Endings are Beginnings

            It’s interesting that this is the season that’s thought of as marking the end of the year when it’s also marking the beginning of the year as well. Why is it that there’s such a focus on the end of the year, when the beginning of the year happens at – literally – exactly the same time?

            I suppose it’s probably because endings come before beginnings, and what’s right in front of us is easier to see than what’s lurking behind it. It’s all rather arbitrary, anyway, since it’s simply a time someone in the past chose to start counting from, yet we shape our minds around it.

            For example, the end of the year is when it’s important to be with family and to be generous, showing people how much you care. Which is silly, because you should care about people the whole year round, but I feel it also says a lot about humanity as a whole.

“Look! The year is coming to an end, better get together with family before time runs out!” Then the New Year comes and everything becomes about taking strides forward – making this year better than the last. And all the important things, like friends and family, get pushed into the back of the mind until we realize that another year is almost over, so we’d better get together.

            As a species, we love symbols and traditions. Having a checkpoint that we pass every year is a nice way to tell ourselves that we can keep growing and improving, and it gives us a point to use as a starting line. Yet, we’re also supposed to put our best foot forward, so wouldn’t it make more sense to get together with friends and family at the start of the year, rather than procrastinating until the end of the year?

            We could even split the difference. We could shift the New Year to the beginning of winter, rather than the end, and have our traditional get-togethers at both the beginning and end of the year. Or we could move the New Year to the most sensible place to have it start, at the beginning of spring, and we’d get together in the middle of the year.

            Or, of course, we could simply decide that what’s important to us is important for the whole year. Not everything has to have a set time or place. Time is just an imaginary construct we have so we can organize things, anyway. Perhaps we should stop using time as an excuse.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Money Cycle

            There’s a very common saying that says, “You need to spend money to make money.” This statement is incredibly true, but the truth runs deeper than most people think. It is generally believed that this is a statement specifically about running a business, but it holds true for far, far more than that.

            For businesses, the saying is true in the largest and most literal sense. In order to have a location to do business, money is needed to pay for it. Before you can sell something (thus, making money), you first need to buy it. Further to that, a business needs to get noticed so people will actually know to come buy from it – so it must spend money on marketing.

            Yet, the average person needs to spend money to make money as well. It isn’t as noticeable because it’s so built in to our awareness that it just comes naturally. The first, and most obvious, is feeding ourselves. If we don’t buy food, we don’t eat and we become inefficient workers, losing our jobs. When seeking a job, we need resumes (money), transportation (money), and, most likely, some technological assistance (money). Then, when we get an interview, we are expected to look our best – which costs money. And if you want a job that requires a higher level of education? You guessed it: money.

            At any walk of life, you need money to make money, and it’s frustrating when people fail to understand that. This week I saw an article about a government refusing to provide homeless shelters because it was ‘enabling’ homeless people and not ‘motivating’ them. So, let’s pretend for a moment that it’s true that homeless people are homeless because they ‘aren’t trying hard enough’. Let’s pretend that there are no mental illnesses, no health problems, and no other factors contributing to homelessness other than how hard they try to get a job.

            So, how is this fictional, perfectly healthy homeless person to get a job? They need you job hunt – which takes money. They need to look presentable – which takes money. They likely need a bank account, which takes money, not to mention an address – which means a home and, once again, money. They may even need an education, a.k.a. money.

            It’s a circular paradox we’ve built into our system. It works only because we are introduced into the cycle – we have other people (usually parents or banks) front the money so we can start making money, and we just continue on from there. But what happens when we fall out of the cycle? What happens when you run out of money and have no way of making more?

            You fall on the ground and get dragged along, barely able to survive until someone generous comes along to pick you up. Someone who can give you enough money that jump-starts you back into the cycle again.

            Rather than standing over a pit someone has fallen into, yelling at them about how useless they are and telling them to climb out on their own, perhaps we should lower a ladder for them. For a government, it’s really as simple as going back to that saying: spend money to make money. If these people are really a ‘drain on the system’, spend more money on them so they can become able to earn their own money. Then you’re not paying for them anymore and they can start paying taxes to you. You spent money to make money, and now they can do it too.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Introvert Surprise Party

            As a reclusive introvert, I’ve never seen the appeal of surprise parties. Colleen, on the other hand, has always wanted one – although, like me, she isn’t really much of a party person. So, I came up with a clever solution. It does require some lucky circumstances for it to play out properly, but here it is: My instructions on how to throw an introverted surprise party.

1.      1. Do not plan a party. Parties are terribly dull things.

2.      2. Wait for the party’s recipient to make social plans with the type of friends they would want invited to a party. It can be just a simple get-together, or perhaps plans for some form of activity (such as playing Dungeons & Dragons).

3.      3. Find a good time, such as the night before the get-together, to sneakily by a cake. Hide it somewhere where it won’t be found before the not-a-party. Leaving it in a car is a good option, if possible – especially if you can conveniently leave something else in the car that will give you a good excuse to go out and get the cake.

