StandingWater Creations

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

What does that mean?

Well, quickly, it means that I ascribe to the tenets the church puts forward. I believe the Book of Mormon is revelation from God. And I believe we are led by a Prophet who receives revelation from God.

But, being a member of this faith, and when I live in Utah, does this mean that being LDS answers who I am. Does my faith define who I am and what I do?

There are reasons I bring this up is not that I don’t think these are important questions; but rather, do these questions have a need to find answers when I sit down and write one of many different things: fiction, personal essays, poetry, television, movies.

Those are examples, but I think the examples are pertinent to the questions I am asking. If I, as a member of the LDS church, decide to write fiction within that environment, is it necessary to explore what it means to be LDS. Let me give an example:

Dean Hughes is an LDS author. He is also a professor on campus. He wrote a series of books, that I have read, titled The Children of the Promise where we follow a family who sends their sons and daughters off to serve, in various capacities, during World War II. Throughout the series, Hughes writes his characters dealing with a) their religion, and b) the consequences of the world at war and the choices made before the World War II. All of this deals with each individuals faith in God and willingness to be faithful in the LDS church.

I understand the desire to find meaning in things. There is meaning in the trials and joys we have in life, in general. There is meaning in getting married. There is meaning in having families. There is meaning in finding religion, or losing it. There is meaning in so many things that, if we are set upon doing it, we can get lost in looking for what that meaning is.

What all of this comes down to, for me, is that we, as members of the LDS church, spend way too much time talking about what it means to be members of the LDS church. We are concerned with defining a culture and then, once defined, exploiting that culture for entertainment purposes. One of the problems with LDS cinema is not that we are producing movies, but that we are producing movies that go over the same definition of who we are again and again and again. The exceptions, mostly the ones by Richard Dutcher don’t really choose to explore something else, or delve in to realms where being LDS is a part of the character rather than a reason for what is happening.

I realize that suggesting we change the way we approach our cultural entertainment, and the answers to prevailing questions: like: Who am I? or What am I? For many people, this is a part of the fiction we create, this is how we explore the cultural phenomenon that is Mormonism or being members of the LDS faith. And yet, I think that by creating this question, and it is artificial, we eliminate many opportunities that we have to explore other themes that might come up.

What is it like to be white in South Africa?
What is it like to be sober and clean in East L.A?
What is it like to find a new life and new opportunities?

Granted, this is not even close to what can be accomplished in writing or in entertainment within our culture. And yes, I believe that being LDS is being a part of a culture, living in Utah around other members of the church is being a part of a much larger culture. Yet, we don’t have to explore that culture to tell good stories. We can explore other cultures, other genres, and then allow our culture to show up as we write; to allow us to explore themes like racism or ageism or cultural shock or growth or failure in so many different ways.

We, as members of the church, as creative members of the church, have the opportunity to allow morality to be the guide in creating fiction and we don’t do that. We are stuck with what it means to be LDS that we forget that there is no single, uniform, universal answer to that question. What it means to me is not the same thing as other people. I approach my religion and my faith very differently. Even though I approach is differently, though, I find that I discover similar outcomes as the people around me.

Writing about what makes me different doesn’t make me a better writer; rather, it has me explore the same question everyone else (seems to be) is writing, and that is what I would love to see the culture and the environment and the community move away from.

You can’t answer the question; you won’t come up with a satisfactory answer; explore a different topic – but write in a way that moral fiction is produced that may use members of the church.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Posted by smokingpen at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few days ago I stuck my hand in my pocket only to discover that I did have my pen and I did have my keys but I did not have my little stone bear in there. Last year my parents purchased for me a little bear fetish which has taken on the name of Courage, and which accompanies me, pretty much, everywhere. When I went to look for him, he was gone. This was sad.

I started looking around, somewhat passively, for the little bear and couldn’t find him. It was sad. But I figured that I’d left him sitting around the house, in my car, or had lost him somehow. None of these scenarios, in my head, was good or agreeable, but, at the same time, I wasn’t worried because I was thinking, “How many people carry around a little bear fetish?”

Last night, looking for the little bear kind of took on a new life. I was sad because I didn’t have it in my pocket and decided to start eliminating different aspects of my life where it could have landed for various reasons: like my backpack. I started to pull out all sorts of things from the computer sleeve I use for my macbook to all of the books, gadgets and items and didn’t find the little guy. Up until this point, the search was merely an exercise, I wasn’t, exactly, worried or convinced that I wouldn’t be seeing the fetish again.

Enter Erin.

I shared with her that I couldn’t find the little bear and she started looking for it. In the closet (where my pants land most nights). In the room. Under the bed. Behind the dressers. On the dressers. In the clothes. You name, it sounds like she went a-looking for it. Nothing.

At that point, I was sad. Couldn’t tell you why I was sad. Sure, I wanted the fetish. And yes, I wanted it to keep in my pocket. I don’t look at it as the Native Americans might’ve approached a fetish; but more as something that I liked having on me and holding on occasion. Most people shouldn’t even know it exists. And yet, there it was, last night I had to come to the realization that the little bear might be gone from my life forever.

As it occurred to me that I was more connected to the thing than I’d thought, I realized, for whatever reason, that I needed to be prepared to live without it. I needed to stop worrying, be sad for whatever length of time, and just prepare not to find it. I shared as much with Erin and that I was a little sad. She was too.

At the end of the night, as I was driving home, I checked the obvious places in my car with the intent of, this morning, really checking my car. Then I got home and decided to check around the dressers and on my desk one last time. As I was checking this, I felt like I should just scan under our bed to see if I could see anything. I knelt next to the bed and stuck my head under there.

There was this little black spot. I reached in, praying it wasn’t a spider, and pulled out the black thing. It was the bear fetish. I was happy.

This has proven kind of interesting to me. I don’t need something, and yet I want it around. I don’t recognize the power in something that is made for a religion that I don’t follow or believe in, or for the consumer. However, I am happy to have Courage back in my pocket.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Posted by smokingpen at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think I actually wrote today. Not a lot. Not going to offer word counts, even though Microsoft Office for Mac actually gives me a running total at the bottom of the screen as I write. Nope, not gonna share, but I did write. It was nice. After I went to campus to meet with one of my professors and see if a couple of other professors were available to talk to (they were not) I absolutely wrote – which felt… amazingly… good.

Actually, I opened a lot of windows on the macbook and was impressed with how well it handled everything and then let me bring different things to the front. I was a mac convert… well, more a fan… years ago, but having one and using it has made all the difference in the world. One thing that I see happening, a lot, is when I get back on a PC I find myself defaulting to mac finger positions rather than to the PC ones I’ve used most of my life. (I like keyboard shortcuts and learning the mac ones has been enjoyable and entertaining… even if some are cross platform… sort of.)

Anyway, got to sit down and look at some things that had to be changed, opened up my master character list for Alicia Grey and the ideas list, basically plot points that need to be added in to the overall framework of the story as I work through it, and just sort of played around. Sure, it took a couple of hours to get in to the mode, and I really need to clean off my desktop and work in there rather than the front room; but the outcome was refreshing and makes me think that, somewhere, somehow, I might actually make it in fiction.

