off. The tire, from my perspective by the smallest of inches, missed the bird and the back tire did the same. I confess I was cheering for the little thing to live even though I knew it was probably unlikely at that point. Not only were all the many cars hazards, but it was hurt already or possibly suicidal or insane.

The companion bird watched with me as the second car also missed the little thing, raising my hopes that perhaps it was out of the most common tire path and he might make it, at least for a little while. The third car not only crushed my hopes but the bird - completely flat. I flinched in my seat, watching the end come quickly. The next car added insult to death as did the next car and the next. It was the first two cars that were off the standard path.

I quit watching the pancake-like corpse and instead looked for the companion bird, now alone. It flew from traffic arm to traffic arm, line to line, perch to perch. Can a bird looked distressed? This one acted that way, at least to me.

After a parade of cars over the flat little body, it was finally my turn to head left and I left the scene of the avian massacre, probably one of only two entities on Earth aware of the short but dramatic ordeal. I watched the living bird fluttering around, making circles around its dead former companion.

It made me sad.

A story that touched and taught me

A friend shared with me a story that both touched my heart and expanded my mind. As a father, but still a new father, I always feel like I have a lot to learn and that there should be a guide on how not to mess up my kids.

Religious people will tell you that the scriptures is exactly that and that teaching the precepts contained in them will produce great young people. I actually believe there is divine truth there, but as far as I understand I should also be treating my children with perfect love, in other words, living the teachings of the scriptures. I already know I fail to do that.

I do believe that parenting should be done mostly with gentle persuasion and long-suffering and I already know how I fall short there sometimes. So while I mull over how to produce confident, happy adults with the ability to thrive in the wide world, I talked to my friend who has more experience and has watched all his children grow beyond childhood.

His son, dubbed Student X for this exercise, was in the resource program in elementary school. That means he wasn’t keeping up with regular classwork and falling behind the pace in the already slow public school system. He was more-or-less failing to keep up or even follow fourth grade. My friend and his wife are loving and kind people with good hearts and while I didn’t know them back when this story took place, I believe they were the same then.

So, loving their son, they visited the school counselor and tried to get some help. She sat down with them, I imagine to feel them out and see who and what she was working with, and upon finding them open to helping their son, their conversation was related to me like this:

Counselor: Can I be honest with you?

Friend & Wife: Yes of course, we want to know how to help Student X!

Counselor: This kid has no self esteem.

Friend & Wife: Oh no! That is terrible.

Counselor: His self esteem is on you. This is your doing.

Friend & Wife: (Silence. Choke back emotion.)

Counselor: I don’t want you to say a word of criticism to this kid for a whole year.

Friend & Wife: Okay, we will do that.

There was more to the conversation I am sure, but that was the meat, the most salient point. Wife went home and bawled of course, as a mother who has just been told that she has destroyed her child’s self esteem will do. Friend promised Wife that he would manage that for a year.

The second part of the prescription to restoring the kid’s view of himself is that he discovered he loved basketball. His family is athletic, his sisters perhaps gifted, but he had not had good sports experiences. So, when basketball happened Friend told him after every game how well he played and they also told Student X that his eligibility for school started right then. His right to participate in the Junior Jazz basketball league was predicated on his work in the classroom.

His teacher, conveniently named Joe Educator, would have the final word about Student X’s right to participate in basketball. Friend and Wife would come home from Parent-Teacher conferences and Student X would ask, “Will Mr. Educator let me play?”

He played.

By the 8th Grade, Student X brought home a report card with nothing but ‘A’ in the grade column. For those of you completely unfamiliar, it would look something like this:

Name: Student X

Grade: A
Grade: A
Grade: A
Grade: A
Grade: A
Grade: A
Grade: A

Friend & Wife took that piece of paper to share the joy with the elementary school counselor who had the guts to eviscerate two parents to save the child. She celebrated by making a copy of the results by framing them and sticking them on her wall.

“I have never seen a child so low, rise so high,” she said.

She has used it time and again to point out to students, or more likely parents, that children, few so low as Student X, are not irredeemable.

“If Student X can do it, so can you,” she has said over and over.

Amazing what a little self-esteem can do.

The seemingly never-ending saga with TORn

If you haven't read the first and second and third parts of my personal saga with TheOneRing.net, I suggest it before you dig into this part. In short, those three were about how I came to know TORn folks and this one is a wrap up.

Trying to record my experiences with TheOneRing.net has turned me into a horrible blogger. Instead of smallish daily things I can blog about, I feel like I have the weight of this saga. As a result, nothing at all gets blogged about, so, this will be the end of the tale that I tell here, although far from the genuine end.

In short, I had made contact with a few TORn staffers, organized a successful and sizable line party in Salt Lake City, attended the now legendary "One Party," as a member of the media and there interviewed TORn co-founder Chris. Somehow the two of us kept in touch or he knew me well enough to return an e-mail. One way or another, I drafted a tutorial on how to host a line party and to my shock and surprise, not only did he run the thing in its whole, he gussied it up and designed it to be easy to read. I had my first taste of his excellent design skills. I am a bit embarrassed now, but this is what I wrote and what he did with it.

Before long, as a result of this, he asked me on the phone to be a staff member at the site. I was genuinely shocked but also honored. I admired, and this feeling would only grow, that the staffers at TORn did what they did not for money but for love and passion. I found their efforts inspiring. I was also forced to choose a "handle" for the site and I really couldn't think of anything at that moment except the original Online name I ever invented for myself in the stone age of public internet when I picked "MrCere" for my first AOL subscription. Ouch. That name came from a cartoon aardvark "Cerebus" and I am pretty much stuck with it now. I find other potential Tolkien-themed message board names I like all the time. Rick Cottontree makes me laugh as does Barrow Wong and SandWitch King but alas, I might as well have a MrCere tat. Early "Cerebus" is brilliant commentary and satire but late in the game it grew to be less than it was.

