The woods are lovely ...

The past few weeks have been rather melancholy for me. It always is, around the holidays,with memories of past and childhood blowing in alongside the cold weather.

But something very different happened this year. Yesterday, my friend Wayne sent me some photos he took of my childhood home. My parents sold the house some years back and I haven't been back to my hometown in years. But seeing the photos of the place as it is now was quite a shock.

I grew up in a magical place - at least it was magical for an introverted kid with a big imagination. Our house was in the middle of a big pine forest, a small part of what's known as the Piney Woods. To my brothers and me it was just 'the woods.' We went out into the woods, played in the woods, explored the woods.

Sadly I do not have a photo of the house as it was, but here's a view of 'the woods' from my backyard, circa 2003

Those acres of land was my world. I was never a hunter - I shot a few birds with a .22, and I may have potted a squirrel or two at the prodding of my brother, but I never killed a deer or went on a serious hunting trip. To me the woods were for exploration and creating worlds. They were unexplored jungles, the forests of Colonial America, wildernesses on far away planets, the cities of aliens who built structures like trees ... or whatever world pushed its way to the front of my brain on that particular day.

Some weekends I would get up in the morning and, except maybe for a quick lunch, spend the entire day in the woods. We built forts, we made trails - my dad even built us a tree house, sitting up on parallel beams bolted together around tree trunks. They moved with the swaying of the trees, and seemed like it would last forever.

There was an old shack somewhere out in the woods - and next to it an old well that we were warned against falling into. I found the shack but I never saw the well. I'm sure it was there somewhere. There was a pipeline trail that served as the main highway in our incredibly intricate system of trails crisscrossing through the woods. Some of those trails were cut by my father with his bush hog, some by my brothers, and a few by me. They led to the forts and treehouse, to the baseball park, the convenience store (where we went for ICEEs against the expressed orders of my father), the golf course, an old cemetery (where I was terrified to go), the railroad tracks ... even to the local airport, if one was willing to travel far enough and risk getting stuck in a couple of very large mud pits. (For the record, I can assure you that I never rode my dirt bike across the airport runway while a plane was landing, nor do I know anyone who did. That would be irresponsible and highly illegal!)

But most of those places were a good distance away, and I only discovered them in my teen years as I roamed further and further. As a younger kid, I spent most of my time close to the house. The great thing about the woods is you could be a dozen yards away from a road or a house and still feel like you were in the middle of an untamed wilderness. I studied plants, I picked berries, I climbed trees. I did it all. I found a weird door once - a vaguely car door like object, lying in the middle of the woods with nothing else around. I made up an entire history for how a car door had gotten into the middle of the woods (my dad later identified it as an airplane door, that must have fallen off of one of the small airplanes that flew in and our of our small local airport - see above). After my brothers moved, I was the king of the woods. I would have groups of friends over and we'd play hide and seek, pine forest style. I was always the last one found.

The top of the driveway as it was years ago

I was the youngest kid so I was the last one home. Eventually I grew up, as everyone does. I got my driver's license, went to college, and then moved away. The forts fell apart, the trails overgrew, and even the stoutly-built tree house rotted and fell down. I would still explore the trails when I came home for holidays, but they were grown up now, and it just wasn't worth the time to clear them out again for a brief reminiscence.

A few years ago, my parents moved away from my hometown and sold their house. I knew that the buyer was developing the land, but I never really connected 'developing' to the reality of it. That is, until I saw the photos.

When I was a kid, you couldn't see the house from the road. Just trees and a long driveway. Head up on that about a tenth of a mile, and the house would emerge from the trees - a small, neat pocked of civilization surrounded by pine. Seeing the house pop up out of the trees was always a sign that we were home.

But not anymore. The photos I looked at contained just a few things - the house, the garage, some concrete, a few trees, and dirt. A lot of dirt.

View from the highway. Driveway was on the left.
Photo by Wayne Galli

My entire childhood world had been clear cut.

