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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Starting with the Obvious Most people I know consider themselves great problem solvers. They love particularly to solve other people’s problems. There was a line in a song I once heard that has always stuck in my mind. “You can’t even run your life, I’ll be damned if you’ll run mine.” As a rule of thumb I don’t try and solve other people’s problems if they haven’t made an effort to solve their own or honestly asked for my assistance. We are too quick to offer unsolicited advice to those who are not obliged to listen to it. Sometimes people need someone to talk to and that is a good thing, but know the difference between someone wanting to vent or get attention and someone asking for advice. I sit on a Township Zoning Appeals Board and I saw that human tendency at play last night. A man was seeking to get a variance to a setback requirement to build a Pole Building. In zoning there are requirements such as how far from the road a structure needs to be and how far from the property line of a neighbor. The petitioner had applied for relief from the setback requirement, without first going through the first part of the process. Normally a person requests a building permit and draws a sketch that shows the setbacks. He then submits it to the zoning administrator who goes out and takes a look at where the structure is to be placed. So we sat around for half an hour, all the members trying to solve this guy’s problem which could likely have been solved if the normal procedure had been followed. (The petitioneer had not requested a building permit, and the administrator had not been out to look at the property.) Another example, independent of this one happened to me yesterday. My car wouldn’t start so I bought a new battery. Today the new batter would not start and I speculated there was a drain on one of the circuits that was drawing it down. I stopped by my local auto shop and the owner told me he would show me how to check that hypothesis out. My idea was to go to the fuse box and test each wiring circuit until I found the one responsible. He had a better way. (Check the battery with a test light) Now this is the important part and it bears on the zoning board experience. He checked first to make sure there were no lights on when the car was sitting with the ignition turned off. This is like checking to see if the car has gas in the tank before taking apart the carburetor. Or checking to make sure the breaker is released on a chainsaw before concluding the engine is locked up. It involved considering the obvious before deciding the problem lies deeper than the tip of one’s nose. This is an ‘oft overlooked step in the problem solving process. I have a connectional mind and that preliminary examination by the shop owner came to mind last night as my fellow board members jumped in and with the best of intentions tried to help the petitioner solve his problem. I am not trying to sound smug and superior… Most of these board members were as smart or smarter than I am, but it only shows the human tendency to jump to the complexity of an issue before eliminating the obvious. |
| The New Term is upon us On 7 May registration will begin for the Spring Term at New Horizon’s Academy. I will be teaching again the Exploratory Writing Workshop and recommend that anyone interested sign up early as the classes fill fast. Today I must mail my play Andromache for consideration in a contest I am entering. I reread it this weekend and really liked the way it turned out after an extensive reediting. I will try and not get my hopes up, because while it has been a strong finisher in the past it never made the cut for a stage production. I wish I had time to teach both the One Act Play and the Exploratory Writing Workshop. Anyone out there who feels they qualify and wants to sign on as my assistant, (to test the waters) needs to make their feelings known to the school administrators. We need a drama or a screen writing course of some sort. My weight keeps fluctuating around the 185 threshold. I am exercising and regulating my food. My breakfast is small, my lunch is normal and my supper is a snack. However, I am not deterred and continue to struggle as I did to quit smoking. While success is not happening the way I would like it to I continue determined to succeed. The weight did not magically appear and it isn’t going to shed without a fight. It will come off the same way it went on. We watched Game of Thrones last night on HBO and it is awesome. The more I see it the better I like it. It was written by George Martin and the approach he has used is to write it in a way that takes five novels which he integrates into a single story. As a consequence there is no real central character for the overall story but rather one for the five subsets. Each of these is masterfully written and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. More than just being fun to watch is seeing the mechanics of five stories being told as one. If you can’t get HBO think about getting the reruns of the first season. I can’t speak highly enough about them. Reading the chapters of the book, concurrent with seeing them on TV is also a rewarding experience. It has led to “Templating” a technique described on previous blogs and it brings to life the components of good story telling. The spring term has crept up and I will be working this week at getting my class ready. There probably won’t be quite the long interlude between sign-up and the class start day that we had last time. In the time there is I am thinking about introducing “Templating” in the Welcome letter and letting the students think about it in that interlude. That way I don’t have to muck around with too much change in the course syllabus. |
| On Art It rained yesterday, overcast with a slow and steady drizzle. My dad used to call it a “Farmer’s Rain.” At the antique show in the Alliant Center I found an Oscar Morten Dog, an Airedale, and it has joined my other two on the shelf. When I got home I found a blog comment from Leger who gave me a link to a site that was useful. It contained casting marks used by porcelain manufactures throughout the world. I tried to find one for a larger piece of mine that shows a group of figures representing captive Greek women in a slave market. Some of you know I wrote a stage play called Andromache and it reminded me of Pyrrhus choosing her from the spoils of Troy. Anyway the mark wasn’t in there so I went to Google and searched (groups porcelain figurines.) I found one with a similar marking and kept looking. Linda came in and joined my search on her IPOD and found the manufacturer. Here we had purchased this piece twenty years ago in New York without knowing anything about it. I liked it and that was enough. So I was up late looking at Google, marveling at the one percent of high end items that caught my attention. There were also several nice porcelain figures we saw at the antique show that were quite desirable but well beyond our means. To get something affordable, of a compelling quality, usually requires accepting some breakage or missing body parts. Then they become very affordable. I would rather have such a piece, in need of repair, than a perfect piece of junk. I think being surrounded by beautiful things, if only photographs and other forms of imagery brings out the artist in you. It is hard to see the beauty in a book at first glance. Even after an initial “Story Read” that animates you and causes one to reflect, that was a good book, there is still much that remains between the covers that was missed the first time through. Templating helps a writer understand why they liked a particular piece of literature. The better we understand why, the easier it becomes to produce something that approaches professional quality literature. It doesn’t just roll off your fingers by accident. It requires an understanding of the science of the genre as well as that illusive quality known as artistic talent. On U-Tube I watch artists making sculpture and it blows my mind, just like my water color teacher used to do with her leaf painting. It seems to flow so naturally off their fingertips. However, beneath the flow of hands is a reservoir of experience and understanding of the media and understanding of the art and science that surrounds it. As a writer I see it in myself, evidenced by the gulf between what I write and what I read in the work of writers who have risen to the next level. While there is no substitute for talent we need to have a vivid vision in our brains of what we want the end product to look like before we begin writing. Those who aspire to greatness need to study the genre and have a vivid image of what they want to achieve. |
