Thoughts About Writing

Note: This is not intended for instructional purposes. It contains personal opinions and some insights based on relevant experience.

In my estimation, I have never been a hero. There have been some moments that others might have perceived as heroic. I may I have been brave - or stupid - enough to step forward when I should have stepped back. I've taken responsibility for this or that and taken the entire blame for mistakes that were not my fault. In every case, I was there. I assure you I'm not a hero.

Sometimes the alternatives are few and the choice is clear enough. There is seldom much ambiguity in life-or-death situations. Yet, if I had a preference, I would rather sit back and watch, then write about it later on. As a writer I probably need to maintain an even hand with the controversies of life and remain detached if at all possible. It's hard to do that as an active participant. So I create a surrogate and make him or her the hero.

The perfect fictional version of me would be a poor mockery of some comic book character. I would talk with a lisp, be a bumbling, clumsy sort of cape-less crusader called Thuperman! Why cape-less? The cleaners lost it again, third time this month! I really can't take myself too seriously, especially if I'm taking a leading role in a book.

Despite some similarities, there is a vast difference in approach between writing fiction and non-fiction. When there is a chance that the facts need to be embellished to make the tedium of the truth more bearable to read, the demarcation can become blurred. A non-fiction write would be as accurate to the facts and history as possible. A fiction write has much more latitude. Variation is freedom, allowing fiction to be only as accurate as I want or dare it to be.

Non-fiction should not be completely confined to the dull recitations of reality. In case you haven't noticed, there is a lot of boredom in reality. If you haven't noticed then maybe it is because you nodded-off in the process of observation. When you wake up, reality will still be there, with all the boredom you can handle.

Boredom is probably one of the major components of the world. It could be one of those mysterious forces that research physicists have sought to explain how everything is bound together. The reason you are reading this, for example, is you were looking for something else to do and happened on this instead of something potentially more exciting. Boredom is the reason that, whether as a last resort or in response to some anxiety about seeing how some plot line plays out, you leaf through to the end of the book before you should. Otherwise, you set the book aside for another, future reading session and watch TV or do something just as mind-numbingly mundane.

You might listen to music or go to movies. You could go out for dinner to break the monotony of eating in. If you decide not to go out, you may opt for a hastily contrived meal consisting of chips, a cold cut sandwich and a soda. You do that because it's quick and you really hate cooking.

I'm a bachelor again. So, I'm back in the game.

Boredom is why would you invite someone to see a play when you have not been to a play for years. Was it intended to impress upon him or her that you have a little more depth to you? Surely you wouldn't want anyone to think it was just a ploy to sneak a hand up her skirt or down his pants? Afterwards, the question remains: was it because you were lonely and bored?

Boredom is why you read the cereal box every morning even though you read the same words for the past few days and, oddly enough, they have not spontaneously revised. It is why you cheated on your spouse not once or twice but a few times - whatever real number 'a few' is. It may be why you go to church every Sunday and Wednesday or don't even go to church at all. It is why, when you were in college, you played footsy under the table with your roommate's girlfriend. It is certainly why the Internet, chat rooms and social sites are popular. It is why kids and adults play video games. It is why sex sells even though almost no one ever admits to buying 'dirty magazines' for that reason alone. Heaven forbid that anyone would think that you are as perverted as they are.

In almost every lifetime there is a climax or triumph over some barrier or difficulty. Such events are the exception to boredom. Yet boredom exists in such abundance that excitement is considered a rare enough commodity to be treasured. We attempt to plan for it, arranging as best we can for excitement to happen. Intending to offset boredom, the scales are tipped way to the favor of dull, meaningless existence. It would take a whole lot of excitement to overcome the ordinary droll life.

As a writer, I tell of the misery of overcoming the station and conditions of life. Other times I record heroic accomplishment to inspire others. I think in the universal balance they pretty much offset one another.

If boredom binds the world together, irony is the essence of the universe. I am not alone in seeing what makes the world amusing. It is just that sometimes I might be the first to point out something to others. I'm told it is a gift. It may be a curse, especially if with my bad timing. I have pointed out the irony to someone who liked being bored and had no sense of humor at all. In my unofficial analysis, seven out of my last ten bosses preferred boredom to irony.

Most of what I write ends up in a journal or a trashcan. Since I compose on a computer, it is a virtual trashcan. I write everyday because I need to. I believe a writer who does not write everyday is probably not really a professional. He or she isn't according to a definition that I read some time ago and a concept many writers I know also share. That is not to say that those who do not write everyday are not writers. It is simply that to be truly professional, writing must be a regular if not almost continuous process. There must be a time each and every day that is set-aside for the sole and uninterrupted purpose of writing. I personally feel that it almost has to be the same time everyday, but that may be just me.

A good portion of what I write in a journal could be viewed as an autobiographical sketch. A lot of the truth is stretched, warped, contorted, and twisted, though. The more two dimensional parts could have been bent, folded, spindled and mutilated - as was the warning of how not to treat the punch cards that computers used when I was a lot younger. If I ever go back and read the journal, I see immediately that it needs to be coerced and cajoled into something universally readable. Almost everything needs additional depth, rendering it into something more three dimensions.

As the writer, I can usually figure out what I was trying to say even if it is vague and I have forgotten when I wrote a particular piece. With a journal, there is the subtle hint of a date and a time. So, reading from my journal is akin to frittered and frolicked with fixed memories. Usually I enjoy the experience even if I don't remember every detail of the process that was going on in my mind as I composed it. To ever produce something from such raw written material creates a second-hand, but hopefully first-rate expos© on what exactly it was like to be trapped inside of my thoughts for a moment of time. It is exactly like being the casual observer of an unholy and unnatural disaster involving a runaway freight train. There are also many strange men wearing three-piece suits, felt fedoras and unlaced combat boots brandishing chainsaws. But what really worries me are the clowns with their floppy shoes and big bulbous noses filled with nitroglycerin as they ride their pogo sticks into oblivion.