What I’d intended to do, though, was to work on the Cassandra West story I am doing for class. I decided, after talking to the professor, that I needed to go back to an earlier draft of the story I am writing and make it a hybrid of the current draft before moving on. There were, according to him, too many currently familiar objects in there that it pulls the reader out of the story. The problem that you encounter, though, is not whether or not there are familiar objects, because familiar objects are conceits of writing; but rather, how you deal with those objects and move forward.

Outside of printing off the pages, I didn’t work on that story at all. Kind of sad.

I did read up, some, for a quiz I am taking tomorrow on rhetoric for my professional communications class I am taking. Downloaded a PowerPoint presentation and went through it, then started reading the chapters. Didn’t get very far in the chapters. Hope to make time tomorrow morning to review, quickly, the material so I am semi-prepared for the quiz – though, at the same time, I did get my project for the class approved by the professor and get to move, full steam ahead, forward on it.

Beyond that, Erin wasn’t feeling to well today. She went to the doctor. Being married changes how doctors treat you. Well, how doctors treat girls. The first thing he did, for, like an hour, before he’d even treat the problem was to determine whether or not Erin was pregnant. That was fun. I expected a 20 minute appointment and a phone call, she was there for nearly an hour and a half. Was tested three times. And then diagnosed with what might be the problem. After touching her head, the doctor doesn't believe it is neurological - in case you were worried. I got her phone call as I was driving to my appointment with my professor.

As for today, that is it.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Hero’s Fly

Posted by smokingpen at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As has been stated, I am taking a creative writing class. This class is more an introduction to creative writing than something that allows me to explore more of what I’ve been doing for a few years. The professor is aware of that. I’ve had him before. As a result, I am writing real fiction and the rest of the class is working through other things. It proves to be interesting. Especially considering MoHo chick… she always has something to say that you’d think she would realize is completely … uhm … idiotic.

That, however, is not the point of this entry.

The point of the entry is that the professor of the class asked me to talk, today, about something I know a little about: technical writing. So, last night I put together an 8 slide PowerPoint presentation which went over what I thought was important for Professional Communications as a career. I didn’t really think a lot about what I was doing other than there are a) certain characteristics that are important to be a technical writer; and b) you have to want to pursue the job in some form or fashion.

I pulled from a magazine article writing book that has become, in recent weeks, a constant companion of mine. In the introduction is a list of attributes that people need to have in order to be successful at freelance magazine writing. I felt, and still feel, that these attributes apply to the technical writer and shared them. I won’t bore you all with the sordid details. However, went through the list. Talked about experiences with them and how they’ve affected my life and why, in some cases, I am what I am when it comes to these things; and then, after 20 minutes, ended.

What I found was really cool, and this is an aside, was that my macbook immediately recognized the projector and set it up as a second monitor AND with the second monitor running PowerPoint popped up a timer that let me see how long the presentation had been going. This was very cool. Great for presentations. When I unplugged the projector cable, the macbook screen flashed, momentarily, and then I had a single screen going again. It was so cool.

I’d handed that professor the first part of the first Cassandra West story and he read it over the weekend. Granted, not very long; and definitely not what I’d written over the summer when Cassandra, in my head, was still going by Cassidy; but he seemed pleasantly supportive of what I was doing and pointed some things out to me that I was totally unaware of as elements to the story, but also encouraged me to follow this muse after we’d discussed how it came to be and what I was planning on doing with the short stories. The conversation proved to be interesting.

I also learned, after a weekend of intending to read about professional communications that we have a weekly quiz that is directly related to the readings we were meant to do, and things learned in class, and as a result, unless you (read me) are insanely genius at nearly everything (and contrary to personal attitudes and some beliefs) and I am not, passing said quizzes can prove to be very difficult.

I don’t know how a weekly reading quiz got past me.

On a slightly different note, I have been looking, for some time, for a study done by a group of what I believe were … I don’t know, could’ve been psychologists, sociologists, someone who deals with interpersonal relationships. I recalled reading about it through some news outlet between 12 and 18 months ago. I recall that it dealt specifically with trends in dating. More specifically, that the average human being will date between 8 and 12 people before they will get married. The reason for this is that it takes that many committed (read semi-serious) relationships before you (as the human being – and yes, I don’t care that I am changing tenses) find the person you are most compatible with and can marry. At the point you’ve dated between 8 and 12 individuals, you begin to date the same person over and over again; which, in turn, means that the type of person you date is not likely to change.

Because it is a little frustrating to me, I decided to open a question at answers.yahoo.com to see if the universal meme that is the internet would be able to help me locate this study or, barring that, the article I got the information from.

This proved to be a mistake.

Instead of ACTUALLY getting someone to assist in this search I got idiots, and I mean idiots with capitals spelled a lot like: IDIOTS who chose to share with me their opinion (don’t care about your opinion) about how many people someone should date before they get married. More importantly, they decided to tell me that my question, which was specifically asking for assistance on finding source material, was stupid and that there was no real way to determine an answer.

I was and am not interested in the opinions. If I want an opinion I will say something to the effect of, “John, what do you think about dating and relationships?” and then proceed to write my own opinion. My opinion, or those of the people on the interwebbythingamajig don’t amount to a whole lot of anything. Rather, it places me where I already am. Nowhere.

Exciting, I am sure.

Anyway, still looking. May approach this from a slightly different angle as I need the research for something else I am working on and I really have to cite my sources.

I did learn, today, that some of the notes I gave directly to a professor I was taking last year about this time did a lot of good. She altered her class to reflect more of what was interesting to the students as well as what she needed to be doing in her discipline. Actually, the lore involved in my notes is as applicable as going out and interviewing people which proved to be rather nice to hear. We are comparing notes on books that relate to the new subject matter. It’s nice to hear that I had (what appears to be) a positive impact on how something is taught. She told me, this morning, that she has students who seriously did not know that The Little Mermaid was a story shared long before Disney ever got its hands on it.

As an aside, I told her I was getting an oral history of fairy tales that I ordered sometime next month, which should prove to be even more interesting than the collections I have sitting in various places in the house (mostly the office).

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Hero’s Fly

Posted by smokingpen at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those that keep track, or care, I've been updating In Order to Write. Today's update is on What Ifs???.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just learned that an essay is a “to put to a test” or to test an idea. To write an essay is to test something. I find this interesting. In part because I have a tendency to create long entries that I’ve called blog essays.

This is interesting to me, and helps define a standard I’ve been developing since those first weeks in New Hampshire. I want to explore my ideas and, to an extent, I want other people to connect with.

However, the essay is, literally, putting an idea to the test. I have an idea and I am testing it against my own beliefs and testing it against other people’s reactions when I present the word-spew on my blog. The same thing is done at In Order to Write – except, there, I am more likely to write a shorter entry and on something specific to writing fiction. I’ve even decided to turn In In Order to Write in to a class project.

The exploration of thoughts is something that happens regardless of whether or not I do it on my blog. I think about a lot of things a lot of the time.

