Plus One

Each time I go to the gym, I sit or stand on one of the cardio machines. Mostly I use stationary bikes, but sometimes I like to run on the treadmill.

Each time you start the machine, it asks you a few questions before you start.

The first option is to choose the course you want. I always select manual. That way, I can move things up or down depending on how I feel. Then it follows through with a few more questions that mainly have simple answers.

How long? That's an easy question. I usually choose either thirty minutes or an hour.

Weight? Another easy question. My weight fluctuates a little, maybe five pounds up or down, depending on how strict I've been with my diet. So I put in something close to 200lbs. At five foot eleven inches at 200lbs, I'm technically overweight. I feel good at this weight, so I don't mind.

The questions that come next are generally straightforward.

Age? Most days, I press the two numbers that equal my age, and I move on. No big deal.

I started working out when I was sixteen. I was still in high school, and I had saved up three hundred dollars and joined what was known as 24-Hour Nautilus at that time. The monthly cost was nineteen dollars, and the gym included cardio machines, weights, an indoor track, and a swimming pool. The track was on the second floor and circled the swimming pool on the first floor.

I loved going to the gym. I would spend a few hours working out most days of the week. At that point, when the machine came on, and I would put in my age at sixteen, it didn't really matter.

Now, over thirty years later, my age ticks up a notch each year around my birthday.

This year it went from forty-eight to forty-nine.

As I get older, each year, I reflect on my age.

If I'm lucky and keep healthy, I probably have another good thirty years left. It's less than I have in the past, but it's still not bad. I can still accomplish a lot in thirty years.

I have been thinking about age a lot as I get older.

I know I have to worry about what I eat, and I have to keep moving. Your body quickly adapts to the challenges placed upon it, and if you remove the challenges and it has nothing to adapt to, it slowly withers and dies.

We are not meant to sit around and do nothing; if we do, our bodies and mind both turn against us.

So I continue to exercise and try to fight off the number that ticks up yearly at the gym.

Looking at the number, I always think that's another year gone. As the number climbs up, the remaining time goes down.

I often feel sad about that ticking-up number.

It's not like there is anything I can do about it. We all know that we are going to age and what that means.

If we are lucky enough to survive each year and make it to our birthday, we know that there are a finite number of birthdays. They will run out.

Of course, if you live your life that way, you are going to have a sad life thinking only of your eventual death, but that's not healthy.

You have to think about things another way. Or at least you have to try to. For me, it's not always easy.

Looking down at that number, I reflect on the year and consider any accomplishments or mistakes I've made.

If you are living your life, you are going to have both. You will make mistakes, and you will accomplish things that make you proud.

This all goes through my head in a few minutes, and then I move on to other things. It's not something you should dwell on at the gym.

I'm here to do something, and I need to do it.

Like every other day, I have to go through my workout. My age takes me out of my workout for a minute, and then I move back away from those thoughts and go on with my workout.

I tell myself, if you are here working out, you are still healthy.

I'm still healthy.

I'm a little more sore in the mornings when I wake up, but since I work out and keep moving and don't do anything crazy, I'm not that sore.

My joints sometimes crack, and I overdid it on running, so my knee is recovering from something, but overall I'm feeling great.

The only thing about getting older that bothers me is that I look different on the outside than I feel on the inside.

Inside I feel young. Outside, my gray hair shows my age.

I grow hair on my chin, and I'm not sure why. I like how it looks. The problem is that it now got a lot of gray in it.

The sides of my head also show a lot of gray. So I look like exactly what I am. I am a slightly over middle-aged man.

It doesn't matter, though. I can still do the things I like to do. I have a great family I love spending time with, and I mostly like my job.

So why does that ticking-up number at the gym bother me so much?

Why do I think about it every year and feel a little sad?

I think having a good life makes it difficult to see. I know nothing goes on forever, and eventually, I won't see the number tick up at the gym.

The problem with thinking that way is that if you start only thinking about the future, you won't enjoy what's happening today. Even if what is happening today is not great, you still need to experience it.

So each year, I have to push the thoughts of my ticking-up age out of my mind and focus on getting through my workout, and then since I work out in the morning most days after that, I have to worry about getting my daughter ready for school and then getting myself ready for work.

The daily tasks of life need to be done. My daughter is going to want to stay in bed and not get up for school, and I'll go through the struggle of getting her up. Sometimes I can get her up through humor or playing, and sometimes I have to get mad at her to get her up. I'm not really mad at her since I understand not wanting to go to school, but I pretend.

That's what's important. I have to remind myself. Living in the moment and not focusing on a stupid number that has increased by one.

After all, one isn't that big of a number. It just keeps adding up.

Pick A Side

Image you and I are standing together outside a coffee shop. Each of us is holding a coffee, you have a plain hot coffee with sugar and cream, and I have an iced coffee with Splenda and cream.