| Images Today Linda and I will be going to the Alliant Center in Madison for an antique show. That should be fun. Since the Dump doesn’t open until 10 I have a couple of hours to do my blog and some of the chores I have been putting on the back burner. For those who follow this blog you know that I like the female form in all its vast renderings. I like Meissen, Gobel, Armani, Capodimonde, Royal Dalton, Lladro Heutsehreuter, Royal Dux and Dresden, to mention a few. I have pieces with trademarks I can’t even identify and for each manufacture, there are examples I love and others I wouldn’t give two cents for. Since porcelain figurines are expensive, there are definite limits on what I can buy and I often settle for broken, chipped or otherwise imperfect pieces because I marvel at the composition and feel the spirit of the author who created it. Since I am not a dealer a few warts don’t bother me. The reason I am sharing this is because great figurines don’t have to be made by a famous manufacturer. They appear from the most unexpected of places. On line is a good place to look, but in addition to the obvious manufactures I go to sites that produce plastic models, resin figures and action (anime) heroes. Not only can one see on U-tube tutorials on how to assemble and paint these models but also how the originals were sculpted and molded. Recently I found and bought a five-inch resin figurine from Thailand that was stunning. I discovered it on the internet and it blew my socks off. So I have been watching videos on how the pros or experienced amateurs assemble and paint them. It came in a box with no instructions, containing about a dozen parts. Yesterday I drilled and pinned it and put auto body glaze and two part epoxy putty where the surfaces joined. Then I sprayed it with a primer. I have to tell you that even before I start to paint, she looks awesome, right at home with all my other “hoi-poiloi” (a term my mother used to use) knick-knacks. I like the imagery these figures bring to my writing. In my class I encourage my students to find images of their characters. Some of these were great and to provide examples I even included some in my writings. I was surprised recently when one of my reviewers told me to delete them. She said my words created an entirely different image in her mind which she preferred to the one I provided. She said it was like going to a movie and seeing a character cast who didn’t fit the preconception she developed reading a book. This is interesting. Recently I saw the new Stephanie Plumb movie and the heroine did not fit either Linda or my preconceptions from the book, but I was able to suspend that and enjoy the actress who played the part. My wife could not bridge the gap. Maybe it’s a guy thing, being able to adjust rapidly to changes in expectation and reality but I have also seen women who moved with ease between the two states of nature. |
| What the Statistics mean to me Sometimes my ideas on writing don’t garner much interest. No doubt this is probably the case once more. One of the things I have always looked for when presented by statistics is some explanation of what the compiler thinks they mean. There were roughly 3,250 words in the chapter. 1. Backstory: 200 words 6% 2. Character Development: 400 words 12% 3. Scene Setting: 400 words 12% 4. Exposition that moves the story: 1000 words 31% 5. Dialogue that moves the story: 1150 words 35% 6. Foreshadowing: 50 Words 2% 7. Symbolism: 50 Words 2% The first question I have is does this chapter represent a norm in the way George Martin writes or is there a significant amount of variation between one chapter and the next. I could do the analysis for say ten chapters; however I won’t be taking the time. If someone else wants to do it I would be delighted to see if they get roughly the same percentages. For my part I will stop here because for one the chapter works and works well and the numbers confirm in my mind why it does. First off the backstory is less than 10 percent. That seems about right. I get bored reading novels that load up the first few chapters with reams of backstory. Having read the novel in its entirety I liked the way the author fed it in as the work continued. Keep in mind that the components shown here can appear in other categories, for example backstory can appear in the exposition and dialogue that moves the action along. Next I like to see the character of the characters expressed in the Dialogue and Exposition. For example Lord Starks explanation of a leader’s role in executions, tells a great deal about who he is. It also foreshadows, so my including of a line in a given category is arbitrary and the analysis I am using required judgment where there were overlaps…. i.e. where foreshadowing was revealed to the reader through dialogue. The Scene Setting was about right in my mind. There was enough but the author did not go on and on talking about the weather, and topography of the land. Again much of this was shown rather than told in dialogue and the exposition that moved the story along. This brings us to the two big chunks. ; The dialogue and exposition that moves the story along. This breaks down to roughly a third of the words in each category. When I consider my writing the dialogue would have been considerably more. I attribute this to my playwriting background, however I am not writing a play at this time, I am trying to write a novel. In a stage or screen play the consumer has a stage or screen to look at, where in a novel there is only the stage and screen of the reader’s imagination. In the Novel genre, it is necessary to devote a significant number of words to exposition that moves the story. The final two components that evidenced themselves were foreshadowing and symbolism. There might have been some repetition as well but it didn’t jump out at me. These don’t require a lot of words but there are important ingredients that particularly in the first chapter need to be considered. Writers new to the genre of Novels need to understand the word distribution into these categories. Just following the pencil or pounding the keys is not going to insure a chapter includes all the right stuff. |