A professional writer writes daily until the writing spirit has moved on. I fully believe in the writing spirit and I have seen examples of the spirit departing some writers who were brilliant for a time but eventually acquiesced to producing utter crap simply to feed public hunger. I give the benefit of doubt that perhaps those writers knew that a piece was unfinished, sold before its time, out of necessity and an effort to silence a literary agent or publisher who had called every single friggin' day for two months, just to see what progress was made.

The writing spirit might never return. That is a sad realization for a writer, much like waking up in the morning and discovering all thought processes have reverted to 'normal' operation. For a writer, there was a previous balance before his or her environment compelled the inner voice to take control from time to time and erupt forth onto a blank page. Life without the writer's perception for the odd or ironic is hardly life at all. It is life as a normal person and yes, we all know very well how boring that can be, don't we? I would never wish that on any person. I might wish it on a cat or a dog, though. I think they deal with boredom better than humans.

The writer should determine the length of any piece of writing. It could require a careful and constructive debate with a good editor, but that could be optional. It is difficult to confine writing into a predetermined length. When I was in school I always felt that it was silly to have a writing assignment determined by the number of pages or the number of words. As much as I try to be succinct, 'short' and 'detailed' are antonyms to me. I write until I am exhausted from the effort, collapsed on my desk and snoring. That is usually after running out of things to say about the subject. That is how to determine that a chapter, story or book has ended, for example. The point is that you cannot constrict or restrict the creative process. To do so diminishes the quality as well as the validity of the creation.

About Anter'x, Ea and Wolfcats

(From the Intro to Spectre Of Dammerwald)

Anter'x, also called the Inworld, is an extremely hostile, often hellish environment baked under three suns. At night, the heat absorbed form the lighted period, called a c'eun, radiates from the ground and rocks. Bathed in the silvery light of and three moons, the temperature in most places on the planet are yet uncomfortably hot.

Because of the suns' energy, the surface of the vast deep oceans of water simmer. The effects of the gravity of three moons on the tidal currents sweep the superheated water to swirl and mix with the relatively cooler waters of the temperate ones creating dramatic weather events. Storms spanning many c'eun are common place in the world's torrid and temperate zones.

In the mountains and the upland plains where altitude moderates the extreme temperatures, conditions are more tolerable. Many species of flora and fauna proliferate because of the world's abundant solar energy, and several plants that cling to the shadows during the c'eun emerge at night to benefit from the reflected light of the three moons.

Despite the harshness of the complicated Anter'xan environment, it is the home of many races of immortal, quasi-immortal beings and mortals. Especially in its temperate zones and closer to its poles great civilizations developed in relative isolation. As they populations grew and expanded and there was eventual encounters and interactions, territorial conflicts erupted into protracted wars.

Because of the planet's odd cosmic ballet as its orbit changes relative proximity as it interacts with three suns, the method of calculating time is affected by perspective of the observer on the planet's surface as well as the apparent movements of the celestial bodies through the skies. Many of the civilizations of the temperate zones devised effective methods of predicting the movements of the suns and moons, resulting in calendars that account for seasons and he passage of time.

For purposes of basic understanding the usage of time terms that appear in the text, the following is provided:

cen – 1/200 of an ur, in usage roughly equivalent to the Earth concept of minutes, although it is shorter as an actual interval.

ur – 1/20 of a c'eun, in usage roughly equivalent an hour in use although in actual measurement is longer than an Earth hour. It consists of two hundred cen.

c'eun – ten ur, the period measured from the rising of the first sun to the setting of the third sun, roughly equivalent to the meaning of the lighted time of an Earth day. It varies with the season and the position on the surface of the planet relative to the suns. The period of darkness between c'eun is referred to as night in text for purposes of the story, although in truth the actual night is measured from the first moon's rising to the last moons setting and may actually overlap the dawning of suns throughout the seasons.

d'eun – ten c'eun roughly equivalent in usage to Earth's week.

t'eun  - a period of the full cycles of all three moons through their phases, roughly equivalent in usage to the Earth term month, though it is considerably longer. Most civilizations measured it as the period between all three moons appearing in new phase. Historically, because of their nocturnal hunting activities, the cat and wolf civilizations placed greater emphasis on measuring time with the phases of the moon into seasons. Therefore, age is measured in seasons, which is not a t'eun per se, but is roughly the same measured time interval as it is the periods between three full moons.

Eun – a period of ten t'eun, in usage roughly the same as the Earth word year, though it is much longer as a period of time. It is the measured span between alignments of all three suns.

C'eun – a period of ten Eun, in usage like the Earth word decade.

D'eun- a period of ten C'eun there is no equivalent in usage to any Earth measure of time. It is one half a X'eun.

X'eun – a period of two-hundred C'eun or one hundred D'eun, used the same was as Century is on Earth, though the time interval is much longer.

Anter'x is connected to Earth, also called Ea on Anter'x and referred to as the Outworld, through an unknown number of dimensional thresholds called mandorlas. The portals appear according to the influence of the gravity of neighboring astronomical bodies upon the complicated electromagnetic fields of each planet. Due to the number of astral bodies interacting in relative close proximity to the planet, such events are more commonplace on Anter'x than on Earth.

