Greetings from 2011!

Hello faithful readers,

I would go through the whole song-and-dance explaining why it's been so long since I last wrote and would follow that up with a pledge to regularly update, but let's be honest: the people who read this know me and understand what I've been up to the last 9 months. Here's a hint:

Abigail has done a pretty fair job updating you on Aveline from her blog, so you can read that if you're not up to date. I will say that Aveline is much more trouble now that she's crawling and grabbing and (very occasionally) standing up, but also much more fun. I do miss when she would lie down next to me while the video games were on, however.

At this point, I've almost taught her everything she needs to know, but now she needs to learn to use the controller, not eat it! Just kidding grandparents...she won't play those for a few years yet.

So aside from our little monkey, what's happened in the past nine months? For the first few months we settled into our new routine with her, and by the time Abigail went back to work I was totally an expert at being a dad. I'm kidding, but it really did surprised me how easy it is. People tell us that we are lucky to have such an "easy" baby, and that may be true, but I have noticed that babies can smell fear, just like werewolves. As long as Aveline knows that we're in control and that she's safe, she's generally pretty happy and calm. Exceptions include teething, the time I let her fall off  she totally jumped off the couch like a ninja, and a recent fever bug thingy, but in a general sense she is super happy, and so are we.

I think I started to talk about non-baby things, but that's sort of difficult. When I got married, I was annoyed the first few months when I would walk into a room and invariably hear one or more of the following: "Where's Abigail?", "How's married life?", and something to the effect of "Are you guys thinking about kids yet?". This was pretty annoying for a while but I got over it, and that's probably best since it prepared me for: "Where's the baby?", "Getting any sleep?", "When's the next one coming along?". I'm not kidding; that's really how it is, and because of it I haven't been too upset about missing social events (i.e. church). I'm never too upset about sleeping in on Sundays, but that's a whole other blog post.

So anyway, after the New Year, we were somewhat adjusted to parenthood and Abigail was back to work. Around February, I began to look into going back to school once again, and we did the budget to see if it would work. Without too much detail, we decided that I could work part time and go to school full time without any real hardship other than giving up my morning $4 coffee ritual. Bearing that in mind, I squared everything with the boss and registered for the Game Production program at Collins College, with the intent of starting full time in early March. Then I went back to the hospital.

Some time in March (I think the 8th, but it's fuzzy for obvious reasons), I was lying in bed with Abigail and Aveline not wanting to go to work. I guess God saw some humor in that because the next thing I remember was waking up in the ER of the hospital where Abigail works. I am told that I had 4 concurrent seizures and the doctor described the damage to my back (which was quite severe) as "sort of like getting in 4 car wrecks in a row." So instead of going to school, I stayed home for a couple of weeks. I started 2 online classes for the 10 week term instead, but my recovery time was cut a bit short when my boss resigned from his position. I learned about this on a Friday and due to a freakish sense of responsibility (thank you so much, parents!) I went back to work for a few hours a day in order to keep the new guy from drowning. I started physical therapy at about the same time.

A couple weeks later, Abigail and I decided I could quit work altogether and we would still be okay going to school, so I put in something like an 8-week notice and worked 3-4 days a week while going to physical therapy 3 times a week. My last day at the Marriott was May 25, although technically I am still on call should they need help. If you have a picture in your head right now of me growing a beard and playing games all day, go ahead and erase it. Abigail made me shave the beard after a week and a half and since school started I haven't had much time for gaming. I will do another blog post (possibly tonight) about school, but let me just say now that it's AWESOME!

This has run rather long, but I would be very thoughtless if I did not take the time to acknowledge the people that have been so supportive the past few months when I have really needed them. I do not have many friends for a reason: I prefer quality over quantity. My friends really stepped up to the plate, and Angela (my friend Matt's wife, and a friend in her own right) was there to drive me to work when I wasn't able to do it on my own. There were some days when I knew her schedule was tight and it was an inconvenience, but she did it gracefully and wouldn't even let me chip in for gas (she did let me buy her coffee on occasion). It was pretty depressing being stuck at the house, barely mobile, and Travis, Matt, and Andrew often visited or checked up on me when I needed it. Andrew even shared his DBacks fortune to take me to a few games, and managed not to injure me too severely during the 7th inning stretch!

