From the Mind of Murph

Zombie Love

2012-01-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

Something has been on my mind, and I think I just found the answer. Why are Zombies so dang popular right now? Unlike the other undead “monsters” of past fads, zombies can’t be turned into some teen love interest… or can they? Vampires have always had this erotic thing going for them, but it was Joss Whedon and Anne Rice (in my opinion) who humanized them, and it was Stephenie Meyer who made them pathetic. I’ll get back to that. As for werewolves, I guess that they could be a love interest… as long as the moon isn’t full. I mean Oz, in the Buffy Series was a pretty terrible monster on a full moon, but that didn’t stop him from dating Willow. But Stephenie Meyer turned the werewolf into a cuddly puppy that you could curl up with by the fire.

So yes, I’m blaming the latest undead fad, the zombie, on Stephenie Meyer, because she and her “Twihard” army have pushed the public into a place where they are wishing, hoping, and praying for a zombie apocalypse. The public has had their fill of pathetic movie monsters and have latched onto a creature so terrible that there is literally no way that Stephenie Meyer or her imitators could possibly turn them into a teen love interest… Although… I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere deep on the SM hard drive, one would find… wait for it:

The story of a goth girl in Flint, Michigan, who, being misunderstood and unliked by anyone in her school, falls in love with the rotting, yet walking, corpse of her formerly living boyfriend, Chuck. She longs to be with him, to have him eat her brain so that she can rot for eternity by his side. And yet, she is torn between her love for Chuck, and the Flesh Gollum created by the science geek down the street.

… oh, man… I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Hunger Games Fan Film

2011-10-26T12:47:00.001-06:00

A few months ago I checked out "The Hunger Games" at the urging of my wife. Two Words... "Loved It!"

So now I'm reading the second book.

A day or so ago, I found a little fan film by a local production company "Mainstay Productions." Let me just say... Bravo!

And if you happen to be associated with Mainstay, and happen to be reading this... I'm a makeup artist, and would like to talk to you... (shameless plug)

No Nuclear Power in Utah!

2011-09-13T12:35:00.000-06:00

In case you didn’t know, I live in Utah. I love this state; its diversity in terrain, wild life, beauty, and natural wonders leave me in awe any time I venture out into the wild parts of the state.

Recently our governor, Gary Herbert, has proposed that a nuclear power plant be built in near Green River, Utah in the south eastern part of the state. At first, I was all for it, but then something started troubling me.

Now, before you start spouting off about how clean and safe nuclear power is, because I know all that. Here’s where I’m troubled… cost and water. Nuclear power is tremendously expensive. This power plant is going to cost the state, what, a couple of Billion dollars? And it won’t be on line for a decade or more? What good is that? Our energy problems are starting to happen now. What will they be like in 2020 when the new reactor is finally, maybe, going to come on line?

And what about water? Water is life in the west, and nuclear power takes a tremendous amount of water, from what I’ve read. Water is needed for the steam that actually turns the turbines, water is needed to cool the steam back into water, and water is needed to regulate the reactor core temperatures so that the whole thing doesn’t go boom. Water! Yes, the reactor will be by the Green River, and “the Green” is a pretty big river, by western standards. But it is but a trickle compared to the mighty rivers they have back east where nuclear power works and is sustainable because of their enormous amounts of water. Those of us who grew up in the mountain west have no idea what a river can be. A few years ago my wife and I went back east to visit the town in New Jersey where she grew up. We landed in Philadelphia, rented a car and then drove over a bridge into New Jersey. While on the bridge, I looked out over this vast expanse of water and asked, ”what bay is this?” Where upon, my wife looked at me as if I were the biggest dolt in the world and answered, “It’s a river, the Deleware.” Oh, my gosh! I thought. In my experience, the mighty Colorado was big water, The Green River, the Snake River, The Weber River, those were big water where you can catch large trout and crossing on foot is impossible. So with that mindset, I never understood why it was such a big deal that Washington took his army across the Delaware. After seeing the incredible size of the Delaware, I finally understood.

So I ask you, again, from where is the water is going to come. The Green is just not big enough to sustain the water needs of a nuclear reactor. Farmers down in the south eastern corner of the state need the Green and the Colorado to water crops, and the towns down there need the water to sustain themselves. This year has been a great water year for the mountain west. Lots of snow fall last winter, and mild temperatures have filled our rivers, lakes, and reservoirs to overflowing. But are we forgetting the years past, when water levels fell so much that parts of Lake Powell could be hiked again? What would the reactor do for water in drought years? Ship it in from… where?

Do I have a better idea for the power needs of the state? Yes, I think I do.

Last June, my family took a trip to Oregon, and on our way, we drove along the Columbia River; also, a very mighty river by any standard. Along the way I noticed wind farms; gigantic wind turbines by the hundreds churning away on the wind that rushes up the gorge from the Pacific Ocean; cheep, clean, plentiful energy. And I thought, why can’t we do that in Utah. The west desert, from Delta in the south to Dugway in the north is one vast plain of nothing but sagebrush, sand, abandoned mine shafts, and wind, lots and lots of wind. There has not been a time in my memory that I have been out there that I have not been beaten raw by blowing dust. For the cost of the proposed Green River Reactor, and half the time, we could build the world’s largest wind farm, spanning thousands of acres, churning away in the desert wind on the state’s western border. Zero emissions, no spent fuel rods to store (or pay someone else to store), and the only water required would be by the workers who maintained the turbines.

I love the idea… but, I’m just one voice. And the “leaders” of the State and the Country, can’t hear a single voice.

Save the Books!

2011-08-29T12:41:00.007-06:00

What are we becoming? If you have followed this blog at all, you probably know that I am not a fan of eBooks in any way shape or form, and that I believe that most (Yes, I said most, meaning not everyone, Mei Mei) readers of ebooks are transient literary voyeurs. Well… you can scan into the archives and read my ebook rants. So it is with much dismay that I pronounce the final nail in my coffin for ebook readers.
Booktracks. (www.booktracks.com)
According to their website:

“Booktrack represents a new chapter in the evolution of storytelling, and an industry "first" in publishing, by creating synchronized soundtracks for e-books that dramatically boost the reader's imagination and engagement. The company's proprietary technology combines music, sound effects and ambient sound, automatically paced to an individual's reading speed.”

That, in my never to be humble opinion, is the biggest pile of bull excrement I have ever read… and I’ve read some whoppers in my time.
Let us examine the phrase “boost the reader’s imagination.” Hummmmm… Ya... How? By taking the imagination of the reader away? When I read a book in which the author describes, say, the lapping of the waves against a boat’s hull, I have to access a part of my memory (sometimes referred to as the schema) in which I’ve stored all of the lapping waves sounds, and I use those sounds in my imagination to flesh out the scene. Therefore, the scene that I create in my mind is going to be vastly different than that of any other reader in the world. It’s different, even, than the scene visualized by the author when he (or she) wrote it. THAT, my friends, is using imagination. What Booktracks proposes to do is insert their own soundtrack to books, stunting the imagination of the reader.

Where does it end? Pictures? Video Clips? Isn’t that just TV?

If you have not ever read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury shame on you! Now go out and buy a copy. Don’t borrow it from the library because you’re going to want to write comments in the margins. My copy is so annotated, that I can hardly read it anymore. Anyway, there's a part toward the middle of the book where the Fire Captain, Beatty, is explaining to Guy Montag how they got to where books were outlawed. The funny thing is, what the Captian describes is exactly where we’re headed. Read it and you’ll understand.

I don’t know what can be done about this. I’m concerned for the future. We’re already seeing a degradation of imagination, writing ability, and reading comprehension. I can’t tell you how often I get comments to my blog posts that are written in some kind of “textese,” which most of the time are so unreadable that I can’t post them to the comments area.

Kids don’t read, and so have no idea how to organize thoughts into coherent writing.

Can I blame this all on the nook? Obviously, no I can’t. But television, movies, video games, iPods, smartphones, all those distractions that quite literally suck the intelligence and imagination right out of your head, I can lay a little blame there. And now the distractors are going after books, by making them more interactive they are stealing the ability of readers to read and interpret a book according to their own set of experiences. Soon book clubs around the world will have nothing to discuss, because the book will be presented to them in a neat little package of sounds and colors, where all loose ends and plot twists are explained away rather than left to the reader’s imagination to fill in.

I don’t know about you, but I will continue to buy and collect books. The kind made from paper and ink. The kind that smell wonderful and that have bindings that crackle when opened. The kind that cannot be edited at the push of an unseen button, and the kind that will not have sound effects unsupplied by my mind.
An eBook reader of any kind will never be allowed to cross my threshold, and my home will be joyous in books until the day that the Firemen come to burn it all down.

Costumed Freaks!

2011-08-08T12:36:00.001-06:00

In the past few months, I’ve joined a group of… well… self-proclaimed costumed freaks. The Society for Creative Anachronism is an “international organization dedicated to researching and recreating pre-17th century European history” (to quote the web site), but I’ve found it to be much more than that. It’s a group of people with very different interests, faiths, beliefs, skills, ages… we’re not just a bunch of geeks. There are, who I refer to as, the beautiful people mingling with the nerds… and everyone is good with that. Kids learn about what chivalry means, not just through reading about it, but by living it.
I know, were only using the romanticized version of history… true. I mean, my persona would have lived through the Black Death… and that’s ok.
Here’s what I think is neat. My heritage is mostly Celtic. I have ancestors who came from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. A major weapon in the 13th and 14th centuries was the Welsh Longbow (sometimes called the English Longbow) and so, for some time, I’ve wanted to learn to shoot one. When my daughter expressed an interest in doing the same, I took the opportunity to find a group who could teach us. It just so happened to be the SCA.
Three weeks ago at Baron’s War, I was awarded my Ranger Tassel in Period Long Bow, which basically means that I’ve been able to score an average of 60 and above in a shoot we call the “Royal Rounds.” I’d say not bad for a guy who’s only been shooting since January. I was awarded my rank by His Royal Majesty King Morgan and Her Royal Majesty Queen Esabell of Artemisia, which, I must say… was surreal… in a good way.
I mean… how many people on this planet can say that they have taken a knee before a King and Queen who earned their titles through feats of arms, to be awarded a rank earned through skill and competition? Not many I’d say.
All of this doesn’t stop my younger sister from thinking that we’re “just weird.” Nor does it stop my younger brother from wondering why we can’t use “sites on our bows.” I don’t know, maybe I’m the normal one and everyone else is on the fringes. I can only dream.

Rate the Books!

2011-03-24T12:20:00.003-06:00

In this world of ours, we put warning labels on everything. Ladders warn you that you might fall off of them, coffee cups warn that the hot coffee contained therein, may just be hot. Toasters warn you that making toast while taking a shower may not be a good idea, movies are given ratings, explicit music is marked as such, and video games carry labels that warn parents that they may not want their 8-year-old hacking away at evil hoards of the decaying undead.
So in this Big Brotherish society that we’ve build around us, why is it that my 11-year-old can walk into any Barnes & Noble and walk out with a copy of Looking for Mr. Goodbar?
Books can be as graphic about Sex as any of those “Special” password protected channels on cable. In fact, I think that a talented author can be even more graphic than any pornographic video because they can tell you what’s going on in the character’s head even as they describe what’s happening to their body!
So I pose the question again… why is there no rating system for books?
Before you start yelling at me, calling me a book burning fascist, or some such, let me make one thing crystal clear. I believe that everyone has the right to write whatever they feel. Any stray idea that goes through their head can be committed to paper and then disseminated to the reading public. I believe thoroughly in the first amendment, but that being said, I have the right to read whatever I wish, and what I don’t want to read is a bunch of profane crap that happens to make it onto the shelves of my local bookstore.
Many a time have I heard that a book was so deep and powerfully written that I rushed out to the book store, picked it up only to be so disgusted by the content that I’ve had to toss it into the trash so that it didn’t soil my bookshelves with its bitter disappointment and reminder of the $24.00 I paid the lazy hack who wrote it.
And to me, that’s what it really comes down to, how lazy was the author when he wrote it? Any no talent hack to write and describe a sex act in lurid detail. It takes a truly talented author to describe the act without telling the reader what went where. Authors who go into detail don’t trust the reader enough to be able to fill in the blanks… so to speak.
The same goes for profanity. I believe in a certain amount of honesty when it comes to characters. I mean, I don’t expect a drug dealer to call a cop a “Flippin’ doodle-wop” before putting a bullet through him. That’s not real, it’s not honest. But why would a 3rd person narrator ever drop the F-Bomb? That’s not real, that’s not honest, and that’s a lazy author who doesn’t think much of his readers.
One of the most brilliant uses of profanity I ever read contained no actual profanity. Not a single word, but it was the filthiest thing any character ever said in any book I’ve ever read. It was in a book by Dashiell Hammett. I can’t quote it right now, because I don’t have access to the book (or even remember which book it was) but it went something like this. “In my life I’ve known of only three truly profane words, and at that moment I used all of them.” Hammett trusted his readers enough to let them fill in the blanks, and since my mind is usually in the gutter, the three words I used could have been used in a Sundance film with no problems.
So what am I getting at? Is there any way that book publishers could put a little sticker with a small warning about explicit language or sexual content on the back cover by the UPC? I know that this wouldn’t be a fix all. But when standing among the books, debating on which author is going to get my $20.00, I’d really like to know that one of them at least has the possibility of being read by me over one that may have some questionable content and just end up in the trash.

Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-23T07:46:00.002-06:00

One of the last of Hollywood’s golden age has died.
A fine actress and a true beauty. She will be missed.

Vader Commercial

2011-02-06T21:08:00.001-07:00

I don't watch the Super Bowl for the football... after all, I am a geek.
That being said, Here is the best commercial of 2011

Merry Freaking Christmas Everyone

2010-12-21T12:56:00.002-07:00

Ho-Ho-Hooooo!

Aron Ralston... Dumb Kind of Hero.

2010-11-22T22:05:00.004-07:00

I just want to take a little time to thank Aron Ralston for being the best kind of idiot, and for keeping his name in the spotlight so that I can use him as an object lesson... Let me explain.

You see, I’m a Scoutmaster, and every year, just as spring is getting into full bloom, I teach my boys about Leave No Trace and about the rules to safe hiking. Prior to Aron Ralston I really didn’t have a good example of why these rules are important.

In case you don’t know, the first principle of Leave no Trace is to Plan and Prepare. Where are you going? What’s the weather going to be like? What’s the terrain like? What are the hazards? Do you need a permit? Does anyone know where you’re going? Food? Water? Jacket?
All of these questions raised by the very first principle of Leave No Trace tie into the rules to safe hiking.

1. Plan where you are going. (Break out a $4.00 topo map and plan your trip)
2. Tell someone where you are going, and when you are planning on being back. (ie. “We’ll be taking this trail into this basin. Don’t plan on us being back until Sunday afternoon.”)
3. Dress and pack for conditions.
4. NEVER hike alone. (Hey Aron… ever hear of the buddy system?)
5. Be prepared. (did you pack everything you need… Like a buddy?)

Now I will not tell you that I have never solo hiked… because I have. When I was a teenager and an Idiot! Fortunately, I grew up and finally realized that what I was doing was foolish and stupid. I thank the good Lord above for the fact that nothing really bad ever happened to me while I was alone in the wilderness long before cell phones.

People... Aron Ralston is no hero for cutting off his arm, and leaving a good deal of his DNA all over the desert of South Eastern Utah. I believe that he broke at least 3 of the Leave No Trace principles right there… but I digress. If he were following the priciples of Leave No Trace, he would have had someone with him and, thus... still have 10 pretty fingers.
He’s not a hero, he’s no one to look up to. He’s the poster boy for everything that you don’t do in the wilderness.
I can only hope that he has learned a healthy respect for the land, because as people seem to find out from time to time, if you don’t respect the wilderness, the wilderness will scrape you off it’s boot, and good riddance to you.

What The... ?

2010-11-10T12:47:00.002-07:00

IT'S AN AIRPLANE!
You people have got to be the dimest of dim bulbs. I sware!

I Just Have to Say...

2010-10-28T13:33:00.002-06:00

Something has been on my mind, and I just have to get it out, even though I may me ridiculed, or pronounced a bigot, or even cause hurt to some people that I deeply care for.

Please let me begin with this… I am a Latter-day Saint, a Mormon, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I attend Church every Sunday; I’m a Sunday school teacher, a Scout-Master, a holder of the priesthood, my wife and I were married for time and all eternity in the Jordan River Temple, and we attend the Temple as often as we can, our goal is to attend at least once every month. And every six months during General Conference I raise my arm to the square to sustain the first presidency and quorum of the twelve apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators, and I would not do that if I did not believe that they were just that.

Now that I have that out of the way…

Much ado has been made out of Boyd K. Packer’s talk at the last General Conference of the Church. This, to my way of thinking, really amounts to a tempest in a teacup, a giant load of falderal, as it were. And the greatest amount of noise seems to have been made by those who hate the church anyway, or by groups that want to change Church doctrine to suit their own wants and desires.

In case you don’t know, here’s what he said:
“Some suppose that they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Remember, God is our Heavenly Father.”
So, big question, do I believe this? Yes. I don’t believe that same sex attraction is genetic.
A few years ago, while sitting in a paleoanthropology class at university, we were spending several weeks going over genetics, and the question was asked, “Is same sex attraction genetic?” My professor said that most likely it was not. And his reasoning was simple. (Now this was a long time ago, and so my understanding of his reasoning may have suffered, but in essence this is what he said) A gay person does not always produce a gay offspring, and so, the so called “Gay Gene” would be recessive, meaning that the gene requires the same gene from the other parent in order for it to be expressed. Let’s say that 10,000 years ago, same sex attraction was introduced into the gene pool by a point mutation, or some other right error in the RNA of several individuals. People who are same sex attracted don’t usually seek out partners of the opposite sex, thus producing offspring. Considering this fact alone, it would take only a few generations, 5 or 6 at the most, for the trait to die out completely.

And so, President Packer’s words were no great shock to me, because I already believed that the cause of same sex attraction was environmental.

The thing is folks, we’re here on this planet to make choices, and some of us have been given challenges to overcome, and God does not give us challenges that we cannot overcome. It may seem like a steep hill to climb, but as long as we’re moving forward, we’re moving in the right direction.

I could stop this entry here, but there is something very important that I have to say. I have people in my family who are LGBT. Several of them have spouses. And I love them all, and consider them to be members of my family. No, consider isn’t the right word. They are members of my family. My uncle has been with his partner for as long as I can remember, and it is impossible for me to imagine one without the other. I have a cousin in California who I consider to be the older sister I never had. Her wife is a tremendous person whom I love dearly. I hope that my words have not hurt them in any way.

You may be asking yourself… hey Murph… in your archives, you argue for Gay Marriage… Have you changed your mind? My answer is no. What I wrote in that post still stands. Civil marriage is an equality of rights matter. Personally, I am married to one very lovely lady, and she is my life. That’s how I believe it should be, within the boundaries that the Lord has set. But if you want to set your own boundaries on what two consenting adults can do, be my guest, I’m not going to stop you, and I’m not going to judge you and ask that you do the same for me.

The Big Bang Theory

2010-09-14T12:15:00.002-06:00

I don’t know what it is about Christians, that they think that The Big Bang Theory disputes the existence of God. I look at the results of the Big Bang and think, “what divine poetry.” To me The Big Bang Theory is proof that there is a God in Heaven and that He loves us and all of His creations.
Doesn’t the Bible say that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?” Well, maybe the Big Bang was how He created those heavens. Ever think about that?

