Monthly Archives: April 2015

Status Update: Struggles Of Writing

I am conflicted about posting this update. I am working on several posts in parallel (unusual for me, normally I just plow through a topic in a straight line from start to bend to twist to curve to blind kink to swerve to left ditch to right ditch to hard skid to skid recovery to bootlegger’s reverse to near miss collision to discovered destination to publish button) and have not been able to bring myself to work on anything for a useful length of time.

This week saw the birth and death of a close friend’s child.

As a parent (and a person, not necessarily in that order) I have been working through floods of emotions and thoughts that I want to share but can’t. At least not yet. When I try to sort through them in writing, I am distracted by trying to balance information and emotion, content and context. I don’t know what I want to say (or need to say, perhaps, is a better description) so what I do put down is constantly being revised and removed. I’ve written (and deleted) a couple of thousand words so far and don’t even have a title to show for it.

I committed to 3 posts a week… I still have a couple of days to do it. This one doesn’t feel like it should count, but for my followers I want to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you. [It’s strange, but just putting these thoughts down is generating another flood of emotion… be back shortly]

Anyway, I will try to either finish what I have started or to set it aside to simmer (fester?) and work on something else totally distracting for a couple of posts and come back later. If the next couple of entries are not up to their usual level of mediocrity, at least you have a clue why.

Phred

post 46 of n

Scam Alert: Quantum Vision System

OK, I knew better. Nevertheless I wasted nearly 3/4 of an hour watching (or rather, listening while attempting not to hurl) an infomercial on the net about how you can improve your vision to 20/20 in just a week. Guaranteed.

I am far more skeptical than most of the people around me, but I followed a link with a title of how to improve your eyes by using this simple secret. A redirect to a page with minimal information and a video that played without any controls (no pause, volume control, or clue as to how much longer it lasted). It went on with teasers as to why you might want to improve your life (and who would NOT want to, eh?) and veiled hints that this program was going to go corporate shortly, with substantially less “public” access and increased costs.

Eventually you are told it is the “Quantum Vision System” and was going to be patented soon, so watch and act now. There was a claim of a 10 minute sample you could use to prove to yourself it was effective and worth obtaining.

Then 30 more minutes pass. There are “man on the street” interviews where the “doctor” brings people wandering past into his office and shows a 2-4 point improvement in their vision after only 10 minutes. The people are amazed at the results.

Finally you are asked how much would you expect to pay for such a program. He works the price down from thousands to the unbelievable price of $37 (USD). Just press the HUGE “Add To Cart” button that suddenly appears below the video and use one of the dozen or so methods of payment to gain these life changing benefits.

Of course I didn’t. But I was incensed to think I wasted nearly an hour of my time for such a lame presentation. Now, I could have just left anytime (and should of) but after a while, my ire grew and I was becoming more interested to see just how bad it would truly get. Finally the video ended and I found a faint menu at the bottom of the screen that included a “Contact Us” link. I started to send them an e-mail to get more information and the audio on my computer came back on (I had switched to another tab in Firefox to send the e-mail) with the comment “You are still here? What are you waiting for? Just press the button and fill out the form that comes up….” Unbelievable, that a company would be so bold as to press for a close after waiting for nearly 5 minutes of inaction. (I suspect the video was still “running” after appearing to end. There was no way of knowing.)

I finished my rant (including the point that if they really would refund all fees without any explaination and for any reason, why not present product as a try before you buy and bill 30 days after delivery) and sent the message. Then (and only then, to my sorrow) I did a quick Google search. As I pointed out in a prior post (Information Overload, Confidence Underload) any research on the net should involve a fair amount of action on your part. I was not interested in too much details, just to see if the company appeared to be legitimate.

The first result was the company website itself (link to site). Short version was they were offering the program for $27 (ten dollars less than on the video) and included 5 free bonus items (the video only had 3 of them). So if I HAD pushed the button I would have paid more and gotten less. VERY VERY BAD.

The second search result was a scam alert from San Diego. CA giving a scam alert (link to alert). Pretty much what I thought while I was watching the video. I thought the alert link hit the main points fully and was right on the point.

I actually have read the book on the Bates method mentioned in both locations. I did notice some benefits but it was not as easy as would have been expected by the presentation. (I bought the book for less than a dollar at a used book store about 25 years ago).

So, I waited till now to allow the “We received your mail and will respond in the next 48 hours” message to bear fruit. It didn’t. I am not surprised. It was not expected. Now this is a “unhappy” customer posting to warn others of less than expected results from a service provider.

Snake oil sales is still alive and well, apparently… beyond that peddled within politics.

