Someone’s Personal Time Capsule

You know, once upon a time, I was going to have a blog dedicated completely to found bookmarks, the things I have found in books that marked previous reader’s places in books they apparently never completed. Of course, once I got the notion and started writing rather long-form posts researching the things, I stopped finding interesting things in books. At some point, I think I imported the posts from that blog into this one, and the Found Bookmarks category here before today only numbered three items. Hard to make a living as a blogger with a bunch of obscure blogs when you can’t frequently update them.

I seem to go through spurts of it; I read a lot of books that do not have someone else’s place markers in them, and then suddenly I have stuff falling out of all sorts of books. The type of book I read probably determines this a bit–I don’t find a lot of found bookmarks in Executioner or short paperbacks, art monographs, collections of poetry, or nice editions of Great Literature. Readers probably finish genre fiction, and they either don’t pick up the others to read or finish them. Some books, like nonfiction, probably get abandoned more than others. The source of the book probably also matters: I think the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library goes through the books for personal effects before they mark them, and book stores might, too, so my best source for found bookmarks is probably garage sales and maybe church or more amateur book sales–neither of which I have been haunting recently.

But I recently picked up Abridged Treasury of Prayers, a collection of prayers published by Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis. I knew it had some things tucked in the front cover (meaning what I found was not, technically, a bookmark). To be honest, I am not sure where I got the book–I thought I inherited it, but maybe not.

What I found WILL SHOCK YOU! CLICK HERE FOR MORE: Continue reading “Someone’s Personal Time Capsule”

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Wherein Brian J. Defibs His Submission Records

Gentle reader, I have wanted to be a real writer for a long, long time. When I first started keeping track of submissions, I used notebooks to track which stories, essays, or poems (later novels and plays) I sent and to which publishers along with the date I sent them. I can remember the powder blue cover on the notebook where I entered my first few lines in the middle 1980s, when I precociously started sending my middle school and high school work to major national magazines (and began amassing a vast collection of rejection letters).

I started a second notebook, briefly, in December of 1995 (depicted above). I’m not sure if I misplaced my original notebook or if I filled it up; I haven’t laid my hands on it this morning, so it could be either (or an invitation to clean my office closet whose order was set when we moved to Nogglestead and has now turned to disorder as I have thrown things in and closed the door).

Somewhere around the turn of the century, I started using an Excel spreadsheet to track them. The file named Submission Record.xls has a first worksheet of 2002. Continue reading “Wherein Brian J. Defibs His Submission Records”

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Judging By The Photo, For Me Number 1 Would Be Castration

Fun fact about Nogglestead: We have, and have had for twenty years free weights at our home in Casinoport, Old Trees, and Nogglestead. We’ve added an elliptical here at Nogglestead. And the items go mostly unused; I’ve given this some thought as I look around the lower level and think about how we could rearrange it for some novelty.

Personally, I need the ritual of going to the gym to exercise. If I’m home, I have other things to do. Often work or checking blogs. Or tapping out twee little posts like this one.

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The Squandered Gift Of Time

As I mentioned, I left a full-time job for a return to consulting, and I’ve got a part time contract for the nonce, but I’ve been exploring other opportunities. I have had a lot of conversations over the last couple of months, but none have resulted in a job offer or contract. Sales pipeline, they call it. Discouraging, I call it.

I have been here before: When a full-time contract ends, I start reaching out looking for more work, but I also think, Man, I’m going to have so much free time! I start thinking about household projects I can complete. Did I mention I was painting my fence and deck again, and that I started this spring? Yeah, that’s not done yet, and I should have all this new free time, ainna?

Well, that’s not how it ends up. I get up in the morning, get the kids ready for school, stop by the gym a couple times a week, hit the grocery or the warehouse club, get home, maybe write a blog post or two, hit the job boards and maybe reach out to a company or two (working that discouragement pipeline), do some work on my part time contract, have some lunch, pick the boy or boys up from school, take them to martial arts a couple times a week, have dinner, do the evening chores, and sit down to read for an hour or so before bed. I spend parts of days at the laundromat or on household repairs. What extra time?

The gym can cut a couple hours off of the day at the beginning, and when I’m not working full time, I pick the youngest up after school on time instead of having him hang out in their “extended care” program (it’s not like he has extra-curricular activities in These Days) which cuts another two hours out of that extra time every day. And I don’t have a lot of blocks of an hour or thirty minutes between the daily activities–so I spend the time sitting at the desk, reading a blog or something. I certainly wouldn’t have the time to get the paint out and slap it on a couple pickets–or would I?

