Friday, January 31, 2020
A Challenge Has Been Issued
Rish challenged me join in with him in writing every day in the month of February. Should be easy, right? After all, February is the shortest month of all. Oh no, it's leap year...this is going to be harder than I thought...
Anyway, I wanted to invite anyone who is interested to participate in the challenge as well. If you like writing, and have been looking to take your writing to another level like Rish and I have, then this could be a good thing.
It won't be anything official, or anything like that. But you can join in with us in posting your word count each day as we work our way toward a sweep in February...hey, that might work as a title for it, because in TV, February is a Sweeps month. Let's call it The February Sweeps Writing Challenge.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Holiday Toys
I don't know why I've got such a thing for decorating for holidays with toys, but I'm pretty obsessed. Got this guy for next December.
I also found this ice dragon at Gamestop, and couldn't resist. It's so awesome.
I've never played Fortnite even one time, but I own several of the figures, because of how well they go with certain holidays.
I'm starting up a display of Easter-related toys as well. I think it will be a bunch of these guys (they've started showing up on clearance), as the sort of storm troopers:
And then the Marvel Legends White Rabbit in the center as their Darth Vader.
That'll be cool come Easter time, right? I'm thinking about some other toys that I've seen available as well. For example the Fortnite Nitehare:
And the Tiny Tina figure from Borderlands 3 is kind of tempting me to add it to the Easter display.
She seems a little cartoony though. Doesn't quite match the others as well. What do you think?
Then there's the growing number of Fourth of July figures I'm assembling.
I've definitely got a problem.
I also found this ice dragon at Gamestop, and couldn't resist. It's so awesome.
I've never played Fortnite even one time, but I own several of the figures, because of how well they go with certain holidays.
I'm starting up a display of Easter-related toys as well. I think it will be a bunch of these guys (they've started showing up on clearance), as the sort of storm troopers:
And then the Marvel Legends White Rabbit in the center as their Darth Vader.
That'll be cool come Easter time, right? I'm thinking about some other toys that I've seen available as well. For example the Fortnite Nitehare:
And the Tiny Tina figure from Borderlands 3 is kind of tempting me to add it to the Easter display.
She seems a little cartoony though. Doesn't quite match the others as well. What do you think?
Then there's the growing number of Fourth of July figures I'm assembling.
I've definitely got a problem.
Sticking To The Program, Getting Results. Journey To One-derland: Week 36 Progress Update
Got back on track last week, could I keep it up this week? Or did I backslide right back to those evil carbohydrates? Check it out and see.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Darth Paper
My son's school class read a book called The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger. They really enjoyed it.
My son got so into it, that he progressed straight on into the sequel Darth Paper Strikes Back and now he's reading The Secret Of The Fortune Wookie.
He spends at least 50% of his waking hours folding paper into the shape of Yoda (or Baby Yoda), Darth Vader, Chewbacca and so on.
The one with the crazy face looks more like Dobby from Harry Potter, doesn't he? Anyway, it's pretty cute stuff, especially considering how much I love that Star Wars trilogy and all the characters that come from it. I have Star Wars stuff all over the place too as these pictures attest:
My son got so into it, that he progressed straight on into the sequel Darth Paper Strikes Back and now he's reading The Secret Of The Fortune Wookie.
He spends at least 50% of his waking hours folding paper into the shape of Yoda (or Baby Yoda), Darth Vader, Chewbacca and so on.
The one with the crazy face looks more like Dobby from Harry Potter, doesn't he? Anyway, it's pretty cute stuff, especially considering how much I love that Star Wars trilogy and all the characters that come from it. I have Star Wars stuff all over the place too as these pictures attest:
However, it is getting out of control. I'm going to run out of paper soon. There's folded paper, and cut paper, and crumpled paper everywhere in the house. My wife originally felt bad tossing the finished products in the trash, because they were good and very cute. After the 50th origami Yoda or so, however, she gave up on that worry, and threw them away with abandon. We have to just to be able to keep up.
So, I'm here to both recommend the books by Tom Angleberger and warn you what will happen when your kids get your hands on them. Good luck.