Remembering How it All Started

2010-07-18T17:59:00.003-06:00

Years ago, when I first started doing stage makeup... well... lets back up.
Back in 1990, a friend of mine called me up and asked if I could give him a hand with a couple of rooms he had at the the Haunted Old Mill. He needed someone who could swing a hammer and I could. As time went on, and as we began to realize that we needed to populate these two rooms with scary monsters... and we had no idea how. So, we went to the library and checked out every book we could find on stage and fx makeup. Then we went to the only shop we knew of to get the stuff described in the books... the Costume Closet. There, I dropped about $200 on cream makeup, latex, blood... lots of blood. The makeup counter used to cover two walls and was terrific. I could buy liquid latex by the gallon... which I did. The people there, especially this one guy... I'm afraid that I can't remember his name... I'd describe what I wanted to do, and he'd tell me how to do it, and what I'd need.
When the Haunted Old Mill was condemned and shut down, all of my makeup supplies went into a toolbox and then into my closet. Occasionally the box would come out on Halloween for my kids, but for the most part it stayed in the closet slowly drying out and aging.
On the rare occasion that I needed new makeup, I would go to the Costume Closet and was distressed to see that the makeup counted, hardly had any makeup available and when they did have what I needed it was as old and dry as the stuff I had in my case anyway.
A couple of years ago, my daughters volunteered me to do the makeup for a musical our church was doing, and so I went back to the library and back to the Costume Closet. The Library worked, the Costume Closet didn't. I ended up buying all of my makeup at another place, and it lacked the magic that it once had.
Now I do about two theatrical productions a year, and am glad to say that the Costume Closet has been bought by a great couple of people who renamed the company to Mask Costume, and have brought the makeup counter (almost) back to it's former glory. And I thank them for that.

2010-06-07T22:22:00.002-06:00

So I run the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay in a week and a half.

Ask me if I'm ready... no really... Ask me.

This has been a strange training period for me. I started the year so high, running so well. Then the shin splints started up again and I was ready to give up. This was last March. I've since changed so things and am running strong again.

So If you find yourself along the race route be sure to chear on team "Complete Structural Failure."

Geek Pride Day?

2010-05-25T12:38:00.001-06:00

You know…

Today is Geek/Nerd Pride Day, and I say… so what.

Anyone who has read my blog before knows that I don’t hold a lot of stock in what is “Geek Chic.” And if you don’t know what that is… turn on G4 television and watch “Attack of the Show” there you’ll see a bunch of beautiful people pretending to be Geeks because for some reason… geek is cool… but is it?

Look, geeks are the social outcasts. They’re the ones that got shoved into things (i.e. lockers, garbage cans, girls restrooms, etc.) while trudging through the public school system. We were the people who were the victims of the beautiful crowd, we were the ones who would say that we would rather read a book or play D&D than go to a party (as if we were ever invited to one), and many of us secretly wished we could go… in our heart of hearts. We wondered how we could get into the beautiful crowd and still feared what would happen if we ever did. And so, we surrounded ourselves with people who were like us. We filled our lives with SciFi, and Fantasy; with games so complicated we were sure that the beautiful people would throw a rod if they ever even picked up a Dungeon Master’s Guide. We hung out in comic book shops or gaming stores because most of the time, the people behind the counter were just like us… they could sing (badly) the theme to “Land of the Lost” for crying out loud.

Incidentally, do you know why most true geeks hate sports? I think that it’s because the same self-important bungholes that tormented us in high school play most sports.

Nowadays, Geek has become cool… and I’m not sure why. The beautiful people think that they can throw on a faux-hawk (no true geek would wear one of those by the way… we seem to be an all or nothing kind of people) and a tee-shirt sporting the number 42 and say that they are just “so geeky.”
I’m sorry my friends… shout your geekyness from the rooftops… but you will only be a pretender. Until you have been labeled, and tormented, and pushed from society… you will never be a Geek, only a poser.

So… false geeks everywhere… enjoy your day. Those of us, and we know who we are, who are the true geeks of the world, don’t need a day to show our pride… we show it daily.

A Love of Running

2010-04-11T11:31:00.003-06:00

So I keep wondering… Why do I run? I’m reading a book, “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall. It’s primarily about a tribe of runners in Mexico, The Tarahumara, who regularly run impromptu marathons of 300 miles, just for the love of running. But mostly it’s about US Ultra-marathoners who run organized races of 100 miles plus and why they run. Sometimes it’s to prove something to the world or to themselves. To battle the beast of fatigue or to test the limits of their own bodies.
One of my favorite quotes from the book:

“ …the real secret of the Tarahumara: they’d never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that funning was mankind’s first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscle into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle - behold the Running Man.
Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running. Or you wouldn’t live to love anything else. And like everything else we love - everything we sentimentally call our “passions” and “desires” - it’s really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. Were all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.” (pp. 92-93)

So why do I run? Is it really a desire locked in my DNA?
I started running as a teenager. I likes to go and run from my home to Eisenhower Junior High and back with my friend Scott. We had a great pace and rhythm, and even though I’ve always been an asthmatic, I’ve always been able to fight through it and run. Then life happened and I stopped running. A couple of years ago I started again and ran my first Ragnar Relay in Las Vegas last October. I had a blast and am looking forward to my first Wasatch Back Relay in June. But is the fun of the relay enough?
Even as I write this, with an ice pack wrapped around my leg for the shin splints that have always been a plague to me, I wonder, when will I find the love for running that the Tarahumara have? Or do I need to find my own inspiration?

Utah Ren Faire

2010-03-23T12:46:00.000-06:00

This is what you come to see.
This ain't no Dinner Show, Baby!

Being to Hard on B&N?

2010-03-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, so…
After being chewed, and rightly so, by a person whom I respect quite a lot, I feel that I need to set the record straight vis-à-vis my last post.
No, I don’t HATE Barnes & Noble, and not everyone who works for them are illiterate drones. I love Brick and Mortar book stores, and really do hope that they are able to survive the digital revolution… but…
I don’t think that the future is bright, and that makes me sad.

Now, that being said, let me explain just a little bit.

I am one of those people who would love to spend an entire day in a bookstore. I’m one of those annoying people who sit on the floor, in among the stacks, blocking the aisles to other shoppers while lovingly thumbing through book after book. It’s like a little vacation to me. And like vacations, I rarely have time for that sort of thing, and so when I go to a bookstore I’m on a mission for one or two particular titles.

I’m a list maker. Just ask my wife. My pockets are always full of book lists. Titles I’ve heard about on “All Things Considered” or read about in the Arts Section, or found out about on one of the many book related blogs I follow. Sometimes these lists make it on to my “to Read” list on Goodreads, but most of the time they end up in the top drawer of my night stand, or (horror of horrors) get put through the wash still in my pants pocket and are thus rubbed out forever. And so, generally, when I go to a bookstore I’m almost always armed with one of my many lists. Yesterday was one of those days. I went into the Sandy B&N with a list of 3 books. And they weren’t obscure or out of print books. Two of them I had heard about on “All Things Considered” on Monday. The third was one by Dashell Hammett (I’ve been going through a Pulp Fiction phase… I don’t know why.) While I am always on the lookout for a Chapman translation of Homer… I’m pretty sure that I’ll never find it at B&N, but these books were not in that category. And then to find out that two of them are never stocked… well, lets just chalk it up to having a bad week… and so my cork popped and I wrote a post critical of everything B&N and brick & mortar bookstores in general.

But while I’m on the subject… the vampire comment… ya gotta know that’s totally true. What was the first table I passed when I walked into B&N yesterday? Can ya guess? A table full of “Twilight” clones. Then there was a display of a book titled: “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.” My brain almost began shooting out great gouts of blood at that point. And then to top it off, I passed one other table full of “Twilight” clones when I neared the Fiction & Literature section. Not that they were the same clones I had passed at the door, they were a table of completely new clones. I went back and forth several times just to make sure. And so, my statement still stands, if you want to read about teen angst vampires… B&N is your place, and at least the management of the Sandy B&N are proud of that fact.
Now, granted… that’s what’s selling, and they have to stock what’s selling, but… come on!
Now that being said…
I think I’m starting to channel Tevia from “Fiddler on the Roof”
“On the other hand…”

Now that being said, I’m not implying that B&N has no intelligent literature on their shelves. I’m a big fan of their classics collection. They’re an inexpensive way to get some of the greats in literature. The B&N collection is way cheeper than the Modern Library, or Vintage editions of the same book.

My big complaint… and it is purely MY complaint is that nine times out of ten, I walk into B&N and I walk out with either no book, because they didn’t have any of the books on my list that day, or I walk out with some other book that wasn’t on my list that may or may not have been close to what I wanted. It is truly a rare and happy occasion that I am able to walk in, pick up the book that I am looking for, pay for it, and walk out again. And if I want one of the more obscure books on one of my many lists, I have to go to one of the smaller, local bookstores like “The Kings English” or “Sam Weller’s.” While they are far smaller than B&N, my chances of finding those kinds of books are better. And if they don’t have it, the people working there have almost always heard of the book, if not read it.

So yes, I’m critical of B&N, but that doesn’t stop me from walking in there a few times per month.

Bookstores are Dead!

2010-03-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

Brick and Mortar bookstores are dead.
When was the last time you walked into one? And if you have walked into one recently, when was the last time you walked into one and actually found what you were looking for? I just walked into a Barnes & Noble with a list of 3 books. Not really obscure or out of print books… 3 books recently featured on “All things Considered.” So, they are books with a relatively good chance of being read.
Well, I couldn’t find them on the shelves, so I ask one of the illiterate book drones that work there. The computer told them that they were out of stock.
“So when will they be in stock?” I ask.
“Well,” he droned, “we don’t stock any of those books… but I can order them in.”

The lesson here, boys and girls, is that if you want to read anything about teen angst vampires, go to Barnes and Noble… if you want anything else… find it on line.

The Wisdom of Alan

2010-02-14T11:27:00.002-07:00

I couldn't agree more.

Alan, you rock!

No More Final Frontier

2010-02-01T12:28:00.002-07:00

The US space program is dead.
It has been on a downward spiral into failure and obscurity since the end of the Apollo program, and now with the release of Obama’s new budget that effectively kills the Constellation program (that was designed to take us back to the moon) and the Ares 1 rocket (that was to replace the 20 year old space shuttle fleet), plus his misguided idea to have private contractors “shuttle” astronauts into low Earth orbit, he has just put the final nail into NASA’s coffin. Forget, of course, that no private company has ever been able to reach low Earth orbit, and they are all no less than 10 years out from achieving that which the USSR achieved in 1957.
Neal Armstrong said that his first steps on the moon were a giant leap for mankind. I’d say that he was no prophet, since the only leaping we’ve done since then have been backward.
Maybe we should just bulldoze Kennedy Space Center and replace it with low cost housing, because nothing’s going into space from there anymore.
Think about this: The only country to ever put men on the moon has now become a second rate “bit player” in space exploration thanks to our “forward thinking” president.
The US will never put people on the moon again, and the first team to reach Mars will most likely be speaking Chinese.
It’s a shame.
My children can now look forward to peering into the night sky only to see the bars of their Earth bound imprisonment. Man’s urge to explore will now need to be channeled elsewhere… but where. We are explorers by nature, but we’ve let the timid among us kill that wonder.

Thank you Mr. President for killing the dreams of our children.

An Open Letter to Stephenie Meyer

2010-01-26T22:20:00.002-07:00

Dear Steph,

After reading a few of the thousands of articles people have written about your Twilight Series, I’ve come to realize that there is quite a bit of hate out there, and that most of that venom is not only targeted at your books, but at you as a person. And I am sad to admit that, yes, I’m one of them, and I shouldn’t be. I should be above such petty feelings.

I mean, you’re just a writer, a story teller, and an entertainer, right? Is it really your fault that Bella is such a despicable, two dimensional, self centered tramp? I mean… you had nothing to do with her creation did you? Characters write themselves as part of the writing process… right? Afterall, you didn’t have any control over the fact that Edward is so over-the-top perfectly gorgeous and sensitive; that he’s such an Adonis that no real man on the planet could ever hope measure up to him. I know that I could never stand up to the standard that you… I mean… that Edward set for himself.

So what if you quite literally dug up the bones of Bram Stoker and spat in his decomposing face. I mean, what did he know about vampires? He wasn’t Romanian… he was Irish for crying out loud. What do the Irish know about the supernatural? Leprechauns, Yes… Vampires, No! He didn’t know anything about vampires, and certainly didn’t write the seminal work on the subject; the book that all subsequent vampire books had to deal with. Well, you certainly didn’t deal with that fraud, did you?

I have an idea. You should write a fantasy novel next. Yes, a fantasy novel with lots of modern teen angst, and perfectly proportioned, yet slavish, men. And you could totally ignore Tolkien, too. You could totally trample on that stupid little novella he wrote about the Lord of the Rings… who ever that wimp was… Sheesh! I mean, who wants to read some book about a guy who loves hula-hoops?

Don’t you think that’s a good idea? Tell you what… I feel so much better after writing this letter, that I’m not going to hate you as a person anymore. I’ll respect you as a writer and as an artist, and confine my hate to… I don’t know… maybe just your guts. Ya, I think that will work.

Keep up the good work.

Sincerely yours,

-Murph

The Next Kilt

2010-01-21T12:49:00.002-07:00

So, as many of you know, I like wearing kilts. I don’t know why… it’s not an airflow thing. Believe me, when you strap 20 pounds of wool around your waist, there is NO airflow. I’m not trying to get in touch with my inner female, because, believe me there is no inner female, plus, Kilts are the ultimate attire for men of Celtic heritage… so don’t even go into the “Man Skirt” zone, ‘cause yer just going to embarrass yourself.

I own one kilt already, and it’s very nice. I got it from “The Celtic Croft,” and it’s made from an Irish tartan designed to honor “St. Patrick.” Like I said… it’s very nice for the small amount that I paid for it.
I’m not someone who can go and plop down 700 bucks for a kilt; I’d rather buy seven $100 kilts instead, since there are many tartans that I can wear.

I know, don’t go into the whole “there are no rules for wearing tartans” thing. I’m aware if that, but I’m not the kind of person who can go and wear… I don’t know… MacDonald, because I like the pattern, and I think that their french fries are taisty. To me, that’s just kinda being a poser. But I digress…

So like I said, I have a kilt made from the “St. Patrick” tartan. Which is just a good, Irish national pattern for anyone of Irish Heritage.
I can also wear “Mitchell” because my Grandmother was one.
I can wear, “MacLeod” because my wife is from that clan.
I can wear, “MacNachtan” because my last name is a sept family of that clan.
I can wear, “MacLaren” because I finished Woodbadge training in the BSA.
I can wear, “Ulster” and “Westmeath” because that’s where my Irish relatives are from.
And I can wear, several of the Welsh patterns including “Pride of Wales” and the “St. David / Welsh National.”

I’ve decided to go with the “Welsh National” to honor my Great Grandfather, and G.G. Grandfather, who were born in Wales.

So I went looking and found that most of the Welsh patterns were very, very pricey, but I did finally find the Welsh National tartan at USAKilts in my price range. It’s a distinctive pattern that cannot in any way be mistaken for any other clan or country. The pattern is based on the colors of the Welsh flag. Red and Green vertical stripes… wonderful!
My wife… doesn’t like it at all. Now, she won’t stand in my way of getting it in any way, she just thinks that it’s… Christmassy. I don’t disagree with her on that point.

But, still, I think that I’m going to get that one this year, and then get “MacLeod” next, so that I can stand in my front yard, sword in hand yelling, “There can be only one!”

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T12:12:00.002-07:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

Please have a safe Holiday.

May 2010 be a fair sight better than 2009.

A Book Lover Speaks Out!

2009-12-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

I may sound a little elitist, maybe a little bit like a luddite. But I’ve decided that electronic ebook readers are the mouth breathers of the literary world, used by the mouth breathers of the reading public.
Tell you what… you wanna read a book… buy a book!
And buy it from a local store! Nothing wrong with Barnes & Noble or Amazon… but buy local, it’s just good for everybody.

Merry Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-22T08:02:00.001-07:00

Let us all be greatful...

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

My New Makeup Site

2009-11-10T12:32:00.004-07:00

Many of you know that I do stage makeup from time to time. In an effort to learn more about the craft, I’ve been reading books on makeup and surfing the net for videos that give good advice for design. Now, I’ve found a lot of good information… and I’ve found a lot of crap.
For those who may be interested in learning about stage makeup… or makeup in general, I’ve decided to take my neglected “Revers Ate My Dingo” blog site and use it as a depository for Makeup information.
On it you will find links to useful sites and products, videos that really have good information or ideas in them, and pictures of what I’ve been doing. It’s my blog, so I get to brag on myself… just a bit.
I’m sure that at some point I’ll change the name of the site, even if I can’t change the URL, or not, who knows.
Click Here to Go to the Makeup Site

Confessions of a Bibliophile

2009-10-21T13:25:00.000-06:00

Hello, my name is Murph, and I am a bibliophile.
I haven’t touched a book for 11 hours, I’m a serial reader, I can’t help myself… I love books… carnally.
That sounds gross, but let me explain.
I LOVE books… yes, for the stories they tell or the information they contain… but I love the book itself, its beauty, and the heft of it in my hands or in my book bag. I love the smell of the pages and the crispness of the binding as I gently open it for the first time if it’s new… or the easy “flop” of a book that has known more than a few readers. I worship the pages as they turn before me revealing their secrets.
But with that being said… I defile books. Yes it’s true, for as it is with almost all English majors, I read with a pen. In the pristine margins, I have the audacity to comment, to codify, to annotate, and horror of horrors… I UNDERLINE!
Oh… the ecstasy!
But I am a true lover, for I will never defile the book of another, and no… I… almost never… borrow from the brothel that is the public library. Oh, to read but not comment in the margins, that, my friends, is Hell.
I am a painfully slow reader. My Wife and Daughter can read 4 books to my one. But I savor the experience and enjoy every page the book has to offer. And I almost never revisit a book. No my friends, once I’ve had my way with a book, it is shelved, only to be looked at and possessed from that day on. I guess you could say that I’m the Humbert Humbert of books, for my desire is to possess utterly and forever. And so I have learned, through painful experience, and the loss of an annotated Zamyatin, (sob) to never loan out one of my precious books… oh, the pain and the loss!
I will never understand those who will read without touching, the users of “Kindle” and other ebook readers, those literary voyeurs. You call me demented, then what are they? They are truly the literary perverts.
I have a library, it is small, but it is mine… all mine… It is my favorite pastime to just sit, among my pretties, and just look… to pull a favorite volume and revisit, a passing gesture to be sure, but to briefly revisit a favorite passage, or bit of prose. To let their smell and music and words wash over me in a flood of memory.And yet I am mad?

