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Cloudy, Moonlit Night

The Critic

 
Half past dead of night,

     awakes early morning sun

to inspect my words.

 

 

Divide and Conquer

I’ve made some progress regarding the number of projects I’m balancing, but it has been difficult. Ultimately, I had to sit down and list the things I’m doing before prioritizing them.

It’s not as if I hadn’t already done this: in fact, I live by lists and time lines and schedules; however, things were a bit different this time.

This time, I made my list, set my priorities, and then—oh god—then, I built my schedule for the next three weeks around working on only the top two priorities. (This means I’m currently pretending the other five super-important, really-beneficial, totally-interesting projects do not exist.)

Generally, I consider all of the top-priority things I have to do and spread my time evenly among them, but lately, this has created some significant mental chaos as I grind slowly through so many things I feel as if I’m running through mud.

So, I made up my mind: the top two things get my attention and damn the rest for now.

Talk about frustrating: I was in a constant struggle with my brain over the other things until I bought myself a tiny notebook into which I have given myself permission to jot down the things that are busily throwing themselves at me about all of the abandoned projects—abandoned is their word not mine—the result was a lot of distracting note taking at first, but for the last day or so, my brain has given me a break and allowed me to focus on the only two projects that currently exist in my world.

Free Rice

A few days ago, oasiss stopped by my blog and left some nice remarks, so I had to take a gander at what goes on over at Zatetic.

There’s some fun happenings over there: not only can you snag a recipe for ice cream, but also, you can ponder the intellect of some of our modern-day heroes.

I know what you’re thinking: what do ice cream and athletes have to do with rice? Well, nothing, but the Zatetic blogroll included a link to FREE RICE, and there was no way I wasn’t going to see where that led, so off I went.

I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just say three things:

1. Test your word knowledge.
2. Make a difference.
3. Do both for FREE.

Picture Perfect

STOP. Thief!

How can February be nearly one-third over? Who grabbed the remote control on my life and hit the fast-forward button?

The last time I looked, December was meandering to a close, and the hint of New Year’s possibilities was just around the corner.

Then things went dark: for four days the first time and just over one the second. Snowed in and without power, things slowed to a crawl, and while inconvenient at times, the taste of the past made the experience worthwhile.

Then there was the first good illness of the year: hello emergency room and five-hour-wait-to-be-seen which was followed by the four-hour-wait-to-be-released which added up to my very first (and hopefully last) twenty-seven (27) hour awake-the-whole-time “day.”

I lost the rest of that week recovering from the sleep I’d missed and caretaking, but HOW DID I GET HERE: to the 9th of February?

Oh, and did I mention the Julia Fordham musical loop that keeps going though my head?

During my 20th century graduate work, I learned to multi-task like a madwoman. I think I turned the corner when I developed the ability to read three books simultaneously while keeping each compartmentalized in my brain. This has bled into my I’m-not-a-student-anymore but-I-still-go-to-school-and-have-homework life (often referred to as teaching). I suspect part of the time-warp I’m experiencing is due to the number of really cool projects I’m working on: I’ve got handfuls of stuff to do each non-teaching day, and most of it is satisfying work, so I wake up at 5:30 ready to dig in, and other than breaks for little things like exercise and food and bathing, there’s no stopping me. Suddenly, it’s 7 at night and the pets need my attention, and dinner is overdue, and and and. . .

I’m beginning to suspect projects are not like books or assignments: perhaps they are best handled independent of one another; however, the thought of setting a few of them aside for any length of time makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

At least if I did that I’d miss the calendar pages whizzing off the wall.

Unexpected Guests

Constant Inconstancy

I wonder what would happen if a few auto manufacturers decided to switch the gas and brake pedals in the cars they produced. While I’m at it, let’s rotate the side of the road on which we drive based on the stock market. I also say we forget the red-yellow-green configuration of signal lights and let homeowners in the area pick the top-to-bottom order of the colors.

After all, it’s not as if there needs to be any real consistency on the roadways, right?

This is the logic used to create the internet—okay, not so much the internet as the means to travel it.

I’ve spent the last several days updating a Web site only to find out the updates read differently in Mozilla Firefox than they do in Internet Explorer.

I know what you’re thinking: anyone paying any attention to the way of the Web knows there are differences in the way combinations of browsers and operating systems alter the way Web pages appear.

I do know this, and overall, I can accept that depending upon a viewer’s browser, operating system, and screen size, what I see and what that person sees may differ, but this—this was a difference akin to night and day, and it cannot be fixed. (Well, I fixed it, but I had to compromise some design to do it.)

I’m no expert, but I know more than the average bear about HTML, XHTML, and PHP, and I’ve spent a lot of time working with my own site designs and templates and themes to feel pretty comfortable with things.

In layperson’s terms, it basically comes down to a difference in code interpretation among browsers, and which browser is more forgiving than the others.

It also comes down to a simple truth: when I type <div>, some browsers get edgy. Then, if I dare type < /br>, it gets worse. Finally, if I try to combine a little bit of <div> with a little bit of < /br>, everything blows up—in Explorer. Nothing happens in Firefox, and because I use Firefox, it was only by chance I realized a very simple WordPress theme was unreadable in Explorer. (I generally check both browsers, but I tell you, this was a simple change that I never dreamed would cause any harm, so checking didn’t cross my mind.)

Here’s what I don’t get: it seems to me there’s a simple analogy that ought to dictate how the World Wide Web “works.”