Friday, January 24, 2020
Pinewood
My son's friends were all in a Cub Scout den together, and so we enrolled him in it this year. The time has come for his first ever Pinewood Derby. If you've never heard of it, it's where you have a block of wood, and you have to turn that into a car. Then they race the cars down a slanted track, with gravity alone providing the momentum, and see who is the fastest. Usually, they also give out awards for nice designs too.
I'm not a very knowledgeable wood worker, but I did my best, cutting the pieces that we needed, making sure to preserve all of my fingers, gluing the pieces on so that we had that Batmobile shape, then trying to fill in all my mistakes with putty. I worked on it up to the very last minute. In fact, I had to leave for work and I wasn't even around to help him finish up by painting the windows for the cockpit. He did that all by himself.
I kind of wish I had been there to give him some pointers, but at least he got to do something. You're supposed to have the kid do as much as possible, but it's always almost all the dads doing the work.
The final car looked like this:
It's not amazing, but I still think it turned out pretty cool, and we were hoping that he might be able to garner a design award. There was some pretty stiff competition, though.
The bathtub, the ghostbusters car, the remote control, and--probably every kid in the place's favorite car--the Minecraft car were going to be pretty hard to beat. I should have given us more time to work on the paint job or better yet, making the car a faster one.
Because, unfortunately, the wheels only got a tiny bit of attention. I put them on the car the very day that weigh in took place. I sprayed some graphite in there, and did my best to get those wheels lubricated and eliminate friction, but it didn't help a whole lot. his car was pretty slow.
It came in last place in every race that it ran. It wasn't terrible. There were a few cars that didn't even have enough get-up-and-go to make it to the end of the track, so it could have been worse, but his car was no speed demon.
It had stiff competition from the other interestingly designed cars, and even lost to those cars in the races as well. The stinking bathtub car, as non-aerodynamic as that is, managed to outperform our Batmobile on the track. Pretty sad considering that we'd watched several YouTube videos about how to have the fastest car, only to throw all that advice in the garbage and spend all our time making a Batmobile instead.
It was okay, though. Little was happy with his car, and that's what actually matters. He had a good time with his friends, eating pizza, racing cars, and horsing around. So it was a success.
Little didn't win any design awards. I don't know if they even had any actual design awards, truthfully. I never heard them hand any out. They did give all the kids a patch for participating in the event, and it's a good looking one.
The awards didn't matter, though. We had fun, and that's what a pinewood derby is all about.
It's not amazing, but I still think it turned out pretty cool, and we were hoping that he might be able to garner a design award. There was some pretty stiff competition, though.
The bathtub, the ghostbusters car, the remote control, and--probably every kid in the place's favorite car--the Minecraft car were going to be pretty hard to beat. I should have given us more time to work on the paint job or better yet, making the car a faster one.
Because, unfortunately, the wheels only got a tiny bit of attention. I put them on the car the very day that weigh in took place. I sprayed some graphite in there, and did my best to get those wheels lubricated and eliminate friction, but it didn't help a whole lot. his car was pretty slow.
It came in last place in every race that it ran. It wasn't terrible. There were a few cars that didn't even have enough get-up-and-go to make it to the end of the track, so it could have been worse, but his car was no speed demon.
It had stiff competition from the other interestingly designed cars, and even lost to those cars in the races as well. The stinking bathtub car, as non-aerodynamic as that is, managed to outperform our Batmobile on the track. Pretty sad considering that we'd watched several YouTube videos about how to have the fastest car, only to throw all that advice in the garbage and spend all our time making a Batmobile instead.
It was okay, though. Little was happy with his car, and that's what actually matters. He had a good time with his friends, eating pizza, racing cars, and horsing around. So it was a success.
Little didn't win any design awards. I don't know if they even had any actual design awards, truthfully. I never heard them hand any out. They did give all the kids a patch for participating in the event, and it's a good looking one.
The awards didn't matter, though. We had fun, and that's what a pinewood derby is all about.
Only Beef, Salt, And Water To Eat. Will It Work? Journey to Onederland: Week 35 Progress Update
Week 35 update on my Journey To One-derland. I tried making my carnivore diet as strict as possible to get back on track after all my slip-ups in December. How did it go? Watch and find out.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Hard Rocker
There's a new episode of That Gets My Goat up on the Dunesteef feed. Rish turned the show into a gameshow of sorts. See how well you can do in naming the list of the top 100 hard rock songs. Better than me? Couldn't possibly be worse.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Happy Juan Day To You!