However, an alignment of thresholds between the worlds creates a bridge, or wormhole as is the equivalent Earth term for a theoretical tunnel through subspace. Across this stable connection beings could safely negotiate the vast distances of space and time across the turbulent maelstrom of the Continuum. Before Earth settled into its present, more erratic orbit, the opening of mandorlas were regular and measurable events. In historical times the year consisted of 360 days divided into twelve thirty-day months. Due to near collisions of planets in Earth's solar system, the orbit shifted outward and the moons orbit around the earth shifted inward, making the event of alignment between Earth's mandorlas and Anter'x's more rare.

The Sabatin are one of the elder quasi-immortal sentient races of Anter'x. They have an extremely dark appearance. Their physical nature absorbs solar energy and stores it for future use. Probably the origin of many ancient human people's ideas of demons, they have horns, tails and small wings that are remnants of flying ancestors. They dwell in the torrid regions of the planet where temperatures routinely exceed the boiling point of human blood. The highly technologically advanced Sabatin culture became dependent on slavery to function. They enslaved the Hovdin, exploiting their natural cleverness to construct their advanced cities and establish the roads and infrastructure throughout their empire.

Following generations of learning from their masters and developing a language and culture independent if their masters, the Hovdin staged a series of rebellions to liberate as many of their kind as possible from bondage, continuing their campaigns until nearly all Hodvin were free. They fled through the mountains and across a desert to establish their own civilization free of the tyranny of their former overlords, seeking an area far enough away and in the more moderate climes of the world to establish their civilization.

Although the area of the world the Hovdin chose was not one the Sabatin covets to inhabit, the Sabatin attacked periodically in their attempts to capture them and return them to Sabatin slavery. Over time, the Hovdin resisted and thwarted Sabatin attempts, sometimes in battles they won as a result of the fortuitous timing of weather events more than skill in warfare or tactical advantage. Many times violent sand storms decimated Sabatin armies.

Independent of the Sabatin, the Hovdin established a thriving civilization in the a more temperate region of Anter'x, north and west of a vast desert, eventually developing an Empire. Physically isolated by mountains and the desert from the Sabatin regions of the world, the Hovdin proliferated to become a dominant force in the world to rival their former Sabatin masters.

The repeated failures to return the Hovdin to slavery and the continued rebellious uprisings of the remaining Hovdin forced the Sabatin to seek another, suitable slave race, once they sought to create with their superior scientific knowledge. The Sabatin used the naturally occurring thresholds (mandorlas) to establish breeding colonies on primitive Earth. Selecting several species of apes, they spliced Hovdin genetic material into their DNA matrices producing several types of creatures resembling both Hovdin and apes. These early humanoids were subject to further experimentation as the Sabatin strove to infuse a set of attributes that would make an intelligent race of beings tolerant to the demands of the Sabatin environment on Anter'x and amenable to serving their masters.

Although the proto humans were not considered viable for the Sabatin needs, their DNA was used as the foundation for fusing the genetic materials of other Earth animal species in and effort to produce humanoid variants with wolf attributes and others with the traits of great cats, two aggressive and successful predatory species among Earth animals. Through selective breeding of the humanoid cats and wolves, the Sabatin were able to intensify key characteristics of each, though neither species was suited for the conditions of the harsh Sabatin world.

Through further experiments they produced a number of blended beings with spliced genetic materials bonding human traits with other creatures. The results were responsible for some mythological beings of legend that were later destroyed as the Sabatin focused on further developing the humanoid cats and wolves, eventually blending each species together to produce a being known as the wolfcat.

When the Vala'hak, a race of trans-dimensional beings, learned of the Sabatin experiments on Earth, they reported the violation of the Covenants of Creation to the Spectrals (immortal beings of light who participated in creation) who sealed the thresholds as much as possible and removed the blended creatures from the Earth, except for humans who were considered grossly incompatible with the Anter'x environment. A race of guardians was appointed to monitor the development of humans and limit their impact on the fragile Earth ecosystem.

The humanoid great cats and wolves were brought to Anter'x, along with the prototype  blended being, the wolfcat, and a number of advanced humanoids the Sabatin had infused with wolfcat traits, called Wiccans and Warlans. All these creatures appeared to have access to the cosmic energy flowing beneath the veils of reality that the uninspired and uninformed term magic.

The Sabatin continued their experiments on Anter'x, using samples of other Earth species they had collect and returned to Sabat. Bonding the DNA of wolfcats with that of an scorpion from the Earth, for example, resulted in an interesting hybrid that closely approximated what the Sabatin were attempting to create, tolerant of the heat in their part of Anter'x while being strong and intelligent and perhaps trainable as warriors for an campaign they hoped to wage on the rebellious Hovdin to eradicate them from the world. This new creature, the mang bhong, exhibited the best attributes of the species that were blended into its genetics while seeming much more willing to submit to authority.

In ancient times, the Earth's orbit shifted outward causing fewer natural alignments of the thresholds, diminishing the accessibility of mandorlas and isolating the guardians and impaired their contact with higher races of immortals who assigned them to monitor the Earth. Yet, the histories of the Inworld and the Outworld  have always been interconnected. The scars of ancient cosmic wars fought on Anter'x and the Earth are still evident, and eventually the final events of the conflicts between immortals will be settled on both worlds.

Windows Wizard

In late 1993, my wife finally convinced me to buy a computer. After pitching the idea for some time, the essence of her ploy focused on the kids needing it for school. My son was six; my daughters were four and two. Although it was not an absolute necessity, I could foresee the necessity in the near future. I decided we would go shopping after Christmas, seeking a better deal on an appliance that at the time cost between $1600 and $2400.