4.      4. On the day of the party, wait for the appropriate time to reveal that this is, in fact, a party. To do this, you will require the cake. It may be beneficial to move the cake to an indoors hiding place, as candles don’t necessarily fare that well outside.

5.      5. Sneak to the cake’s hiding place, insert and light candles, then quietly approach the gathering of people from a direction that the attendees will spot you before the party’s recipient does.

6.      6. Wait patiently for the guests to notice you’re holding a flaming cake in plain view.

7.      7. Join in the singing when the guests inevitably start.

8.      8. Surprise!

9.      9. Continue on with the get-together plans as if nothing were different – except now there’s cake. After all, why spoil perfectly good plans by changing them?

And, thus, you have created a perfect, introverted surprise party so thoroughly that no one except you even knew it was a party. Pretty surprising, right?

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Camera Shy

            As I worked on starting my YouTube channel, I encountered something I never had before. Camera shyness. It’s something that seems like it would suit me – as I’m extremely shy and introverted in the first place – but this was more than I would have expected. It was – literally – paralyzing.

            When I set up to film for the first time, I sat down in front of the camera and... froze. I knew what I wanted to say, I’d run some tests earlier in the week without problems, but now that I was filming something I was actually going to show people, I simply couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even reach out to press the record button.

            Now, I’ve experienced stage fright before, albeit in a roundabout way. I’ve been performing from a very young age – I believe I sang my first solo at the age of five, I became a semi-professional clown somewhere around ten, which later transitioned into being a magician, and, while I quit those around the age of twelve, I went on to be in a number of school choirs, bands, plays, and musicals.

            Though all of that, I never really felt nervous or afraid. Yet, the nerves were there. I only ever noticed them when I was singing a solo, and it took me a while to identify it, because I didn’t feel any different than normal. I merely trembled – such a small amount of a tremble that I’m fairly certain the audiences never even noticed.

            Yet there I was – sitting in front of an inanimate object, unable to move or speak. I couldn’t understand why – and I still can’t. After performing in front of a live audience, what’s so hard about performing in front of a camera? With a live performance, if something goes wrong, you just keep going as if it never happened and hope no one notices. On camera, you just say the line over again and edit out the parts you don’t like. It’s far easier.

            So, what was the problem? Was it that it was a new experience? Was it the permanence of what I was creating? Was it the absence of audience (it is rather difficult to talk to a device as if it were a person)? Was I just not ready yet? I doubt I’ll ever know.

            Obviously, I overcame the camera shyness. Not that day, though. I gave up and left it for a couple days before tying again. This time, I was still nervous, but not so much that I couldn’t record. And each subsequent week of filming, the feeling has faded a little more, to a point where it is now nearly nonexistent and I’ve almost forgotten there was a time when it was impossible for me to film.

            Now, here I am, having just completed my sixth video and reminiscing about that fist shaky start. The message in this story? Perseverance. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Art of Writing

            All you need to start is one word. Just one. In fact, you don’t even need that – you could start with a single letter, although that is much more difficult if you don’t know what to follow it with.

            You take that one word – or letter, as the case may be – and follow it with another, stretching it out onto a sentence. If you want to get fancy, you can even add some punctuation, making it a compound sentence.

            Then, you do it again, adding a second sentence, then a third. (It is always a good idea to vary the sentence length.) Before you know it, you have a paragraph and you’re ready to do it all over again.

            Except, this time, the words and ideas are different. Just as the paragraph after that – and after that – are different.

            It doesn’t have to be perfect. The words can be changed later; the grammar fixed; the ideas altered. The act of writing is the important part. You aren’t chiseling it into stone – the details can always be changed.

            Just take it one step at a time – one word at a time. It happens faster than you think. You have a blog post. A chapter. A short story. A book.

            Writing is more than a skill. It is an art. It takes practice. It takes time. But when you’re finished, you have something you can be proud of – because, if you aren’t proud of it, that just means it isn’t finished yet.

            All it takes to start is one letter. One word. One sentence. From there, it grows and builds momentum until it is complete.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Big Bad Wolf

            Earlier this week, I saw a comment using “the big bad wolf” as a metaphor for a villainous person. As a fan of wolves, my brain started to rant about how wolves are continually maligned, even in this enlightened day and age. Knowing that wolves will avoid humans and only attack them out of desperation makes it somewhat ludicrous to use them as a metaphor for what we deem to be evil.

            Or does it?

            As I considered, the realization hit me that this comparison is far more apt than people realize. When we talk about the big bad wolf, we’re referring to our perceptions on the surface of a situation. More than that, we’re stereotyping, just as we do when viewing any other group as villainous.

            Let’s take a closer look at this metaphor, shall we? The wolf. This is a cunning predator; large and fearsome. It is easy to understand why humans came to fear them. Then came a time when wolves lurked around villages, preying on the weak, because they were starving. This is where the metaphor started. And, yes, wolves are looking fairly evil.