On Facebook a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an upcoming event here in Houston.
A toy store called Super Happy Incredible Toys was having a big uh...toy-stravaganza in their parking lot today. It was in honor of a guy named Juan, for changing things...for the better I suppose. In fact, here's the copy from the Facebook announcement:
Ever since I started watching toy collecting videos on YouTube, and then went on to create my own toy collecting video channel, I've wanted to attend something like this. I've seen many others going to these events, and posting videos highlighting their experiences, and they look like they would be really neat.
However, despite the way I may seem on my podcasts and videos, I'm not a particularly social person. My social interactions are mostly motivated by fear. I do just fine when hanging out with people that I know, or people that can be relied upon to be at least generally friendly, but uncontrolled interactions I try to avoid, even though they might lead to something great. I don't know why I'm explaining this so in depth, everyone these days is this way. It's why ghosting has become a word.
So, though I've heard of other events like this before, I've yet to actually go to one. This time around, though, I was on the phone with Rish when I found the listing for the event, and he really encouraged me to go. He wanted to hear about what it was like. I don't know, maybe he wanted me to get out of my shell and see what the fresh air was like. So, I kind of felt obligated to actually go this time. Besides, it was pretty close. Houston is a huge city, but this event was less than 30 minutes away from me.
It would be a super happy incredible time, right? Nobody says things like that disingenuously. Advertising can always be believed. Those pills we see commercials for on TV all the time really will make you more healthy.
So, I dragged my keester out to Super Happy Incredible toys this morning, as close to 11:00 as I could manage. It seemed like the best way to go, because more stuff would still be available if I got there early, right?
Super Happy Incredible Toys posted this picture of the event on Facebook. The little blue house is the store, Super Happy Incredible Toys. In front is a gravel parking lot where several local toy vendors set up their tables with stuff that we could buy. I walked around and looked at it all, impressed with the selection even though it was a relatively small event. They had a lot of my favorite things available--Marvel Legends, Star Wars Black Series, vintage GI Joes, Sectaurs from the 1980s, vintage He-Man figures, and so on.
I found a figure that I had to take a picture of and text to Rish.
This is Monkian. He's a villain from the 1980s cartoon Thundercats. Back in the early days of the internet, before I became Big Anklevich, I used to call myself Snarf on all of the message boards that I would frequent. Rish would joke with me that he was going to call himself Monkeyan, a character that he had just discovered the existence of. I suppose he thought Snarf was pretty awful, and was surprised to find another awful character lurking behind Snarf. Rish was pretty sad to find out that he had the name of the guy spelled wrong, and it was in fact Monkian instead. For several months on end, I would receive emails from Rish signed Monkian. It eventually wore off, and disappeared into the mists of the forgotten past. But whenever I hear anything about Monkian, I think of Rish. So, I had to send him that picture.
When Rish looked at his phone, he knew exactly what was going on, and suddenly my phone was ringing.
"Happy Juan Day!" he shouted when I picked up.
I spent the rest of the time at the toy show, wandering around and talking with Rish. It was fun. It was almost as if we were attending together, only if Rish had been my blind friend that I had to describe everything to. Going to something like this together is something the two of us would both love. Unfortunately, circumstances have made the distance between us too great for this to be possible.
I walked around looking at the tables some more. I wanted to look everything over once before deciding what I would buy, just in case I found something I had to have at the last table that might require all the money I brought or something.
There was a bag of Hulkbuster figures that I was seriously considering.
It came with two of the same figure in it for $15. I have a fairly extensive collection of different Hulkbuster figures in all different shapes and sizes, but I didn't have these figures. Should I? Did I need these two to make my collection complete?
I also sent the picture of one of my favorite things I saw inside the store to Rish.
If you're approximately my age, then you probably think you know what that is. We all played with Star Wars toys back in the early eighties. Return of the Jedi is my favorite of the three Star Wars films. And that is an Ewok village from Return of the Jedi. I played with that at my friends' house. Darin and Denny, a couple of twins that I would hang out with back in the day, had the Ewok village, and it was so fun.