My Running Playlist

2009-10-18T16:10:00.001-06:00

I’ve been looking around for the playlists that professional runners and Olympic champions use to motivate themselves to push forward and to keep running. Well, after reading though lists of Lady Gaga and Black Eyed peas, I came to realize that most of these lists were produced by iTunes and probably only approved by the runners themselves. So, I looked on my mp3 player (I don’t have and iPod) to see what music had a good beat, a good message, and what motivates me to drive on over the miles.
So, for what it’s worth, here is my running playlist:

Mike’s Mid-Life Crisis Ragnar Mix

“I Want You to Want Me” Letters to Cleo
“Call Me” Blondie
“Bigmouth Strikes Again” The Smiths
“Bring Me to Life” Evanescence
“Pour Some Sugar on Me” Def Leppard
“Elegy” Leaves’ Eyes
“No One Lives Forever” Oingo Boingo
“Lover’s Wreck” Gaelic Storm
“Wrapped Around Your Finger” The Police
“Angels Would Fall” Melissa Etheridge
“Sweet Dreams” Eurythmics
“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” Blue Oyster Cult
“Pleasure and Pain” The Divinyls
“I Wear My Sunglasses at Night” Cory Hart
“Run Baby Run” Garbage
“The Zoo” Scorpions
“Dead Man’s Party” Oingo Boingo
“Rebel Yell” Billy Idol
“Blue Collar Man” Styx
“Point of No Return” Kansas
“The Great Commandment” Camouflage
“Never Again” Kelly Clarkson
“This Love” Maroon 5
“Read My Mind” The Killers
“Boys of Summer” Don Henley
“Hey Ho Away We Go” Freur
“Fly Away” Lenny Kravitz
“Some Kind of Wonderful” Joss Stone
“Girls on Film” Duran Duran
“Little Lies” Fleetwood Mac
“Spaceman” The Killers
“No More Words” Berlin
“Colorful” Rocco Deluca and the Burden
“Jet Airliner” Steve Miller Band
“Mr Roboto” Styx

I know that’s a big list, but I have all of these on my player, and they shuffle through. I’ve noticed that when I need a good solid beat to keep me on pace, “Mr Roboto” or “Dead Man’s Party” will come up and push my forward. Or, if I need to relax my shoulders and just drift “Boys of Summer” or “Wrapped Around your Finger” will start to play.
I have some dead weight in my playlist as well… some songs by The Corrs and Howard Jones that, while I like them, just don’t do well to pace me, and so I need to drop them from the list, but all in all, I think that I have a winner.

Night Running

2009-09-21T22:34:00.000-06:00

I love night running. I don’t know if it’s the smartest thing I do, but it’s gotten into my blood, and I don’t know if I can let it go.
Several months back, I was supposed to run in the Wasatch Back Relay but had to drop out because of a leg injury. Well, when several members of the team decided that they wanted to run the Ragnar Las Vegas, next month (in 2 weeks) I felt that I could train and get healthy enough to run it with them, and so I dumped the treadmill, got out on the street and started running.
There is something about me that you have to know… I’m lazy, way too lazy to drag my sorry carcass out of bed in the morning to go running, and since I’m an asthmatic, I can’t just get up and go like normal people, I’d have to get up, take my meds, wait 30 minutes for them to fully take effect, and then go… that’s just not happening at 6:00 in the morning. Plus, I’m not one of those who can run, get the endorphin rush and then stay pumped for the rest of the day. I run, and then feel tuckered out for the rest of the day. It’s just no fun if I’m whipped while at work, I need to be able to sleep it off… so running at night is great.
Tonight, I didn’t get out the door until 9:00pm. I helped my wife put the kids to bed, kissed her goodnight (she goes to bed early because she gets up really early for work) and then ran out the door with my mp3 player and “Amphipod” reflective vest. When I run at night, I at least wear a white shirt under my Amphipod and my legs are as white as Edward Cullen… so I’m sure that that helps me to be seen. I don’t have a head lamp or butt light yet, but I’m sure I’ll pick one up eventually, because I do worry about getting hit by a car.
But running at night is so peaceful. I turn my mp3 player way down, so that it’s just a whisper in my ears; partly for safety (so that I can hear cars) and partly to preserve the atmosphere. I can hear the rhythm of my shoes on the pavement and the music of my breathing over the thump of the ear buds. On hills, the black of the pavement melts into the black of the starry sky. Not many people in my neighborhood sleep with their porch lights on so the blanket of stars are so bright, but my eyes concentrate on the road watching for potholes and other obstructions that may turn an ankle or over extend a knee.
I know that the neighbors think that I’m odd or even touched in the head for this nightly activity, but I don’t care… I really don’t, because I know that I do this not only for my strengthening heart and body, but for my strengthening soul.

Christianity and Evolution

2009-09-18T12:57:00.001-06:00

So, I’m just wondering, do we as Christians lie to our children?

Let me explain…
As Christians, we teach out children about the biblical creation. Six days… garden of Eden… Adam made from the dust… Eve from his rib… Serpent… Apple… Sin… Death… And according to the bible, this all happened some 6000 odd years ago.
Then… we take our children to a museum, or show them a book about dinosaurs… died out some 64 million years ago, or we take them fossil hunting to find trilobites that lived during the Cambrian (about 550 million years ago).
6000 years vs. 550 million years… which is it? Kids can sometimes compartmentalize things like this for a while… (I did until I was about 10) and then eventually, you can’t. For a while I dealt with it by shrugging my shoulders and figuring… I’ll find out the answer after I die. It wasn’t a perfect solution because I knew that I’d have to deal with it eventually. It’s kind of like the power bill that you know is just to high to pay this month, and so you bury it under other bills and you try not to worry about it… right up until the power gets turned off.
Well, my power got turned off at University, while sitting in a paleoanthropology class, and holding the skull of Australopithecus afarensis… well it was a reproduction, but a reproduction so perfect that it can be studied by scientists… a critter that lived some 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago. It walked upright with a human hip and foot… but had a clearly ape-like skull. And suddenly all of the thoughts I’d had about creation and evolution came flooding out of the little mental pile I had built inside my head.

“How does this creature fit into Genesis? How could this critter have lived and died 2.9 million years ago, if death did not come into the world until 6000 years ago? Was there really an Adam? Is the Bible just a fiction of elaborate stories? Or if the bible is to be taken litteraly, where did all the fossils come from? Were they put there by God to decieve us and test our faith? If so… he’s not that holy of a God then is he, because I can’t believe that a perfect God could do such a decietful thing. And if they were just leftovers from other worlds that he had created and destroyed… then why would they still be there? Because he though it would be funny? Because he’s a decietful liar? And as the scriptures say… he made the world from “matter unorganized,” well… isn’t a skull “organized?” What is truth and what is a lie… or can they both be true?”

So to answer my own first question… do we as Christians lie to our children? The answer is… Yes. We’re telling them one thing on Sunday and at Family Home Evening, and an entirely different thing on every other day of the week. It might even be that we teach them both things in the space of one evening… if we happen to go to the Natural History Museum on Family Home Evening.

So what are we to do then?

I actually know someone who said to me… staight faced… that there never has been, nor will there ever be any such things as dinosaurs. When I asked him what the bones were that paleontologists were pulling out of the ground and what made the huge tracks that we find in rocks, he said, “I don’t know, but they sure weren’t animals.” I guess that’s one way of dealing with the problem. If you can suspend all reason and intellegence in hopes that it will all go away.
Or… and here I’m going to get pounded by all the bible thumpers out there… maybe evolution is all a part of God’s plan. Maybe, just maybe the book of Genesis can’t be taken exactly litteral… as a history book. Maybe Genesis chapter’s 1 and 2 are allegory. A story ment to teach us more about God’s plan for us than it was to teach us how the Earth was made and how people and animals were placed upon it.
“In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” The Big-Bang? Science has shown us that the heavens were created by, what we call, the Big-Bang (Inaccurate, but we’ll go with it). If God is all powerful, as I believe him to be, why would he have to be a part of our universe. If he is the creator of our world, why could he not be the creator of our universe as well. The Jews refer to God as “The Master of the Universe” would that not emply that he created it as well?

And if he could create our Universe, why could he not have had Humans in mind, when he created the first single celled organism, so many eons ago, and set it on its way to live, to reproduce, to divide into other forms based on it’s needs as its offspring spread across the whole earth. Why could he not have encouraged those early organisms, to leave the water and to move across the dry land? Why could he have not directed the changes that occurred? I say he did. It was He that directed the early primates to take to the trees, and develop grasping hands, and eyes that see in color and in stereoscopics. And when those, and other changes were complete, he directed those primates down out of the trees, to loose their tails (even though we still have them), and to walk upright and to run from tree to tree instead of swing. Why couldn’t he have commanded those changes? We have so much of the evidence of those changes in our own bodies. The appendix, wisdom teeth, even our own DNA bears witness that we are genetic cousins to other primates.

I don’t even know why I’m writing or posting this, except to put something that’s been rattling around in my head for decades out into the world so that the rest of the Christianity can condemn me to Hell for even thinking such thoughts.

What do you think?

Sorry about the Blog... Or lack thereof.

2009-09-08T13:10:00.001-06:00

This is supposed to be the Mind of Murph, and I guess there hasn’t been much on my mind… but the real truth of the matter is that there’s been lot’s on my mind, and I just can’t unjumble it all into coherent sentences.

We’re finally back to full work hours at the office… for now.

I’ve just finished my work on 3 plays for this community theater season, and I’m trying to figure out a way to go to IMATS next summer, and along those lines, I want to save for an airbrush… which reminds me… I ordered a couple of foundation brushes a couple of weeks ago… I wonder where they are; I’ll need them for Halloween.

My son just told me that he wants to start Kart Racing out at Larry H. Miller Motorsports Park.

I’m Planning a Pirate Party for September 19th… Yarrr!

My Sister-in-Law just got a divorce and is now living with us.

On, and On, and On…

Ya see?
I just can’t keep my thoughts in line.

But here’s a question I was wondering about, while waiting for my car to get new tires… If a vampire doesn’t cast a reflection, and can’t be filmed… can they be picked up on motion sensors… and if not… what do they do at automatic doors when they go to the grocery store?

Goodby John Hughes

2009-08-07T13:08:00.002-06:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time, I've been busy with some different Community Theater productions. But I just wanted to post a little tribute to John Hughes, a screen writer & director who shaped so much of my teenage years.

John, we will miss you.

The Magic of the Stage

2009-06-18T12:53:00.001-06:00

About a week ago, while I was at dress rehearsal, one of the cast members, an 11-year-old girl, sat down at my make-up table and asked, “Why do you do make-up?”
My answer to her was, “Because I can’t sing or dance.”
While there is a certain amount of truth to my answer to her, it didn’t quite do justice to the real reason as to why I love doing stage makeup.

I’m currently reading a book titled “Wyrd Sisters” by Terry Pratchett. If you’re not familiar with Pratchett’s work, he’s kind of like J.R.R. Tolkien on crack. His work is very strange, very funny, and at times… very poignant.
The book centers around 3 witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, who meddle in the affairs of a kingdom… anyway… The story has a lot to do with the theater, which the witches (especially Granny Weatherwax) don’t really understand. Here’s my point… it’s all contained in one paragraph from the book.

“The theater worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn’t belong to her, one that wasn’t in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn’t belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn’t know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.”

I think that… that is why I love doing what I do. It’s worth some of the expense to me to work in Community Theater so that I can partake of some of that… magic. Every night this week, I’ve been able to transform a mailman into an ill-tempered farm hand. No… that’s not true. The actor does the transforming… I just get to help get him started on his journey.

Maybe that’s what the makeup artist does, he takes ordinary people, and gets them started changing. He’s the catalyst… one of the “Spell Components.” Dipping into his bag of tricks, like the witch in Snow White, to transform the actor from the ordinary to the extraordinary… from one form to another.

So that should have been my answer to this young actor. Why do I do stage makeup? Because I want to partake of the magic that is the stage, even though I can’t sing or dance. I’ll just be the wizard behind the curtain.

Marian Call

2009-05-30T15:47:00.005-06:00

Marian Call is a singer who does... well... geek music.
My wife and I are going to see her next month... if you'd like to go... email me and I'll give you the website address.
Anyway, I found one of my favorite songs of hers on YouTube.
It's not a great recording... but you should like it.

A Pox on MacCool's Public House

2009-05-23T23:09:00.002-06:00

Most of you who know me, know that I am overly hip to my Celtic heritage. Psychotically hip to it in point of fact. Over the top… you might say. If you put a Celtic knot on something, anything… Mac & Cheese… I’ll buy it, or want to buy it, because it’s “celtic.” When we were at the Renaissance Faire in California, I was introduced to natural resin incense by my cousin, I love incense… and I really love this natural stuff… but I almost bought one called “Celtic Blend,” not because I loved the smell… because I didn’t, but because it was “Celtic Blend.”
So with a minimum of effort, any place billing itself as Celtic, Irish, or Scottish, can pretty much win my loyalty, and I’ll return again and again, and get others to do the same.
Which brings us to MacCool’s Public House at The District in South Jordan, Utah. This place advertises itself as an Irish Family Restaurant. So when I was sitting in the Megaplex Theater, and saw their advertisement while waiting for “Wolverine” to start, I thought “great, we’ll stop in and try it.”
I think that because they serve Guinness and have a very few Irish-ish foods on the menu, they get to call themselves an Irish themed restaurant.
Let me tell you of my experience, and see if I’m over reacting.

When we got there, the place was half empty, and in the reception area there was one other couple who were waiting for a couple of other people to arrive, this seemed to confuse the hostess, because she kept looking at us as if she was wondering if it was ok to seat us since the other couple was there first. So we finally get taken to our table by Stacey, who, we would come to find out, was also out server. Now, did I mention that the place was half empty, because she takes us to this strange little, wobbly table near the emergency exit, doesn’t ask if the table will be ok for us, but does ask if we would like drinks… before we get seated… and well before she gives us the menus.
Now, my lovely bride likes those flavored lemonades that everyone seems to have, and so she asks our serving wench whether or not they have them. Instead of saying “No ma’am we don’t, but can I suggest… blank…” she snarkingly (is that a word?) snarkingly says “This isn’t Chilis, ma’am.” At that point, I should have complained to the manager and high tailed it to Chilis… but no… I was in an Irish place, and I was bound and determined to like it. So then we sit down at our wobbly little table and she gives us our menus. We order some calamari (is that Irish?), and I get the salmon chowder, while my wife orders the grilled salmon. At this point, Stacy disappears for the rest of the night. We did see her wandering around, but never wondering near to our table, well that is until she delivered the bill… but I’ll get to that in due time.
The calamari comes, by someone we’ve never seen before… obviously, not our server… and it was hot, tasteless and rubbery. I know, you're saying… it’s squid! It’s supposed to be rubbery. Well, no it’s not… I’ve had calamari in plenty of places, where it was cooked right. Now the one saving grace to MacCool’s version, is its dipping sauce, which tastes suspiciously like the dipping oil at Iggies… I’m just saying.
Then, our food comes, flopped onto the table by still another person we have never seen… still not Stacey, who seems to be trapped by a group of nice, yet empty, tables on the other side of the room from our crappy little table. So now, this latest mystery server, literally drops the food onto our table, and without saying a word… leaves.
Still wanting to like this place with every fiber of my celtic being, I dig in to my salmon chowder… which is the fishiest tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth.
Now you’re saying “It’s Salmon! It’s supposed to taste fishy.” No. I’ve had salmon at a lot of places, including hole in the wall taco stands, and this is the first “fishy” tasting salmon I have ever eaten. It was so bad, I began to avoid the salmon in the chowder and would just eat the potatoes and soda bread. My wife said that she liked her salmon, but that it wasn’t the best she’d ever had.
But I still didn’t complain to the manager because I was still determined to like this blemish on the Irish heart.
So now, after we had eaten, Stacey reappears with our bill. No offer’s for dessert… not that we would have ordered one, but still. She just drops the bill on the table and leaves. We pay and leave. It wasn’t until I was out in the parking lot that I began to get mad. Here I was trying to like this place… giving it every chance in the world, and all it gave me was a bad taste in my mouth and heartburn.
I was so angry that on Monday, I did something I never do, I wrote a letter to the manager of MacCool’s telling him just what I told you… so far, I’ve heard nothing back… and expect not to.
I will never go back, and advise you to do the same.
A Pox on MacCool’s… the most Un-Cool place around.

Chilis anyone?

Go ahead... call it a skirt... I double dog dare you.

2009-05-18T12:52:00.002-06:00

Just a small snippet of news:
Found at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520454,00.html

“WEST HAVEN, Utah — The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing student to change his clothes.
Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart says Craig Jessop has been asked to extend an apology to 14-year-old student Gavin McFarland of Hooper after the school official's comments Wednesday.
Gavin says he wore the kilt twice in the past two weeks to Rocky Mountain Junior High as a prop for an art project. Jessop told the boy that the outfit could be misconstrued as cross-dressing.
Taggart says the district recognizes the kilt as an expression of the boy's Scottish heritage and that the kilt was not inappropriate.
Kilts are traditional Scottish apparel generally worn by men for formal or special occasions.”

Or we wear 'em whenever we bloody well feel like it!

I think that principal should be sent to cultural sensitivity training… The guy’s a know-nothing who needs to be fed a haggis and have cabers thrown at him.
He’s probably French…

And now a little song.

Karma, Vortexes and other things they don’t teach in Sunday School

2009-05-09T11:51:00.002-06:00

It wasn’t long ago that I began to believe in karma. As a Mormon, I was taught that it was impossible for the cosmos to align against an individual… and then I met Dan. He and I worked in the same office. He wasn’t a very nice guy, and I started to notice a pattern. If we ordered lunch as an office… his was always the one that got messed up. Wheat bread instead of white, pork instead of chicken…
“I ordered 12 lunches, why did we only get 11?”
“Who’s is missing?”
“Dan’s…”

If a computer was going to get kicked off the network, it was almost always his. Things he would order from the Internet would almost always come in wrong. Medical billing with the insurance company would get messed up in some way. He was always on the phone trying to straighten things out… and was never, ever nice about it.
Then I realized… he’s throwing out bad vibes into the cosmos and bad vibes are heaping up upon him. It’s karma, man… Karma.

So now… I’m starting to believe in vortexes. Little localized events that suck other events to it.
My family and I like to go to renaissance faires and festivals. It’s a thing… I know. Anyway, we’ve been planning to go to Ren Fest in Ogden for about 6 months. and thought that we would be able to choose either of the weekends… that was the case up until last Saturday. Then things started heaping up… dance practice, yard cleanup at Grandma’s, birthday parties, funerals… STOP THE INSANITY!
All on the same weekend!?! Are you kidding me?

I’m telling you folks, there are vortexes in this world, and they center on times that are very important to you and your family…
Believe it.

The Bards

2009-04-30T20:53:00.002-06:00

For those of you who follow my little blog... I am so sorry for my lack of posts.
And even though I have no time to spill the nothingness that is my mind onto this page, I do want to give you something...
And so, I give you the Brobdingnagian Bards... Gee, I hope I spelled that right.

Loss of Geek Cred

2009-04-13T12:52:00.002-06:00

I guess it’s time to turn in my geek card ‘cause last night I totally lost geek credit.
So there I was, playing on the floor with my beautiful little niece and my brother-in-law says, “Oh, did you hear that David Arneson died?” He may as well have said, “did you know that Freddy Fleeflicker just died” because I had no fracking idea who David Arneson was.
My first instinct was to say, “Oh that’s to bad” and totally lie, but no… I said “I don’t know who that is.”
Save versus Intelligence because I lost geek cred by the shovel full in an instant.

Yes, sadly David Arneson was the co-creator of that wonderful game: D&D, and the guy credited with the idea of using the d20 for combat.
He and Gary are back together... maybe they'll start a heavenly gaming guild together... I might just have to get in on that.

Yes, I have lost geek cred, but I will gain it back! Somehow… even if I have to join a LARP group… well… maybe I won’t go that far.

Soccer Season is Here!

2009-04-03T13:14:00.002-06:00

Yep, you see those clouds over the stadium? They DUMPED on us in about the 75th minute of the game last night.
So yesterday, I turned 40… and to celebrate my down-hill slide into death, my wife bought us tickets to the Real / Columbus game because I love soccer, and I love Real and Columbus, so to see them both play at the same time was a real treat for me. And to see Real tromp Columbus was a very big treat indeed.
And now… my wife is hooked on the game and is really wanting season tickets.
Now my gut says… no. But the Celt in me gives a resounding YAWP in the affirmative.
I think that we’ll pass on the season tickets this season, and just buy some flex passes so that we can take the kiddies.
Ya…

But look at that picture... we had GREAT seats!

Shame on you HBO... Shame on you!