            However, we forget the part where the wolves were starving. They were desperate for food and just trying to survive. In fact, they still avoided attacking humans whenever possible, preferring to loot corpses. In normal circumstances, as I mentioned before, wolves avoid humans as much as possible. They are intelligent creatures, and also very social. Within their own packs, they are friendly and playful. Yes, they are masters of teamwork and extremely efficient hunters, but then, so are humans. The difference is that wolves hunt only for food, and they avoid letting anything go to waste.

            So, our metaphor of the big bad wolf shows us someone who is vicious because of their most visible behaviour. It shows us a stereotype of the worst aspects of a species from a time when they were struggling. However, it fails to show us what they are really like. In normal life, with normal circumstances, wolves are very different creatures.

            Considering this metaphor, my view on it has shifted. When we point at a person (or at a whole people) and say, “That is a big bad wolf!” we are commenting on the most visible behaviour. We are ignoring the parts that we can’t see, and very often don’t even go searching for them. In our ignorance, we have no idea what is motivating the wolf, or forcing it into its current position.

            Yes, I now believe that the misunderstood wolf is the perfect metaphor for that which we fear.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Lonely Pets Club

            My in-laws were away this weekend, leaving me in my usual position as pet-sitter. Now I feel compelled to tell you about this atypical group of pets, because they really are quite amusing.

            First, there’s the dog. At least, genetically he’s a dog – we suspect that he may identify as something else. Possibly a sheep. Many dogs, he’s afraid of thunder, but he also takes it a step further – he’s afraid of rain. And just about any sounds, really, which is probably why he almost never barks. He’s very sweet and friendly, though, and is very good about not jumping up on people who have just come into the house – instead, he prances over and grins at them, truly happy to see them.

            When his family is away, I always get a little concerned about him. He misses them so much that he stops eating for several days – except for the treats he gets every time he comes inside from his walks. Of course, I use every a little loosely here; he usually gets a treat when he comes in, but I sometimes feel compelled to do a little training.

You see, my in-laws came into dog ownership later than many people do and, as a result, they aren’t as firm with the dog as they could be. Therefore, when going for walks, he’s used to his humans stopping and waiting for him every time he wants to sniff a tree or roll in the grass. Having grown up with a dog, I have an expectation that the walk keeps moving, and therefore the treat gets denied if I’m kept out in the cold too long. He learned very quickly that I would tolerate nothing more than on very short roll in the grass, and he may even have noticed that he got more treats when he didn’t hold me up at all.

            Then there’s the cat. The latest, and currently only, in a string of abandoned cats the family took in, he is always a bit “my way or the highway”. In other words, he’s a cat. Yet, once the family has been away for a day, he starts begging for attention. As I’m allergic to cats, he doesn’t get it from me, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. He spends the time I’m in the house following me around, meowing and pointedly rubbing against various objects and making me feel generally guilty about my allergy.

            He has, however, given up on trying to sneak out of the house. Due to tome feral cats he’s feuding with, he has been relegated to being an indoor cat, much to his chagrin. I think that’s his greatest sorrow about my in-laws being away. He’s used to a house full of people who are used to him, so they don’t pay him that much attention, making it relatively easy to slip through a closing door (luckily he can be summoned back into the house with the shaking of a treat container – which is ridiculous; I mean, he’s a cat! Cat’s can’t be summoned like dogs!). He has long since learned that this doesn’t work with me. He doesn’t even try anymore. But he does watch me very closely, waiting for me to slip up...

            And, finally, there’s my sister-in-law’s bunny. Now, apparently this bunny is pure evil and hates everyone other than my sister-in-law. It certainly seems that way when she’s brought out in public. She’s certainly very skitterish and ant-social. This is common knowledge.

            Yet, when the family away, she becomes the sweetest bunny in the world. When I check on her, she rushes right over to see me – she doesn’t cringe in corners or kick aggressively as her reputation would have you believe. In fact, she’s so happy to see me that she hops in circles!

            I guess it just goes to show that animals miss their families as much as they are missed. Except, perhaps, the bunny. It is entirely possible she’s just luring me into a false sense of security, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

New Month, New Project

            The end of the Dungeons and Dragons campaign I shared a couple weeks ago was only the start of another story. That game actually had the potential to last much longer, however an increasing interest in D&D at the board game cafe where I play led us to believe a second game needed to be started. That meant we needed a new Dungeon Master.

            That Dungeon Master is me.

            After several months of planning this, I announced that I was ready to commence a new game starting in November. At the same time, other members of the group got new jobs that interfered with the regular game time. It was decided that, rather than most of the players dropping out of the game and being replaced, the game had to come to an end.

            And now, this past week, a new game started. However, that’s not what I’m here to talk about today – I’m here to tell you about the project I’m starting alongside it.

            I have started a YouTube channel called Once Upon a Tabletop. On this channel, I intend to tell the story of my D&D campaign, week by week, as it is played. I have no idea how it will go, but I have high hopes for it. At the very least, you’ll now be able to listen to (and watch) me prattle on – although, personally I think my written ramblings are preferable.

