False Gravity › Entertaining Facts and/or Fictions
Skip to content

Orange Juice

Friday, April 18, 2008

One last update before I start wondering aloud why I’m not in bed already.

I’ve spoken about my Orange Juice Principle a number of times in a number of formats, but never at the length and with the precision I managed for my Smile and Nod column over at The Escapist this week.

The Orange Juice Principle is based on a time when I wanted a glass of orange juice, the simplest thing in the world, but was prevented from initially having it through a comedy of errors - all preventable - that took almost an hour to overcome. An operation of a few seconds - pouring a glass of orange juice - exploded to almost an hour.

From that single experience was born my passion for process control and project management, and my five year career as a production manager in professional theater. Give it a read if you’ve ever wondered how you can make complex things seem less so. Because, basically, nothing is really ever complex. No one, single thing, anyway. All complex problems, at their core, are built of individual, simple, obstacles.

Anyway, in the mad, chaotic cluster fuck that’s been my life for the past six - eight months, I somehow managed to forget about the Orange Juice Principle, and last weekend, when all I wanted to do was drive to the coast and buy a boat, it came back to bite me in the ass. I love being humbled by my own humanity. No, really, I do. That’s not sarcasm. I love it. Without moments like those, I’d probably have nothing interesting to write about. I mean, it sucks at the time, but now, after the fact, we can sit here and laugh and laugh.

Oh, that time I wanted to buy a boat but instead spent the afternoon at the DMV, hahahaha! Sigh.

Filed in Life, Werk | | Comments (3)

April Running

Friday, April 18, 2008

I hit the 100 mile mark with Nike+ two weeks ago. That was thrilling. I’d been running for a few months before picking up the Nike+ system, so my actual mileage total is somewhat higher, but there’s something inherently cool about having evidence of that sort of thing.

I wrote about this in The Escapist last week, in my feature article, “Master Chief in Sneakers.” The gist being there’s an art to making life as interesting and fun as playing a game, and Nike has mastered it. If you run, and wish running were more fun, you should give it a read.

Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong has been talking to me a lot lately. I’ve beaten my personal best for the mile three of the last four times I’ve gone out. Perhaps it’s the warming weather, or perhaps I’m just feeling the need to push a lot more lately, but whatever it is, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I’m clocking a mile at just under 8 minutes lately. I think going for 7 is a real possibility.

I am a bit frustrated with the Nike+ right now though. I may have to recalibrate it. I paced out a course running about 2.8 miles a while back, and the Nike+ keeps clocking it shorter and shorter. I may have to recalibrate it, which is a pain in the ass. This makes me distrust all of the data it gives me, which is even more of a pain in the ass. Especially if it means my recent gains are just ghosts in the machine.

There’s no denying the physical effect of all this running though. I’d bought a couple pairs of new jeans in the fall, because my old ones didn’t fit anymore. I was up to a size 36 for a few months before I started running. I had to buy 34s again in February, now those are too loose. I don’t think I’ve worn a size 32 jean since high school. Shirts I had to give up wearing last year are suddenly too small, and I’m actually starting to feel fit. It’s hard to describe, but almost everything seems more possible now, more manageable. It’s as if, having reclaimed my body, there isn’t anything it and I can’t conceive of accomplishing.

The trick now is not getting complacent. I’m treating myself to meals out and the occasional wine binge here and there. But certain foods and beverages are still just plain out. Perhaps for good. Ice cream, for example, and Five Guys Burgers and Fries, Vishnu help me. I’m hoping I’ve reached a point of balance where I can occasionally enjoy some of the things I used to enjoy too much, but my ultimate goal is just to never get so out of shape again that I can’t wear my own clothes.

I was a fat kid, and I’ve had a few run ins with weight trouble in my adult years, but I still just don’t get people who put on an extra hundred or two pounds before deciding to do anything about it. Over a two year period, I backslid a whole jean size and it upset me so much I’ve been doing all, of this. I don’t think it’s remarkable, what I’ve done, I just decided to do it. Perhaps that’s the remarkable part. I don’t know. I wish we lived in a world where that sort of thing was commonplace, that kind of determination to pursue self worth was integral to all of our beings. I know it isn’t, and that is the saddest thought I’ve had all week.