2009-03-18T16:09:00.001-06:00

Does the “B” in HBO stand for Bigot? Because I’m sure that the “Big” in Big Love does, indeed, stand for Bigot. In a world where almost nothing is sacred, why is it that HBO thinks that smearing the sacred practices of other people all over the airwaves is acceptable? Last Sunday, HBO broadcasted a sacred LDS temple ceremony on its series Big Love… and I say, a pox on HBO and Playtone! A POX!
There are things in this world that are off limits to the prying eyes of the world, and what the LDS people choose to do in their temples is one of those things.

According to the AP:

“HBO said it did not intend to be disrespectful of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and apologized.”

*Cough* Bull-crap!

"Obviously, it was not our intention to do anything disrespectful to the church, but to those who may be offended, we offer our sincere apology," the premium cable channel said in a statement issued Tuesday.
But the ceremony is an important part of the "Big Love" story line, HBO said.”

Do you know what “But” means? “BUT” means “disregard everything that we just said, because it’s a lie intended to make us feel better about being total bigoted scumbags.”
“Important to the storyline?” My rosy white hindquarters it was “important to the storyline.” Do you know why they did this? They figured that it was a great way to tick off some folk they don’t really like anyway, for a couple of extra points in the ratings. Well congrats HBO… ya did it. And it only cost you your souls… if you had any to begin with.

Later in that AP article, they say that HBO went to great pains, and even hired a consultant, to make sure that it was absolutely accurate.
So, who was their consultant? A Temple President? A Stake President? A General Authority? No! They hired some excommunicated slug with a beef against the Church! Ha! Hey HBO! You got ripped! Hope you didn’t pay him a whole hell of a lot… 30 pieces of silver maybe?

So here’s my thing. The Church is not calling for boycotts… but I am!
Tom Hanks (exec. Producer) & Bill Pullman… you are both dead to me, your sucky movies will no longer be allowed in my home. Well, no… Bill’s just some dumb actor who doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground, and who’s trying to keep his job. So until shown otherwise, I’ll keep Bill around, but Tom… I’ve heard what he has to say about Mormons and I think that he’s one first class bigot… so all of Tom’s sucky movies are going away, ya friggin’ gut slug!
HBO… I don’t subscribe to your service… and never will.
I urge my readers (all two of you) to do the same… pull the plug.
Lets show the scumbags who’s really in charge!

Oh, and if you’re LDS and a fan of the show… Shame on you! For shame…

Twilight... Ugh... Just so bad.

2009-03-10T07:53:00.002-06:00

Saturday my wife and I went to the dollar-flicks to see Twilight.
Oh man! It wasn’t even worth the dollar I spent. Now, granted, I went into it with the lowest of low expectations, but that movie stunk… on a bun… with a side of fries. I am more convinced now, than I was last week, that Stephenie Meyer has never, in her life, ever read a vampire novel or seen a vampire movie… ever!
Now look, I’m not a purest when it comes to Vamps. I love it when authors can stretch the genre. While Bram Stoker’s vamps had some human qualities, they were, for the most part, mindless killers. Anne Rice made huge leaps toward humanizing the vamps, giving them drive and purpose to their extended lives, even giving them guilt and angst for the deeds they’ve done. The Lost Boys, Blade, Underworld, The Anita Blake Series, Fright Night, The Dresden Files, The Rachel Morgan / The Hollows Series, I am Legend, Salem’s Lot, Vampire$, Buffy the Vampire Slayer… All of these books, movies and what not, stretched the vampire legend just a little further… but Meyer seems to have thrown it all out and started over with a very small amount of knowledge.
Plus... Where were the fangs!
Ok, so while we’re on the subject of fangs. Hello? Makeup people… don’t have a budget? 20 bucks from Vampfangs.com will get you a pretty good set, good enough for that movie, anyway. Also… from what I understand, the “vamps” in this movie were supposed to look like they were cut from marble? So, what was with the clown white? Ben Nye and Kryolan make some really good colors… you can mix ‘em too. But no, they went with this weird powdery clown white. And… they couldn’t cover Edward’s 5 o’clock shadow? Come on! I’m an amateur makeup guy and I noticed that one! In fact, I’d say the vamp makeup was so bad, that when the Cullens were facing off against the three hunter vamps, it looked like the battle of the anemics. “Ok, guys, first group to get dizzy and pass out wins!”

So bad on so many levels!

That whole section where Edward and Bella were running up the side of a mountain, and leaping from tree to tree… Ugh! Where do I start? Years and years ago, my friends and I used to rent this martial arts movie called Shogun’s Ninja. It was filmed 1980 somewhere in Japan, with bad voice over work, people flying from tree to tree, jumping off of cliffs, jumping out of road puddles… the whole bit… It was just so bad that it was good. We would watch this thing and just laugh our butts off… well Shogun’s Ninja had better special effects than that section of Twilight.

It was just so bad. I would be embarrassed to have my name even associated with this movie.

Now, to be fair, I have to admit that there were some sections I liked. The graduation caps on the wall was a clever little idea. The fact that Bella’s smell was like a drug to Edward seems to fall in line with prevailing thought in Vamp fiction, and it was played up very effectively. The would-be rapists… they should have been torn into bloody stains by Edward, but his fight to keep from doing that was very will played.

So there were some small highlights in the story… but to little to late. They just didn’t happen often enough to save the movie from sucking… hard. Or, not sucking… since it was a vampire movie that had no sucking in it. So it stunk… it had great odor.

Do you know what the movie said to me? It was as if the producers and the movie company said, “We’re not going to spend a lot of money on this, so were not going to hire the best because no mater what we put on the screen, the sappy fans are going to love it anyways.”

And I guess that they were right. "Suckers!"

Reading Banned Books

2009-03-03T12:49:00.004-07:00

I am so proud of my daughter! She’s just awesome! Yesterday at school, in her English (now called “Language Arts”) class they were talking about censorship, and the banning of books. She told me that she was surprised at how many of her friends and classmates believe that schools and libraries should ban books that have “objectionable” content. As she said “Sex and stuff in them.”
So I asked her, “What do you think?”
She said, “I don’t think they should ban any book, you just shouldn’t read the bad ones.”
I tell you, I could not have been more happy if I’d have won the publisher’s clearinghouse while saving a family of ducks from a burning barn.
I said, “ You’re right, did you know that Dr. Suess has a book on the list of banned books?”
“What? Why?” She asked… almost screamed.
“Yep,” I said, “Back in the 80’s, some school thought that The Lorax went against their local values.”
It was actually 1989 in Northern California, they said that it preached against the logging industry, a major industry in that area, and so like all good Nazi’s they banned it.
So, then I explained that Huckleberry Finn, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Little House on the Prairie, James and the Giant Peach, Where’s Waldo … even the Bible have all been banned, in the United States, at one time or another, in one place or another. Strangest of all happened in 1992 when a school (Venado Middle School) in Irvine, California censored Fahrenheit 451, a book about the dangers of censorship, by blacking out all of the “objectionable” words (as if Ray Bradbury uses a whole lot of ‘em). It took action on the part of parents and the media to get this one set right.
Now look, I’m not one of those people that believes that Penthouse Magazine belongs in our public libraries because of an absolute freedom of the press. They have their place… that place is at the bottom of a dumpster (in my opinion) rather than on a library shelf… but they have a place non-the-less. Because of the first amendment, I will not infringe, or have others infringe, upon the rights of people to publish whatever they feel is worthwhile. I’ll just have to teach my children to seek out books that are beautiful, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy.
And that, my friends, is the only true and good form of censorship. It begins at our own front door and encompasses the walls of our homes. Let no government, large or small, tell you what you can or cannot read, to do so is to place shackles on your mind.
I am very proud to say that many of the books on the banned book lists of the American Library Association are on my book shelves at home, and that my daughter and I have read many of them, because many, many of them have great and worthwhile messages despite having “that word” in them.

Finally, I wish to add a quote from one of my favorite authors:

"And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

-Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country

I don't think that A Man Without a Country has been banned anywhere yet, but it does have "that word" in it. ;)

Yesterday's Men

2009-02-18T12:46:00.002-07:00

So, yesterday, Obama signed the “stimulus bill," and the stock markets across the world excitedly responded by dropping hundreds of points. So, in honor of this groundbreaking piece of… legislation, I give you a song by Celtic Thunder. A group I really didn’t like when I first heard them, but I have grown to really like. I think that this song will gain more meaning as the year wears on…

Stage Makeup... The Update

2009-02-14T21:39:00.005-07:00

So the makeup job is coming along. Thursday, I had my first chance to put all of my color, practice and plans together on to the faces of two of the actors. I had budgeted 20 minutes per actor, and it took 35 without doing their hands or hair color. So, I’m going to have to budget several hours for all 30 something actors I have to do. One… the character “Gaston,” I have to do face and arms, from the fingers to shoulder, so I’ll need another 40 minutes for him as well.
The good thing is that most of the actors only need base, eye, and lip color, so that won’t take too long.
I’m really enjoying this little experience; it’s quite a change from doing a haunted house or the kids on Halloween. I hope I get to do more in the future.

Tribute to John Williams

2009-02-08T14:49:00.002-07:00

I know I've been doing alot of videos lately, but this one is just cool.

Picturing the Past

2009-02-04T13:12:00.003-07:00

Ok, so those of you who are “computer savvy” will think that I’m a little slow on the uptake, but you have to remember that I’m an English Major, which is shorthand for “useless.” You know, when you declare your major in college, they really need to have a mandatory disclaimer.
I (the undersigned) do hereby understand that by declaring to be an English Major, I do hereby accept the following:
* I understand that my degree is not worth the paper it’s printed on, and while it does have fancy lettering, correct spelling, and uses proper grammar, you may as well hang it over the toilet for all the good it’s going to do you.
* I understand that my degree will mandate that I use the pronoun “whom” even though the rest of the English speaking world hasn’t used it since the early 1940’s.
* Learn this phrase “Would you like fries with your burger.”
* Learn this phrase “Hey, it is a real degree!”

Ok, I didn’t come here to spout off about being an English Major, again.

(Can you recognize an Iamb when you hear one? I can.)

Anyway, I want to tell you what I found.

(I’m a member of the Professional Organization of English Majors on Facebook, by the way.)

I want to tell you what I found! I hate it when the voices start taking over... Sheesh!

I was entering in some names on my PAF program (the genealogy program I use) and saw over on the right side, a little camera. I've only used this program for a couple of years now... So I clicked the camera button. Did you know that you can attach pictures to the people files in PAF? Of course you did, because you studied real stuff in college. So for the last two days, I’ve been adding pictures to my ancestor files and printing out new family group sheets for my book. This is so cool!
It has totally helped my wife and kids to know who some of these people are. The Porter’s aren’t really imaginative when it comes to names, so we have a lot of William’s. My grandpa, his Father, and his Father after that, on and on… I haven’t found the end yet. So when I find something out about William Leeks Porter, Sr., Terri usually has to ask, “Now which one is that?”
Now, when I can’t find a photo, I try to place a picture of their head stone… when I’ve been able to track those down. I think that it’s a perfectly acceptable alternative, but I’m not sure what to do when I can’t find that… I mean, a lot of them are buried in England, or back east, or in the middle of the Atlantic… Maybe I can use other things, just to fill in the blank spot…

“Hey Dad, did you know that Great, Great Grandpa McLeod looked just like Mel Gibson?”

I give you the Racist... Dr. Joseph Lowery

2009-01-28T13:10:00.002-07:00

So who thought that this “prayer” was completely inappropriate?
I have to admit, there were some fine sentiments in the prayer, but that stupid, racist, finale! Arrrgh! It overshadowed anything of value he had to say.

*sigh*

What would our country be like if we actually went humbly to our creator, said what was in our hearts, petitioned the all mighty in supplication with heads bowed and hearts open?
I dare you to find anyone in that video that was actually bowing his or her head… I found one… CLINTON!!!
This country is in SO much trouble.
That’s all I can say.

The Poo Song

2009-01-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

So I’m riding home on the bus the other day, and my wife calls me to tell me that she’s watching Scrubs and that they are singing about poo, and since I’m reading a Nobel Prize winning book that seems to mention the stuff quite a bit, I thought that I’d share what she saw with you… my readers… my friends.
Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Degrees

2009-01-12T12:51:00.002-07:00

The other day, I was talking with one of the engineers in my office, and telling him that my oldest daughter has the opportunity to graduate from High school with an Associate of Science Degree in general studies, but to do that, she’s going to have to take some night school classes at SLCC and probably have to take some classes over summer breaks, which means that she’ll have very little time for summer jobs, or extracurricular activities while she’s in High School.
He asked me if this was something she was willing to do. I said that, yes, she’s willing to do it, but that she’s frightened by the whole idea. It’s a pretty big decision for a 14 year old to be making.
Then he says to me, “You know, she’s a pretty bright girl, she could forget all of the college courses, enjoy High School, get really good grades, and then go to a real school.”
“Real school?” I asked.
“Yah,” he said, glancing up at the two degrees I have hanging over my desk, “ya know, SLCC isn’t a real college, and frankly, an Associate Degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
I ended our conversation at that point, but it got me thinking. I have two degrees, the first is an Associate of Science in Architecture from SLCC, and the other is a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Utah. The AS degree, I paid for out of pocket, so I owe nothing on it. It currently pays my mortgage, feeds and clothes my children, and provides my family with a few of the comforts of life.
The BA degree… well, it pretty much sits on the couch, eats potato chips, and watches cable all day. And… since I still owe a sizable amount on my student loans, the AS degree pays for the BA’s upkeep as well. Last week it started to demand it’s own room and phone line… I don’t want to know whom he plans on calling… Probably some Whitman Wannabe.
So, when I really take a hard look at it, which of my two degrees isn’t worth the paper?
As for my daughter, well, she’s decided that she’s going to take as many college courses as she can and still be able to have some fun while in High School… as it should be.
I think that with congruent classes and AP exams, she should be able to get out of High School with about 30 college credit hours… which in the long run are 30 really cheep credits as compared to paying full college tuition, despite what the engineer in my office thinks.

To the Women in our Lives

2009-01-08T12:52:00.004-07:00

My wife wasn’t feeling well last night, and I’m afraid that the kids weren’t being much help to her. But it got me thinking about how much our moms and wives do for us. Years ago, I heard a poem about a lanyard that was funny, but also quite poignant, and it really said a lot about the “thanks” we give the women in our lives.

It took some looking, but here it is.

The Lanyard

By Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

And so, to my Mom and especially to my wife… nothing I could ever give you will ever make us even.

A Banner Year

2009-01-05T13:12:00.002-07:00

My thoughts for the New Year…

Last week, I heard some radio DJ say that he was sure happy that 2008 was over because it really sucked. I was inclined to agree with him until I really took a hard look at 2008. Yes, things have gotten a bit more expensive, but I’m really not as far behind on my bills as I was last year, and that has more to do with my lack of budgeting smarts as it does with the economy.
So what good happened in 2008? My son and I wore kilts to our first Renaissance faire, and I was able to put away enough money to buy my own kilt. We went to Disneyland for the first time in… something like… 5 years. I was able to read, review and interview 4 authors for my blog site… and I’ve got to tell you, that was awesome.

So what do I have to look forward to in 2009?

My wife and I are planning to go to a big Renaissance Faire in Irwindale, California with my cousin and her wife. Then, a couple of weeks later, we’ll take the kids to the Utah Renaissance Faire here in Ogden… Then… The Highland Games at Thanksgiving Point to see the Wicked Tinkers perform.
And after all that… I’ll be running in the Wasatch Back Relay.

This is going to be a great year, despite Obama becoming president, and despite my turning 40.

Hold your head up high, folks. Life is what you make of it…

Goodbye Redheads! We'll Miss You... Not!

2008-12-30T08:15:00.003-07:00

A week or so ago, a friend of mine posted on her blog that her son said that redheads were going extinct. She’s a redhead and was very saddened by this news. I told her in a comment, that I was thrilled by the prospect that there will come a day when no child will suffer like we did. I think that I kind of ticked her off a bit, because she asked for an explanation… and here it is…

I’m a redhead.

I’m a red head with everything that goes with it… Freckles, pasty white skin, sensitivity to sunlight, very high IQ… yep, the whole nine yards. But, it would seem, unlike others of my kind, I hold no allegiance to my accursed hue… or even to its very existence.
The Oxford Hair Foundation (I had no idea that there is such a place) figures that since only about 4% of the world’s population exhibits the trait given by a recessive “Red Head” gene (MC1R), that red hair will be gone or very rare by the year 2100.

-Happy Dance-

I, like many Redheads, didn’t go to school as a child… I endured it. Kids are mean; all redheads have their tormenters, mine was named Mark (I shouldn't tell you his last name because he’s a total waste of skin and would track me down…) Tolbert. Yep, not a day went by from Kindergarten through to High School where Mark wasn’t calling me something, laughing at my hair color and freckles, or stuffing me into garbage cans, girls bathrooms, lockers, or -insert small container here-
And he wasn’t the only one; I didn’t have a name in elementary school… I had a color. “Hey Red!” that was what most people called me. I was red, except in summer.
Many redheads will go this beautiful strawberry blond color in summer… not me. I “bleach” into a bright florescent orange that lasts from late June until the end of August. I can’t tell you how many times people come up to me to inform me of my hair color. “Hey you’ve got orange hair!”
“Really!?! You don’t say.”

Wow, I’m sounding really bitter here.

I can’t tell you how badly I would love to shake off this pasty hue of mine and… tan. I, and most redheads, fear the sun. I’ve been trained to hide from the sun by a sense of self-preservation. As a child, I spent summer after summer in a state of constant sunburn. I hate the feeling of sunscreen, and it only partly works for me, so I wear long sleeves and hats with wide brims in summer just so I won’t die of sunburn and skin cancer. I’d love to be able to wear baseball caps, I have some great ones, but the tops of my ears burn. If (when) I die of skin cancer, it will originate on the tops of my ears.
Sitting at this moment, typing on my keyboard, I can look down at the freckled tops of my hands with the almost translucent skin beneath, and think that it is most likely the traits I gained from the redhead gene that will someday lead to my death, and people wonder why the eventual extinction of red hair fills me joy and gladness. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that all 4 of my children don’t have red hair.

I’m sorry, I was going to try to make this a funny -ish entry… but the more I type, the more the truth seems to come to the surface. And the truth, for me, about having red hair is this… everyone, deep down, hates red hair, except old women who seem to think that it’s beautiful; it’s probably because they are loosing their eyesight and bright colors stand out.

Just for your amusement, here are some facts I found about red hair.

Harvard dermatologist Madhu Rathak calls redheads “Three-time losers” because their red pigment is an inadequate filter of sunlight, thus their skin is more susceptible to sunburn, skin cancer, and wrinkling with age.
There are two kinds of redhead, according to Mary Spillane, managing director of British image consultants “Colour Me Beautiful.” There’s the “Autumn” type with hazel eyes, and the “Celtic” type with translucent skin, light eyes, and carrot tops… the so called “Leprechaun redness” with which so many people have trouble.
Redheads have always been though untrustworthy. As a 17th century Frenchman observed, “Judas, it is said, was red haired.”
Superstitions: Having red hair is unlucky; it’s lucky to rub a redhead’s head; bee’s sting redheads more often. The Egyptians regarded redheads as being so unlucky that they had a ceremony in which they burned redheaded maidens alive to wipe out the tint, according to author Claudie De Lys.

Is Barack the Second Coming?

2008-12-18T08:15:00.002-07:00

Look, I don’t want to be sacrilegious or anything, especially this close to Christmas, but…
I was walking though a book store last night… because that’s what I do, and I came across the “Obama is God” section, which was filled to capacity with books that spell out the specific god-like qualities that Obama currently has, and all that he will one day possess, i.e. he can’t currently walk on water, but I hear that he’s working on that.

I wonder… when he fails to live up to all the hype, what will happen? Because, I hate to break it to you folks… he may be a child of God… but he isn’t the second coming.