| More Specificity on Templating Templating Templating a novel might be something somebody has written volumes on, however if there has been a history of this technique I am not aware of it. So I will attempt to explain it like someone who is reinventing the wheel. Better than try and explain it I will demonstrate how it is done. I will use Game of Thrones, chapter 1, “Bran” as an example. There were seven key writing components I noted in the chapter. I have abridged the chapter copying down enough to show an example of what I am talking about. Then I counted roughly the total number of words in the chapter. Using the place holders cited below I then block counted the words in each category. This showed me a percentage of the words that were dedicated to each of the seven components. Keeping the percentage in mind I would seek to have a percentage in my first chapter, roughly equal to what I have identified in the template. There were roughly 3,250 words in the chapter. 1. Backstory: 200 words 6% 2. Character Development: 400 words 12% 3. Scene Setting: 400 words 12% 4. Exposition that moves the story: 1000 words 31% 5. Dialogue that moves the story: 1150 words 35% 6. Foreshadowing: 50 Words 2% 7. Symbolism: 50 Words 2% Backstory: He remembered the hearth tales…the Wildlings were cruel men…slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls and stole girl children and drank blood from horns. Their women lay with the “Others” in the long winter nights and birthed half human children. Character Development: It was the seventh year of Bran’s life. Brans father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair straining in the wind. His closely trimmed beard shot with white. He looked older than 35 years. He had grim cast to his grey eyes. He had taken off Father’s face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell. Bran’s bastard half-brother, Jon Snow moved closer. He was of an age with Robb but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular…dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick, where his half-brother was strong and fast. Scene Setting: It was the ninth year of summer. The morning had dawned cold….set forth to see a man beheaded…Bran rode with them.. the man was taken at a small Holdfast…. He had lost both ears to frostbite…He was dressed all in black as the Night Watch. The breath of man and horse mingled…Over their heads flew the banner of the Starks of Winterfell. Exposition that moves the story: Two men dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump and his ward Theon Grayjoy brought forth the sword “Ice.” It was wide as a man’s hand and taller than Robb. The blade held an edge like Valyrian steel. The head bounced off a root and rolled… His father rode up to him. Half buried in the blood-stained snow a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed on its shaggy grey fur and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman’s perfume. Bran glimpsed ‘blind eyes crawling with maggots and a wide mouth filled with yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony and twice the size of the largest hound in his father’s kennel. Bran saw his father’s eyes change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the sur-name Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of his own. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling. His fur was white where the others were grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Dialogue that moves the story : “ In the name of….I sentence you to die.” “Keep the pony well in hand.’ “Don’t look away.” ”The deserter died bravely.” “You did well.” “He had courage at the least.” “No, it was not courage…this one was dead of fear.” ”The others take his eyes…he died well…race you to the bridge.” Are you well Bran?” ”Robb says the man died bravely but Jon says he was afraid.” “What do you think?” “Can a man still be brave and be afraid?” “That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father said. “Do you understand why I did it?” “He was a Wielding” Bran said, “They carry off women and sell them to the others.” “Old Nan has been telling your stories…the man was an oath-breaker, a deserter from the Night’s Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if taken so he will not flinch from any crime no matter how vile… but you mistake me. The question is not that the man had to die but why I had to be the executioner.” “King Robert has a headsman.” He does….as the Targaryen Kings before him…yet our way is the older way. The blood of the first men still flows in the veins of the Starks and we hold the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words…and if you cannot bear to do that then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” “One day Bran you will be Robb’s banner man, holding a keep of your own for your brother and king…when the day comes you may take no pleasure in it but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind executioners soon forgets what death is.” “Father, Bran come quickly…see what Robb has found” “She can’t hurt you she’s dead” “What in the seven Hells is it?” “That’s a direwolf, they grow larger than the other kind.” “There’s not been a direwolf sighted south of the wall in 200 years.” “No! Bran cried out fiercely, it’s mine.” “You have five true-born children,” Jon said, “Three sons and two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your house. Your children were meant to have these pups, My Lord.” “You want no pup for yourself Jon?” “The direwolf graces the banners of the House Stark,” Jon pointed out, “I am no Stark.” “What is it?” “Can’t you hear it father?” Foreshadowing: “he must have crawled away from the others.” “Or been driven away.” their father said. Jon Snow said, “This one belongs to me. Symbolism: Bran thought it curious that this pup alone had opened his eyes while the others were still blind. |
| Diesel Fumes and Sensual Prose Yesterday I resolved to fix the slow fuel leak on my tractor. It was making the shop floor grungy and so I bought a 2 foot length of rubber hose and pinched off the leaker. Then I disconnected it and to my surprise diesel fuel began back- flowing from the tank. “Shucks!” I muttered, hitting my head as I scrambled from beneath to find a catch basin. What a mess, lying in that wet stinking muck as I worked to complete the repair. I reeked of fumes and Linda threw my clothes away. I can still smell the faint residue in my hair. Anyway that job is done. Karen, the Head Mistress at New Horizons Academy is stepping down although there will be a transition as she hands off to her replacement, Kats. We also have a new poetry instructor who has a deft and lucid touch. For some reason the vision of Syrio Forel, Arya’s fencing instructor (Game of Thrones), came to mind as I read several of his works. We are blessed to have such talent carrying us into the future, although Karen will continue to be a blessing and inspiration. The resin figure I ordered on line came today. She is a nude…(what else did you expect from a sensual prose writer?) and I will be studying on line some of the techniques that professionals use when they design and paint these models. My wife rolls her eyes. No fool like an old fool, I know she’s thinking. Anyway some of the action figures I see in antique stores and on line are incredibly done and the workmanship is right up there with some of the porcelain figures produced by longstanding reputable firms. Like the watercolor class I took back in the 1980’s I believe to really appreciate something exceptional, one must attempt to work the media. Linda has one of my watercolors hanging next to the commode. In a sense this is what an aspiring writer is doing at WDC and NHA. We are trying to learn how to bump up our writing from what it is to what it could be. Regardless of how talented your support group insists you are or how your high school English teacher gushed about your themes, taking writing skills to the professional level is a huge undertaking. It is something you have to work at every day without a whole lot of positive and helpful feedback. Even at WDC quality feedback is a precious thing. Occasionally I get a no nonsense, knock your socks off review but they are the exception rather than the rule. (Almost never if it involves sensual prose, even though a writer can count on a lot of views.) As I watch Game of Thrones on HBO I become more and more convinced that writers need to work the SP genre and acquire skills at expressing it. There is a fine line between obscenity and describing some of the more intimate details of a relationship. Readers want to know more than they usually get but not so much it upsets their sensibilities. It is a tool in the old tool-box and not an end in itself. Finding that blend is a challenge and WDC has contests that can help a writer break into this genre. What I see on HBO is pretty explicit and if they can show it on TV, I see it as a trend that writers might consider becoming familiar with. |