I had discovered in the process of line parties, that I was a big fan of fans. I loved that people would spend hours pouring their hearts into something like the books of J.R.R. Tolkien. Harry Potter was on the rise and Star Wars was enjoying its prequel trilogy and there were other temporary cults growing up around popular culture and the Tolkien fandom was in the middle of all that.

I had only just discovered that celebrations of popular culture, such at Comic Con, were full of people that shared common interests with me. I always felt that playing Dungeons & Dragons or loving goofy fantasy movies or enjoying Japanese cartoons (Battle of the Planets) somehow isolated me or made me unusual. I discovered instead that I was not alone in these passions and for the most part, the people who shared these passions were pretty great. Calisuri, Tookish, Quickbeam and all the other folks behind these odd names at TheOneRing were more than alright and so were the rest of the people I met. In fact, they were also exceptionally cool.

So, being invited to be part of the energy of TORn was astounding. I knew I was a lot like the staffers I had met in some ways, but it seemed like a closed club that I would not be joining. A great number of the staff all knew each other from the live chat room at TORn which still functions. I felt a lot more comfortable on a message board than I do in a chat room, but I did venture over there a little, but somehow it wasn't completely comfortable for me. I was pleased to make a contribution with the line party efforts and there was a lot of satisfaction in putting Salt Lake City on the Website map and in having great experience with locals.

I still didn't understand the way TORn worked so I asked Chris if he really had the authority to make me a staffer. He laughed and explained that yes, it was his website, and he could make me part of the team. He also invited me to Comic-Con to help TORn out. In short, he adopted me for no reason I can quite understand, even still, except that he knew my motives were pure. I wasn't involved to meet stars or get free stuff but to build the community.

The other question I had for him concerned what a staffer did exactly for TORn. He explained that there wasn't a charter or rules or defined roles but that I should make it what I wanted to make it with the understanding that I didn't ever represent myself as speaking for TORn and that I work toward the greater good.

That year at Comic-Con, Sideshow Collectibes and Weta Workshop were together under the "Sideshow-Weta," business banner. Sideshow had a massive space and it let TORn set up a TheOneRing tent which was all part of a grouping of many Lord of the Rings booths, including New Line Cinema. Fan-film "Ringers: Lord of the Fans," was part of the booth and they had a Tolkien confessional where folks stepped inside the booth to be filmed to give the team lots of footage for their film, which was as yet a great idea but not formed into its final state. I was on hand to help with the booth in any capacity and although I didn't know people well, I had a great time being on the floor of the giant convention talking with passionate people about LOTR.

I attended a staff dinner, had some other fun around the convention, met folks at Sideshow and had a generally wonderful time. Chris also pulled me aside and invited me to go to DragonCon later in the year and promised a completely different convention experience. I would be there to help with a very small table that functioned to sell t-shirts and in general just help. And so it was that I began a string of trips to Atlanta for a completely different and completely fun convention experience where I met a whole different slew of fans and, wouldn't you know it, made more good friends.

One of those friends was another co-founder of TORn, Corvar or Bill, a giant Irishman of good humor and more than any of the staffers or founders of TORn, a man who avoids the limelight. He keeps the website online and solves the occasional major server issues (like the one that suddenly prompted an emergency redesign) and gets almost no credit. Later when Chris and Amy were married Bill was his best man and I was extremely honored to be part of the wedding party. Shannon and I traveled east to be present at the wedding and it remains a fond memory.

To make a long story less long, I was more-or-less integrated into TheOneRing.net staff and became an event specialist, news reporter and photographer. I attended three Oscar parites, got a side gig with Sideshow Collectibles, hosted events with actors and celebrities called "ORC" and "ELF," distributed t-shirts, got to know other staffers that I see rarely but am fond of and generally had amazing experiences. I also helped bring the message boards at TORn to the founders' attention so that in the current version, the once heavily chat-centric site now warmly embraces another part of its core. Good friend Pat (Altaira) reinvented the whole message board after moderators worked hard on the site's behalf for a long time with very little recognition and she and I were both asked to join the "senior staff" which means we on rare occasions we talk over matters concerning the site with the founders. I am sure I am more fond of many of the staffers than they are of me, but I don't mind.

I have enjoyed very much representing the site at press events, book release parties, game junkets, and movie premieres (viewing the screening of King Kong with stellar company, remains one of the elite entertainment experiences of my life). I am a regular presenter at DragonCon and while none of this has paid off financially, it has been immensely rewarding in so many ways but especially with well-loved friends. The truth is, sometimes involvement has required financial sacrifice but I count the dollars spent as well worth it. I am rich with amazing relationships and the whole immersion into this fandom has changed my life forever.

Dear Shannon has been pretty patient while all this happens and probably rightly wishes I had put some of this energy and passion into things that would pay handsomely. My sons will be just old enough to enjoy the Hobbit events and I hope to create for them what I have from all of this - great memories.

Chris and Bill are both counted as close friends now and while visiting Wellington last year, and visiting with Erica, I can definitely include Tehanu as somebody I both respect and am very fond of. A lot of the original staffers are busy and not so active now, but new blood helps carry the site forward toward "The Hobbit." People would be surprised though how few people still keep things going. I don't know that it will return to the elite status among all websites in existence it once enjoyed, but I can see the bump in popularity already happening and it will be the salad days again.

Beyond that, TORn may have used up its lifespan. Perhaps not. Either way, it has left its mark on the history of internet and movie and Tolkien fandom and I have felt privileged to be a part.