I'm not angry or upset about it. I'm not against progress. People build things - just about every house, building, or road we have used to be trees, or plants, or rock. That house itself used to be forest. The house I'm living in now used to be forest. The computer I'm writing this on used to be minerals and parts that were mined or created from something else. When you build something tangible, it inevitably means tearing down something else.

But this was different for me. This was the woods. That eternal world that was so big, so everything, and now is just ... gone. Just like that.

From the road that runs behind the house. As a little kid, I watched them build the road from which this photo was taken.
Photo by Wayne Galli

I'm not so much sad about it as I am introspective. It's something I'm still grappling to process. Life is change, and it's far better to live in the present than constantly mourn over the past. That world was gone anyway, years ago, except in the memories of the people who grew up and lived there.

That's the best any of us can hope for, really.

Short story

I had an amazing time attending Confluence in Pittsburgh last month. It would be tough to say what my favorite panel was - but one of the writing exercises, moderated by author Frederic S. Durbin, had an interesting format. 

It was centered on the four 'doorways' into writing - setting, character, plot and concept. We were asked to write a short story using one of those doorways. As a character writer, I found myself hitting an unexpected roadblock - every idea that popped into my head ended up sneaking into the character doorway. 

Rather than simply following my instincts and writing a character-based story, I decided to get out of my comfort zone by writing a story with no characters at all. But how to write a story with no characters?

Trying to pull that off was fun. I think the story that came out of the exercise is kind of cool, too - even if it's still very rough. Judge for yourself! 

**

0600 hours. The generators hum as the AI powers up the net. The sun rises, a fiery red ball over the broken landscape of plains outside.

Power is routed into cooling coils, pumping cold air into the insulated bunker. On the surface, the temperature reaches 38C as the sun blazes through the depleted atmosphere.

0800. Soft music flows throughout the barracks. The lights brighten, slowly reaching an intensity designed to wake any occupants. From a small cubbyhole on the side of each of the dozen beds, a steaming cup of coffee slides out, alongside a bagel - plain with cream cheese.

Holo screens light up, highlighting the date (6/3/2034), surface temperature (51C), time remaining on the power and environmental infrastructure resources (600 years), and openings on human exploration and recreation teams (positions remaining on all teams).

1000. Wheeled robots enter the barracks, changing the sheets and making the beds. Cool coffee cups are emptied and cleaned. Classes begin in the educational area, the computerized professors lecturing to empty rooms physics, biology and math. More generators power up as surface temperatures reach 70C.

1200. Lunch is served in the cafeteria by robotic stewards - steak, baked potatoes and French fries. Since no humans signed up for exploration, default robotic drones are launched in various directions to scour the surface for survivors.

1400. Heat shields are deployed above as surface temperature tops out at 80C. The first wave of drones returns. In the rec center, the entertainment AI selects a Golden Girls marathon for the coming afternoon/evening watching.

1800. Heat shields retract. Classes end. Dinner is served ... pizza. The Golden Girls marathon reaches its tenth episode. Musical instruments are set up in the theater room in preparation for that night's concert - a presentation of the Carmina Burana.

2000. Surface temperature falls to 70C. Concert time. No one has taken stations at any of the instruments, so the speaker systems play the concert to an empty auditorium. The final wave of drones returns and maps are updated.

2200. Curfew. The barracks units open and hot chocolate is served next to each bed. Screens list openings in tomorrow's various groups. Several generators power down for maximum savings. Robotic maintenance on non-integral systems begins.

2400. All lighting except soft wall illumination dims out. The hum of machinery pulses over the empty barracks. This is one of humanity’s highest technological achievements… a doomsday shelter, built to keep hundreds of people alive for centuries. The AI is not programmed to care that it is empty - nor does it matter that this whole world is empty of life. The program continues, just as its creators designed.

Tomorrow is just another day.

A dream for some ... a NIGHTMARE FOR OTHERS!

This is WAY too true.

Students

Since I started taking anti-anxiety meds about a year ago, I've been barraged with stress dreams.