Gypsy on the Bus

2008-12-16T13:09:00.001-07:00

The other morning, I was sitting on the bus, and there was a woman singing. She had her iPod going, and was singing along… not well… she was very falsetto and out of tune, but I somehow was able to make out the song… through the laughter of the other passengers around me.
When I got to work I realized that despite the fact that I love Fleetwood Mac, especially those songs sung by Stevie Nicks, I had not heard this song for many, many moons.
So here it is… enjoy.

Bone Marrow Drive

2008-12-11T08:27:00.003-07:00

I just found out that there is going to be a Bone Marrow drive on Saturday at RioTinto Stadium. All of the info can be found at http://soccerunitesutah.com/
It appears that Marcia Williams, who is the wife of Andy Williams, who plays for Real Salt Lake, has Leukemia. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know how this cancer has touched my life and the lives of my family.
I joined the Marrow Donor registry… a long time ago, and was lucky enough to be matched with a 5-year-old little boy (for whom my son, Christian, was named). I gave Bone Marrow on my birthday in 1993.
If you are not on the Marrow Donor registry… here is a great opportunity to get on it.

Thanks

The Knights of Mayhem

2008-12-08T12:55:00.002-07:00

These guys joust at the Utah Renaissance Faire every year... looks like their coming back for more this May. You should go... it's lot's o' fun.

Plus... my younger sister and her family won't be there, because they thinks it's dorky... so no one will be there to make fun of you.

Will the real geek please stand up?

2008-12-03T12:41:00.008-07:00

Like I said in my last post, I’m participating in a “Cult TV” Fandom Panel for a class up at the U of U. (ENGL 2070).
I’m really excited to do this, but also nervous that we’re about to be fed to the wolves. I don’t think that will happen because the instructor is a Browncoat, but you never know.
So yesterday, we were forwarded a couple of pages of questions from the class to contemplate, so I thought that I would address some of the questions here.

What makes Serenity/Firefly fans different from other popular TV fans?
We’re freaking awesome! That’s what makes us different… Duh! No, really, I became aware of the awesomeness of the Browncoats when I drove down to Vegas for the Serenity prescreening. I was expecting a group of typical comic book geeks but what I found were intelligent folk from every nationality and age group you could name. Their commonality? They like shows that don’t suck.

Would you discuss the show only within the fan community or also with people who didn’t have a prior interest?
I would discuss this show in a car or in a bar, in a house or with a mouse, I would talk it here or there, I would talk it anywhere…

Do you force other people to watch Firefly to recruit more Browncoats?
We don’t use the Force… that’s a totally different show… dummy!

What drew you to your fandom?
My little sister… Damn you, Mei Mei!

Fans—are they crazy?
Fan… is just short for Fanatic. Yes… crazy is a good word.

Could fandom resurrect the Firefly series, or any canceled show?
Sadly… no. I think that the Browncoats did do a bit of the impossible by getting the BDM (Big Damn Movie), but I’m afraid that Firefly has seen it’s day in the sun.

What is it about TV that makes you involve yourself in fandom?
It’s not just Television. It’s GOOD television. Television is just another form of story telling, just like reading a book, or listening to the radio, or going to the theater. If the show has a bad story, or (in Firefly’s case) is to intelligent for the brain dead American public, that show is going to go away because the medium is driven by viewership. You become a fan when you find a story that moves you in a positive way. It’s simply that.

Why do you think it is worthwhile to spend so much time talking about your TV show?
Why do you find it worthwhile to discuss books? Come on… just two different forms of entertainment.

Why do fans always dress up for conventions?
This… just so happens to be the question I’ve been mulling over for the last few weeks.
And my conclusion is this… we don’t ALWAYS dress up for conventions. Many do, but not all. And as for those who do choose to dress up… so what!
Ask yourself this… are you a fan of a sports team? And if so, have you ever gone to a sporting event wearing a replica jersey? Painted your face? Donned a Cheese Head or foam finger? What makes that cool or acceptable?
Wearing… say… a Starfleet uniform to Comicon is no different from wearing a sports team jersey to a game. The only difference is the stigma that society has placed upon them.
Wearing a team jersey, painting your face the team colors, chanting, and yelling “Charge” when the sounder sounds… as dorky as all that is… is acceptable to the majority in society, while wearing a Starfleet uniform, walking around a convention center, meeting some of the actors, artists, & writers of your favorite shows, books, & comics, and such… is somehow… outside of societies accepted norms. Who made up these rules?
Probably the Jocks…

Why do TV companies quit airing shows even when they have millions of devoted fans?
Ratings, ratings, ratings.

How does your fandom mix with the rest of your life? Is it the driving factor? Is it like a side hobby?
This is a good one. Firefly affects all parts of my habits, language, what I buy, what we name the goldfish. The nice thing about being a browncoat is that you can fly under the radar. Not a lot of people know about the show, so it’s easy to wear a BlueSun shirt or some such and most people think that it’s just some corporate tee shirt… really only another browncoat will understand the message.

Do you find yourself becoming a “die-hard” fan of only one type of genre or is it possible to be a fan (on the level of “fandom”) of different types of television shows?
I love SciFi… I love To Kill a Mockingbird… I love Bogart films… I’m currently watching a lot of Scrubs and MASH reruns. I’m a person… I have many interests.

What is it, do you suppose, that causes Joss Whedon to attract fandom groups? Buffy, Dr Horrible, Firefly, Angel all have huge fan bases that aren’t necessarily the same people. What is it about Joss that causes this?
The guy’s freakin’ awesome! I don’t know. I like Buffy, Firefly, Dr. Horrible… but I think that Angel needed to be staked long before he ever got his own show. It has to do more with the character than it does the writer.

How much time per week do you spend participating in fandom activities?
3.14 seconds per week… hey that’s the same as PI… I wonder if that means anything.

So there you go…
I’ll let you know how it went.

Diversions

2008-12-01T13:24:00.002-07:00

The last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of “wondering” about things; mostly about where I am professionally. I’ve gone about as far as I can in my profession. Really all I can do at this point is try to expand my knowledge base, which may translate to a couple of more bucks in my pocket… maybe. But since I just got passed over for learning a new CAD program… I’ve been kinda down on myself as of late.
It’s probably just because I’m on the eve of turning 40 and I can’t afford to go back to school for a Master’s degree.

Anyway…

I do have distractions, however. Thursday morning I’m heading up to the U to take part in a panel of Browncoats (fans of Firefly/Serenity) for an English class built around Pop Culture as literature. It should be fun and serve as a welcome diversion from life for a while.

If you happen to be in that class… Watch out! The Geeks are coming! You will be assimilated… resistance is futile…
Oh… that’s the wrong show… Gorram it!

Happy Freakin' Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T12:47:00.002-07:00

Well the silly season is upon us and I’m just not feeling very festive this year.

So instead of writing some sappy thing about counting our blessings and stating all of the things to be thankful for… I’m just going to say this…

Happy Thanksgiving… sure hope we can all afford to do it again next year.

Stage Makeup

2008-11-11T13:03:00.002-07:00

I’m in so much trouble…
A few years ago… more than I care to admit, I helped a friend of mine out with a couple of rooms he had at the old “Haunted Old Mill.” It was so much fun, and because of that experience, I found my wife… but that’s a totally different subject.
Anyway, while working at this haunted house, I taught myself quite a bit about stage and FX makeup. Since then, I’ve tried to keep myself up on technique and so forth, but lately (the last 10 years) I’ve been only using my “vast knowledge” to make my kids into dead pirates and fairy princesses on Halloween and to do realistic first aid drills for the Boy Scouts.
So… getting back to the story, my Stake is putting on a musical, “A Time to Choose,” next March and they were asking for technical people to help out with the production. I figured that I could be of some help so I called up the director and offered to do the stage makeup. Then, I pulled out my old makeup kit and found that most of my brushes were either crusty old, or falling apart, and that most of my cream makeup was more like chalk makeup.

So, I did some looking and bought a theatrical cream kit from Ben Nye, and then grabbed some books from the library as a refresher…

I am in so much trouble!

When I was in my 20’s everything came so easy, now… not so much. Shading isn’t working like it should. Color selection doesn’t seem natural anymore. I can’t control the brushes like I used to…
I really think that I’m just being to hard on myself, and I do have until March to try to get my skills back… plus… I have no idea what this play is about. I don’t know the characters and I don’t know what kind of makeup I’ll be needed to do… so I’m trying to learn it all.

See where volunteering gets you…

My Thoughts on the Election

2008-11-05T12:00:00.002-07:00

Eh.... *sigh*

I wonder what's on cable tonight.

Disneyland Pictures

2008-11-02T08:41:00.002-07:00

I've updated my flickr page with some of our Disneyland pictures.

I'll add more later.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T07:37:00.001-06:00

Happy Halloween everybody!

An Open Letter to Mr. Particular

2008-10-29T12:22:00.002-06:00

Dear Mr. Particular,
Thank you so much for allowing us to crash your lovely home for our family Halloween party. The kids had a great time, and it was kind of fun to watch you follow behind them with your broom and dustpan. I really do apologize if they had any accidents with their punch. You really do have a lovely home, and I do hope it stays that way after your child is born. But…
Despite your claim that once your first child is born, your home will stay as immaculate as it is now, I just don’t think that you’re thinking straight. You say that you and your wife are “very particular people” and I do believe this to be the case… but I knew you as a small child, and Spaghettios against the wall, or on your head, was not a rare occurrence with you. You have become a clean freak… you were not born one. And while your child will start out very clean, they will become mobile, and then the term disaster will begin to take on an entirely new meaning.
Please don’t be dismayed or surprised when you come home from a hard day’s work to find an oddly pink stain in the middle of your light tan carpet, from a sippy cup that didn’t, quite do it’s job. At first you’ll fume, and rage, you’ll probably get the spot remover from under the sink and work to remove the stain… only to find out that red juice doesn’t always come out of carpet completely. After a year of this, you won’t even bother with the stain remover because you won’t want to make a clean spot in an otherwise dirty carpet.
There will come a day when you flop, exhausted into your leather sofa to watch golf on ESPN only to find that you just sat in a big blob of syrup from a half eaten French toast stick. And after pealing yourself from that sticky situation, you’ll find that the surround sound speakers you love rattle due to the Matchbox cars that have been shoved into the sound holes.
Don’t get me wrong, I would never wish these things upon you; I am simply relaying the knowledge I have gained from 14 years of being a Dad. For I would never wish jelly covered disks in a brand new DVD player on anyone… but they do happen. If I had a nickel for every Matchbox car I’ve fished out of a piece of electronics… I’d be a very rich man.
Children have a way of turning new things into old things, putting dings in walls they rarely pass by, and despite all of your plans… they are just generally messy. Now, you may have the exception to the rule… there is always the chance that your child may fold all of their cloths before putting them in their drawers. They may play with a toy, and then put it away before getting another out. They might even sit at the table and wipe their mouth with a napkin before asking to be excused… and then again… they may be normal. And you have to ask yourself… do you want to spend the rest of your life following behind them with a broom… or do you want to enjoy them?
I know you don’t take advice from me… But please don’t take offence when I do a little dance and sing a few courses of “I told you so” when the day comes that I can do so.

Best wishes,
Murph

On Vacation

2008-10-18T09:10:00.002-06:00

I'm spending the week in Disneyland.

I'll post later

Call of the Mother Country

2008-10-08T12:51:00.002-06:00

Lately I’ve had an aching in my chest to go to England, Wales, and Ireland. In order to explain why this is the case I have to tell you where it all started.
A few years ago, I started organizing my genealogy. I started with everything I had at home in various books, and then moved on to what I could find in FamilySearch.org. Along the way I came into contact with a distant cousin I have living in London. Knowing that I have family there started the spark of longing I have for the small islands, that were, and as it turns out, still are the homes for generations of Porters, Hicks, Cottams, Leeks, Packs and any other names that I have found, or will find within myself.

I’m reading a book called: The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog By, Patricia Monaghan. In it she writes something that summed up my longing.

“How could I ever know myself if I did not know where I was from – not just the scenes of my personal memories, but the places where my ancestors had walked, where my body understood the way time unfolded its seasons on the land, where people still spoke a language whose rhythms echoed in my own? Where history had been made by people with my family names? Where the unrecorded history of ordinary loves and losses had been lived by people with features like mine?”

I long to walk the streets of Malmesbury. See the countryside of county Fermanagh and the streets of Dublin. To visit the Parish church in Cardiff where generations of Porters are now buried. Find the graves in Manchester where my Great Great Grandfather laid several of his infant children before boarding a steamer bound for New York. I want to experience these places and hundreds more like them. I want to shake the hands of my cousins, look into their eyes and reunite our two branches of the family.
For some reason the mother country is calling to me, and I so want to heed that call.

Do I sound crazy?

Bring on the Hate Mail

2008-10-01T12:26:00.001-06:00

There has been something on my mind for the last few months and it has to do with my cousin, (who… incidentally… lives in California) and her marriage to a lovely young lady, a marriage for which I am very happy for them both. Yes, gentle reader; I did say HER marriage to a young LADY, and that I am HAPPY.
Now most of you who have read my blog before know that I am LDS (a Mormon) and …somewhat… of a conservative Christian. But, my cousin’s marriage hasn’t bothered me at all… going against all stereotypes of what the Christian right is supposed to think about the topic of gay marriage. Guess you can’t trust stereotypes of any kind… hu.
This bothered me for some reason, it shouldn’t have, but it did. And I thought that… well, maybe I wasn’t living my religion. Or maybe… I needed to go confess something to my bishop, I’m not sure what, but something. I mean, as a (somewhat) conservative Christian, I should be condemning the marriage… right?
Well, I found out why I’m not bugged about her marriage, and why I shouldn’t be bugged… and of all places, I found it in a graphic novel called “V for Vendetta.”
(Are we no commanded to seek out truth in all things? Got ya!)
There’s a scene, toward the front of the book, that has V standing on a roof, just under a statue of Lady Justice, and he’s talking with her. He’s telling her how much he loves her, but then accuses her of infidelity to him. How she’s given her love to another (the new fascist government) and that because of her infidelity, she has turned her back on justice. The last thing he tells her, before blowing her up, is that there can only be true justice where there is also freedom. If you’ve never read the comic, do, because it’s brilliant.
Now what does that have to do with the topic of gay marriage? Well, I don’t really know, except that it got my brain going in the right direction. And here’s what I realized.
Long ago, marriage was a purely religious affair. The church (who ever the church was) was able to say who were able to get married, and who could break the bonds of same. At some point, marriage was taken over by the civil authority. It was no longer purely controlled by the church, but by the state. Marriage was no longer just a holy bond but a legal contract. At the moment that happened it should have become available to all consenting adults, regardless of orientation. It states, very clearly, in out founding documents that all people are created equal and that we are all equally able to partake in all the rights afforded to us as citizens of the state (and when I say state, I mean all government to which we are subject). When the state took over the institution of marriage, it was then no longer a purely religious ceremony afforded to only certain people in certain circumstances, but it became a civil right that should have been extended to all.
The Christian right argues that allowing gay’s to marry will weaken the marriage bonds between men and women, will weaken the family… so on and so forth. I say that they are ridicules and wrong… dead wrong. The fact that gay people can now legally marry in California, in no way changes the way I feel about my wife. We are not any less married than we were before. In fact I believe that the opposite is true.
I believe, that when we deny basic human rights to people we deem undeserving, ineligible or weird, we weaken that right, thus weakening the right of marriage. When we deny a right to some, we deny it to all. If we deny the right of marriage to the gay community, we weaken the institution and should just get rid of the right and say that there should be no more marriage. This country was founded on the concept of equality (some would argue that fact with me… but that’s an argument for another time.)
I say that we should celebrate our differences and praise California for the courage that they had to extend the right of marriage to all consenting adults and in doing so strengthened the right and bonds of marriage.

I'm Going to Die!

2008-09-28T08:16:00.001-06:00

At Silver Moccasin last summer, I found myself sitting alone with one of my assistant scoutmasters, during one of our few quiet times on the course. He’s a pretty fit guy, who runs in marathons, and who is in his 50’s. I’m 39 and feel like I’m in my 60’s.
So anyway, he was telling me that I needed to start running and then enter a 10k. He guaranteed me that it would change my life. Well I didn’t do anything about it up until about a month ago.
The company I work for has lunch brought in every Friday. And it’s a good time to sit and chew the fat, as it were. Well one of the guys said that he had always thought that putting a team together for the Wasatch Back Relay would be fun. Well my boss agreed and so we have put a team together. For those who don’t know, it’s a running race, from Logan to Park City, some 180 (about) miles. 12 runners per team, run 3 legs of the relay. I’ll be running a 5k and two 10k’s in 24 hours.
I’ve started training, and do pretty well on the treadmill, but once I get on the road, it’s a disaster.
But I’ve only been training for a month, so I’m sure I’ll improve, and I have until June. Suddenly next summer doesn’t seem so far away.

Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2008-09-19T07:59:00.001-06:00

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day everybody!

Eye hope ye all find yer booty in fair weather and that the scallywags what come to board ye are not skurvey dogs!

I’ve made a decision. Ya know how Thanksgiving is kind of like the day that Christmas begins? Well I’ve decided that TLaPD is not the official start of Halloween. Yep, tomorrow, the Halloween decorations come out. Goth, vamp and other halloweeny type music will play in my home at all hours and we all will get into a proper Halloween spirit.
Join with me in this new tradition.

Best of the day to ye swab!

The Vampires Among Us

2008-09-09T20:54:00.002-06:00

It’s a funny thing. The political season has just officially started and I’ve been reading a non-fiction book about vampires.
The book is titled Piercing the Darkness and it’s by a clinical psychologist turned reporter named Katherine Ramsland. She started this book because of the disappearance of another reporter and because of her fascination with vampires, a fascination that many of us have. So many of us, these days, love vampires… and with the advent of the Twilight books, many more of the straight laced among us are identifying with vamps as well.
I’ve always wondered why so many of us, myself included, are so in love with this creature of the night, this evil, maniacal, manipulator in the dark. A creature that… while he or she is telling you that they love you… while they’re giving you the best sex that you could ever imagine in your kinkiest fantasies… they are, literally, draining your life’s blood… killing you slowly… while you are begging for more.
Some of you may be saying… No, that’s not true. I don’t love vampires, I don’t read vamp fiction, I hate horror movies, and people who dress up as vampires or wear black all the time are just creepy weird.
Can I quote from Ramsland’s Book?

“As a culture, we participate in collective bad faith. We shun or denounce kids who dress as vampires even as we covertly encourage large-scale social vampirism. We often protect, and often institutionalize, the very thing that we claim to decry, and while we say that vampirism is evil, we support corporations and politicians that plunder us. Take whatever you need, is the unspoken philosophy, value people only insofar as they are useful. Protect yourself and survive, no mater what it takes. Others are merely numbers.
“Middle class success literally depends on vamping off others, but we conceal this secret behind a façade of order, respectability, and family values. We strip the environment, cut corners on health to promote profit, and harbor internal prejudices that dehumanize whole groups. We strive for domination, tolerate political scams, and remain indifferent to the strip mining of our well-being by those who have the power to impoverish us. We secretly cherish those in power and submit to their domination.
“Participants in the more overt vampire culture articulate what we wish to keep silent. They are a sharp-edged figure to our diffuse background; we see them more clearly than we see ourselves, so we label them and shove them into the category of “deviant” to try to separate them from the herd like wounded cattle. They are Other, not part of us. But like it or not, we’re their context. As long as we sanction forms of vampirism in our business practices, politics, and institutions, but pretend through our ideals that we don’t, we will have a youth culture willing to act out the vampire role, fueled by the turmoil of our own contradictions.”
Ramsland, Katherine. Piercing the Darkness: Undercover with Vampires in America Today. New York: HarperPrism, 1998, Page 249

And so, ask yourself this… while you’re watching the presidential debates… which of the two vamps are you going to have as your sire? Who has me most enthralled? And then, vote for the other guy. I’m not going to tell you who that is, because I’m voting none of the above. In my opinion, both candidates will bleed us dry and make us come back, begging for more.
You know what I’m going to do… I’m wearing my fangs as often as I can between now and the elections, just to remind people of who it is we have to choose from. Both of those guys will tell you anything you want to hear in order to make you their thrall. They will offer you the world all while they’re sucking you dry, and when they’re through with you, they’ll toss you aside like the hollow shadow that you are.
I was going to throw the endorsement of this blog site behind a candidate from the Vampire, Witch, & Pagan Party who goes by the name of Jonathan the Impaler. But after reading a bit about him on his blog and other sources… I’ve decided that he’s just a joke, and I can’t endorse a joke.
So none of the above has my vote… who’s with me?