| Templating and Spiders I read several more chapters from Game of Thrones last night and was impressed by the skill of the Author. He is quite good at foreshadowing and dangling clues at the outset of what is to come. If the reader is in the “Turbo-Mode” he/she will pass over a raft of good stuff that sets up elements of the future story line. Also George Martin is very talented at mixing dialogue and exposition while keeping the story moving. In past blogs I have mentioned “Templating” as a technique a new and aspiring author (me) should use. It is one of those ideas I seem to have stumbled across and intend to include it in one of the lessons on Exploratory Writing. The germ of the idea is to read a chapter from a favorite work and then try and emulate the structure in the unrelated novel you are writing. I am not talking about trying to duplicate the voice, storyline or characters but rather to emulate the mechanics. For example, using backstory, dialogue, exposition (as it relates to the story world and character descriptions) and foreshadowing. Remember in school, diagraming sentences (UGH!) Well do the same thing with a templated chapter and then include the same components in yours. As you write your chapter you have one open in your favorite book… that becomes the template. Now it doesn’t really have to be a favorite book but rather a book written in a style that you want your book to follow. Now that I think about it perhaps I should tell students who sign up for Exploratory Writing to select a template work they intend to use in the course and read it thoroughly in the interlude between signing up and the course starting. It goes without saying that in choosing an example to follow the reader will be examining in microscopic detail each sentence and classifying it in the role it plays in the storytelling model. Yesterday was the funeral and Larry’s wife was buried. It was a sad day. I am awful at names. My mind is going to mush. Afterwards we did some yard work. That is always a good cure for sadness and got about half of it done. One of my daughters is an Army Wife (3rd Generation) and writes a great blog. She and her husband, who is deployed to Afghanistan, have a ritual called “Hiding the Spider”. It began when he scared her with a real looking rubber arachnid and continued as each used it to try and startle the other…i.e. he would put it in her jewelry box and she would put it in his boot. It goes back and forth and is a never ending game. Last week she found it between the cushion of the couch (--an emotional moment.) As I was reading I realized that on a recent trip I bought several trick boxes that when the lid is opened a rat or spider pops out startling the nosey person. It did me anyway. I think I will send her one of my spider boxes. |
| Rainy Days and Sunday’s Always get me down. A friend of mine (I‘ll call him Larry) who drives a semi came home last week and saw all these rescue vehicles in his driveway. His wife had died between her flower garden and the compost heap. He’s been taking it pretty hard and I’ve stepped in to help where I can. Having buried my parents in the past five years taught me a lot about funerals. He is an emotional guy and taking it pretty hard. The good news is he is surrounded by a strong support group. His wife was a good friend with an attribute that Linda has… the ability to make me laugh. It’s a talent I appreciate because I don’t always have a lot to laugh about. Anyway, when we are talking Larry will suddenly become overwhelmed with grief. I suppose that is better than holding it all inside. Yesterday I went to an RC model show in Marshfield. The president of our club was trying to sell some of his models and I bought one on the promise he help teach me to fly it. Despite the bad experience with the glider I suspect that I will master that phase of the training cycle and move on to powered, third person flight. (That is flying from the ground watching the airplane fly). My goal is First Person (pilot) view as I have mentioned in previous blogs. When I crashed the glider the battery went flying and hit a cement wall. It isn't working too well. I need to get a new one and hope that the battery is the problem and not some of the more expensive components. Earlier we went to church and found out what is needed from the ladies who will be serving the dinner after the service. Then Linda and I are making sure the rest is provided for. I’m better at the logistics of things than the comforting part. Today we have to get busy on the yard. Linda will drive the riding lawnmower while I follow behind with the pusher making sure we get the spots she can’t get to. Then we need to rake up all the debris around the splitter and burn it in the wood stove. There is quite a bit and that will take a while. Also parts of the split rail fence that blew down this winter need to be set right. My tracto'rs fuel line is leaking and that’s something else on the agenda. I pinched it off with vice-grips but need to splice in a repair section. At noon is the funeral at the church. Larry has decided to take the urn after the memorial service and walk solemnly down to the cemetery and place the remains in the post hole. Not the course I would have adopted, but if it brings him some peace of mind and closure its fine with me. After that I think we’ll go to Stephens Point and do the grocery shopping. |
| FATSO’s Don’t Get Laid (FDGL) Diet In my weight reduction program I think in terms of brackets of ten pound increments. For example there was the 190 bracket (Ugh!) the 180 bracket (not good), the 170 bracket (better) and the 160 (That’s more like it.) Think of it as income tax brackets where the refund is payment in the coin of a longer and fuller life. You just have to stay after it, one day at a time, ignoring the ups and downs and remain focused on eating fewer calories than your body burns. Most people don’t think about it and wind up eventually, as their metabolism slows with age, in a bad sort of way. If you don’t do something you are going to “swell”, suffer depression and die prematurely. You don’t have to be a FATSO. Look at all the older people in Wal-Mart. Where are all those slim young girlsand debonaire guys that used to inhabit those drop dead gorgeous bodies? They have turned into frumpy old men and women, an avoidable condition, had they exercised the will to prevent it. When I see an older person who is still thin, (Disregard drug addicts), I see people who are working at staying thin and active. It is a whole lot easier to keep from becoming a FATSO than trying to shed the weight. When every excess cell is crying out, “Feed me, momma, feed me,” the word “NO” is taken to a whole new level. Pushing away from the table when you are ravenous or before bed plagued by a terrible compulsion to visit the refrigerator, rises the specter of challenge and temptation that are continuously at work, breaking down a person’s willpower. I realize I am hurting a lot of feelings but without tough love people who have let themselves go are enabled to accept the status-quo. That weight didn’t suddenly appear overnight and making it go away involves a slow and unrelenting commitment. This morning I graduated myself from glider flying on the simulator and went outside to try the real thing. I promptly crashed and did sever damage to my powered glider. I feel like I do looking at the scale some mornings and seeing I have gained two unexpected lbs. Tomorrow I will order the replacement parts, and take another run at it. Life is full of set-backs but that’s what makes achieving goals such a satisfying experience. My goal is to fly FPV (Front person/pilot view) in my model airplane and look down and see the panorama pass beneath. It is an achievable goal but I fully expect the process to be two steps forward, one step back. That is the way my life has played out and I don’t really expect things to change. It’s amazing what you can put back together with some determination and epoxy glue. |