Don't get me wrong - my stress level when awake is way, way down. And it doesn't really bother me. I'm not stressed or anxious when I wake up, and in general the dreams are more amusing than terrifying. Sometimes I feel like my brain has just stuffed all of my stress and anxiety I used to experience on a daily basis into my dreams, where I can watch them at night in HD format.

Of course that's a total hypothesis on my part, with no medical or psychological expertise at all behind it, and probably dead wrong. It could be any of a thousand different things - the only thing I know for sure is my dreams in the past several months have been whacky.

For example - last night, I was in my parents' old house (which they no longer own) trying to get some water. Only the plumbing wouldn't work.

First thought: "Why doesn't the plumbing work?"
Second thought: "Why am I in my parents' house that they don't even own anymore?"
Third thought: "Why is there an Apache helicopter hovering outside the window?"
Conclusion: "Hmm. This must be a dream."

Well, as long as there is plenty of entertainment value involved, I can't complain.

More cats

To me, it's an Intel Six-Core with 16 gigs of memory, a 128 gig Solid-state drive, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics card.

To her, it's a personal heater.

Zephyr in her natural habitat.

Rest in Pieces, Fitbit Charge

A few years ago I reached a decision point on what type of fitness tracker to use. I've never looked back from Fitbit, and they've never disappointed me. They still haven't. But I was disappointed today, when my Flex dropped off my wrist. The cause was evident even to me.

There's your problem!

I bought the Flex in January of last year, which means it's about two months past warranty. I'm not mad at Fitbit, since I always figure the warranty is about the time the maker of any product predicts it will last anyway. Plus I use the thing pretty heavily - it never comes off my wrist, and I do a lot of things that induce stretching and bending and .... well, flexing. I'd noticed the screen was beginning to separate a few days ago and today's yardwork was the last blow.

What I was doing when the Fitbit broke. Digging a hole. Under a sidewalk. But that's for another blog.

When I told my ever-practical friend and co-author Sherry what had happened, she commented, "Sounds like it's time for a Flex 2. They have them at Costco." To which I replied "Ooooo they have a new one?" and disappointment was replaced with anticipation at a new nerdy gadget impulse buy that I can justify ('my health is important!') as long as I don't think to hard about it.

I like the look of them - they're smaller, they have a removable tracker, and probably other new stuff. Anyway - excited! I'm picking one up today.

Today in history

On this day in history, John Quincy Adams passed away on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The 80-year-old member of Congress was born before the signing of the Declaration of Independence and died shortly before the Civil War. His life spanned the early days of the Republic.

Old Man Eloquent

Most people know Adams as the sixth President and son of Founding Father John Adams. But Quincy Adams' presidency was a blip in his career of public service. He was a diplomat, minister, Secretary of State, Senator, and a member of the House of Representatives, where he was elected to nine terms.

One of the most overlooked aspect of Adams' career was his fight against slavery. In this fight, he never wavered. He fought against the 1836 'gag rule' that prohibited any discussion of slavery in Congress, using various parliamentary and procedural methods to get around the ban. Quincy Adams' colleagues even attempted to censure him, but he turned this, too, to his advantage, using the censure motion to debate the evils of slavery and eventually winning out against the censure.

Quincy Adams died before the Civil War began, but he had predicted it years earlier:

“If slavery be the destined sword of the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut in sunder the bonds of slavery itself. A dissolution of the Union for the cause of slavery would be followed by a servile war in the slave-holding States, combined with a war between the two severed portions of the Union. It seems to me that its result might be the extirpation of slavery from this whole continent; and, calamitous and desolating as this course of events in its progress must be, so glorious would be its final issue, that, as God shall judge me, I dare not say that it is not to be desired.” (Memoirs of John Quincy Adams)

If you're interested in learning more about the sixth President, here are a few good sources to begin with:


John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger

The Education of Henry Adams

What God Hath Wrought: The Transformation of America 

Sunday Funday Netflix Binge Watching Day!

I've had a difficult time finding good sci-fi on TV lately. It may be that I'm not looking hard enough, but I didn't have to look for this one. My amazing co-author Sherry recommended SyFy's The Expanse and it's incredible.