Now, I need a new book to read. Something light and airy would be good.

Roots

2008-08-27T22:14:00.000-06:00

For the last year I have been on a quest to find my ancestry, but not to find the normal stuff. That sounds weird… let me explain.
I have always wanted to be an archaeologist… ever since I was a little kid.
Have you ever sat with an object in your hand… an old object, like a piece of Native-American pottery, or with something that belonged to your great, great grandfather, and imagined them using it, or making it. I do all the time, I always have.
I have my great grandfather’s hymn book, and quite often I’ll just find myself sitting, holding it… imagining him using it… wondering who embossed his name on it for him. Was it a gift? Did he buy it himself? These are answers I’m always looking for.
So anyway, a couple of years ago, I set out on a quest to find the Father of my Great Great Grandfather. You see, his mom (my G.G.G. grandmother, Emma Porter) was a single mother, who later married a man named Bennett. So I set out to find his bio-dad. Along this journey I found many things, one of those is a 6th cousin, Louise, who lives in England. We never realized that there would be a whole branch of the family who would have stayed over there. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her through email. I also found, my G.G. Grandfather’s emigration paperwork in the Utah State Historical Society’s archives, which gave me the idea to find the ship that brought the Porter’s to America.
Well… I found it.
In the Family History Library in Salt Lake.
I found the passenger list.
They got here on the Steam Ship Nevada out of Liverpool, England docking in New York on June 1st, 1886. I found out from that passenger list that my Great Grandfather’s parents called him “Willie” and that he was 4 years old when they moved from Manchester to settle in Ogden, in the Utah Territory. They traveled in steerage, and carried 3 pieces of luggage.
The library is a very quiet place, with lots of people peacefully studying records, but when I found them, I so wanted to whoop and holler… fortunately, I didn’t.

I still have some mysteries to solve, but I’m looking forward to solving them.

Stop! George… Just Stop Already!

2008-08-15T12:07:00.002-06:00

In 1977, I was a skinny little geek of the 3rd grader when this new movie called Star Wars came out. Suddenly, everyone at Vista Elementary School were wearing these tee shirts that had a picture of a guy in this bathrobe kind of shirt holding a sward of light straight up over his head, or had some kind of black death mask fading into some kind of big gray ball. I had no idea what these shirts were all about, and had no idea who this “Dark Vader” was that everyone was talking about, but I was bound to find out.
I was the last one in Miss Hall’s 3rd grade class to go see it. One day, and I don’t really remember why, my Dad packed up my younger sister and me, and off we went to see Star Wars. We drove to the old Center Theater in Salt Lake; because that was the only place you could see it in those days.
In the dark of the theater, with the Star Destroyer going over my head, the only thing I could think, feel or say was… Wow! This is the greatest movie ever!

I’ve grown up a lot since then, I’ve read and analyzed more works of fiction than I care to admit, and I’ve come to one conclusion that just seems to piss off everyone that I’ve ever told. That conclusion? Ok, if you really want to know…

George Lucas created a brilliant world in which to tell his story, and then he told a sucky story, full of sucky characters, who were played (mostly in episodes 1-3) by sucky actors.

Before you crucify me, and burn my body on the geek alter… please allow me to explain.
George Lucas was a brilliant writer and director. THX-1138, although I hated it the first time I saw it as a teenager, I have since become far more Dytopian savvy and have watched it again and all I can say is that THX-1138 is… brilliant. The same can be said for American Graffiti with its documentary style (way overdone these days) and continuous “doo-ap” soundtrack was absolutely delightful.
Then came Star Wars, which amounts to nothing more than a story of Swords and Sorcery… with rivets, not necessarily bad… but… I have to honest here, I liked the original 1977 Star Wars, Episode 4, (the one in which Han does, in fact, shoot first) with it’s never before seen special affects and sound. Things in the story made a bit of sense as well, even if there were sounds and aerodynamics in space. It’s the only one of the series that is even marginally watchable, followed very closely by Empire Strikes Back and then Return of the Jedi, even with those damnable killer teddy bears. As for Episodes 1 thru 3… well… all I can say is that if you were to dry them out and then grind them into a fine powder… you could, successfully, fertilize your garden.
Now… he’s come out with this new Clone Wars animated… thing. …Sigh… Even J. K. Rowling knew when to stop… about 9 books to late… but still.
George Lucas used to be a talented director, but he stopped using that talent, and has lost it. Now he’s just a shameless recycler of the same old song and dance. And I pity him.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2008-08-06T13:09:00.001-06:00

If you liked the Musical Buffy Episode, you'll love Dr. Horrible

It's... kind of PG-13 so don't watch it with your kids 'til you've seen it first.

Preparedness Principles

2008-08-03T12:29:00.005-06:00

Preparedness Principles: The Complete Personal Preparedness Resource Guide
By Barbara Salsbury (and Sandi Simmons)
Horizon Publishing
Large Format Paperback
364 pages (incl. Appendix and Index), $26.99

Many years ago, when I lived in Taylorsville, I joined a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), which required me to go to several weeks of training in order to learn simple first aid, triage, search and rescue, disaster preparation, and team organization during an emergency. After passing the 3-hour mock disaster drill (and getting myself “trapped” inside a “collapsing” structure of some kind in the process) I was graduated with a certificate, a green vest, and a helmet. I couldn’t wait for THE earthquake; you know, the big one, the one that’s going to teach us all to live in the bottom of an ancient lakebed by swallowing up all of our homes. So I slept with my CERT gear within reaching distance, and I had 30 gallons of water and a couple of cases of Top Ramen in the basement… I was set. Bring on the disaster!
Here’s the thing… I’ve moved to the west bench, I have no idea where my CERT gear is, I’m no longer a part of the Taylorsville team and I know that there is no Team organized up here. Plus, after reading Barbara Salsbury’s book, I realize that I am in no condition for any kind of disaster.
Preparedness Principles is an easy to understand manual that doesn’t just tell you to be prepared for a disaster, it doesn’t try to scare you with a bunch of dooms-day scenarios, and it doesn’t just hand you a list of what you’re going to need with no regard to your personal needs or preferences… as other preparedness books seem to do. The author lays out her ideas and principles in very plain, very practical language. At no point does she say to go out and buy 1.3 tons of flour because bread is the staff of life, instead the opposite is true, she basically says, if you have flour and water you don’t have bread… you have paste. (Those aren’t her words, but I liked the way they sounded) To have bread, you do need flour and water, but you also need eggs, milk, some kind of leavening, so on and so forth, then she tells you how to go about getting these items, lets you know how to store them and how long they’re going to stay usable.
I think that her main message in the food storage sections of this book is that just because you’re in a state of emergency, it doesn’t mean that you need to eat like it. Yes, preparing your food might be a bit of a challenge. You might be using your dining room table for a makeshift growing room for your indoor, winter vegetable garden. Yes, your oven and stovetop might not be working because the gas is shut off, or because of some downed power lines, but with a little bit of inventiveness, and preparation, you should be able to get through it just fine. She even includes some recipes to help you out.
The book works for almost any situation (I didn’t find anything on what to do in the case of alien abduction, or Monkey Revolution) and gives ideas for any budget, in fact, the first section has to do with getting yourself financially prepared for hard times, which is something I usually don’t associate with earthquakes or floods, but is still a really good starting point.
I did find that the information did overlap just the slightest bit from section to section, but sometimes we need things repeated to really get it.
This is a very valuable book to have, but not to keep on your bookshelf. This book needs to opened and read often, and the ideas need to be learned and used as much as possible so that when the big one does strike, you’ll be prepared.

This review was supposed to end with an author’s interview, but as of posting time… now… I haven’t heard back from Ms. Salsbury. I’m sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that I asked extensive questions about preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse… Hey! It could happen… or that I asked whether the family pet could be a practical source of fresh protein and a highly mobile extension of your family's food storage pantry.
I’m sure those questions have nothing to do with the fact that she won’t return my emails… really.

Update August 5, 2008

Yeah! We finally figured out what was wrong. Barbara Salsbury doesn't hate me with a white hot hate! As it turns out, I goofed up and she never got my email... I'm an English Major... need I say more. So... Here's my interview with the author.

Murph: Ms. Salsbury, it is a pleasure to be able to talk to you about your wonderful book.

Barbara Salsbury: Yes, it really is a wonderful book, and I am well known for my unbiased opinions. Hopefully it will help a lot of people.

Murph: You seem to be very knowledgeable in the area of Emergency Preparedness, how did you get started teaching these principles?

Barbara Salsbury: It's called survival with out any budget and becoming the visual aids for all kinds of disasters - such as losing our business and existing without a payday or government welfare for almost two years. I began by giving workshops, doing lots of research, continuing to survive our own disasters, giving more workshops - and then started writing it down. I've only been able to get it into twelve books so far, with another one coming.

Murph: Food storage to me, and probably to a lot of people, means that you have a couple of garbage cans full of wheat, oat bran, and pinto beans. I was very happy to find out that food storage really means that you store what you normally eat. Where did that concept come from?

Barbara Salsbury: Which concept... the old wives tale about just wheat, etc.?. I think it is one of "they says" that got diverted into several recipe books. I am a firm believer that personal preparedness is a lot more than wheat!

Murph: So what you're saying is that, I might get a little tired of eating Ramen Noodles... everyday... for a year. What if I supplement the noodles with... say... YooHoo Chocolate Drink?

Barbara Salsbury: Oh not just a chocolate drink. You must have a well rounded diet to stay healthy, such as fruit and protein! Surely you have discovered chocolate covered raisins and double dipped chocolate peanuts ... and really good solid milk chocolate.

Murph: What's the shelf life of Goobers? Hummm... I didn't find a section on what to do during a Zombie Apocalypse. You've seen Night of the Living Dead right? I mean. it could happen.

Barbara Salsbury: I'm sorry to be the one to set you straight on this one. It's not the Zombies that one needs to worry about. I have been noticing they have been fleeing in droves every night at 12:10 AM. It is the WOLF SPIDERS! We are being invaded by gazillions of wolf spiders. They have eaten the wheat under the beds and can move extremely fast when one tries to catch or squish them (EEwwwww)

Murph: Sorry, I've been having a little bit of fun with you, but seriously... it could happen!

Barbara Salsbury: Fun!!? I don't think wolf spiders are fun!

Murph: Wolf spiders? I was talking about zombies... Um... Okay, moving right along. I realize you don't write fiction, but who are your favorite authors?

Barbara Salsbury : Having three books published in the last year or so, about all I have read is research. Sorry, I am not a great reader of the literature masters, even the current ones.

Murph: Have you heard of the book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks? You should look into it.

Barbara Salsbury: Sorry. I'm thinking of writing The Real War Is With the Bugs and Spiders and then start selling bug squashers on a web site.

Murph: Okay... No more Zombie... or bug... talk. I promise.

Barbara Salsbury: It's OK

Murph: They... who ever "They" are... have been talking about "The Big One" for a long time. do you seriously think that a monster earth quake is in the works for the Wasatch Front? Or are the news folk just trying to scare everyone?

Barbara Salsbury: Having lived through A BIG ONE (7.2 Loma Priets, CA) I think an earthquake could very well be in the future of a lot of people. It is scary, but there are a lot of scary things out there - in addition to "just" and earthquake. And I haven't met the "They" organization yet... But "they" are influential.

Murph: You do say several times, that you should plan for a food supply for your pets... don't you think that things could get desperate enough that... say... Fluffy becomes a part of your food supply?

Barbara Salsbury: Only if Fluffy is YOURS and a Zombie! (Another EEEwwwwwwww!)

Murph: Sorry... I would never eat a cat... I'm alergic. Moving right along... Are you really sure that putting a Bay leaf in the flour doesn't work? I've had a several bay leafs in my flour bucket and there is no sign of weevil. I totally believe in it.

Barbara Salsbury: Yes, I'm really sure. You are one of the lucky ones whose weevil have learned to hide when the lid comes off. They are well fed and turn the color of the wheat. NO, Bay leaf will not keep bugs out of food. In the book I describe how often weevil need to be fed and how to make house pets out of them, you know like dust bunnies :] sorry couldn't resist.

Murph: Okay, my turn... EEEEeeewwwww!

I tell my kids to eat their beans all the time, because to me they are the perfect food. But despite my best efforts they just won't eat them... any advice?

Barbara Salsbury: Beans have to be prepared properly. First you soak them, cook them and then double dip them in milk chocolate and, for kids, roll them in sprinkles made from soy.

Murph: Do you think that their really is a world rice shortage, or is it really just NPR crisis talk?

Barbara Salsbury: In my opinion there may be a shortage of rice in various countries for various reasons, but when the press release was issued here in the USA there was/is rice available. The rice crop in Northern California is about ready to harvest. Remember the press release could have been another "they say."

Murph: Are you a Joss Whedon fan?

Barbara Salsbury: Again sorry. I'll have to go to Google as soon as I finish this.

Murph: Thank you for sitting down to... write... with me, and congratulations on writing a very valuable book.

Barbara Salsbury: It truly has been fun "writing" with you. I continually try to teach people that preparedness can be fun... SEE?

Breaking Dawn

2008-08-02T08:44:00.001-06:00

Last night was the Breaking Dawn party at the Barnes & Noble... My wife and daughter went and had a great time.
I went so that I could look at the sheep.

Can't Judge a Book by it's Cloned Cover!

2008-07-31T22:47:00.004-06:00

My wife an I were walking through Barnes and Noble tonight because I really needed something good to read, and my wife wanted to reserve a copy of that new Twilight book. Breaking Wind… I think that’s what it’s called… Ugh! How anyone can read that… drivel.
Sigh
Anyway, while walking through the store, I came across a table full of “Chicklit” Vamp books and found this one…

And so I said to myself, “Self,” remember I always talk to myself in the third person, “Self, the cover of this book is a blatant Buffy clone.”

See for yourself.

Plagiarism!

They have no shame.

Cruel to be Kind

2008-07-30T08:07:00.000-06:00

Ok, so while I was walking into work this morning I passed an American Idol wrist band… flapping, all torn and tattered in the weeds along the side of the road. Looking at it I could almost see it’s young owner, tearing it from his or her wrist… possibly in tears… all dreams of being the next big thing to hit Utah… but… alas… it was not to be…
Look, I love to sing. In church, where people are to nice to tell me to shut up, and I sing in my home… usually locked up in my office… where no one but me can hear. Look, in my mind, I sound really good… in real life… not so much.
I would hope that my wife and family love me enough to not allow me to go try out for American Idol… if I were younger, and… well, stupid enough to go do that.

Here’s a song that says it all…

Do I Need to Paint You a Sign?

2008-07-29T08:00:00.003-06:00

Geez!
Ya... Beemer Guy... This is for you too!

Jerk!

Unplug and Drop-out

2008-07-28T21:48:00.001-06:00

Before my one fan starts thinking that all I do on this site is review books, I figured that I’d get a standard post up and going.
Dropping out. Yep, I have dropped out. A few months ago I decided to turn off the radio, stop reading the paper (except for the Arts page… I mean, lets not go overboard) and stopped watching anything news related on the television. Yep, I have unplugged.
And you know what… I’m a much happier person.
Now you might be saying to yourself that I am now one of the masses of the uninformed. And to you I say… Yep!
Look, I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh… until he became unbelievably boarish. Then I turned to Glen Beck. He was funny up until a year ago, and then he became a fear monger… and that was no longer good listening.
“If America doesn’t wake up…” he’d say over and over again.
“I’m awake, Glen!” I’d yell back at my radio, “Now what can I do!?!” The short answer is… nothing. I can write to my congressman, and to the president. I can make phone calls, I can scream at the top of my lungs into space… and Nothing is going to change. So, if there is “nothing” I can do about the hole this country is dropping into, then “nothing” is what I want to know about.
So, here’s what I can do.
I can look after my family, and make the changes that I need to help us survive. I take the bus to work now. Not to save the world, but because I can’t afford to put $4/gallon gas in my car. Stuff like that.
When I go to vote this November, I won’t be voting to the D or the R. I don’t know who I’m gonna vote for… maybe the commie. Oh, wait, that won’t work… the commies are the D and the R.
Sigh

So, maybe if enough people drop out and unplug, as I have, maybe Washington will realize that we’re just ignoring them and just maybe, they’ll go away.

Room for Two

2008-07-22T22:21:00.008-06:00

Room for Two
By Abel Keogh
Published by Cedar Fort, Inc.
Trade Paperback
215 pages, $14.99

When I received Room for Two in the mail and took one look at the cover, a single word flew through my head… “ChickLit!” Then I read the synopsis on the back cover and said to myself, “Self,” I always talk to myself in the third person, it helps to separate the various voices competing for dominance inside my head, “Self,” I said, “This book is prime material for the Lifetime network, or maybe Oxygen. You, my friend, are going to hate this book.”

So, while I was trying to finish up the last book I was reading, my dear wife asked if she could read it. I believe that my response to her was, “you might as well, ‘cause I’m not going to like it.” She LOVED it by the way.

Does the phrase; “Can’t judge a book by its cover” mean anything to you, because Room for Two taught me a very valuable lesson indeed. Let me tell you why…

I first picked up this book at about 11:00 one night thinking that I would get started and get a feeling for how the author wrote before giving it a really good effort on the bus the next morning. I figured that I would get a couple of pages read before I fell asleep, and that would be a good start. Well… thirty something pages later I was still reading and wanting to do more, but had to get some sleep or I would be useless at work the next day.

Before I go on, I must confess something… I am a crybaby. Oh yes, gentle reader, many of my books have soft, salty tear stains in among their pages. While driving with my dear wife, I have hidden tears behind my sunglasses when touching songs come on the radio, it’s something that I have come to live with… before I'm required to turn in my "Man Card" let’s move on. And so there I was on the bus the next morning reading away, tears stinging my eyes as I read. Stealthily, I wiped them away, closed the book, placed it in my book bag, (read: Man Purse) and dug out my MP3 player to pipe some Tribal Celt music (The Wicked Tinkers) into my head… Unfortunately, the sound of Bag -Pipes usually causes me to swell with Celtic pride, which is almost always followed by… yes my friends… tears. There is no winning.

Seriously, I’ve been making light of this book… but that’s my way. This is a very good read. Mr. Keogh is a fantastic writer who has the ability to pull you into his story, so much so, that you can almost see and feel his raw emotion. It is, almost, a tactile experience beginning with the smell of the spent gunpowder in his apartment to the feel of a loved ones hand in the end. The story becomes that real to the reader because it was very real to the author.

Room for Two chronicles the author’s experiences from the suicide of his pregnant wife, through his grieving, his anger, and his growth as he tries to forgive his late wife for her actions, and himself for not being able to prevent her from doing them. As the story progresses, Mr. Keogh tells his readers about his misadventures in trying to remember how to date and we are able to struggle with him as he tries to find room enough in his heart for a new love of his life. The story is sad in many places, funny in others, and spiritually enlightening throughout.
It is truly a must read.

