Saturday, June 30, 2007

Connections

Let's talk connections. Not self-serving business connections nor lecherous backpage 'missed connections,' bur rather genuine, benign human connections.

My illustrious daughter made a friend at theater class recently. And as most parents can relate, this situation typically necessitates some sort of friendly interaction with the other kid's parents. These are often superficial, but tolerated for the sake of the kids. But sometimes, there is the potential for more.

Neither my wife nor I are very good at maintaining close friendships, and I am considerably worse than her. I have only one good friend from my youth that I interact with regularly, and it's usually him that reaches out after periods incommunicado.

Part of the reason, I suppose, is that I can be rather selfish with my time and energy. Friendships are relationships, and relationships require time and effort. I do realize the importance of friendships, they satisfy a basic need of our spirit.. a need to connect and relate. I do have that need, like anybody else, and I've deprived that need for too long.

In this project, I will make a true effort to reconnect with family and friends, and to nurture any new connections I may encounter.

This couple we met, the parents of my daughter's new friend, seemed kindred in a way. The potential for a real connection is there, I should make a true effort, to give it a chance.

Dead Links on AG Chronicles

I hate dial-up!!! I'm traveling intrastate a bit now, in the midst of launching this project and website. At home I have high speed Internet, but not at my secondary location. Only dial-up. It's maddening!!! I curse dial-up for being so slow, but I also curse web technology for hogging so much damn bandwith.

In the infancy of computer tele-communications, as in the infancy of PC computing, I think programmers were simply forced to be frugal... and we all benefited. Bill Gates is quoted as having said something like, "640K of memory should be enough for anybody." Gates denies saying it, but you get the gist. This allegedly from the guy who founded the company notorious for memory and processor-creep.

My first modem was 2400 baud. I ran a BBS (Bulletin Board System... the predecessor of websites for you young 'uns) on this 2400 baud modem. I had callers dialing in at 300 baud. And we took care of business. We had our discussion groups, email, file transfers, and even online games, all hosted on an MS-DOS computer over a 2400 baud connection. Granted, my BBS had only color ASCII graphics, but it did the job.

NOW, I can't even update my freakin' website because the web FTP interface from my hosting service takes 10 minutes to load over a 56K connection, and it freezes up 90% of the time. My ftp client's build expired and I need to download a 3MB update, but that download corrupts for some reason, so I can't use that either. And though I do have internet service via Alltel for my smartphone, Alltel offers only 1x(slow...) and not EVDO(fast!!!) in my area.

So all this ranting just to let you know that I do realize all the 'page' links on the site are inoperable, and that I am working on the content, but it'll take some time before I can upload the content. I did finally order DSL for my secondary location, because dial-up is infuriating and often useless, but it'll be a week before they switch it on. So, hang tight!

Body of David

I can't move my arms today, not even to scratch my nose. It is because I took a step in the right direction. I went to the gym yesterday. A friend of mine has proved to be a dedicated gym rat, and so I hope that by association, I become one too. It's not so much my desire to be a gym rat, but rather to reap the benefits of being one.

I'll take some 'before' pictures soon and post them on the Body Page of my site and I'll describe my regimen, goals, progress, and what-not. I better set a deadline... I'll say by Friday, July 6th b/c I need some time to get with a trainer and come up with a regimen.

The true reason for making 'body' one of my main life categories is to ensure good health and good energy, so that I can tend to the other things in my life. To be honest, however, my reason for working out at the gym, as opposed to simply walking/hiking/staying active, is vanity. I want to have a nice body. I want to look good. I want to have strong legs and arms, a bulging chest, and cut abs. Are there health benefits to this? Probably not.

I was talking to my gym-rat friend about an unrelated subject, body hair. I was deliberating waxing my, um, nether regions, for the purpose of vanity, of course. She could not fathom it. "It's not natural," she said. Either is her shaving her legs and pits, I retorted. "But that's our culture," she concluded. And I guess she's right. Her statement migrates readily from body hair to body image. The reason I want to have this great body is because of the cultural connotations. A fit, if not muscular, body, connotes health, virility, and sexual desirability. I want that!