Of course, that is not exactly what that toy is. It's actually the Sherwood Forest playset that Kenner put out for the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves toyline. Most people don't even know they had a Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves toyline, so I understand that you didn't recognize it. I didn't know it existed until a year or so ago myself. The Sherwood Forest playset is actually better than the Ewok village because the trees come with leaves on top. The Ewok village trees didn't have that. They were just big tree trunks with no foliage whatsoever. So, if I ever get an Ewok village, it will, in fact be a Sherwood Forest, because I want the greenery.
That toy was $100, though. I can't spend money like that on a toy without at the very least consulting my wife first. If I did buy that, then I'd need to get a bunch of figures to populate it too. So, $100 would just be the beginning. So, it stayed on the shelf.
What did I finally settle on? Well, for Christmas this past year, my nephew, and the GI Joe correspondent on my defunct toy review channel, John, gave me a vintage Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.
I was really excited, because those two are quite hard to find anymore and there for pretty expensive. Up until now, I haven't tried collecting any of the vintage GI Joes. I've stuck with the 25th anniversary figures that I got back in 2007.
Having these beautiful guys in my hands, however, has brought back a lot of good memories of the days when I owned my very own copies of these figures. So, when I saw a bin full of vintage GI Joe figures for only $5 a piece, and started fishing through it in search of figures I'd like to own. There were many, including several guys that I'd had as a kid, and would love to own again. In the end, these were the ones I settled on:
Roadblock because he was great, and Iceberg and Frostbite because I want to put together a cool GI Joe winter battle of some sort for another Christmas decoration. My holiday shelves are getting more and more out of control.
So, in the end, it was a lot of fun. There were many other things I wanted to buy, but I was careful not to overdo it. I'm not a rich man, and I've got kids trying to go to college now, so I need to keep my money rather than blow it. But I still managed to find some fun, and have a happy Juan Day.
A toy store called Super Happy Incredible Toys was having a big uh...toy-stravaganza in their parking lot today. It was in honor of a guy named Juan, for changing things...for the better I suppose. In fact, here's the copy from the Facebook announcement:
It’s the most wonderful day of the year for us. So join us as we celebrate the person who changed Super Happy Incredible Toys Forever, in the best way we know possible, by having a party. We will have an outdoor market, a huge sale, a piñata, free Saint Arnold beverages and cool prizes. Food will be available for purchase by our good friends Tacos Anna. So come on down and meet the coolest people in the Houston Toy Community and buy, sell, or trade from us, them or each other and celebrate Juan Appreciation day with us.
Ever since I started watching toy collecting videos on YouTube, and then went on to create my own toy collecting video channel, I've wanted to attend something like this. I've seen many others going to these events, and posting videos highlighting their experiences, and they look like they would be really neat.
However, despite the way I may seem on my podcasts and videos, I'm not a particularly social person. My social interactions are mostly motivated by fear. I do just fine when hanging out with people that I know, or people that can be relied upon to be at least generally friendly, but uncontrolled interactions I try to avoid, even though they might lead to something great. I don't know why I'm explaining this so in depth, everyone these days is this way. It's why ghosting has become a word.
So, though I've heard of other events like this before, I've yet to actually go to one. This time around, though, I was on the phone with Rish when I found the listing for the event, and he really encouraged me to go. He wanted to hear about what it was like. I don't know, maybe he wanted me to get out of my shell and see what the fresh air was like. So, I kind of felt obligated to actually go this time. Besides, it was pretty close. Houston is a huge city, but this event was less than 30 minutes away from me.
It would be a super happy incredible time, right? Nobody says things like that disingenuously. Advertising can always be believed. Those pills we see commercials for on TV all the time really will make you more healthy.
So, I dragged my keester out to Super Happy Incredible toys this morning, as close to 11:00 as I could manage. It seemed like the best way to go, because more stuff would still be available if I got there early, right?
Super Happy Incredible Toys posted this picture of the event on Facebook. The little blue house is the store, Super Happy Incredible Toys. In front is a gravel parking lot where several local toy vendors set up their tables with stuff that we could buy. I walked around and looked at it all, impressed with the selection even though it was a relatively small event. They had a lot of my favorite things available--Marvel Legends, Star Wars Black Series, vintage GI Joes, Sectaurs from the 1980s, vintage He-Man figures, and so on.