We lived in Wallingford, Connecticut a few miles south of Meriden, near the heart of the state. We loaded the kids into my wife's Plymouth Voyager and headed for Nobody Beats The Wiz, an home electronics store. Once inside, I was drawn toward Apple computers. My wife found PC's more appealing, citing there was much more software available for them. The discussion went on for a few minutes and was finally settled based solely on price. We walked out of the store with an IBM Consultant with a i486SX-25MHz processor, 2MB of RAM, 170MB Hard Drive, 2400 baud modem and a matching 14 inch color VGA monitor. That was how my long and often tempestuous relationship with Microsoft Windows began.

Over the next year, I added a math co-processor doubling its speed to 50MHz. I also doubled the memory, put in an 512MB hard drive and a 28.8kbps modem, all while becoming more comfortable with the jargon of hardware. Whatever I didn't know, I picked the brains of anyone at work who had a PC. Learning everything I could about this underlying 'thingy' called MS DOS was important. It seemed necessary to fix a lot of the nasty things that happened whenever Microsoft Windows 3.1 misbehaved or balked at running third party software.

Although I was comfortable using the computer, after several months I was far from an expert. I had an account with Prodigy, an online service whose software came pre-installed.

So, I had an email address I didn't use all that often. At some point while I was online, I searched the users names and found the contact information for someone I knew from high school but had not seen for nearly twenty years. He still lived near where I grew up. Afterwards, we exchanged digital correspondence for several months, and I learned what happened to several of the people from my hometown.

Every month new issues of PC magazines arrived via snail mail, and I read them from cover to cover. I learned the computer that my wife and I bought for the kids was already obsolete. Yet, my son was the only one of the kids that used it. All he did with it was play a couple of educational games we'd bought for him. Otherwise, the expensive 'toy' sat idle in my study until I came home from work. Each evening or night, I felt obligated to use it for at least a few minutes, even if all I did with it was check my email and play a few rounds of solitaire.

Oh yeah, there was something else I started to do regularly. A guy at work told me I needed to 'defrag' the hard drive once a month. He wrote down the instructions to follow so I could boot up in DOS and make sure all the file fragments were put back where they belong instead of where Windows left them. Why Windows would scatter things around like that remained a mystery.

After reading about computers and all the new things that were being innovated, I knew my machine was slow. There were programs I wanted to learn to use, but my machine could not handle them. It was not a matter of upgrading it to make it compatible. I would eventually need to replace it. It was hard to justify the expense, though, since I barely used it.

The husband of one of my wife's friends fancied himself a computer expert. We invited the couple to our house for dinner. Afterwards he and I retired to my study where he showed me all sorts of things I didn’t know about MS DOS. Before the evening came to an end, he invited me to go with him to a computer fair the following weekend. Since I had that coming Saturday off, I agreed to go.

Prior to the outing, I felt I had an intermediate knowledge level about PC's. I had performed some minor surgery on my home computer in the course of adding more memory and storage space. I had also learned about disabling devices in basic input/output system (BIOS) settings and assigning interrupt requests (IRQ) to make a modem work. Yet, what I discovered while walking around the fair was not only how little I knew, but also how quickly a PC could be assembled from component parts. Building a my own PC became my goal.

A few months later, in April 1995, my son and I took a trip to Florida to visit my parents. Shortly after we returned home, I took seriously ill. Apparently, I picked up a blood borne bacterial infection through a small cut in my foot. Treatment required hospitalization. Due to a heart murmur, the condition became life-threatening, eventually requiring surgery to replace an aortic valve the bacteria attacked and nearly destroyed.

While confined to the hospital and during my recovery at home afterward, I had the option of watching news stories about the Oklahoma City bombing, the ongoing TV coverage of O.J. Simpson murder trial or reading and learning more about computers. I opted for the latter. The more I learned the more determined I was to buy the parts and assemble my own machine, something designed to run a new operating system I was reading a lot about that would be launched in the fall, Microsoft's Windows 95.

In August, I accompanied my PC savvy friend to another computer fair. Although I intended to buy all the necessary parts, when I learned the prices, I discovered I could have one built for me at the fair for considerably less money than I could do it on my own. A PC clone with a Pentium 100MHz processor, 16MB of RAM, a 2 GB hard drive, a 2 MB graphics card, a 28.8kbps Modem and a 15 inch SVGA monitor saved me a couple of hundred dollars over what I had budgeted to spend for my project.

Like my old machine, it came with MS Windows 3.1, but it was designed for the next generation of software and it could run everything I wanted to use a computer to do. My old computer became my son's which, of course, my daughters could use if needed. With the purchase of the new machine, my self-education as a computer technician began.

Early in the fall, Windows 95 was released. I stopped by a computer store on my way home from work and bought an upgrade copy. For several days, I waited before installing it, wanting to know about all the problems others experienced with the new software. A couple of weeks later, when I was sufficiently satisfied that I could perform the upgrade without a hitch, I settled in at my computer. Committed to perform the task, I followed the instructions exactly.

The upgrade went smoothly. However, the frustrating plethora of problems afterwards led to several reloads of the operating system and all of my software as well as numerous technical support calls to Microsoft. Soon, the phone number, extensions and names of two technicians I'd worked with were committed to memory. Many times, they walked me through booting into safe mode and navigating the system registry in order to fix problems.

Other times, I booted into MS DOS and edited critical Windows system files with a text editor in order to tweak the operating system for my equipment's configuration. They had me try various settings in BIOS and while waiting for the system to reboot, I asked a lot of questions.

A few times the technicians prefaced what they told me to do with a warning like, 'don't go into this part of Windows on your own' or 'don't write any of this down'. Of course, I took notes. I didn't want to call them each time I had a recurring problem. Afterwards, my curiosity piqued, I let my curiosity get the best of me from time to time. The result of my early experience with Windows 95 was I learned more about the new operating system than any end user was expected to know.