The Earth is like the Web.
The highway is like the internet.
A car is like a browser.
An address is like a URL.

If I want to get someplace on the Earth, I climb into my car, grab a map, and head out on the highway to the address of my choosing. The Web is no different—well, unless you count the fact that often the highways can’t be navigated, the car stalls, and once if you get to the address, the place looks nothing like what you remember.

Isn’t it time all browsers interpreted code the same way?

The Devil’s Towers

Long ago, it was known as The Mission in the Forest, and people were welcomed with open arms. This was before God’s War when the world was a different place, and the truth about God and Satan was still a mystery over which the war had begun.Now, decades later, it is known as The Devil’s Towers, and few survivors of God’s War can recall when it was a place of peace and worship. To the masses, The Devil’s Towers is a symbol of the lies once told by books such as The Holy Bible and people claiming to serve a just God.Most survivors of God’s War are afraid to go inside the building fearing the Devil, who is said to capture as his playthings the humans who enter his sanctuary. You see, some of what The Bible taught was true: there is a Devil, and there is a Hell, but the Devil never fell from Heaven. He left willingly after destroying everything it had once been, including God and all the hope that remained for living things.Today, the Devil sits in his towers ruling over a world under his control while planning new ways to trouble the remaining living things on Earth.Those who seek out and enter The Devil’s Towers do so out of greed, for along with the revelations about God’s weaknesses there are the legends of the Devil’s gold.It is said that those who posses even the smallest quantity of the Devil’s gold will become immortal and be immune from his manipulations. The exact location of The Devil’s Towers is not known, and though many have set off to find the old mission, none have returned.Some believe no one returns because those who go find their gold. They might be right, but if they are not (and most believe they are not) then the Devil’s playground is growing.When God’s War ended, eleven clues to the whereabouts of The Devil’s Towers were scattered by the winds. The Devil did this to ensure that though the people uncovered the truth about their existence and the lie that was God, their greed would bring them to his playground.What you hold in your hand is the last clue to the whereabouts of this monument, and as its owner, immortality and untold riches can be yours.

Sharon Ellis turned the note card over in her hand. She was taken by the picture and amused by the words. There was no return address information on the card, but she had a pretty good idea who’d sent it to her. It had Charlie written all over it: it was clever in a dorkish sort of way, and it was just another in a string of useless attempts on his part to get Sharon’s attention.

She glanced once more at the note card before tossing it on the counter and heading out the door for what was sure to be a long day at work.

The fifteen minute commute to the office was an exercise in rote activity, and on this morning, as was the case on almost every morning, Sharon wasted no time in multitasking while she drove. This was perhaps the reason she ran the red light and drove her BMW into the path of a fully-loaded semi whose driver had no chance to stop.

Sharon awoke flat on her back looking up at a sky that was hazy with smoke. She felt dazed, but as the events of the morning began to work their way together like parts of a jumbled puzzle, she laughed—she was alive!

Sharon slowly sat up, and as she did, she was surprised to find that while a bit stiff, she seemed totally unharmed. She was even more surprised to find herself staring straight ahead at a building which appeared to be a replica of the image she’d seen on the postcard from Charlie. Sharon stood up, shook the dirt from her clothing, and began walking toward the clearing and the mission. She was certain what she was experiencing was a result of her accident or the after-effects of anesthesia; after all, she could not possibly be in the middle of a forest staring at an old-world mission having only moments before been driving to work. She walked on anyway.

For the second time that day, a giggle escaped Sharon’s lips. She wondered to herself when she might find the Devil’s gold. Near the clearing’s edge, a cool breeze washed over her, and as it did, it carried her scent to the Devil.

Sharon Ellis reached the entrance to the mission and walked inside. The moment she crossed the threshold of the building, she realized something was very wrong. Instinctively, she turned to flee, but it was too late: she was surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the sensation of falling.

* * *

The driver of the tanker truck watched in confusion as a melon-shaped object spun up into the air, reached the top of its flight, and fell back toward the ground. As the object tumbled down toward the pavement, the trucker saw with grotesque clarity that it was the head of the woman who’d been driving the car that was now a twisted pile of metal lodged beneath the frame of his rig.

Frozen on the tumbling head was last look the woman’s face would ever wear: it was the look the truck driver would wake to in horror for the rest of his life.

The head struck the ground, rolled a few feet, and came to rest on what was left of its neck. As the trucker realized the head appeared to be looking up at the side of his trailer, he half-fell, half-staggered out of his cab while vomiting onto the roadway.

* * *
The first officer to arrive on the scene did his best to help the trucker cope with what had happened, but there was little he could do. Even he was a bit shaken by the head sitting upright staring at the truck’s trailer, and though leaving it that way was gruesome, he knew better than to disturb the accident scene—especially one involving a fatality.

Several hours later, as the investigation was wrapping up, the coroner’s assistant called the officer over to where he was working. As the assistant placed the woman’s head into a truncated body bag, he peeled a note card from the congealed blood at the base of what remained of the woman’s neck and handed it to the officer.

“Weird, huh?”

The coroner’s assistant nodded from the card to the trailer as he spoke to the officer.

The photograph on the card matched the image on the side of the semi-truck’s trailer: it was a large scale ad for a resort hotel called The Towers, and below the image was a caption that read,

Be as devilish as you want—your secret is safe at The Towers.

The officer placed the sticky card into an evidence bag and turned away for the coroner’s assistant while feeling the burn of bile rise in the back of his throat.

Original Artwork [Peace Mission Pieces] by Woody Hansen.