Then, a few weeks into the process, I notice how the cash flow is tightening. So I start getting concerned. I have a lot of places to tighten, of course: Not so many impulse purchases of CDs, fewer dollars-a-day stuff, not eating out, cutting the charitable giving. We’re not in dire straits by any sense of the imagination, but I get to thinking: What if I don’t get more work? What if this contract ends and I am completely out of work? I mean, even when I have a full time job, I tend to think I am only a couple weeks from being laid off, unemployed, and without prospects as an old man in a young persons’ industry.

So when I worry, I spend more time hitting the job boards instead of doing something else–writing, working on a new skill, or those aforementioned household projects. I get nervous when a day or so passes where I don’t find somewhere to apply or reach out. And, of course, the moments stolen with news and politics don’t lower my stress levels.

And then I get a full time job or contract, and all the “free time” and the promise it offered evaporates, and I really didn’t take advantage of it while I could.

This has happened before, of course, and I can explain all the stages of it very clearly. However, I’ll go through them all the same.

I’m a little afraid it’s how I live my whole life, though, frittering away time. Or maybe I just need to pick a better way of frittering.

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I Tried To Teach Him Hockey

I met this boy when he was a year old: John Burroughs alum Chris Booker paves unlikely football path to Ohio State.

His mother and my beautiful wife worked together, and our families had dinner together. Well, “families” might be a little misleading–my beautiful wife and I were freshly married and did not yet have children. As we had dinner together, the toddler had a Fisher Price golf club. I tried to teach him how to put both hands on the club, extend it horizontally, and say, “Cross check.”

Apparently, it didn’t stick. (Ahut, as my mother would say, a little verbal rimshot to say Did you catch the joke there?)

However, it is entirely possible now that I will be able to say in a year or two that an NFL player danced at my wedding. We have photos of little Christopher spinning on the dance floor of the reception hall. I will explain to everyone that he was already practicing his touchdown dance.

As long as he’s not a member of the Chicago Bears. If he is, I will disallow any knowledge of him and delete this post.

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What I Dressed Up As On Halloween

Apparently, I dressed as a competent handyman.

For starters, the parts I ordered for dryer did not arrive in our mailbox until we had left for the football game so it was my first task for Saturday morning.

I replaced the thermal fuse easily, but the cycling thermostat did not look like the ones in the YouTube videos, so I had a bit of swearing and concern as I tried to figure out if there was a particular way to orient it. It has four wires to plug into it: Two on the top, and two on the sides. So it might make a difference which end is up, ainna? As it turns out, apparently not, but I only discovered that by plugging it in and turning it on. And the dryer worked again.

Then, late in the morning, whilst I was working, my mother-in-law called with some sort of HVAC issue. Apparently, fixing the dryer built my reputation for the day. So I went over to her house. I was the first person in her house since Ash Wednesday. Which was in February, remember, gentle reader–my mother-in-law has only had contact with people via phone and FaceTime since then. She has not interacted with my boys in nine months. But perhaps the miracle cure for the virus, a new Presidential administration, is in the offing.

At any rate, it was not a grand HVAC issue–she replaced the filter in her ceiling cold air return and could not get it to close. I gave it a quick look–both the thumb latches holding it in place were broken off–you could move the thumbs into closed position, but they lacked the hooks that grab into the duct frame.

The proper fix, of course, would be to go get a new vent assembly and put it in for her; however, she has HVAC professionals for that. Instead, I got a couple pieces of wire and fed them through the vent to wire it closed for the nonce.

Given that she had used putty/stickum adhesive to hold the filter in place, that cold air return is held together with bubble gum and baling wire. She initially told me I could tape it up; I guess she tried that first before calling me. So basically, it is bubble gum, baling wire, and cosmetic duct tape.

So the dryer has not caught fire nor electrocuted anyone in the three days that it has been operational, and we’re caught up on laundry, so I am a little pleased with it–although as I recount my appliance repair adventure here, I do it with the thought of my father, listening indulgently and patiently, as I regale some story of my competence to him and he cannot feign pride in my doing a simple task that any man should be able to do in ten minutes after a couple beers.

As for the cold air return, I got it closed and could tell my mother-in-law the proper repair, but I didn’t do it myself even though I might have been able to. So the accomplishment has an asterisk. Given the choice between the proper fix and a band-aid, I often go with the band-aid.