The point of the blog is actually to connect with family members, first; and then to share my thoughts on what is happening in the world, what I am working on, other projects, and as a clearinghouse to other websites that I have or other people, pretty closely connected to me, are also working on. The most, personally, prominent one of these is In Order to Write; academically, I also have Cassandra West; Alicia Grey; The Clockwork Princess; and (possibly sticking its head up again, soon) Mary and Kierk.

I am sure all of this oh so very important, but, the start was about essays and why I write them as well as how learning what an essay is meant to be an exploration of an idea. So, I explore ideas. I try to be very objective about it, try to remove my opinions about a lot of things; but the truth of the matter is that I am very opinionated about a lot of things. Take Al Sharpton. I started writing an entry on him the other day and then didn’t, not because I didn’t want to rant about the man and his crusades, but more because I didn’t feel like talking about it once I started.

A lot of blog entries die by way of me starting to write about them and then stopping because I get tired of the topic or realize that my feelings, emotions, whatever, that prompted me to start writing about it died away. And, truth told, I don’t feel the need (one I hit that point) to force myself to continue writing about it.

Sharpton was one of those topics that I thought I cared and then realized that I didn’t, really. And didn’t want to mentally or emotionally deal with his antics and so spent time writing about it until I realized I didn’t care and then I stopped. It was nice. The stopping.

However I get to different points in writing, I do get there. Starting an entry about the essay that turns in to an essay is something that I do. I am exploring how I feel and whether or not it will change how I act or react to the topics I follow.

I mean, well… maybe I don’t know what I mean. In theory, when I start an entry for this webpage or some other page, I go through the process of writing it out and posting it and sometimes that process seems to fail on me. I am okay enough with that to walk away from something that, right now, isn’t work for me… so… you know… it’s all good. Not everything I do needs to be done, and not everything I write needs to be written. I admit that readily.

What I do write, though, at least here, for the most part, I want to be an exploration – of sorts.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here I sit, in front of le computer, trying to make myself work on the short fiction I need to turn in to a professor tomorrow. Granted, I have been, slowly, working on the fiction when free moments present themselves in and between classes and in and between calls at work. So, I am a little slow in the process, but not so slow that I haven't built (well, rebuilt) the foundation of the first story and started thinking about the elements for the second story I intend to write. Sooner or later, in all it's static HTML glory, you will be able to see some of those stories at Cassandra West.

I will admit, though, that waking up was pretty difficult. I don't know what the problem was, all night, merely that I kept waking up and shifting, going back to sleep, and then waking up again. I was up before Erin. Went back to sleep. Barely remember her leaving. And then kept waking up and feeling like I should be getting up and, truthfully, falling back in to bed sleeping. At 11 a.m. I woke up and pushed myself out of bed and in to the day.

Then I showered. Went to Harmon's, spent money on a load of drinks to replenish the refrigerator.

I have been, slowly, working on writing. It's just proving to be something that I didn't realize would be an issue (to me) from when school started.

Anyway, progress is progress. About 200 words today. Hemingway wrote about 500. Flemming 2000 a day. My goal is more Flemming than Hemingway... just need to get back in the groove.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My first class on Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's is Creative Writing . Creative writing is the way people are introduced to a wide variety of writing forms... my job, in less than a week, is to talk about the creative aspect of technical writing and how what we are learning in the classroom can be transferred in to a money-making enterprise outside of the classroom. Sadly, or not, this is something that I have a tendency to know a lot about for a variety of reasons - most recently, magazine articles and finding the best markets for different ideas I want to pursue.

My intent, today, was to take an option not to come to class anymore. I have a couple of reasons for this, one of them is that I don't want to go to class and the work I am doing is not within the class environment itself; and, in part, because as I listen to people read their writing, all I can think of saying is what sucks about them rather than what they are doing right and how they can move from doing something right to doing something well.

I guess one of the issues that keeps coming up, and one of the first entries for In Order to Write, is the idea of writers bock. I really don't believe in it. For me, there have been things that are far more important, and as a result, I set aside the fiction until I can dedicate time to it. Moreover, whenever I've worked professionally, there has never been a point where I couldn't write what needed to be written. Writer's Block for me is a joke, and, at the same time, has become an excuse for people not to do things they are meant to be doing.

Even in the professional communication's class, the professor has allowed us to write a "memo" and put off when the assignment is due. This was true of the class Erin and I met in, and many other places. I would like to think that it annoys me and that I have a different standard for work than the other students, but, truth told, the moment I am given an out and can delay the day of repentance, giving myself more time, I am going to take it.

However, dealing with creative writing, we have a girl in the class who runs a blog and the tone, and nature, of her blog is about her homosexual male friends that are also known as MoHo's. This stands for Mormon Homosexuals. Truth told, I think it's a bad idea to create a group, in any form. I'm not a joiner. I don't care for organizations. I do care for the LDS church; but in the case of a group of young men who feel they are two things 1) good members of the LDS church; and 2) homosexual, this doesn't match.

What is sad to me is that this girl is dedicated to this small (and necessarily quiet) subset of the student population. The LDS church does not recognize the viability of the lifestyle. Personally, I find it a destructive lifestyle and having spent nearly a year living with someone who claimed to be in the same situation as these MoHo's, I find that the activities they write about, and the nature of this girl's connection to them, to be counter-productive and dangerous for all involved.

In the case of this girl, she is spending her time with her gay male friends - and then becomes frustrated when these same friends want to have boy only nights. Her problem, and she does have one, is that she is spending her time with boys, in many cases returned missionaries, who are not living their religion, who are not viable dating material, and who, even when you read their blogs, are not interested in changing their lifestyles and are meeting with their bishops because they have to in order to attend a church school, but, in their own time and instead of working on what they have to admit is problem to be here, they go out and continue to put themselves in the situation that caused the problem to begin with.

There is a part of me that wants to take this girl aside and tell her that she is hurting herself by associating with these me. She won't listen. She is dedicated to them, in part, because she is a short girl that boys may not pay attention to and that her gay friends don't have to worry about. And yet, she is hurting herself. And the boys she claims to care about.

We did an exercise, this morning, in class, where we did a free write or a rush write, where the topic was, more or less, "You wake up one morning and your gender has changed." Then we wrote. I started by working on something else for a moment, the exercise is definitely intriguing and we had varying levels of comfort with the project, but the point was to get outside of the comfort zone and the moment people started talking about writing it in the first person, I decided to write it in the third person.

The girl with the MoHo friends, loved it. She was excited. She wanted the experience, she said, so she could relate to them. I admit that the class is meant to build a level of comfort so that we can trust each other enough to share our writings. However, all she's done is move me in to a position where I want to run away from anything she writes.

The outcome is that the professor offered me an out on the class. I don't come, unless I need to present something, and he and I meet occasionally so that we can go over the writing I am doing. I think I am better served doing that. It's not, to me, a matter of comfort. I am a bit too comfortable in my writing abilities and, really, leapt at the opportunity to take this class, in part, because I like the professor and because he suggested it as a class for me when we first met that I might learn from. The problem, though, is patience within the environment and whether or not I can really learn something from it.