My coffee is in a clear container; you can see it's a light tan color from the cream. You can't tell how sweet it is, but you can see that it has a lot of cream.

I can only tell from your cup that you got a hot drink. You have put a drink sleeve on the cup, and since your cup is paper, I know it isn't a cold drink.

The coffee shop always puts the hot coffee in paper cups and the cold coffee in plastic cups. So I know what you are drinking is hot.

Standing there with our coffees talking, we look like we are on the same side. We are both drinking coffee outside the coffee shop, so you know from looking at us that we both like to go to the same place.

You also look at us, see how we talk and know we are friends. So we must have some things in common besides both liking the same coffee place.

You walk up to us and offer us an experiment.

We both stop talking and look at you, waiting for you to explain. We are both annoyed that you interrupted us, but we are still curious about the experiment.

"I want to see how you act if I split you up," he says.

I'm curious about what he means, so I nod and say, "sure."

"Great," he says.

He looks at mean and says you are on side A, and your friend is on side B.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"I've just moved you to sides," he says.

"Great," I say.

My friend asks, "what does side B mean?"

The man thinks for a second and says, "it means you only like hot coffee, and you have to try to convince your friend that hot coffee is better."

"Does it mean that I like iced coffee?" I ask.

"You don't have to, but you do not like hot coffee," he says.

"That won't be hard. I don't like hot coffee," I say.

Just like that, my friend and I are on different sides of the coffee issue.

It didn't take much to get us onto different sides. Just this man separating us was enough.

Now I started to think about ways to prove that hot coffee was not as good as iced coffee. I know he said I didn't have to like iced coffee, but it seemed to make sense that if my friend enjoyed hot coffee, I should have something to take its place.

It's amazon how quickly we took sides. I'm not sure why it's something people can do so easily. The man has taken two friends, and now we will start arguing.

Each of us is hoping to be right. Even though this has no correct answer, in reality, there is no way to decide which coffee is better. Iced coffee might be better on a hot day, but there are likely some people that still drink a hot cup of coffee in the morning, even during the hottest days of summer.

I'm still thinking of ways to be right.

I'm sure my friend is doing the same thing. He wants to get me to believe that hot coffee is the way to go. It is better for you, he might say. I'm not sure of the reasons he will give, since I prefer iced coffee, but he will have some.

I wonder why people are like this. Is there a benefit to debating everything to decide which is better?

There has to be a reason people are always ready to debate things and try to figure out what's the best way to do something.

I think the problem is that there are people that are unwilling to listen to what the other side is saying. They don't take that moment to decide what is really the best way. They are stuck on their side.

Even in this coffee argument, I think that I am right. I don't like hot coffee. It burns your tongue, and it takes too long to drink.

Maybe slowing down and enjoying your drink is a good thing? Take a moment and hold your cup in your hands and let it warm your hands as it cools. Then when it's cool enough, take a sip and enjoy the flavor of the coffee.

If you paid for the high-end coffee beans, maybe the heat brings something out in the flavor that is not there in the cold.

Is it possible I've been wrong all this time? Could warm coffee be better than cold coffee?

I know that sometimes when you put ice into hot coffee, it can make the coffee more bitter. So I add some extra Splenda or maybe a little more cream.

I should try drinking a warm coffee. Not hot, but warm might not be a bad idea. Even in the summer, the morning can have a little chill to it.

I remember camping and drinking some warm coffee out of a metal cup. There is something comforting in that memory. The cold of the forest and the quiet of the morning with the warm cup of coffee in my hands.

I had wanted an iced coffee, but we didn't have any ice, and when they offered me the warm cup of coffee in the metal cup, I took it and sat down in the soft camping chair, and there was something special at that moment.

Just taking a few seconds to think about that makes me happy. If I had refused the warm coffee, I would not have that memory. I would not want to have a warm cup of coffee.

I look at my friend and say, "I'm going to go get a cup of warm coffee."

"It's the better choice," he says.

I go inside and order a cup of hot coffee. They bring it to me, and I hold it in both hands. I add cream and two packets of Splenda to it and take a sip.

It burns my tongue, and I wonder why I didn't just get a second iced coffee. What the heck was I thinking? This isn't the forest, and I'm not sitting in a canvas chair.

I go outside the cafe and look at my friend and the man that put us on different sides of this issue. "I'm sticking with iced coffee. Did one of you want this?" I asked, holding out the cup of hot coffee.

My friend takes it and says "thanks" as I turn to go back to the cafe to get a cup of iced coffee.

Why Rest?

If you like to exercise, you know that one of the most challenging days of the week is the rest day. Unless you are someone like David Goggins who doesn't believe in rest days, part of your training schedule includes at least one day a week where you do nothing. That's right, nothing.