            So, for those of you who enjoy stories, here it is: Once Upon a Tabletop. What story will be told? I honestly have no clue. I’ve created a world – now it’s up to my players what they’re going to do with it.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Different Ideas

            This week I came across a list of things writers are afraid of that they shouldn’t be, and at the top of the list was: other people stealing their ideas. And it’s true – I have yet to meet an author who wasn’t trepidatious about sharing their work because they were afraid of their ideas being stolen. It’s not just that someone could copy our work – it’s the fear that someone else might take our ideas and produce something with them before we do. Even worse, what if they produce something better than we do?

            There were to incredible arguments about why writers don’t need to fear their ideas being stolen. The first was that, quite simply, authors have so many ideas of their own, they aren’t about to go around stealing someone else’s. It’s true. Every writer I have ever met has had more ideas for what to write than they could ever write in their lifetime. I know from personal experience that for every book I write, I end up with two more book ideas – I’ll certainly never need to steal from someone else!

            I found the second argument even more compelling. Even when you share an idea with someone, their vision of that idea will be completely different from your own. We all view the world differently and, as a result, the way we flesh out ideas are all completely different.

            The reason I found that argument more compelling was because I have personal experience proving it true. Many years ago, a friend shared an idea with me. She said she wanted to write a story about a haunted piano. I thought this was brilliant! A ghost haunting a piano sounded absolutely fantastic to me and I was very excited to read the story.

            Once she had written it, however, I was very disappointed. The story was very well written, but it didn’t come close to what I had envisioned from the idea. It was a tale (as near as I can remember) of someone who acquired an old piano, and then the piano had possessed them and they proceeded to waste away their lives playing the piano – writing music and reaching for an impossible imperfection.

            I was so disappointed in the results that I wrote up a story of my own so I could share my take on the story of a haunted piano. This was a piano in a secluded alcove that could play itself. A person, coming upon the piano but not knowing how to play, played a few random notes. When they went to leave, the piano played the notes back – and then proceeded to build a marvellous song around those notes, to the awe of its audience. To me, it was such a compelling scene that I built it into the first novel I ever wrote.

            Both stories stemmed from a single idea, yet that idea took on extremely different shapes for each writer. How would a third person interpret the idea? A fourth? I couldn’t say, but I do know that I’m no longer as worried about people stealing my ideas.

            What about you?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Endings

            Last Wednesday brought a close to the Dungeons & Dragons campaign Colleen and I have been playing weekly for most of the year. Other games I’ve played in have ended, but this one truly rounded out the story and gave us an ending that was incredibly satisfying.

            Because he knew this game was coming to an end – and that many of the players wouldn’t be returning for future games due to work or other reasons – our Dungeon Master, Jeremy, wanted to make this a night to remember. It’s extremely difficult to arrange a situation like that, especially when other people determine how it plays out in the end, but he certainly pulled it off.

            The game was a high stakes game with a high mortality rate. The beginning of the adventure started off with our heroes finding an item that place them all under a curse. They had two choices: go insane, or assemble an object that would bring about an end to the world. The characters were all willing to accept the insanity, but they learned that if they didn’t complete this task, someone else would. So they decided to assemble the object in the hopes that they could defeat whatever doom they summoned. Bonded together by their common goal, they called themselves the Onyx Order and made their heraldry the likeness of Manny, the mammoth they had pooled together to purchase.

            Their adventures took them far and wide, leaving a swathe of destruction in their wake – usually unintentionally. They were pursued by a cult that, for their own reasons, wanted the item assembled.

            After many months, during which a town, a city, and the village one of the characters came from were destroyed – not to mention the deaths of three of the original Order members and two of the replacements – the item was finally assembled, and the curse lifted.

            Yet, though the curse was gone, the heroes felt obligated to complete their task. They had seen the enormous egg fall from the sky and knew it would hatch into giant worms that would eat the world away into nothing. They had to prevent it from hatching.

            Luckily, the egg had fallen onto a glacier and would need heat to hatch. Unfortunately, the cult had arrived first and had brought fire magic to hatch the egg. This was where the final night began.

            It was an epic battle that lasted nearly the full three hours we played for. The magical cultists were channeling magic into a crystal that was superheating the egg while their backs were guarded by a large number of minions. In the skies, two evil denizens lurked.

The Onyx Order’s druid (played by myself) turned himself into a giant eagle and carried the barbarian into the midst of the spell casters – where he wreaked havoc – then spent the rest of the battle using his speed and size to move his allies into favorable positions while calling down lightning to smite the cultists. The bard opened up with a powerful spell that did massive damage to the cultists’ rear guard, then fought on as best he could – nearly dying. The fighter (played by Colleen) hacked her way through the minions and took down one of the denizens. The rogue stealthily picked off more of the minions, and finished off the other denizen. The wizard helped where he could, then truly proved his worth by trapping the leader of the cultists in a magical sphere she couldn’t escape from.

            With the lesser enemies destroyed, and the fire removed from the egg, it seemed the day was saved. They escorted the cultists as far as they could from the egg before the magical bubble dissipated, healing what wounds they could. The barbarian stayed behind at the egg, packing ice into the hole drilled by the cultists’ fire to prevent further damage to the egg.