I can learn something. I know I can. I just don't know if it is worth the headache of going to class three times a week and listening to people talk about something that is, to me, very interesting, but is also something that I feel I am at different levels and layers at.

There is no real answer to this question or these questions. It's not meant to have answers. I may feel very different between now and Friday or Monday when I talk to the professor.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the first day I've had a chance to really sit down and do any writing on my new computer. Getting used to it has been kind of interesting. The keyboard, though set up in the U.S. QWERTY layout, is still a bit weird. Apple has a layout that is just slightly different than most computers/notebooks I've been using. This isn't a bad thing, it merely takes some getting used to.

On top of that, I transferred documents, television shows, and music over this morning and need to install additional software applications to the machine. The applications are for story, story creation, brainstorming, etc. At present, I am using a "Test Drive" version of Microsoft Office until I can get a real version. We (Erin and I) would've purchased a full-blown license of the software had they had any in-stock when we purchased this computer.

I just discovered something interesting about the installation of Write Brothers software, first off, it is a pain in the butt to uninstall. You have to have the installation CD's so the software can return the installation credit back to some database. And then, installing said software on a MAC is very different from installing it on a PC. In some cases, you literally copy material literally as it stands in to the Applications folder; in other instances, you have to run some kind of an application. The learning curve is proving to be pretty interesting.

I want to order/buy a book on using Mac OS X. Problem is, I only want the book for a short period of time. Truth told, I think I can find a lot of the information I need online, I just hate reading things online.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it finally happened. I got married and ended up with a new computer. This is exciting, to me, as I have never, in my life, personally, outside of work where I have been handed a relatively new, low-end computer that I could take with me all over the place. Back when that was true, I’d acquired my second notebook computer from Jared, my first Dell, that was, at least, three years old (at the time) and faster and more reliable than the work computer. As a result of which, I took that with me as I traveled rather than the work computer.

However, today, after waiting almost a week, I was able to pick up a brand-spanking-new laptop computer. My choice: Apple Macbook. I was going for the black cased one, but discovered the difference between the black one for the most amount of money (not –Pro) was $200.00 and 40 gigs of hard-drive space… well, and the black case. On top of that, I would’ve had to wait even more time and, really, once we’d (Erin and I) had decided I was getting a new computer (we bought her one last early last week), I was ready to have it and move forward.

So, I got my Macbook and a free printer to go along with it (what am I going to do with an inkjet printer when I have a perfectly good workhorse laser printer sitting on Erin’s desk???). As we left the bookstore, after dealing with the office and another department, we decided to head to the car and go out to eat. This meant that I had to carry my new computer, in box, and printer (also in box) across campus, up the stairs by the Clarion Bells, and then past the Marriot Center before hitting the parking lot and finding the car.

We went to Wendy’s for lunch. Apparently, I order by looking at the board I order from, which is not, necessarily, toward the person taking the order, and then shotgun a lot of information at the person without, actually, letting them hear what it is I am saying. This was an interesting aside.

After Wendy’s we went home for a bit (drop of new gear – plug in my new computer) and then headed back to campus. What I found exciting about the new computer was a remote that will allow me to run iTunes without having to actually be in direct contact with the computer.

I did go through everything in the box, which is what I do, and was impressed at the simplicity of the packing, simplicity of what comes inside of the box, and the total coolness of the power supply that comes with the new Macbook. When I connected the power supply to the computer, it almost literally leapt out of my hand and in to its slot. COOL!!!!

At this point, after looking at the disks that also come with the computer, Erin pointed out that we had a finite amount of time to get back to campus, and I wanted to park south of campus since our class is also south of campus, which required me to lovingly pet the top of my new Mac and leave the house.

Which was sad. Very sad. I wanted to play with the Mac and thought about telling Erin, “I don’t feel like going to class today,” and then thought better of it because, regardless of the joy in the class, it is still important to attend.

Just letting y’all know that we are not in class, now listening (not so) attentively. And I am anxious to get home and play with my new tool… toy.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just learned that James Oliver Rigney, known by his pen name Robert Jordan, has died. He, apparenty, died yesterday. You can find a newsarticle HERE!

Robert Jordan wrote the Wheel of Time series that, most likely, may not make it past the last book, number 11.

I started reading this series when I was about 16. As I am about 34, I have had this man and his works in my life for nearly twenty years. When I started reading The Wheel of Time I discovered fantasy fiction that, in its essence, is sword and sorcery, but in its heart is true literature. Robert Jordan was writing an epic story.

I've considered this man a friend for so, so, so very long even though I've never met him and can't imagine doing what was necessary to meet him. He has been in my life longer than anyone beyond family. Finding out about his death has been a blow to me. I cannot imagine a world without this man and his work.

The news is proving to be very hard on me.

Posted by smokingpen at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Warning: This is, more or less, a brain spew of information I have been thinking about for a few years.

Friendship is a relationship that requires time. For me, I consider someone a friend when I have known them for about three years. During that time, I feel that the person with whom I am having a relationship will have gone through the experiences to denote that the person and I are in it for the long run.

If someone enters my life that I like, and with whom I am willing to associate with, I will consider the individual an acquaintance, someone with whom I a friendly, but not actually a friend. To obfuscate the definition, though, I do fall in to the world around me and refer to lots of people as “friends” even though they have not lasted within the capacity of “acquaintance” for a sufficient period of time.

Friends are different from family.

What gets me is when someone tells me that their “best friend” is also their sibling. For me, I have relationships with my siblings that are similar to ones I have with friends, but the relationship with a sibling is not a friendship. It is a sibling relationship. There is, in my mind, a distinction between the two. My friends are my friends; my siblings are my siblings and never the twain shall meet.

This also extends in to parent-child relationship and, I am finding, husband-wife relationships. My parents are not my friends. I don’t expect them to be. Rather, I want them to fill the roll of parents. I want them there, separated to the appropriate degree, to be my parents, to offer advice, to step in with information or in general when they can see, as outside, parental, caring observers that something needs to be done.

As for husband-wife, yes, the relationship with my wife started out as most relationships do. You find someone you want to spend time with, you start to spend time with the individual, you build a friendship, but somewhere in the growth of that relationship it transcends the ones with siblings (family) and the ones with friends (acquaintances) to become something else entirely.

The difference, for me, between friend and family is almost in how much I am willing to do for a given individual. The longer I’ve known someone, the more I am willing to sacrifice for the person. Because I’ve known my family for a lot longer than anyone else, they remain, and retain, a spot in my heart that fighting, not talking to each other, time, or distance has the real ability to undermine or deter. Granted, we don’t get along. Many of us fight with each other. Quite a few of the siblings are not speaking to others in the family. I get the impression that with at least one sibling I am persona-non-grata and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what happened to cause that. And yet, the evidence is there to suggest that I’ve done something to cause a rift – or at the least, that a rift does exist.

