|
|
4th of July, it was a fun day but while eating wayyyy too much food I get a jaw cramp. I've had one of these before in my life and it is so bad that I just sort of sit talking through clenched teeth. I think nothing much of it.
6th of July, next to no sleep due to horking cat, I get up have 2 coke zeros and eat about 4 eggs worth of deviled eggs, head off to work on the motorcycle, have unpleasant feeling to my stomach, I chalk it up on eating those eggs for breakfast. I have 2 cups of coffee, 2 diet mt dews, get my work done and am feeling quite unpleasant shortly after 2. I sort of chalk it up to my 2-day hangover thing, but I really did not drink much on the 4th so that doesn't quite fit.
Heading back from work I nearly am killed a few times on the motorcycle, enough that I bothered to write about how everyone was trying to kill me. I get home, lay down for a few minutes and feel much better.
Went out back, cut some 1x4's, started staining them, stood up and the world went black so I went back to the ground, slowly stood up again and realized I was pouring sweat and mosquitos were attacking me in droves. That in itself is odd because skeeters hate me with a passion... I can be out with 20 people and I will not get bitten, today I'm being assaulted by them. I do a little more work, have 3 more incidents where the world starts going black after I stand up.
I get a phone call from Kim, answer it / stand up, tell her I'm too out of it to talk at the moment and am feeling strange. Finish conversation / finish painting / come inside and find a Lipton 24-oz tea and power slam that. All my sweat is dried in about 2 minutes inside, I barely notice that and set about doing something else.
Later in the night after eating some and drinking nearly 90 oz of water, my left hand starts getting numb, I'm noticing things out of the corner of my eye that seem to dart and disappear and little flashes. The left arm / numb thing makes me head upstairs and start checking out symptoms of a heart attack... well thanks a lot WebMD for listing the same symptoms for pretty much everything because that causes me to start panicking a bit.
Panic, leads to the body producing chemicals that the reactions are similar, for all intents and purposes, to a heart attack. I realize this, but I have both the irrational fear that something horrible is going on and also the rational side that nothing is hurting, and dehydration covers every single thing and is quite a bit more likely.
I read up on blood pressure / dehydration / etc till I feel a bit more confident in my self, the only thing not quite right is the tingling. It hits me again a bit later, starts the whole thing up again with the paranoia / panic... my friend Chris, who used to be an EMT just randomly stops by to drop off cheese, we grab a bp machine / check that and he tells me the symptoms of heat stroke...
Fun times...
a little later, as in several hours after I've been sitting in a cold house, I take a shower, I end up cranking it down to nothing but cold and notice how freaking hot the water coming off of me was... as the water cools, everything was fine..
although if I die tomorrow of a heart attack, please someone delete this post so I don't look like more of a goober than I've been feeling today
Headed home from work a little early today as it both feels like rain and I am not feeling top notch at the moment... which usually would mean I don't ride the bike, but as I have no car at the moment I'm riding.
Attempt on my life #1 came on the entrance ramp to the interstate when a red truck in front of me slowed down instead of speeding up to merge. A white truck on the interstate seeing that this red truck was going *really* slow sped up to meet it / sandwich me in. I did a jump around them and think the white and red trucks nearly collided, but I couldn't see as I was in the process of finishing up my curse on Nashville drivers / checking out a potential threat at the place I had just arrived.
Attempt on my life #2 was there as a car in the correct lane decided to be in the right lane (there's a split, they were fine for going on the interstate to the right but they figured they would get over without signaling) - I wasn't horribly close to them but did have to slow down meaning i was now boxed in via SUV, the white truck they was now coming up on my ass again. I put a little throttle to get myself out of the box ant thought that would be the last of it.
Attempt #3 involves a white courtesy van, not sure which dealership or I would give 'em a call. Not sure how to describe the situation except that if it weren't for them making a signalless lane change the SUV next to them wouldn't have hard braked causing me to be in between an entrance ramp, 3 merging cars, and a few distracted drivers watching said courtesy van speed off. I managed to get out of this situation just by being way too close to the fast-moving bunched up traffic.