| System is back up I apologize to my regular readers who follow my rants as I go from one wildly unrelated Blog to the next. My Internet has been on the fritz lately. Finally we upgraded to a new satellite dish and the technician stopped by and we are back in business. If I was a purist I would write my blog and store it on the Word Processor and post them when the system comes up. Alas, that is not human nature. If there is not internet I don’t write them… Does that sound immature or what? Today at an antique shop I noticed another Morten Dog. I found another last week. It is a Boston Bulldog with googley eyes. These dogs have been jumping out at me and I have been ignoring them, until I saw the Boston Bull. I couldn’t resist and I love looking at it on my desk. Oscar Morten had a design studio that specialized in animals. It operated from the 1930’s to the 1960s. He is well known for his dog figurines. If you keep your eyes peeled you can still find them in antique stores for well under $100. Originally they sold for $10 or less. They are a cool looking knick-Knack. The two I have mix well with all the rest of my clutter. Linda and I are running (walking?) 4 miles a day. It is part of our weight reduction program. Losing weight is not easy. Actually it is a lot like quitting smoking. A serious weight reducer has to stay focused even on days when the scale is pointing in the wrong direction. This morning I got a positive reading, however today it has rained and we couldn’t go for our walk. I can feel it when my body goes into conversion. I get an edgy feeling and have to work hard at being a loving, caring human being. It might sound simple to you but for someone who is a bit of a jerk it can be challenging at times. I took Linda to Princeton yesterday and we ate at the Blue Moon. We both had the French Dip. It sure was good. I told her that we need to start preparing for a worst case economic scenario. She says I’m paranoid. So does my Investment Counselor. How hard is it I recently asked him to find a fund that specializes in stocks that did well after the 1929 crash and on into the Great Depression. I know there were companies that prospered and somebody smart out there has surely set up some sort of a slow growth mutual fund that targets these types of stocks. To me it makes sense to diversify a portfolio and includes stocks that might not be red-hot investments but have a long sustainable record of performance in good times as well as bad. Duh! I also told him to make sure we avoid investments that rely heavily on Municipal Bonds and Treasury Notes. If the dollar crashes something tells me Uncle Sam will repudiate these instruments. I would guess that in such a case the Government would eventually get around to repaying in a new currency savings insured by FDIC for pennies on the dollar. It would also provide credit cards to families that would allow continuation of a minimum standard of living. (Like Catrina where they were used to buy porn). I am not sure what they would do about gold…. Probably make you sell it for pennies on the dollar. That would leave the average person with their investment portfolio, most of which would be wiped out. Then we’d start over with a currency based upon a precious metal standard. In the midst of all this would be some serious bad times for everyone, particularly those dwelling in urban areas. I suggest you buy a gun, some ammunition, and get trained in how to use it. Keep a month of canned goods on the shelf and recycle it through the winter. If you can, have a garden, and learn to can and preserve meat and vegetables. Raising a few chickens is not a bad idea. My theory is that if you prepare for the worst it won’t happen. |
| The Back-up Rule I am learning new things from my hobby flying radio controlled models. The biggest is that you need a light but responsive touch on the controls. There is also a rhythm necessary to soar with smooth grace. One must feel the airplane with a growing intuition and not consciously jerk it around, insisting on a heavy hand. Then there is the speed of what is happening, which for an old Fart, becomes harder as the years pass not to mention the vision necessary to maintain the view and perspective of the airframe. Some people are more suited to this than others but most everyone can learn to a yeoman’s level of proficiency. In reading my two latest biographies on Special Operating Forces operating in the war on terror I see the military’s insistence on candidates who have physical strength and stamina and also the persistence and will to continue on in the face of a protracted and overwhelming adversity. Those are the traits the services covet and value most in their elite warriors and the extent to which they are required go far beyond any capacity I have ever enjoyed. I was good at my profession but not that good. I was dealt some good cards but nothing like the hand required to become a Seal. As an infantry small unit leader I had enough of the right stuff to get by but there wasn’t much left when the trial was over. I did however; learn a thing or two and some of the lessons that are so clear in my mind did not survive the transition from one generation of combatants to the next. For example what became instilled in my understanding, not something written in any text book, was what I call the “One Hour Rule.” By this I mean that you don’t send a force into harm’s way that can’t be reached in a short time. This doesn’t mean that operations can’t be carried out by small teams, but rather that if a small team gets in trouble there is a back-up force that can quickly reach them. If a small team is necessary for a given task that somewhere behind, is the security force. That depending on the relative size these times must be adjusted. For example a two person recon/shoot team would have a fifteen minute backup. A four person team has half hours and so on. A platoon sized force can hold out against major adversity for six hours and a company for 12. A battalion can survive a worst case for a day or two and so on. Thus at every level a responsive relief is built in. Regardless of how well trained an elite a force is, this layering is necessary because without it the day of reckoning will come and when it does soldiers will be cut off and left alone to die. A hasty response thrown together with too little too late is an accident going to somewhere to happen. It is incumbent on planners and decision-makers to build in this support capability and not undertake those where it cannot be achieved. The operatives are brave and like the two snipers in the Black Hawk down decision, it is a mistake to commit to more than this rule of thumb allows. |