Friends are important. I believe that everyone needs friends. I have several. They live all over the place and part of being one of my friends is realizing that I become absent. I readily admit that I am an absent friend and as such, hope that the people I’ve spent time getting to know realize that I try to be there for them, want to spend time, but have priorities that are important to me, if to know one else. As a result, the number of people I count on the “friend” fingers are extremely limited. They’ve been in my life for a long time. And, it is hard to hit that list.

I recognize, in advance, that my friends are not my family. They do not fill that role for me. They never will. There is no surrogate family relationship that will take place, even though I have spent considerable time living with some of them. They are friends and they have earned that title, but family is something else entirely.

For siblings, I don’t, and didn’t, get to choose who my brothers and sisters are. Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve chosen them had that been handed to me; but at the same time, it is a moot question that doesn’t have a real answer to it. At some point, according to my beliefs, I had to make a choice that allowed me to be with them in mortality. As a result of that, and as a result of a lifetime of good and bad memories, I get to have my siblings be just that. Some may dictate that they don’t consider themselves a part of a familial unit, and that is their prerogative; that, however, does not dictate my response or attitude toward them. It only dictates how well I can build a family relationship.

Sibling relationships can mirror friendships. This can be a relationship with people that I want to spend time with, but it is not a friendship. Friendship denotes a qualitative choice that I would make to allow someone in to parts of my life reserved for family. Not all parts. Merely aspects that the rest of the world don’t get to see. My friend, Andy, has seen things that most people don’t. He’s experienced life with me, as well as his wife and children, that come close to family, but is separated by an important distinction. When I needed real help, or a real sympathetic ear, I had to call my parents. When I needed advice without preamble, I had to call my parents.

This does not, in any way, mean that it is impossible to become my friend or even a close friend. What I am stating is that I expect that time will pass before I really consider anyone a friend, regardless of the appellation used.

I consider my wife, Erin, one of my closest friends. And yet, we’ve known each other, now, for just over a year. We are going on two years. In that short period of time, we’ve been through a lot. We still go through a lot. We choose to spend a lot of time together. We get to be friends because we choose to be a family. She and I. Together. One. This is why I can say, earlier than three years, that she is my friend, that we are friends. We made a distinct separation from people we know or whom we’ve lived with.

The point in all of this, I think, is to designate that I don’t consider acquaintances friends until we’ve had experiences together. I don’t consider family friends, because the relationship is inherently different. I consider my wife a friend, but I also consider my wife a member of my personal family, and I think the same is reversed. And I think that each different relationship is necessary in defining who we are, what we are doing, and what is meant to come from each different relationship.

Without family we wouldn’t be here.

Without acquaintances we wouldn’t have friends.

Without friends we wouldn’t have the ability to appreciate the importance of having a family.

And without, eventually, pursuing a family, we don’t get to see the import of making acquaintances and building friendships.

They all work together. The problem, though, is that we sometimes obfuscate the different topics and elements together and forget that family, friend, and acquaintance are not all the same thing.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, my day, which was meant to be a writing day (I am so lazy!!!) turned in to a John goes to the doctor and then runs a billion errands day.

My list:

1. Go to Doctor
   
2. Go to Walmart and buy headlights and extra bottles of oil
   
3. Go to office and change direct deposit and verify insurance
   
4. Get oil changed on car
   
5. Fill gas tank

After I was out, more things were added.

However, while driving to Wal-Mart I saw a map store and stopped (actually on the way to get the oil changed) to see if they had any Old United States maps, specifically maps of the Western United States circa mid-1800’s. Most of the maps I saw were actually the Rand McNally type road map or National Geographic maps of regions and political boundaries (I actually bought a National Geographic map, laminated, of the United States). The specific map I wanted I had to walk away without because they simply did not have it.

After spending the mullah on the maps I got back in my car looking for something like a Jiffy Lube to have an oil change and saw a Valvoline Oil Replacement Center (name brand oil change companies, go figure) and pulled in. They had me in and out of there in, like, two and half second flat. Well, it was closer to ten minutes and I still need to replace the valve cover gasket (my current theory where oil leak originates from); but they seemed relatively impressed by the cleanliness of the fluids which means, for those keeping score, that my car has clean fluids; which can’t be said the same for me which, after the whole barium escapade, I am not releasing clear fluids.

That is too much information.

Anyway, as I said, didn’t get very far before Erin added to my load with:

Go pick up the actual prescription from the BYU Health Center.

So, I drove to the Health Center (not exactly close by) and had to wait for the nice people inside the pharmacy to find the paper prescriptions so that next week Erin can walk back in and (hopefully) allow them to finish filling them. This is all, really, very complicated and weird and a little out of this world and as a result of all that, a bit like walking (I would imagine) a tightrope that is about two feet off the ground, but the ground is covered in broken glass, fire ants and spiders.

After a wait, I had the prescriptions in hand and was back in my car heading to Costco to fuel up. Amazingly, other than the lack of allowing credit cards that are not American Express, it is pretty worth the time to go and fuel up there as the cost is, often, significantly less than… say… anywhere else. Normally, though, I don’t find the long, long lines to be worth the wait for the cost of fuel and I go to Maverik. However, today I pulled in, grabbed a pump, fueled up, and was out of there lickety-split. It was amazing.

Went home and took a nap.

Yeah, I know, writing day and I didn’t write. Well, you get up and go drink a barium drink of varying consistencies and then tell me how your morning goes. Mine went okay, not great, and now I am mostly alive again and the nap really seemed to help; though, with that, I did dream of a school and an old man with a long white beard and Morgan Freeman. I don’t know what that says about me because I also dreamed of poisonous snakes and other things and, clearly remember, woke up screaming when a snake was about to bite me in the dream.

I wonder if the girl upstairs heard me screaming? I think she was home. It sounded like someone was home, but I couldn’t tell who.

Anyway, as I was falling back to sleep and talking to Morgan Freeman about whether or not they’d hired him and whether or not I’d passed muster and that I was waiting for the headmaster who was late, my phone starts to ring (in the real world) and Erin is calling to make sure I am awake. Honestly, don’t have any clue as to how long I slept, I just know that I shut down and needed to sleep.

With Erin on the phone I told her my dream and she said, “It sounds like Harry Potter,” and I thought, “No. No it doesn’t because the old man with the long beard was very wiry in build and his white beard was long, down to his knees, and was very chorded in a way that beards don’t become and because he was very nasty.” As Erin and I finished out conversation I flipped the TV to the Disney Channel, I like the Disney Channel, and then realized that it was later in the day than I’d realized and had to get up and go to work…

Which is where I am writing this from.

Needful to say, my day was eventful, a lot got accomplished and I really need to start setting sacred time aside to write.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was the day I went to see the radiologist to have an Upper GI scan in the ongoing test to determine whether or not I have Acid Reflux. In order to be tested, without having things (apparently) shoved up my nose and then down my throat, they have you starve yourself for a period of time… okay, not really… you don’t eat for eight or nine hours in advance of the appointment, and almost 24 hours prior to it, you stop drinking anything but clear fluids.