[?]


Filed in Life, Running | | Comments (0)

I Have a Crack In My Finger

Friday, April 18, 2008

I’m sorry but it seems I, along with you, am doomed to suffer only twice monthly updates to this blog. I promise to do better, and yet I fail. So many analogies, so little time …

My excuse this month is one of those annoying cracks on my finger. My right hand typing finger, to be precise. My dirty secret: I’ve never learned to type properly. Instead of caressing meaning from a variety of finger presses, silently coaxing words from the QWERTY keyboard, like my colleagues, I pound them out like Beethoven at a piano, but using fewer fingers, and making a less pleasing sound.

Bystanders frequently ask why I hit the keys so hard. I have no answer, save I learned (and I use the term loosley) to type on an old Underwood typewriter. Although I never mastered the art of five finger typing, I did get the science of pressing letters out of ancient typewriter ribbons down pat. BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, KA-CHING! ZZZZZZZZZZZT. BAM. As much as I now love word processing and electronic storage, I do miss that Underwood. We had some good times.

My problem now, however, is it’s been oddly cold, and I’ve been working with my hands, refinishing an old mirror I found in the trash several months ago. The work is easy, and relaxing, but hard on the fingers. Seeing as it’s been two years since I worked with wood, they’ve become unused to rough treatment. This pains me more than i can say, in a few different ways, but there’s nothing for it but to keep at it. The fingers will adjust.

Yet the cold and the sandpaper, sawdust and solvents have combined to erode the integrity of a ti ny bit of skin near the nail bed of my right hand middle finger, the one I usually lean on for pecking at most of the letters to the right of Y. Where there used to be a large chunk of semi-hard pink skin, there’s now a giant crack, like the Grand Canyon in micro scale. I can see deep red, and there’s occasionally blood and it hurts like hell.

This is not a new phenomenon. When I was working with wood full time, I endured these fissures pretty frequently, especially in cold weather months. The difference then, however, was I wasn’t typing (again, loose definitions, please) 10,000+ words a week. As much as I’m enjoying tinkering in my workshop (Oh yeah, I have a workshop now. I rented a garage nearby and have been outfitting it with the tools of my former trade. I’m hoping to use it regularly enough to justify its existence. Today refinishing a mirror, tomorrow, perhaps building a chair.), the meeting of my two separate worlds is creating at least this problem.

I can still type, but damn, it hurts. And avoiding that one finger, my main finger, my Beethoven finger, makes the hands work even more s,lowly than my mind, which is incredibly frustrating. I say again: will someone please introduce the mind-to-page interface. Seriously. It can’t come soon enough.


[?]


Filed in Life, Running, Stuph | | Comments (2)

Still Running, Etc.

Monday, March 31, 2008

I’m still running, by the way. I took another break while I was in Jamaica, but was pleased to discover I hadn’t lost too much ground when I got back. Last week I took it easy, but the two runs I got in were good ones, and my pace is now pretty reliably under nine minutes for a mile.

I’m not sure if I’ll try for a marathon or anything of the sort, at least not for a while. I think right now I’m in a good spot where I’m getting plenty of exercise, feel great and can still carry on with the mainly sedentary pursuits with which I’ve previously filled my time. I’m afraid if I kick up the running any more I may have to forgo things like sitting on my ass watching TV and playing games.

Some may say this is backsliding, and perhaps it is. But I’ve never believed I’d suddenly becomes star athlete by running a few miles a day. Really, I just wanted to fit into smaller pants. As far as that goes, mission accomplished. I’m now back in th4e size I used to wear when I was working outdoors all day in the summer. And they fit loosely.

I’ve pasted the Nike+ widget into the sidebar of the site. You can see it on the front page. It doesn’t really fit there so some day when I feel like screwing with the CSS, I’ll wedge it in a bit more securely. But for now you can use it to track my continued progress toward being an actual fit person. If I get in a run this evening, I’ll have topped 100 miles since I started using the iPod to keep track of my runs, back in December.