            The rest of the party prepared to strike down the cultist leader and released her from her prison, but as they did so, the egg shattered, becoming a portal from which a giant worm sprang to attack the barbarian. The rogue ran to help while the others finished the battle with the cult leader – a battle that took longer than expected. The cult leader did finally fall, and not long after the heavily injured barbarian rent the worm in two.

            But there were more worms swirling in the portal. A book found on the body of the cult leader revealed that only extreme cold could seal the portal. In that instant, the barbarian knew what he had to do. This quest had claimed many of his friends, destroyed his village, and turned his beloved grandmother into a vampire he’d been forced to slay. Failure wasn’t an option.

            Taking a magical ice crystal he had, he leapt into the portal and swung his axe. When the axe struck the crystal, there was an astounding blast of icy magic, and the egg was sealed over the portal – with the barbarian inside.

            The Order was devastated, but they respected his sacrifice. Their long journey over, it was now time for them to return to the world. Each player gave an epilogue for what became of their character.

            The rogue, one of the two remaining members of the original Order, took to roaming the world – reuniting with old friends when she felt like it, sometimes reliving old memories.

            The other original member, the fighter, returned to the city she knew best. Suffering from PTSD that she’d had even before the beginning of this adventure, she took to drinking and fighting until she was banned from all the bars. One night, alone in an alley, she died of liver cancer.

            The wizard built himself a tower of ice on top of the sealed portal, defending it from intruders for the rest of his long elven life.

            The druid returned to the wilderness with Manny the mammoth and Balto the wolf (the former companion of a fallen ally). Together they roamed the boarders of the glacier where the egg resided, slowly collecting more mammoths and forming a herd.

            The bard roamed the world, singing tales of the Onyx Order, with particular emphasis on a great barbarian who had sacrificed himself.

            Jeremy made one addition to these epilogues.

            In the dark alley, where the fighter lay dying, a figure appeared – the same person who had led the adventurers to find the cursed item that set them on this quest. She knelt by the fighter and whispered:

            “Not yet.”

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Frogger Game of Life

            Last night, while driving home in the pouring rain, I saw a brownish-yellow leaf on the road, highlighted by my headlights. As the car drew nearer, the leaf seemed to be lifted by the wind and carried in two arcs to the side of the road. In fact, it looked almost like it was hopping.

            The idea was still forming in my mind that it may have been a frog (or toad) when I saw another one. This one was sitting on the edge of the road and I was able to distinguish that, yes, this was some type of amphibian, and it confirmed my suspicions about the previous ones I’d seen.

            Having identified the first two frogs, I was then able to spot more – and there were a lot along this particular stretch of road, all trying to get to the other side. Luckily I was able to avoid hitting them, but it did get me thinking about the situation.

            Had it not been for the specific lighting provided by the combination of the rain and the headlights, I never would have seen those frogs. And while some of them expertly dodged the car, Frogger style, there were others that I actively steered around – those ones would certainly have ended up squished and I never would have known. Perhaps they ended up flat anyway, courtesy of another car with a driver who didn’t notice their presence, or perhaps one who did notice and simply didn’t care.

            It struck me as a perfect metaphor for the relationship between humans and the natural world. For centuries we’ve blundered around, shaping the world to fit our needs. Sometimes, some of us notice that we’re causing harm and we do what we can to stop it. Others of us never even notice the harm, or refuse to believe harm is being caused. Some people are aware of the harm and just don’t care.

            The greatest threat to the frogs are the people who don’t even know they’re there. We could, of course, tell them that the frogs are there, but we humans are a skeptical lot. We like to see things with our own eyes. What we really need to do is provide the correct lighting conditions so people can see the frogs for themselves. Then it’s up to them what kind of person they want to be.

            Personally, in life’s great game of Frogger, I want to be the type of person who helps get the frog safely across the road.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

What Change?

            I’ve been reading a series of books called the Death Gate Cycle to Colleen. This is fantasy series (by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman) from the late 80’s and early 90’s that I read once before when I was much younger. It’s one of those series that really proves what I always say about fantasy being the perfect way to take a closer look at human nature.

            This series takes place in a universe where the world has been split into four separate elemental worlds – plus a couple extras, but the details aren’t important for this blog. This happened because of two races of people so magical that they and the “lesser” races believed them to be gods – but the ideals of these two peoples opposed each other, so they were at war.

            The orderly and “goodly” of these two races, afraid of losing the way, cast a spell that tore the world to pieces and reformed it, dumping the chaotic and “evil” race into a magical prison while they were at it. Many of the “lesser” races died in the process, but the “goodly” race saved as many as they could. Unfortunately, the elemental worlds were not self-sustaining, and before the “goodly” race could link them together to work as a team (as they had intended), something went wrong and they began to vanish.

            The story follows a member of the “evil” race, who is one of many to have escaped the magical prison after generations of torment. Under the command of his lord, the first of his people to escape, he is scouting out the worlds in preparation for launching a war against the “goodly” race.