The following year, I upgraded my computer several times in many ways. With a beefed up graphics card and a 17 inch SVGA monitor, I was ready to increase the RAM, raising it well above what was necessary. I upgraded the cache memory on the motherboard from 256kB to 512kB, a delicate operating that required the pulling of memory modules from the motherboard with a special tool I obtained from a friend at work. Then, I replaced the processor with a Pentium 120MHz. With all the experience of performing the upgrades by myself, I had maxed-out what I could do with the computer's present motherboard.

On the way home from work one afternoon, I stopped by a computer repair shop in North Haven called Ice Ware. The knowledge I sought was two fold. First, how much would a new motherboard for my computer cost? Second, how hard is it to change a motherboard?

The cost of the upgrade was reasonable. The answer to the second question was a little more daunting. What form factor motherboard did my present computer have, full AT, baby AT or ATX? Does the power supply have AT or ATX connectors? I also learned that If I wanted to switch from a 50 MHz to a 66 MHz bus speed, I'd need a new processor and memory.

Physically replacing the motherboard involved plugging in tiny wires to make critical connections that, if not done properly, could destroy the motherboard. Still, this was what I needed to learn how to do. I'd never have to buy a pre-built computer again.

The more I researched what seemed a 'simple' motherboard upgrade, the more I realized I really would end up building an entirely new computer. The expense of doing that was something I had to clear with my wife, of course. Pitching the idea required all my marketing skills. It was a means of providing the first computer to the girls. The 15 inch monitor I had used before I upgraded as well as the old keyboard and mouse could complete my latest hand-me-down to my son. Once I had approval to spend the money, I could get a new keyboard and mouse for the machine I was contemplating. It was a tough sell, but eventually my wife agreed.

Having been in Ice Ware several times to ask questions over the course of a number of months, everyone who worked there knew me by name, including the owner. I knew I could buy everything I needed to build a computer, but they suggested I let them built it for me instead – just to be safe. What fun was what?

After telling me several horror stories about other people who thought they could build computers had failed, I was not dissuaded. The owner sold me the parts I needed with the caveat that he was not responsible for any damage I did to anything through my lack of experience. However, he promised if I reached a point of not being certain what I was doing, bring the machine in and he'd make it work.

My purchase included a faster processor and faster memory as well as a graphics card with more dedicated memory. I also bought an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) copy of a newer revision of Windows 95 that was reportedly more stable.

When I had read the owner's manual for the motherboard, identifying every critical part, I was ready to begin. Carefully double checking everything I did before applying power to the new machine, it took well over an hour. It was an interesting challenge. In some ways it was like an erector set or solving a puzzle.

Once assembled and ready, I checked every connection one more time, making absolutely certain I’d done everything the right way. Confident it was a proper build, I closed up the case. I did not anticipate having to redo anything inside. Setting the new beige box into the place where I had just removed the old computer from my desk, I connected the new keyboard and mouse as well as my monitor. Then I plugged in the AC power cord.

The proverbial moment of truth came with a press of the power button.

Fans activated, quickly whirring up to speed. The BIOS screen flashed on the monitor, a sign that at least some of what I had done was right. Then, I heard a beep as the memory test was complete. As expected, the computer told me it couldn't find an operating system. It was simple; I hadn't loaded one yet. Taking a floppy disk bearing the essential DOS and proper instructions to initiate the loading of Windows, I slipped it into the drive slot. Restarted, the computer booted up to a prompt and then loaded the installer program from the Windows CD.

An hour or so later, after following all the instructions, I loaded the drivers specific for the motherboard. Another required reboot followed loading the drivers for the graphics card and the modem. Finally the new system was ready to install all of my software, some of it from floppy and others from CD-ROM. From previous experience I knew It was a lengthy process that would take many hours over several days to complete. For the time being, the new computer was operating as expected, and it was a lot faster than my previous machine.

The next afternoon, on my way home from work, I stopped by Ice Ware to pick up a mouse pad, something I'd neglected to buy for the new computer. The owner greeted me with a helpful offer. 'Bring it in' and he'd see what I did wrong. When I informed him everything on the new computer was working properly, he was surprised. He verbally, though unofficially, certified me a computer technician, intending it as a sort of joke.

Over the next few years, I continued learning more and more about personal computers. As a side job, I built custom computers and repaired or upgraded machines for friends. My kids received new individual computers I built. At times, Ice Ware asked me to help them build some machines when they had large orders of work stations to assemble for a business.

Reconfiguring my system with a boot manager program, I loaded multiple versions of Windows, becoming experienced with each. As a direct result, I was competent at resolving software conflicts with the operating system. Although it was not as user friendly, I tended to use the more stable, business operating system, Windows NT for my personal tasks. Eventually, I learned how to network the computers at home and share the resources. In this way, my kids could send documents to the printer connected to my computer.

Windows, not DOS, was the first operating system I learned to use. As I became an unofficial consultant occasionally doing favors for Ice Ware, when there was a machine brought in for repair with a problem with Windows they could not fix, they called me. Usually, I would give instructions over the phone or I would stop by the shop. After a few minutes I could usually figure out a solution, saving the shop time and money. As a result, I became the Windows Wizard.

Modern English, Microsoft Word Version

A few years ago, my eldest daughter came home from school with a mediocre grade on a paper she'd written for English class. Before she had submitted it, she had asked me to read it. So I took some personal offense to the grade she received and questioned what kind of scale her teacher was using for the work of a fourteen-year-old. Of course, I asked to see the teacher's comments.

Not long into the read, I looked up, commenting, "This is not the draft I read."

"I ran the spelling and grammar check on it before I printed out the final version."

"That was your mistake."

She seemed surprised.

I explained, "I'm not sure how accurate Microsoft Word is with its suggestions, but if you rely on it you will make many mistakes."