So, my test, today, started yesterday and instead of taking something with discernable flavor in it (e.g. Sobe Courage or Vitamin Water – and in truth I take a bottle of each to work with me) I had water from about 10 a.m. yesterday until… oh wait! still drinking water and haven’t moved back to non-clear drinks… so… go figure.

Anyway, my nights are late, mornings, like this, are early, and I had to be up about the same time Erin was so she could go to work. Morning did not come easy for me and I considered, briefly, skipping the appointment, canceling the follow-up visit, and then moving on with my life in a way dealing with the discomfort in the throat.

Responsibility got the better of me and after a quick shower and change of clothes, I was out the door with my binder, book, notepad, and cell phone in hand. Since the radiologist is at the bottom of the hill in the Riverwoods it didn’t take me very long to get down there.

What I did notice, though, was that I don’t normally need to eat in the morning, but knowing I couldn’t eat, this morning, I wanted to take food and put it in my mouth. And yet. No!

I pulled in to the parking lot of the office complex and walked inside. After short bout of paperwork and a call from this office to the Medical Center at BYU, I got to sit for about 40 minutes while I waited for a technician to arrive who could assist me as I moved, stretched and did a bunch of other things. The problem wasn’t that I had to wait for the technician, but rather that I had to wait for a technician that hadn’t done it before and was, essentially, being trained to do the job. Good thing there was little she actually had to do.

The first thing that happens, after the technician calls you back, is they make you change in to less-than-flattering clothes. The clothes are comfortable and reflect scubs more than clothes, but they are still ugly. After that, I was shown in to a x-ray room with a machine that looked like it had several instances of articulation. Truth told, though, I think it went up and down and then rotated 90 degrees to lay the patient flat on their backs.

While we waited for the radiologist, the technician started telling me what I needed to be doing and when. It starts with what amounted to ground up alka-selzer that I had to shoot with a thimbleful of water followed by a thick barium solution and, once on my belly, a thin barium solution. The doctor kept telling me to drink and I kept wanting to gag but took the fluid down and moved in to the odd positions he wanted me to move in to.

In the background, he kept talking to the two technicians about vacations and a new person he is considering hiring. He would, occasionally, say, “Don’t breathe,” and then would forget to tell me I was allowed to breathe again; but when the machine started making different noises I decided I could breathe again. Sometimes, when the doctor would forget one of the technicians would call out to breathe.

After the series of x-rays, the radiologist came up to me and told me I didn’t have any visible polyps or cysts or what looked like ulcers. Basically, from his observation of the radioscoping (????) I appear to lack cancer or bleeding sores inside of me. Too bad an Upper GI scan, in this case, was being used to determine whether or not I had stuff from my stomach going back up in to my throat and won’t get an opinion in that area until Tuesday at, well, about noon.

Within three hours after all of this I discovered a strong urge, nay need, to go to the bathroom and discovered that I was then evacuating the barium and it actually looked better coming out than it did going in. At least, I can say, that the barium wasn’t flavored. The last time I had to get my gut examined, New Hampshire, they gave me some berry flavored stuff and I can say that non-flavored is more preferable, for me, than flavored.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was asked the other day why I hadn’t bothered to blog about a senator and the scandal he is currently embroiled in. I won’t share who asked, but the reason to ignore the headlines, I think, is somewhat important.

News agencies, more than 90% of the time, are entertainment venues. I know, I know, it seems weird to think of CNN or Foxnews or NBC or MSNBC or a whole host of other news outlets as being entertainment, but they are. They make money by sharing with the public something that, in some morbid way, entertains a part of the viewership. As a result, news agencies are not always the best resources for real news. In fact, unless you want the shocking or the explosive or a weather report, most of the time your time is better served scanning headlines in the newspapers or online and ignoring news channels.

What is happening in politics right now is that the news channels are following a whole host of candidates. I believe a lot of these are in the race to further their political careers and put them solidly in the spotlight specifically for re-election purposes with their current jobs and their current constituency. For the most part who said what or who did what in the presidential race is moot because we are still a long way away from actually voting for a president. That happens in an even numbered year, in November, traditionally on the second of the month. We are in an odd numbered year, in September, and we’re not even close to actually caring who the president will be, let alone whether or not Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are fighting and if some other sot is better suited to do the job that all of these marginally qualified or interesting people seem desperate to do. Moreover, the amount of money being spent by the various candidates from Mitt Romney to Rudolph Giuliani is deplorable given the amount of time left.

The race hasn’t even begun and there is a multi-million to multi-billion dollar spending spree going on.

As for scandals taking place: they take place all of the time. Do I think this one senator who was caught in an airport deserves the crap he is receiving? It doesn’t matter. I do believe that we choose the punishment we receive by choosing to be a part of the process we are in. Was it fair what happened to Nixon? Clinton? Absolutely not. However, they chose to be presidents with Congresses that were opposed to them, moreover, both men did illegal things and were actually bad men while in office.

Does an affair, whether same sex or adultery really matter? Yes. I think it says a lot about our nation and what we are becoming. That we allow a politician to be in office when they knowingly and aggressively pursue affairs and illegal activity denotes that the voting public is more to blame than the individual. A child knowing it can steal a cookie isn’t going to stop stealing because he/she is caught; instead, they will apologize and go back to the same old game. I know. I was that child.

Is it right for the press to spotlight one man or one woman and to destroy their lives? Absolutely not. But it is entertainment. You, as the viewer, receives some level of satisfaction by watching the powerful fall. There is a notion of satisfaction in the everyman to watch someone in perceived or real authority lose that authority because they were caught. We don’t care that our representatives are corrupt, we care that they are caught. We don’t care if they affairs. We only care when those affairs become news. The problem, though, isn’t that it became news, rather the problem is that we are duped in to thinking that entertainment can be news.

Focusing on a senator or congressional representative or president or governor or a whole host of other individual is a whole lot like focusing on Hollywood. Sure, you love to watch them in the movies, and you love to read about their lives, and you are even willing to listen to them when they try to open their mouths and speak out; but actors and actresses and their lives, the pop-tarts, the stars and starlets of tomorrow are not news. Their antics on and off set are not news. The things they do, get drunk, flash people, do poorly on stage, break down, go in to rehab, whatever… none of it is news. It’s all publicity and its all worth about as much as the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

The problem, though, is that we, the viewing public, are so sick and so thirsty for something real that we believe the crap that is being fed to us. We believe that if this pop-tart is having a nervous breakdown that we should care and pay attention and forgive her. Or if that star is doing drugs that we should look the other way for an appropriate amount of time, let him get over it, and then continue supporting the very habit that caused the problem in the first place, second place.

We, as a nation, look at musicians and actors and politicians and we listen to what they say and we care about what they do and we joy, secretly, in their failures and we do this not because it is good or nice or fun but because we don’t know the difference between real news and something that is designed specifically to entertain us. We ignore the fact that the news allots 2 minutes for a headline story and less than 90 seconds for something that doesn’t matter so much. And by watching this we feel like we are informed.

We choose to read the first paragraph or two of a news article and then discard it.