            As he is exploring these worlds, he finds them in chaos – with the three “lesser” races fighting endless wars against each other while the “goodly” race is absent. Then, on the fourth world he visits, he discovers dragon-like monsters who profess to serve him, but he eventually determines that they are pure evil and that they gain power from fear and hatred.

            These creatures get released into the other worlds, where they insinuate their way into the ranks of the “lesser” races (they are shape-changers) and spread chaos, fear, and hatred. They always present themselves as wanting to serve, and whenever confronted by someone who knows what they are, they say “You made us.”

            Then, at last, someone learns how to fight them by pinning down what they actually are. They explain it simply as “they are us.” The monsters are the embodiment of all the hatred and fear the races have of each other, and the more hatred and fear there is, the more powerful these monsters became.

            As I was reading this, I thought, wow... that looks a lot like the issues we’re facing in the world today.

            And, as with today, the way to fight these monsters was for people to put aside their hatred and fear and work together.

            To me, it is an obvious message. But then, this is woven into a series of books that was written over twenty years ago and we’re still dealing with the same issues. Perhaps the time has come to say it louder.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Predispositions

            They say that first impressions are important. This is very true, but have you ever stopped to consider why? Why is it that the first thing you say to someone, when you don’t even know them, is so much more important than what comes after?

            The answer is predisposition. As humans, we like to make up our minds about things before we actually know about them. It sounds like a silly thing to do, I know, but we do it anyway. When we meet a person for the first time, we’re already deciding who we think they are before they even speak – before we know anything about them. And then, from our very first interactions with them, we react to them and choose how to treat them based off that predisposition.

            However, the predisposition goes on to do much more, unless something happens to change it (and it often takes a lot to shift those initial impressions). It shapes the entire relationship with that person, because they are viewed through a lens of that predisposition. For example, if you believe someone to be rude, you are more likely to interpret things they say as rude, regardless of their intent. If you believe that someone talks too much, you’ll notice every time they are talking and automatically assume they’re talking more than someone else. If you believe someone is intelligent, you’re more likely to pay attention to what they are saying than if you believe they are stupid – and you might entirely miss the brilliant ideas of the person you considered stupid because you disregarded them without even considering.

            As you may have noticed, I’m somewhat predisposed to believe that predispositions are bad. Are they, though? I think they can be, and often are, because we just let them do their thing and go along with our lives. We don’t give some people the chances they deserve – contrariwise, we give some people far more chances than they deserve.

            So, then, why do we do this? I think it is a survival instinct. In the natural world, it is important to make a decision quickly when determining if something is a threat. If something is approaching us, we have to decide how we’re going to handle it before it is close enough to slash at us or rear our throats out. The instinct helped us survive, and therefore it has lasted into the modern world, where it functions in a similar manner – deciding if there is a threat or not. Once again, it works to a degree, and it is important to us.

            So, is predisposition good or bad? I think it all depends on the person and their awareness of it. Predispositions are good so long as we know they are there and we know to question them – to allow ourselves to re-evaluate our first impressions. That way, we have the protection provided by the instinct, without allowing ourselves to treat people as what we think they are, rather than what they are.

            Of course, some predispositions are so strong that we don’t even give some people a chance to reveal who they actually are. That is the sort of predisposition that is the hardest to fight – but it is also the most important to fight. Otherwise they could grow to control our lives.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Plant Overlords

            Have you ever stopped to wonder at how remarkable our world is? I mean, take plants, for an example. They draw nutrients from dirt, water, and the sun. They then rearrange those nutrients to form building blocks to make the plant larger – and they may seem like they grow pretty slow, but if you compare them to humans they grow at an alarming rate. They also just happen to filter the air into something other life forms need to breathe.

            Of course, plants then become food for animals. The animals draw nutrients from the plants they eat, once again converting them into the building blocks they need to grow. And then other animals eat those animals, and so on.

            And then they all die. Bugs eat them (and are, in their turn, eaten) and turn them all into nutrient-rich dirt – which goes on to feed the plants.

            As if that circle of life wasn’t remarkable enough, just look at how life symbiotically helps each other. Look at plants, once again. By providing pollen and nectar, they feed creatures that can then spread that pollen, helping the plants to reproduce and spread their populations. Plants are so useful as a food source and as building materials that humans plant vast fields of them and raise them with great care.

            In fact, it’s so convenient that it almost seems orchestrated. I mean, we actively raise plants, spread them, feed them, protect and nurture them, and exhale the carbon dioxide they need. Then, when we die, we (eventually) become a rich food source for them.

            It’s almost as if our whole existence revolves around serving the plants. Like the plants are farming us and keeping us dependent upon them by feeding us (or our food) and granting us breathable air.

            All hail our beneficent plant overlords.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Did You Hear?

            Last Saturday at the Royal Medieval Faire, we reconnected with the friend we made there last year. At one point throughout our many conversations (he spent much of the day at our tent) he mentioned that, having read last year’s blog in which he featured, he had been impressed with how I had actually listened to what he’d said.