"But it's a program everyone uses."

"Not everyone. It's designed for business use. The majority of people who use it for business need help with spelling and have trouble enough with writing in complete sentences. I don't claim to be an expert when it comes to grammar, but, whenever I am certain I'm right, I ignore its suggestions."

"How can they get away with that?"

"I doubt most people complain. If someone does maybe it is updated in the program at some point." I went on to show her that in every case her teacher was correct. She missed a couple of things as well.

"I'm going to send this to Microsoft!"

"I think you should. You see, the person whose grammar you are relying on writes computer programs. So your grammar is only as good as the computer programmer's education in English."

"Well, because I paid attention to them, I got a C+."

"I'll see your teacher about it. I don't think it's fair, but now you know better."

The following day, I stopped by the school on my way to work. Although my discussion with her teacher was brief, it was enlightening for us both. She told me that she was surprised with my daughter's mistakes. "Her grammar is usually very good."

"She's been taking Latin, as you probably know. Her teacher stresses proper grammar in their translations."

"She's told me. That's why I was surprised. What you say makes a lot of sense. I've wondered why I can teach something and the very next day the students turn in papers with a common mistake I have just taught."

"I guess someday there will be a new version of modern English called 'Microsoft'."

"Let's hope not!"

I'll Write

I'll write because I believe I can. I believe in me regardless of anyone else's opinion.

Don't peddle the same pervasive lies that linger, lost and longing for someone to listen. I won't pay attention. My purpose is in the opposite direction.

Writing is what I do, my chosen craft. I expect only for you to respect that. Even if you don't understand why I do it or what it is to be a writer, it defines me. Creativity's connection is imperative. The essence calls me daily to drink of the font and quench a thirst for sanguine certainty. There is hope as long as there is paper and pen. It's enough to catch glimpse and glimmer, containing the magical moment of dreams delivered to destinations beyond a meager mind's willingness to embrace or comprehend.

It doesn't need to make sense to you. I prefer wrting to any other endeavor, not because I can't do anything else, but I won't. Playing your version of the game sickened my soul in a way that left me exhausted, nearly broken. Battered but not beaten, I have struggled back to where I once knelt before the source of vision, from whence every imagining issues.

Certainly, I could do other things, just as I did for years. I've decided not to waste time anymore. My efforts for the pittance anyone pays sapped not only my energy but also my will to endure. I can't be like you. I don't envy you anything of the material life you chose. All your toys and trinkets merely distract you from the truth.

I'm a dreamer, the crazy one. A n'er-do-well, bound to fail, I'm the fool you pity. Accept, as I have, the role I play. I'm the harbinger of the forgotten innocence of faith in self that once you also had. Upon the freshness of your life's familiarity with your nascent soul, you wrote poetry and prose for a while. Kids stuff, I know, but do you ever wonder where that sojourn might have led?

Give criticism a rest. Your cynicism is not becoming. As Oscar Wilde said, 'A cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing'. I'll bet you don't even know who he is or the immortality of his wealth of work.

There is nothing I want from anyone, save for the space and time to complete my chosen tasks. I can go then, knowing I did my best. This imperfect, mundane mockery of mindless misery we call reality lacks the truth. It contains all deception. It's best to leave the lies where they lay.

Your path is not diligence but drudgery. Serving the interest of slick-pitch salespeople hawking their perverted visions of prurient perfection is your way. It sickens me that you sold your soul. You once had delightful dreams. We'd spend hours exploring the whimsical wonders of places only our unfettered minds could explore.

Practical, is what you decided to become. Where has it brought you? A multiple mortgaged meandering mess, working to keep up with the interest payments. What do you have to show for it? Only the stress in your life persists. If you lose your all-important job, you'll be homeless soon enough or become a broken beggar, just as you see me.

That's not how I am. There was a time when I listened. I thought in my pride-starved despair that maybe you were right. Just as you suggested, I played the game. Everything they told me to do, I did and more. Were they ever happy? How could they be? They were too busy chasing the elusive next great opportunity. They had no time to realize or appreciate those who contributed to their success.

Life's not fair. That is what you taught me. In that alone you are totally right. The world wasn't designed with fairness in mind. Hard work counts for little anymore, if it ever counted for anything. The success you seek is a facade. Arriving there, you will discover the reality of an attractive but vacuous shell. All the failure and adversity you overcome on your way to arrive, amounts to nothing but the falseness of the surrogate dreams you were sold.

My way is different. I see your example and know the wrongness. It inspires me to write about you, create a character pretty much like you with your drive and determination. It will be fiction, of course. Even if I am exactly right about you and the outcome of your professional life, that will be your out in disbelieving my vision. It's only my imagination, after all. Surely they would never do to you what they did to me.

Until then, I'll write. We'll see what comes of it, won't we?

Bridging Generations

No one would ever nominate me for Father of The Year. I never knew if what I was doing in order to rear my children was right. Their mother assisted greatly in that effort. For much of their formative years I was frequently putting in well over eighty hours a week at work. I felt like the rewards would come later.

By the way, they never did.

In 1995, when my oldest was nine and my youngest was four, I had an epiphany. Maybe it was because of my blood infection and dangerously elevated fever. The subsequent open-heart surgery to replace a valve played into it as well. I barely survived, actually dying on the operating table seven times. When I returned home from the hospital, there was a banner across the garage doors. It said 'Welcome home Dad. We all missed you!"

As a father, if seeing something like that doesn't make your eyes misty, maybe you lack a heart. Anyway, there is something seriously wrong with you. I shed some tears.

My kids were waiting in the driveway. They had been to the hospital to see me, but that was not the same as a real welcome home hug from each of them. If there was ever a doubt whether they loved me, it vaporized in those few moments of shared celebrated joy.