The outcome, though, is that we have these entertainment outlets that promote themselves as “News Stations” and we watch them not for what they are doing right now but for what they do when a crisis happens. I didn’t recognize that an anniversary took place yesterday. I knew it happened, but 9/11/01 is still too close to me for me to want to think too much about it. What was done right, during that time, was that the news agencies shared the news. They shared what was important. They updated their consumers with what was necessary to help the consumer understand the implications of what was happening in the world around them.

It is during a crisis that the news agency actually shares news. Not during an election cycle. Not, really, during a war. At those times, it’s sensational. Otherwise, and barring the laws that require news services or the like, most channels would ditch the news and would find a better way to entertain its viewing public.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I think Erin has only served to feed my fire. Today, in a class, she had a bad experience with the way the varieties of students decide to approach a subject, and then ranted about it. You should read that HERE.

Anyway, this feeds my own fire. I am finding campus to be very difficult this year. Difficult in the sense that there is a feeling, to me, of far more people in the same small spaces than there normally are.

So, Erin and I drive to school together on Monday’s and Friday’s. Normally, on Wednesday, she hits class after class after class from 2 p.m. until 9 p.m. at night and as I am working from 5 p.m. until late, Wednesday’s we would normally not drive to school together. However, her 4 p.m. professor is out of town and she had a three hour gap in her schedule which meant we could ride to school and she could take me home after our field trip so I could go to work before she went back to school.

When we arrived on campus, this morning, and entered the parking lot we would normally park in, it was full. There were cars circling around. And as I drove down an isle not stopping at any of the lanes coming in to it, all with stop signs, we got glares. I wasn’t stealing spots, I was looking, just like everyone else; but I wasn’t making a game of it either because I was looking for a parking spot and following the simple rules of the road. Most of the kids I watched drive around did so very fast, very recklessly, shoved themselves in front of others driving recklessly, and came to skidding halts if they even for a moment thought someone was going to pull out of a spot.

Neither Erin nor I have the time or patience to wait for the possibility of a spot opening up; so we drove to another parking lot. It too was full. This is a parking lot that is NEVER full, and it was to capacity. This was disturbing – to me – as I know that most people don’t park where we were trying to mostly because it is a lot of walking and a pain in the hind-quarters to do what we were trying to do. S’why I park there.

So, we drove to a third parking lot that I occasionally use, and barring running over any freshman or individuals who feel that crossing against lights and doing whatever the hell they feel like doing. I mean, BYU and Provo are normally bad given the usual first snow fatalities and serious accidents and the acclimation of new students in to the driving/walking culture, but for some reason, and for no discernible reason, there seems to be a lot more kamikaze freshman out there and a lot of students parking on campus that, in the previous couple of calendar years I’ve been going to BYU, a lot more people parking on the “Y” lots than usual.

If I were a fan of a not-so-obscure science fiction movie series that was great in the late 70’s and early 80’s but went to the water-closet in the late 90’s and early 00’s, I would paraphrase by saying, “I feel a disturbance in the student population.”

Bad things be happening.

This is actually evident in a lot of areas. For example, I’ve had need to walk over or near the Tanner Building a few times over the past couple of weeks. As I’ve watched a nice little light that tends to be more liberal toward pedestrians than motorists, I’ve watched students walk up to the light, look left and right, then step out in front of cars, bringing the motors to a complete halt, and starting a cascade effect of people crossing against the lights.

Moreover, as you walk around campus, there is always a feeling of too many people in too small a place, which is hard to do as BYU is a massive campus, but too many people, too small a place; this year, not only are there more people, everywhere, but those “more people” don’t pay attention to anything. There isn’t evidence of romances, or books open or (heaven forbid) iPods and earphones, these kids are just wandering wherever they want in to whomever they want and they don’t seem to care.

I don’t mean to sound all Karl Marx on BYU, because I realize, at the same time, that I am an older student. But my experience at the school seems, so far this semester, to be worse-for-wear than normal because of what is happening. And with inclement weather, the situation will actually get worse and not better.

Granted, this is knee jerk and noticing trends at the beginning of the semester, but there seems to be some odd trends that are making campus a less-than-hospitable place for me. Not going to stop me from going to class and do the work; just makes it more interesting to be on campus when I have to be there.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've done some work on JohnHattaway.com. The website will be a landing page for people looking for me. It will also work as my online writing portfolion.

As an aside, I registered a new URL yesterday and added a quick static page The Stories and Mis-Adventures of Cassandra West that will follow the short fiction work I am doing this semester (and next) for some creative writing classes.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Posted by smokingpen at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today (and Thursday) are meant to be writing days. That is, I am supposed to dedicate most of my time and efforts on writing fiction and then working on class work that needs working on. You know, reading chapters for the various classes, doing this and that, etc., etc., etc.

And that was the plan… after I went to see a doctor about a persistent problem I’ve had since, oh, when I worked at C.R. England and possibly before. I have a tendency to have bile come up into my throat. What this means, for the uninitiated, is that gastric juices start to rise in the esophagus and as a result, I almost constantly feel as though I am choking on something or that I am this far (if you could see my fingers they are nearly touching) from throwing up.

Because it was exceptionally uncomfortable last week, and because I’d read about Acid Reflux I decided to go see a doctor and eliminate that as an option. Come to find out, while sitting with this rather delightful older gentleman (the doctor) and after finding out that I am now about 15 to 20 pounds heavier this summer than I was last summer, that there is a very good possibility that I have the dreaded Acid Reflux disease. The doctor is sending me to an x-ray place on Thursday where they will make me drink “stuff” and then do weird things to see if there is a regurgitation of gastric juices in to my esophagus.

I am so looking forward to that.

After all of this excitement, I went to Erin’s workplace to a) say, “Hi!” and b) to see the new work area she is now inhabiting. Along with this I got to meet the new, mysterious, coworker who took over the admin duties Erin was filling in on, on the side; and then Erin suggested (after a conversation the other night) that we go out and look at different places for a replacement PC for her.

We started at Costco, which, interestingly enough, isn’t as cool a place as I would like to think it is. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find Sams Club (which was the other option) as any more cool; it just seemed… anti-climactic when we got a membership there. I will admit, outside of having to use debit cards, the gas prices at Costco are considerably cheaper than pretty much anywhere else. Though, as for gas, I would love to see the prices move to closer to realistic prices rather than at the inflated prices they are currently at. Of course, I would love to see the inflated prices of a lot of things change to something far more reasonable – housing, food, clothes, cars, gas… the list can go on for a while.

We’re too far entrenched in a credit driven economy. We are so going to be screwed someday soon.

Costco had some laptops, but nothing, really, that Erin and I were grooving on. Actually, the closest thing to grooving on anything there in the short time we were there is this iPod media player (read TV and movies) that I would totally love to have, but can’t seem to justify to save my life.

We left.

From there, Erin driving, we headed to campus. Our initial reaction was to find a parking spot close to where we were going (the bookstore) and then walk in, check out what was there, and walk out. Make it quick. Lickety split and all that. That was the plan. The outcome was that we ended up parking near the Marriot Center and walking down in to campus (this is where we normally park). As a result of this, we went to the bookstore, Erin with backpack on, checked out the computers, and decided to purchase one.