Telling someone that does some kind of exercise each day that on this day you will rest can be a bit of a daunting task, even if you are trying to tell yourself to do nothing.

People get mad when other people don't listen to them but think about how many times you don't listen to yourself. You know you don't need to eat that extra snack at bedtime or have one more drink at the bar with your friends. You tell yourself you won't, but in the end, you do it anyway.

Why should other people listen to you if you don't listen to yourself? This is true even when the thing you are doing usually is good for you, like exercise.

The problem is, like anything else, too much exercise will wear you down. We all like to think that we are made of stone. That we are monsters of the gym or the ultra runner who will go that one more mile before quitting. So we push ourselves further, or we lift heavier weights. It feels good to challenge ourselves and push ourselves past the point where we thought we couldn't go.

We are all human in the end. We have to listen to ourselves or our bodies. We know what is good for us, and we need to put down that extra drink or not eat that extra scoop of ice cream. We even need not get up and run when every ounce of our body tells us we can do it. That we are lazy if we don't do it.

I'm writing this to try to convince myself that I don't need to work out today. I don't need to go out for a run or a bike ride. The lucky thing is that my bike is three hundred miles away in my garage. My running shoes are here, though. They are sitting by the door, waiting for me to put them on and go out.

They want to go out. It's their only job, and they want to do it, and I'm letting them down.

The problem is that if I go out on what's supposed to be my rest day, I won't recover properly, and I might see my overall performance suffer. So instead of going out for a run, I'm going to sit here and write this while waiting for everyone else to wake up.

It's something we all need to do sometimes. People often talk about procrastinating and not doing the things we are supposed to do, but sometimes it works the other way as well. We have to not do the things we really want to do.

It can be just as hard for us not to do something as it is for us to do something. Our brains are funny that way. Logic tells us all these things, and we often know what the right thing to do is, but we choose to do or not do the wrong things.

It's 8 am, and if I'm lucky, everyone will start waking up soon, and I will have to take care of my daughter, and my mind will move past wanting to work out.

Later in the day, I will want to eat something that I probably don't need to eat, and not eating that will be an even more challenging task. We are in southern California for my daughter's college graduation, and there is a lot of good food here. So I will probably eat some of it.

Luckily tomorrow, I get to run again. It will help with what I do today.

Shhhh...I'm supposed to be working

Don't tell anyone, but I'm supposed to be working. I've got all the tools for it. I'm sitting at my desk at work in front of my computer. I have my email open, and I have my web browser open to the tasks I'm supposed to be working on, but I felt like writing something.

So I'm going to take a short break, and instead of going for a walk or maybe getting a cup of coffee, I'm going to see if I can write out a thousand words.

The trick is to write about something interesting to me. If you are reading this, I make no promises that you will find it interesting. It only needs to be interesting to me.

Still with me? Okay, let's see how long you stay with me.

For the past few weeks, my days have started pretty much the same way. It doesn't matter if it's a weekday or the weekend. I have been starting my days trying to learn HTML, CSS, and javascript. I signed up for a class on Udemy and started working on improving my programming skills. Web design seemed like a good place to start, so I picked a full-stack developer course.

This means that each morning when I wake up, I have committed to working on this for at least an hour. Most mornings, the time spent is between 5-6 am. At 6 am, I stop and either run or ride my bike for at least 75 minutes. Why? Because at the same time, I'm trying to improve my programming, I'm also training to be able to run the thirteen miles to my work. Technically it's an unsanctioned half marathon. The only one keeping track of any of this is me.

I am doing this to challenge myself. I want to keep improving myself even as I get older. I think back to my father before he passed away, and I don't remember him doing anything extra.

I guess it's possible he was doing something and not telling me, but I don't think so.

So I keep adding things into my life to challenge myself. I'm trying to keep learning new things. It's probably not going to help my job, and since I'm running alone, I won't be able to compare my running to anyone else's. I probably won't even tell anyone outside of my family I'm doing it.

I enjoy telling my family since they look at me like I'm a little crazy when I tell them I will run thirteen miles to work. It's worth it for that look.

I think back to when I was in my twenties, trying to learn as much as I could about my job. I wanted to be good at what I was doing. So I would go to work early, stay late, and study outside of work. I was just trying to be better at my job to make more money.

At some point, I was comfortable with the money I was making. I realized that I was making enough money to be happy. This doesn't mean I'm rich. I've just decided that I don't need to keep making more and more money to be happy.

I'm much happier when I learn things I want to learn about or participate in activities that I want to participate in.

I'm in a lucky position where I like my job, and I'm mostly happy with the money I make. Since inflation is a little out of control, a little more would be nice, but otherwise, I'm okay with it.

This means that I can do the things I want to do when I'm not working. I love spending time with my daughter. She turned five this year and is joking, and it's fun to see how curious she is about everything. I try to help her learn as much as possible.