Dad was home. All was right with the world. I was going to change a few things about the way I approached being a father.

Throughout the following years, we suffered a lot, but we held together because we are a family. I truly believe that the defining moments of my fatherhood were those few months of recovery, when I felt the warmth of the affection my children returned to me. It changed the way I perceived the universe. Nothing in the world was more important to me than my kids.

For years, whenever I was home for their bedtime, I told my daughters bedtime stories. Sometimes they preferred me to read stories to them, the works of other writers. But usually they were waiting for the next installment in the saga of Ela'na The Wolfcat, a fictional fantasy creation of mine. Sometimes, my son would also listen in. I created for him a character named Rotor, a male Wolfcat who was desperately in love with Ela'na but was also the most gifted hunter of all the Pack.

I guess I wanted my kids to hear the types of stories I felt are important. It was unusual, of course. I'm sure exactly zero of their friends' fathers told them bedtime stories as opposed to reading something borne of someone else's imagination. As time went by, my kids, especially my daughters, asked me specific questions about Ela'na and Rotor. This actually provided me with some invaluable insight into how they perceived the characters and led to producing a series of novels a few years later.

As my kids began to grow-up, they chose their own stories to read at bedtime, novels or novellas. My eldest daughter told me that once I had written an 'actual' book - meaning printed and bound - she would read it. Some years later, while it was in the process of being edited for publication, she designed the cover graphics.  She was thirteen.

She lived up to her promise. It took me years and years to write the first novel. It took her two days to read it.

As a father of three teens, I think what made me different was that I really didn't think I was superior to my kids. I had rules and they understood them. I was blessed with good kids who stayed out of trouble, came home when they were expected and studied because they understood the value of knowledge and how it would affect their futures.

My kids might tell you differently, but I tried not to play favorites. Each of my children was important to me. They were emerging as individuals so dramatically different from one another that I was a bit surprised with each of them, except I could see elements of both their mother and me within them.

One of my son's friends told him that I was not like any other father he knew. He said I was really like a fifteen year old trapped in an old man's body. When my son told me that, I laughed. I was 51 at the time. So, I said, "I guess I have 'temporal dyslexia'." Another Elgonism was borne.

Trying to play the cool, the hip father type, was not me. I had been around pretenders and really never understood why they couldn't just accept some of the things their kids like. Certainly, I did not adapt to or adopt everything my kids were into. They are avid video gamers, for example. I am not. I could almost master Pong and I beat Pacman and Centipede a few times. Asteroids was my game in the day. After that, I gave up on video game, although I was 'deadeye Dick' at Duck Hunt on the kids' first Nintendo system.

When my youngest daughter was 15 years old, I took her to a rock concert. Her mother insisted that she couldn't go alone with her friend. But it was her favorite band, Green Day. Honestly, I liked some of the group's music, too. The only way her mother would consent to letting her go was if I went with her and her friend. Despite having been a seasoned veteran of dozens of concerts in the 1970's as well as being a rock musician at that time, I had not attended a rock show since 1982. Concerts changed a lot over the years. That night, I learned first hand about mosh-pits.

The following summer, I took all three kids to an all-day rock festival in Orlando. Sunburned and worn out, we drove home well after midnight. I had to work the next morning and paid for being at the concert in a whole different way.

Making memories is what families are supposed to do with their time together. It's why taking vacations to Disneyworld, Universal, Seaworld, Busch Gardens or some other destination is popular. Weekend outings and shorter-term adventures fill in the gaps between the monumental memories. Special events like birthday parties should be outstanding occasions as well. Every holiday needs to be remembered.

Not only are the memories for the kids but also the parents. After the kids are adults and out on their own, the good times are all you have to cling to between their irregular visits.

Retailer Loyalty Programs

If you are like many consumers these days, when you open your wallet or purse, you have a few of those cards retailers offer to you free of charge, the ones that are supposed to give you benefits on your future purchases. In the retail industry such cards belong to what are called loyalty programs. Whether it is a card, a small tag attached to a key chain, or some information the cashier can key into the cash register at the time of sale - like email address or cell phone number - a loyalty program is designed to entice the consumer to make more shopping trips and buy more merchandise on each trip to a specific retailer.

Since loyalty incentives are becoming a ubiquitous feature of the modern shopping experience, obvious questions arise. Are these programs a gimmick? Do they really offer a value to the consumer? As often is the case with any sort of incentive or rebate programs, the answers depend on how and where you shop as well as how often.

There is certainly good reason for the retailer to offer a loyalty program. Targeted communication to segmented markets is a benefit to the retailer. Messages can be sent directly to a consumer via email or text message. The 'ad' or 'pitch' can be based on a consumer's established purchase behavior. The special offer can be nearly custom designed to grab the shopper's attention.

From the information provided at the time the consumer signed up, marketing information can be recorded each time the customer shops. Although some demographic data would not be known - such as age or ethnicity - the customer's provided data, including zip code, can be readily associated with a product specific details. In effect, the retailer knows exactly what you purchase, when you purchase, how much you spend when you purchase, whether you use coupons, what accessories you buy with major purchases, and whether you include extended warranties with qualified purchase items. Some other information might be less obvious for anyone outside of marketing, but have huge consequences for future promotional purposes.

If a shopper buys maternity clothes, for example, it could be assumed the customer is expecting a baby in the family. Should the customer purchase baby furniture, birth of a child is imminent. Buying baby toys, clothing, bedding, formula indicates a baby in the household. Baby food as well as age specific clothing items indicate the age of the baby.