I found a figure that I had to take a picture of and text to Rish.
This is Monkian. He's a villain from the 1980s cartoon Thundercats. Back in the early days of the internet, before I became Big Anklevich, I used to call myself Snarf on all of the message boards that I would frequent. Rish would joke with me that he was going to call himself Monkeyan, a character that he had just discovered the existence of. I suppose he thought Snarf was pretty awful, and was surprised to find another awful character lurking behind Snarf. Rish was pretty sad to find out that he had the name of the guy spelled wrong, and it was in fact Monkian instead. For several months on end, I would receive emails from Rish signed Monkian. It eventually wore off, and disappeared into the mists of the forgotten past. But whenever I hear anything about Monkian, I think of Rish. So, I had to send him that picture.
When Rish looked at his phone, he knew exactly what was going on, and suddenly my phone was ringing.
"Happy Juan Day!" he shouted when I picked up.
I spent the rest of the time at the toy show, wandering around and talking with Rish. It was fun. It was almost as if we were attending together, only if Rish had been my blind friend that I had to describe everything to. Going to something like this together is something the two of us would both love. Unfortunately, circumstances have made the distance between us too great for this to be possible.
I walked around looking at the tables some more. I wanted to look everything over once before deciding what I would buy, just in case I found something I had to have at the last table that might require all the money I brought or something.
There was a bag of Hulkbuster figures that I was seriously considering.
It came with two of the same figure in it for $15. I have a fairly extensive collection of different Hulkbuster figures in all different shapes and sizes, but I didn't have these figures. Should I? Did I need these two to make my collection complete?
I also sent the picture of one of my favorite things I saw inside the store to Rish.
If you're approximately my age, then you probably think you know what that is. We all played with Star Wars toys back in the early eighties. Return of the Jedi is my favorite of the three Star Wars films. And that is an Ewok village from Return of the Jedi. I played with that at my friends' house. Darin and Denny, a couple of twins that I would hang out with back in the day, had the Ewok village, and it was so fun.
Of course, that is not exactly what that toy is. It's actually the Sherwood Forest playset that Kenner put out for the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves toyline. Most people don't even know they had a Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves toyline, so I understand that you didn't recognize it. I didn't know it existed until a year or so ago myself. The Sherwood Forest playset is actually better than the Ewok village because the trees come with leaves on top. The Ewok village trees didn't have that. They were just big tree trunks with no foliage whatsoever. So, if I ever get an Ewok village, it will, in fact be a Sherwood Forest, because I want the greenery.
That toy was $100, though. I can't spend money like that on a toy without at the very least consulting my wife first. If I did buy that, then I'd need to get a bunch of figures to populate it too. So, $100 would just be the beginning. So, it stayed on the shelf.
What did I finally settle on? Well, for Christmas this past year, my nephew, and the GI Joe correspondent on my defunct toy review channel, John, gave me a vintage Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.
I was really excited, because those two are quite hard to find anymore and there for pretty expensive. Up until now, I haven't tried collecting any of the vintage GI Joes. I've stuck with the 25th anniversary figures that I got back in 2007.
Having these beautiful guys in my hands, however, has brought back a lot of good memories of the days when I owned my very own copies of these figures. So, when I saw a bin full of vintage GI Joe figures for only $5 a piece, and started fishing through it in search of figures I'd like to own. There were many, including several guys that I'd had as a kid, and would love to own again. In the end, these were the ones I settled on:
Roadblock because he was great, and Iceberg and Frostbite because I want to put together a cool GI Joe winter battle of some sort for another Christmas decoration. My holiday shelves are getting more and more out of control.
So, in the end, it was a lot of fun. There were many other things I wanted to buy, but I was careful not to overdo it. I'm not a rich man, and I've got kids trying to go to college now, so I need to keep my money rather than blow it. But I still managed to find some fun, and have a happy Juan Day.
Fighting A Month Long Setback, What Plan Is Best? Journey to Onederland: Week 34 Progress Update
Yikes, last week was a bit of a setback within a setback. But I think I've got the plan that will get me on track this week and make all the difference to get me going again.
Friday, January 17, 2020
Writing Update For the Month of December
Should have got this out a while ago, but I've been behind on literally everything that I'm doing in my life.