This is also why I wake up at 4 am every morning. Getting up early in the morning gives me time to myself for a few hours before she wakes up. I don't mind. I've always been a morning person.

I will say one thing about being a morning person. When you are young and you wake up early, everyone just thinks you're crazy. They are very judge mental about early risers. I'm not sure why. I never tell them they are crazy for staying up until two in the morning. I think it, but I never say it.

But if you are an early riser, be prepared to hear about it. That is until you start to get a little older. Then they think you wake up early because you are old.

I want to yell at them, "I've always got up this early! It's not because I'm getting old!"

I don't yell at them, though. I just look at them and don't say anything. I tell them that I like getting up early because it's quiet. That seems to be a good enough reason for most people. The old man enjoys getting up early because it's quiet.

It's funny because I don't feel that old. The gray hair on the side of my head does say I'm getting up there in age, but inside I don't feel old. I still feel like a young person. I just have a little extra knowledge. I know what works and what doesn't.

So I know that if I keep learning new things and keep physically active, I will be able to chase my daughter until she gets old enough not to want me to chase her around.

I guess I'm scared that I am getting old. I fight it, but it's happening. There is nothing I can do to stop it.

That's not entirely true. There is something that would stop it, but that seems like it would be worse than fighting it.

I think I'll fight it until I can't fight it anymore. I'll keep doing things that make my family think I'm crazy because it's fun and it's good for me.

I made it over a thousand words—high five to myself. Now I should get back to work. It is why I'm here.

Children's Hospital Visit

My daughter just turned five in February. One of the best things about her getting older is she is now able to describe many things she had not been able to describe up until now. This is both good and bad. The bad is she will now tell her friends in her class everything that goes on. Which is only bad when she tells something embarrassing. I don't mind because I always like to choose funny over not funny and most of the time embarrassing equals funny.

The bad is that sometimes she can tell you about something that makes you have to go have someone like a doctor take a look at it. We were playing a game where you follow the other person's finger. First, you follow their finger as they move it towards your nose causing you to go cross-eyed, you then move your finger right and then left. It's fun because when you move from cross-eyed to right or left it looks like you are able to move only one eye at a time.

When she looked to the right she said, "I see double vision." I stopped and asked what she meant. "I see two of you," she said.

We ended up taking her to the eye doctor and I told him what she said she saw when she looked to the right.

Three days later she was at Standford Children's hospital for an MRI.

I was freaked out by the speed we were lined up to go to get the MRI. Usually, when doctors move that fast there is something wrong. So I did some research and it turned out it was either something she was born with, which would not be an issue, or it was something bad. I'm going to let you know that it turned out to be okay and it looks like it was something she was born with. So you don't need to be worried.

Up until after the MRI I was very stressed.

The hospital called us up the day before the test to tell us the time and where to go. I didn't know what to expect. Hospitals can be scary and for kids, that is amplified. I knew I had to be calm and remain positive for my daughter. If I freaked out I knew she would freak out. So I hid my nerves and my wife and I took her to the hospital on the morning of the test.

For kids my daughter's age to get an MRI, they put them under general anesthesia. They were going to knock my daughter out.

Now I was worried about her going under general anesthesia and I was worried about what was causing the double vision. This was going to be a great Saturday morning.

During the prep call on Friday, they told us there could be two people with her over the age of eighteen. That was some good news. Both my wife and I would be able to go.

They gave us an address, but it turned out that was the old building and we ended up having to walk across the street to the main children's hospital. The walk wasn't that far and it's always nice to get a little exercise when you are stressed.

We went in the front door of the hospital to check-in. They gave us masks and took our pictures to put on stickers that were to be worn on our shirts. The pictures on the stickers were faded and looked more like shadow people than us, but we put the stickers on the three of us and they directed us on where to check-in.

Once you are past the check-in point at the main door you learn that the hospital is really designed with kids in mind.

The hospital is set up with a nature theme. In the main area past the check-in desk, there are small statues of animals running along the window to the left. These animals are cute and my daughter and I looked at each statue. Already this was relaxing. It was fun to look at the animals. The statues were all very accurate representations of the animals they looked like.

We checked in to the MRI waiting area for the MRI and my daughter and I went out to walk around the lobby while my wife waited in the waiting area for them to call our name.

Aside from the animal statues, there was a machine moving balls around in a maze. The items in the maze were related to the Standford campus.

You could also go outside from the main lobby and there was a play area for kids and chairs so that you could sit outside and relax.

We didn't go outside because they called our name to go back and get ready for the MRI.

All of the medical staff were excellent with kids. They talked about everything they were doing. They spoke to my daughter directly and let her know what they were going to do.

Each person that came in talked to my wife and me and included my daughter in everything that was going on.