So, anyway, I've set the stage for working out, which is very good. I just need to throw in cardio, which I hate. But vanity to the rescue, here. My friend says ab exercises are not enough to get rid of my gut, that I need cardio. So there's my motivation. My heart will thank me, I suppose. I also need to throw in a good diet, but that must come later, for now my sausage McMuffin with egg and side of hasbrowns await.

And, if you must know, the consensus seems to be 'skip the waxing,' though I must insist on an occasional trim. I hope my barber concurs.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Introducing AG Musings

After posting this last dream journal, I realized that I couldn't post my writings to this blog, the entries would be too long and not of general interest. I created a blog called AG Musings with a url of agmuse.blogspot.com There is also a link in the sidebar here. Check it out if you're interested in my writings.

Strangest dream

I was working in downtown Santa Fe, but it looked different than it actually does. It was bigger, more open spaces, more modern. It was around Fiesta de Santa Fe time. In fact, the Zozobra burning was supposed to be that evening. It was a Friday. What the heck is Zozobra, you ask? Click here to find out: http://www.zozobra.com/

The dream was erratic, as I suppose dreams usually are. There isn't a good chronology to it. Anyway, at one point I met with a friend, a girl who I once knew, I'll call her 'R'. We approached a pickup truck that appeared to have been a police salvage vehicle. It was an odd truck, for the bed was long, much longer than a normal truck. It had no tires, but it had tire wells for an additional pair of wheels behind the typical rear axle. The cab was open and my friend climbed in. She found a large piece of bloody duct tape with the impression of a human ear in it, as if the tape had once, indeed, held someone's bloody ear to their head. At that moment, a plainclothes cop of some kind showed up with a Doberman pincher. He started to show off his dog's obedience and attack abilities by siccing the dog on me, but not letting the dog bite me. I think the dog did start to bite me once, but it stopped. This went on for what appeared to be several minutes while my friend stayed in the truck admiring the tape. Apparently she knew who that ear impression belonged to. A guy who was a cop, and that we both knew. And I think he actually lost his ear.

Next thing I know the cop and the dog are gone and in my dream-mind there is playing an audio newsreel explaining that this cop (the one with the dog) was officer Johnson and he had solved some mysterious crime. I was surprised that someone with such a sick sense of humor as to sic his police dog on innocent people would accomplish such a feat. Around the time the audio news reel is playing, I find myself circling a mobile home with an odd roof. The roof being made of a blue, odd, rubbery material, not unlike what tracks (as in track & field) are made of. This mobile home and roof material is somehow linked to crime in question, but I'm not sure how.

My aunt 'C' showed up. She wanted a couple things, I don't remember the first. The second was that she wanted us to drive up to Zozobra in a tractor. Don't know why. We didn't, we drove up in a truck. 'We' being people of undisclosed identity. My friend R might have been in there, but I'm not sure. We got stopped at the admissions gate and I got out for some reason and didn't continue on the journey.

My cousin, B, made it into the dream, but he was just saying he didn't want to go to Fiestas.

At one point I was in a hotel or dormitory of some kind. Something meaningful happened in the building but I don't remember what.

Then there was a flashback to some kind of war, maybe WWII. I pictured a John Wayne movie poster with John Wayne as a soldier. He had green olive green fatigues and helmet. He was all dirty and had very yellow, rotting teeth, apparently from being in the war trenches forever, smoking and unable to tend to oral hygiene. I don't remember ever seeing a real John Wayne movie poster like that, but perhaps I have. I saw some part of some battle occurring. The battle was realistic at first, but it quickly degenerated into a scene from a video game. But it wasn't even something from Medal of Honor, the warriors appeared to be naked, short-haired trolls. Apparently they couldn't escape the army barber. For the under 30 crowd, here's a picture of the trolls I'm talking about. So yeah, these cropped haired trolls were spewing forth from their rainbow colored APC's and battling out with an unknown enemy. That dream sequence didn't last long, thankfully.