Additionally, purchases of pet items would indicate the customer owns a specific type of pet. Buying cookware, flatware, china along with bedding, curtains and furniture indicate moving into a new house or apartment. School related items might indicate the presence of school age children, especially during back-to-school. Toy purchases indicate children in the homes as well as the age group of the children. Exercise equipment purchases might indicate interest in health, fitness and diet related items.

As you can see, a lot of valuable and potentially personal information can be tracked from your regular purchases with a retailer. Based on past purchase behavior and trends, promotional information can be sent directly to the loyalty member via email or text message. For example, a customer who makes food item purchases would receive food specific advertising, brand specific coupons, special double coupon event information and volume purchase discounts on non perishable consumable items to stock up when there is a significant discount or extra rewards offered.

It is an established fact that specific marketing is much more cost effective than any broad-based approach. It is in the retailer's economic interest to pursue loyalty programs. Advertising in print and broadcast media is very expensive and produces very low return for the investment. An often-cited figure is from ninety-to- ninety five percent of all print advertising is discarded before it is ever looked at. Newspaper circulation has been declining for decades. TV viewership is becoming much more fragmented due to the variety of entertainment options. Radio programming reflects demographically segmented grouping by age group or language use.

Using retailer specific loyalty programs means the advertising efforts can be focused directly on known customers with known shopping habits, giving them a far greater return on their marketing expenses.

Clearly the benefits to retailers are significant, but what about the consumer?

Certainly consumers who frequently shop at specific retailers can receive useful information through the notification of special promotional offers, saving them both the time and the expense of shopping. Loyalty programs provide an incentive for continued patronage through some sort of a discount on future purchases, in effect giving money back on each item purchased. Belonging to a program often allows the customer to take advantage of member specific offers, saving them additional money. Retailers can look up a transaction using the loyalty program information, negating the need to keep receipts for a purchase in the event of need for a refund.

It sounds like it is a win-win situation for both the retailer and the consumer. Right?

For the frequent and faithful shopper there is usually some positive economic benefit that makes belonging to a loyalty program worthwhile. In fact, if you shop weekly or even more than once a month at a retailer, it is probably in your best interest to join a loyalty program. However, there is a cost to such membership in a loss of privacy. In exchange for receiving all the great, personalized offers, retailers require the consumer to provide contact information that will be used in specific marketing efforts. This will increase the number or emails and/or text messages received. Additional point of sale information may also result in additional information being requested, marketing surveys sent out via email and other personal data collected for future marketing purposes.

But the retailer is paying for the information, right?

Well, sort of. You see, retailers can easily restructure their pricing to accommodate the cost of administering a loyalty program. There is nothing illegal about it. Raising a retail price is necessary to cover operating costs of a store. However, retailers probably would not want consumers to know the following information about the implementation of a loyalty program. The prices throughout the store have already been increased to cover the incentives paid back to the consumer on any loyalty program. Although you are effectively getting money back each time you shop, it is money you have already paid in marginally higher product prices. Effectively, the store is returning your own money to you. You benefit by belonging to the loyalty program through a return of the additional markup designed to support the loyalty program. So you are breaking even.

Of course, those shoppers who refuse to join are penalized, always paying higher prices than before. The shopper always has the option to shop elsewhere, but with so many retailers using loyalty programs, where is the real benefit?

Retailers are essentially forcing consumers to give their personal information for marketing purchases in exchange for preferred pricing on the purchases they make. It is a way for a retail store to 'charge' a membership fee, much as wholesale clubs do.

Here's an example of how a retail loyalty program was implemented in a store. The company was preparing to launch a national loyalty program. In the first ad touting the program, all pet food and pet care items were to receive a doubling of the program's standard reward. If the customer purchased a private label 'house brand' item with higher margin over a name brand, the reward was tripled. For one month prior to the launch of the special promotion, the prices of all pet products were increased by the exact percentage amount of the loyalty incentive. Any consumer who purchased pet care items without using the loyalty program paid more. But those consumers who were participating in the loyalty program effectively paid the same price as before the launch of the program.

Can retailers do that? The answer is, yes. Although it may not be an intelligent way to treat valued customers and could backfire if the consumer has been price shopping during the period of the adjustments to shelf pricing, there is certainly nothing illegal about it. It may be an unethical business practice, but it is a common practice throughout retailing and has been used in other ways for just about as long as retailing has existed.

Retailers offer convenience to the consumer. In recognition of the retailer's expenses carrying the products on the shelf for shoppers to purchase at their leisure or when needed, the price of an item is marked up. This amount of price over the cost of the merchandise pays for the stores operating costs and profits.

A good example of a how standard retail pricing is periodically adjusted is found in the pricing of seasonally sensitive items, such as garden products. Prices on out-of-season products that are carried year round are routinely marked up to higher prices in the off period to help defray the expense of carrying the product in inventory. If a product sells at a higher price, the marginal contribution is higher, compensating the retailer for the carrying cost of the item. When the product comes back into season, the price is dropped either through a hard price change or a promotional price reduction.

Loyalty programs are merely a new wrinkle in standard retail pricing. It may appear as a diversion, since it is being presented as a way of saving money on your purchases. Retailers are not lying to the consumer, just not telling the entire truth. It really is a classic case of offering the appearance of something while giving nothing. It places the consumer in a position of being forced to comply with a special membership in order to pay previously established pricing for products. The programs are pushed on customers, adding to the time a customer stands in line at the checkout answering a variety of questions that nearly all have a direct additional sale incentive to the cashier and the store or serve to provide useful marketing information.

With loyalty programs, retailers can focus and direct marketing efforts toward specific market segments while minimizing the expenses of promotional efforts. Stores are not in business to lose money, and in the present competitive environment, retailers need any advantage they can find to remain in business. Loyalty programs have a cost associated with them. The retailer will, in some way, always pass the cost on to the consumer.