We had already explained to her that they were going to put her to sleep so they could take pictures of her head.

The medical staff explained that to her again. They started by asking her what we told her. They then expanded on what they were going to do.

I wasn't sure how they would put her to sleep. For me whenever I have had to be put under for surgery it always started with an IV. I don't think my daughter would have been very happy with that.

Luckily they were going to put her under with gas.

They explained that they would put a mask on her that would have a smell she got to choose and that we would be with her when she went to sleep. They then gave her a mask to hold so she would get used to the mask. From that point on she got to hold the mask.

The anesthesiologist came in and told her what was going on and she was holding the mask.

The nurse came in with stickers and she got to choose some stickers to put on the mask. She then got to choose a scent to have on the mask.

There were four different scents for her to choose and to my surprise she chose watermelon. She doesn't even like watermelon so I'm not sure why she loved the scent so much. If she likes how it smells I wish she would eat it.

During all of this, she was allowed to hold on to a stuffed mermaid she brought.

This was done so well. When it was finally time for my daughter to go to sleep we walked her back to the room and I lifted her onto the bed where they had the gas ready. They connected the scented mask to the tube and put it over her nose and mouth. She held my hand as they started to give her the gas that would put her under.

I was nervous as my wife and I stood there watching out daughter go to sleep. My daughter squeezed my hand and right before she went under she moved her head back and forth a few times. The anesthesiologist told us sometimes there would be some extra movement when they went under and we shouldn't be concerned.

It didn't matter, there wasn't really anything that could be said at that moment that would have stopped my concern.

Once she was under they escorted us back to the waiting area. We checked to make sure they had our correct contact information and we were told that they would call us when she was done.

My wife and I went upstairs to the cafe to get something to eat while we waited. The food was okay and there was a nature trail with more animal statues outside of the cafe. So we ate and took a quick walk outside in the nature area.

We then went back downstairs and went outside to wait.

I don't know what most children's hospitals are like and hopefully, I won't have to go back to another one any time soon, but this one was designed to keep the kids and the parents calm and the people working there were all friendly and helpful and good with kids. It was the best experience I think I could have had in a stressful time.

Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker

One of the greatest moments in Star Wars films

I have not seen The Rise of Skywalker. This makes two Star Wars movies I did not go and see opening week in the theater and both of those I have not seen at all. Up until Solo A Star Wars story, I had seen every Star Wars movie in the theater. There was an excitement to the opening scroll of text while the Star Wars theme played. The text, as it came up onto the screen, brought you back to the world of Jedi and Sith. There has always been something magical about it. Entering that world in a dark theater with popcorn in my lap was a great break from reality.
The last Star Wars movie I loved was Rogue One. I sat watching in the dark and was enjoying the movie. I didn't love it, but I was enjoying it. Darth Vader made a cameo in the middle of the film, and I thought it was a great tribute to the past. The movie went on, and I got caught up in the plot to steal the plans for the Death Star. It was good.
Near the end, the Death Star fired upon the planet, and the explosion killed all the main characters. It was sad, but I thought it fit the plot.
Then we were brought back up into space, and several of the empire's ships flew towards the rebels fleeing ship. We moved into a dark hallway, and there was the familiar sound of breathing. It took a second for me to realize what was about to happen. When the red glow of the lightsaber lit up the darkness, I burst with excitement. This was something I had waited my entire life for. I got to see Darth Vader being the badass I had always known he was. He destroyed his enemies. He moved down the hallway deflecting the laser blast with ease. He used the force for destruction and death. The movie went from a B to an A+ in less than the minute it took for him to move down the hallway. That was what a Star Wars movie was about. The power of the force and the lightsaber.
Three years later, I sat in the theater opening day for The Last Jedi. I knew the movie would have Luke Skywalker in it. Luke, who had turned Darth Vader back to the light. I had spent years reading books with Luke in them, where he had grown to be one of the most powerful Jedi to ever live.
I was waiting for the same excellent treatment of Luke that had been given to Darth Vader. A way for him to go out in style. Instead, when he was handed his lightsaber, he looked at it for a moment and tossed it over his shoulder. He was a broken and beaten down man. Not the Jedi that I had expected him to be. After he tossed the lightsaber, everything went downhill from there. In the end, Luke appeared as a Force ghost to distract The First Order so that the remaining rebels could escape. It was a weak way for Luke to go out.

One of the worst moments in Star Wars films. Notice the finger?

I sat watching and my heart was broken. What had just happened? When the lights came on at the end of the movie I was heartbroken. I had gone to see the movie with my oldest friend. He really liked the movie and he was excited when the movie was over. We had such different experiences watching the movie.