So, you may remember that last October, I decided it was time to make a really big goal for writing. I started on October 28th, and will be working on it through the next October 27th. I did an update for November, the first full month of writing, and now it's time (well, past time) for the update for December.
In December, my goal was to increase my writing from whatever I could manage to at least 500 words a day. It went really well to begin with, but then my dad passed aaway, and everything in my life went out the window for a while.
When I cam back to it after a trip out to my dad's house for the funeral, I was much more spotty with my success. When I did write, I got at least 500 words, but I forgot to write relatively often.
Here is my final tally chart for the month of December:
So, there was a big hole there from the 10th to the 18th where I wrote nothing at all. Then on the weekends or if I had days off from work, I would forget to write. I usually write on my lunch break at work, so when I'm not at work, sometimes I forget.
I actually wrote on Christmas day, but not the weekend afterward. Why? Well, I didn't get Christmas day off. I was in there making the news happen, so I had a lunch break. I'm an intermittent faster, however, so I don't have to sit there and stuff my face with Doritos and Mountain Dew anymore. It gives me plenty of time to write instead...but I only seem to remember when I do things the usual habitual way.
Rish does try to call me to remind me to write, which helps, but it's definitely something I've got to get better with, because I didn't write on fourteen of the thirty-one days in December. It's all well and good to up my output to five hundred words a day, but that doesn't help a lot in getting to my goal if almost half of the days are zeroes.
So, I finished out the month with 12,574 words. Should have been closer to at least 15,500 but considering that nobody ever stops at exactly 500, it probably would have been several thousand above that. In 2017, when I did the 500 words a day thing, my total word count was more than 20,000 for the month.
So, here's my chart for the year-to-date total:
Missing so many days meant that I barely beat out November's total, and my total for the year so far is only 26,883. That's a lot, and more than I was doing back in September, for example. But, considering my goal is 300,000 for the year, it doesn't make me feel to excited. I still feel like I'm way at the bottom of Mt. Everest. Still miles to go before I even make it to the base camp.
Here's my picometer with my percentage
EDIT:
New progress meter.
26883 / 300000 (8.96%)
Eight percent is kind of small for two months worth. Two months is sixteen percent of twelve. So, I'm a little behind. However, I'm not upset or worried just yet. These first two months were supposed to get me in gear so that I could put the pedal to the metal for the last ten months. I plan to write at least one thousand words per day for the next ten months of the year. If I manage that, then I will definitely make 300,000. I even have 26 days of breathing room because of the 26,883 words I've written already.
So, for January, I'm taking it to the next level. The level that I'm supposed to be at. I am going to write one thousand words per day. If I manage that, then I'll get 30,000 words for the month, and ten percent of the total needed for the year. Should work out great...he said knowing just how poorly things can go because that's what happened last month.
I guess I'll let you know how it turns out.
Trying To Overcome A Setback, How Long Does It Take? Journey to Onederland: Week 33 Progress Update
Okay, now that I totally blew it in December, what happens next? Can I get right back to it? Or is it a struggle? Check it out on the week 33 progress update.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Shots Fired
I was at work today, and I heard a commotion starting over by the assignment desk. Things always get a little hectic when news is breaking. One person on the desk shouted out, "I'm getting reports of possible shots fired at..." and then he said the name of my daughter's high school.
That perked my ears up. Uh oh. Did I need to worry?
I tried to keep doing my job while keeping one ear open for more updates on what was actually going on. They were calling around to the police departments, trying to get what they'd heard on the police scanner confirmed.
I was hoping that everything was fine, and my daughter was in no danger. School should have let out more than an hour ago, so whatever shots fired probably happened after school, and she doesn't have school spirit or do after school activities. She wouldn't be there.
But they kept talking about it over there. They were sending a crew to get video. They had the chopper in route to get video.
That's when I realized that I was being stupid. It's not 1992 when I graduated high school. I don't have to sit around and wait for the news to tell me if my daughter is safe. I can just text her. So, I did. I kept it vague, so I could skip telling her about a shooting at her school if possible.
It only took a moment for her to respond.
And now my fears could be forgotten. Isn't modern technology wonderful. It may have its drawbacks, but the ability to put worries to bed with a simple text message is certainly nice.
I started typing up a response to her.