After getting the computer and a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 we started to walk back up to the car when we diverted up to the ASB (big “X” building for my mom, Abraham O. Smoot building for everyone else) to say, “Hi,” to a couple of people, when Erin came to the conclusion that she shouldn’t be required to take two science courses this semester when we (together) were taking one that required six hours of class time during the week and a ton of out of class work.

Don’t tell her, but I tended to agree with her assessment in this area, moreover, she’d e-mail one of the professors to see if there was any way he knew of to make this class count for both science credits she needed, especially since we are going over geology ad naseum for the next couple of week, and according to the mayor of Alpine, UT will learn about three years worth of geology in just about three weeks. Given this information, and Erin’s willingness to talk to people and get them to like her, we started in the ASB with someone I know from there who would know where to point us to get the right information, and then proceeded to follow the path from building to building and back and forth until Erin came up with a solution that allowed her to drop the superfluous class from her schedule.

What this mean, for me, was a lot of sitting outside of offices, with an HP box in my arms, waiting for Erin and the various advisors and professors to come to a viable and workable solution. The outcome, after a lot of wrangling by Erin with a professor, who at first was standoffish and then seemed to take to Erin like white to rice, was that she (Erin) shouldn’t need to take both classes and that the sciences she’s taken should take care of the curriculum and that she (the professor) would be willing to write a memo on that account; but that Erin should look at what moving to the new system would do as the old system required too much.

Back to the advisement center where the advisor (the best one in the office) went back and forth with Erin where they decided the best avenue was for Erin to test out of the class. She has two chances to take the test this semester, one right now (until the 18th) and again in October. Erin is going for October as she needs to pass the test to get the credit for the class. Back to the science building and the professor and (now very glad to see Erin) is excited to give Erin advise on how best to prepare for the exam in October.

The real outcome was a day I was meant to be writing in Alicia Grey (had real hopes of starting what I’ve written through over and adding the elements if I could without deleting a lot) and then writing some of the Cassidy West short stories that I need to write for my Creative Writing class. The rest of the class is working on other things, like autobiographies, etc. I am working on short fiction. Instead, I went to the doctor, bought a computer (for Erin), sat with her as she worked through the hurdles of getting a class taken care of, and then, when we got home, made sure the computer worked and the currently needed software was installed on her machine before, alas, I had to race off to work.

Even before coming to work I spent some mullah on a load of drinks so I don’t have to go to the store every couple of days and so that Erin and I have something to consume while hanging out at home – and stuff for snacking on this evening.

Outside of all of that, I am hoping, now that Erin doesn’t have a Tuesday/Thursday class, that my Tuesday’s and Thursday’s will be rededicated to writing and fiction and making sure I am not shooting myself in the foot with homework; even though I wouldn’t change today and our adventures for all of the rice in China or all the beetles in Barbados.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond

Posted by smokingpen at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, we’re back from another weekend. What a wonderful weekend it was, too. On Saturday Erin and I woke up and after some stuff around the house, went to REI in Salt Lake City and then up to Park City.

We went to REI because I wanted to purchase a new bag for my computer and books. I was leaning toward messenger bags, a-la EMS in the east coast, but once to the section of REI where their bags are located, discovered a rather small selection of messenger bags and a somewhat larger selection of computer related bags by large (read significant) backpack manufacturers. Basically, I was looking for a bag with an outdoor mentality, but built to handle my notebook computer and its power supply and mouse as well as books and notebooks for the various classes I have.

We ended up with a The North Face bag that Erin had found online the night before, but after getting close to it and looking at it, decided it was not what she was looking for. She did end up buying a new backpack, as well, hers, I believe it was a Jansport.

Along with the two backpacks we also purchased (Erin) a smaller water bottle than I have lying around the house. It is pink. I picked it, which, honestly, is the only reason she ended up with a pink water bottle. She likes it because I picked it (while grabbing a test bottle to make sure it would fit in the mesh side pockets) thinking she would like it. So, she likes it because I thought she would like it.

Erin also got a winter coat that is closer, in appearance, to the one I was wearing last winter and have every intention of wearing this winter. Gotta love coats that are light, and work well in keeping an individual warm without adding a lot of extra padding and weight.

After REI we hit the Tanger Outlets at Park City where I walked in to a store and walked out having spent $130.00 and change later and having a whole schlew of new t-shirts to wear. With those I got a couple of thicker shirts and a lighter jacket to go with my collection of black jackets and shirts.

Speaking of which, I had, at one point, enough black t-shirts I could, almost literally, go for two weeks wearing a different black t-shirt a day. Somewhere in all of the moves I’ve made, I’ve lost almost all of those. Now, this weekend, I did buy one black t-shirt and a couple of other black items (to include the black backpack), but I am nowhere near as black t-shirt oriented as I was when I was working for Borders. This, to me, is rather disturbing. Very disturbing. It’s freakin’ disturbing.

Once the spending spree was completed Erin and I drove back to the married apartment via Heber City where we veered right and down past Deer Creek Reservoir, which is at about half capacity, and across the new bridge that no longer goes over the Deer Creek damn, before heading down the canyon. On the way down the canyon I got to see a BMW 2002, which is a nice, old, boxy car that I like, nay, LOVE, and want one, but not one that I have to work on all the time (basically, I want one already restored which means I may never get one) and then got back to the house where we wasted more time, ate more food, watched TV and movies and eventually went back to bed.

Sunday is all about church. In church I learned two things:

First, family history is fun <- this is sarcasm.
Second, the dude teaching elder’s quorum married a girl 20 years younger than him.

With all that said and out of the way, I did make it to school this morning. I tried to convince Erin that we wanted to skip our morning class (well, the 10 a.m. one) because I don’t, actually, have to go and she nixed that faster than a cheetah on fresh meat, and we went. School is good. There is a level of getting back in to the mix of things, and I am finding that to be rather interesting; but at the same time, you know, it’s school and the semester lasts all of four months and then I move on to different classes with different emphasis.

I did get to do more work in HTML for my English 415r class today. It’s interesting to go back to the basics and do things over and over again that you (read me) transferred to a program years ago and let something like Dreamweaver take over the bulk of the tags and the programming. Granted, I can code a webpage; however, I’d rather let something else code it and me making sure the extra tags and crap are removed from what I am working on so that it works better, for me.

I could go on.

Basically, at this point, I’ve decided to transfer the HTML code in to Dreamweaver and let the program make the code look all nice and pretty.

Beyond that, Erin and I have a couple of field trips we are going on this week. Both for the same class. Both dealing with geology. We are promised that our first stop will be very cold.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Bond. James Bond

Posted by smokingpen at 9:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve always wondered if we, as a society, choose to discard the idiosyncrasies of some people because of their distinct level of physical attraction. I think I want that to be a question, but I don’t know that I want to pose the question. Look at someone like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan or even Paris Hilton and, for the most current generation you can see the ideas of idiosyncrasy that I am talking about: these worldly attractive people doing extremely idiotic and horrible things and t