Phred

post 45 of n

[settings] Fog_Of_Life_Enabled=True

I am something of a game collector. (People that know me say this is something of an understatement, as I own several hundred board games.) While my collection has suffered greatly over the last decade (a foreclosure and divorce along the way), there still remains a wide variety of genres, styles, and mechanics of play. I collect mostly board games and tend to stay away from what a typical American would immediately think of (monopoly, life, sorry, other family games), leaning rather toward games with complex rules and interactions, requiring longer time to explain and teach others to play (which is a primary reason most are shelved and collecting dust). Pretty much if I find a game at a grunge shop that I neither have nor have heard of, it tends to leap into my cart for further research.

This morning I was awakened from a dream where I was playing a board game. I don’t remember too much about it, but the significant elements involved taking my turn. I was moving a piece and sort of understood what I needed to do, but the rest of the map/board was devoid of pieces. When I said I needed to know where the pieces to collect were, another person added a couple of tokens on the board. I also mentioned that I needed to know where the other people’s pieces were, to plan how to avoid their influence. Another person got the rules and read all player’s pieces were to be removed from the board after each turn. I complained that I had a short-term memory problem and that it wasn’t fair to play that way, then I woke up in a poor mood.

The concept of masking the information of other players (or areas you are not currently located in) is referred to as the “fog of war” and is common in video (and computer) games. The idea is you can only know what you have experienced and many games will have map information fade away over time if you move away, hiding changes occurring while you are absent. Significantly, any enemies entering the area after you make life “interesting” when you return. Especially true if you presume the world to be the same as when you left it. Generally speaking, I do less well in this setup than games where I can see the whole world all of the time. My memory condition mentioned above (perhaps I wasn’t dropped on my head enough times to make things stick?) means enabling fog increases a game’s difficulty for me (probably more than for others), and I usually don’t get additional credit or experience for playing at this “level of difficulty.

Truth is, though, there is a “fog of life” that works essentially the same way in the “real” world. I went to visit my mom last week and drove through a neighborhood I lived in a couple of decades ago. While most of the places aligned with the images in my memories, there were other areas where changes occurred under the mask of fog. Some buildings changed colours (owners paint or stain since my last transit). Others had additions built on or were torn down totally, a couple being replaced by vacant lots, others by parks or businesses. Most notably was the business district, where the buildings were essentially the same, but the products or services were wildly different. Furniture replaced by food, carpet by insurance. The old hardware store does tanning and nails. Business was still business, but not MY business.

The old stomping grounds are old still, and there’s ground there, but the idea of stomping there would never occur to me. The trees (the ones still there, anyway) don’t lend themselves to climbing, nor do the bushes work for hiding anymore. One extreme example was a place we used to sled in the winter. There was a steep, seldom used street that would attract kids to slide down most of the winter. After a period of time covered in the Fog of Life I came back to discover the road was just gone! It’s now a tree covered hillside and the Texaco gas station at the base transformed to an ice cream parlor (closed in the winter).

I understand (intellectually, anyway) that time changes things and “you can never go home” really means that today is different than yesterday, but it’s not fair. I don’t have a lot of memories of times past, but to find there is increasingly little to verify what was real and what was an (semi-overactive) imaginary dream scape is hardly reassuring. What is to prevent coming back from church or the store only to find an amusement park covering the lot where my apartment was just a (perceived) few hours earlier? Or to find my keys won’t open my car (at least it’s where I parked “my” car)? As far as I can tell, I am correctly oriented in 3-space, but if a tesseract opens and I move sideways through space-time into a parallel universe that is hauntingly similar to (but not the same) as I remember, how could I tell? Others argue this is the way things always were. Who’s perception is “correct?”

Maybe this is the actual cause of Alzheimer’s….

Phred

post 43 of n

The Dream Is Over…

There are a lot of sad folks in the area around here as the dream is over for a national championship. It was fun while it lasted, but we lost and that’s it.

Reality has a way of sneaking up behind and biting you in the soft parts on a regular basis, say, constantly. You wake up and look in the mirror only to find you are not as young/smart/good looking/talented/ rich/famous/wise/desirable/lovable/[your favorite driver here] as you thought/dreamed/wished/wanted/needed/desired. You are what you are, only a day older than you were just 86,400 seconds ago.

This is (can be) a good thing. Because you are able to look in the mirror means you are still alive and therefore able to make a change, which can make a difference. Funny thing about time, there exists only an incredibly tiny area where you can actually affect change, the NOW. The past is fixed (at least as far as we can detect…the makers and users of the time machine have been incredibly careful about not telegraphing its existence) and the future is an imaginary construct that will never actually cross our path (when tomorrow gets here, for example, it will be now, just like it occurred today, and yesterday, and…) so we are really just stuck with this one, continuous now.