Interestingly, I found myself welling up with tears as I wrote the words, "just needed to hear you respond." My child, my baby was okay. It had been really unlikely that she wasn't, but I just wanted to know for sure.
After all the years of bringing her up from a squalling newborn, to a precocious child, to the amazing quasi-adult that she has become. I love her so much that the very idea of there being a possible threat on her life fills my eyes with tears just to consider. Sometimes it really is nice just to be able to have a response from somebody that you love. Even if the response is simply:
My cryptic response back to her got her curious, though.
She wanted to know what her weird dad was up to. I told her that the assignment desk was saying there had been some kind of shooting at her school, but I didn't really know anything about it, and I just wanted to make sure she was safe.
Now, she was really curious. So, she went looking for some kind of word on what was going on. Of course, for the most part, word of these kinds of goings on would come from us, the people in the building I work in who were at that moment still in the dark. So:
I didn't have any info to tell her.
Then, at last, we found out what had really gone on.
How did a nosebleed get confused with a shooting? Are we just too jumpy in our society now, and anytime a car backfires we dive for cover? What kind of a nosebleed necessitates an ambulance? I don't know. Must have been the mother of all nosebleeds. I saw video of the kid in the ambulance, being looked over by paramedics.
Silly. They got me all worried and seeing my daughter's life flash before my eyes for nothing. If only I could be like all the other parents from the high school, the ones who don't work in a newsroom and remain blissfully unaware that anything like this even happened. The nosebleed sure wasn't going to make the news.
That perked my ears up. Uh oh. Did I need to worry?
I tried to keep doing my job while keeping one ear open for more updates on what was actually going on. They were calling around to the police departments, trying to get what they'd heard on the police scanner confirmed.
I was hoping that everything was fine, and my daughter was in no danger. School should have let out more than an hour ago, so whatever shots fired probably happened after school, and she doesn't have school spirit or do after school activities. She wouldn't be there.
But they kept talking about it over there. They were sending a crew to get video. They had the chopper in route to get video.
That's when I realized that I was being stupid. It's not 1992 when I graduated high school. I don't have to sit around and wait for the news to tell me if my daughter is safe. I can just text her. So, I did. I kept it vague, so I could skip telling her about a shooting at her school if possible.
And now my fears could be forgotten. Isn't modern technology wonderful. It may have its drawbacks, but the ability to put worries to bed with a simple text message is certainly nice.
I started typing up a response to her.
Interestingly, I found myself welling up with tears as I wrote the words, "just needed to hear you respond." My child, my baby was okay. It had been really unlikely that she wasn't, but I just wanted to know for sure.
After all the years of bringing her up from a squalling newborn, to a precocious child, to the amazing quasi-adult that she has become. I love her so much that the very idea of there being a possible threat on her life fills my eyes with tears just to consider. Sometimes it really is nice just to be able to have a response from somebody that you love. Even if the response is simply:
My cryptic response back to her got her curious, though.
She wanted to know what her weird dad was up to. I told her that the assignment desk was saying there had been some kind of shooting at her school, but I didn't really know anything about it, and I just wanted to make sure she was safe.
Now, she was really curious. So, she went looking for some kind of word on what was going on. Of course, for the most part, word of these kinds of goings on would come from us, the people in the building I work in who were at that moment still in the dark. So:
I didn't have any info to tell her.
Then, at last, we found out what had really gone on.
How did a nosebleed get confused with a shooting? Are we just too jumpy in our society now, and anytime a car backfires we dive for cover? What kind of a nosebleed necessitates an ambulance? I don't know. Must have been the mother of all nosebleeds. I saw video of the kid in the ambulance, being looked over by paramedics.
Silly. They got me all worried and seeing my daughter's life flash before my eyes for nothing. If only I could be like all the other parents from the high school, the ones who don't work in a newsroom and remain blissfully unaware that anything like this even happened. The nosebleed sure wasn't going to make the news.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Emotional Eating and the Carnivore Diet--A New Weekly Update
Finally managed to get back at it. This is my update for the last three weeks straight. Check it out, and see how I navigated the emotions that came with the death of my father...spoiler alert: not well.
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Six Hundred Three Score And Six Words
I need to get to 1000 words, but I kind of feel like quitting where I am since I’ve got the word count of the beast.
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