Carefully-developed characters, great acting, superb writing, an addictive plot, and, of course ...pew pew, spaceships!

Check it out. You won't regret it. 

It's about time! The Jetsons aired 55 years ago, after all.

Is this the first 'real' flying car?

Today in history

On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa after serving 27 years.


Mr. Mandela went on to become South Africa's first democratically elected President. He stepped down after one term.

He passed away at the age of 95 on Dec 5, 2013, at his home at his home in Johannesburg.

Here are some good reference sources if you wish to learn more about this amazing man.

Biography of Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom

Conversations with Myself

Nelson Mandela: Champion of Freedom

Fluffies

Her Highness, YinYang the First

The Princess is ready for her morningly petting.

T-shirts, introverts and adverts

The past few months I've been on a big T-shirt buying kick. Facebook's algorithm finally figured out something it could sell me - clever T-shirts. And it's gotten to the point where I've had to allocate an online T-shirt-buying monthly budget.

I'm just going to leave this up here. 

It got me thinking. My entire life, I've worn the least flashy, most ordinary clothes in existence. Plain colored shirts and blue jeans or khaki shorts. Boring suits when dress-up time arrives. Anything to keep me from standing out from the crowd - because when you're an end-of-the-bell-curve introvert, attracting attention means attracting compliments and questions, both of which you try to avoid.

My guess is a lot of this goes back to junior high and high school. Half the time, my poor mother didn't know what to do with her introverted, ADD, space cadet of a youngest son as he entered his long 'rebellious teen' stage. I hated 99 percent of the clothes she tried to buy for me (yes, my mom still bought my clothes into high school -don't judge), and so finding clothes for me to wear outside the house was a challenge. Jeans were easy, because ... well, jeans.

 But the only shirts I liked on a consistent basis had advertisements, movies or other fun stuff on them - Spuds McKenzie, the Marlboro Man, Atari, The Goonies, some random Hawaiian surfboard shop, Huey Lewis and the News (one of the most underappreciated bands in our lifetime, IMO), whatever. So that's what I got. And I got a bunch of them, and I wore them. Did I ever wear them - with no preference for the message, genre, or anything else. If it had words and pictures on it, I'd put it on. I was a walking advertisement, although one with no clue of that fact, and those companies may not have picked me as their best spokesperson if they'd had the chance. 

Let's pause a moment to reminisce over those carefree days of the 80's, when you could wear shirts advertising beer and tobacco products to high school. 

One of the big challenges of being an introverted kid is learning how to dress yourself. Introverts are wired differently from extroverts, and to me fashion of even the most rudimentary level has always been a mystery. I'd rather run into a burning building than try to figure out what clothes to wear to a party. But at least now I have decades of experience to draw on. When I was a kid, not so much.

Anyway, I was a long way from the most popular kid in high school, and somewhere along the way my brain may have deduced it was partly because of my clothing habits. In any case, as soon as I started buying my own clothes, I drifted towards the plainest wardrobe possible, and stayed there for another 20 years or so.

A few years ago my friends begin to gift me T-shirts with nerdy designs on them. I loved them, but it was tough to wear them out of the house - in fact, sometimes I would change to a plain t-shirt before going anywhere. (Again, don't judge!)

This suave fellow, not voted Most Popular? I know, right????

But eventually I started wearing them out of my house. Then I started buying them. Like most addictions, the process has been gradual, but somehow I've ended up with a drawer full of nerdy/cool/awesome shirts. In fact, I had to throw out a bunch of my old shirts to make room - which is a bigger deal than you may think as I tend to keep clothes until they fall apart on their own.

So yeah! I'm thrilled to live in an age where I can scroll down my Facebook page, spend $20, and have a cool new T-shirt within a couple of weeks. So thrilled that I don't even mind answering a few questions from strangers about where I got them. In fact, my dream is to bump into Felicia Day on the street one day and have her say, "hey, nice shirt!" If you're gonna dream, dream big, right?

It all kind of makes me wish Mom had Facebook back in the day. If it had been this easy back then, I might have even started buying my own clothes earlier. 

Eh. Probably not.