All I wanted was the same kind of treatment for Luke that Darth Vader had received. Show off how much of a badass Luke could be. Even if he had died, as long as he had gone down fighting it would have been worth it. Instead, I got a weird movie with a slow-motion version of Speed in space. Luke was sad and broken and I left the movie feeling like I had been punched in the chest. Enough has been written or said about how bad that movie was so I won’t pile on. I just wanted Luke to receive the same kind of treatment that was given to Darth Vader. Let Luke show the power of the light side of the force.

So I didn’t go see The Rise of Skywalker in the theater and I won’t go see any of the new Star Wars movies until they hand the reins over to someone who loves Star Wars. The creative team behind The Mandalorian is not a bad idea. I’m just saying. They seem to understand Star Wars and they are bringing in Ahsoka Tano for season 2. That should be awesome. I hope they give her the treatment she deserves.

Queen of the Ashes

The past shapes your future. It's common knowledge that by the time someone gets to a point in their life where they are committing horrible acts for seemingly little reason there is a long history of bad things happening. Your actions are usually a slow build up. Unless of course you are crazy, but aside from that most people are pushed into positions where they commit evil acts.

Which is why the latest episode of Game of Thrones felt so odd, Daenerys has at no point in her past over the last seven seasons exhibited any of the mad queen antics that we saw in this episode. Sure, she burned people and killed people, but never women and children. She went out of her way to avoid that. Now we are supposed to believe that she turned or "made it personal" as the writers of the show state. It doesn't make sense.

This may have been the path George RR Martin wanted to go down and will eventually go down in his books, but I guarantee when it happens in the books, it will seem authentic. You will have felt her fall to the dark side, and when she finally decides to roast an entire city alive, you will not be sitting there wondering what the fuck just happened.

Over the last eight seasons, we followed Daenerys, who can now add the queen of the ashes to her long list of titles as she freed slaves, stopped people from being raped and acted like someone intent on breaking the wheel. Now that she has burned the wheel and everyone riding in the carriage it doesn't seem like the rest of the series is worth it. I hope they pull something out of the ashes for the last episode, but I'm not going to count on it.

It seems to me that the writers of the show got bored with the last season and are just looking to get it over with. I think they should have handed the reins over to someone else who could have taken us through a few more seasons to the same result but with a feeling that it was a logical path for Daenerys.

Before I end this rant, I want to comment on one more thing I just heard. Star Wars is being handed over to these two. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that all the excellent storytelling for Game of Thrones came from George RR Martin. When D&D got past the books, the show started slipping. GRRM takes the time to think about each character and why they do what they do. The show felt authentic. I may not have been happy when they killed off the characters, but the actions felt authentic. It was great storytelling. There was no doubt in your mind when Joffrey decided to behead Ned Start that that was precisely what he would have done. It was sad and jarring, but it felt right. It was the complete opposite of what Daenerys did. Her actions felt wrong. Watching her burn women carrying babies in their arms was not what she would have done.

I hope that Disney comes to their senses and does not hand Star Wars over to those two. All they seem to want to do is shock people. Star Wars should be a good story, but it should not feel like Game of Thrones, and it really shouldn't feel like the recent episode of Game of Thrones.

Perception vs Reality

When my wife was pregnant she went to a wine and art class. Now before you say what the? Don’t worry she didn’t drink any of the wine. She doesn’t like wine, but I think she went because she wanted to try painting.

I’ve never seen her draw anything and I wasn’t sure how the art would look. There was a chance of course if she didn’t like it she wouldn’t bring it home. It’s just the way she is.

Fortunately for me she liked what she painted and brought it home to share with the family. The painting (which you can see above) was of the family, drawn as cats, watching a sunset.

I really enjoyed the painting, and I hung it up in our hallway immediately.

My wife it seems is a woman of many talents.

I hung up the painting and looked at it. I thought how sweet, the family of cats is sitting together on a bridge watching the sun set.

I believed this was what it was for a few months. It seems I am the optimist choosing to see the good in everything.

My mistake was in not asking her what it was. The only thing she told me was that it was us and the kids that were the cats. Everything else about the painting I had just assumed.

Family of cats watching a beautiful sunset. Simple enough, no need to ask more than that.

A few months later we had some friends over and they were looking at the painting. I was happy to share that my wife had painted it and that it was the family as cats watching a sunset.

I focused on the fact that I was the fat cat in the picture and I mentioned that to them because I thought it was funny.

They looked at the painting and said, “I would have thought they were looking into the gates of hell.”

“I think it’s a sunset,” I said.

Luckily for us we had the artist in the house with us so we could ask what she had painted.

“Oh, they are watching the forest burn,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s us as cats watching the forest burn,” she said.

I was in shock. For the past few months I had been looking at the painting and seeing us watching a beautiful and inviting sunset.

Turns out the forest was burning and we needed to get out of there as fast as possible.