My mother deserves a special mention for essentially living with us for about a month and a half. I think it's fair to say that the situation wasn't ideal for anyone, but she not only helped me move about when I needed it and took care of Aveline, she got up with her during the night and put her own plans on hold when ours changed. Abigail's parents were also there for us in different ways; they also watched her when needed and Al actually took care of the weeds in our yard when I wasn't able to (as did my brother Tim on multiple occasions!). I'm very thankful that Aveline has grandparents and other family that she can depend on when her daddy is being high maintenance!

Most importantly, however, I am so thankful for Abigail's constant support. She has supported my decision to go back to school from the beginning and has worked hard with me (I live here too so I get 1% credit) to redo our budget in order to make it possible. When I was hurt and unable to do much, she was very good with the situation and took great care of me, but did not let me fall back on my physical therapy and made sure I continued to move around and take care of things. It has not been an easy 3 months, but she has been invaluable. I think I'll keep her.

Okay, well I think that pretty much brings you to speed. I'll try to post at least one or two more topics in detail, but if not...see you in 9 months or so (no that is not a hint)!

Stay frosty,

Scott

Your brain makes time go faster, and experience might make it slow down

Yesterday I heard a segment on NPR (National Public Radio) that piqued my interest, and so I have posted a link to it. You can read a text article (the Homer Simpson "Every Day" video is amusing), or listen to what went out on the radio here:
Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?-NPR

What they discuss is why it seems like time passes more quickly as one ages, and it seems like time moved so much more slowly when we were children. The person being interviewed explains that there is a neurological reason for this. They have a more detailed explanation in the article, but the analogy they use is that we "write things down" in more detail in our brains when we experience them for the first time, and so our perception is more vividly remembered. 

If we therefore write things down in great detail on first experience, but less so upon further experience, one might compare Dickens' writing (long, winding paragraphs, since he got paid by the word) with Hemingway's (he was taught to be short and to the point, and it showed in his writing). When you ask a child about their first day of school, they will tell you about everything from the appearance of the school, to all the kids they met, to the teacher, and everything they did (Dickensian). If you ask a teenager about their first day of school, you will most likely get something to the effect of, "School was okay," (Hemingway). It is effectively the same answer; the brain has simply learned to write for the Readers' Digest.

My thoughts on this are as follows: time goes by far too fast as it is, it's true, and on this planet one thing we have in common is that we are all still limited to the same 24 hour day. However, if our brain can "slow down time" when it is processing new information, then why not keep providing it with more? One could try to learn a new language, right now, or start attending classes at your local community college. Go to a new country; there's plenty of them out there, and as a bonus you can volunteer or do missions work (I understand the Haititians could use some help right now).

If renewed perception is indeed the key to slowing down time, maybe people are spending too much time doing the same thing. I have said at least this much in an earlier post: embrace the random in your daily life. Take an alternate route sometimes, go to different grocery stores, maybe actually read a book instead of watching TV, or chuck them both and go to the park. Play hooky from your job, It's okay, really, as long as you have a vacation/sick day to take. I think it would be fun to invent a holiday that only you and a select few know about; and you have to be really "in the know" to know about it. "Talk Like A Pirate Day" probably started like that.

I guess that's pretty much all I have to say on this topic. I still tend to get excited about psychological/neurological issues, but who knows where I'll come from next? My buddy writes a political/baseball blog, my wife writes a baby/nurse blog, and I write an exciting celebration of randomness. That's how I roll.