Attempt #4 was by a red bull truck. They, in the right lane, slammed on their brakes to make a turn causing the tailgaters behind them to enter the lane I was in or crash.
I'm wondering how long people need to sober up after the 4th before it's safe
I tried these a few weeks back as they were on sale at Costco: http://www.fullbar.com/They generally range from $15-$20 for a 12-pack, I think Costco had it for significantly less, I'm feeling chunky so I decided to try it. It worked decently, in that I did fill up sooner, however I couldn't get over paying more than $3 for 12 of something that combined weight seemed less than a single stick of Twix, and the thought of paying $15 for what looked and tasted like puffed rice and some sort of marshmallow-like goo that held it all together seemed a bit wasteful. I did a bit of an experiment today. I bought a bag of puffed wheat from Wallyworld last night, and today I started snacking on it like it was popcorn along with drinking water. It took a little more volume of the puffed wheat than the full bar contained to get the "full" result, but checking the calories per serving on both the puffed wheat is lower. My guess is the puffed wheat has somewhere around 4 more times in it, so is about the equ of 5 fullbars. Fullbars are about 1.25 a pop, and the wheat is about 1 for 5 servings worth, or 20 cents. So, a fun experiment for anyone wanting to try it is chow down on a half bowl of puffed wheat and drink a glass of water 30 mintues before you eat, you'll be full on a lot less food. I'm not sure if puffed wheat is awesome for you or not, but it's got 2 things I like the sound of.. puffed and wheat. I'd be interested in what other people find... also, the puffed wheat is in the cereal isle if anyone wants to try it.
Something I was taught long ago was that if you are writing something, there are certain factors you must be aware of. The first of these is to have a point and the most inmportant of these is to get to it early. You can spend all day wandering around the subject, but if you don't lay it out at the start it's pretty much a lost cause.
Another thing I learned recently also was that in a long paragraph, people generally only pay attention to the first and the last sections of the paragraph. Scientists believe that this may be an indicator of idea compression and generalization, which is a species trait that most animals are lacking in. Usually it's either ADD-like attention to detail or I had relations with your mother and she liked the details I put in her. For some styles of writing that has to be realized as we end up with data loss in the communication, if not the actual data, so it's pretty important to also write in such a method that the paragraph is not skimmable, or if it is so there is no detail of import that may be buried in the compressing that humans naturally do. More is lost from long ass paragraphs than will ever be realized.
I also realized that starting out a thought with a non-personal I identifier causes disassociation from the text. I've managed to shift the thoughts of the reader from their voice to mine by creating a cognitive break in who is actually in this text. Is it Paul King, the author, or is it me. Or are you wondering if the I referred to is me or you, and is that you me, or you?
Dancing a little dance with an idea can be fun, it can also drag the reader through a mental gymnastics routine that they otherwise would be able to understand from the statement "it is the opinion of this author that cheese is way cool". Describing why you think that may detract from the intent.
Back story - a comedian, whose name I forget, said of Star Wars this: I don't need to know what lead up to this, it's like a sandwich. I have the sandwich, it tastes good. Will knowing how this sandwich was once grain and was transported by illegal workers to a processing plant in Sandusky Ohio where it was processed while Bob and Alice were fighting help in any way? No, it's a sandwich and it is delicious. Be happy in that fact and don't beat that donkey of history, nor overly dwell on the poop it will become.
Questions - ask "do people want to read this?" If the answer is yes ask ""why?" One of the interesting things about the internet is there are thousands of people sitting writing the story of their failures and the great depression that this causes them. Who wants to read this? This is not a dismissive question, this is an actual question. Who are you writing to, and why are they reading it? What is to be accomplished by posting every insecurity, failure, and psychosis online and who does that attract? Do you want that reader? Are they a friend or are they watching the trainwreck your life has become, using you as the text-equiv of the blues? Are you afraid that by writing out your successes that people will hate you for what you've written. Do you hate people who are not miserable? All fun things to ask.