Somewhere in that time, someone I consider to be much smarter than I am said to me, “perception is reality.”

Perception is reality I thought. Okay, maybe it is.

I guess in some ways that’s true. People see things a certain way and however the perceive the issue or item is their reality.

When I looked at the painting I saw a beautiful sunset. Something happy, or romantic.

That was my reality of the painting. I shared that as the truth of what it was and I liked the thought.

Of course, if I sat there watching a forest burn and told myself it was a sunset there is a chance I would have been roasted in the fire as it approached.

It turns out that as much as I want perception to be reality, reality is in fact reality.

If you were on the Titanic and it was sinking, but you told yourself the ship is unsinkable. That’s what I’ve been told, and that must be the reality. Eventually you would be sitting in the ship at the bottom of the ocean, saying hi to whatever sea life lives that far below the surface.

It made me think about what I know. The person who told me this is by any measure a very successful person.

So why would he say that perception is reality.

It turns out there is a very simple reason. People for the most part look for the simple answer that they perceive.

That’s a sunset. It looks like one, the cats are sitting there watching it, which is what you do to a sunset. So, there you go, it’s a sunset.

Now I would have argued that it’s a sunset because that’s what I believed.

In this instance the person who knew the truth happened to live with me so I could ask her.

In most instances though you should judge things based on what you know. It’s the only way I think most of us can keep sane. We have to take what we see, along with what we know, and come up with a conclusion.

We also end up having to trust people that know more about a subject than we do.

Doctors, lawyers and auto mechanics all are experts at things most of us only know a little bit about.

The problem is when their perception is wrong.

We have all heard stories about doctors giving people the wrong diagnosis.

We have a little dog that likes to eat cat poop.

You wouldn't know it to look at him, but he loves to eat cat poop.

I know, it’s gross, and we have doggie breath mints for those occasions where he manages to find some.

This dog at one point got very sick. Normally he is a very energetic dog. He jumps up over the back of the couch and runs around like a little ninja.

When he got sick he stopped eating and shrank down in size. He no longer would jump and was so thin we could see his rib bones.

We took him to the vet who ran some tests and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. The vet then sent us to a specialist vet who asked us a bunch of questions and did some more tests.

Me being me, I went online and did a google search for dogs eating cat poop.

One of the items that came up in the search was toxoplasmosis. It was in cat poop and caused some of the symptoms that our little dog was experiencing.

I mentioned this to both vets. Both of whom said, “I’ve never seen toxoplasmosis in a dog,”

Their perception was that this was not something they had seen before in a dog, so it was unlikely that this was the issue.

In this case, their experience was their downfall.

Eventually as our little dog kept getting worse and shrinking in size I begged them to try the medicine for toxoplasmosis.

Annoyed with me, they eventually conceded and gave us the medicine for toxoplasmosis.

In the next few weeks the little ninja slowly went back to being himself.

I don’t blame the vets. I’m a little unhappy with how much money we spent, when we could have saved a bunch if they had just listened to me when I mentioned toxoplasmosis, but I’m really just happy he is okay.

My perception was that the vets knew more than I did. Their perception was that they had never seen a dog with toxoplasmosis, so it was unlikely that that’s what he had.

The reality was that the little dork likes to eat cat poop, and cat poop contains the toxoplasma gondii.

In the end reality was reality. No matter how much we want to think what we see, and think we know is true, we must be ready to change.

I no longer look at the painting and see cats watching a sunset. I see cats sitting too close to a burning fire, and I wonder, why the heck they aren’t getting out of there?

The only question I have left now is why do I have to be the fat cat? Oh wait, never mind, that’s the reality. :)

What do you mean you only gave my book two stars?