| Chain of Causation. I am reading the story of Marcus Luttrell a brave SOF warrior who was the sole survivor of an operation that went sour. It was a four person recon/shoot mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. After being inserted their location was compromised by three civilians who happened upon them. They had to decide whether to kill them in cold blood or let them go. They chose the latter and their location was promptly reported to the Taliban. A firefight ensued, many of the Taliban were killed and in the process so were Lutrell’s three fellow Seals. Marcus was able to evade and was helped by sympathetic Afgans enabling him to survive and tell the story of what happened. In the book he questions the wisdom of not killing the civilians. He attributes this decision to the compromise and death of his fellow team members. It’s a story everybody should read and decide for themselves if they did the right thing. In Vietnam I was a rifle platoon leader and the story he tells is a haunting one. It is every soldier’s nightmare to be cut off and in the situation he found himself. It is natural to ask the question, “How did I get myself into this mess?” both during a patrol and afterwards. In my Division the junior officers would get together after a disastrous encounter involving the deaths of fellow soldiers and discuss the events leading up to it. Invariably we came up with not one suboptimal decision or move, but many in the chain of causation leading to the catastrophic event. We had a theroy that the more mistakes you make in a given day, the more likely it is that the consequences of one or more of them are going to catch up with you. That the key to being an effectie leader was to keep the number to an absolute minimum. For those who have never been in combat I will use the analogy of a professional football game. In a close game there are many actions and decisions made before and during the play that lead up to the final outcome. Still it is human nature to focus on the last one in the chain…. Where the receiver drops the ball or the kicker misses wide. It is so easy to forget all those other moments and opportunities up the chain, that have a huge influence on how the game comes out. Those Seals were incredibly brave men; I salute them and nothing in my resume can justify saying more. |
| Wake Up! I don’t know about you but I find the divisiveness being used by the current administration to hold onto political power to be troubling. They see the border problem in terms of potential voters who will shift the balance of power in their favor. They foster what is called class warfare emphasizing the gap between the very wealthy and the lower economic spectrum. Everything is seen in terms, not of what will serve the best interests of the country but rather the best interests of their party. I am hardly what would be considered well off but in my view wealthy people need to control how money is invested in goods and services. Whenever the government tries to do it, particularly the current administration, they make a mess of things. Governments are simply incapable of making the quick changing investment decisions with the agility and aptitude of an army of bright entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are rewarded by making money and as they do everybody benefits. So what if they have mansions, yachts and a lavish life style? The money they spend to maintain it is a further source of jobs. However, the service they perform is to bring investment capital (Far in excess of their personal lavish lifestyle) into sectors of the economy that benefit most from their investments. This means jobs. Taking their wealth means the government thinks it can make better investments and the sad truth is that the government can’t. Look at how the Soviet Union wound up. Sure everybody had a job but they were crap jobs and the average person got paid a pittance and what they did get paid couldn’t buy anything. Remember those long lines when consumer goods arrived in the stores? America is changing under this administration and it is definitely for the worse. The day of reckoning is coming as we allow our deficits to go out of control. The next bail out will be the Unions who have raided their pension funds which are beginning to look like the Social Security trust fund. I am not a champion of unbridled Capitalism and the excesses it fosters, however setting up a socialist state is not the answer either. We have gone far enough with this experiment to see where it is heading. It is heading the same way socialist governments always head. The most capable eventually give up trying and striving and the power becomes vested in clumsy fools making investments like Solendra. The really frightening part is that the laws of the land are being politicized and those enforced are those that current administration uses to foster their agenda. Class Warfare will lead only to disregarding ultimately the laws that protect the disadvantaged. Militant groups that encourage members to take retribution based on miss conceptions fostered by a biased media will soon find themselves without the very safeguards that protect them from the consequences of being unproductive and insisting on something for nothing. Everybody can’t be rich and expect a living that they don’t work to earn. We need to have jobs during our productive lives and that means we can’t sit idly by doing nothing. We need rich people’s money to finance and manage those jobs. Taking money from the rich shrinks and dries up that pool of resources that can be creatively put to work in growing our economy. If you want to see slavery then let the government put everybody on the dole and see how you like that outcome. The new ruling class will be the bureaucrats controlling our lives more than they already do. See how you like that bumbling swarm of incompetents taking over everything and completely "regulating" your life. |
| Values I am reading a second book, Lone Survivor, about a friend of Kris Kyle’s who was also a Seal and became the lone survivor of a patrol in Afghanistan. It is written in a much different style than Kris’s book but it contains much new information and perspective on aspects of this Nation’s war on terror. Marcus Lutrell is also from Texas. What is it with all these Texans involved in SOF operations anyway? Actually it only reinforces my conviction that Southerners produce a disproportionate number of this nation’s best soldiers. Don’t get me wrong they come from everywhere in all shapes colors and sizes but the distribution is skewed towards the South where traditional values are still held in high esteem. In the South the average citizen still gets what America is all about. In my blog I mentioned yesterday about the change in orientation when an operator turns a model that is going away, into a bank and then gets the airplane to turn around and approach the operator from the opposite direction. For an instant the brain has to shift between “right” in the going away mode and “right” coming towards you. If your mind doesn’t make the transition you go into a really steep bank and can easily crash. I hope I didn’t confuse anyone….Probably most of my devoted readers  skip over the non-writing related parts anyway but I try and be clear in what I’m trying to say.Linda (my wife) says I ought to write a book on writing. She sees some of the things I am trying in the EWW as different from what is constantly being repeated in the litany of writing books that are constantly being published. For my part I am thinking about a book on Dieting that comes at it more from a discipline perspective than a scientific one. Then there is my fantasy Novel, Essence and the Stones idling away as I try and integrate some of the great techniques in the Game of Thrones series. Oh well, it is good for my soul to have a diversity of interests even if it keeps me from focusing exclusively on one and being successful at it. I already feel successful enough and if I never get more recognition I will have had more than my fair share. In reading these two recent books on the War on Terror I have reconnected with many of my past experiences in Vietnam that I would