So maybe the word competent is not the best word choice.

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Book Report: Fast Strike The Executioner #172 (1993)

Book coverThe last Executioner book I read was Hawaiian Heat, #155, so my collection has jumped ahead seventeen. My collection has a couple of near runs left–a handful in the 170s to about 182, then a dozen or so in the low 200s, and then 305–but these gaps are going to be a little jarring considering that I’ve read a fair number before now in relative proximity. Also, I look back at when the books were on the rack at the grocery store and think about what I was doing at the time. We’ve leapt ahead here to the second semester of my junior college. What was I doing? Working a pile at the grocery store, writing still decent sonnets about my college crush, but not wearing the trenchcoat and hat yet nor doing open mics–those would come senior year.

Oh, well. You’re here, gentle reader, to hear what Mack Bolan was doing. Or, more likely, you’re kind of scrolling by to get to the amusing things I sometimes post. Carry on, then.

Mack Bolan is sent to Germany as it’s unifying as someone or some group is killing spies, businessmen, economists, and other people who support reunification. So he’s got to navigate the shadowy world of many different powers working together and against each other, including a woman who is simultaneously working for the Stasi, the French secret police, and the CIA–will she be Mack Bolan’s ally or doom? Spoiler alert: She’s beautiful, so of course she’s less doom and more boom chaka chaka.

The book is paced with a more modern thriller sensibility: Bolan is dropped right into the maelstrom and the set pieces come quickly, with Bolan not sure what’s going on or who the real players are. The book also features car phones and lap-top computers, so the stories are catching up with modern times as well–although in 1993, the laptops were pretty clunky as I recall. I bought a refurbed Windows 3.11 laptop which I still have around here somewhere in 1996 or 1997, and it’s a chonker. I remember seeing a portable 286 from the early 1990s, and it was the size of a small suitcase. But from here on out, I guess the books will have a more modern sensibility–and it’s probably only a couple of years before Bolan starts using the Internet himself.

So it was a pretty good entry in the series, and I am looking forwardish to the next couple in the series from the time when I was graduating college.

And given how few of them I have left and how much I have been tearing through them this year, it’s entirely possible I will finish the paperbacks purely in the Exeuctioner series in the next year or so. Although I guess I’ve only read seven this year, so if I have a couple dozen left, it’s probably three years off. Or more.

Well, consider my enthusiasm curbed. It wouldn’t be the same as reading The Story of Civilization or The History of Philosophy or even The Complete Works of Shakespeare, but it would be something.

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Well, That Was Quick

Yesterday, I posted a bit on the audio course The Search for Intelligent Life in Space.

Today, I get a Facebook ad for launching my DNA to the moon.

Creepy fast.

The only thing that could make it creepier is if they were telling me that they were going to send my DNA to a Lagrange Point whether I liked it or not.

To be honest, I am not sure what sort of information the advertisers have on me. They think I’m wealthy, old, and beset by a variety of health issues. Somehow, brothers and sisters, my DNA is probably not the best hope for resurrecting the human race at some point. I am no Lazarus Long; I am more like Milwaukee Short.

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My Question Answered, Unfortunately

I’ve been seeing Salt Life stickers on rear windows of cars for years. Well, I have been seeing something for years, and I only relatively recently pieced together that the stickers said Salt Life. I wondered what that meant, but never really enough to look it up when I got home. Or maybe I did but it didn’t stick with me.

Well, I know now:

A co-founder of a popular Florida clothing brand has been charged with manslaughter and gun possession in the death of an 18-year-old woman found shot at a South Florida hotel, police said.

Michael Troy Hutto, 54, who co-founded Salt Life apparel in Jacksonville Beach with three friends in 2003, was arrested Friday at a hospital in Jacksonville while wearing hospital scrubs and skid-proof socks, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

To be honest, I don’t really get putting a sticker on your car telling everyone your clothing choice. Or the Ron Jon Surf Shop stickers on cars here in Missouri. Maybe beach people are just different. I am sure Jimmy Buffett would explain it to me.

One thing is certain: I will know what Salt Life is, although I might be seeing it on fewer cars in the future.

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On The Search for Intelligent Life in Space by Seth Shostak (1999)

Book coverOkay, now this was a fun course to listen to. I was a little concerned that it might be a bit thin on topic matter, as the SETI program itself would be a rather narrow topic–merely talking about analyzing radio signals from space would make for a long six hours.