            He went on to explain how he finds that people are frequently misunderstanding, misrepresenting, and misquoting things he’s said (that’s a lot of missing). Yet, he felt that my recollection of what he’d said, and the meaning of it, to be quite accurate.

            Now, there’s every possibility that I could have brushed this off as a unique occurrence, except that this wasn’t the first time I’d had something like this said to me. Within the last few months, Colleen has expressed something very similar to me. She has informed me that she has gotten frustrated conversing with other people because of how often she needs to explain herself several times before she is understood. She feels like people don’t actually listen.

            Having heard this, I could recall experiencing the same thing on occasion, and it brought to mind a quote I’d come across some time ago. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” (Stephen R. Covey, I believe) It is a most insightful quote and, I fear, very accurate.

            Why is this, though? Why do people put more of an emphasis on replying to what is said than they do on understanding what is said? I suspect that a big part is that there is an assumption that they have understood. When we hear something said, we immediately form an impression of the speaker’s meaning, and we assume that first impression is correct. And, if we are assuming we are correct, why would we bother putting in the extra thought process to examine what we heard for additional meanings? It is much easier to simply stick with the assumption.

            To that we must add that nasty piece of human existence called ‘social expectation’. Silence is often considered awkward, and as such it must be avoided. Therefore, while conversing, it is important to avoid silences by filling them. This means replying as fast as possible, thus relying upon that initial assumption. On top of that, it is assumed in our society that people who think faster are more intelligent, meaning that people who respond faster must be more intelligent.

            If you have any doubts about our social expectations, just imagine a public speaker. When they present what they have prepared, they come across well, but what happens when they are asked questions they aren’t prepared for? They respond right away – and sometimes they answer the question incorrectly and get called out on it later, but all that matters in that moment is that they have an answer. How would your opinion of that public speaker change if, when put on the spot, they fell silent? Or pulled out their phone for a quick Google search to make sure their facts were correct?

            So, the speed at which we reply is of utmost importance to us. However, there is one other key factor in people not listening properly: the imprecision of language. Language is a way of expressing thought, but thoughts are often too complicated to be encompassed by language. Speaking (or writing) is like trying to draw a three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional piece of paper. You can give an impression of what you’re trying to draw, but it does not actually re-create what it is you’re seeing. Likewise, two-dimensional words can only hint at the extra dimensions contained within the thought process behind them. Even worse, everyone has their own personal interpretation of the meaning of words – slight differences in interpreted meaning can completely alter understanding what someone is trying to communicate.

            So, my trick to actually listening? Stop to consider what was said before replying. Allow those silences to exist while you replay the sentences in your head. But don’t just try to understand the words, try to understand the intent behind them. The better you know a person, the easier it is to understand how they think – use that decipher the true meaning of what they said.

            Accurate communication is incredibly important. Misunderstanding is what leads to a majority of conflicts – pausing to make sure you understand correctly is worth it in the long run.

            Plus, it feels awesome when people come along and tell you how great you are at listening.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

What Is It Good For?

            I recently heard a quote that said, in essence, that the natural state of any two nations is to be at war – and that if there is peace, it is only because there is someone working very hard to keep the peace. Nations are always working to further their own agendas – be it that they want to spread their ideology or that they need resources – and so, without effort to prevent it, they will clash with others.

            This was a bit of a revelation for me. My thought process prior to hearing this was that war needed a reason to occur. However, this reversed way of looking at things made everything about global politics make a bit more sense – at least when it comes to looking at history.

            It makes sense that, back in the eras of survival, people went to war over resources. That’s how they survived, after all. As for ideology, well... people tend to believe that they are right and that it is their duty to enlighten others.

            Nowadays, lots of effort is put into keeping peace. It doesn’t always work, but it’s become important for survival with our destructive capabilities. Lots of people work very hard at keeping the peace – it certainly doesn’t come naturally.

            This bit of insight may not seem very important, but as a writer it has completely changed my perspective. When working on building a world, and stringing together plotlines, I no longer have to ask myself, “Why is there a war?” Instead I ask, “Why is there peace? Who is behind the peace?”

            And, if I’m in a particularly destructive mood, I’ll add, “How will the world change if something happens to the peace keeper?”

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

A Slice of Raspberry Pi

            I have a new toy. Upon hearing me talk about learning to code, my father-in-law recalled a system he’d had experience with – a computer designed for teaching code. And so, he decided to get me one. That’s how I came to own a Raspberry Pi.

            This is a computer roughly the size of a credit card, and it comes with all kinds of neat features. As I’ve had it for less than a week, I haven’t had much chance to explore them all yet. However, one program has particularly captured my attention: Sonic Pi.

            Sonic Pi is a system designed to teach coding through music. It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s a ton of fun. You create music by writing code and, before long, you’ve developed two new skills. You don’t even notice you’re being taught code – the technical jargon is left out, and it’s incredibly easy to follow. Of course, since I went into it with some programming knowledge, it’s been even easier to work through the tutorial.