have preferred to forget. I see improvements in technology but I also see the same old problems and read between the lines a struggle behind doing the soldiers job in the face of all the restrictions imposed by the system that have such a debilitating effect on the moral and spirit of our fighting men and women. It’s a wonder they have any spirit, initiative and enthusiasm for what they do when mired in all the administration and red tape. When leaders fear being called into criminal court to answer for their actions, more than they fear failure to accomplish the mission, the military is heading down the wrong road. When the public’s right to know leads to the embedding of reporters and photographers from hostile media intent upon portraying our brave men and women as criminals committing atrocities this has a chilling effect on our troops overseas and begins to sap the aggressiveness that soldiers need to have. I saw this in Vietnam where there ultimately was the need to keep reassuring and explaining to soldiers the need to aggressively seek out the enemy when they were constantly barraged by the propaganda of our Socialist leaning media. This is the underlying message in these two books, written by two of our Heroes who found a way to get their message out to a public that is clueless to how bad conditions are getting. When those two intelligence officers were recently killed by a lone gunman in Afganistan... inside a high security facility in Kabul, someone unnamed should have asked what the gunman was really after instead of apologizing and attributing the motive to the burning of Korans. |
| Aftertaste, Yesterday was Easter Sunday and I got drafted to sing in the Choir. The director says I have a good voice but I think she is desperate to fill the ranks. She promised to sing a hymn I liked and I was hooked. I am glad to be focused on things other than writing. The EWW class while fun is a bit of a drain and I am trying to recharge my batter. At the same time is this diet of mine, FPDGL, which was encouraging on the scales this morning. I dropped two lbs. since yesterday. When it comes to dieting and my blog, I behave like a gambler. If you have ever listened to one you know that they always report when they win but keep mum when they don’t. You can take it to the bank that when I talk about my world famous diet it is only when the results show it is working. Sometimes I think it is an inconsistency in the scale. However, over time the scale doesn’t lie. I finished my Sniper Book and felt depressed when I did. While not as prolific a practitioner of war, my Vietnam experiences were similar to the Author’s in Iraq. The difference was that my wife thought I returned a better person than when I left. What I didn’t realize was that it was often possible for a soldier to communicate by Cell Phone with the United States and there was more contact between husbands and wives than in Vietnam. Another thing that I saw in the author was an almost sociopathic lack of feeling for the Iraqis that he killed. I must admit that same feeling at the time, but as the years have passed I develop more and more empathy for each and every one. What I did as a soldier was necessary and I have no shame but I do feel a more personal sense of regret now than when it was happening. One of the things he expressed was that there is often an element of humor in the most ghastly of events evidences itself. Talk about gallows humor, soldiers find a way to laugh and vent over some pretty terrible events that in retrospect were no laughing matter. It is almost as if in war we descend a few rungs down Maslow’s scale and the brutality that would shock detached viewers has a different effect on combatants than viewers of the evening news. I played some more on my model airplane simulator. I flew a B-17 Bomber and a Spitfire. My proficiency is going up and my landings are becoming less and less of an embarrassment. My biggest problem is that my vision is not as good and my coordination, which was never exceptional, has not improved with age. I lose orientation on the airplane which would not happen if I was in the cockpit. From a bystander POV the control functions on banking reverse themselves and you have to force your mind to stay behind the stick until your brain makes the adjustment. I am not sure how this relates to writing except to say that an author needs to stay in the heads of the characters while writing and stay out of his/her own husk. |
| Oops, missed a blog I missed writing my blog yesterday. Things were hectic and when I might have done it, I found myself drawn to my new flight simulator like a moth to the flame. I have always liked first person shooter video games like Half Life and a host of others and try and make time once a week to play one. This flight simulator is like one of those games except you are challenged to take off and land a Radio Controlled airplane model without crashing. It is the most exciting game/simulation I have ever played. This morning Mark and I cut a truck load of wood. I cut down the trees and cut them to 8 foot length. Mark has a grapple on his Bobcat and takes them and puts them in the truck. Then we dump the load on his property for phase 2 of the wood splitting process. After about 1 gas cycle on my big Stiel chainsaw I am pooped. Age is catching up on me. For lunch we had hamburgers and turkey/ham sandwiches. The bread was so fresh and the crust was burnt black. I love the Westfield bread and there were those thin sliced dill pickles, tomatoes and lettuce. I was really hungry with my current diet and was ravenous. We discussed how we were going to build our Firewood Processor. We will sink some telephone poles in the ground and make a slightly graded ramp onto which we will put the 8 foot logs. At the bottom will be a heavy duty roller. When the log gets to the roller it will be pushed against a stop and blocked to length. The block will then be lifted by my fandango splitter hydraulic lift up onto the beam and pushed through a 4/6 way wedge onto a finishing table. From the table the pieces will go onto an old farm conveyor and into the bed of the truck for deliver to ultimate destination. By doing a little every Saturday we hope to have the winter supply laid in without having to crash the last week of November. I am reading a book called American Sniper, an autobiography of Navy Seal Chris Kyle, reputed to be the most lethal sniper in US Military History. He is from Texas and while I am just getting into it, it is another one of those subjects that I am interested in. I have several precision shooting rifles and fire them frequently on the range I have on the farm. I also reload my own ammunition. Since I have been retired for over 15 years I have not kept pace with some of the developments in the military’s Sniper programs. He is recorded to have made a kill at 2100 yards. Think about that….at a range of 21 football fields he hit and killed an enemy combatant. Most deer are shot at ranges under 100 yards. If you think business is slow at the malls go to Gander Mountain. To get waited on in the gun department you take a number and wait an hour. One gun shop owner interviewed recently says the reason is people are getting scared and don’t see the police as being effective in the event of a home break-in and are taking measures to protect themselves. This Trevon Williams (Is that his last name?) story, appears to have been miss-reported initially and the lengths to which black militant groups and a well-known personality have gone to incite retribution against the alleged perpetrator is worrisome. Neighborhood activdst organizations are started for a reason. I hope all this class warfare hype isn’t leading in a direction that is in nobody’s best interests. |