Reset Button

The reset button is a great invention in gaming. It's the last-ditch, "oh holy crap something bad is happening" moment that saves you from total humiliation at the hands of an overwhelmingly powerful foe...and for most it is likely the 357th time this has happened. If you're cool and remember the NES, it's also one of many ways you try to get your game to work. You pushed the reset button about 30 times in a row (extremely quickly when your mom wasn't in the room to say "When you break that, you're not getting another one!"), and blew on the cartridge, and hoped to play Contra yet again.

Life has no reset buttons in theory, and if they did, you would hope that there was a password system or something to start you about where you wanted. I would rather deal with things now then have to start from birth all over again, even if I had all the knowledge I have now. However, once in a while I believe God gives us the break we're looking for. It could be an "extra life" when you know you shouldn't have survived a car accident or illness, or a "warp pipe" that takes you to a promotion or state in life quickly and unexpectly. It might just be a "shield boost" that gives you extra toughness and courage to get through a rough patch in your life, or perhaps the strength to help someone else with theirs (if you're the person getting help, then it would be an "assist" power up). 

In my case, it seems like after just over six years of waiting, God has given me a reset button. I will explain (briefly) what I mean. I had a grand mal seizure in December 2003, just after school let out for the semester. My entire brain was affected, but in different ways. In the short term I had some memory loss and disorientation that was normal, and I wasn't allowed to drive for 3 months (which was interesting, since that's when I started my relationship with Abigail). 

The real problem has been the effects on my cognitive skills. People that knew me well before the seizure will understand this (I hope) better, and unfortunately that doesn't include my wife. I have never at any time since then really felt like myself. That doesn't mean I have been unhappy, but because my intelligence and creativity are such defining characteristics of my sense of self, I knew I would not be happy until I was able to be at my full potential.

I am on a new medication now (Keppra) that works in a different part of my brain; the part that has sustained some long-term damage. I was sick for the first couple of weeks, and Matt's wife Angela who works with me has been (to risk a great understatement) a godsend in carpooling with me and even taking me to the doctor as needed. In the past few days, I have really started to feel less sick, and on the heels of that, I have started to notice a change in my thought patterns. It is hard to describe, save to say it's like sitting in the driver's seat of your car, and realizing that someone snuck into your garage and tuned it up overnight. Nothing was upgraded per se, but everything just...feels better.   

In anticipation that this might happen, and in part to help, I started a creative writing class this semester. I am now finished with the second week and it is going very well so far. I wrote a lipographic poem in which I rewrote "Little Miss Muffet" but removed "I" and "U." The satisfaction I felt in that silly little poem might sound strange to you so I won't go too much into it, but there was something so tremendously satisfying in finally writing something after all these years.

My apologies for the length of this post. It is my hope, though, that these will be a more regular thing and thus not necessarily as long each time. Hope you like the new layout!

Health/Weight Watchers stuff

I didn't forget to post the stuff I promised on the Weight Watchers thing, I was just busy (see previous post). Having said that, I decided to change last week from week 1 to "week 0," or in scientific terms, the "control." I realized that I was inevitably going to be forced (ahem) to eat cake and be taken against my will (ahem ahem) to lunch at least a couple times, so I might as well not stress over it. So this table is week 0's results to establish a baseline weight that I can hopefully improve on. This is still better than when we got back from Travis and Kim's wedding!

Hopefully you can read that okay. Basically the most important part is on the right under "results." The other stuff just shows how horrible I was this week. For my starting weight of 250 (yes, I gained 4 pounds!) I am allotted 28 points per day. I was at or under that...3/7 days this week. The data is not 100% accurate points-wise, as I had to fill in some of it (okay, days 4-7) from memory, but that's very close.

In other news, I'm still sick. I never really got 100% better from my cold, so today I finally said enough is enough and left work early. I went to the doctor, who decided I have bronchitis and a sinus infection, neither of which is necessarily bad enough to keep me from work (unless the antibiotics knock me on my butt as they might). Yay team. So yeah, I got the aforementioned antibiotics, and for the first time I can remember an inhalator. It's kinda funny.

Hopefully feeling sick will help me keep my points down this week... lol?