Finally, I found myself on the roof of the aforementioned hotel/dorm. It was a vast roofscape. I think the previous war dream sequence was meant to intro me to a character in my dream. I think this guy is old today, but he was a wee lad during the troll-war. So in world war fashion, this roofscape was strife with poverty and dirty children in tattered clothes. These children (and adults) were trying to climb their way up this very steep metal roof, pockmarked with obstacles such as boulders. Children were regularly falling and would come tumbling down this roof and would fall into the abyss.

So anyway, I was sorta hovering next to this kid that I would apparently meet in modern times. I followed his progress to the top, encouraging him all the way. Several times he wanted to just let go and fall along with his countrymen, but he made it.

So yes, last night I had the strangest dream... what does this mean? Dunno, just thought I'd share.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Statistics, I need help!

So I took a course or two in stats while in college. I always found mathematics fascinating, but I never really believed it would be useful. Sure, while working in a research lab, but in the outside world?

Well, I have a need now. How do I derive meaningful stats about this project? I layed out some metrics in the metrics pages, but how do I analyze the results? I'm not entirely sure. So I used the only statistic that I can readily pull out of my head: average.

I will rate my progress daily in each of the 5 life categories on a scale of 1 to 5. I assigned two definitions to each number, a subjective one and an objective one, so that I have some flexibility in rating the day.

My goal is a daily average of 4 across the board.

I need some help here with spreadsheets. I'm too tired right now to describe what I'm trying to do, but if you are really good at spreadsheet formulas, email me so we can chat.

What profit is there in this?

Public accountability is one of the premises on which this project is based. For this to work, I need to be incredibly honest. Being honest with you, the reader, compels me to be honest with myself. However, this slope is wrought with repercussions of an unknown degree, namely that I don't know if and what I write will be held against me in the future.

Will family and friends scorn me if I speak of a subject they find unsavory? Will business associates discriminate against me for what they might perceive as a character flaw?

How much will honesty hurt me? What if I reveal I've committed larceny, but wasn't caught? What if I mention an interest in necrophilia? What if mention an affair I had with another man? These are not facts in my life, but what of similarly controversial revelations? Is honesty worth whatever cost it incurs?

I'll probably use this test: What profit is there in this? Of course, by 'profit' I refer not to monetary gain, but to a net benefit of some kind. Honesty fundamentalists might argue that omission of fact is dishonesty. I don't agree. Thus unless someone can convince me otherwise I'll continue this way. Besides do you really want to know all my deep dark secrets just for sake of knowing? There are some juicy ones...

fiscal phobia

I have a condition (one of many, I might add). A quick google search validated it. Now I need to find a support group. I have 'financial phobia' aka 'fiscal phobia.' For some reason, most of the engine hits are from the UK, but none-the-less, it's real and I have it. Financial phobia is:
... a psycho-social syndrome which causes individuals to avoid cognitive engagement with the management of their personal finances. Sufferers experience negative emotions of anxiety, guilt, boredom, or feelings of lack of control when dealing with money matters, resulting in lack of vigilance – and in the worst cases complete avoidance – in this area. (Dr. Brendan Burchell, link below)

I NEED HELP! Seriously. I have months of unreconciled bank statements. My bills are often late, paid only by the grace of a last minute, anxiety ridden, flurry of online bill paying. In exploring bookkeeping options for my small business(es), I spoke with a few bookkeepers, and they seem averse to handling what appears to them insignificant matters such as reconciliation, budgeting, and bill pay. They seem to believe these are such ludicrously simple tasks that the business owner or an employee of the company is much better suited to carry them out rather than an outsourced bookkeeping service. With noses raised high about such tasks in business, I'm loathe to broach the subject regarding my personal finances.

So, anybody have any suggestions? Anybody in the 505 interested in doing my personal finances for a pittance?

I must go now, I think I saw a couple disconnect notices in the mail I have to go hide under the 32 bank statements piled in a box under my desk.


http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-fin1.htm
http://new.egg.com/com.egg/images/PDF/FinancialPhobia.pdf