Exploration of the underlying theories, thoughts on their meaning, bringing in footnote references to other blogs / writers / etc. Is this comminique for class credit, or do you feel that your opinion or idea has to be validated by other people's research? Some is good but too much is too much.
Brevity. Twitter is popular because it forces people to have a point within 140 characters and make definitive statements. I am ... this was... this is... there is no "so, I was looking at purchasing a Miata but then I remembered that a friend of mine once said that his dad's girlfriend at the time ran one into a pole at 90mph while she was drunk and the amount of damage that caused to the driver's side ended up causing her to break a leg, which after setting looked like it was half the size of the other due to muscle atrophy. So I'd think of nothing but chicken legs and how I want some Popeyes' chicke right now". No, it's "Miatas make me want fried chicken"
Leave something to the imagination. As stated above. Don't leave too much or you might cause a Lewis Black-style brain explosion "if it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."
Don't build a direction and snap at your readers when they follow your lead. You consistantly tell the world what a horrible person Dr Mean Evil Bastard is, the world is going to most likely believe Dr Mean Evil Bastard is a horrible person and not wish you in a world where Dr Mean Evil Bastard is.
Write the good too. Write when you're happy. Writing only when you're sad or miserable makes people see you as a sad and miserable person. Write about what brings you joy and people are likely to understand you. Writing both extremes will also have the effect that peope will see you as a person... that or they'll think you're bi-polar.
Unless the mistakes is horrible, realize that the intent of communication is to communicate. You understood that last sentence, and the above paragraph doesn't suffer from the fact that there are new terms in the last 20 years for that disorder. You can miss the message to attack the delivery or you can get past that.
If your last sentence ends up past the end of the first formatted page, you've lost most of your readers.
That said, it's a beautiful sunny day, and I'm going to go enjoy it now. Mon, Jun. 29th, 2009, 10:05 am
Gym
43 minutes on the elliptical this morning
For those who don't know what's going on, I've been down with allergies and cold and blah for the past 4 days. Today I decided it was time to take the bike out, which was evidently a bad idea as I am not quite happy with riding today. I took the crotch rocket as opposed to the Harley as, well, getting it out is a LOT easier, left work still feeling like crap and had an eventful ride back on the interstate.
As I got off of 440 onto Nolensville Pike, a group of bikers in a funeral was going by. I stopped, dropped a hand, turned and watched them go by, nodding as they went, thinking about my ride with the Patriot Guard in KY and random other funerals I had been to. Many of the people nodded my way, or at least I thought they did. After the bikers had gone by, but with the funeral still going I adjusted a bit on the bike as I noticed a motorcycle behind me was coming up.
The guy got right next to me on his Harley and said "what, are you too good to wave at the brothers?" and then pulled up in front of me. I mean, in that situation what am I supposed to do - wave like a freak at every passing biker? "Hey, I'm on two wheels too.. wave at me while I try and respect a fallen brother woo hoo." And who comments and then drives off?
My options were basically to pull up and argue a couple of points about respecting a fallen biker, respecting the funeral party (which I continued to do while the rider was trying to tell me that I felt I was better than them for not waving), or just standing there and watching the funeral procession now drive by. So I did. It got me thinking quite a bit though about respect for a fellow biker, for the dead, and a culture in which because I'm on two wheels I am expected to participate.
That Harley rider (I say it like this, even as a Harley rider, because I was on the rocket at the time) saw a crotch-rocket rider not doing the things that he was doing. He decided the crotch rocket rider was dishonoring his fellow cruiser riders as opposed to the motorcycle rider was honoring the funeral and not waving "look at me, I'm on two wheels", and he commenced to tell me so and then run off. Not that I would have wanted him sticking around, I wasn't in the mood for a fight, I sure didn't feel the strength in me to argue the finer points of etiquette and manners. And if it came right down to it if he pushed me very hard I was going to fall over.