| RC Flying on a Simulator Sometimes we do something smart and when this happens, (In my case not very often) a little celebration is in order. When I decided to learn to RC fly I decided to do it in three phases. Phase 1 was a simulator you load on your PC. The software comes with a controller, a box with two small joy sticks in it. These attach to functions of the model airplane, making it go up and down and left and right and controlling the engine speed. Phase 2 will be learning to fly the model in a conventional mode (as a bystander) and Phase 3 will be learning to fly it in the first person pilot mode. So yesterday I bought the simulator software and control box. Both were in the same box. This same controler I can use with the model I ordered for the actual flight training that will begin in phase 2. The camera equipment for Phase 3 I am in no hurry to order right now. I took my Toshiba laptop to the hobby shop and naturally the software didn’t want to load. However, I got to see the owner dealing with the service technician who spent about half an hour over the phone. I came home and loaded it on my old Compac laptop and it was accepted without a hitch. The software allows you to pick the type airplane you intend to fly and mine is little more than a motorized glider. Still, having never flown RC before, I anticipated a learning curve. By the end of last night I could launch and glide the model in to a smooth landing. In the process I crashed a couple of times, however that is not an expensive issue on a computer simulation which is like a video game that kids play all the time. When I finished I tried flying the gas engine models that had more control functions and these were heavy, fast and unforgiving. I crashed numerous times and never really did get the hang of it. However, the disasters became less severe as the evening progressed. I have no doubt that if I had gone to a real flight school I would have had some serious problems. My brain needs time to digest things and the process can take many months before things become instinctive and I understand intuitively at the subconscious level how complex processes work. Nowhere is this more evident than in my writing where I am trying to learn novel writing and the importance of integrating several functions concurrently rather than one predominate one. For example I see Play Writing as analogous to flying a glider and Novel Writing as more like learning to fly a multifunction gasoline powered model. The stage/screen and actors help the dramatist, however the novelist needs create the stage/screen in words that animate the imagination without the assistance of the physical senses to help out. They are different arts that have many similarities but also much at issue. Going from a playwriting focus to a novel is amazingly similar to what I am experiencing in my new hobby. |
| Art in a Pile of Wood Well the National Primaries are over in Wisconsin. That went pretty smooth. Next will be the Recall Election. The first phase is a primary for the Democrats who want the job in the event Scott Walker loses. Then will be another vote to run the current Governor against the Democrat who wins. There is a great deal of emotion surrounding this upcoming election. I got home in time to see “Justified.” That series is worth watching because as a writer you get to see some really evil antagonists. I need to work on my antagonist writing. I don’t feel the “rush” of conversion still taking place and hope I haven’t slipped out of the fat burning mode. This morning my weight was unchanged. Then there were snacks some of workers and staff brought to the polling place yesterday. Outside the weather is sunny and spring is definitely in the air. There were news reports that down in Texas there were tornadoes and heavy rains. I hope Karen is OK. The snow is gone and I suspect the farmers will be putting in the potatoes soon. Went by TNT Auto and they have the floor in on my 1940 Ford Sedan. It won’t be long before it should be functioning. There will remain a lot of work but the end is in sight. I am toying with an idea of using it in the next EWW class as my shadow writing project. The story is that a Grandfather bought it in the 40s and gave it to his son who raced it. When grandson came back from Vietnam he made it into a street rod and parked it in a shed. There it sat for forty years until great grandson, returning from Iraq, inquired about it. Anyway the car will be the thread that ties the family’s story together from generation to generation. This car will not be a figment but actually exist. How cool is that? My tractor is leaking hydraulic oil and I need to get underneath and find out where the leak is. Yesterday morning I used it to pick up the wood I was blocking and move it to the splitter. Then Linda and I can split and stack a little each day. It is a project we do together and she is learning “Stacking Technique.” I am not a good wood stacker and if you ever see a split wood pile stacked by a purist you would understand what I mean. Mine look pretty shoddy compared with the way my neighbor’s piles look. They are works of art. It amazes me to see art expressed in the most unexpected of ways out here in the “Sticks.” |
| Birds and Bad Weather Did you ever wonder what it was like to soar like a bird and see the world around you from an overhead Point of View (POV?) I remember flying in an airplane for the first time and the wonder of seeing the panorama sweeping below and feeling awed. However, I'm not particularly fond of heights and have no desire to be physically up there… Only see the view, like going to visit the Grand Canyon or the Badlands. Yesterday I saw the hawks circling and riding the wind currents and I had a definite urge to see the world from their POV. I would like to be able to fly quietly around and see the bluffs around my farm and the deer grazing in the evening. It is possible to do that with the Radio Controlled Technology that has been developed. I will be getting a model glider with a camera in the nose and get to do that soon. For now, I watch the Front Person View (FPV) videos on U-Tube and it is entertaining. Search rc plane fpv and you can see what I’m talking about. For today,, I have to get myself psyched up to do the voting thing. I’ll be on duty from noon until closing, which will be eight O’clock. Then another hour to tabulate the results and get the paperwork completed to submit the Township results to the County. I have an intermediately sized farm tractor with a large bucket on the front. Yesterday I started cutting up a big Oak that had fallen on my neighbors land and blocked his trail. He asked me to clear it and gave me the wood. Anyway, I was cutting it up yesterday and rolling the chunks into the bucket and transporting them to my fandango splitter. Then I split them and last night after a light snack (A hotdog) Linda and I went out and stacked the results. This morning my diet showed the loss of another pound. This one meal a day diet is working for me. It isn’t really one meal but means a light breakfast, main meal at about 3 O’clock and a snack in the evening. It is a low carb diet but I still eat bread and other starches in moderation. I have cut back to one Pepsi a day. Also I take a round pink wafer called Prebiotic Fiber, carried under the name Fiber Choice and for the first time in years that function has become regular and consistent. (This might sound like a bunch of “Crap” but poop is more important that most people realize. )I was awakened this morning by lightning and thunder. Our Lab really gets tense and was pacing around the bedroom and we put her “Flak Jacket” on. Linda saw it advertised on TV and ordered one. It seems to help with Chloe’s anxiety and she retreated behind the bathtub and went into hiding. |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