Instead, the course runs a complete gamut of cosmology, astronomy, history of astronomy, pop culture/science fiction, xenobiology, and more. Lectures include:

  1. Our Place in the Cosmos
  2. Alone in the Neighborhood–Fiction and Fact
  3. The Propsects for Life in the Solar System–Mars, Europa, Titan
  4. Other Worlds? The Search for Habitable Planets
  5. Interstellar Travel and Colonization
  6. The Fermi Paradox, or Why Aren’t The Aliens Everywhere?
  7. Why UFOs Are Bunk
  8. What Is E.T. Made Of?
  9. Alien Appearance and Motivation–Can Science Tell Us Anything?
  10. Searching for E.T.–Modern Techniques
  11. Estimating the Number of Civilizations (The Drake Equation)
  12. If We Find E.T., What Then?

It’s all fascinating material–some of it scientific scientific, but much of it speculative scientific. The lecturer theorizes that conditions in the cosmos, or at least our galaxy, are such that they would resemble us a whole bunch. Some of the existing science, at least our understanding, would lead to this conclusion, but a lot of times, I’ve found that speculation (and politically charged science) tends to assume we have reached some sort of peak and that all things we learn from now on will confirm what we know now. Which is not very scientific at all. Also, I found a clear line in this course between science and speculation, but I find that a lot when I think about or read about (or hear about) science. The result you predict is speculation; the method to prove or disprove your speculation should be science.

I am nitpicking a bit here–it’s a fun run through these topics, and the lecturer has a pleasant voice and a great sense of humor. The course is over twenty years old (and on audiocassettes, which meant it cost me fifty cents total in September–definitely worth it). Some of the things he thinks we’ll know in the next decade–including maybe finding a signal from a distant world–have not come to pass, but we did just scoop some asteroid material for a return to Earth.

Which is a good reminder of how slow space-sorts of science moves. This lecture series, at twenty years old, is mostly fresh and contemporary, and our asteroid-scooping spacecraft was launched four years ago and won’t return to Earth for three years. When I was young and into astronomy a bunch, those sorts of timelines seemed really long. Now that I am older and with a different perspective on the passage of time, I think three years is no time at all.

Also, the lectures, in the one or two lectures on the actual SETI program techniques, mentions the then-contemporary SETI@home project. Basically, in the era of dial-up, you could download an application that would process SETI data while your computer was inactive–it ran as a screen saver, and then every couple of days you could dial into the server and upload the results and download data to process. I had this on my home computer at the time, which stems from the days I lived in my apartment and right after I got married. Somewhere along the line, with some computer change or another, I stopped installing it. I see it’s been shut down now for a while, but, geez, this is an old course, and I am old since I remember some of it from my youth.

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Book Report: Yoga’s Devotional Light by Julian Lynn (2017)

Book coverIt seems like it took me a lot longer to read this book than it did. As you might remember, gentle reader, I bought this book along with two others (Divine Fruit and Four Gates to Health: Eastern Ideas and Techniques for Vital Living) last May at an ABC Books book signing. I read the collection of poetry soon after I bought the books, and I am pretty sure that I started this book in the beginning of June last year.

It has the word devotional right in the title, and that’s what it is: A Hindic yoga-based devotional with 365 entries ranging from a couple sentences to a couple of pages. Each is designed to make you think, to let go, and perhaps, if you’re an active yoga practitioner, something to think about when you’re sitting. Although in Buddhism, you’re supposed to try to empty your mind as you sit, perhaps you’re allowed to think in yoga. Or maybe these are things to think about at other times.

The daily bits range from stories about people she meets and how they inspire her to simple little aphorisms about recognizing beauty around you in everyday things. Some are a bit twee, and some of the stories seem a bit self-congratulating about helping others.

At any rate, as I mentioned, it took me a while to read it. Partly because it’s typeset in an italic font, which slows one down when it comes to reading. Perhaps that’s the intent. The other was that I was not doing it in a steady day-by-day fashion–I would go in read a couple of days’ worth of these devotions to end a night of reading fiction for a couple days, and then I would set it aside for a while, and then I would read a couple more.

I enjoyed it and grokked it a bit more last year when I started it. Looking back, I really haven’t steeped myself in Buddhist and Hindu thought much this year–maybe they haven’t spoken to me following a year of losses. As I finished it over the last couple of weeks, though, the message did not speak to me as much.

So I probably enjoyed it overall more than the poetry and probably more than I’ll enjoy the nutrition book when I get to it. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it and gotten more out of it in a more receptive frame of mind.

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