What do you mean you only gave my book two stars? I spent a little over six months writing, and then editing and publishing my first book. Since this was my first book I started the whole process without any idea of what to expect. Writing the book for me was not difficult. I enjoy writing and I can knock out my thousand word goal on my train ride to work each day without any real trouble. It’s fun and it relaxes me before the stress of my job. The editing process was a little more difficult for me. You have to reread your book, then have other people read your book and judge what you wrote. I paid for an editing service through Createspace and both of the editors did a great job and offered very good notes on my writing. It was a little difficult for me to make changes to my book and sometimes I wanted to hit my head on the wall for some of the stupid mistakes I had made. This was something I expected. I knew you had to have other people read your book and help you to make the best product you can make. The quote I remember is you have to be willing to “kill your darlings,” and this is true. When you write your mind spills out your thoughts and sometimes the things that come out have no business being on the page. Even the best writers have to have their books edited. It’s just how it is. So I accepted that and moved forward. I had my book edited, had a cover created and finally published my book on Amazon. Just like that I was a self published author. It was a lot of work and I felt good to have my book listed on Amazon. My book has sold and as it has sold people have read and rated my book. On Amazon I have a 4.5 average rating with twenty-one reviews currently. On Goodreads my book has a 3.76 rating with forty-six reviews currently. Most of the reviews are three stars and up but there are also two star reviews. A few of the two star ratings the people wrote reviews to go along with them. For me this is the hardest part of writing the book. People have said a lot of kind words about my books and I enjoy reading those reviews. The problem is those dang two star reviews. I have lived long enough to know that people have a tendency to focus on the negative and I am no different. I have listened to enough people being interviewed to know that anyone who creates something and puts it out there for people to read or watch or play is in the same boat. The problem is that some of the two star reviews are correct. I read the review and look at what the person is saying and I know they are right. There are areas of my writing that I know I need to work on. So I try to take what the reviewers are saying to heart. Then I’ll read another two star review which contradicts what the other negative review says. Now I’ve got two negative reviews each saying something different. The book is to long, or to short. I didn’t understand this characters motivation. The writing is to descriptive. No wait it’s rushed and not descriptive enough. Then if you read the positive reviews they say the exact opposite. Since this is my first book and I want to improve my writing I need to find the areas that I need to work on. I think I have an idea of the areas I need to work on and I know not everyone will love my book. It’s just difficult to stay positive while reading negative reviews. I have finished my next book and will begin the process of editing it soon. I am going to work on the areas that I think I am weak on. I think I need to flush out some of the characters motivations a little more. One point of pride for me is that I have been compared in the reviews to both Stephen King and Dean Koontz. There was a two star rating from a blogger I asked to review my book that said the book started out as Stephen King and switched to Dean Koontz. I think he meant that switch as a negative. To me there was no greater compliment. Both of those authors have written books that I could no put down. Off the top of my head from Stephen King I could not put down The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and The Green Mile. For Dean Koontz, Phantoms and Odd Thomas are two that come to mind. If their writing careers just consisted of those books I think both of them would be said to be successful. They both have a body of work much greater than that and you would not waste your time if those were the only two authors you read. So I take that as a compliment. The review itself, even though the blogger ended up not liking my book, was well thought out and I appreciated his comments. My daughter says that I need to learn to have thicker skin and I know that she is right. If I am going to write books and put them out there for people to read, I know there will be bad reviews. I have to try focus on the good reviews and when I read the bad ones, I need to see if there is anything there I can learn from. There usually is. I also want to take a moment to thank anyone who has taken the time to read my book. I know there is a ton of stuff out there looking to entertain you. If you took the time to read my book, then you have earned the right to rate it however you like. I will try to keep improving my writing. When my next book comes out I hope you will take the time to read it, and if you like it rate it. Even if you don’t like it I guess you can rate it, but if you accidentally slip and give it four or five stars, I won’t be mad.

My First Book

When I turned forty two years old I had a midlife crisis. I don't think there is anything unusual about that, a lot of people my age start to take the time to look at their life, and the things they wanted to accomplish and realize that maybe their life has not taken them where they want to go.

For me, I realized that my life was probably a little more than half over and I had not done one thing I had always wanted to do. I wanted to write a book. The problem was that I had no idea what was needed to write a book or how I would even go about publishing a book.

Since I am a geek the first thing I did was look for books on writing. It occurred to me that years earlier I had read a book by Stephen King called On Writing. At the time I read it I thought that it was an interesting read, but I set it aside when I had finished and went on to reading other books.

I figured this was a good time to reread On Writing. Sometimes in life I make really good choices and this was one of them. I reread On Writing and this time I really focused on what Stephen King had to say about writing.

The book opened my eyes. If I wanted to be a writer I needed to start writing. I always have ideas for stories bouncing around in my head, but I had never bothered to put any of them on paper.  At that point I set two goals for myself.

The first goal was to write at least one thousand words per day. This was easier said than done. I work a full time job and have a family. For good writing you need to carve out some time for yourself.

I decided I would do this every morning on my commute to work. I take Caltrain from San Jose to San Francisco each morning. This proved to be the perfect time for me to write. Most of the time I can get the thousand words done in under the hour that the train ride takes. Sometimes I would finish right as the train pulled into the station, but I would not stop writing until I got the thousand words.

The second goal I set for myself was to finish a novel. I looked online to find out what the best word count was for a first time writer and the consensus was eighty thousand words. So I would limit my novel to eighty thousand words. Looking back I wish I hadn't done that because I feel the ending of the book was a little rushed since I was trying not to go over the eighty thousand words, but other than that I did finish the novel.

Along the way I also wrote a few short stories and found that I truly enjoy writing. I am very happy with how my novel turned out and I have a second one finished that I need to start reading for the first pass at editing.

For anyone else that wants to write a novel, or has an idea bouncing around in their head the only advice I would give is to just start writing. If it worked for me it can work for you. Good luck!