            Now, on the surface, it might seem like a lot of effort to code music – after all, there are programs that you can just plug notes into to do that. And you’d be right, if you just wanted something to convert sheet music into sound. However, Sonic Pi is intended to create music from scratch, and quickly, allowing you to quickly create music that you may not even know what it’ll sound like until you hit play. And if it doesn’t sound good? You can quickly alter it to sound different. You don’t even need a background in music.

            I think the coolest thing about Sonic Pi is that its creator, Sam Aaron, actually performs live with it. He goes on a stage, types some code to create some music, and builds on it, all in front of a live audience. He’s turned programming into a musical instrument. I think that’s amazing.

            Anyway, I still have a long way to go before I’m comfortable using Sonic Pi to perform on stage, so I’d best get back to it. I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it – and my Raspberry Pi – in the future, once I have more time to explore and play.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Allergies Bad

            Well, today’s blog will likely be short, as my eyes are so irritated by pollen I’m having trouble focusing (we won’t even mention my nose). Really, allergies are one of the most frustrating and useless functions a body can have.

            I did do a bit of quick research on the function of allergies, and it confirmed what’s been bouncing around in my head. Allergies are, basically, the body reacting to something harmless as if it were a dreadful toxin. The theories about why we have allergies range from part of our immune system having nothing better to do (because what it was meant for is no longer necessary) to the idea that they’re fighting off minor toxins we aren’t aware of, and that some people’s immune systems handle better.

            Either way, the only results I’ve seen from allergies is making people miserable. I, myself, am ‘lucky’ enough to get hit by two allergy seasons – usually one timed perfectly (when I was in school) to interfere with exams and the other timed to make a wonderful first impression in the new school year (I mean, really, what kid doesn’t want to be leaking mucus their first week or two of school?).

            Surely there was some function that allergies served in the past, but really, we could do without them now. There are enough problems in the world without our bodies being hypochondriacs.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Industrious Spider

            One day I was sitting in a chair, reading to Colleen, when this tiny spider drifted past in front of me, suspended from a web. It wasn’t close enough to bother me, so I went about my reading. Then it drifted past again. And again.

            At this point, I paused to pay a bit more attention to this spider, which was little more than a green dot. I discovered that it was, in fact, drifting around in circles, making use of the ceiling fan’s air currents. I don’t know if it was weaving a web or simply having fun – either way, it was quite amusing to see.

            Over the next couple days, I noticed a huge increase in spider webs around the house. At first I thought maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention to them before, but then I realized that many of them had to be new – because I’d recently vacuumed through those areas. A few more sightings of that tiny dot of a spider led us to the conclusion that it had been the one responsible.

            It was amazing to discover that this one itsy bitsy spider had webbed just about every desirable location (by spider standards) in the house in such a short span of time. There didn’t seem to be any other spiders around to help or compete, so it had to be this one.

            Even more interesting to me has been spotting the spider again recently and seeing that it hasn’t grown much. Which makes me wonder – is this industrious spider failing to catch food, even with all those webs? Or, perhaps, does it need all those webs because it needs the food to support its active lifestyle?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Bountiful Harvest

            Normally it’s a challenge for me to figure out what I want to blog about, but this week I kinda have the opposite problem. I want to write about garlic, but I don’t know what to say about it.

            Why garlic, you ask? Well, because over the past week or two I was helping to harvest garlic and hang it to dry. You see, a couple years ago, my mother-in-law decided she wanted to try her hand at growing garlic. So she did her research, prepared her fields, obtained a few different varieties of garlic, and planted them. Last year produced her first harvest, and we got to taste-test the fresh garlic (my favourite part).

            Since everything turned out well, she planted more – much more. Thousands! Needless to say, I was rather excited about this. I’ve managed to dull my tastebuds to a point where the garlic flavor has to be very strong for me to notice it, and that should give you an idea about how much I like garlic. Who am I to object to such a large supply of garlic so close to hand? Sure, most of it is intended to be sold, but after all someone has to help with quality control.

            Of course, with so much more planted, help was needed to harvest the garlic fast enough. So, along with most of the family, I chipped in to help picking, bundling, and hanging the garlic to dry. And with testing the garlic, of course.

            A brief tangent (it’ll come back to the point, I promise), this year I’ve started teaching myself to draw – something I loved doing when I was a child, but that I gave up on before my age even had more than one digit. Up until now, my drawing has been... well, just take a look at the pictures in this ancient blogof mine. However, since January 22^nd this year, I’ve been drawing every day and, as a result, slowly improving. Much of that drawing has been following tutorials or copying out of instructional books, but on the day the garlic harvest was completed, I decided to arrange and draw some of the freshly picked garlic. I was so happy with the results that I’m even willing to share the picture with you!

            Hey, look! I figured out what to say about the garlic after all. But I think this must be where I end, because there’s not much else to say about garlic. Except that it’s delicious. And good for you. And it keeps vampires away. So you should eat lots of it, especially if you’re buying it from my mother-in-law.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.