As with all my book reviews so far, (all three of them) I was able to pose a few questions to the author about his book.

Murph: Mr. Keogh, it is truly an honor.

Abel Keogh: My pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time to interview me.

Murph: Can we start by settling a question that has plagued me from the day I picked up your book? How do you pronounce your last name?

Abel Keogh: It’s pronounced Key-o. The “gh” is silent.

M: As I said in my review, the emotion in your book is just raw; I’m almost warn out from it. What was the catalyst for you to get this story onto paper?

AK: Dealing with the emotional roller coaster that came with writing Room for Two was probably the most unpleasant part of the entire process. It wasn’t fun to relive a lot of those moments though it was a relief to finally have everything out on paper.

The main catalyst for writing Room for Two was an utter lack of compelling memoirs about losing a spouse. The books I tried to read in the months after my late wife’s death were poorly written and very preachy. I wanted to write something with broad appeal – something that everyone could enjoy even if they hadn’t lost a spouse.

M: What did your wife, Julianna, think of you writing this book?

AK: Julianna was very supportive of the writing process and gave me the time I needed to complete the book. She didn’t care whether or not it was published. What she really wanted was “our story” written down so our children would know how we met and that they have a half-sister in heaven.

M: Do you and Julianna still run? And have you ever joined her in running a marathon?

AK: Yes, we still run. We don’t run together as much as we’d like because having three young kids makes that difficult. When the weather’s good, however, you can find us running together, pushing our kids running strollers, on Saturday mornings.

We ran a marathon together about five months after we were married. Actually, together is a pretty loose term. She bolted ahead as soon as the race started. I didn’t see her again until the finish line. She’s run several since them. I’m more content to run shorter races like 5ks or 10ks.

M: Did you ever find out what Krista’s final message, “no matter what I do, the consequences are the same,” meant?

AK: No, I never did learn what she was trying to say. I attribute it to her insanity.

M: I know from your book that you read random sampling’s of Krista’s journals, did you ever read her last few entries in order to find a reason for her suicide?

AK: Krista’s journal writing became very erratic in the months leading up to her suicide. She stopped writing about six weeks before she died. What she did write leaves no clues as to her motives for taking her own life. However the writing doesn’t sound like Krista. Even though the entries are in her handwriting, when I read it, it seems like someone else wrote it.

M: Okay, off of the heavy stuff, and on to the standard question for a Mind of Murph interview… Are you a fan of Joss Whedon?

AK: It depends. I liked the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I could never get into Angel. I heard great things about Firefly but I’ve never seen any episodes.

M: If you could be any character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Firefly… who would it be and why?

AK: Probably Angel. Something about a vampire with a soul appeals to me. Maybe there’s a better character in Firefly. I’m thinking I really need to put that TV show in my Netflix queue.

M: You won’t be disappointed, my word of honor as a Boy Scout Drop-out. Okay… If I were raid your bookshelves right now, what books would I find?

AK: A little bit of everything. I read just about anything that has a good plot and interesting characters. Probably the best way is to check out the books on my GoodReads page at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/844543.Abel_Keogh. I have several hundred books on my shelves and am doing my best to add them to my profile by the end of the year.

Recently, I’ve been buying and reading lots of detective fiction. It’s a genre I never read until I married Julianna but I’ve discovered that some of the genre’s authors like Michael Connelly and Robert Crais are some of the best writers working today.

M: Wow, I glad to see that you aren’t one of those Good Reads authors who have 2 books listed and 9000 “friends.” By the way, I went through your book lists and added a few to my “to read” list, thanks… Umm, This next question is from my wife… What ever happened to Jennifer? Did she ever find anyone?

AK: I’ve heard through the grapevine that she’s been happily married for about five years. I hope that’s true. I haven’t spoken to her since the relationship ended.

M: Who’s better… Captain Kirk or Captain Picard?

AK: Picard. For some reason I never liked Kirk. Even as a kid, watching reruns on Saturday afternoons, I was always hoping Kirk would get vaporized so Spock could take over.

M: Like I’ve said, I really like your writing style; do you have any other books in the works?

AK: I’m currently working on my first novel. I’ve discovered that fiction is harder to write than non-fiction. Still, I plan on having a publishable manuscript by the end of the summer.

M: Well thank you, Sir. Please keep in touch will you?

AK: Of course. Thank you for your time.

A full list of Blog Tour reviews, of which I am the only man… Go figure… can be found on Abel Keogh’s web site: http://www.abelkeogh.com/blog/?p=513

Please leave a comment, I’d like to know what’s on your mind… Please?

Caught in the Headlights

2008-07-20T08:55:00.004-06:00

Caught in the Headlights: 10 Lessons Learned the Hard Way
By, Barry K. Phillips (Forward by, Glenn Beck)
Published by Cedar Fort, Inc.
104 pages, $11.99

It’s a funny thing, if you watch for life lessons; sometimes they’ll hit you like a Mac Truck. Take last night for example, I was in a kind of a sullen, dissatisfied mood, and so, naturally, I sat down to write this review. I should never do that in such a state of mind, because I hammered this book. Man, I’ll tell ya, I set that thing on top of some Kingsford and then “flicked my bic.” Thankfully, I have a loving wife who is… well to use the words of Barry Phillips… “my wife is a saint.” She made me realize that I was not being fair to Mr. Phillips, and that I was just simply taking my frustrations out on him and his book. So, I burned my last review, and in it’s place I give you this one, which is much more fair.

Here’s the thing, I’m not sure how to handle this book because I don’t read anything that can be found in the self-help, business, or the political sections… (a nazi named Ann Coulter cured me of that last one.) So how does a degree in English Lit help me here? Well let’s start with what the book is about… Shall we?

In his book, Caught in the Headlights, Barry Phillips, presents 10 things that he wanted to accomplish in his life, just to find that what he thought he wanted wasn’t necessarily the same as what he got or what he really, truly wanted in the first place, and then he tells us what it was he learned along the way. Throughout the book he questions his qualifications to give such advice to his readers, sometimes in very humorous ways. For example, he lists among his bona fides that he loves “to cook, draw, and play drums.” He also likes “long walks on the beach, and the smell after a rain storm.” Did I mention that he says his wife is saint… but aren’t they all?

I really did like the humor in his writing. He tends to write like I do, with a lot of pauses and sidebars. But unlike my writing, he quickly comes back to his point. Which is refreshing; since he doesn’t give you time to forget what his original point was.

The book is very structured around his 10 points or pursuits, (ie. Happiness, Self-Esteem, Pride, so on and so forth), then using that point he tells a story form his big bag of life experiences, be it from business, church, home or getting stared at by Bill Gates. Next he presents the lessons that he learned using a standard 3-point conclusion. Standard, meaning that he doesn’t deviate from that set pattern. Finally, and I don’t quite get this one, he concludes with a poem… of his own make… which kind of repeats his three point lesson. I must admit, I only read the first poem, while I was on the bus. And I must have had a very perplexed look on my face, because the guy sitting next to me got up and actually left the bus. Ok, it may have been his stop, but still… I don’t get the whole thing with the poems. I’m sorry… Poems should be reserved for Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the guys who write toothpaste jingles… I’m just sayin’.

Wow, it sounds like I really didn’t like this book, and I really kind of did. Mr. Philips does make some very good points and I did walk away from this book with some lessons learned. For example, in his 10th chapter, titled “The Perfect Body,” he states,

As with most things in life, it really is about balance. We all need to eat healthy. But to say you will never eat chocolate again is not realistic for most of us. I mean, even if you live longer without chocolate, what would be the point? Life with no chocolate at all? Please. Ding Dongs are the nectar of life. At least I’d like them to be.

How true is that? I totally believe that.
I did try to put some balance in my life once, but I fell down.

Glenn Beck, a hero to the LDS population of the great state of Utah, wrote the forward to the book, which is quite appropriate since, like this book, Glenn’s radio show is funny in parts, preachy in parts, but enlightening in all ways.

I was able to sit down with the author, in a virtual sense, to ask him a few questions.

Murph: Mr. Phillips, It is a pleasure, may I call you Barry?

Barry Phillips: Sure... but only because it's my name. I mean, if it wasn't my name, what would be the point of calling me that? Besides, Mr. Phillips is my father.

Murph: Thank you, Um… I gotta know, right off the bat… what was with the poetry?

Barry Phillips: Yeah, I gathered you weren't a big fan of that part. To my defense, you only read one, and on the bus with some smelly guy watching you. I wrote them because they can make a point like nothing else at times. Besides, I actually like them.

M: I know that this is not a book of fiction, but I find that most writers are also readers, so… who do you read? If I were to raid your bookshelf today, who would I find sitting there?

BP: Car and Driver, cover to cover - but just for the articles. It depends on my mood otherwise. I like C.S. Lewis, but I also read a variety of things. On my shelf right now is Glenn Beck's latest book, a business book on marketing, Newt Gingrich's book on Change, lot's of church books, and scriptures. I liked the Harry Potter stuff, and I'm and Dale Brown fan. I'm also a fan of good, funny cartoons - the Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes and the like.

M: What made you want to write this book?

BP: The idea just hit me and it percolated until I just had to do it. I wrote the book because I noticed that a lot of people struggle with the same issues I did, but don't have much luck at resolving them. Not that I'm perfect at them by any stretch, but I've learned what works if I just follow the lessons learned.

M: Looks to me like you’ve done a lot with your life, but are you and Eagle Scout?

BP: A proud Tenderfoot, actually. But my wife and I did drag my oldest son across the finish line to get his Eagle, so that out to count for something.

M: I want to read a quote from your book, and get your reaction. Would that be all right?

BP: Do I have a choice? Why don't you ask me about one of the poems, since you read so many of them.

M: Ya, my wife said that as well, but I just can’t read poetry, maybe it’s because the one Poetry professor I had was from San Francisco… but anyway… Okay, this is from page 10, and you’re talking about people with whom you need to maintain relationships… with me so far? Ok, you state: “…and those internet geeks. Let’s face it, you may not want to hang out with them, but every now and then you really need to have them in your life.” So, I’m taking a stab in the dark here… I’m guessing that you wouldn’t be keen on sitting down to a nice game of D&D?

BP: The fact that I know what D&D stands for scares me just a little. But I have a confession or two. My wife is the Guild Master of a long standing guild in WOW (yes, I know what that acronym means too) and I work in an IT department. Not too far from my office is a guy with "IMANERD" on his license plates. So I know how to speak the geek. But it takes a special breed to hang with nerd herds on your own time. I actually like them, but I'm more of an honorary member.

M: You do realize that the Mind of Murph Blog Site is a Geek site… I mean… not a “let me help you with your Internet” kind of geek. I’m talking, never dated in high school, 10th level mage, in love with Princess Leia, sitting on the couch watching old reruns of Starblazers… THAT kind of geek… are you good with that?

BP: That's cool… do you think the guys that do help you with your Internet are different from that somehow?

M: Umm… Ya. Two different breeds, but both having a common ancestor… let’s move on, shall we? In your book, you refer to Bill Gates and Donald Trump as huge successes that you don’t want to be anything like… so… who do you look up to?

BP: People that are great at what they do, but are not jerks. Chip Foose for example. He's the best car designer on the planet and still a really great person from what I understand.

M: Are you a fan of Joss Whedon?

BP: Liked Buffy pretty well, and LOVED Firefly. Serenity is still one of my favorite moves.

M: Shiny! Dude, you rock! Um… So if you could be anyone in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer… who would you be?

BP: Someone that gets a stake through the heart. I'm not much of an actor, but I could play dead pretty well.

M: What’s the number one problem with the country today?

BP: Political Correctness. It stops everyone from saying what they really feel and prevents us from solving real problems.

M: If you were the King of the US for one day… what would you do to fix that problem?

BP: It would take more than one day, but I'd start with removing the concept of a professional politician. Of course, if I were king, there'd be very little need for politicians. I'd appoint logical, down to earth people with souls to run things.

M: Who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo?

BP: Han's the man.

M: You have a chapter in the book… Chapter 6, “Tolerance” where you literally lay it on the line. You express your opinions on the subject, seemingly without shame or remorse. It’s a very bold chapter… were you nervous at all? Did you ever think that that chapter was going to get you into trouble?

BP: Yes, I did. I've been very surprise that most people like that chapter the best. I really thought the publisher would make me change the chapter drastically, but they didn't change it at all, other than a few typos.

M: Well Sir, Thank you for your time, I’ll let you get back to cleaning out your horse stalls.

BP: I'll save you pile!

For a full list of stops on his virtual book tour, go to Barry's website.

Ar Eireann Ni Neosainn Ce Hi

2008-07-16T15:46:00.001-06:00

I have found the sheet music to one of my all time favorite traditional Irish airs. It’s called Ar Eireann Ni Neosainn Ce Hi. For those of you who don’t speak Irish, it means, For Ireland, I’d Not Tell Her Name.
The Music I have is in the key of G (I think) and since my Tin Whistle is in the key of D, I’m going to have to make some alterations to the way I play it, and I know that I’ll never be able to play this song as well as the High Kings, but it sure is a pretty song.

Oh, and please take note of the Non-instrument being played at the end of the song. It's a Walton Tin Whistle, by the way.

Sorry, I Just Have to Vent

2008-07-14T13:14:00.003-06:00

Every Sunday my family gets together at my parent’s house for Sunday dinner. It’s kind of a big todo, and we all look forward to it, ‘cause it’s kind of fun. I love hanging with my folks, they’re some of the best people I know.
Anyway, I’ve been teaching myself to play the Tin Whistle, and I’ve gotten to a point, after only a month, that I was feeling comfortable enough with it, that I wanted to show my parents what I’d accomplished. So I took it and my sheet music along with us to dinner. Now, I had been kind-of mentally preparing myself for… Stacie. Ya see, I’m the oldest of 6 children, and Stacie is about a year and a half my junior. Ever since we were kids, Stacie has been my judge, jury and in some cases, my executioner. I rarely, if ever, meet her standards. After all, she’s one of the beautiful people with her rotating cadre of friends, while I was (still am) a D&D geek with all that comes with that. I never dressed right for her, I never listened to the right music, or went to the right movies, on and on, ad nauseam…
My current fascination with my Celtic heritage, I’m quite sure, has her just reeling from the geek vibes emanating from my part of the Salt Lake Valley. So, I figured that she’d poke a crack at my playing, or the tunes, or the geekyness of such an instrument… I didn’t know, something like that, so I steeled myself, and waited for her and her family to leave, before playing for my folks.
They didn’t leave.
It was 8:30pm and was a half hour past the time when we usually leave to go home, and they were still there.
So at the prompting of my wife, I broke out my whistle and sheet music to play for my folks, and the first thing out of Stacie’s mouth… “Hey look, Mike has a Recorder,” in a tone of voice that was so condescending and so judgmental, that I automatically went on the defensive. I don’t even know why. The recorder is a wonderful instrument with a great resonating sound, but it isn’t a Tin Whistle. The fingering isn’t even close between the two. Comparing a Tin Whistle to a Recorder is like saying that harp is the same as a guitar, because they both have strings. So, I played a couple of tunes, which my Folks listened to and seemed to like, and Stacie... she, talked right through my playing. So I finished, and then we left.
It didn’t hit me until I went to bed how ticked off I am at her, I’m kind of glad that I didn’t get up last night at half past mid-night to write this blog, because it would have been unreadable and strewn with 4-letter words.

How Dare She!

I understand that SHE plays the piano AND the violin. And I do understand (I am college edu-macated, after all) that SHE plays REAL instruments. And those of us who play the Tin Whistle and the Recorder don’t (apparently.) That will be news to the guy who did all of the music for the movie Titanic, I guess that he can go find a day job now, because “Oops” the Tin Whistle isn’t a real instrument according to my sister!
You know what, I don’t care. Her knowledge and her pride in her heritage doesn’t amount to a fart in a hurricane and she couldn’t be happier in her arrogant ignorance. So be it.
Next Sunday at dinner, I’ll just smile and pretend that everything’s just hunky-dory, because nothing that I say or do is going to change her.

Can't Stop the Serenity

2008-07-09T08:02:00.002-06:00

Just a short public service announcement…

Go to http://utahbrowncoats.angelfire.com/

for all the info.

Thanks!

Another One Rides the Bus

2008-07-08T12:57:00.000-06:00

Well, it has come to this, I am now riding the bus to work. There is a couple of reasons for this… No, there is really only one reason to ride the bus… I can’t afford to buy the freaking gas anymore! I don’t blame the oil companies, I don’t blame the Arabs, I don’t even blame the environmentalists for my Bus pass. Do you want to know who I blame? I blame the stupid SUV guy that I saw filling up at the Chevron, when the Holiday Oil across the street was 20 cents cheeper! That’s who I blame! You Moron!

So I’m on the bus, and it really isn’t that bad. It used to take me a half hour and a gallon of gas to get to work, and now it takes me 45 minutes and about 200 calories (because I have to walk about a half mile to work from the Trax station. I’ll tell you one thing though; I am getting a heck of a lot of reading done.

So… I’ll take the bus for a while. I’d bet, that if 15% of us did park our cars and started taking the bus to work, we would break the back of the oil companies. I’m not kidding. I thought that we would reach that number when Gas hit $4.00 per gallon, but I was wrong, we’re only a little over 1% of drivers. And so, to inspire you to park your cars and to break their filthy money grubbing backs… I give you… This…

Farworld

2008-07-02T06:58:00.004-06:00

Farworld, Book 1, Water Keep
By J. Scott Savage
Hardcover by Shadow Mountain Press
Expected release, September 2008

I don’t read LDS authors. No, that’s a lie; I do read LDS authors when their names are Orson, Scott, and Card. So when my Wife, a voracious reader of all things LDS, stumbled across the Six LDS Writers and a Frog blog site and saw that J. Scott Savage was offering a free advanced copy of his new book to anyone who had an active blog site and who would be willing to write a review of his book, I was… less than enthusiastic. But, I do have an active blog (after all, I visit it almost every day) and I just can’t pass up a free book. It’s a sickness I know but let’s move on.

In the world of YA fiction there are the good, the bad, and the… Harry Potter.
Did I say anything about his scar? No, I don’t think so… Geez! I just didn’t like it ok?

So when I picked up Farworld, and found that it started out as a nice little story about a poor little wheelchair bound orphan, Marcus, who lived in a boarding school and was being picked on by a bully named Chet, I thought, “Harry Potter clone… this is going to be a long, sucky read,” and I started to wonder if I should just send the book back to Mr. Savage with regrets that I would not be willing to bar-b-que his book on my blog site. But then something happened… the book… it got… Good. In fact, it got really good.

As with many fantasy type books the main character, Marcus, is a special kid, with a special destiny, who has to face many trials on his way to fulfilling that destiny. One of those trials is in the form of an unstoppable army of darkness being lead by “The Dark Circle.”

Voldemort can now be sent to the Bad Guy Retirement Home for Pansies, because he just can’t hold a candle to The Dark Circle, in fact, if he tried, he’d be consumed in an evil that not even he could understand, or would even want to. Think… Night of the Living Dead meets both the Devils and Demons sections of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Yes, my fellow geeks, The Dark Circle is that scary.

Along this journey, Kyja, a little farm girl with a mysterious resistance to magic and a tragic speech impediment that only affects her when she tries to pronounce Earth and Basketball, joins Marcus, as does Riph Raph, a pint size fairy dragon or Skyte with a heart (and an attitude) the size of an 18-wheeler.