You may have also noticed there are now ads on this blog. I’m not seriously expecting to make any kind of money with them, nor do I need to at the moment, but it is a fun experiment. If anybody reading this is seriously annoyed by them, please let me know. I generally don’t notice them, except for when they’re all about dog collars and stuff, and then I just laugh.


[?]


Filed in Announcements, Dogs, Running | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

I Ate the Conch

Monday, March 31, 2008

There’s one thing I forgot to mention about Jamaica the other day: I ate conch.

You know, that shell you hold up to your ear and it sounds like the ocean? There’s a creature that lives in those before they get washed up on the beach. I’ve never seen one, but I assure you they exist. Apparently, they’re a minor delicacy in some parts of the world, including Jamaica.

The meat tastes kind of like calamari, but slightly meatier. I ate it fried, served with a creamy Hollandaise-like sauce and plantains with a dry, fruity chardonnay. It was the best meal I had on the island, and one of the better I’ve had anywhere.

I knocked the resort for it’s mediocre food, but the conch was divine. Perhaps by comparison, but still, divine. Plus I was thinking of The Lord of the Flies the whole time. Piggy has the conch? Oh no, sir. I do, and it’s delicious.


[?]


Filed in Food, Life, Stuph | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Home is Not Jamaica

Saturday, March 29, 2008

The best part about life before blogs was that awesome feeling of not knowing how quickly the days passed. You didn’t feel it at the time, but, like when you break an arm, you value it more when you don’t have it.

I see from the sorry state of this blog that about two weeks have passed since I last wrote something pithy about my life experiences. (Perhaps longer, if you’re a critic.) Feels like only a day or two, although the events crammed into those days were monumental.

For starters, I’ve been back from Jamaica for less than a week. In fact, one week ago today, I was sitting on a tropical beach, reading a book and drinking rum mixed with coconut juice mixed with pineapple. The weather was a perfect 80 degrees, the sun was shining and people in white uniforms kept bringing me things (food, towels, drinks). It was, all things considered, as close to the perfect state of existence as I can imagine. Being home, the one place I normally long for above all others, sucks by comparison.

Getting home was worse. Someone decided Miami needed a few tornadoes last Sunday, as we were flying in, so we got a bit delayed, which caused us to miss our connection. The next flight to Raleigh wasn’t for another 24 hours. This is where traveling for work comes in handy. As we were waiting in line at the service desk I was on the phone with the airline’s customer service people.

If you have a frequent flyer number, which I did, you can get faster service. By the time we made it to the front of the line, almost two hours later, we were already booked on a flight to Charlotte, leaving in about a half hour, with a connection early the next morning to Raleigh (which we ended up not using). All I needed from the folks at the desk was to print me a ticket, and we were on our way.

The guy behind us? Screwed. He wanted the Charlotte flight, too, but he didn’t get it. He was a swell guy who had a lot to say the two hours we were standing n ext to each other inn line. He wanted to know everything about everybody. I imagine he’s the life of whatever parties he attends. Looking back though, I bet he wished he’d spent more time on the phone.

We got into Charlotte at around midnight, rented a car and a room and drove home the next morning. The flight was stupid early and we decided we needed the sleep more than the money. It was also nice to finally be back in control of our destinies. Since we’d stepped into the airport Thursday we’d been flown, driven and handheld wherever we went. I enjoy being pampered, but sometimes you just have to get in the car and drive. The two hour trip up from Charlotte was just the cure for travel jangled nerves. And, while not as exciting as the bus ride from Montego Bay to the resort, whizzing by gigantic sugar trucks at breakneck speeds, the shoulder of the road a tiny slip of dirt separating pavement from the edge of a cliff, plunging into deep jungle, it was quite enjoyable.

(Continued)


[?]


Filed in Life, Stuph | | Comments (1)

The Last Piece of Bacon

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Part two of my next story Four Times is up. It’s called “The Last Piece of Bacon,” and it’s about the time I stood up to my father, and, in the process, became just like him. It also involves guns. Just like everything else in Texas.


[?]