Using the right point of view, this is extremely powerful. So much so there will be enormous push back against anyone willing to live fully within the moment. By not spending energy worrying about some now not yet current, you have increased the reserve you have to invest in this now. If you can avoid dwelling upon outcomes resulting from previous (but no longer current) nows enables you to bring increased focus on the exact now you can influence (the only one in fact).

What tremendous power it is that lies within your grasp! By being fully in the now you can make a conscious decision to do exactly what needs to be done. There and then, in the only point of time you can influence. You can choose to eat or not eat, to say or not say, to invoke strong emotion or remain neutral. You can really drive the direction of your life rather than to hurl along on whatever path the inertia of dwelling on the NOT NOW has you drifting in (at best a sort of autopilot in an ambiguous direction, at worst a blind hurling towards the impending cliff of disaster).

Wake up! The steering wheel of your life is truly in your hands and you can turn (or go straight, too) at will. You just need to be here, now. You can win.

Unless you follow the [REDACTED]… sorry.

Phred

post 42 of n

You Must Be At Least This -> Tall To Read This Posting.

I am the youngest person living at my apartment complex. We are an age-restricted location where you must be at least 55 years old to live here. I moved in on my birthday, so by definition I am the youngest person (for me to reach the average age I need to live here about another 30 years, give or take a couple). It is a nice, quiet place to live. There are weekly and monthly events that the occupants can take part in, from a coffee klatch on Tuesday mornings to (age appropriate) exercise workouts on Friday before noon. It’s pretty much like living in any other apartment except there are fewer noisy parties and ambulances visit considerably more often.

One activity that occurs with considerable regularity is the discussion of names in the obituary columns of the local paper. Since many (perhaps most) of the residents have lived in the community 30 to 70 years (or more), they recognize many of the names listed in the paper. I am an import, so I am clueless about the locals and the ongoing change in the demographics of the area, but I am not clueless about the passing of time. My awareness comes from the national news broadcasts each weeknight.

Just about each week there is a brief reference to the death of someone reasonably famous on the nightly news, along with a brief description of the person’s life or reason for fame. The most recent was the passing of Robert Schuller, the tel-evangelist. I am not disturbed or affected by his death apart from the recognition of the name and some of his history. For much of my life, the obits named on the programs were just noise. Some might recognize them, but no one in my circle of influence (well, maybe mom and dad, but you get what I mean). With my advancing years, I find the names of the dead to be more recognizable than before.

A long time ago, I was presented with the “habit” most people do when faced with the death of someone, comparing the dearly departed’s age with my own (thus seeing how many years I might have “left”). Recently (last decade or so) the result of this formula is depressing if not outright terrifying. Some of the numbers have negative signs before them, suggesting the victim (obviously) died several decades before their time. That the difference in our ages is progressively getting smaller each passing day is a sobering reminder my plan to see the American Tri-centennial is less likely than when I watched the Bi-centennial from the deck of my ship (one of the national broadcast locations was the flight deck of the USS Constellation, CVA-64, where I served as a TV repairman).

Occasionally (increasingly frequently, sadly enough) I am made aware of the passing of someone I had the opportunity to know personally. The names on the school reunion lists shrinks over time, and while I do not attend, I am still aware of the shrinkage. I have fewer friends and relatives today than a dozen years ago and will be astonished to find the same number a dozen years hence. It is just a fact of life, even with the amazing advances in medicine and technology this millennium. They may be moving the finish line further from the start, but it is apparent it is not advancing quickly or far enough.

I remember when my son was too small (read: young) to go on some of the rides at the fair. Eventually he grew tall enough, and the whole world was opened to him. Now it is his daughter that has the sign restrictions to deal with. And so on.

When I meet with the folk for our Tuesday coffee, I am keenly aware of the passing of time. All are widowed (only a single couple still resides here, and I think they are the oldest residents here) and many are the last family members still above ground, having outlived both spouses and siblings. It gets really hard around the major holidays, to recognize that we neighbors are the only people in the world left to care. A few have older children (most older than I am) that might visit or call, but the greater share of the branches in the forest of lives living here have few leaves left on them. And it’s late autumn, with winter fast approaching.

I had the opportunity to share a nearly 10 hour car trip with a couple from my church this week, traveling to and from Chicago to pickup the wife from a hospital there (she suffers from debilitating migraine headaches and spent over a week in-patient trying to bring relief to her condition). As a result, I spent the next day in bed from the pain of riding in a foreign car (not my own, so not sized to fit well) and being confined for so long a time. It was totally worth it to see the interaction of the couple upon reuniting, and when she came home to her daughter. I would do it again. And again. And again, as needed, to keep connections linked.

Which reminds me… I need to take a trip to see my family and link local connections, too. Guess I’ll buy a ticket and get in line.

I could use a hug anyway.

Phred

post 41 of n