I stood there watching the rest of the funeral as the guy in front of me watched the car in front of him and wondered if he had any respect for the people in cars who were mourning the loss of, most likely, another motorcycle rider. It was a funeral, not a parade, and that's what I kept thinking.
Afterwards he went one way and I went another. I guess we both rode off thinking we met a motorcycle rider who didn't have any respect.
I noticed that the banana peels were turning slightly aged. Upon picking up the bag the bananas fell apart and are moosh inside. Kinda nasty Mon, Jun. 15th, 2009, 10:25 am
Ren Fairs
I skipped the TN ren fair this year, I'd seen it for the past 6 or 7 years and pretty much nothing seemed to change except the human chess match was a bit different each year and the jousting was always a bit changed up. A friend of mine had blown through town and was up at the KY ren fair so me and Kim decided to go up and see it. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the one good ren experience I had was due to the novelty of it being my first time (at the Tuxedo ren fair) and that this was going to be a continuation of the 12 years of meh...
I was wrong, not entirely about the mehness, but I saw one act that blew me out of the water. I laughed, I learned something, I kissed a couple of bucks goodbye and I went away from it energized by what I had seen and wanting more. I wish I had seen that act last honestly as the rest were back onto the meh level.
I'm not sure what the KY Ren fair's deal was, but I got a paper telling me what acts were playing when and where and nothing whatsoever about what the acts were. As a result I ended up at a couple of children's acts and wandering into too many musical acts (which although decent, I'm not all that amused by as a general rule - but that's just me and music acts in general so not saying anything one way or the other)
I talked to my friend a bit about the fair and my general disillusionment with the fair in Nashville, and went about my merry way to Spinelli's Pizza in Louisville (but that's another story).
While in the car I had to wonder a few things. I know that most of the fair folk do the circuit and this is their lives. Whether it be performing at the fairs or performing in plays, performing is the life. There's also a lot of downtime when performing the fairs - most fairs are weekends, leaving most of the week free to pursue other things, as far as one can living in a tent or camper
So my issue is (at least with TN), these are good performers, good shows, but they're the same shows, year after year - occasionally we'll get a new joke from one of the pub jokesters, but that seems to be about it - the format, the content, eveything, it's been set it stone and ... it's good... but it's not great.
With KY I can't speak of how they are year after year, but they had a lot of good shows, they got a chuckle, they were worth watching, but in the end only 1 show blew me away... and it wasn't that the other shows were bad, it's just they were something to pass the time, and I have to wonder what is the incentive to the performer to put on an average show? More so, what is the harm both to the act and the ren fair by putting on just a so-so show?
I realize this is hard work, but I would assume it would more than pay off to change things up so that year after year, or even month after month there was a more polished show, or at least a reason for people who come back every year to come to the show, or even from a self-serving aspect a show that shows you're seriously working on making it better.
Shows are generally done by 1-2 people, they usually do 1-2 different shows during, so there's not a large amount of inertia to overcome, so what is the reason that each one of these shows doesn't blow the crowd away? Why do it if you're not going to explode off the stage? Why use what passes instead of creating a new show? It sort of seems like you'll be stuck doing meh shows if you start doing meh shows.
It also seems the fair operators would benefit extremely... if you turned the ren fair into something that everything was brilliant, and everything was new... I mean... man, think of the opportunities... because as it is, it's just ok... and that's not something I think people will want to repeat forever. And if I had 5 days of downtime a week, I think I would work my show into something that raked in the money without having to resort to the standard ren speach of "I do this for a living, here's a bucket".
Or maybe I wouldn't, maybe there's a reason... but watching some shows yesterday I was just thinking "you know, it would be funny if they did this, but they didn't"
Eh... Thu, Jun. 11th, 2009, 03:40 am
Wow
Reading a journal entry that was a suicide note yesterday.
damn |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
mildlydisturbed's journal