Mr. Savage’s writing is very good for YA fiction, and he was able to avoid Steven King’s preverbal Road to Hell… he doesn’t use many adverbs, and for that I’d kiss him full on the mouth…
Well, not literally… I mean... not as such… I’m married, and… he’s a guy…

He’s also succeeded in creating a world that is very original and just magical enough to be believable. I did, however, find his characters just a little bit to cartoonish to be completely believed. This may due to the breakneck pace at which the book is set, and so the story’s timeline doesn’t allow for a believable growth cycle in the characters. I don’t know, but I am looking forward to the next book to find out. But cartoonish or not, I did find myself caring a great deal about these kids and, to me, that’s the primary key to a great book.

I was recently able to sit down with J. Scott Savage at one of my favorite places, Darrow’s Bar and Grill, Home of the 10 pound Haggis, for a little one on one chat about his new book.

Murph: Thanks for meeting with me today Mr. Savage, Sorry I’m late; there was some kind of freak duck incident on the freeway today, very frightening. Have you ordered?

J. Scott Savage: You really have to watch out for those quack drivers. Glad you could make it. I haven’t ordered yet. I asked the waiter what was good and he said something that sounded like “Champit tatties and bashed neeps.” I was actually a little afraid he was threatening me.

Murph: Ahh, you must have met Angus. You didn’t say anything about his kilt did you? May I call you Scott?

J. Scott Savage: It seems appropriate here at the home of the ten pound haggis

Murph: I just have to know, you aren’t related to that kid on “The Wonder Years” are you? I mean it’s a very unusual name. Where does it come from?

J. Scott Savage: Fred. Nope no relation. Although we are both handsome dark haired devils. Savage is Irish. Originally it was French, but the L’Savages got tired of pommes and moved to Ireland for potatoes. Not sure how they worked out since they left for the US sometime thereafter.

M: A French Irishman? Perish the thought.

Waitress: Good afternoon gentlemen, my name is Mairi, and I’ll be searving you today. Can I start you off with some fresh champit tatties?

M: Ah, no… thanks… I’ll have the Irish Meat Cobbler with a side of Haggis Nuggets.

Waitress: Okay… and for you sir?

JSS: Hmm, I think I’m going to try this football shaped thing with some of the bashed neeps. Also I’ll have some of that fish head soup. I kind of like food that looks back at you.

M: Scott, I feel that I do need to warn you that The Mind of Murph blog site is a Geek site. And when I say Geek, I’m not talking “I can fix your computer” geek, I’m talkin’ greasy hair, D&D playing, Star Trek loving, still living with Mom and reading Spiderman comics at the age of 40 kind of geek, so some of my questions may be a little… unusual. Are you good with that?

JSS: Well, when I was a senior in high school I nearly got arrested for leading a live D&D group on a midnight battle for a hidden golden banana. Does that count?

M: Shaa! LARP for a banana? I’d say that cements you firmly into the geek realm. And your wife knew this before she married you? Um, I guess I’d better get on with this interview then. So, what’s the capital of New Hampshire?

JSS: Is this a trick question? Because if you’d asked me about the old Hampshire I would have told you Winchester. But I was even aware there was a new Hampshire. Let’s try Carson City?

M: Sorry… but it had to be done. Now really, who are your influences? What authors really get your creative juices flowing?

JSS: You know it really depends on what I’m in the mood for. My bookshelf is so wide ranging. I love Poe and Lovecraft as far as older authors. I think that Peter Straub is almost poetic in his writing. I love how creative Dean Koontz is. I think that Steinbeck created incredibly believable characters. And despite your swipe at him, King is the master of capturing the every day man or woman. I love about ½ of Card’s books. From a fantasy side, I like Brooks, Donaldson. I’m a big Sci Fi fan with all the classics: Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert.

M: What swipe at King? I love King. Do you hear me! Sorry, must be my blood sugar.
And… I am sorry for this next question, well actually, I’m not sorry but my readers will really want to know… are you a fan of Joss Whedon?

JSS: This has got to be another trick question. How could I not be?

M: Who was your favorite character on Buffy?

JSS: Angel. Hands down. I’m working on an adult series (meaning not YA, as opposed to X rated) about a PI/Hit Man who goes to Hell and has a chance to be sent back to Earth if he can solve a little problem for the big man. For some reason whenever I picture the protagonist I see Angel. Although Buffy is pretty easy on the eyes.

M: Yep, my wife liked Angel too, but for completely different reasons. So, next question… Kirk or Picard?

JSS: I’m so glad you didn’t mention anyone after Picard. I might have had to end our interview. Personally, I think Picard is the best star ship captain of any movie or series.

Waitress: Now who had the Meat Cobbler?

M: That would be mine

Waitress: Be careful, the plate is very hot.

M: Ouch!
Su dogh yough mmmphf haff a mubbech lishmmm?

JSS: Ohh. That looks like it hurt. Were you asking for the pig’s brain relish?

M: Pig what? No, my fingers are really burned and sucking on ‘em really doesn’t help. I asked what’s the one thing you really want to do before you die? Do you have a bucket list?

JSS: You know, I was driving with my wife the other evening and it suddenly occurred to me that if someone had told me back when I was in high school that at the age of forty-five I’d be driving in a convertible with a gorgeous blond, listening to ZZ Top and I was only two months away from releasing my first book in a five book fantasy series (One that had a map in it no less!) I would have figured I’d died and gone to heaven. Is there really anything more to strive for? How about having dinner at Club 33 in Disneyland?

M: I’d prefer a brunet, but Club 33’s on my list too. So, what made you want to write a fantasy novel? Were you a D&D geek as a teen or something? Oh, I know… it was a 10-hour Lord of the Rings marathon, am I right?

JSS: This is just between you and me right? I have taught all my kids how to play D&D. The first thing I ever tried to program was a text adventure on an Atari 400 I think. I once interviewed Michael Okuda (google him if you don’t know the name) for a computer tabloid my wife and I published together. I have played every Ultima game ever made and I finally had to cancel my WofW account because I wasn’t getting enough writing done. Does that count for geekdom?

M: Turbo Geek, man, you’ve got nothing to prove to me. This cobbler is really good, you want a bite?

JSS: Heck yeah. It’s not ever day you see a cobbler that jiggles.

M: How about a Haggis Nugget?

JSS: Yeah. Think I’m going to pass on that. Reminds me a little too much of the lamb fries Chevy Chase ate in “Funny Farm.” But you enjoy them. Want to try some of this football shaped thing?

M: Wow, that is really tasty, the bashed neeps really brings out the flavor of the… whatever that is... So, now that you’re a fantasy novel author, are you going to become a crusader for geek rights? Come on, join the fight.

JSS: Do geeks have rights? Seems almost like a contradiction in terms.

M: Of course we have rights! We… well… no you’re right, we have no rights. Oh well… Um… If you could be any Battlestar Gallactica character, who would you be, and why?

JSS: Boomer. Liked the character and the name.

M: Um… you know that Boomer’s a chick now, right? And a cylon… oh… you mean the old Battlestar Gallactica, well… that makes more sense. Okay... shifting to the novel for just a second, after all, that is why you agreed to meet with me. How do you pronounce some of these words? Thrathkin S’Bae, Terra ne Staric, did I miss any? Also, how did you come up with words like these?

JSS: Thrath-kin just like it looks, but with an emphasis on the first syllable. The second half S’Bae is a little harder. The s is nearly silent . Pronounce it as if the S was at the end of the Thrathkin. Terra (like terraforming) Nay Star-ick. I don’t like to do a ton of unpronounceable names. It’s annoying for the reader and I always wonder if the word is pronounced Shay, why spell it zzaegh? I mean, can’t we assume the author translated into English anyway? But I wanted the Thrathkin S’Bae to really feel different. They have their own language, their own hierarchy. There’s a lot more to them than I get to show in the first book. The city just came to me. It was the name I thought of as soon as I imagined the city. There is more to the name, which we’ll learn about in book two. It does mean something.

M: From what sick, twisted part of your mind did the Dark Circle spring?

JSS: You know, you’re about the tenth person to mention how scary my dark creatures are. I really thought I was holding back. I’m going, wait till you see what’s in store. Again, I read a lot of dark fiction so that may shape my thinking.

M: I really enjoyed the water references in this book… without giving to much away to the future readers of your book… this might be a bit of a spoiler, but… when Marcus first arrives in Farworld, he’s laying half in and half out of a stream, is that symbolic of his marginal existence in Farworld? Or am I reading too much into it?

JSS: Great catch! Even more so than you might think. I really didn’t have a chance to address it in book one. But there is much more to the relationship between earth and Farworld. You’ll see more of that as the series progresses. But yes, I really like the visual of him halfway in the creek and halfway in Farworld, although the reader doesn’t know that at the time.

M: Gee thanks, my Dad will be so pleased that my Literature Degree came in use somewhere. Umm… I really thought that your idea of “finding the magic within you” was a great moral for your book. Where did it come from? Is that the message you want readers to carry away from your book?

JSS: Absolutely! It’s not like I write a book trying to get a certain message across, but as I wrote this book, finding your magic kept coming through. This is going to sound geeky—even to you—but I think magic is much more prevalent that we give it credit. I look at someone who can take a handful of colored pencils and turn it into a picture that takes my breath away, and to me that’s magic. I look at the roses that keep growing in front of my house, despite my non-existent gardening skills and that has to be magic. In a religious argument, tell me that someone commanding the sea to part or bringing down a rain of frogs or telling the water to be solid isn’t magic? We look for all these rationalizations, but a big part of me thinks that the world is full of magic. We just don’t always recognize it as that. Heck, I’m getting paid to tell stories. Is there anything more magical than that?

M: Do you have any advice for young folk out there who may be thinking about writing as a profession?

JSS: Hmm. This is a tough question. The other night my ten-year-old son and I were on a walk, and he told me he wanted to be either a basketball player or a computer programmer. We came into a discussion about being whatever you can dream of while also balancing that against the real world. I am a dreamer. I always have been. So, my message is, understand that it’s tough to make a living at writing, then go ahead and do it anyway. But for the moment, just enjoy writing. If you feel like everything you write has to be good enough for publication, you take away too much creativity. It’s like telling kids to color in the lines. Instead, write because you love it. If it becomes a profession, great. But if it doesn’t, don’t let that dampen your love of writing.

M: How large was your collection of rejection letters before you were first published?

JSS: You know. I’ve never been one to collect rejections. (Way to much of that in high school!) I only collect acceptances. But, yeah, I’ve had a few.

M: When can readers expect the next Farworld installment?

JSS: One a year for the next five years. And hopefully a few other things along the way.

M: Were you an Eagle Scout?

JSS: Yes

M: If you could have one Super Power, what would it be?

JSS: Flying would probably be the coolest. I hate planes, and I hate long drives, so that would rock. But I am fascinated by the concept of time. I’d like to be able to bend and twist time like Silly Putty. And I’d really like to see what time looks like after you smash it against the Sunday comics.

Waitress: Can I get you anything else?

M: I think we’re done

JSS: Wait, we can’t go without trying the Crannachan. Shall we share a bowl?

M: Oh ya, that would be tasty.

Waitress: Then who gets the check?

M: That would be for Mr. Savage…

JSS: Wait I thought--

M: Hey, you’re the big famous writer; I’m just some geek with a blog site.

JSS: Alright, but if I pick up the check you have to change that review so it says you liked Farworld. I mean I feel a little robbed after I paid for lunch and you called my book, “The worst tripe I’ve ever set eyes on.”

M: Ok, I’ll loose the tripe. Thanks for lunch! Call my people… we’ll do it again.

JSS: Ciao, baby.

Life is Good

2008-06-30T12:45:00.001-06:00

I noticed that I haven’t posted an entry for way to long… so I figured that I had better, or I may loose my fan.
The problem is, I’m not mad at anything, and I’m not feeling particularly obnoxious. I’m teaching myself the Tin Whistle, and that’s coming along just fine, I’m in training for the Wasatch Back Relay next June, and that’s coming along just fine. I’m finally finished with Silver Moccasin, so that’s a huge load off of my mind.
I finally finished Farworld and wrote my review over the weekend, so watch for that in the next couple of weeks.

So, life is good…
How about a song?

She Moved Through the Fair

2008-06-19T08:02:00.003-06:00

Probably my most favorite of Irish Ballads and Cara Dillon does a pretty good job of it. Take note of the two Tin Whistles.

The Tin Whistle

2008-06-18T13:10:00.003-06:00

Before I left for camp, Terri asked me what I wanted for Father’s day, and I told her that I wanted a Clarke Celtic Tin Whistle in the Key of D.
Before I go any farther, I had better explain. I’ve been going through a serious Celtic phase as of late. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a pre 40’s crisis, I don’t know. I’ve always loved Celtic music, it speaks to my soul. Then I started doing some genealogy, and found a distant cousin whose family still live in Great Britain. Then I went to see The Celtic Women and The High Kings, which culminated in a Kilt for the Utah Renaissance Festival, and now I’m lost…
So anyway, I’ve tried to learn instruments before. I played the clarinet in elementary school and junior high. But I never practiced because I didn’t really enjoy it. I tried to teach myself the guitar… with expected results. So I thought that if I tried the tin whistle, well, I have woodwind experience and, if I give up on it, then I’m only out 8 bucks and a Father’s Day present… Right?

I love this little whistle! My wife is recognizing tunes through all of my squeaks and really high squeaks. Two days and I can play “Amazing Grace” pretty well, and am working on an Irish drinking song called “The Wild Rover.”

Watch out world… a whistler has been born, well… almost.

By the way, camp was cold, snowy, and full of mud.

A Week in the Mud

2008-06-05T08:19:00.002-06:00

I'm going to be gone to Silver Moccasin – NYLT for the next week.
I’ve been doing this for 5 years now, and I believe that this is my last summer.
I just wish that this, my last course, was not going to be a huge, snowy, mud-hole!

Wish me luck… *Sob*

Harvey Korman: 1927-2008

2008-05-29T21:23:00.002-06:00

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things was to watch Tim Conway and Harvey Korman in the Carol Burnett Show, and it was an added treat if Conway could get Harvey Korman to laugh in the middle of the skit.
We lost Harvey Korman today, but we will always have the laughter.

Harvey, here’s to you.

Farworld Blog Tour Site

2008-05-27T22:46:00.006-06:00

I was going to use this entry to condemn the big oil companies, and call them nasty names… you know… “sons of motherless goats” and the like, but… hey… everyone already knows that. So, I think that I’ll talk about something far more cool. I’ve been asked to review a book. Ok, so I did the asking… well, ok… there were tears, and I did spend some time on my knees begging him to let me read his book, “please let me use my English Degree for something!” That did it, and he finally gave me the nod, I have an advanced copy coming. This reminds me of the time I drove 8 hours to Las Vegas so that I could see Serenity months before it’s release… before it was done even, only to find out that Joss had killed off one of my favorite characters! That sucked! Ok, so maybe this isn’t like that. But…
Look for the review and my interview with the author in the next few weeks.

His name is J. Scott Savage, and he’s written a book called Farworld, Book 1, Water Keep, which is being published by Shadow Mountain Press and has a release date of September 5th. He’s a local guy (local meaning “he’s in the State of Utah”) I think he lives in Payson.

I got an email from him last night asking for my address so that he could send me an ARC, (which I believe stands for Advanced Reviewers Copy) so I’m hoping to get it in the mail before I leave for Silver Moccasin in a week, which means... that I’m going to have to plow through the Terry Pratchett book I’m currently enjoying.
I’m also watching reruns of Inside the Actor’s Studio, so that I can learn how to interview someone. That guy has some great questions, and since I have a beard as well… you know… I should be able to plagiarize his stuff… right?

The Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire

2008-05-18T15:10:00.001-06:00

ally2, originally uploaded by browncoat_murph.

We went to the Renaissance Festival yesterday and had a fantastic time.
In this case, pictures speak louder than words so feel free to head over to my Flickr site and check out all of the other pics.
You might even see me and my son in Kilts... Yes, my knees got sunburned.

Local Kid Does Good

2008-05-15T22:29:00.001-06:00

I found this sign on my way home today. I took it with my cell phone so it isn’t very good, but I thought that it was funny.

Is Texas Full of Nazis?

2008-05-13T12:41:00.002-06:00

There are times that I wonder what has happened to my country, and then there is now.
Not long ago 465 children were taken from… I don’t know how many families of the FLDS church in Texas based on a phone call, purported to be from a 16-year-old pregnant girl. Despite investigation, the Texas authorities can’t find the “girl” who made the call, and are starting to think that it might have been a fake.
(Images of WMD’s are coming to mind.)
So, based on an unsubstantiated report, the “authorities” storm onto private property and take 465 children into custody.
Now, there are reports, that there are a couple of teenage girls who are pregnant or who have given birth while in custody, and I have no problem with the state going after those fathers, if they are indeed adults, but to take every child from an entire community because of a few evil people is just some kind of guerrilla tactic that reeks of the Nazis.

Before I go any further, I want to make something perfectly clear. I am a member of the LDS church, and as such, I do not believe in polygamy. I only have one wife, one mother, and one grandmother. You’d have to go back a bunch of generations before you found polygamy in my family tree. I’m not an expert on the FLDS church and don’t want to be because the FLDS church has nothing to do with my faith.
There have been several unsubstantiated reports in the news and in the tabloids about sexual abuse in their temple and the like, but, frankly, I don’t believe them. I’ve heard all kinds of outrageous things about my own faith that are all untrue, so… I've gotten off track so I’ll leave that argument right there.

Why would the state take an entire community of children for the acts of a few individuals? According to Texas Judge Barbara Walther, the state can take your child if belonging to a certain religion -may- lead to abuse. What kind of nonsense is that?
So according to what she’s saying, if you’re a Moslem or a Northern Irish Catholic, the state can take your kids because there is a remote possibility that your kids might become a suicide bomber?

What’s next!?!

According to Texas Judge Barbara Walther’s philosophy, the state could come to my door and take my kids because there’s a crack house down the street, or a sex offender around the block, or… I don’t know… the neighbors are having swinger parties, and so our neighborhood environment -may- lead to abuse.

Then there’s this article I read this morning:

http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_9238520

The conditions that these 465 children have been put in stinks of WWII, German, concentration camps. Oh, except concentration camps were almost better because, from what I’ve read, many times the children could stay with their mothers.
Why doesn’t Texas Judge Barbara Walther just order them all into the gas chamber, since they are, according to her philosophy, mentally scarred for life. Wouldn’t it just be better to end their suffering now? (Did you catch my sarcasm there?)
So maybe the state should just take all children from all parents because, after all, it does take a village to raise a child… oh, that won’t work… a village was raising these 465 children. Maybe we should just outlaw children.
Ya, that’s it, outlaw children and let the human species just die out, because we’re obviously to stupid to live. If we place people like Texas Judge Barbara Walther over us, we are to stupid to remain on this planet.

The High Kings

2008-05-10T23:11:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to see "The Celtic Woman" concert. They were very good by the way, but I really liked their opening act. Here's a sample.

The Great Kilt Controversy

2008-05-05T13:13:00.003-06:00

So, in a couple of weeks my family and I are all going out to this Renaissance Festival / Fantasy Faire thing up in Ogden.

When I was a teenager, I used to belong to SCA (the Society for Creative Anachronism) and really enjoyed it. So… when we decided to go up faire, I told my wife that I would like to rent a kilt for the event, and she said ok. The thing is, when she said “ok” it really meant: “I’ll say ok, because I don’t think that you’ll really do it.”
So after I did the research and found out that there is a little scottish import shop in Salt Lake that will rent me a kilt, my wife, whom I dearly love, began to have reservations. Not with the cost, but with the fact that I would be seen in public in a skirt!
It took less than an hour to somewhat acknowledge the fact that my being in a kilt at a renaissance faire would not only be appropriate, but also be DAMN COOL!

Now if I can just get my son in one…

I'll post pics afterward. ;)