Filed in Life, Werk | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Invincible Snake

Sunday, March 9, 2008

I started writing a series of stories about my father a while back. I’ve been hemming and hawing over what to do with them for a while. I briefly considered shopping them around to get them published somewhere - and still may do that - but I’d really just rather people be able to read them for now. So I’m putting them back up here.

The first, “Invincible Snake,” the story of how I almost shot my brother in the head, is back up in its entirety. You can read it here.


[?]


Filed in Announcements, Werk | | Comments (0)

Winter Will Not End

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Perhaps I’m simply looking at this from a perspective of having had the most miserable winter I can recall, but now, looking at the tail end of it (hopefully), I sincerely can’t fucking wait for the damn sun to come back.

The Daylight Savings shift of last night is a blessing. I’ve grown weary of seeing darkness out the windows, and have long waited for the day when I can take in a run after work and not trip over cracks in the pavement. I also just plain can’t wait to be warm again.

I hear they’re having one of the longest, coldest, snowiest winters on record in New England, and I wish I could say I’m glad I’m not there for it, but this crap here in North Carolina is almost as bad. Granted, we’re not getting buried in snow, but the oppressive, unpredictable cold without the snow is like a shit cake without any icing. Waking up to find the world has been blanketed in white is one of my favorite parts of winter. Not sure I’ll ever see that again. Thinking I’d moved to a genuine warm climate was a pleasant consolation. Now who’s being naive, Kay?

In any case, winter decided to give us a quick battering on its way out the door this weekend. Nearly froze my ass off walking the dog. I remember sitting on the veranda, drinking mojitos. Seems like a lifetime ago.

(Continued)


[?]


Filed in Life, Stuph | | Comments (0)

Eagle Semen and Vampire Strippers

Saturday, March 1, 2008

It’s genuinely hard to believe I’ve let half a month go by without posting to this blog. All the more so because I know I spent the better part of those two weeks writing.

Last week I was in San Francisco covering GDC for The Escapist. All told, my contributions to our coverage of that show totaled about 20,000 words. Which is approximately half the amount of content contained in a reputable print magazine (or all of a game magazine). Two weeks before that I was in Las Vegas covering the D.I.C.E. Summit, again for The Escapist (another 10,000), wrote an Editor’s Note for The Escapist’s Issue 136 and a feature article for the space issue My Own Private Outer Space, for which I owe the inadvertent loan of the title to Pat Miller, who wrote a completely different, yet similarly titled article for our last space issue. (Sorry, Pat. Sometimes a good idea is just too good.) So, although it isn’t reflected here, February was a busy month for me.

D.I.C.E. and GDC were both a lot of fun. I hate to travel, but love traveling, if that makes any sense. There’s something deeply satisfying about being on the road, living out of a bag or two, having your sphere of control limited to just the few square feet of your hotel room, or the handful of items you’re carrying non your person. Notebook, pen, laptop, ID badge. Done. Everything else is just flotsam. This lifestyle appeals to a control freak like me. But dragging myself out of the comfortable confines of my expanded daily existence is painful, like pulling a tooth. And I usually spend the first day or so of a trip wishing I were alternately dead or at home. Which, from the perspective of a writer who lives and dies on the strength of his experiences, amounts to the same thing.

The few days I spent in Vegas weren’t spent in Vegas proper, rather in the Red Rock Casino and Spa, which I highly recommend for it’s luxurious appointments, excellent workout room and mind-blowing scenery. But it’s not the Vegas you think of when you hear “Vegas.” That Vegas is about 30 minutes away. So my “Vegas” trip was mostly business.

Susan and I did venture to the strip Friday night to get our Vegas on. We started out at Red Rock with dinner at the Salt Lick, which purports to be a smokehouse barbecue joint just like the Salt Lick outside of Austin, Texas, but is really a sham perpetuated by money-grubbing assholes. If you’ve ever been to the actual Salt Lick, I’d recommend avoiding this place. It will only depress you. I speak from experience. After the fake barbecue we played a few rounds of Deal or No Deal at the arcade and headed to Stratosphere to catch “Bite,” the vampire stripper show.

(Continued)


[?]


Filed in Life, TechTV, Werk | | Comments (2)